Emma Thwaites: Inspiring organisations to innovate with data to improve society

On this episode of Better Business Outcomes, Stephen Waddington from Wadds Inc. welcomes Emma Thwaites, Corporate Affairs Director, Open Data Institute.

They discuss:

• How open data leads to better insights, decision making, innovation and societal impact
  
  
• Using open data to tell stories: ODI fuel poverty and food poverty data projects
  
  
• How organisations can build a data culture and best practice data infrastructure
  
  
• The impact of open data on the banking industry and improving access to sporting infrastructure
  
  
• How risk and experimentation based on data leads to better business outcomes

Presented by Sarah Waddington and Stephen Waddington

For more information visit https://www.wadds.co.uk/
With thanks to our production partners at What Goes On Media

Transcript

Stephen Waddington:

Welcome to Better Business Outcomes, where we discuss how good communications can transform and grow organisations with a series of global leaders who've set the standard for what great looks like. My name's Stephen Waddington from Wadds Inc, and in this podcast, you'll hear from leaders and senior communicators about their leadership journey and how they've created social impact. You'll also understand the areas you should be focusing on to build personal and organisational resilience. You'll find out how public relations can unlock value for your business and enjoy a great listen along the way. Now, today I'm joined back, Emma Thwaites. She's the corporate affairs Director at the Open Data Institute. Welcome to the show, Emma. Welcome to the show, Emma.

Emma Thwaites:

Thank you.

Stephen Waddington:

Easy one. To kick off, can you tell us about the ODI and its work?

Emma Thwaites:

Absolutely. So the ODI, the Open Data Institute we were founded 10 year, just over 10 years ago, actually in 2012 by Sir Tim Berners Lee and Nigel Shadbolt our founders, and remain very much involved in the organisation. And we basically, broadly speaking set out with a, an agenda to progress the open data mission specifically in the UK, but actually it's an international level as well. 

At the time there was a lot of discussion about the opportunity that that might be offered to society and the environment and the economy by making more data available as open data. And by our definition, that's data that can be accessed, used and shared freely by people. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is free to maintain, because even open data requires investment to keep it up to date and usable.But, but broadly speaking, that it's free to access, use, and share. 

And there was a, there was a dis a lot of discussion, as I say at both a political and non-political level about the opportunity that open data might afford to create innovation. So if you make particularly public sector data available openly, businesses, organisations can go about creating apps and new businesses. You know, startups can be built on, on the top of it without having to worry about whether that, you know, their access to that data is going to be taken away or suddenly somebody's gonna, you know, come at them with a big invoice for using the data. 

But also you'll remember the listener might remember that our then Prime Minister David Cameron was talking about, you know, the, the, the opportunity of, you know, this what was described as an army of armchair auditors who would be able to come along and look at this public sector data and hold the public sector and the government to account because of the greater transparency that that would give to the way that the, the government was, was doing its business. 

And so the ODI was set up to make good on all of those opportunities and to stimulate startup innovation, to carry out original research to look at the role of open data in public policy making.

And, and so it has continued. So our, our mission is to create an open and trustworthy data ecosystem - that's still really important to us today. But like most organisations, we've gone through different iterations as we've grown. And you know, whilst in the early days we were very heavily supported by initial core funding from the UK government, that's no longer the case. But we work across sectors now. So we work with, we still work with governments, not just the UK government, but governments across the world, with philanthropic organisations, and also of course, importantly with the private sector.

Stephen Waddington:

Strikes me, one of the things ODI, the Open Data Institute does very, very successfully is tell stories about data with a human and societal impact for good. You use that term of, of calling organisations to the account, calling the public sector to account. Can you share some of the examples of the, the, those applications of data? There was one you did at the end of the last year around food poverty during Covid.

Emma Thwaites:

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, actually, we did two last year. We did a, a, a, a story around food poverty and one around fuel poverty. And I should say that the, the ODC I is primarily a B2B organisation, so we don't do a lot of conf consumer facing or direct consumer communications work, but we do understand that at the heart of every business and every government department and every local authority are citizens or consumers, and what businesses and the public sector care about are their kind of end users. So the people who use their services or the people that buy their products. 

So it's really important that we show the relevance of data and of open data to the lives of ordinary people, you and me you know, going about our day-to-day, day-to-day lives. And, you know, at the same time, we recognise that there are gaps in data infrastructure that can make it really, really hard for services to be delivered effectively and efficiently or for businesses to get products and services to the customers that they want to reach.

And so we do a number of stories every year where we actually look at a particular issue that's a matter of concern to the public and we see if we can find data sets, ideally open data sets that allow us to do some analysis and and, and shed a slightly different light onto those issues. So the year before last, we looked at children's lives in the pandemic and the impact of the pandemic on children. And then we looked at the impacts on teachers. And then as you say, we looked last year at the, the crisis in the economy and how that is impacting on people's ability to access sufficient food and how it's affecting their ability to pay their energy bills. And in both instances, we brought together a number of different data sets from across primarily the public sector and the charity sector.

And then we looked at, in the case of the food poverty story the provision of food banks and how that matches up with the prevalence of poverty around the country. So, you know, where people actually are experiencing poverty and specifically food poverty. Are there provisions, is there provision of food banks and other local services to help them to get through those difficult times? And then a similar a similar piece of work around fuel poverty as well. So, you know, is the provision to help people through a really difficult time is does that actually match with what we know about the areas of, of greatest need? And in both cases, I think it's fair to say we found that that, that there isn't a direct correlation based on the data that we had available to us.

Both of those stories were picked up by national media. In fact, the fuel poverty story was cited by Computer Weekly as one of their top 10 information management stories of 2022. And both of the stories have also been cited in government reports of one sort or another. So, you know, we don't claim that they are, you know, really deep pieces of research. It's indicative analysis of the available data. But in both cases we say that it, it, it seems to point to a lacking amount of data infrastructure, that if the data infrastructure was improved, it would improve the ability of the providers of public services to get those services to the right people. And so what we are calling for is for the improvement in the data infrastructure. We're not making a political point in these stories.

Stephen Waddington:

No. Okay. You describe how you tell stories with human impact, and you talk about the importance as, as part of that of open data sets. So how's an organisation or government create an open data culture and build a best practise data infrastructure that then can be used and shared to, to tell these stories?

Emma Thwaites :

I think interestingly enough that's probably changed over, over the, the, the time that the ODI has been has been open. So one of the, the key things from the very early days of the organisation is that we recognise that you can't have a meaningful conversation other than potentially in the abstract where you only talk about open data. Data exists on, on a spectrum, right? From open to shared to closed data. Some data is private to individuals and, and should never be made available as open data. So I think in terms of the conversations that you have, whether that's with the public sector or the private sector you know, starting from that point where you, you make you acknowledge that not all of their data can be, you know, made openly available is really important. 

You are right. So the premise of the question is correct. You do need to create a culture, but actually understanding where an organisation currently is in terms of its own data maturity. So you know, the individuals within that organisation, are they already having conversations on a daily basis, around data and about how utilise data within that organisation. Does data and the management or the governance of data sit across the organisation? Is it a horizontal function or does it sit very narrowly within one particular area? So quite often, even today, we find that the responsibility for data within organisations sits within the IT department or the digital department. And one thing that we've noticed is that actually only when senior leaders, so executive level leaders and ideally the board in an organisation start to sit up and take notice does the conversation about data within the organisation shift.

So I would say that, you know, the, the starting point is what's the, what is the level of organisational maturity around data? Are they ready to think differently about the opportunities and the risks and how they can better utilise their data, how they can encourage a sort of culture of DA, both data awareness and, you know, an understanding of the, of the opportunities and the risks that that exist within, within that you know, if you haven't got that data maturity start with, you can't start strategizing. It’s a question of bringing the whole organisation along with you. I mean, everybody has, you know, the, the business world has been really preoccupied by the concept of digital transformation over the last few years. And actually <laugh> data transformation is probably the next thing to come, or is, is here actually in a lot of cases. Because the reality is that most organisations and most businesses are data rich just by virtue of the digital technologies that they're utilising every day. So, you know, the I, I firmly believe that embedding that within an organisation has to start at the senior levels. The decision makers have to be the ones that you know, embrace the necessity for data strategy and, and then it can flow from there.

Stephen Waddington :

In doing that, are you able to share insights of how that then leads to better business decision making, a better planning, better strategy, better organisations?

Emma Thwaites:

Yes. So <laugh>, okay. So I think we are really starting to see a shift here. The best examples that I have are sector level examples. Okay. So most people listening to this will be aware of the now, global open, open banking movement. Open banking is the thing that has enabled, you know, people to switch their bank accounts much more readily, allows for a lot of the integrations around banking and smartphones and the apps that have entered the market over the past five years. Open banking started as a European directive, PSD2, that was the thing that was the driver. And the ODI, I and Barclays actually chaired an organisation called the Open Banking Working Group which set out the terms of reference essentially for open banking. And now open banking has 6.5 million users in the UK alone.

And it's a global initiative. So, you know, that to me demonstrates how citizens are benefiting. But also, you know, businesses have been built on top of that initiative. And, you know, the banks have benefited from it as well. 

I know it has its detractors. But actually we find in all of these innovative approaches to data sharing and open data - they're never perfect. OK? 

The other one, which I think is really noteworthy is the ODI  been working with Sport England since 2016 on initiative called Open Active, which is about making activity data available as open data. So this is all about getting you know, the big leisure providers across the country to, to share data about the availability of activities so that individual citizens, ultimately, once we build the apps on top of that data, individual citizens can much more readily access physical activity and others, you know, GPs, others who are, you know, involved in things like social prescribing can see where those activities are available and prescribe them to their, or recommend them to their patients.

And we are really starting to see that having tangible benefits. It's been a long time coming because this, this initiative's been going for seven years and it's been a hard slog. But slowly but surely, that whole sector, that whole physical activity sector, which includes, you know, the big leisure providers, the gyms a whole, you know, cohort of really exciting startups and innovators and developers and technologists, and obviously, you know, an infrastructure level sport, England themselves are starting to open up that sector. And we're beginning to see people benefiting from that. But data exists in lots of cases in lakes, and I remember years ago going to see the CTO, the chief Technology officer of a big FMCG company. And you know, when, when I asked the question about, you know, what, what, what are you doing with this?

You know, I mean, you must have gazillion amounts of data. They were like, well, yeah, we absolutely do. We've got loads of it, we just dunno what to do with it. And I think, I think things have changed. I think things have moved on from that, but there is a tendency quite often for companies and organisations to, to hoard their data because they're kind of worried that if they release it to others, then they'll get, get the sort of economic value from it, or they're giving away their, you know, intellectual property, but at the same time they don't know what to do with it themselves. So these are really knotty problems naughty issues and, and, but I think we are slowly beginning to see them and then unlock, because it's nobody's interests for, you know, either for data to be, to be hoarded and kept locked away, you get no value from it that way. Or at the same time for, you know, a few, you know, big tech companies to be getting all of the advantages from the data and the rest of us, you know, not to be getting any of those advantages. So I guess that, you know, in a way you could say that's the ODI i's vision is to, is to find a way for all of us to benefit equally

Stephen Waddington:

To benefit that the, the certainly the, the open banking initiatives. An incredible strategic example of the benefit.

I wanna ask about our rights as citizens, though, I mean, it strikes me that every organisation with which we engage as citizens, we have to, we're asked to share data. And those organisations then own that data. What, how far are we away from having some sort of in data passport that we can then move around organisation to organisation that we own and retain?

Emma Thwaites:

Well, I think it's, I think it's kind of already here, actually. So there is a group of technologies called Privacy Enhancing Technologies that are absolutely about that. About giving agency of individuals over data about them. At the ODI we tend to talk about data about people rather than use the possessive, you know, our, ‘it's my data, I own it’. And there's a, there's a very good reason for that, that, you know, it's actually really hard apart from your name to find a single piece of data that is exclusively connected just to you. I mean, I guess even your name is, is connected to your parents or unless you kind of genuinely originated yourself, <laugh>. So we talk about data, data about us, and, you know, these privacy enhancing technologies are really interesting, really kind of you, and actually the odis just started a, a project looking at them in, in more depth.

And you might be aware as well that one of the ODIs founders, Tim Berners-Lee his latest project is a project called Solid. And I'm not an expert on solid, I'm not gonna pretend to be, and so I'm not going to describe it in huge amounts of detail, but it basically involves individuals having a pod and having agency over their data and who has access to it and you know, and what it is used for. Those technologies are really exciting because I think that they are potentially a mechanism for us all to begin to act as stewards of data about us in one way or another and to, to feel a little bit more empowered. But it's early days.

Stephen Waddington:

Okay. Going back to the organisation and, and you know, you, the ODR very successfully uses data to tell stories. Have you any advice for an organisation about how to use data for marketing or from a marketing or public relations perspective? I mean, it strikes me that data literacy is rising amongst citizens, and we have, we understand it better than we have ever before, right?

Emma Thwaites:

So so the ODI uses data for storytelling, I think in a slightly different way how other organisations might use it. And that's because we are a data organisation and we're also a research organisation. So when we tell stories with data, we also want to do a piece of research that sits underneath that. And a piece of research that has credibility doesn't necessarily need to be deep research. And indeed for the stories that I described, the food and the fuel poverty stories and the, the stories about the pandemic, they were quite quick pieces, but they were robust in so much as they could be within the parameters of time and resources that we had available.

That's really important for the ODI. So, you know, if you are using, I think data has lots of applications for PR and for marketing. But I don't think every organization's going to want to do a piece of research per se. And I don't think it's necessary to do that. But that doesn't mean that you should be afraid of using data, because I think you still can. The most powerful application of data in the sort of PR or marketers toolbox, I think is understanding your audiences and you know, how stories are landing or actually how pieces of infrastructure that you might be building are working. So, you know, I'll give you an example of that. When we were marketing our our event last year. We have a big summit every year.

It's an online event. We attract an audience from all over the world usually upwards of 2000 people. But we weren't, we wanted to test what messaging and what approaches we're gonna going to work the best. And so we did some A/B testing around two different landing pages for our ticket marketing. And I think tools like that, you can spin tools like that up really, really quickly and test the things that work and that can help you to address your audience in a much more intelligent way, in a way that, and in a way that meets their needs. So I think in terms of understanding the, the, the understanding that you get from using those analytics is really useful. And then I think, you know, from a sort of pure PR point of view, looking beyond the four walls of your organisation to see what data might be out there, because there's always more than you might imagine.

I mean, the ONS, for example, has some really interesting data sets about all sorts of things. And if you are a, you know, if you are working in for a brand, for a consumer brand, you know, just having a look at what they've got, you might, you might find something that's a real nugget that just might be the perfect hook for a campaign. So I, I would say, you know, like if you want to use data for storytelling rather than use data for research from which then you will tell a story. Don't be afraid to go looking for it. Cause there's loads out there.

Stephen Waddington:

Yeah. That's gold. That's absolute gold. Thank you. Final question podcast called Better Business Outcomes. What one thing do you, what one thing do you think delivers better business outcomes? 

Emma Thwaites:

The one thing that delivers better business outcomes is not being afraid to take a risk.

Stephen Waddington:

Right?

Emma Thwaites:

Just to say a bit more about that, I don't mean being fool hardy incidentally

Stephen Waddington:

No. You've gotta tell me now where you've taken a risk that's paid off!!

Emma Thwaites:

Yeah. So I, I think that what if there's one thing that the data enabled digital world allows us to do it is to experiment and to try lots of things in a fairly short space of time and to not worry too much if, if they don't work. And I think as long as you are open about, about the fact that that's what you're doing and you don't present yourself as having all the answers, then actually you can get huge value from, from those kinds of experimental approaches. And one thing that, you know, the ODI I has been really good over the years about being open in its collaborations and, and about, you know, straight up saying, ‘we don't know whether this is going to work. It might not, it might, but come on the journey with us. Tell us what you think and let's work on it together.’

Stephen Waddington:

I like that - the scientific mindset. It's good. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> very good. Emma Thwaites, thank you very much.

Emma Thwaites:

Thank you for having me.

Stephen Waddington:

That's the perfect wrap for today's Better Business Outcomes podcast. My thanks to Emma Thwaites for joining me. Please don't forget to subscribe wherever you usually find your podcasts. And if you enjoy what you hear, please also leave as a review. 

I'll see you next time.