The data paradox
By Caitlin Jones
1 min read
Tax Credit Advisor, July 2011: Data is born free, but everywhere it is enslaved: encrypted, password-protected, incompatibly compiled, or even just plain wrong. And yet, if affordable housing generally, and green/energy conservation more specifically, are ever to become as efficient as we need them to be, then our industry must solve the multi-part data paradox.
1. Data is valuable only when publicly available, meaning free
As my old college classmate Richard Stallman first preached several decades ago, “information wants to be free.” As GPS navigators have proven, information is most valuable when it is freely available. And, as all too many narcissistic public figures have learned to their regret, anything electronic is potentially freely available, so one might as well conduct business as if everything one does is known by everyone at every moment.
