Jim Marshall, the man who created the Marshall amp, died yesterday at 88.  Everyone who likes music knows that the Marshall Stack influenced generations of rock and punk musicians from the Who to the Ramones and beyond. What nobody realizes is that Marshall did this by being disruptive. 

According to The Guardian,

"Marshall was a drummer and drum teacher who used his earnings to set up a music shop in west London in 1960. Among his customers were the likes of Ritchie Blackmore and Pete Townshend, and it was through talking to them that Marshall realised there was a gap in the market for a guitar amplifier cheaper than the American-made models popular at the time. When, at Townshend's request, a Marshall 1959 amplifier head was teamed with a cabinet, the "Marshall stack" was born, becoming the defining feature in rock bands' backlines for generations to come."

That sounds an awful lot like a garage hacker inventing the next new social app phenomenon to me - 50 years before garage hackers and social apps.

And the way he found success was by offering a cheaper alternative in a market that was full of expensive options. 

We don't tend to think of older ideas like this as being "disruptive" because nobody thought in those terms in those days.  But the truth of the matter is that being a guy (or girl) in a garage building something that is cheaper than the competition has always been the way to change the world - and it always will be.

Last week, a delegation of fabernovelians participated in the DataConnexions workshop on the French Open Data platform Etalab organized by Google Paris. On top of getting us beautiful men size tee shirts mentioning that we love data, the event gave us a broad overview of the state of Open Data in France:

Open data en France:

How it works. France's governmental Open Data initiative, called Etalab, is a platform designed to encourage innovation. Over 200 people in the various administrations have been busy over the last year collecting data to populate the platform. In France, all the public data collected by the administration should be made available to the public, since the 1978 law, and Etalab has ben designed to effectively complete this juridic frame.

So for the moment France's initiative gives public data back to the public, and the objective is not to create new datasets that do not already exist.
The platform runs under an open license equivalent to CCby which is compatible with other major public data licenses around the globe.
The objective of the platform is still not defined, it is up to the developer who are yet to plug their applications on Open Data.

So now that we (more or less) have it, what can we do with Open Data ?

Informe. Public Open Data contributes to public transparency, a fundamental element of democracy, but it means something only if the data is reused, analyzed and restituted to the public.Some examples :

• Le véritomètre d'OWNI + iTélé: France is campaigning for it's next president. OWNI and i-Télé created a tool that analyzes in real time the assertions and promised of the cadidates and restitutes their effects on a graph to measure their truthfulness.
• Voxe: A tool to illustrate what's being debated, to help citizens make their choice.
• Every kind of data viz: Data visualization is a new discipline, combining graphic design, journalism, statisticians giving food for thought by putting into perspective raw data.
     example: faberNovel and Etalab
     example in the UK: where does my money go?

Explore. By making us understand phenomena, Open Data opens up the opportunity to create new uses:

• Mapping: datapublica released a map of corporal car accidents in France  which opens up the possibility to lead efficient road safety plans;
• Like in New-York City, map all food safety rules infringements in Paris' Restaurants so that the customers are better advised on what they buy.

Invent. Using open data may translate into new services or new experiences. Why not apply or use Open Data in all innovations? Here are a few examples:

• Home'nGo: a website easing the painful steps of homesearch, using geolocalized open data to enrich their maps in order to neutrally informe the user on the houses' areas.
• Joshfire factory: Joshfire recently launched a factory, sort of lab based on open data, destined to enable its users to create cross device apps in just a few minutes.

The rest is up to us. The possibilities are endless. Let's get  creative!

 

Every week, discover which links we shared within the team

The Facebook Social Gaming Bible - FACEBOOK
Read More

Top 10 Health Innovations - PSFK
Read More

The hard Science of Teamwork - HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Read More

The 15 Awesome SXSW Interactive Panels Every Journalist Should listen To - THE BOSTON PHOENIX
Read More

Ten Ways Apple and Google can make TV better - LOS ANGELES TIMES
Read More

And the Friday Song - WZRD / Live & Learn
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Deezer

This article was initially published on the OuiShare blog by @FloreBlooms. More info about OuiShare on their Facebook page.

Last Thursday, we were very lucky to welcome Cameron Tonkinwise for our first OuiShare Talk at Mutinerie. 

Instead of a long and exhaustive report of his inspiring talk, I would like to share with you 3 ideas that I have kept in mind since Thursday. (Please note that the rephrasing is mine) 

1) Hey you, French people, keep on collaborating, it’s your greatest strength !

First thing Cameron Tonkinwise told us on Thursday was that he had noticed a fair amount of collaboration in our growing French collaborative economy. Not that evident according to his experience of American start-ups. Running for investors can drive you away from a genuine collaborative workstyle. 

2) Once they have reached critical mass, start-ups should think carefully about their next step of devopment. 

Most start-ups in the collaborative economy need to gather enough users to become functional. Critical mass is thus their very first key objective. What Cameron pointed out is that contradictions can appear when they have reached this critical mass and investors begin to be interested in their business model. Most investors are likely to settle turnover objectives so that they can get a sufficient return on investment. That means moving up to the next level of scale, which could result in changing the initial purpose of the project. Or move the enterprise from a social economy, based on trust, to a money economy, compensating a loss of trust. 

3) Sharing economy begins when you enter the arena 

That means when you are personnaly involved in a collaborative operation, be it for or non-profit, and related to objects, activities, knowledge or whatever. When people “enter the arena” with their own personnality, opinions, experiences, it can create social friction. For Cameron, social friction should be preserved, because it means society is still alive. However, business is more likely to encourage smoothness. Let’s hope it will be by promoting mediation rather than standardization. 

Flore.