midata and your money

WHAT'S NEXT POST LAUNCH OF THE MIDATA INNOVATION LAB?

Good question.

That's the title of an interview with Dan Bates, director of the midata Innovation Lab (mIL), published in Ctrl-Shift News, where space is so tight that there isn't room to remind the reader that Ctrl-Shift is one of the 22 Founding Partners of mIL.

"I am proud that we have set the bar high by bringing the mIL to life in just seven weeks from project kick-off", says Dan, too young perhaps to remember that "project kick-off" was 91 weeks ago on 3 November 2011 when the Department for Business Innovation and Skills published Government, business and consumer groups commit to midata vision of consumer empowerment.

mIL has several "learning streams of activity", we learn during the interview, and a "project heartbeat". mIL is an "enabler" and "we have made it easy to get involved". It is a "potential consumer blockbuster" but, before that happens, Dan needs more organisations to sign up.

What kind of organisations? Answer: "these organisations will be trail-blazers who have the humility to acknowledge no-one as yet has all the answers, and thus share and learn, whilst at the same time having the vision and boldness to be the first-movers that accelerate the personal data market".

It's not easy to find organisations like that and Dan's boss, Professor Sir Nigel Shadbolt, has been reduced to trying to buy them in:

Calling all developers - prizes and seed corn funding for best apps in #midata #midatalab - join now http://t.co/B7bwbdg1Gb — Nigel Shadbolt (@Nigel_Shadbolt) July 30, 2013

As well as bold humble visionaries, there are "experts involved in the mIL", Dan wants it to be "transformative" and he wants to "kick start a collective inflection point in business". midata is all about apps. What kind of apps? According to Dan, "really interesting" ones: "I want some really interesting apps and services to come out of the mIL".

You wouldn't fund a project for 91 weeks, would you, based on breathless promises of really interesting transformative apps that will kickstart a collective inflection point?

You just have. And there's no end in sight.