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This is part of what the Semantic Web is supposed to solve, but that really addresses the technical end of what starts as a human problem – getting people to think about how to share data as opposed to how to consume information.

I think there's a conceptual problem in our society – we talk about being an "information society", but that actually means that a small number of sources are acquiring raw data, filtering and massaging that into what they think is information, and then most of us consume that output. The result is that we, the consumers, can only draw a limited range of conclusions … the truth is out there, it's just not available.

But what if we started to think of ourselves as the data society? Rather than being consumers of information selected and manipulated by others, we would all be consumers of raw data as well as producers of information. We have the personal productivity tools to do just that, but much of the data out there, particularly governmental raw data, is hidden away.

So, while we're hunkering down and trying to stay healthy, let's start thinking about what it would be like if we had access to all the data out there instead of just the information we're given.