Helsinki Region Infoshare has been up and running for just over two years and it is slowly becoming better known to citizens and data enthusiasts alike. In order for the open data community to flourish, a fruitful ecosystem is needed: algorithm connoisseurs, app enthusiasts, tools, companies and a long list of other collaborators. But the glue that brings them all together is why. Why should anyone care about open data?

The key to making open data useful is to make it easily approachable. It can be a useful tool for understanding public spending or finding geotagged services within cities, as long as the front end of the tool is simple and the service design has been thought out. A good tool is easy to use and share.

Case in point: the Openspending community sets aim at visualizing the monetary flows of the World. We tried putting the economic data from Helsinki through the Openspending tool. It might be the early days for the tool, but it’s already providing us with a sense of scale for budgets on the public sector way beyond mere numbers.

Usable and often free tools for processing data and creating applications, encouraging user participation and constant prototyping are the soil the flowers of open data thrive on. The buds are beginning to surface on already established sites such as Helsingin Sanomat, who are encouraging developers to use a ready-made template to create web applications that support their journalism.