Data for Business Journalism, NICAR 2012

In search of globalcorporate data featuring OpenCorporates Chris Taggart, OpenCorporates, NICAR, Feb 2012

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right?

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis Jigsaw/Salesforce

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis Jigsaw/Salesforce Kompass, Mint/Orbis, etc

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis Jigsaw/Salesforce Kompass, Mint/Orbis, etc Linked In

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis Jigsaw/Salesforce Kompass, Mint/Orbis, etc Linked In Google/Yahoo Finance etc

Corporate data for journalistsis a solved problem. Right? Hoovers, Lexis-Nexis Jigsaw/Salesforce Kompass, Mint/Orbis, etc Linked In Google/Yahoo Finance etc Annual reports

That’s ﬁne for bigcorporations

But...

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies Most are just aggregators of same standard sources, and rarely connect to or show the original data

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies Most are just aggregators of same standard sources, and rarely connect to or show the original data Information gets poorer once outside the US/UK

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies Most are just aggregators of same standard sources, and rarely connect to or show the original data Information gets poorer once outside the US/UK Doesn’t cover smaller companies well

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies Most are just aggregators of same standard sources, and rarely connect to or show the original data Information gets poorer once outside the US/UK Doesn’t cover smaller companies well Rarely gives access to data

But... Typically only good coverage of largest companies Most are just aggregators of same standard sources, and rarely connect to or show the original data Information gets poorer once outside the US/UK Doesn’t cover smaller companies well Rarely gives access to data Very proprietary... and no provenance

Why is this important?

Becausecompaniesno longerlook like this

nor like this http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/ahxcjb/518357242

it’s far more like this

or even like this

So, a bit of a mess, butinvestigation is still possible

So, a bit of a mess, butinvestigation is still possible FOR KNOWN STORIES

So, you’re reliant uponhttp://fr.fotopedia.com/items/ﬂickr-3346906435

orhttp://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/corywendorf/3620929918/sizes/z/in/photostream/

But this is about data journalism, right?

And there’s a lot of data outthere

Most isn’t linked to the legalentity, making it difﬁcult to use

But it does include a wealthof other information...

If only we could tie it all together...

And legal entity matters

And legal entity matters It’s the thing that ends up in court

And legal entity matters It’s the thing that ends up in court It’s the way that provides ﬁrewalls for associated people, companies, organisations – information, regulation, tax

And legal entity matters It’s the thing that ends up in court It’s the way that provides ﬁrewalls for associated people, companies, organisations – information, regulation, tax It allows a corporate entity to take advantage of different rules in different jursidictions – regulatory arbitrage

If you don’tthink thisaffects yourlife, you’veslept throughthe past fewyears http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/aaronjacobs/64368770

So... OpenCorporates

A simple (but huge) goal: anentry for every corporatelegal entity in the worldBased on the company number and jurisdiction(no monopoly id)

[Digression] The DUNS number

[Digression] The DUNS number Genius idea. Developed by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962

[Digression] The DUNS number Genius idea. Developed by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962 Create a monopoly ID system

[Digression] The DUNS number Genius idea. Developed by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962 Create a monopoly ID system Get governments around the world to use it instead of the company IDs they created themselves...

[Digression] The DUNS number Genius idea. Developed by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962 Create a monopoly ID system Get governments around the world to use it instead of the company IDs they created themselves... Persuade them to integrate deeply into their systems, & thus do the selling for you

[Digression] The DUNS number Genius idea. Developed by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962 Create a monopoly ID system Get governments around the world to use it instead of the company IDs they created themselves... Persuade them to integrate deeply into their systems, & thus do the selling for you Assert your IP so that they can’t use it freely (as in free speech)

We’ve got data too

All openly licensed

4 core uses for journalists

The simple search

The simple searchNot to be underestimated

The simple searchNot to be underestimatedMassively reduces friction(how long will it take youto ﬁnd and searchmultiple jurisdictions)

The simple searchNot to be underestimatedMassively reduces friction(how long will it take youto ﬁnd and searchmultiple jurisdictions)Allows what if questions

The simple searchNot to be underestimatedMassively reduces friction(how long will it take youto ﬁnd and searchmultiple jurisdictions)Allows what if questionsPotentially generatesstories in its own right

Source for additional info

Source for additional info Addresses, ﬁlings, status, websites...

Source for additional info Addresses, ﬁlings, status, websites... Intl trademarks, UK govt spending, ofﬁcial notices, health & safety...

Source for additional info Addresses, ﬁlings, status, websites... Intl trademarks, UK govt spending, ofﬁcial notices, health & safety... Other IDs: SEC, CAGE, charity....

Source for additional info Addresses, ﬁlings, status, websites... Intl trademarks, UK govt spending, ofﬁcial notices, health & safety... Other IDs: SEC, CAGE, charity.... Coming soon: lobbying registers

Reconciliation(matching names to legal entities)Cleans upmessycompanynames (&previousnames) tolegal entity,and from thereto other data

Reconciliation(matching names to legal entities)We provideGoogleReﬁnereconciliationservice(speciﬁc tojurisdiction)

Reconciliation(matching names to legalUsed byOpenSpending &discussingwith govtsto clean updata atsource

Reconciliation(matching names to legal entities)And caneven be usedto ﬁnd outusefulinformationon its own

The database/platformAPI: allows allinformation to beretrieved as data,even searches

The database/platformUser-contributeddata: Userscan now addwebsites,telephonenumbers,addresses

The database/platformCorporateGroupings – auser-curatedway of groupingcompaniestogether,mapped to theWikipedia articleabout them

The database/platformComingsoon: givingusers theoption tomatch datatocompanies

One last thing... We’ve juststartedimporting andindexingcompanyofﬁcers

New feature: ofﬁcersYou can nowsearch byofﬁcer name

New feature: ofﬁcersEarly stage:we’re stillfetching theinfo (and canonly get forjurisdictionsthat publishit), but eventhat’s useful

New feature: ofﬁcersEarly stage:we’re stillfetching theinfo (and canonly get forjurisdictionsthat publishit), but even similarly namedthat’s useful

New feature: ofﬁcersEarly stage:we’re stillfetching theinfo (and canonly get for other resourcesjurisdictionsthat publishit), but even similarly namedthat’s useful

Still... Though it’s by far the biggest and best open database of companies is the world, there’s a lot more to do Lots of data we haven’t matched. Quite a few US jurisdictions we haven’t added, and some where the information is fairly laggy We’re starting to get ofﬁcial recognition (EU, G20, etc), but some company registers see as threat to their ‘business model’ Provenance is given for everything, so easy to identify source of ‘errors’

Information is the currencyof democracy Thomas Jefferson

ATA is the currencyInformation Dof democracy Thomas Jefferson

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Data for Business Journalism, NICAR 2012

by Chris Taggart

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Data for Business Journalism, NICAR 2012 Presentation Transcript