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Data speed meets business need

Shortly after the 2019 local government elections in England, Dan Slee posed a question in his excellent article, why is it so hard to find out election results.

I'd been meaning to write something about why the speed of data reporting (how quickly and frequently data gets updated and published) varies. and in doing this I can also try to answer Dan's question too.

In almost all cases the speed of data reporting operates at the need of the business, not the end user. Sometimes these are the same, in the case of local government elections they're not. That's why it's so hard to find out election results until days after an election.

On the night the best place to find results was a news organisation's website, radio or TV channel, for example Sky News. Why? Because their business model is built around getting you the facts as quickly and as accurately as possible, and in the case of a commercial news organisation having a reputation for doing this well means selling more advertising and therefore generating more income.

Local government's business model on the other hand, whilst it does need accurate results, doesn't require them quickly other than at the election count itself. In fact it can take weeks for the wheels of electoral democracy to stop turning and a new leader and council is in place.

So if you want the fastest, most accurate data news organisations are always the place to go right? Well, no actually. There are other types of organisation that are even faster. Take sports results for example.

Websites and TV channels like those of Sky Sports offer up to the minute data on a wide variety of sports, however betting companies such as Betfair offer up to the second results on a wider range.

This is because betting companies and make (and lose) money based on having the most up to date and accurate data on every market they offer. Similar, share trading sites offer up to the second information on markets around the world,

So back to Dan's question, why is it so hard to find out election results on the night, it's because the business model of local democracy is slower than both the media, and betting and share trading companies.
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Comments

  1. Dan Slee20 May 2019 at 20:58

    Thanks for blogging this Phil. I'd made this point: if local government wants to convince people it can do the really hard things it needs to do the basic stuff. Telling people how their ward voted, how their vote counted and who won the overall election is the basic stuff compared to what's come down the track. Hope you are well and thriving.

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  2. Iyaz Khan24 April 2021 at 09:04

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