Pardon me, company that uses open data. Can you spare a few minutes?

It could mean a lot to you later on.

Canada’s Open Data Exchange (ODX) is, well, collecting data. As part of its Open Data 150 campaign, ODX launched a survey in April to find out what kinds of Canadian companies use open data that governments publish, what types of data they consume and how they earn revenue from it.

[Here's a peek at what the results look like so far]

The results will help ODX do its job: promote the creation of socially and economically beneficial tools using data that governments own. A lot of good — job creation, the development of new intellectual property, better decision making — comes out of allowing entrepreneurs to commercialize data produced by publicly funded research.

By revealing more about who’s doing what with open data in Canada, the survey gives ODX a benchmark for some comparative analysis with other countries. And it enables ODX to recommend priorities to government policy-makers responsible for making material available.

The open-data movement, remember, began as an initiative to fortify democracy by taking data sets produced by publicly funded departments and agencies and loading them online for anyone to explore. That’s a pretty large pipe.

What companies tell ODX is that they need consistency in data content, format and updates. The lack of standardization, and the release of data in inconsistent or non-machine-readable formats, presents a barrier to entrepreneurship driven by open data.

More thought needs to be given to what’s going into the flow, and how.

Among other things, survey results so far indicate:

• More than half the respondents say determining what data sets are available across different levels of government remains a big frustration to their businesses. Maybe this presents a curation and cataloguing opportunity.

• More than 80 per cent of respondents use open data from the federal government; 61 per cent, provincial government; and 48 per cent, municipal government.

• Data/technology, geospatial/mapping, transportation, education and scientific research make up the top five industrial sectors using open data in Canada.

As mentioned before, the survey is part of Open Data 150 (OD150) a remarkable project leading up to, and then beyond, Canada’s 150th anniversary next year. It is jointly co-ordinated by ODX and The Govlab, with support from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, Open North and Thomson Reuters.

The project seeks to enlist 150 (or more) Canadian companies using open data, thus creating Canada’s first comprehensive inventory of open data in commercial use. It brings Canada to the table with the United States, Mexico, Italy, Australia and South Korea as a member of the Open Data 500 network.

Open data is a surging international movement. Canada joined OD500 because it wants to be on top of the wave, where the ideas and opportunities are, rather than under it.

Which brings us back to you, company using open data. Take the survey and help lead the way forward.