Another great loss to the public sector

OK, so I’m a bit late with this particular piece of news… Ed Parsons was the first Chief Technology Officer in the history of Ordnance Survey. His departure in December 2006 was widely lamented: it was suggested that he was leaving because he was ‘interested in rocking the boat at Ordnance Survey, especially over its Web 1.0 attitude’. His blogging activity tracked the various developments happening at OS’s new competitors, like Google Maps, and it’s not too big a stretch to imagine his frustration at seeing his own organisation being left for dead. Fast forward to April 2007… and where does Ed start work? Google. The public sector actually did have a guy considered good enough by the cutting-edge to be their new Geospatial Technologist. And it lost him. Brilliant.