text: **3.2. Creative, unforeseen uses of local Open Data increase**
  Proofs that, as cited in the Open Data, Open Society report, "Data is like soil", that is valuable not 
  
  in itself, but because of what*grows*on it, often in ways that the landowner couldn't imagine, 
  
  continue to arrive. Here is an example from Day Two: Follow the Data, Iterating and the $1200 
  
  problem: 
  
  *Ed Reiskin noticed a problem with street cleaning. Some trucks would go out, coming*
  *back with little or no trash depending on the day and route they took. After getting the*
  *tonnage logs, his team quickly realized that changing certain routes and reducing*
  *service on others would save money (less gas, parts, labor) and the environment (less*
  *pollution, gas consumption, water). A year later, the department realized a little over a*
  *million dollars in savings. The point?**Follow the data***. 
  
  The value embedded in data isn't only economical or political, but also social. Here are a few 
  
  examples. 
  
  At the Amsterdam fire brigade, once a fire alarm starts, all sorts of data is collected, to maximize 
  
  the probabilities to save lives and property, about the location and the route to the emergency: 