I’ve a small piece in the Toronto Star today about the census, Canadians reaction to it, and what it says about Canada. You can find it here: Canadians love for census says a lot about who we are.
Continue readingAuthor: David Eaves
eaves.ca: Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic: mapping the drivers behind social media, companies and states in the public sphere
I’ve been playing with ways to help some students understand the online space: i.e. who the actors are, and what motivates them around the big policy debates about the internet, like privacy, bullying, monopoly formation, state control and surveillan…
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Mandate Letters
The newly elected Government of Canada made its ministerial mandate letters available to the public last week. They are absolutely worth checking out both for their content and as a example of public disclosure/communication. I’ll talk about that latter part in a second, but let me first let’s discuss some background information and
Continue readingeaves.ca: Moving to Harvard
Hi friends. Just a brief note to say that I’ve been invited to come to the Kennedy School of Government to be a Research Fellow in the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program (STPP) at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
Continue readingeaves.ca: Government Procurement Failure: BC Ministry of Education Case Study
Apologies for the lack of posts. I’ve been in business mode – both helping a number of organizations I’m proud of and working on my own business. For those interested in a frightening tale of inept procurement, poor judgement and downright dirty tactics when it comes to software procurement and
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada’s Opaque Transparency – An Open Data Failure
Yesterday, at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada’s (PDAC) Canada Minister of Natural Resource, Joe Oliver, announced with great fanfare a new initiative to compel mining companies to disclose payments of over $100,000′s to foreign and domestic governments. On the surface this looks like a win for transparency, particularly for
Continue readingeaves.ca: Great Hacks from the Open Data in Vancouver
Last weekend I helped host an Open Data Day in Vancouver. With the generous support of Domain7, who gave us a place to host talks and hack, over 30 Vancouverites braved the sleet and snow to spend the day sharing ideas and working on projects. We had opening comments from
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day 2014 – Five Fun Events Around the World
With over 110 Events happening world wide it is impossible to talk about every Open Data Day event. But looking almost every event on the wiki I’ve been deeply moved and inspired by the various efforts, goals and aspirations of the people who have organized these events. In order to
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day in 110 cities Worldwide! Here’s 6 things to do
It is, as always, with a fair amount of wonder that I watch the open data day wiki grow each year. This year there are 100 self organized events taking place worldwide (at last count). It is an impressive number. This includes events in places like Buenos Aires (which is
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day in Vancouver – Registration is live
I’m happy to share that this February 22nd there will be an Open Data Day event in Vancouver. The details are as follows: The event will take place at Domain7 – who have kindly volunteered their space – on Saturday, February 22, from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM. We have
Continue readingeaves.ca: The dangerous mystique of the “open data” business
I’m frequently asked by people about how they can start an “open data business.” Let me first say that I love that the question gets asked. I love that people are interested in Open Data. I love that people want to learn more, they want to play, they want to
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Advice for Librarian Coders
For the purposes of this post we will ignore how remarkably badass sounding the word librarian becomes when “coder” is added to the end of it. I recently had a librarian who had just picked up some coding skills email me and ask how they could get into Open Data
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Contracting Workshop in Montreal on Friday
This was sent to me by Michael Roberts who has been doing great work in the Open Data and Open Standards space in Canada. Please check this out: What: Open Contracting Data Standard: Stakeholder Workshop When: 31st January 2014 – 9am – 3pm Where: Hilton Montreal Bonaventure Hashtag (always required): #opencontractingdata Register at: http://bit.ly/ocds-stakeholders
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day Google+ Hang Out
With just about a month to go until Open Data Day things are going well. There are quite a few cities that have been added to the open data day wiki. This year we thought we would try something new. On January 21st we are going to host a Get Ready For
Continue readingeaves.ca: Santa Claus, Big Data and Asymmetric Learning
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law of Prediction This Christmas I had a wonderfully simple experience of why asymmetric rates of learning matter so much, and a simple way to explain it to friends and colleagues. I have a young son. This is
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data for Development Challenge on Jan 27-28
This just came across my email via Michael Roberts who has been doing great work in this space. Open Data for Development Challenge January 27–28, 2014 — Montreal, Canada Do you want to share your creative ideas and cutting-edge expertise, and make a difference in the world? Do you want
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Day 2014 is Coming Feb 22 – Time to Join the Fun!
So, with much help from various community members (who reminded me that we need to get this rolling – looking at you Heather Leson), I pleased to say we are starting to gear up for Open Data Day 2014 on February 22nd, 2014. From its humble beginnings of a conversation between
Continue readingeaves.ca: The End of Canada Post and the Coming War for Your Mailbox
As pretty much everyone in Canada learned yesterday (and no one outside the country cares to know), Canada Post, the country’s national postal service will phase out home mail delivery by 2019. The reason? It’s obvious. The internet has hammered mail volumes. There was 20% less mail delivered in 2012 than
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Importance of Open Data Critiques – thoughts and context
Over at the Programmable City website Rob Kitchin has a thoughtful blog post on open data critiques. It is very much worth reading and wider discussion. Specifically, there are two competing things worth noting. First, it is important for the open data community – and advocates in particular – to
Continue readingeaves.ca: What Werewolf teaches us about Trust & Security
After sharing the idea behind this post with Bruce Schneier, I’ve been encouraged to think a little more about what Werewolf can teach us about trust, security and rational choices in communities that are, or are at risk of, being infiltrated by a threat. I’m not a security expert, but I
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