I have an article titles Lies, Damn Lies and Open Data in Slate Magazine as part of their Future Tense series. Here, for me, is the core point: On the surface, the open data movement was about who could access and use government data. It rested on the idea that
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eaves.ca: Community Managers: Expectations, Experience and Culture Matter
Here’s an awesome link to grind home my point from my OSCON keynote on Community Management, particularly the part where I spoke about the importance of managing wait times – the period between when a volunteer/contributor takes and action and when they get feedback on that action. In my talk
Continue readingeaves.ca: Roger Fisher: 1922-2012
Virtually all of my blog readers, and for that matter, much of the world, will not know that on August 25 Roger Fisher passed away. Roger Fisher was a Harvard academic and adviser to presidents and leaders, and perhaps most importantly – because his writings touched so many people –
Continue readingeaves.ca: Transparency Case Study: There are Good and Bad Ways Your Organization can be made “Open”
If you have not had the chance, I strongly encourage you to check out a fantastic piece of journalism in this week’s Economist on the state of the Catholic Church in America. It’s a wonderful example of investigative and data driven journalism made possible (sadly) by the recent spat of
Continue readingeaves.ca: China, Twitter and the 0.1%
Earlier this month I had the good fortune of visiting China – a place I’m deeply curious about and – aside from some second year university courses, the reporting from the Economist, and the occasional trip over to Tea Leaf Nation – remains too foreign to me for comfort given
Continue readingeaves.ca: How Government should interact with Developers, Data Geeks and Analysts
Below is a screen shot from the Opendatabc google group from about two months ago. I meant to blog about this earlier but life has been in the way. For me, this is a prefect example of how many people in the data/developer/policy world probably would like to interact with
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: What is art?
“The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then to close the gap between … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: The Mash-Up Mentality
With derivative art invading our cultural spaces like never before, is this the start of a new artistic movement or the death of originality? In 1951, the science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon said 90 per cent of everything is crap. Since … Continue reading →
Continue readingeaves.ca: Containers, Facebook, Baseball & the Dark Matter around Open Data (#IOGDC keynote)
Below is a extended blog post that summarizes the keynote address I gave at the World Bank/Data.gov International Open Government Data Conference in Washington DC on Wednesday July 11th. Yesterday, after spending the day at the International Open Government Data Conference at the World Bank (and co-hosted by data.gov) I
Continue readingeaves.ca: The US Government’s Digital Strategy: The New Benchmark and Some Lessons
Last week the White House launched its new roadmap for digital government. This included the publication of Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People (PDF version), the issuing of a Presidential directive and the announcement of White House Innovation Fellows. In other words, it
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Would you rather be punched in the face than join Klout?
I completely sympathize with this perspective, but I would ask you NOT to punch me in the face. Despite my better judgement I joined. Look at Klout this way: it’s something else to feel inferior about! (Cause life doesn’t really … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Why doesn’t SF produce “big idea” books anymore?
“…today you don’t need to read SF to get a sense of wonder high: you can just browse “New Scientist”. We’re living in the frickin’ 21st century. Killer robot drones are assassinating people in the hills of Afghanistan. Our civilisation … Continue reading →
Continue readingeaves.ca: Control Your Content: Why SurveyMonkey Should Add a “Download Your Answers” Button
Let me start by saying, I really like SurveyMonkey. By this I mean, I like SurveyMonkey specifically, but I also like online survey’s in general. They are easy to ignore if I’m uninterested in the topic but – when the topic is relevant – it is a great, simple service
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Transparent Hypocrisy of Ethical Oil – who is really laudering money
The other week the Canadian Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent accused Canadian Charities of “laundering money” because they accept some funds from outside the country. This is all been part of a larger effort – championed by Ethical Oil – to discredit Canada’s environmental organizations. As an open government
Continue readingeaves.ca: Mainstreaming The Gov 2.0 Message in the Canadian Public Service
A couple of years ago I wrote a Globe Op-Ed “A Click Heard Across the Public Service” that outlined the significance of the clerk using GCPEDIA to communicate with public servants. It was a message – or even more importantly – an action to affirm his commitment to change how
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Oil Sands in Alberta is like Language Laws in Quebec… It’s a domestic issue
This post isn’t based on a poll I’ve conducted or some rigorous methodology, rather it has evolved out of conversations I’ve had with friends, thought leaders I’ve run into, articles I’ve read and polls I’ve seen in passing. As most people know the development of the oil sands is a
Continue readingeaves.ca: My LRC Review of “When the Gods Changed” and other recommended weekend readings
This week, the Literary Review of Canada published my and Taylor Owen’s review of When the Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada by Peter C. Newman. For non-Canadians Peter Newman is pretty much a legend when it comes to covering Canadian history and politics, he was editor of the
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data Movement is a Joke?
Yesterday, Tom Slee wrote a blog post called “Why the ‘Open Data Movement’ is a Joke,” which – and I say this as a Canadian who understands the context in which Slee is writing – is filled with valid complaints about our government, but which I feel paints a flawed
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Feeding the Beast
This is a script for a piece I read on CBC Radio back in 2006. Feeding the Beast by Mark A. Rayner Hi, my name is Mark, and I am a writer with a problem. There is a monster eating … Continue reading →
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada Post’s War on the 21st Century, Innovation & Productivity
The other week Canada Post announced it was suing Geocoder.ca – an alternative provider of postal code data. It’s a depressing statement on the status of the digital economy in Canada for a variety of reasons. The three that stand out are: 1) The Canadian Government has launched an open
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