Non profits and governments… this is how open source works: If someone is doing something that is of value to you, help make it better. There have been two great examples of this type of behaviour on this blog over the past week. On Monday, I blogged about Represent, a
Continue readingTag: Commentary
mark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: Orwell: The Prevention of Literature
“In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureaucracy. Any writer or … Continue reading →
Continue readingeaves.ca: Algorithmic Regulation Spreading Across Government?
I was very, very excited to learn that the City of Vancouver is exploring implementing a program started in San Francisco in which “smart” parking meters adjust their price to reflect supply and demand (story is here in the Vancouver Sun). For those unfamiliar with the program, here is a
Continue readingeaves.ca: Public Servants Self-Organizing for Efficiency (and sanity) – Collaborative Management Day
Most of the time, when I engage with or speak to federal public servants, they are among the most eager to find ways to work around the bureaucracy in which they find themselves. They want to make stuff happen, and ideally, to make it happen right and more quickly. This
Continue readingeaves.ca: My Canadian Open Government Consultation Submission
Attached below is my submission to the Open Government Consultation conducted by Treasury Board over the last couple of weeks. There appear to be a remarkable number of submission that were made by citizens, which you can explore on the Treasury Board website. In addition, Tracey Lauriault has tracked some
Continue readingeaves.ca: Statistics Canada Data to become OpenData – Background, Winners and Next Steps
As some of you learned last night, Embassy Magazine broke the story that all of Statistics Canada’s online data will not only be made free, but released under the Government of Canada’s Open Data License Agreement (updated and reviewed earlier this week) that allows for commercial re-use. This decision has
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Canadian Government’s New Web 2.0 Guidelines: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Yesterday, the government of Canada released its new Guidelines for external use of Web 2.0. For the 99.99% of you unfamiliar with what this is, it’s the guidelines (rules) that govern how, and when, public servants may use web 2.0 tools such as twitter and facebook. You, of course, likely
Continue readingeaves.ca: How Architecture Made SFU Vancouver’s University
For those unfamiliar with Vancouver, it is a city that enjoys a healthy one way rivalry between two university: the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University (SFU). Growing up here I didn’t think much of Simon Fraser. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, I mean it literally. SFU was simply […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Weaving Foreign Ministries into the Digital Era: Three ideas
Last week I was in Ottawa giving a talk at the Department of Foreign Affairs talking about how technology, new media and open innovation will impact the department’s it work internally, across Ottawa and around the world. While there is lots to share, here are three ideas I’ve been stewing on: Keep more citizens safe […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Gov 2.0: Network Analysis for Income Inequality?
I’ve been thinking a lot about these two types of graphs at the moment. This first is a single chart that shows income growth for various segements of the US population broken down by wealth. This second is a group of graphs that talk about pageviews and visits to various websites on the internet. What […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Open Data to drive good policy outcomes – Vancouver’s Rental Database
One of the best signs for open data is when governments are starting to grasp its potential to achieve policy objectives. Rather than just being about compliance, it is seen as a tool that can support the growth and management of a jurisdiction. This why I was excited to see Vision Vancouver (in which I’m […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: And Now… Another Message on Open Innovation for Realtors
Over the past few months I’ve given a number of talks on open data and open innovation to groups of realtors around the country. During these talks I have cautioned that the more the real estate industry tries to protect (e.g. not share) it’s data, the more it risks making access to data (control) be […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The State of Open Data 2011
What is the state of the open data movement? Yesterday, during my opening keynote at the Open Government Data Camp (held this year in Warsaw, Poland) I sought to follow up on my talk from last year’s conference. Here’s my take of where we are today (I’ll post/link to a video of the talk as […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Brain Candy – Great Quotes from Yesterday
I’m in San Francisco to co-chair the Code for America Summit this week, so lots going on, and some deep blog posts in the works. But first. Fun! Here are some of my favourite quotes I stumbled upon or heard in the last 24 hours. “The 4-Hour Body” reads as if The New England Journal […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: The Geopolitics of the Open Government Partnership: the beginning of Open vs. Closed
There hasn’t been a ton of press about the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This is hardly surprising. The press likes to talk about corruption and bad government, people getting together to talk about actually address these things in far less sexy. But even where good coverage exists analysts and journalists are, I think, misunderstanding the […]
Continue readingPETA Sucks
A friend took this photo of a PETA advertisement he saw recently:
PETA thinks the only way to get people to care about the exploitation of animals is through the exploitation of women. Animals aren’t objects for our consumption and pleasure R…
Continue readingeaves.ca: What Re-Releases of Star Wars can Teach Us About Art and Product Management
The other day I noticed this tweet fly by in the twittersphere Was this a complaint? In light of the fact the internet was rife with complaints about changes to the movies in the Blue Ray release of the original trilogy, I suspect so. While I do harbor Lucas a small amount […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Smarter Ways to Have School Boards Update Parents
Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Data and New Public Management
This morning I got an email thread pointing to an article by Justin Longo on #Opendata: Digital-Era Governance Thoroughbred or New Public Management Trojan Horse? I’m still digesting it all but wanted to share some initial thoughts. The article begins with talking about he benefit of open data but its real goal is to argue […]
Continue readingeaves.ca: Design Matters: Looking at a Re-themed Bugzilla
I’ll be honest. There was a time when I thought design didn’t matter. To my credit, it was a long time ago… but I used to think, if the tool was good enough, the design won’t matter, people will use it cause it is helpful. (This may or may not have influenced some fashion choices […]
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