The Ground War for Control of Public Space
My partner stumbled on the quote below attributed to Banksy (wikipedia), the English street artist who many consider to be one of the great a modern day satirists. It’s an…
Commentary
Censorship in Canada, 2010-2011
Think censorship doesn’t happen in Canada? It does, though rarely. There are, however, many attempts at censorship, and it is something we have to be on guard for at all…
Media Watch: The Globe and Mail’s Shifting Headline
Earlier today the Globe and Mail had one of these truly terrible “balanced” articles about the proposed federal crime bill. The headline screamed: Quebec expert backs Tory crime bill amid…
The Surveillance State – No Warrant Required
Yesterday a number of police organizations came out in support of bill C-30 – the online online surveillance bill proposed by Minister Vic Toews. You can read the Vancouver Police…
Transparency isn’t a cost – its a cost saver (a note for Governments and Drummond)
Yesterday Don Drummond – a leading economist hired by the Ontario government to review how the province delivers services in the face of declining economic growth and rising deficits –…
Data Wars: A mini-case study of Southwest Airlines vs. TripIt and Orbitz
As a regular flyer, I’m an enormous fan of TripIt. It’s a simple service in which you forward almost any reservation – airline, hotel, car rental, etc… to plans@tripit.com and…
Two Reasons I love blogging: Helping out great communities
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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).…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Let’s Hack data.gc.ca
In just under two weeks data.gc.ca will celebrate its one year anniversary. This will also mark the period that the pilot project is officially supposed to end. Looking at data.gc.ca…