Edmonton Heads for the Cloud
I'm confident that somewhere in Canada, some resource strapped innovative small town has abandoned desktop software and uses a cloud based service but so far no city of any real…
public policy
Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities
Earlier this week the Canadian Federal Government announced it will be creating Shared Services Canada which will absorb the resources and functions associated with the delivery of email, data centres…
Open Source Data Journalism – Happening now at Buzz Data
(there is a section on this topic focused on governments below) A hint of how social data could change journalism Anyone who’s heard me speak in the last 6 months…
Dumping Shit in The Ottawa River
This blog post contains graphic language because there is no way to pretty up dumping shit in the city's drinking water source.If I were to walk into the Ottawa River…
How Dirty is Your Data? Greenpeace Wants the Cloud to be Greener
My friends over at Greenpeace recently published an interesting report entitled "How dirty is your data? A Look at the Energy Choices That Power Cloud Computing." For those who think…
Depression and Decline: American Irresponsibility is Ending the American Era with a Bang
Despite the assurances of US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner it is increasingly likely there will be no debt deal. The United States is going to default on its debt. I…
The State of Open Data Licenses in Canada and where to go from here
(for readers less interested in Open Data - I promise something different tomorrow) In February I wrote how 2011 would be the year of the license for Canada's open data…
Province of BC launches Open Data Catalog: What works
As revealed yesterday, the province of British Columbia became the first provincial government in Canada to launch a open data portal. It's still early but here are some things that…
Using Data to Make Firefox Better: A mini-case study for your organization
I love Mozilla. Any reader of this blog knows it. I believe in its mission, I find the organization totally fascinating and its processes engrossing. So much so I spend…
The Audacity of Shaw: How Canada’s Internet just got Worse
It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet…
Lots of Open Data Action in Canada
A lot of movement on the open data (and not so open data) front in Canada. Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) Open Data Portal Launched Some readers may remember that…
Mind. Prepare to be blown away. Big Data, Wikipedia and Government.
Okay, super psyched about this. Back at the Strata Conference in Feb (in San Diego) I introduced my long time uber-quant friend and now Wikimedia Foundation data scientist Diederik Van…
CIDA announces Open Data portal: What it means to Canadians
For those who missed it, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has announced it is launching an open data portal. This is exciting news. On Monday I was interviewed about…
TVO’s The Agenda: Faith in Secularism – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
Speaking on TVOntario’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I make the case that separation of church and state is as much in the interests of the church as it is…
TVO’s The Agenda: Faith in Secularism – Akaash Maharaj Videocast
Speaking on TVOntario’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I make the case that separation of church and state is as much in the interests of the church as it is…
The next Open Data battle: Advancing Policy & Innovation through Standards
With the possible exception of weather data, the most successful open data set out there at the moment is transit data. It remains the data with which developers have experimented…
If the Prime Minister Wants Accountable Healthcare, let’s make it Transparent too
Over at the Beyond the Commons blog Aaron Wherry has a series of quotes from recent speeches on healthcare by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in which the one constant…
Lost Open Data Opportunities
Even sometimes my home town of Vancouver gets it wrong. Reading Chad Skelton's blog (which I frequently regularly and recommend to my fellow Vancouverites) I was reminded of the great…
How to Unsuck Canada’s Internet – creating the right incentives
This week at the Mesh conference in Toronto (where I'll be talking Open Data) the always thoughtful Jesse Brown, of TVO's Search Engine will be running a session title How…
Why Social Media behind the Government Firewall Matters
This comment, posted four months ago to my blog by Jesse G. in response to this post on GCPEDIA, remains one of the favorite comments posted to my blog ever.…