Etsy Encouraging More Women to Hack
The online craft marketplace Etsy has started funding a school that teaches people how to hack and use technology. That’s fine in itself, but what makes it good news noteworthy…
technology
The End of the World: The State vs. the Internet
Last weekend at FooCamp, I co-hosted a session titled “The End of the World: Will the Internet Destroy the State, or Will the State Destroy the Internet?” What follows are…
Start-ups Founded by Women on the Rise
The tech industry is filled with men and a near-machismo culture that can be intimidating to both men and women. Fortunately inroads have been made by women into the tech…
Open Postal Codes: A Public Response to Canada Post on how they undermine the public good
Earlier this week the Ottawa Citizen ran a story in which I’m quoted about a fight between Treasury Board and Canada Post officials over making postal code data open. Treasury…
SmartGlass, the universal app that keeps giving
SmartGlass is a new Microsoft technology that allows users of multiple devices tv, Xbox, smartphones etc. to link them together for a universal experience in entertainment. It’s a sophisticated application…
Lessons from Michigan’s “Innovation Fund” for Government Software
So it was with great interest that several weeks ago a reader emailed me this news article coming out of Michigan. Turns out the state recently approved a $2.5 million…
We Must Force the Politicians to Go Post-Carbon
We need to leave the tarsands oil in the ground. We need an increasing carbon tax. We need to stop subsidizing carbon energy producers. We need public money invested in…
New coins costing Canadians a lot of cash…
Last month, the Royal Canadian Mint put into circulation a new generation of loonies and toonies. The Royal Canadian Mint, however, did not give Canadian cities official notice of when…
Public Policy: The Big Opportunity For Health Record Data
A few weeks ago Colin Hansen – a politician in the governing party in British Columbia (BC) – penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun entitled Unlocking our data to…
Shaw Cable’s Dismissive, Dodging Customer Service
Shaw, the Corporation If you are a lower mainland Shaw Cable customer you may have noticed a quite vague notification of a $5 bill increase coming in June. It is…
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…
ARM and the return of the hardware hacker
Technology innovation has in a sense returned to the good old days where hardware and software had far less of a division between them. When Apple and Microsoft initially launched…
Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government: A Review
The other day the Canadian Government published its Action Plan on Open Government, a high level document that both lays out the Government’s goals on this file as well as…
Beautiful Maps – Google Maps in Water Colours
You know, really never know what the web is going to throw at you next. The great people over at Stamen Design (if you’ve never heard of Stamen you are…
Using BHAG’s to Change Organziations: A Management, Open Data & Government Mashup
I’m a big believer in the ancillary benefits of a single big goal. Set a goal that has one clear objective, but as a result a bunch of other things…
Next Generation Open Data: Personal Data Access
This post matters. If you’re involved in the healthcare sector or a energy utility, please read. Background This Monday I had the pleasure of being in Mexico City for the…
When Industries Get Disrupted: Toronto Real Estate Boards Sad Campaign
As some of my readers know I’ve been engaged by the real estate industry at various points over the last year to share thoughts about how they might be impacted…
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…