David Eaves's Blog – January 2012 Archive (8)

After a rough bought of food poisoning... I'm back.

For some random reasons I got a PR notice from the people at APEX communications in Toronto who Google insights to see which of the two Superbowl NFL teams Canadians were searching for more.

So... okay, just Canadians searched more for the Patriots doesn't mean that they prefer them but as a…

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 is particularly true of younger public servants and those below middle management in general (I also find it is often the case of those at the senior levels, who often can't pierce the fog of middle management to see what is…

Some small examples of open data use and public servants who do and don't understand open data from the Province of British Columbia to the City of Vancouver.

Open Libraries?

For the past several years - ever since the open motion was passed in Vancouver - the city has been releasing more and more data sets. One data set I've encouraged them to proactively release was library data - the catalog, what books were popular, etc... Others have made the request and,…

Wow. Talk about the hypocrisy. So EthicalOil.org which has been leading the charge about how foreign money is influencing environmental groups and the regulatory process. But... apparently it refuses to disclose its donor list.

The double truths get better. While they state on their website they only receive money from Canadian and Canadian companies they won't reveal if any of those Canadian companies are owned by foreign entities.

From…

This piece is cross-posted from the Toronto Star's Op-Ed Page.

This week the “ethical oil” argument adopted by the federal government took an interesting twist. While billions from China pour into Canada to develop the oilsands and fund the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline, on Monday…

Government Procurement is Broken: Example #5,294,702 or "The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application" by Rich Jones

This post is actually a few months old, but I stumbled on it again the other day and could help but laugh and cry at the same time. Written by a freelance computer developer, the…

Last year during my Open Government Data Camp keynote speech on The State of Open Data 2011 I mentioned how I thought the central challenge for open data was shifting from getting data open (still a big issue, but a battle that is starting to be won) to getting all that open data in some common standards and schemas so that use (be it apps, analysis and other uses) can be scaled across jurisdictions.

Looks…

So I loath making this the first post of the new year, but here we go.

Today Canada.com published a story "Tony Clement vows innovative new open government, but critics point to poor record." In it,  Jason Fekete the journalist responsible for the story, quotes a Democracy Watch spokesperson who sadly gets the facts completely wrong…