Have you ever forgotten to take the garbage or recycling out? Wouldn’t it be nice if someone sent you a reminder the night before, or the morning of? Maybe an email, or an SMS, or even a phone call? Now you can set it up so somebody does. Us. Introducing Recollect: the garbage and recyclingRead… Read more »
My gosh there is a lot going on. Republicans – REPUBLICANS(!) who were in charge of America’s prison system are warning Canada not to follow the Conservatives plan on prisons, the Prime Minister has renamed the government, after himself and my friends at Samara had in Toronto the Guardian’s Emily Bell to talk wikileaks andRead… Read more »
Sorry for the cross post – I have this piece today on the opinion page of the Toronto Star. They’ve actually done a nice graphic for it so do encourage you to check it out. End the silence on aid For the past two weeks, Canadians have slowly watched the minister of international development, BevRead… Read more »
This TEDx talk by Johanna Blakley is pure gold (thank you Jonathan Brun for passing it along). It’s a wonderful dissection – all while using the fashion industry as a case study – of how patents and licenses are not only unnecessary for innovation but can actually impede it. What I found particularly fascinating isRead… Read more »
Been a while since I’ve done one of these. A surprising amount of reading getting done in my life despite a hectic schedule. In addition to the articles below, I recently finished Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus (solid read) and am almost done Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants, which, is blowing my mind. More on both soon,Read… Read more »
Everybody keeps thinking that transparency and improved access to content is something that is only going to affect government, or, maybe some corporations. I’ve tried to argue differently in places like this blog post and in Taylor and I’s chapter in The New Journalist. Here’s a wonderful example of how new tools could start toRead… Read more »
Alternative title for this post: How our Government’s fear of Open Source Software is costing us Billions. So, I’ve been meaning to blog this for several months now. Back in November I remember coming across this great, but very short, interview in the Globe and Mail with Ken Kizer. Who, you might ask, is KenRead… Read more »
Increasingly governments are looking for new and more impactful ways to communicate with citizens. There is a slow but growing awareness that traditional sources of outreach, such as TV stories and newspaper advertisements are either not reaching a significant portion of the population and/or have little impact on raising awareness of a given issue. TheRead… Read more »
Open Data now an established fact in a growing list of Canadian cities. Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Ottawa have established portals, Montreal, Calgary, Hamilton and some other cities are looking into launching their own and a few provinces are rumored to be exploring open data portals as well. This is great news and a significant accomplishment.Read… Read more »
My colleagues over at the Open Knowledge Foundation have been thinking about recruiting an Open Data Advocate, someone who can coordinate a number of the activities they are up to in the open data space. I offered to think about what the role should entail and how that person could be effective. Consequently, in theRead… Read more »