Last year I created a simple Google Spreadsheet (essentially a wiki list) for Canadian public servants to input their organization’s mobile website and/or app so that others could see who was doing what. I made this spreadsheet public, allowed anyone to edit, and housed it under the “mobilegovernment.ca” URL. Since that time, many government folksRead… Read more »
I watched Amanda Todd’s tragic video message today. Exactly one month and eight days after it was first posted and only five days after she committed suicide. Words can’t possibly express how it makes me feel. But that’s irrelevant anyway. What’s far more important than expressing our feelings and condolences in my opinion is whatRead… Read more »
Every once in a while I have one of those months where it seems I spend more time on planes than on the ground. September was one of those months for me, 34,534 kilometres to be exact. Needless to say, I’m happy to be back and adjusted to one consistent time-zone. As I’ve written beforeRead… Read more »
Any time I see a government effort in using video these days I like to applaud it. Providing information in an appealing visual format that is designed with the web in mind first , will soon be standard practice (that’s my hope anyway). Remember, it’s not about getting the most views on YouTube, but ratherRead… Read more »
Back in early 2011, I created a collaborative Google Spreadsheet (available at www.mobilegovernment.ca) to compile a list of Canadian government organizations (federal, provincial , municipal +crown/agency) that have created mobile websites and/or mobile apps. As a supplement to that spreadsheet I also created a visual presentation with screenshots of each entry, which I try toRead… Read more »
I jotted these apps down (plus added a few others) from a recent article in Wired Magazine. The article discussed the rise of hyper-local intermediary apps that aim to capitalize on the surplus time of a service provider by matching them with someone looking for that service at that exact time. Keep in mind thatRead… Read more »
I recently came across this interesting anti-smoking advertisement from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. What I love about it is that it clearly demonstrates that “outreach”/ “public education” / “communication” alone is often not enough to change behaviour. What if the target audience already knows how bad smoking is? Specifically how bad it is forRead… Read more »
I just came across an excellent new research report from PWC. It has a rather long name “Next Generation of eservices – CitizenCompass – Enhancing service delivery in the Canadian public sector“, however it’s quite informative nonetheless. Essentially its purpose was to ask Canadians how they are interacting with government now, and how they wouldRead… Read more »
Here are some verbatim responses I often get when asking clients the following question: “Have you ever monitored social media while at work?” “social media monitoring is not our responsibility, it’s done by the [comms/web/IT] people]” “we have a social media monitoring tool gathering info for us” “we already do media monitoring” “our [branch/department/organization] doesn’tRead… Read more »
Back in March of 2009 I wrote a post entitled “Latest mobile phone statistics from Africa and what this means” based on a report that had come out from Blycroft Publishing tracking 2008 African mobile phone market stats. The findings back then were already profound, as were the overall anticipated trends. That post alone, toRead… Read more »