Yesterday Don Drummond – a leading economist hired by the Ontario government to review how the province delivers services in the face of declining economic growth and rising deficits – published his report. There is much to commend, it lays out stark truths that frankly, many citizens already know, but that government was too afraidRead… Read more »
As a regular flyer, I’m an enormous fan of TripIt. It’s a simple service in which you forward almost any reservation – airline, hotel, car rental, etc… to [email protected] and their service will scan it, grab the relevant data, and create a calendar of events for you. While it’s a blessing not to have toRead… Read more »
“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” This was Mr. Toews’s, the Minister of Justice, counterattack to a question in the house regarding concerns of letting the police monitor citizens internet use without a warrant. Apparently this is our choice: a big brother state or child pornography. This is, of course,Read… Read more »
Non profits and governments… this is how open source works: If someone is doing something that is of value to you, help make it better. There have been two great examples of this type of behaviour on this blog over the past week. On Monday, I blogged about Represent, a project by OpenNorth that seeksRead… Read more »
Last week a group of volunteer programs from across Canada announced the launch of Represent.ca – a website that tries to map all of Canada’s boundaries. Confused? Don’t be. It’s simple. This is a nifty piece of digital infrastructure – try visiting the website yourself! After identifying where you are located it will then tellRead… Read more »
Dear friends, Below (first in english then in a rough french translation – my spoken is much better than my written so I’ve relied on Google translate) is my application letter to attend the April 16-18 Annual Open Government Partnership meeting in Brasilia as a Civil Society Representative. The first reason I’m posting this isRead… Read more »
Yesterday The Economist Intelligence Unit and Buzzdata launched a $10,000 contest to help enhance The Economist’s “Best city in the world” index. Yes. It’s a data and visualization competition to identify the best city in the world to live. As part of the contest, The Economist Intelligence Unit has shared two data sets, its “liveability”Read… Read more »
Readers of my blog will be familiar Kuali – the coalition of universities that co-create a suite software core to their operations – as I’ve blogged about several times and argued that it is a powerful model for local governments interested in rethinking how they procure (or really, co-create) their software. For some time nowRead… Read more »
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 thatRead… Read more »
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 youngerRead… Read more »