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 Canada for a variety of reasons. The three that stand out are: 1) The Canadian Government has launched an open government initiative which includes a [...]
Entries from April 2012
Canada Post’s War on the 21st Century, Innovation & Productivity
Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership
It is hard to sum up what is happening at the Open Government Partnership this year. Whether it is the geography the conference covers (over 40 countries), the range of issues affected by openness, or the sheer number of people, there is a great deal to wrap your arms around. Here are some reflections after [...]
NASA space hackathon (in Vancouver) this weekend
So, many, many things I’d like to blog upon at the moment. I’m in Brasilia at the Open Government Partnership meeting, so obviously lots to talk about there, and, of course, Canada Post has completely lost it and is suing a company over postal code data but it’s been twenty hour days and those post [...]
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 fulfill its pledge to create tangible goals as part of its participation in next week’s Open Government Partnership 2012 annual meeting in Brazil. So what [...]
Here’s a prediction: A Canadian F-35 will be shot down by a drone in 2035
One of the problems with living in a country like Canada is that certain people become the default person on certain issues. It’s a small place and the opportunity for specialization (and brand building) is small, so you can expect people to go back to the same well a fair bit on certain issues. I [...]


