For those uninterested in the story below and who just want the iCal feed of cultural events in Vancouver, click here.
Also, I had a piece on the Globe site yesterday, was in the air all day, but was told it hit #1 most viewed, which, if true, is nice. You can read it here.
A couple of weeks ago – at a party – I met someone working at the CBC who talked about how they were organizing a calendar of all the cultural events at the Olympics. Turns out the French CBC is placing a strong emphasis on the Cultural Olympiad that is taking place concurrently to the Olympics and they were gathering all the events they could find into a spread sheet.
I commented that CBC views and listeners – French and English – would probably find such a calendar useful and that it would quite interesting if the CBC shared it as an iCal feed so that anyone could download it into their computer’s calendar.
He agreed, but was unsure how to create such a feed. Admittedly, neither was I – but I did know some people who might…
So at Vancouver’s last Open Data Hackathon – kindly hosted by the City Archives and organized by Luke C – I asked around to see if anyone might be interested in converting the spreadsheet into an ical feed. Up stepped Jason M. who did a little trouble shooting, figured out how the spreadsheet needed to be reformatted and then figured out how to convert it.
So now, if you want, you can download a fairly comprehensive list of the cultural events taking place during the Olympics straight into the calendar on your iPhone, computer, google calendar, etc…
It’s got more events than a lot of the other calendars and includes concerts being played at Maison du Quebec, Saskachewan, Alberta, Ontario and Atlantic Canada House.
This is a bit of a shift for the CBC, the kind of shift that I think we need to be supportive of… a little more open, a little more sharing and a lot more useful. Most importantly it is a great example of how the idea of open data spreads – by being useful.
eaves.ca 
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You mean Radio Canada! Calling Radio Canada the French CBC just does not sound quite right. That sorta sounds like CBC being the English Radio Canada. They are just not the same type of radio. It makes sense that Radio Can would have a cultural list, that is what differentiates it from CBC. In the body of your article, are you talking about Radio Canada or CBC? If you are referring to Radio Canada, I hope you can make that clear in blog post and give them the credit they deserve. I can tell you, that many people like myself do not listen to CBC except maybe for Ideas, Massey Lectures and the odd podcast, but for sure we listen to Radio Canada and Espace Musique.Radio Canada and Le Devoir have also been stupendous with their coverage of the conservative regime change / coup of Droits et Democracie. That was a great piece in the Globe.
You mean Radio Canada! Calling Radio Canada the French CBC just does not sound quite right. That sorta sounds like CBC being the English Radio Canada. They are just not the same type of radio. It makes sense that Radio Can would have a cultural list, that is what differentiates it from CBC. In the body of your article, are you talking about Radio Canada or CBC? If you are referring to Radio Canada, I hope you can make that clear in blog post and give them the credit they deserve. I can tell you, that many people like myself do not listen to CBC except maybe for Ideas, Massey Lectures and the odd podcast, but for sure we listen to Radio Canada and Espace Musique.Radio Canada and Le Devoir have also been stupendous with their coverage of the conservative regime change / coup of Droits et Democracie. That was a great piece in the Globe.