Category Archives: random

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #8

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Since it’s the holidays and everybody’s too busy shopping and seeing friends to read blogs – my meta posts will continue! Always nice to take stock.

Blogging moment number 8…

After reading a Globe and Mail report in which Harper mocks the Liberals for caring “too much” about the welfare of imprisoned Taliban insurgents I threw the paper down in disgust and banged out this blog post in literally 15 minutes. Four days later, the Star agreed to publish it as an opinion piece.

Here is the cool part:

For the first time in my life, something I wrote as a blog post gets published as opposed to something I published getting cross posted to my blog.

“If writing is a muscle, this is my gym.”

My "top 10" 2007 blogging moments: #9

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Part 1)

I write complimentary book reviews of

and the authors post comments and or drop me an email. Hurray for the internet.

Part 2)

I don’t write a book review but suggest, in complete violation of copyright, that a group of volunteers dictate and record the oldest of Newman’s works as MP3 files and publish the voice recordings online so as to create free audiobook versions of his work.

Peter C. Newman actually comments (note: he doesn’t protest against the idea) and justly notes that it is crazy that all but two of his works are out of print… That man is a legend.

Part 3)

Taylor and I publish what I think is possibly one of our strongest pieces – a critical review of Michael Byers, Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? in Embassy Magazine, and an extended version on our blogs.

Byers does not comment.

The Atlantic Divide

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“When I tell American’s that I’ve flown 8 Million miles they say ‘cool.’ When I tell Europeans they say ‘my god, your carbon footprint!’ ”

– Mark G (well traveled friend and colleague, in a talk he gave while we were in Dallas this week)

Just a little quote for all of you out there who think that American recalcitrance in Bali is simply a failure of leadership. I’ll admit the head is broken, but the rot goes much, much deeper.

the coolest pumpkin

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I was out accompanying my colleague Peter H’s nephew for Halloween when I can across what I think is the funniest pumpkin I’ve seen in my life.

It just so happens that in Pete’s neighborhood there has been a rash of pumpkin nibbling squirrels who have shown a distinct lack of regard for people’s hard carved art. Looks like one pumpkin decided to matters into its own hands.

I love the creativity.

* Photo by Alicia Chang.

Open source fun, Open source problems…

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I had a thoroughly enjoyable time at the Free-Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) at Seneca college. I had a great time giving my talk on community management as the core competency of open source communities. The audience was really engaged and asked great questions – I just wish we’d had more time.

The talk was actually filmed and can be downloaded, but it is only available as an OGG file wihch is large (416Mb) but rumor has it they may get converted into a smaller more streamable format in the future. Once the video is available I’ll also post the slides.

Also, I want to thank Coop and Shane for blogging the positive feedback. I’m looking forward to building on and refining the ideas…

One of the key ideas I’m interested in pushing is how “open” open source communities are – and how they can make themselves easier to join. I actually had an interesting experience while at FSOSS that highlighted how subtle this challenge can be.

During one of the lunch breaks Mark Surman and I ran a Birds of a Feather session on Community Management as the Core Competency of Open Source Communities. In the lead up to the session, a leader of a prominent open source community (I knew this because it said so on his name tag) walked up to me and asked:

“Are you running this BoF?” (Birds of a Feather)

Not being hip to the lingo I replied… “What’s a BoF? I’m not super techie so I don’t know all the terms.”

To which he replied “Evidently.” and walked away.

And thus ended my first contact with this particular open source community. With its titular leader nonetheless. Needless to say, it didn’t leave a positive impression.

I’ll admit this is an anecdotal piece of data. But it affirms my thinking that while open source communities may be open – to whom they are open may not be as broad a cross section of the population as we are lead to believe (e.g. you’d better already know the lingo and cultural norms of the community).

There is another important lesson here. One that impacts directly the scalability of open source communities. At some point everyone has to have a first contact with a community – that first impression may be a strong determinant about where they volunteer their time and contribute their free labour. Any good open-source community will probably want to get it right.

Alan Greenspan – too smart to speak

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Taylor and I were hanging out on Sunday wrestling for control of the remote control – I was interested in watching the Pats destroy the Chargers, he in Chris Matthews – when on came the 60 Minutes Interview with Alan Greenspan.

It was all very interesting until boom – the 10th minute of this clip reminded us why Jon Stewart’s job is so easy.

In the interview Leslie Stahl berates Greenspan for a speech he gave in March where he publicly suggested there was a one in three chance the US economy could go into recession. Although Greenspan – then retired from his role as Federal Reserve Chairman – gave the speech as both a private citizen and business owner soliciting clients, Stahl suggests that Greenspan’s critics were correct in asserting he should keep his mouth shut since his voice is influential.

So let me get this right. Greenspan is so smart, so reliable, and so trusted on economic matters, that we shouldn’t let him speak about the economy.

You know, just in case he may have bad news to deliver.

And this from 60 minutes! Yes, the press is giving Greenspan a hard time for not sufficiently self-censoring himself.

Needless to say, we went back to watching the ball game.

The past 7 years have been for censorship, and in particular self-censorship, particularly in the US. From discussions about weapons of mass destruction in the Oval Office, to the presses efforts to talk about the Iraq war, to transparency in the US economy, censorship is on the march… sponsored, apparently, by your national news broadcaster.

Let’s hope Stewart picks this one up…

On Vacation

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Hi friends…

Sorry to be delinquent on posts but I am here:

and yes, it is possibly the most beautiful place on earth. (this is literally the view out my window right now)

For those curious, this is Chesterman Beach in Tofino, and we have the likes of Tzeporah Berman to thank for the fact that it, and at least some of the surrounding old-growth forests, are largely still intact.

Air Canada and the failure of rewards

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Yesterday I received my threshold bonus from Air Canada for flying too much.

What was it?  Two upgrade certificates to fly Business Class… if you pay for a Latitude Class ticket.

While I’ve always disliked this ‘perk’ Gayle D. recently explained to me in greater detail why this reward program is a total failure for customers.

To begin with, of her 15 or so friends (who are stuck with flying Air Canada regularly) she knows of only one that can fly Latitude class. (I don’t know anyone.)

As a result this threshold bonus is completely ineffective, both as a reward and as an incentive. It fails as a reward because I’ll never enjoy the ‘perk’ of flying business class since no organization I know of pays for Latitude class tickets. Conversely, it fails as an incentive for the same reasons. Because clients won’t pay for Latitude class, I can’t be incented to buy a Latitude class fare.

As a result, I’m willing to wager that at least 85% of Air Canada’s Latitude upgrade certificates go unused. This means that Air Canada chops down trees, send lots of mail and spends on advertising, all to flaunt a perk its customers will rarely, if ever, get to use. Frustrating? You’d better believe it.

God I hope Westjet creates a rewards program. Or that we finally adopt an open skies agreement.

For those wishing to commiserate over some more Air Canada mistreatment stories try Andrew Potter’s recanting of his experience. Of course, Beltzner’s Air Canada inspired Haikus still make me laugh. And not to be outdone, I’ve vented on the subject previously myself.

Netneutrality.ca back up

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Good news! Netneutrality.ca is back up and running after a long, legally imposed, hiatus.

What does net neutrality mean? In short net neutrality is the principle that consumers should control what content, services and applications they use on the Internet. That this use should not be mediated, manipulated or impeded by your internet service provider. Essentially, the cable and phone companies want to charge content providers (e.g. webpages) a premium for preferred access. Sites that pay the premium would load faster than those that don’t and/or would have access to more bandwidth.

Kevin McArthur – the previous owner of the site posted the following note on Facebook explaining why the site was down and why he has handed it over to Michael Geist.

“So most of you know that I had to shut down the neutrality.ca site 6 weeks ago due to a cryptic ‘increasing legal concerns’ reason. Well, I still can’t talk about why exactly I had to do this but there are a few things we can learn.

First, defamation law is fundamentally broken in Canada. Not only are you guilty until proven innocent, but you are expected to mount a 6 figure defense to any filed allegation if you expect to win. This technique is known as a SLAPP lawsuit, and no longer must the agressors actually file papers, as the threat is sufficient enough to make any activist ponder principle or bankruptcy.

I made my choice, [ I really like my MINI cooper ], but others have chosen to stand and fight. Dr. Michael Geist [michaelgeist.ca] who holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, is one such person. He’s stood up for Canadians, and is now being sued by Wayne Crookes in an separate but strikingly similar case to which I was to be subject.

I decided that he was just the right person to stand up for Net Neutrality and that he had the best chance of keeping the site going. As a result, I gave him the Neutrality.ca site, which when shut down was receiving about 20,000 visitors a month.

I’m sure he’ll take the site where I never could, and hopefully we’ll all get Net Neutrality in Canada.

The fight is far from over though, and I need each and every one of you reading this post to tell at least 3 people about Net Neutrality. Blog it. Put banners on your site. Scream it from the rooftops. It doesn’t matter so long as people know about it.

Failure to act on this issue will mean that the Internet as we know it will simply cease to exist, and a commercial medium devoid of non-commercial interests will emerge. Just like Radio and TV before it.

So stand up, take notice, and sign the petition on http://www.neutrality.ca !