Category Archives: technology

Open Source Chamber of Commerce

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One of my favourite sessions from last week’s Open Cities unconference was a session Mark Surman proposed around what an Open Source Chamber of Commerce might look like.

So what is an Open Source Chamber of Commerce? Good question. Mark’s initial thinking was…

…to focus and build buzz around the significant volume of open source activity that is quietly (and disconnectedly) happening in Toronto. The number of companies, projects and research labs focused on open source is growing in this city, yet they are spread out a thousand nooks and crannies. There is no sense of community, no sense of anything bigger. Of course, that’s totally okay on one level. No need to invent community, especially when most people are tapped in globally. However, there is another level where staying disconnected locally represents a missed opportunity to make Toronto a better place to work on open source. (read Mark’s full post here.)

The session sparked a good debate about what such a Chamber might look like – or even what membership would entail.

The possibility that most excited me was how such a Chamber could serve as a home and talk shop for corporations or organizations that agree to “donate” a specific number or percent of their workforces’ hours, towards an open source projects. Many organizations (indeed most) use open source products, and some of them allow their IT employees to contribute towards them (for which there is a good business case). The Chamber could serve to connect CIO’s and other representatives from these firms and organizations with one another as well as with key figures within open-source projects. Up and coming open-source communities could pitch their software and community. Members could exchange best practices on how to best contribute to OS projects and on how their organizations can most effectively leverage OS software.

In addition, the Chamber could serve as an interest group, an advocate for infrastructure and policies that would make Toronto a more attractive location for Open-Source projects and contributors specifically and IT workers generally. According to the Municipal Government, Toronto already has the third largest cluster of Information and Communication Technology in North America (around 90,000 ITC facilities with 100 employees or greater) so there is a rich pool to draw from. On top of that – as Mark also notes – there is an interesting group of people affiliated with various open-source projects in Toronto. Why not figure out what Toronto is doing right and amplify it?

(As a brief aside, check out the Seneca FSOSS conference website if you haven’t yet – here’s a group that’s been doing a lot of heavy lifting on this front already.)

Mark and I are simply batting around the idea and would love feedback (positive and critical).

Open Cities – A Success…

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Finally beginning to relax after a hectic week of speeches, work and helping out with the Open Cities unconference.

Open Cities was dynamite – it attracted an interesting cross section of people from the arts, publishing, IT, non-profit and policy sectors (to name a few). This was my first unconference and so the most interesting take away was seeing how an openly conducted (un)conference – one with virtually no agenda or predetermined speakers – can work so well. Indeed, it worked better than most conferences I’ve been to. (Of course, it helps when it is being expertly facilitated by someone like Misha G.)

Here’s a picture chart of the agenda coming together mid-morning (thank you to enigmatix1 for the photos)

There was no shortage of panels convened by the participants. I know Mark K. is working on getting details from each of them up on the Open Cities wiki as quickly as possible. Hopefully these can be organized more succinctly in the near future (did I just volunteer myself?).

There were several conversation I enjoyed – hope to share more on them over the coming days – but wanted to start with the idea of helping grow the Torontopedia. The conversation was prompted by several people asking why Toronto does not have its own wiki (it does). Fortunately, Himy S. – who is creating the aforementioned Torontopedia – was on hand to share in the conversation.

A Toronto wiki – particularly one that leverages Google Maps’ functionality could provide an endless array of interesting content. Indeed the conversation about what information could be on such a wiki forked many times over. Two ideas seemed particularly interesting:

The first idea revolved around getting the city’s history up on a wiki. This seemed like an interesting starting point. Such information, geographically plotted using Google Maps, would be a treasure trove for tourists, students and interested citizens. More importantly, there is a huge base of public domain content, hidden away in the city’s archives, that could kick start such a wiki. The ramp up costs could be kept remarkably low. The software is open sourced and the servers would not be that expensive. I’m sure an army of volunteer citizens would emerge to help transfer the images, stories and other media online. Indeed I’d wage a $100,000 grant from the Trillium Foundation, in connection with the City Archives, Historica and/or the Dominion Institute, as well as some local historical societies could bring the necessary pieces together. What a small price to pay to give citizens unrestricted access to, and the opportunity to add to, they stories and history of their city.

The interesting part about such a wiki is that it wouldn’t have to be limited to historical data. Using tags, any information about the city could be submitted. As a result, the second idea for the wiki was to get development applications and proposals online so citizens can learn about how or if their neighborhoods will be changing and how they have evolved.

Over the the course of this discussion I was stunned to learn that a great deal of this information is kept hidden by what – in comparison to Vancouver at least – is a shockingly secretive City Hall. In Vancouver, development applications are searchable online and printed out on giant billboards (see photo) and posted on the relevant buildings.Development application According to one participant, Toronto has no such requirements! To learn anything about a development proposal you must first learn about it (unclear how this happens) and then go down to City Hall to look at a physical copy of the proposal (it isn’t online?). Oh, and you are forbidden to photocopy or photograph any documents. Heaven forbid people learn about how their neighbourhood might change…

Clearly a wiki won’t solve this problem in its entirety – as long as Toronto City Hall refuses to open up access to its development applications. However, collecting the combined knowledge of citizens on a given development will help get more informed and hopefully enable citizens to better participate in decisions about how their neighbourhood will evolve. It may also create pressure on Toronto City Hall to start sharing this information more freely.

To see more photo’s go to flickr and search the tags for “open cities.”

Open Media

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For those interested in how ‘open source‘ systems can drive down the costs of establishing a media presence should take a look at The Article 13 Initiative.

By leveraging open-source technologies and providing training The Article 13 Initiative reduces the barriers to entry into the journalism market and reduces the costs of technology for established players (Article 13 is currently working closely with Rafigui, a French language journal focused on the youth market). With less money being spent on software, more money can be devoted to other priorities, like reporters and/or other staffers.

For those interested in open-source, be it in the arts, policy, software, media, etc… consider signing up for the Open Cities unconference taking place in Toronto on June 23rd. No one has updated me on how many slots are left so apologies if it is already full…

The Creative Econom(ii)

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As many of you know I’ve recently become an owner of a Nintendo Wii – that fun games console you control, not by pressing buttons, but my using a motion controlled wand (e.g. when you play video game golf, you actually swing the wand like a golf club). Needless to say it’s hilarious and fun.

One interesting feature of the Wii is that it allows you to download channels that bring content to you via your console. One of these is the Everybody Votes channel. This channel offers up a constantly updated set of questions – such as “Graffiti is…: Urban Art or Defacing Property?” – on which you vote. What makes it particularly interesting is that you get to see the result broken down by gender, province, country, etc…

Obviously, the survey data gathered by the Everybody Votes channel is deeply skewed and not representative of the population as a whole. But I think this is also what makes it so interesting.

For example, recently, the program asked the question “Which is worse to have stolen from you: Things or Ideas?”

Interestingly 50.6% of participating Canadian Wii users selected “Ideas.” So just over half of Canadian Wii users believe it’s worse to have recognition for an idea stolen than it is a tangible, likely fungible, asset.

Young people valuing ideas over things? Video-gamers valuing ideas over things? Could be a sign of the creative economy – where one’s ability dream or mash up new ideas is what’s valued most. I’m willing to bet that most Wii users are young professionals acculturated to this new reality.

wireless number portability

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So I may have simply been out of the loop but… did anybody else see this CRTC statement announcing that, as of March 14th 2007, wireless phone numbers will be portable? This means that when you switch from Bell to Rogers or Telus (or vice-versa) you can take your current phone number with you. Great news! For those thinking about renewing your contract you may want to wait two months, that way if you change service providers you won’t have to deal with the hassle of informing everyone about your new number.

Maybe I’ve been in a bubble, but I’m not sure word of this has gotten out. With this issue now out of the way what the teleco industry really needs to heat up is for skype to offer its SkypeIn service in Canada. Sadly, that ball is in Skype’s court and there is no sign of any movement.

PS – Thank you Sahar for the link