Plastic bag fees, inflation and lessons for bottled water

bottled-water-234x300Just over a month ago the grocery store Metro introduced a five-cent fee for single-use bags in Ontario and Quebec. According to a recent press release Metro grocery stores distributed 70 per cent fewer bags compared to the monthly average and demand for reusable bags has increased by five times. As Metro spokesperson, Selena Fiacco notes, this “confirm(s) that customers are willing to change their shopping habits.”

This is great news. Fewer plastic bags in the world can only be a good thing.

It would be nice to think that the lessons from this press release could influence those involved in the bottled water debate. As some of my readers know, I’ve argued that efforts to ban bottled water have been poorly thought through. The above press release plays to the point of these posts: people are price sensitive and that we can nudge them to make better choices. This strikes me as a far less problematic than removing water as an option from corner stores during an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Why remove the healthiest choice? However, this does not mean I wish to see an increase, or even continued use of disposable container bottles.

The above press release reminds me of the (underutilized) power of deposits. The key with a deposit is that it must significant enough to encourage users to adopt an alternative (reusable container) or recycle the disposable container. Am not 100% certain but my sense is that deposits on bottles have not changed much since their inception. With inflation factored in, this means the relative value of the deposit against the overall purchase price of a beverage has declined markedly in the last 30+ years.

Consider my home province of British Columbia (which has the oldest legislated deposit-return system in North America) and its 5¢ refundable deposit. If this amount has remained unchanged since 1970 when deposits were introduced (has any jurisdiction raised deposit values?) then, according to the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator a 5¢ deposit in 1970 is worth 28¢ in 2009 dollars. Imagine if small water bottles had a 30¢ deposit on them? And if 2L bottles had a 75¢ or $1.00 deposit. I suspect people would be slightly more motivated to not litter, and some people would be further motivated to use their reusable containers. I’d even be willing to consider a still higher deposit to encourage re-use. Regardless of the actual deposit, such a system has the benefit of not punishing healthy choices (like, say water) and thereby indirectly reward unhealthy choices (like, say Coke). It simply treats all beverages equally.

With a little imagination and tweaking the humble deposit could once again be a powerful influencer in the debate on how to deal with bottled drinks.

For some interesting facts on deposits and container waste, check out this site.

Remixing Angie Byron to create the next Million Mozillians

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As I’ve noted in some previous posts, Angie Byron gave a presentation on getting more women in open source. My feeling is that the systems, culture and tools we put in place to attract more women into open source are the same systems we need to attract lots of new people into open source. Something that would benefit individual open source projects and the open source community in general.

One of the key things Angie talks about is that we often have a specific view of who can participate in open source – something she identifies as a sweet spot of skills and passion:

I suspect that, at the moment, this is broadly true. As a model however, it has limited scale. Not everyone can “do” everything about the problems they care about in an open source project. Worse still, since Open Source participants (rightly) care more about action than talk, those who are interested but insufficiently equipped often get marginalized. This means either a) potential supporters are turned off or away or b) these people become raging uglies who post unhelpful rants and talk about open source projects being “unsupportive” or “unresponsive.” The former is a loss to the projects, the second is a drain.

As I think about Canada25 and some of the work I’ve done helping open source projects manage their community, it isn’t so much that we want to find and more effectively tap into that sweet spot, it’s that we should be trying to figure out how to manage the open source process so we don’t have to exclusively rely on those in the sweet spot.

That begins with having a better model of what current contributors look like. To that end I’ve remixed Angie’s slide and tried to make it more to what I think “scale” would look like.

Women in Open Source remixed slide 4The fact is, there are A LOT more people who see of problem/bug/missing feature in open source than those who want to see it fixed or can do something about it. Indeed, for those of us who care about Mozilla, if we want to find the next Million Mozillians, this red group is a good (but not the only) place to start.

The real question is, can we break down problems so rather than relying on (a relatively few) key people we can rely on a process instead? This is, in theory, what tools like Bugzilla are supposed to help us do and what, I suspect, many OS projects spend a lot of time thinking about.

Women in Open Source remixed Slide 5

It would be interesting to try to map all the tools that allow us to move ideas and issues from “that’s dumb” to “I want to see it fixed” to “I can do something about it.” How are the people in each phase connected, how can they exchange information and how can they influence one another. More importantly, can we find ways to break the problem down to at least cooperate and possibly even collaborate on these issues.

But the larger issue – and this is where I think it matters to finding the next Million Mozillians, is how do we migrate people up the food chain. How do we shift people from “That’s Dumb” to saying “I want to see it fixed” and from “I want to see it fixed” to “I can do something about it!” This is where I think effective community management has the most to offer – developing a tools, a culture and environment that are encouraging, supportive and still effective and efficient.

Women in Open Source remixed Slide 6

Part of this has to do with finding it easier to accommodate people into a broader set of roles. As Angie Byron (and others) point out, participation isn’t just about coding: It’s about donations, advocacy, documentation, marketing, user support, testing, translations, graphic design, event coordination, bug reports and feature requests, issue queue “farming”, usability, project management, and (among other things) coding. But it is also about nurturing those who have the skills but may sit on the periphery or outside the sweet spot altogether – getting them comfortable with the project, the community and the processes. Often open source projects have a rough and tumble approach to newbies, I’m not sure that this is the best path to growth.

If a given open source community (and I’d argue the open source community writ large) wants to grow, fighting over coders in the sweet spot will be one approach, but its sustainability (and growth) may be more limited. However, figuring out how to task up the other activities so your coders can focus more and more narrowly on just coding may be another, and ultimately more effective route to success. As Angie points out, creating more effective tools is one part of getting there – but it is only one part. Figuring out the culture and soft skills that will get you there is the other.

Creating the Open Data Bargain in Cities

Embedded below is the talk I’ve given to both community hackers (at Open Web Vancouver) as well as City of Vancouver Staff regarding the opportunities and challenges around open data and the open motion. (Here’s an update on where Vancouver is at courtesy of some amazing work by city staff).

For those willing to brave through the presentation (or simply fast forward to the end) one piece I felt is most important is the talk’s last section which outlines what I term “The Bargain” in a reference to the informal contract Clay Shirky says exists between every Web 2.0 site and their users.

The bargain comes last, because it matters only if there is a promise (open and shared data) and a set of tools (applications languages) that are already working together. The bargain is also the most complex aspect of a functioning group, in part because it is the least explicit aspect and in part because it is the one the users have the biggest hand in creating, which means it can’t be completely determined in advance… A bargain helps clarify what you can expect of others and what they can expect of you.

– Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody (my italics, page 270)

I believe that in an open city, a similar bargain exists between a government and its citizens. To make open data a success and to engage the community a city must listen, engage, ask for help, and of course, fulfil its promise to open data as quickly as possible. But this bargain runs both ways. The city must to its part, but so, on the flip side, must the local tech community. They must participate, be patient (cities move slower than tech companies), offer help and, most importantly, make the data come alive for each other, policy makers and citizens through applications and shared analysis.

Creating a City That Thinks like the Web (Vancouver Remix)

View more documents from David Eaves.

Articles I'm digesting 24/7/2009

Been a while since I’ve done one of these and I’ve got a lot of great pieces I’ve been reading. So let’s get to it.

Designs on Policy by Allison Arieff (via David B.) and TED Talk: Are we in Control of our own Decisions? by Dan Ariely

I keep hearing about the interaction between policy and design (most flatteringly an architecture professor said I had a designer’s mind” the other day) and so over the past few years I try (with some success) to read as much as I can about design. David B sent me the Arieff piece which, of course, weds my passion for public policy with design. One thing I like is the way the piece doesn’t try to boil the ocean – it doesn’t claim (like in other places) that good design will solve every problem – just that it will help mitigate against it. Most intriguing for me is this line:

“It feels weird to have to defend design’s importance, yet also completely necessary. The United Kingdom has had a policy in place since 1949; Japan since 1956. In countries like Finland, Sweden, South Korea and the Netherlands, design is a no-brainer, reflected by the impeccable elegance, usability and readability of everything in those countries from currency to airport signage.”

A design policy? How civilized. That’s something I could get behind – especially after listening to Dan Ariely’s TED talk which is downright frightening at moments given how susceptible our decisions are (and most disconcerting the decisions of our doctors, dates and who knows whose) to the layout/perception of the choice.

Lost in the Cloud by John Zittrain

A few months ago I was in Ottawa and – surprisingly and unplanned – ended up at a pub with Richard Stallman. I asked him what he thought of Cloud Computing (a term he believes is too vague to be helpful) but was nonetheless viscerally opposed to it. Many of the reasons he cites are covered by Zittrain in this thoughtful piece. The fact is, Cloud Computing (or whatever term you may wish to use) is very convenient and it carries with it huge privacy, security and access challenges. This is potentially the next big challenge for those of us who support and Open Internet – the possibility of the internet being segmented into a series of walled gardens controlled by those who run the cloud servers is real and must be thought through. If you care about public policy and/or are a geek, read this.

Is it Time to Get Rid of the Foreign Service Designation?

Am I reading my own articles? No. I am, however, absorbed by the fascinating and constructive conversation taking place – mostly involving public servants – in the comments section underneath. Here are just some snippets:

  • “For 8 years I worked at DFAIT, observing and participating in the culture within the walls of a building named after a diplomat that Wikipedia states “is generally considered among the most influential Canadians of the 20th century.” Sadly, the elitism (whether earned or not) is only the cause of a bigger problem; lack of desire to collaborate, and almost no desire to change in an era where the only constant is change.”
  • “…as I left the issue of the FS classification was quietly but passionately part of the watercooler discussion. From my perspective, in spite of a nasty AG report on the dismal state of affairs of HR at DFAIT, the department has more pressing problems, such as credibility with central agencies, a coherent sense of mission and talent attraction and retention.”
  • “I am also a bit puzzled by people who saw your piece as an attack on DFAIT – you’re advocating for human resource reform to improve the department, after all. I’m still not sure why you think DFAIT is required though, or why Canadian foreign policy suffers when departments forumulate it without involving DFAIT.”
  • “It’s good to see that even Craig Weichel, President of PAFSO, is open to your suggestion that it might be good to have more foreign service officers circulate through other government departments…”

Putting the Cart Before the Horse by Peter Cowan

A great blog post about the lessons from implementing social media in a government agency. Peter Cowan – an Open Everything alum – is part of the team at Natural Resources Canada team that has been doing amazing work (NRCan is one of the most forward looking ministries in the world in this regard). Peter’s piece focuses on misunderstanding the “business case” for social media and how it often trips up large government bureaucracies. This abbreviated but extended quote on why traditional IT business cases don’t work or aren’t necessary is filled with great thoughts and comments:

“They (Social Media tools) are simple and viral and they cost very little to implement so the traditional requirements for upfront business needs definition to control risk and guide investment are not as important. In fact it would take more time to write a proposal and business case than to just put something out there and see what happens.

More importantly though social media are fundamentally new technologies and the best way to understand their business value is to get them into the hands of the users and have them tell you. To a large degree this is what has happened with the NRCan Wiki. Most of the innovative uses of the wiki came from the employees experimenting. They have not come from a clearly articulated business needs analysis or business case done in advance.

In fact, determining business needs in advance of having a tool in hand may actually lead to status quo approaches and tools. There is the famous Henry Ford… quote goes something like “if I had asked people what they wanted in a car they would have said faster horses”. We social media folks usually deploy this quote to highlight the weakness of focusing too much on responding to people’s perceptions of their existing business needs as a determinant of technology solution since people invariably define their needs in terms of improving the way they are already doing things, not how things could be done in a fundamentally new way.

Genius.

Google’s Microsoft Moment by Anil Dash

A fantastic piece about how Google’s self-perception is causing it to make strategically unsound choices at the same time as its public perception may be radically shifting (from cute fuzzy Gizmo in to mean nasty Stripe). A thoughtful critique and a great read on how the growth and maturation of a company’s culture needs to match its economic growth. I’ve added Anil Dash to by must read blogs – he’s got lots of great content.

Open Cities – the Counter Reaction

The Washington Monthly has an interesting piece about how some bureaucracies are having a reactionary (but albeit unsurprising) reaction to open data initiatives. The article focuses on how the data used by one application, Stumble Safely “helps you find the best bars and a safe path to stumble home on” by mashing together DC Crime Data, DC Road Polygons, DC Liquor Licenses, DC Water, DC Parks, and DC Metro Stations.

However, arming citizens with precise knowledge doesn’t appear to make one group of people happy: The Washington, D.C. police department. As the article notes:

But a funny thing has happened since Eric Gundersen launched his application: Stumble Safely has become less useful, rather than more so. When you click on the gray and red crime-indicating dots that have appeared on the map in the past few months, you don’t get much information about what exactly happened—all you get is a terse, one-word description of the category of the incident (”assault,” or “theft”) and a time, with no details of whether it was a shootout or just a couple of kids punching each other in an alley.

This isn’t Gundersen’s fault—it’s the cops’. Because while Kundra and the open-data community were fans of opening up the city’s books, it turned out that the Metropolitan Police Department was not. Earlier this year, as apps like Stumble Safely grew in number and quality, the police stopped releasing the detailed incident reports—investigating officers’ write-ups of what happened—into the city’s data feed. The official reason for the change is concern over victims’ and suspects’ privacy. But considering that before the clampdown the reports were already being released with names and addresses redacted, it’s hard to believe that’s the real one. More likely, the idea of information traveling more or less unedited from cops’ keyboards to citizens’ computer screens made the brass skittish, and the department reacted the way bureaucracies usually do: it made public information harder to get. The imperatives of Government 2.0 were thwarted by the instincts of Government 1.0.

This is just one in a long list of ways that old-style government (1.0) is reacting against technology. The end result sadly however is that the action taken by the police doesn’t reduce crime, it just reduces the public’s confidence in the police force. This is just a small example of the next big debate that will take place at all levels of government: Will your government try to control information and services or will it develop trust by being both accountable and open to others building on its work? You can’t have it both ways and I suspect citizens – particularly creatives – are going to strongly prefer the latter.

This is a crosspost from my Open Cities Blog at CreativeClass.com

The Rise of the Open City: the current state of affairs

I’ve been following with great interest the number of cities partaking in open data initiatives. With the online announcement yesterday of a motion going before Calgary’s City Council, things are again on the move. So what is the count at now? This little table tries to capture who’s done what so far. If I’m missing something please do let me know – I will try to update this from time to time.

City

Date of initial activity

Action

Note

Website
Washington, DC October 12th, 2008 Created a data portal on city website and launched apps for democracy Action was taken by the CIO, no city motion passed. Currently launching a second apps for democracy contest. http://data.octo.dc.gov/
Vancouver, BC May 21st, 2009 Vancouver City Council Passes the Open Motion Open Data website is in the works, release date unknown. N/A
San Francisco, CA June 16th, 2009 City of SF posts a craigslist request looking for developers to help create a data.gov like site for the city No motion passed, there is an OpenSF blog where current activities and ideas are shared. N/A
Nanaimo, BC June 22nd, 2009 City launches an open data website No motion passed http://www.nanaimo.ca/datafeeds/
New York City, NY June 25th, 2009 A bill is being circulated by Council Member Gale Brewer Has announced a “Big Apps” competition for apps that use 80 soon to be released city data sets. N/A
Calgary, AB July 27th, 2009 City of Calgary tables an Open Motion to be debated N/A N/A
Toronto, ON 2010 Announces (April 7th, 2009) intention of creating open data website Mayor David Miller announces Toronto will create an open data website by fall of 2009 at Mesh 09 conference N/A
Ottawa, ON I’ve heard there is movement in Ottawa, have not found any information

Women in Open Source and Florida's Bohemian Index

Just a quick somewhat brief follow up to yesterday’s post on women in open source.

I got lots of great feedback and comments for which I’m grateful and wanted to say one or two things.

First, I recognize the title to the post, particularly the “Canary in a Coal Mine” was far from perfect. The exclusion of women from Open Source is not – as some might read the title – an existential threat to open source. OS communities will not collapse or fail if more women are not included (the broader IT industry seems to continue, for better for worse despite a poor male to female ratio). The point is that growth will, however, be limited. Moreover the success of OS communities  – defined in terms of an active and engaged community, one whose members treat each other well and where differences and disagreements are resolved respectfully and effectively – might also be limited.

Actually I’d go further – Richard Florida found a positive correlation between gay household and regional (especially tech) economic development among cities. This quote is from one of his academic papers on the subject:

Florida and Gates (2001) found a positive association between concentrations of gay households and regional development. This tolerance or open culture premium acts on the demand side by reducing barriers to entry for human capital; increasing the efficiencies of human capital externalities and knowledge spillovers; promoting self-expression and new idea generation; and facilitating entrepreneurial mobilization of resources, thus acting on regional income and real estate prices.

The same hypothesis could could hold true for open source communities with regard to women.  Gay men in America and women in tech are both (sadly still) marginalized groups. As such, women are the canary in the coal mine in that the more women you find in an open source community – the more likely that community is tolerant and open to new ideas and self-expression.  In short, the number of women participants is probably a pretty one good metric of the community’s health.

Second, I think the stats around the post are quite interesting. So far:

Page hits: 600+

Feedburner “reach:” 2379

Tweets: 7 from women, 1 from an aggregator

Comments: 10 comments from 7 people (not including mine). All from women

2 emails: both from men

In short, no men participated publicly the the post. My inclination is not to believe that men in open source don’t see this as an issue (I’m sure some don’t, but I know many do), but I do suspect that many don’t feel like it is safe to talk about. That’s a problem in of itself. (Alternatively, and I accept this as a very real possibility, but my blog may not be popular enough to gain attention – or that people haven’t had a ton of time to respond).

As the author it is important to me that nothing in yesterday’s post lead open source participants to believe (or feel accused of) deliberately excluding women. However, I know that reading it, that accusation can feel like it is (implicitly) there anyway. A key to success in communicating around difficult subjects is to separate impact from intent. Open source communities, and the men who participate within them may not be trying to exclude women or other groups (intent). But that doesn’t mean women aren’t being or shouldn’t feel, excluded (impact). The key is for a community to acknowledge and accept that it can be having an impact without that intent – and the solution is to get really intentional about the skills, tools and culture of the community to change the impact.

It was important to me that yesterday’s post resonate with the women who read it AND that men involved in open source read the post without feeling accused of being sexist or part of a sexist community. The goal is to generate discussion on how we can change the impact since, given most of the people I know in OS, the intent is already there.

Women in Open Source – the canary in the coal mine

The other month I had the pleasure watching Angie Byron give the keynote lecture at Open Web Vancouver on Women in Open Source. The synopsis from Open Web Vancouver:

The open source world is rich with opportunities: Working with people of all cultures from all over the world; Collaborating with some of the biggest and brightest minds on the ultimate solutions to complicated problems; Changing the world by providing free tools for organizations such as non-profits, educational institutions, and governments; Building up marketable skills and practical knowledge.

But yet, so many women are missing out. Why is that? And what can we do to change it? This talk will endeavour to answer these questions, as well as provide tips and strategies for women who want to dip their toe into the waters.

I wish I could embed the video on my blog but alas, it is not possible, so I encourage you to wander over to Angie’s blog and watch the video there.

The important lesson about Angie’s talk is that it isn’t just about women. The power and capacity of an open source community is determined by the quantity and quality of its social capital. If a community fails to invest in either – if it turns off or away qualified people because its culture (however unintentionally) discriminates against a gender, race or group – then it limits its growth and potential. The same is true of a community culture that doesn’t allow certain groups to improve their social capital. These may seem like large, intangible questions, but they are not. I’m sure every open source community turns some people off. Sometimes the reasons are good – the fit might not be right. But sometimes, I’m certain the reasons are not good. And the community may never get the feedback it needs because the moderate, productive person who walks away doesn’t create a scene, they may just quietly disappear (or worse they never showed up to begin with).

So Angie matters not just because women are missing out (although this is true, important and urgent). Angie’s talk matters because women are just the canary in the coal mine. Millions of people are missing out – people with ideas and the ability to make contributions get turned away because of a bad experience, because a community’s culture is off putting, too aggressive, not welcoming or not supportive.

For me its opened up a whole new way of thinking about my writing on open source communities. After Angie’s talk I sought her out as I felt we’d been talking about the same things. I’m interested in developing norms, skills and tools within an open source community that allows more people to participate and collaborate more effective, in short how do we think about community management. Angie is talking about developing open source communities that support and engage women. Working towards solving one helps us solve the other. So if you wake up today and notice there are no (other) women on the IRC channel with you… maybe we should both individually and collectively as a community engage in a little introspection and think about what we could change. Doing so won’t only make the community more inclusive, it will make it more productive and effective as well.

I Live on a Green Roof – and you should too! (summer update)

A few months ago I blogged about how I lived on a green roof, how much I enjoyed it, and outlined some of the economic benefits green roofs create (as well as why they should be part of our stimulus package).

At the time I promised to repost pictures of the roof in the summer since – at the time – it was winter and so it wasn’t that vibrant. Part of me wished I’d taken these in the spring when the cherry blossoms were bursting but these pics are pretty nice too.

5 months later I can confirm that this building still is an example of urban planning done right.

The nicest thing about the roof is that it’s just an inordinate amount of green space to have just outside your apartment/townhouse in a urban setting. I confess that unlike some of the other tenants I haven’t played bocce or croquet in the green space in the middle of the building but at some point this summer I hope to. I do however use the collective BBQ’s quite frequently which is a real joy. Indeed, running across the street to the Whole Foods Paycheck and grabbing a pre-made burger and dropping it on the grill is just awesome.

Mostly though it is nice to open one’s door to a quiet city side walk, trees, grass and shrubs – despite being on a 5th story rooftop.

Now that it has gotten quite hot here in Vancouver I’d be curious how much lower the electrical bill is for the Winners, Starbucks, Save-on-Foods, Home Depot, TD Bank and other stores that are below us. (Of course, I wonder the same in winter as I’m assuming they are better insulated from both the heat and cold. One the downside my apartment (it is really more like a row house that is on the building’s roof) does not have a green roof above it and on warm days it gets pretty hot – especially the loft office space where I do most of my work/writing. Of course, this is probably true of many Vancouver apartments give  buildings here don’t tend to have central AC.

Also apologies for the stitching job with these photos – I’m working with some pretty rudimentary tools.

Roof 2c

This is the BBQ I use most, gives me a great view of downtown at the mountains, on the other side I look up at City Hall.

This is the BBQ I use most, gives me a great view of downtown at the mountains, on the other side I look up at City Hall.

roof-4c

I (embarrassingly) don’t use any of the planters but from what I can tel some residents grow herbs and vegetables, others just grow flowers…

Open Data at the City of Vancouver – An Update 16/7/2009

matrix

For those interested in the progress around the Open Motion (or Open3 as city staff have started to call it) I’ve a little update.

Last week during a visit to city hall to talk about the motion I was shown a preview of the website the city has created to distribute and share data sets. For those unsure what such a website would look like, the baseline and example I’m measuring the city against is, of course, the Washington DC website. At the moment the city’s prospective website looks more like the (also impressive) beta site the City of Nanaimo set up after ChangeCamp – a little simpler and with a lot fewer data sets, but it is the first step.

As an aside kudos to the City of Nanaimo team which has been pushing open data and especially geo-data for quite some time as this must read Time magazine piece (yes, a must read Time magazine piece) will attest.

Anyway… back to Vancouver. The fact that the city has a beta website with a (very) modest amount of data ready to launch is a testament to the hard work and effort of the City’s IT staff. Rarely in my work with government’s have I seen something move so quickly and so needless to say… I’m quite excited. At the moment, I don’t know when the beta data site will go live – there are still a few remaining issues being worked on – but as soon as it launches I will be writing a blog post.

In the interim, big kudos should also go to the City’s Archives who posted a number of videos from the archives online and created it’s own YouTube Channel. They received so much traffic over the videos that the servers almost ground to a halt. Awesome, I say. It just goes to show how much interest there is out there.

Also exciting is that my post on how open data makes garbage collection sexy has inspired two local hackers (Luke and Kevin) to scrape the city’s garbage calendar and hand created digital versions of the city’s garbage maps to create the app I spec’ed out in the blog post. (I’ll have more on that, including links, in a few weeks) Luke also suggested I start recording other app ideas that come to me so over at the Vancouver Data Google group which was created on the fly by local coders in the audience during my and Andrea’s presentation at Open Web Vancouver. I’ve asked people to share their ideas for applications (mobile or desktop) that they’d like to see created with open data.

Sooooo… if there is an app you’d like to see created please post it to the google group or send me an email or write it in the comments below. No guarantees that it will be created but I’m hoping to help organize some hack-a-thons (or as my city friends prefer… code sprints). Having some ideas for people to sink their teeth into is always helpful.