Backblog—Canadian Technology Associations

Saskatchewan! Connected free Wi-Fi network zooms past Toronto
August 7, 2007 By Peter Wolchak
Categories: Canadian Technology Associations Wireless
Cisco and the Government of Saskatchewan announced in July that the citizens of Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw now have free Wi-Fi access throughout most of the downtown cores.

The rollout puts these cities more than a year behind Toronto’s One Zone implementation, but Saskatchewan still gets the nod for innovation. Why? Saskatchewan! Connected is free. Toronto Hydro Telecom charges $5 for one hour, $10 for a day and $30 per month.

Saskatchewan’s free network gives citizens of those cities unfettered access to the Web and to e-mail and that means they will use the network. It also means businesses can create cutting-edge Wi-Fi applications. Those two factors could make Saskatchewan a hotbed of mobile innovation.

It was nice for Toronto, for a little while. Being an innovation leader. But hats off to Saskatchewan. Good job, folks. We look forward to seeing this play out. And we wonder which city will be next, because frankly, everyone else is now falling behind.

Peter Wolchak
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Still confused after all these years
June 25, 2007 By Peter Wolchak
Categories: Canadian Technology Associations ICT Hardware and Infrastructure IT Staffing Solutions Professional Services
So it turns out that the business folks still go cross-eyed every time the techies try to explain a new corporate technology. Office technology has been around for years, people fall over themselves to buy new iPods and – according to the ads we see – we're carrying notebooks to summer beaches and docks.

But despite the fact we use gadgets and gizmos every day, the two solitudes of business and tech still can't just get along in the office.

“Business and information technology managers around the world share a common challenge: IT managers' tech talk baffles business managers and fails to communicate IT imperatives,” ran a release on the Global Solution study by Info-Tech Research Group and KnowledgeStorm.

Michael O'Neil, research fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, is quoted in the release.
“Lack of alignment between the IT and business management sides of the enterprise means there's a Tower of Babel scenario happening in most businesses when IT program requirements are discussed.”

His advice? “Either the IT managers need to develop strong communications skills to
put forward the needs and benefits of IT investment, or they need to find suppliers who excel at articulating value to executives. Businesses that don't recognize this disconnect – and take steps to address it – risk falling behind their competitors.”

Well sure, but it's been decades since computers first entered the workplace and a decade since they became part of the daily experience of most business people. So if the two sides of the corporate fence still can't pull together on business initiatives, why think they ever will?

Personally, I think these two solitudes will remain just that, at least to a large extent. Technology is only going to get more complex – and so harder to explain – and the pace of business change and growth is only getting faster, so business people have less time to spend learning about tech.

But – and here's the fun point – as all of that happens, it is also becoming even more critical that businesses deploy and exploit technology effectively, because that drives differentiation and efficiency.

So where does all that leave us? Well, despite the challenges, business people need to understand technology as well as they can. Read Backbone, because as self serving as that comment is our entire raison d'être is to explain tech to business folks. Second, IT people need to walk a mile in those shiny shoes the business folks wear. Maybe that means all new IT hires should spend two weeks job shadowing a few of the suits, maybe that means sending them to a business course. But smart companies will be proactive about getting the two camps to play nicely with each other, at the same time acknowledging that tech people are tech people because they don't want to wear ties and stare at Excel, and vice versa for the suits.

And yes, that's easier said than done. If all this was easy, it would have been done already.
The full report is available at www.infotech.com or www.knowledgestorm.ca

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