Backblog

Later today, Industry Minister Christian Paradis will deliver a speech that will provide an update on the government's digital economy strategy. The speech is likely to point to the recently launched Digital Technology Adoption Pilot Program, talk about moving forward with copyright and privacy legislation, describe work on spectrum, and indicate that a decision has still not been made on the removal of foreign investment restrictions. In other words, basically repackage several earlier speeches on the same issue.

Computers are not only getting faster than expected but also smarter. Forecasting the future of technology is difficult, says Richard Worzel, speaking at the CIO Peer Forum in April this year, because in many ways, what the technology will be capable of is not as important as what people will want done.

Earlier this week, I was at a public lecture given by Carolyn Hank, an information professor at McGill University, on archiving considerations for blogs. Archiving isn't a topic that stirs many people's interest (no offense to my archivist friends), let alone those in the notoriously now-oriented world of digital media.

Content is part of the front line of your business which is why you can’t afford not to pay it the attention it deserves. What is content strategy? And what should you do once you've hired a content strategist?

Big news on the open government front where Embassy is reporting that Statistics Canada will make all of its online data free starting early next year.

It's time to get ready for Canada's anti-spam legislation which is expected to come into force early  in 2012. New violations have been listed, strong penalties laid down and a spam reporting centre established to support enforcement of the legislation.

Last week, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission released its much-anticipated usage based billing decision. While the ruling only focused on the use of data caps (or UBB) as between Internet providers, the issue garnered national attention with over 500,000 Canadians signing a petition against Internet data caps and the government providing clear signals that it would overrule the Commission if it maintained its support for the practice.

Do you keep a close eye on your servers…and is it still necessary to do so? We’ve talked to a few businesses over the course of the summer that have experienced serious downtime, outages, information loss and irreparable damage due to this summer’s significant natural disasters.

Napster Canada has advised its customers that it is shutting down operations effective December 16, 2011. The move comes weeks after Napster US became part of Rhapsody and users were assured that Canadians would be unaffected by the move.

Niel Nickolaisen poses the question, "How do we deliver the right products, in the optimal market windows, at the lowest cost, while increasing productivity and meeting customers' changing needs and innovating?"

Learn about understanding channels in terms of your customer, getting marketing campaigns to work together to achieve the outcomes you're looking for and measuring only what is important.

I began to write this blog post using my newly acquired iPhone 4S, but once I had access to my laptop, I reverted to a more comfortable (and familiar) form factor. Until recently, I was a strong advocate for the Blackberry, which I have used for the last seven years; however, the recent network outage did impact me and resulted in missed calls and communications that needed to be acted upon earlier than received.

If moving your organization's communications to digital seems a daunting task, learn from this case study of a successful migration.

In a pair of editorials recently (http://goo.gl/Tv2gE and http://goo.gl/0qSGQ) I discussed the problems at RIM and criticized the company both for its actual performance and for the way it communicated (entirely failed to communicate) with customers during the recent data outage.

Today [November 2, 2011] we published our highly anticipated Clash of the Titans report. Last year’s report, which provided a comparison of SAP vs. Oracle based on our independent experience and research, was our most popular and most referenced research article of the year. This year, we created a new version to not just include updated research data but also add Microsoft Dynamics to the mix.

87% of Canadians support the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) and 9 in 10 people are interested in having access to their own medical records.

As we close out 2011, we’re seeing many companies put ERP implementation projects on their 2012 dockets. For a large subset of these companies, it means wrapping up ERP selection projects and finalizing contractual terms before the holidays kick-in. These businesses are aiming to hit the ground running with implementation when 2012 rolls around.

Great start to Cisco's Collaboration Summit today here in Miami Beach. Having been to a few of these, it's really interesting to see how the overall messaging has evolved, along with all the new offerings that keep coming. I don't say that last point lightly, as Cisco is working very hard to address as many touch points as possible around how people get things done in the workplace. Sure, it all drives network usage, and that's good business for Cisco. There's a higher motive at play though, and there's little doubt that Cisco is trying to be a lead author in the next great American novel, Work 2.0.

Why do organizations spend more and more on IT while questioning its validity at the same time?

Earlier this fall, I wrote about the return of file sharing lawsuits to Canada as the copyright owners of the film the Hurt Locker obtained a court order requiring three major ISPs - Bell, Videotron, and Cogeco - to reveal the identities of dozens of subscribers alleged to have downloaded the movie. I noted that the targeted Canadians would likely face the prospect of demands to pay thousands of dollars in order to settle the case (or spend thousands in legal fees fighting the claims in court).

The CRTC released its much anticipated decision on usage based billing this afternoon, rejecting the wholesale UBB model that came within weeks of taking effect and Bell's revised Aggregated Volume Pricing model, in favour a capacity-based approach that is closer to that proposed by the independent ISPs and MTS Allstream. The decision is a clear loss for Bell - its hopes to charge based on volume are out (which keeps the door open for independent ISPs to offer unlimited plans) - but the bigger question is whether Canadian consumers are winners.

The CRTC will release its much anticipated usage based billing decision this afternoon at 4:00. There is no shortage of backgroud information for those looking to get up-to-speed.

A couple of months ago I test drove a representative set of tablet computers. My conclusion was that if you want a tablet, buy an iPad. ("There is no tablet war. Apple won").

If you're a B2B company, LinkedIn’s network is the ideal platform to connect your business to over 120 million professionals. Here are five ways you can improve your company’s presence and begin increasing your lead flow.

This last year was another eventful time for the ERP software industry. Vendors continued to consolidate, the rate of ERP failures and lawsuits accelerated, and enterprise software technologies continued to evolve.

I just returned from a meet-and-greet arranged in Kitchener by Communitech to connect early stage technology companies to potential investors. Although tonights event felt a bit like an awkward high school dance, I think that the efforts being made by Communitech in K-W are exceptional.

I find it disturbing how extreme opinions and actions have hijacked the political and economic discourse worldwide since the beginning of the 2007 recession. Since that time the world has seen the polemic rise of the Tea Party and then Occupy Wall Street. A presidential candidate has threatened physical harm to the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and there have been violent uprisings worldwide from Cairo to Athens and all the way to Oakland. And of course, everyone hates bankers.

I recently attended a conference on locative media and the definition of locative media offered, and one that is often assumed, is that locative media are mediums that address a physical space through digital technology.

Ask yourself this question:

“What can I do today, next month and next year that will change my business?”

Earlier this month I appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, which is conducting a study on the e-commerce market in Canada. A transcript of the hearing is available here and audio of the hearing here.  My prepared opening remarks are posted below. The discussion that followed touched a wide range of issues including copyright reform and competitiveness in the wireless and broadband sectors.

Akamai has released its latest State of the Internet report.  The report ranks Canada 13th worldwide for average broadband speed, down from a tie for 9th in the last quarter.

Bill Buxton opened a half-day conference on locative media this past Friday at Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) new building, by noting that it is not just realtors anymore asserting the importance of location, location, location.