Backblog

As we have pointed out in previous blogs and industry presentations, creating a business blueprint is critical to a successful ERP implementation. While most ERP software vendors, consultants, and system integrators claim to focus on business processes, most don’t do it well.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis spoke at the Canada 3.0 conference in Stratford yesterday, providing an update on the government's digital economy plans. Paradis trumpeted some of the measures in the budget as well as the trio of related laws - privacy reform, copyright reform, and anti-spam legislation (which he indicated he expects to take effect next year). He also noted the urban-rural divide on broadband access, which he seems to think can be addressed through rural deployment obligations in the forthcoming the spectrum auction (the final consult to be released today [April 25, 2012]).

Despite the effort to create paper “light” medical offices, the likelihood (in the forseeeable future) that all data is going to flow electronically is extremely low. In fact, some would argue that we manage more paper now than in the past, with the exception of lab results.

With the USTR Special 301 report slated for release next week, Consumers International has released its annual IP Watch List.

Template content marketing plan with an emphasis on cross selling, social media, content marketing

When our mid- to large-size clients ask us to help them choose an ERP vendor, they often also ask us to help them find the best system integrator or partner to help with their ERP implementation. In some cases, our clients will choose their ERP software at least partially based on the competencies of the implementation partner that they are considering.

I've been reviewing the recent literature related to location based services and locative media and came across an incredibly useful article for those building or refining such apps. The article, Criteria of geographic relevance: An experimental study, will be published soon in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science (but is freely available in a pre-print version). The authors, Stefano De Sabbata and Tumasch Reichenbacher are experts in geographic relevance, mobile information retrieval, and location based services.

The conversion of existing paper charts during EMR implementation is routinely seen as one of the greatest barriers to conversion of a practice to EMR. Chart conversion is a time-consuming and resource-intensive task that many physicians view as a hellish purgatory. In addition, ineffective and expensive chart conversion is one of the most frequently cited reasons for the failure of EMR implementations. However, there are several things your practice can do to help shorten and reduce the pain of chart conversion.

Despite shrinking budgets and resources, today's marketing teams have the ability to maximize their efficiency, with a critical tool at their disposal: marketing automation. With it, marketers can create complex campaigns and engagements with their prospects over time, priming them for an eventual conversion or purchase.

More and more companies today are latching onto the potential of gamification to drive engagement and awareness, and the number of companies delivering gamification-specific services has also increased.

If you started your website using a ‘Shared Hosting’ solution, you probably did because it was the most affordable option on the table. A Shared Hosting plan can be VERY inexpensive, and can provides the perfect starting point for a small business or personal website, blog, photo gallery or community forum.

The Ontario Government has announced plans to introduce new consumer protection legislation to increase transparency on wireless plans and to establish some contractual limitations.

Canada Post has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Geolytica, which operates GeoCoder.ca, a website that provides several geocoding services including free access to a crowdsourced compiled database of Canadian postal codes.

A coalition of radio broadcasters have targeted CBC and its free music streaming site with a complaint to the federal government and the prospect of a further complaint to the CRTC.

Since Canada's Walk of Fame started in Toronto's entertainment district in 1998, I thought it was a great way to recognize the accomplishments of notable Canadians. Canadians don't often value their history and culture and the Walk brings prominence to these contributions.

Consumers have become accustomed to lots of choice for entertainment and information services. Music and movie services offer single downloads and a range of subscription models, while newspapers and magazines sell their content as individual issues or subscriptions on multiple platforms. Yet Canadian cable and satellite providers remain a stubborn holdout.

I'm late in posting this, but the organization Mobile Future every year does a wrap-up of trends in mobile usage. Highly informative and entertaining.

The Alpha Group, the organization responsible for the Alpha Alternative Trading System, launched Alpha Exchange on Monday, April 2, 2012. The Exchange is the product of close to two years of development. The company says the Exchange will provide an alternate forum for listing Canadian businesses in tech and certain financial areas, and builds on the success of Alpha’s Alternative Trading System (ATS), over which about 20 per cent of TSX-listed stocks are currently traded.

Anyone who has implemented and used an EMR is aware of the terms Privacy and Security. However, what do they mean and how does one apply the concepts to the protection of personal patient data in the EMR-based practice? Privacy experts will describe privacy principles as enablers in the development of the right technology processes and software. While this is true if understood and applied in advance, privacy can also be a barrier to adoption, particularly if software was never designed with today's privacy requirements in mind.

ERP implementations are a lot like the “Hunger Games” for CIOs, CFOs and other executives tasked with making their ERP projects successful. For those that aren’t familiar with the novel or movie, Hunger Games is predicated on a story where two children from each “district” of a futuristic United States are expected literally to fight to death. The children are selected at random, coached, mentored and dressed for the Hunger Games, but only one remains in the end. The home district of the surviving child is then bathed in riches and attention from the central government, making them the envy of the other districts.

Dropbox announced yesterday they are increasing the amount of free storage one can earn by referring people to the service!

The recent New Democratic Party convention in Toronto may have done more than just select Thomas Mulcair as the party's new leader.  My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that it may have also buried the prospect of online voting in Canada for the foreseeable future.

In order to successfully realize the full benefits of a strategic initiative involving change, firms need to manage both the Change and the Transition Process that people go through. Often, a Transition Management Plan is not included or is overlooked altogether when planning and implementing a strategic initiative involving change.

New records indicate that the file sharing lawsuits in Quebec against individuals downloading the Hurt Locker have been withdrawn. The cases attracted wide attention last year after the Federal Court ordered several ISPs to disclose the identities of alleged infringers

I went away for a few weeks and my list of location-based services has changed dramatically - a major player is down and a new one emerges. In a little over a month there has been substantial changes to my ongoing list of LBSs, which highlights the tremendous changes in this area.