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Bill C-11, the copyright reform bill, passed the report stage yesterday, leaving only a third reading debate and vote before the bill heads to the House of Commons. While many good elements in the bill remain intact, it is worth noting what the Conservatives voted against by opposing every amendment proposed by the NDP, Liberals, Green Party, and Bloc at committee and at report stage. Proposed amendments that were defeated included:

Having used Google Docs for years now, I succumbed to Google's promos urging me to switch to Google Drive. I've been using cloud storage long before the term was coined and it was Yahoo Briefcase pioneering the concept (Google hasn't always done everything first). Well, I took Google Drive for a test drive yesterday and it crashed! I'm trying to get it towed off my computer and even that's failing, so I may be stuck with the wreck. (No more vehicular puns, I promise - although it is tempting to say I sufferred a Google Drive-by shooting.)

David Kedmey and Xiao-Ping (Steven) Zhang take home the top prize. EidoSearch is the grand prize winner of the Alpha Exchange Innovation Campaign, presented by Backbone. The company was chosen from a field of strong candidates at a live-pitch event May 15, held during the OCE Discovery 12 show in Toronto.

Even those marketers with exceptional social-network-savvy can struggle to keep up with the latest developments in leading social media. Acquisitions, new features and new platforms are a daily occurrence, and it can be easy to get lost in the sea of updates in the social world. Similarly, it can also be easy to lose sight of which are actually of benefit to your business.

This week the leading location-based service Foursquare announced it had achieved 20 million users. Despite the milestone, critics were quick to point out that check-in services were dead. Over the past few months other major check-in based services such as Loopt, Gowalla, BrightKite, and Facebook places have shut down or been acquired and closed.

Earlier this month, ISG joined the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) as a corporate member. Here’s a description of this organization:

The government yesterday gave notice of time allocation on the Bill C-11 debate, which will cut short the debate over the copyright bill. The move does not come as a surprise, given the willingness to use time allocation for other bills and the Conservatives' consistent position that it will not further amend the bill.

I'm in the process of preparing for my PhD comprehensive exams (or rather my faculty's equivalent). So I'm currently enmeshed in the literature related to my topic - how people use location-based services to make sense of their places.

The majority of physicians I know are very protective of their personal workspace. They do not like outsiders traipsing through their practices, potentially compromising patient privacy. They also do not like having anyone mess with their computers, servers, EMRs, and billing software. After all, if it is not broken, why fix it? In a solo or small medical practice, it can be difficult to justify the expense of regular computer and network maintenance, particularly when it comes at a cost that exceeds the medical practitioners’ hourly revenue-generating capabilities. However, without maintenance, both short- and long-term costs of an EMR can be significantly higher.

For anyone that has seen an episode of the television series “House of Lies,” it paints a disturbing (yet at times entertaining) picture of the consulting industry. One episode allegedly explores the concept of shady ERP consulting practices, which is obviously of interest to Panorama since we are an ERP consulting firm. Although it may sound a bit far-fetched and the show strives for a strong shock-factor, it does underscore the potential risks of ethically questionable practices when hiring consultants to help with your ERP systems initiatives.

The government posted its Reports on Plans and Priorities for dozens of departments and agencies yesterday. The Industry Canada report makes for interesting reading as there is a section on the still missing Digital Economy Strategy that includes targets for e-commerce buying and selling in Canada.

It all comes down to this: three hours, 10 finalists and a panel of industry experts. And by 5:00 pm on May 15, the winner of the Alpha Exchange Innovation Campaign will be known. The 10 finalists — in no particular order — are:

Every now and then, you come to a crossroad where you are forced to reinvent your business lest you hit a proverbial wall. You’re not the only one.

I want to lay something on the line here, right from the outset: an ERP implementation is not an IT initiative. When an organization believes that it is, and tasks the IT department with everything from software selection to implementation to training to internal communication, it is setting itself up for ERP failure.

Last week’s IT Financial Management Association (ITFMA) conference in San Francisco marked the 25th anniversary of the association dedicated to professionals involved with the financial management of IT.  Conference attendees came from a variety of industries and government organizations with some attendees travelling from as far afield as Africa.

The rapid transition to EHR and the integration of information technology in the delivery of patient care has had a transformational impact on medical offices and hospitals. There are many positive effects of the technology, including rapid access to laboratory information, diagnostic reports, and medication histories. However, there is also a potential dark side to the technology.

Independent analysts and consultants are hard to come by here in Canada, but long-time colleague Henry Dortmans is one of the best. He's from the technology consulting world, and has a deep reach into both the end user/IT community as well as the consultants and vendors on the solutions side. Like me, he's got an endless curiousity about the bigger picture, and occasionally puts together a survey to take the temperature of the market on current trends. He just did one on the cloud, and I wanted to share the key takeaways with you here.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority, the non-profit agency charged with managing the dot-ca domain name, has emerged in recent years as an important voice on Internet governance. Backed by a big bank account - CIRA earns millions of dollars each year for maintaining the domain name registry - it has launched an annual Internet governance forum attended by hundreds of Canadians, partnered with various groups to help small businesses establish an online presence, and sponsored many Canadian Internet-related events.

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.

Michelle Scarborough has seen and done it all. Over the past 20 years she’s been an entrepreneur and built companies from the ground up; a prolific angel investor in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Calgary; worked for investment groups and merchant banks; and developed an acceleration model used in Canada and the U.S. In 2007, she founded Canada’s Top 10 Competition (www.topcanadiancompanies.com) in order to identify some of the best investments in Canada and raise the bar on early-stage investing.

Wildeboer Dellelce, a boutique corporate finance firm, is a sponsor of Backbone’s Start Me Up contest. We sat down with the company’s Paul Flint to get his take on the importance of supporting the innovative and technology space in Canada.

For my travels to Austin and my work with Transverse (www.tractbilling.com), I just became a Car2Go customer.

Many of you have likely heard some buzz around Google's Project Re:Brief, a new documentary/experiment that aims to inspire creative approaches to thinking about digital advertising and marketing.

Small ICT businesses looking to succeed need to look beyond playing only in our own backyard. A world of opportunity is out there for Canadian ICT innovators, but they need to seize it, and sometimes they need to be ready to ask for help.

The National Research Council Canada has helped more than 50 companies through its incubator program over the last 13 years. The program, in part, includes finding a mentor within the research community to support each startup. “We focus on technology, rather than offering business support,” said Marie Lussier, Manager of Industry Partnership Facility with National Research Council Canada.

Startup business NuEnergy has been leasing space at the St. Albert facility of novaNAIT for nearly two years. novaNAIT, in Alberta, supports and facilitates applied research and development of commercially relevant products and services for industry.

There's no doubt that QR codes has been a very hot topic for marketers over the past couple of years or so...but the actual use of QR codes still remains somewhat dubious. They're a novel little tool, with fantastic applications in digital marketing campaigns, but naturally, QR codes have their own limitations (for example, you need to launch a QR-reader app each time you want to read one).

The country’s profes­sional accounting bodies regulating the use of Chartered Accountant, Certified Management Accountant and Certified General Accountant desig­na­tions are currently deep into merger talks, as you might have heard.

Athabasca University, BCcampus, and the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa have joined together to re-launch Creative Commons Canada.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will unveil the government's much-anticipated budget this week amidst widespread speculation that it will feature sizable spending cuts and significant reorganization of major government programs. While changes to old age pension eligibility, the CBC, as well as government departments and programs will attract the lion share of attention, my weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the budget choices could have major implications for technology policy.

entrepreneurship@UBC is a campus-wide initiative led by the Sauder School of Business, the Faculty of Applied Science, the Faculty of Science and the University-Industry Liaison Office. I sat down with Carl Leacy, Program Director, to discuss this program and the importance of supporting innovation at the university level.

The Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University is home to one of the largest entrepreneurship departments in Canada, which includes major and minor degree programs plus two MBAs. Students are taught by experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who have started dozens of companies and helped hundreds of entrepreneurs raise more than $2 billion in financing.

If Canadian entrepreneurs have a mindset challenge, it’s probably dreaming big enough. We don’t do that as often as we should, and this conservative, pragmatic approach can put off investors looking for bigger gains—even if the idea really has legs. That doesn’t seem to be the problem for Joseph Fung, serial entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of TribeHR.

Wondering how to get people to land on your site and then go to the pages you want them to visit? Chris Goward has helpful information on how to use conversion optimization and create hypotheses to obtain marketing insights, along with lots of 'which page won?' examples. 

As a follow-up to our recent post, Avoiding Bankruptcy From an ERP Implementation: Three Dirty Secrets, we’d like to take it to the next level and discuss how an organization actually can recover from being driven into bankruptcy by an ERP failure. Indeed, it’s a worst-case scenario, but also one we’ve seen too many times to ignore.

What is content curation and how to get started? Donna Papacosta explains and gives tips on best practices, how to define a content curation strategy and offers some helpful tools. Also find out what the difference between aggregation and curation is.

Earlier this week I posted about a mini road show I was about to go on, with events in Toronto and Ottawa. Well, am back now, and I'd say it was pretty successful all around. This was the 2012 IT Buyers Forum, sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, with some help from the Export Development Corporation and Invest Ottawa.

As many experts have said, building a successful start-up requires identifying an industry pain point, and that’s what Kristin Garn, founder, director and CEO of Mathtoons Media did for secondary-school math education.

Many of Canada's provinces now operate EMR funding programs to support the purchase of EMR products by physicians. Some of the programs have already been established for some time and have been through multiple iterations (Alberta, Ontario). Others are much earlier in their evolution (Manitoba and recently, Quebec). In the short space of this article, it is not possible to do a detailed review of a single program, let alone multiple provincial approaches to EMR funding. As a result, what I would like to do is offer selected observations of the programs, what they have done well and what I believe they could do to make themselves more successful.

HP might be one of the farthest things from a start-up, but the company knows more than a few things about innovation. And those insights could be very useful to small businesses.

An important part of the mandate of CanadianEMR is to collect EMR satisfaction ratings from a wide range of physician users of EMR systems that are commonly used in the Canadian market. Ensuring the validity and currency of the rating data is of primary importance and to that end, we regularly send requests to verified users of EMR products asking them to keep their ratings current by logging in to CanadianEMR and checking and updating their rating.

The lack of progress on the Canadian digital economy strategy has been a source of frustration for many as the still-unreleased strategy has been largely missing in action. Late last year I dubbed it the government's Penske File, a reference to the Seinfeld episode involving a non-existent work project. While Canada is still without a comprehensive strategy, elements have begun to emerge in recent weeks.

The new amended version of Bill C-11 has been posted along with the Bill C-11 legislative committee report.

I recently posted about ShoreTel’s acquisition of M5 Networks (which is still getting tons of readership!), which may signal the strongest validation yet for cloud-based VoIP as an alternative to premises-based telephony systems. The deal is good news for both companies, and even better news for the broader cloud communications space.

2012 has brought with it a wave of web design trends. Keeping up with these constant developments is essential, but it's important to keep in mind that effective web design is more than just a coat of paint; it always needs to support your business goals. Good web design is a necessary part of your larger web marketing and user experience picture. In keeping with this holistic approach, we selected the following as the top web design trends to implement this year:

One of the major unanswered questions about Bill C-30, the lawful access/online surveillance bill, is who will pay for the costs associated with responding to law enforcement demands for subscriber information ("look ups") and installation of surveillance equipment ("hook ups"). Christopher Parsons has an excellent post that takes a shot at estimating some of the costs.

Great, great TED talk from Rob Reid on the funny numbers often promoted by music and movie lobby groups in the context of copyright.

The three pain points of early-stage companies are human capital, markets and capital. The first two are served by various accelerators and incubators, but access to capital continues to be a tough nut for many start-ups to crack, especially in today’s economy.

Computers and EMRs are very good at performing repetitive tasks, particularly in areas such as appointment reminders for patients with chronic disease. Individuals with complex co-morbid conditions require a great deal of management, and generally this is more about consistently applying rules and reminders rather than dealing with acute complicating problems. Here are some important points to think about when using an EMR for automated reminders:

Healthy competition is good for Canadian innovation, whether it’s with the U.S. or inter-provincial, especially when supported by education, mentorship and a sense of community.

Over a year ago, we signed up for Bell's Internet TV service (IPTV), Bell Fibe.  Judging from my blog stats the post I wrote on it last year was rather popular. Bell has certainly been marketing the service more lately. Since last year, there's been improvements to the service and my experience has evolved too so I thought I'd update the post.

“If you look at the technology and ICT structures in Canada and you take out RIM, you’ll notice a huge drop-off in terms of size,” said Eugene Bomba, Senior Manager, Emerging Company Services with PwC. “There are a ton of smaller tech companies just starting out, yet the revenue in that sector is still really good.” PwC wants to guide and nurture these start-ups and it is willing to put resources behind that effort. Many entrepreneurs don’t have business and finance experience—which is where PwC’s expertise comes in.

Niagara-based FourGrouns Media is a video production company which creates video content for the Web and television. It was founded four years ago by Adrian Thiessen and his partner Kristen Nater and, like many start-ups, they realized they didn’t have the expertise or connections they would need to be successful, and so they went in search of resources.

In the past decade, technology has been the fastest-growing industry sector in B.C., but it remains predominantly populated by small companies. Ninety-six per cent of all tech companies in B.C. employ less than 50 people, said Bill Tam, president and CEO of the BC Technology Industry Association (BCTIA).

The Bill C-11 legislative committee concluded its clause-by-clause review yesterday as eight government amendments were added to the bill and all opposition amendments were defeated. The amendments included an expanded enabler provision and some modest tinkering to other elements of the bill.

We often write and present about the challenges and pitfalls of ERP implementations, as well as some of the best practices associated with making an ERP system work for organizations. Our clients look to us to provide the expertise, methodology, and toolset to make their ERP implementations succeed. While there are a host of things that can contribute to an ERP failure, troubled deployments often boil down to a vitamin C deficiency – lack of cash, controls and change.

Valerie Fox is the Director of Ryerson University’s Digital Media Zone. She has more than 25 years of experience in creative industries and has worked with technology in universities and in the private sector. The Ryerson Digital Media Zone is a sponsor of Backbone’s Start Me Up contest, and we sat down with Fox to get her take on the importance of supporting the innovative and technology space in Canada.

CANARIE is offering a DAIR to small- and medium-sized Canadian tech companies: the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research (DAIR) program aims to speed time to market by offering an advanced R&D environment for product design, prototyping, validation and demonstration.

The Bill C-11 committee has just opened the clause-by-clause review of the copyright bill with 39 amendments on the table: 8 from the goverment, 17 from the NDP, and 14 from the Liberals.

Sustainable sourcing — considering environmental and social impacts in selecting and managing suppliers — can enhance your company’s brand, improve operations and drive efficiency while promoting a healthier environment and stronger community. Regulators, consumer groups and customer demands drive sustainability requirements.

Days after the Conservative government introduced its copyright reform bill in June 2010, Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore spoke out in support of the legislative package by notoriously labeling critics as "radical extremists" who should be confronted until "they are defeated." This week, the copyright bill hits the home stretch as the Bill C-11 legislative committee conducts its final "clause-by-clause" review.

From October 22 to 24, 2012, business leaders, innovators and prominent speakers from around the globe will gather in Montreal for the world’s leading information technology conference: World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2012).

Canada’s technology market is underachieving due to a lack of support by the private sector and a securities exchange structure that sets tech entrepreneurs up for failure, according to Jos Schmitt.

Are you a follower or a leader? In our experience, one of the key challenges small and medium size innovative firms often struggle to overcome, is their inability to consistently and successfully commercialize enough profitable new products and/or services to ensure there is an adequate and predictable stream of funding to support R & D, and the ongoing development of key managerial and organizational capabilities critical to achieving the full benefits of a “first mover” advantage, and leadership position.

When I travel, I like to get out and see the city I’m visiting — especially when the city has more than 20 million people in it. On my most recent trip to Mumbai for the 20^th successive NASSCOM India Leadership Forum, I decided to use an open morning to take a city tour.

Along with millions of Apple converts, I have been following the announcement of the new Apple iPad at a live event in San Francisco. I have been tracking ABC News’ Joanna Stern via her live blog of the event. The majority of the announcements have been focused on the iPad’s enhanced processing power, the 2048 x 1536 resolution retina display, 10-hour battery life, higher resolution camera, and high-speed 4G LTE connectivity. Healthcare is likely to be a major benefactor of these features. Here is how I see the new iPad being adopted by clinicians.

Alongside its federally-mandated mission to accelerate the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in Canada, Canada Health Infoway does its part to help fund smaller innovations that highlight the power of technology to improve healthcare.

Once entrepreneurs have a great idea they also have a healthy accelerator community to turn to for help, but what about before that big idea hits?

Need a handyman, a personal trainer or a math tutor for your kid? What’s the easiest way to access these service providers in your community? That’s the question Rob Platek is working to answer with his online marketplace jobdeals.com.

Anyone who follows ERP industry news knows that ERP implementations fail at high rates in both the private, commercial sector and the public, government sector.

Imagine a scenario in which a country enacts a law that bans the sale of asbestos and includes the power to seize the assets of any company selling the product anywhere in the world. The country tests the law by obtaining a court order to seize key assets of a Canadian company, whose operations with hundreds of employees takes a major hit. The Canadian government is outraged, promising to support the company in its efforts to restore its operations.

BCIC, the British Columbia Innovation Council, is dedicated to developing globally marketable innovative B.C.-based entrepreneurs in the global scene—with emphasis on marketable.

According to Ron Shuttleworth, a technology analyst at M Partners, an independent full-service brokerage, Canada is running out of publicly traded technology companies.

We’ve heard it time and again: Ontario has world-class academic institutions, which are proficient at turning out entrepreneurs who generate innovative ideas. Upon graduation, however, they often face roadblocks.

A year and a half ago, when Senia Rapisarda joined the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to head up the BDC Venture Capital’s new Strategic Initiatives & Investments (SII), she made an insightful, worldly observation about Canadian entrepreneurship.

It’s long overdue, but the relationship among enterprise integration, ERP, and productivity enhancements is finally attracting mainstream attention.

The CRTC has written to Rogers Communication following the identification of yet another violation of the Commission's Internet traffic management policy.

One of the challenges of any major change is a potential loss of productivity. Paper-based practices have for years optimized workflow in order to achieve maximum productivity in individual settings. As these practices transition to EMRs, some of the major challenges they face are the workflow changes necessary to implement and use the technology in clinical practice settings. This is not helped by the fact that there is limited ability at this time to exchange data with other providers and pharmacies through eReferrals and ePrescribing.

OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of OMERS, was started in late 2011 with the mandate of investing in technology, media, and telecom companies and offering financing ranging from $500,000 to $30 million.

Successful innovation in the digital economy is good for Canada, but it’s also good—it turns out—for charities. Formulating Change of Kitchener, Ont., has developed a novel way to help Canadians give more easily to charities.

When Josh Sookman developed a mobile application prototype that would empower people during emergencies by connecting them to personalized safety networks, he turned to the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC) incubator at OCAD University for support.

Location-based services (LBS) and locative media have garnered a lot of attention - not least of which will be the focus of my dissertation.  But the possible benefits beyond increased marketing opportunities has rarely been discussed or studied.  Here's what I've come up with so far:

In our experience, firms often engage in ad-hoc innovation as a result of crisis management, or in reaction to external influences and competition within their marketplace. These efforts tend to focus on implementing something quickly with the expectation that it will help avert disaster, or change the companies’ fortunes somehow. Its no wonder that managers and employees alike, often experience innovation initiatives as frustrating, distracting, and disappointing.

Crossing the delta between a pilot-scale lab and the ramp up to demonstration scale is a significant challenge in innovation.

Innovation is an ongoing theme at Backbone. We write articles about the topic, we created a submission when the federal government asked for input on its digital-economy strategy, and we recently created a contest designed to help innovative early-stage Canadian companies. So I welcome the news that Canada ranked seventh among 38 countries in a list of the world’s clean-tech leaders. (Globe and Mail). Why be pleased with seventh?

A recent article published by Tien Tzuo on the CIO Network blog on Forbes’ website suggests that ERP is dead. While it was a well-written article and isn’t necessarily inconsistent with what many other analysts have stated over the last three to five years, I’m still not buying it and still don’t see ERP software going anywhere anytime soon.

For me, one of the best Chapters in the book... Adam uses many examples of how SJ (Steve Jobs) drilled culture and acceptable behavior through the ranks at Apple and describes his fight against the bureaucracy that tends to cripple and slow organizations as they grow. SJ was fervent in his fight to maintain a start up type environment upon his return to Apple.

Over the past few days, I've posted on some of the implications of Bill C-30, including the mandatory disclosure of subscriber information, the "voluntary" warrantless disclosure of emails and web surfing habits, and the stunning lack of detail on a wide range of issues including costs and surveillance capabilities. While the bill includes some detail on surveillance capability requirements, perhaps the most dangerous provision is Section 14, which gives the government  a stunning array of powers:

When using computers in healthcare, there is not much that seems more mundane (and irritating) than having to change your password on a regular basis. Government organizations and hospitals excel at requiring users to change their password every 42 days. Not sure why this particular number of days was selected - perhaps there is evidence that this is the safest time-frame.

Are you a CEO? Do you tweet? If so, you are among the '8 percent'. Peter Aceto is and he explains why. Peter sees a dramatic shift in the way companies are now being run, as do other experts like Don Tapscott. Social business is here and one of its big requirements is transparency. Find out what social business leaders are doing to connect with customers and employees in new and exciting ways.

Although many people today associate digital "community" with a customer-facing space, B2B communities are also an integral part of social media. After all, businesses are comprised of (you guessed it), people. Maria Ogneva, the Head of Community at Yammer, has pulled together the following 10 best practices for managing a B2B community. Has your organization followed all of these tips?

Many marketers (if not all!) have, at some point in their careers, come across basic principles of behavioural psychology. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is one prominent example that marketing professionals have historically drawn upon to understand some of the psychological motivations for action.

The introduction of Bill C-30 has generated enormous public debate (I focused yesterday on the "voluntary" warrantless disclosure of subscriber information) but less discussed is how the bill leaves out many crucial details on the new surveillance rules will actually function. Indeed, for a bill that is ten years in the making, it is shocking how much is still unknown.

In our experience with firms, two major recurrent themes often rise to the surface that are directly associated to the underlying root causes of poor innovation performance. These areas are outlined below.

Purchasing ERP software has become easier and more flexible over the last several years. The advent of public and private clouds, SaaS ERP software, on-demand offerings, and hybrid deployments all provide more options to executives looking to deploy new ERP systems in their organizations. This is good news to most CIOs and CFOs.

Who are we and where are we headed?" - in terms of the digital media economy in Canada - was the question that started the 49 Pixels project. The survey has taken a year and seeks to answer the following questions: the size and scope of the industry, the number of digital media service providers operating within Canada (number of employees, location, revenue, etc), and the size of the workforce (habits, salaries, and skills of producers of digital media content). Read the full report...

When the government placed the Internet surveillance bill on the notice paper one week ago, few would have predicted that within days of the introduction, the anger with the legislative proposals would have been so strong that the government would steadily backtrack on its plans, with Public Safety Minister Vic Toews yesterday telling the House of Commons the bill will go to committee before second reading to ensure that there is greater openness to amendments (changes are more restricted after second reading). While the battle is only beginning, the overwhelming negative reaction seems to have taken the government by surprise.

Who are the media influencers today? Bloggers. Dave Fleet tells how not to work with bloggers and how to work with them. He describes a new model for interactions. He has tips for bloggers too!

If you’re new to my blog or the VoIP space, you may not know Ooma. On the other hand, if you go back far enough with me, hopefully you’ll recall I was one of the first to trial Ooma as well as write about them. The VoIP space has evolved since then, and while my early posts were not optimistic about Ooma’s prospects, that view was balanced by their strengths, which I believe have served them well to survive into the present.

Yesterday [February 9, 2012] was the official launch of the Rogers One Number service, and I was on-hand for the analyst briefing hosted at their HQ in downtown Toronto.

Today [February 10] was the last day of iConference 2012. The conference, geared to topics of interest to iSchools (i.e. Information studies), was hosted by my school, University of Toronto, Faculty of Information. When I wasn't volunteering, I was able to attend several sessions. This post captures my ramblings as I make sense of my first foray into iConferences and immersion in the iSchool movement.

Smart TV use is growing and in 2012 we can look forward to the release of iTV from Apple as well as other Smart TV developments. Nick Jones explains what Smart TVs are, who makes them and what opportunities they provide.

This week, I had the opportunity to guest lecture for a great class on social networking at the University of Toronto. I spoke about how new technologies were facilitating geosocial networking, that is people connecting and sharing place-based experiences via their mobile device. I've been studying this for over two years and I'm an avid user of the ultimate geosocial app, Foursquare. So I was excited to speak on this topic. I'll give a brief summary of the main themes I addressed in my presentation.

I have read (and am now re-reading) Adam Lashinsky’s fantastic book titled ‘Inside Apple’.  I highly recommend to anyone who is:

Last night was MobileMonday Toronto's annual Meet the Analysts event at the MaRS Discovery District facility.

Dr. Ann Cavoukian's presentation on why freedom of information matters and how organizations and individual healthcare providers can prevent privacy breaches. The 'circle of care', a term used in the context of sharing information with implied consent, is discussed as is Ontario’s Experience with PHIPA.

The Internet Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. They are a global organization devoted to maintaining a free, open, accessible, and viable Internet. I've recently blogged about the Internet Society's call for people to submit ideas for a new Internet Hall of Fame they are establishing.

You have a website but how do you get people to find you when they are looking for a service provider in your industry? Todd Bailey, speaking at Dx3 last month, helps take the mystery out of search engine optimization (SEO) which can deliver the sort of result you want. Yes, it is possible to rank near the top in search engine results. Here's how...

Just launched free website that helps small business better measure and manage tactical marketing programs. We are looking for beta testers for our new website called MarketingReportCard.com – a marketing measurement dashboard. Designed for small to mid-size businesses, companies can login to the beta version of the MarketingReportCard.com and document and measure tactical marketing results over time.

Last week Rogers advised the CRTC that it plans to drop Internet throttling for all customers by the end of the year.

Canadian superstar Neil Young on piracy:

It doesn't affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That's how music gets around. [...] That's the radio. If you really want to hear it, let's make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it.

The reports that the music industry lobby (along with the Entertainment Software Association of Canada and the movie lobby) is seeking the inclusion of SOPA-style provisions into Bill C-11 has generated considerable discussion online and in the mainstream media (CBC, Financial Post). Yesterday, Balanced Copyright for Canada, the group backed by the music industry, fired back with several tweets claiming that opposing their reforms would benefit "illegal BitTorrent sites"and "illegal hosting sites."

Recently had the pleasure of gaining John Holland’s perspectives on the keys to high performing sales teams. The titles of John’s best-selling books, in many ways, nicely summarize his thinking. CustomerCentric Selling and Re-Thinking the Sales Cycle. A summary of our recorded 30 minute conversation:

It doesn’t matter how fancy your ERP system is. It doesn’t matter how closely the system’s capabilities match your company’s needs. It doesn’t matter that the ERP system is SaaS, comes with the latest flavors of business intelligence, or can be used by mobile workforces on their smartphones. No, none of this matters if the system isn’t implemented correctly.

On Tuesday, Facebook annnounced that their Timeline profile would now be available to users worldwide. Although it's currently available only for personal profile pages, many have predicted that brand pages will soon follow.

When old becomes new again, ISVs look to telecom for pricing inspiration. For decades, the telecom industry has been honing what other industries are only now getting into – business models that start with simple subscriptions then add complex pieces such as sign-up/activity/event fees + bundles + add-ons + incentives + promotional products. SaaS operators are evaluating new ways to create multiple revenue streams from each customer by blending limits and usage (usage being the “activities” in which end-users engage in consuming or interacting with goods and services).

For many years, the most prominent critic of the Canadian online music market has been the industry itself. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (now known as Music Canada) has consistently argued that few would want to invest in Canada due to the state of our copyright laws.

Unfortunately, ERP implementations still aren’t any easier than they were 15 years ago when I started in the ERP world. Despite the enterprise software industry’s best intentions to mitigate risk with cloud ERP systems, implementation accelerators, and other tools, ERP failure rates are still high and most projects still take more time and money than expected. For example, our 2012 ERP Report, which will be released next week, shows that nearly half (44-percent) of all ERP implementations fail to deliver at least half of their expected business benefits.

For journalists, bloggers and techies alike, last week passed in a whirlwind of headlines covering the controversy surrounding SOPA, the proposed anti-piracy legislation in the U.S. Some of the powerful language used to characterize the dispute? Protest, blackout, fear and censorship, to name but a few. Some of the bill's opponents, namely Mashable's editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff, have declared that the passing of SOPA, if it were to occur, would be a regression into the "Dark Ages".

While preparing for my recent survey exploring sense of place and location-based services, I wanted to find out the mobile device types and usage patterns of participants.  I have previously offerred my take on the definition of mobile device and blogged on What exactly is a mobile device.

My post this week on the behind-the-scenes demands to make Bill C-11, the current copyright bill, more like SOPA has attracted considerable attention with mainstream (National Post, La Presse) and online media (Mashable, Wire Report) covering the story. The music industry alone is seeking over a dozen changes to the bill, including website blocking, Internet termination for alleged repeat infringers, and an expansion of the "enabler" provision that is supposedly designed to target pirate sites. Meanwhile, the Entertainment Software Association of Canada also wants an expansion of the enabler provision along with further tightening of the already-restrictive digital lock rules.

RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis clearly did not want to step aside. Lazaridis laid RIM’s foundation and Balsillie helped him build on it, and what they wrought was wonderful and a beacon for Canada’s tech sector.

If you're local and interested in where mobility is heading in 2012 - and who isn't? - you'll want to join me at the next MobileMonday Toronto event.

TV as we know it is dying, but most people don’t perceive yet the dramatic change that is bubbling below the surface. In a stunning report released at CES, Accenture points to a wholesale collapse of traditional TV viewing. The study found that “the percentage of consumer watching broadcast or cable TV shows, movies, or videos on TV in a typical week plummeted from 71% in 2009 to 48% in 2011.”

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 is a wrap for another year. If you didn’t go, you certainly heard ALL about it.

Deloitte Canada has been running this event for 11 years, and yesterday's TMT Predictions 2012 in Toronto is the biggest one yet.

As much research continues into how we use location based services on mobile devices to access geotargetted information, I've been considering other ways we can access information about place.

You may be a physician, software developer or may just see a business opportunity. Millions of dollars are bing invested in health IT and electronic health records. Healthcare costs continue to climb and the only logical solution appears to be process automation as has happened in other industries such as travel and banking. EMR adoption has stalled in a number of provinces. There must be an opportunity for a new EMR system. Right?

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the largest trade show of its kind worldwide. With 140,000 attendees, all the glitz and hype it’s all too easy to miss some really interesting new products that can be game changers.

It is more than one year since the US HITECH Act was announced, which defined the Meaningful Use incentive program to encourage adoption of EMRs by eligible providers including physicians and nurse practitioners. (Note: The terms EMR and EHR are used interchangeably in the U.S., although in Canada they applied specifically to physician systems vs. regional provincial electronic record systems.) So, what has happened in both countries over the past 18 months and how do the national programs compare against one another?

Would it surprise you to learn that only 30 per cent of Canadians own a smartphone? It surprised the heck out of me.

Leaders across all industries are realizing that product and service quality along with innovation are only as strong as the people and the processes behind it…But, what are the critical components of an effective employee reward and recognition program?…Is there a framework that companies can use to enhance and promote the effectiveness of their current business environment, to drive increased business performance and profitability?

The music industry may be ailing, but the emphasis placed by some on copyright reform may not be the answer. Michael Geist, speaking at the 2011 Nova Scotia Music Week, elaborates on reasons why.

One of the common themes we discussed in last week’s ERP Boot Camp is the ways that companies typically outgrow their ERP systems over time. Organizations change, enter new markets, respond to customer demands, and maybe even acquire other companies, leaving their more static ERP systems misaligned with business operations. In addition, companies also are often guilty of implementing software that is not aligned with business needs at the point of go-live, often because the company’s needs change during the course of the implementation or because the software was not implemented well in the first place. Simply stated, an ERP system that may have been a good fit 10-12 years ago is typically not well aligned from a business perspective later in the organization’s life.

Sometimes I think the ERP software market is a sham. After over 15 years consulting in the industry, I still see far too many overzealous system integrators and VARs hell bent on mismanaging customer expectations in order to close a sale. Worse yet, most that I run to in the industry fail to recognize perhaps the most important fact of ERP implementations: they have very little to do with the software itself. Sure, a good software solution is a prerequisite to a successful ERP transformation, but the reality is the business and organizational issues are hands down the most important things to adequately address when deploying successful ERP systems. Key among those business and organizational issues is user adoption.

What is geosocial and how does it provide ways for people to link products and services?

The “consumerization of IT” – or the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend – has emerged front and center, and a lot of CIOs aren’t very happy.  A recent article in Computerworld calls it a “thorn in the side” of most IT departments, and cites complexity, support, and security concerns.

The past 12 months in law and technology were exceptionally active, with legislative battles over privacy and copyright, near-continuous controversy at the CRTC, and an active Supreme Court of Canada docket. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) takes a look back at 2011 from A to Z:

What does the term ‘Outsourcing‘ mean to you? Do you automatically think of a Slumdog Millionaire call centre, where hundreds of underpaid workers read from a script and barely speak English? Or does it make you mad, assuming that any company that ‘outsources’ is trying to cut corners and eliminate jobs?

This morning [December 15, 2011]  I attended a breakfast session hosted by IT World Canada, and it was a good update on the state of the channel, especially for serving the SMB market.

Why do people use mobile devices? Which ones do they use and is their use growing? Yes it is - tablet use, for one, is growing rapidly - and this offers opportunities explains Nick Jones.

Backblog will be taking a break just after Christmas and we'll be back with fresh news and information in the New Year. We wish all of you a good end to this year and a prosperous and happy start to 2012!

How many physicians are using social media for a variety of communication needs? While the number of physicians with Facebook accounts is likely to be significant, I am quite sure that the majority of use is personal. Some interesting questions are begining to surface regarding the ethics of using social media tools in clinical practice.

After another couple of month’s silence precipitated by some minor surgery, the holiday season and, quite frankly, too much “same old – same old” news, a couple of articles have caused me to, once again, put my fingers to the keyboard. The first, a blog – unfortunately his last with CIO.com, by Thomas Wailgum, IT in 2020: Will it Even Exist?, and the second by Marilyn Weinstein, again in CIO.com, The Power of IT Drives Businesses Forward. While the two titles might appear contradictory, I felt they were both saying the same thing in somewhat different ways, and that what they were saying is important – although not new.

Email marketing plays a fundamental role in today’s marketing efforts. Whether it’s attracting new customers, nurturing leads, developing loyalty or transactional messaging, there are standard best practices for email content. Marqui’s email content best practices can be applied to all emails including promotions, e-newsletters, triggered campaigns, drip campaigns, win-back or client education programs.

One of the bigger changes a company will experience during its lifetime is the adoption and implementation of a company wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. An ERP system cuts across functional boundaries and departments, and touches every aspect of the operations creating more of a horizontal organizational structure, causing changes in work/business processes. These changes can also have a big impact on how stakeholder groups both inside and outside the business work with each other.

I was invited to attend an update here in Toronto yesterday [December 6, 2011] on Avaya's IP Office, which inluded a preview for Release 8.0, scheduled to launch on December 12. Lots of Avaya folks on hand, along with the sponsors, Smart IP. They're one of Avaya's top 10 Canadian reseller partners, and having started out as a Nortel shop, they know the territory pretty well.

Discussions around cloud security tend to be framed in terms of lonely ships sailing into uncharted waters: “You don’t know what you’re getting into,” we’re routinely warned. Actually, we do.

I had an opportunity to spend some time wandering around Vancouver last weekend and the one store that caught my eye was HMV at the corner of Burrard and Robson. Initially a flagship store for this retailer in Vancouver, HMV has tried to reinvent itself adding electronics and a variety of other mechandise to stave off the hemorrhaging from loss of sales of its traditional business — music. For that it can thank the revolution started by Napster with the final nail in the coffin being the launch of Apple’s iTunes store and a new model for purchasing music in which users were able to personalize their selection and disaggregate the individual tracks from the album.

The CRTC yesterday issued a ruling involving a Telus complaint over Bell's exclusive rights over NFL and NHL content for its wireless services and its inability to negotiate similar rights for mobile carriage. The Commission found that Bell gave itself an undue preference contrary to its 2009 new media decision and ordered Bell to take steps to ensure that Telus can access the programming on reasonable terms. While there are dangers of undue preferences in the mobile environment and of unfair behaviour arising from the vertical integration, it is hard to see how this case qualifies.

It has been established that a team leader's ability to create a high level of trust within their team plays a critical role in team effectiveness and sustained levels of team performance. A leader's ability to develop a culture of trust over time within their team is central to enhancing or impeding the teams ability to work effectively together. Behaviour that supports higher levels of trust should be included as an important factor within the performance review process.

The advent of mobile devices is gaining significant momentum in the consumer space, as evidenced by statistics showing that shoppers are using iPhones, tablets, and other mobile devices to conduct their holiday shopping at a rapid accelerating pace. However, the business world is also beginning to show some signs of early adoption of mobile capabilities in their evaluation, selection, and implementation of enterprise software systems.

Over the past few months, I’ve been exploring how location-based services and geotargetted information affect our relationship to the places we encounter. More people are using these mobile applications, including Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Places, SCVNGR, Layar, and a seeming endless array of apps to help us locate and learn more about everything from where we parked our car to the nearest restaurant.

Can a business that appears to be healthy acutally be dead? Why do we do the same things and expect different results?

The importance of great content cannot be overstated. Without content, there is no marketing. Period. So what is content marketing? To make things simple, let's start with what it's not:

Question: Does it make a difference what Data centre your host uses? Short answer? Yes! But let’s discuss the longer answer to that question.

I don't often write about tech based on what I come across via mass media, but this one caught my attention and has triggered a whole bunch of thoughts around innovation. I'll just speak to the kernal idea here, but this sure could spawn a blog of its own - hmmm....

For most of the past hundred years, the Supreme Court of Canada heard the occasional copyright case with significant cases popping up once every ten or twenty years. That started to change in 2001 with a big case reaching Canada's top court every year or two. While that seemed like a busy schedule, it is nothing compared to the coming week, where the court will hear an unprecedented five copyright cases over the course of two packed days.

With all of the recent marketing hype surrounding SaaS ERP, you might be surprised to learn that it only commands 7% of the 2011 global ERP market share by software sales. According to a July, 2011 report by Gartner Research, this translates to a roughly $1.7 billion (U.S.) slice of the $24.3 billion ERP software pie.

Glen Farrelly did a great job compiling a list of the 15 Canadians who contributed the most to digital media for our November cover story, but I bet many people read the article and said “But what about...?” and “How could you miss...?”

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.

Given the uptick in recent ERP failures, executives are looking for ways to mitigate risk and hold their ERP vendors accountable for the success of their implementations. Organizations are well aware of the challenges and pitfalls of implementation cost overruns, lack of vendor accountability, and troubled implementations, so they are looking for ways to leverage the potential business benefits of their ERP systems without the risk. One mechanism commonly employed is the concept of fixed-cost or fixed-bid contracts as part of the purchase of ERP software.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines a hybrid cloud as a “composition of two or more clouds (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability.”

Our firm developed the Milestone Deliverables ERP implementation project management methodology over a 33-year period. It is now used to deliver ERP success in more than 40 countries. This short series of articles is designed to introduce you to the key components of our methodology - the components that are necessary to drive ERP implementation success. This first article focuses on the importance of project planning, business process mapping and system testing.

Medical resident data from the 2010 National Physician Survey was released on September 28 confirming widespread exposure to information technology while in training.

It’s a good problem to have. When you are at a point where you have boxes and boxes of E-waste to dispose of it means you are getting rid of expensive, energy consuming materials from your business.

Technology continues to advance at a pace that few can keep up with. Business owners can certainly have a hard time ensuring that their systems are always up-to-date to take advantage of the latest and greatest. However, despite being difficult to keep up with technological advancement, these advancements are vital to business success – particularly from a system-integration perspective.

Copyright dominated debate at the House of Commons on Tuesday as Bill C-11 was the primary subject of debate. Digital locks was one of the most discussed issues (new levies were the other), with the main opposition parties lining up to oppose the bill due to the digital lock provisions.

Earlier this month [September 2011], Salesforce hosted Dreamforce, its annual conference for cloud ERP vendors. The event drew over 45,000 participants this year, underscoring the significance of the company in the ERP space, and more importantly, the significance of cloud and Software as a Service (SaaS) based ERP solutions.

The Supreme Court of Canada today issued its much anticipated ruling in Crookes v. Newton, a case that focused on the issue of liability for linking to allegedly defamatory content. The court provided a huge win for the Internet as it clearly understood the significance of linking to freedom of expression and the way the Internet functions by ruling that there is no liability for a mere hyperlink.

It’s impressive to meet sales leaders with the confidence that they’ve locked into highly repeatable best practices with their sales teams. What we’re seeing with our clients is a vastly different picture. When viewed thru the lens of how much buyer response Reps are earning from their sales efforts, pretty clearly some of today’s practices aren’t nearly as valuable as some might think*.

Enterprise 2.0, social ERP, and other buzzwords related to enterprise software combined with social media are quickly gaining momentum in the ERP software industry. Industry analysts and research firms regularly cover the potential convergence of social applications like Twitter, Facebook, and Yammer with traditional ERP systems like SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics. For example, last year IFS North America and Affinity Research Solutions conducted a study of manufacturing executives to determine their interest and understanding of social ERP.

As debate on Bill C-11 kicks off today, the Liberals have staked out their position, announcing their opposition to the bill due to the digital lock provisions. Industry critic Geoff Regan states:

As service delivery destinations have become increasingly globalized over the years, selecting the optimal location for a sourcing engagement has become a more and more complex process. While the number of possible locations has grown dramatically, each destination is also busy self-promoting, creating a competitive atmosphere that further magnifies the difficulty of your decision.

If you run a small business, it is increasingly important to stay ‘ahead of the game’ instead of just being a player.

My friend Ardath Albee regularly offers sharp perspectives on the effective use of content in sales and marketing via her Marketing Interactions blog. She recently asked a brilliant question: ‘what does a click really mean?’ She and I recently had great fun debating the issue.

Nero (37 AD to 68 AD) is notoriously known as the Emperor who 'Fiddled while Rome burned'. While this idiom is recognized to be erroneous — the fiddle was only invented in the 16th century — it signifies 'doing something trivial and irresponsible in the midst of an emergency'.

As an entrepreneur, start-up or small business owner, do you have questions that constantly keep you up at night? You know what I mean – issues, stressors, reoccurring business questions you just can’t shake! They sit in the back of your head all day, and then keep you up at night.

There has been an abundance of gloom and doom expressed in the media since the “great recession of 2008”. The markets seem to have been irreversibly shaken and the image of the global economy irreparably tarnished. It is in these uncertain times that decision makers begin to make several grievous mistakes. In this post we will address the importance of not losing sight of what is important to business success, regardless of the state of the economy, particularly from an IT investment perspective.

Steve Jobs died too young and with a great deal of promise unfulfilled. Since the announcement of his passing — a shock, even though we should have been prepared for it — industry watchers, partners, competitors, friends and many, like me, who never met him, have offered tributes to the man who reshaped the computer industry.

The stability of the IT services sector and the growth of the service providers has come under debate again due to several developments in the macro economic environment. The unemployment rate in the U.S. is more than nine percent, Standard & Poors lowered the sovereign credit rating of the U.S. on August 5 and in Europe, several European economies are in need of bailouts by stronger economies or measures to cut budgets and curb spending for improving their fiscal health.

The CRTC released its fact-finding report on over-the-top video yesterday.  I'll have more to say on the report in my column next week, but in the meantime the money quote is:

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore recently granted TVO's Search Engine an interview on Bill C-11 and Canadian copyright reform. The interview demonstrates yet again that Moore is one of the government's most skilled ministers - he knows the copyright file and is able to actively debate its merits. Yet the interview raised several points worth challenging.

Place is no longer a brackdrop for our information seeking, creation, and sharing. As I have blogged about there are multiple location-based mobile apps. Such apps enable information to be customized based on a user’s geographic position. Various commercial applications and research projects have shown users value geographic relevance in their information seeking scenarios.

The current economic climate is causing many organizations to rethink their ERP projects - whether selection, implementation or optimization. Many businesses are now hesitating because they're no longer sure that it's in their best interests to fund the projects or to divert precious human capital resources.

You may have heard some buzz around the notion of gamification. The term has been characterized by some as the next frontier in web and mobile, one predicted to become as central to marketing as social media has become.

Later today, the government will table Bill C-11, the latest iteration of the Canadian copyright reform bill that mirrors the previous Bill C-32. It was widely reported this fall that the government would reintroduce the previous bill unchanged, re-start committee hearings where they left off in March (with prior witnesses not asked to return), and move to quickly get the bill passed by the end of the calendar year. That seems to be what is happening with today's tabling and a new legislative committee to follow.

This year, the explosion of mobile internet consumption has brought with it an unprecedented wave of developments in mobile website design. In just one year, the mobile web landscape has changed dramatically, and the growing popularity of HTML5 and CSS3, amongst other developments, has played a pivotal role in expanding the realm of design possibilities. With that in mind, here are the top mobile website design trends for 2011:

A few weeks ago, ComputerWorld published an article about a recent Epicor implementation failure and lawsuit. The suit alleges that Whaley Foodservice Repairs tried and failed to implement Epicor Vantage after an extended period. One of the key difficulties with the project was that Epicor’s professional services group had estimated that the implementation would cost $190,000, while the actual implementation cost ended up exceeding $1 million by the end of the project. In addition, the company alleges that its wasn’t able to use the system as expected after two years in production, requiring additional work and costs.

This was not a problem 30 years ago. Garbage went out on the bottom of your driveways once a week in a green garbage bag, and was picked up by the friendly neighbourhood garbage men. No fuss.

In the tablet world, the iPad is king. Sony is one of the latest entrants to the tablet market with the release of their new Tablet S, however is the new Sony product an iPad killer (or even an iPad competitor)?

File sharing lawsuits involving the movie the Hurt Locker have been big news in the United States for months as tens of thousands of lawsuits have been filed against individuals alleged to have illegally downloaded the movie. The lawsuits have now made their way into Canada as the Federal Court of Canada has ordered the identification of subscribers at Bell Canada, Cogeco, and Videotron who face similar copyright infringement claims.

As summer draws to an end, people across the country are sending their kids back to school and getting ready for autumn. In addition, CIOs and other executives are finalizing their Q4 budgets and preparing for other end of year activities. For many customers of SAP and Oracle, these winds of change can also signal consideration of switching from one of the two Tier I ERP systems to another.

Industry Minister Christian Paradis gave a speech today [September 19, 2011] at the Wireless Canada Technology Showcase. The talk included references to forthcoming copyright reform, the reintroduction of privacy reforms (formerly Bill C-29), and plans to move forward with spectrum auctions.

Look for interesting news in the TPI Momentum 2011 review of outsourcing spending. We looked at outsourcing trends in 27 vertical and 68 sub-vertical industries throughout 2010 and found that, while overall outsourcing spending increased by five percent, conditions were highly variable across industries – with spending up or down by more than five percent in over half of the verticals.

Earlier this year, I looked at the convergence of social media and mobile library applications. I found this was an area that could have a lot of potential to augment information services, but found little innovation in this area. The intersection of increasing user involvement in creating, finding, and sharing their own information, combined with the direct and ubiquitous access of mobiles has prompted discussion in library literature, but it appears little action - yet.

Our recent ERP benchmark study (soon-to-be-released) points out the obvious relationship between ERP selection success and ERP implementation success, that is: a failed selection project inevitably results in a failed implementation project.

The International Telecommunications Union yesterday released its Measuring the Information Society 2011 report, which benchmarks information society developments worldwide.  The centrepiece of the report is the ICT Development Index, which tracks 11 different indicators focused on access, use, and skills (the eleven indicators are: fixed telephone line subscriptions, mobile subscriptions, international Internet bandwidth, households with a computer, households with Internet access, percentage of individuals using the Internet, broadband subscriptions, mobile broadband subscriptions, adult literacy, secondary and tertiary enrolment).

We’ve been discussing the impact of Cloud Computing on cutting carbon emissions since its inception – but now that cloud services are being fully embraced from individuals to business enterprise, we are really starting to see the overall financial and environmental benefits.

According to the 2010 National Physician Survey, 16.1% of physicians use electronic records instead of paper charts in their main patient care setting. (In 2007, this number was 9.8%.) While we see improvement in the adoption of EMRs over the three-year period, these numbers are not stellar by any means. There is a big difference between implementing an EMR and effectively using the system to enhance the way that care is delivered. The 2010 survey also indicated that 34.1% of physicians use a combination of paper and electronic charts — twice the number that use EMR alone.

As my colleague Bobby Neil and I wrote earlier this year, if you’re looking to buy Software as a Service (SaaS), it takes diligence. It’s important to understand whether you’re buying a true SaaS solution or simply a repackaged, “on-demand” version of the software. The same can be said for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). A true IaaS service can, at times, be difficult to discern from a more traditional managed service.

Horizontal networking often creates dissonance in the vertical enterprise. The vertical structure of knowledge did not foresee the coming of horizontal networking tools now shaping today’s workplace.

How's that for a big topic? I think about it a lot, but its demise looks increasingly inevitable, especially the way the FCC is talking these days. Much like the railroads, when the system becomes too expensive to operate, the operators start making noise and giving reasons why it needs to be scaled back or done away with altogether.

For the past few months, I have wanted to purchase a portable computing device but have been paralyzed by an inability to determine what best to buy. I don't have the budget to buy everything, so I've been trying to decide whether to buy a tablet, e-reader, or netbook. Recently our laptop computer has been gravely ill and so this adds to my purchase dilemma.

ERP systems come in all types of varieties, shapes, and sizes, ranging from the massive Tier I packages like SAP and Oracle, to the smaller, more focused nice point solutions like Salesforce and Workday.

Landing pages are an important aspect of higher education institutions’ conversion tactics, but, if your landing pages aren’t converting your prospects to leads, then they’re most likely not optimized. Your landing pages are meant to prompt a certain action and by make them appealing, targeted and credible you increase your chances of turning your visitors into viable leads. So—how can you improve your conversion rates?

Copyright, U.S. lobbying, and the stunning backroom Canadian response gets front page news treatment today as the Toronto Star runs my story on new revelations on copyright from the U.S. cables released by Wikileaks.

As any sales manager or CFO can attest, improving sales performance is a tough, time-consuming, task. You implement enabling technology. You recruit great sales skills. You gain access to valuable information. Your team uses these resources and tries hard. Yet, still, sales performance lags what everyone senses it could be. If only there were a way to improve the sales impacts of sales efforts.

Just getting the word out about my next webinar with Focus.com. I'll be presenting along with Polycom on the topic of remote workers.

Using computers to facilitate brainstorming sessions has been (occassionally) talked about in academic and management fields for the last two decades, but I have never heard of it actually implemented in a real-life scenario. Back in 2008, I blogged about the potential and problems of electronic brainstorming, but I haven't encountered the topic subsequently.

Canada was scheduled to complete the digital television transition today [August 31, 2011], with stations switching their over-the-air broadcast signals from analog to digital. The transition represented a tremendous opportunity to advance the Canadian digital agenda leading to higher quality digital over-the-air broadcasts, freed-up spectrum that could be used to facilitate greater telecom competition, and the promise of billions in new revenues to fund a national digital strategy.

In our previous ERP planning tip, we discussed routings, the final data set-up requirement for making an item. In this tip, I dig deep into another critical data requirement – the need to maintain timely and accurate inventory counts and movements.

The past year has not been kind to Research in Motion Ltd., Canada’s leading technology company. The Waterloo-based maker of the BlackBerry smartphone has seen its share price nosedive in the wake of less than stellar launches of new products such as the Playbook, disappointing earnings guidance, and plans to cut its global workforce.

By now, you’ve heard about Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility. As the largest deal in Google’s history (a whopping $12.5 billion!), there has been, unsurprisingly, a flurry of debate and discussion. There may be some significant change on the horizon, but what does it mean for the industry?

What a tumultuous week in technology. Almost on the heels of the announcement that Google was buying Motorola, Hewlett-Packard announced the retirement of their recently released Touchpad tablet as well as a potential strategic change in direction from consumer technology products to business software with the spin-off or sale of their computer division. It is no small shift when the largest computer supplier in the world states they are planning on exiting the hardware market. Things are changing and fast.

Implementing a multi-provider sourcing strategy across multiple countries requires tight coordination between business units, finance, legal and internal contract management. Success depends on an appropriate commercial structure, well-managed multiple-provider service delivery, smooth invoicing and allocation processes, and optimal service levels.

As kids across the country begin heading their way back to school for the new academic year, CIOs and their respective organizations appear to still be getting schooled on the harsh realities of ERP implementations. In the last week, two fairly high-profile lawsuits made their way into the technology media: one involving a case against ERP software vendor Epicor and the other against Infor.

The term ‘Hacker’ has been rampant around the internet recently. Actually, it has been the dirty word of the internet since the 80’s and the classic hacker movies of the early 90’s. It’s not a word you want to throw around loosely; it scares people because the path of destruction can be crippling. Whether your 15 year old opened a scam email and infected your family computer, or a virus has taken down your entire system at the office – most people have witnessed the effects of an online security breach.

Dwayne Winseck examines the growth of the Canadian network media economy from 1984 to 2010.

Recently had the pleasure of comparing notes with Lisa Nirell, founder of EnergizeGrowth, and a blogger with FastCompany. Following are excerpts from our conversation.

Defined in basic terms, a “benchmark” of an outsourcing deal is simply a comparison of one set of numbers against another, with the objective of adjusting pricing terms to more closely reflect market standards. But benchmarking can and should be much more than a discrete exercise aimed at cost reduction.

Many of our clients hire us when they know they need help selecting and implementation a new ERP system. Often times, these clients know the general direction they want to go with their enterprise initiatives and simply need help navigating the options and implementing their chosen solution. This tends to be the sweet spot of our client base.

Healthcare is extremely political in Canada! No big surprise to anyone who has been involved in health administration or planning, perhaps because healthcare is viewed as a national right under the Canada Health Act.

Paul Lepage, Senior Vice President of TELUS Health Solutions, dicussed the current shift in healthcare in Canada in his presentation The Care Continuum at eHealth 2011 in May.

Stingray today launches a new online Canadian music service having addressed the major issue keeping services out of the country - the high cost of licensing.

In our previous ERP planning tip, we discussed the bill of materials (BOM), which discussion answered the following questions: which and how many components are needed to produce an item. This tip deals with routings, the final data set-up requirement.

One of the key benefits cloud computing promises to deliver is that of flexible, usage-based pricing for IT resources: use more, pay more; use less, pay less.  This model gives businesses transparency into actual consumption and eliminates – at least in theory – the problem of managing insufficient or idle capacity.  The result is optimized efficiency and a more agile enterprise.

We are constantly looking ahead. That’s why we have eyes in the front of heads, giving us the ability to look forward, to see what is ahead of us. This is particularly useful in an environment that changes so quickly, and the line between present and future is often blurred. In business, it is part of the job to look ahead, forecast for the future and be prepared for a changing landscape. The people with the corner offices are paid the big bucks to make these predictions and lead their companies to success. What does the future of your business look like?

To most reasonably informed Americans, there are some really basic things that its representatives in government should do, but lack the political will to execute. Without real reform, the middle class will continue to decline, forcing entrepreneurs to go to other markets, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of an increasingly smaller minority of people will accelerate the decline of the American Empire. Here are a few obvious steps that should be taken:

The federal government has launched a new anti-spam site at FightSpam.gc.ca.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that domain names are property.

Domain name disputes emerged as one of the first Internet legal issues in the mid-1990s as speculators recognized the value of domain names and the potential to resell them to the highest bidder. The growth of "cybersquatting" led to several unsuccessful attempts to establish a dispute resolution system.

Cloud ERP is clearly the talk of the ERP software industry. The marketing engine supporting cloud options such as software as a service (SaaS) and hosted ERP systems is very strong, even reaching into the consumer-facing side of things with Microsoft’s push into the cloud with Windows-based products.

Much is made of the importance of Cloud Computing, the endless options for what can be sourced to the Cloud, and the vast dollars that can be saved by moving services to the Cloud. But very little is said about what consideration should be given to specific financial structures and terms of a Cloud-based services agreement.

We all recognize that customer service isn’t what it used to be. We don’t expect personal attention anymore, we expect to serve and ultimately fend for ourselves – like online banking, or bagging your own groceries!

The following email was received from a private diagnostic facility in Toronto. While it may be tempting to point a finger at the “for profit” nature of private diagnostics, competitive markets tend to drive efficiency and non-performers simply go out of business. As more physicians adopt EMRs, the demand for ways to leverage EMRs and improve efficiency is bound to grow.

In our previous ERP planning tip, we covered time and quantity order-based modifiers to back-schedule supply requirements from demand. This previous tip dealt with the “when” and “how much” questions of planning. In this week’s tip, we cover the “what” questions of planning, which is represented by the bill of materials, or BOM (there is also an element of “how much” in BOMs).

Due to the centenary of media theorist Marshal McLuhan, there has been a flurry of recent coverage and events on his work and life.

As we’ve covered in great detail in this blog over the last several years, ERP implementations can be a grind. It’s tough to finish on time and on budget while at the same time delivering expected business benefits. Whether you are working for a commercial company or are in the public sector, it’s no secret the the odds are stacked against you when it comes to ERP systems.

Funding programs to support EMR adoption have been available in Canada for almost 10 years. However, these programs were never intended to fund EMRs indefinitely.

I've got some not-so-random thoughts to share from the last 2 days of Cisco C-Scape 2011. I'm not your typical industry analyst, so my take here is a bit different, and I just might get you to see collaboration a bit differently. If you want straight up analyst coverage, just mine the Twitter feeds that have been going non-stop.

There comes a time in the lifecycle of every business when it will inevitably hit a turning point. It may come in the form of a large-scale shift in business practices or perhaps as simple as reallocating funds for the next fiscal year. Change is necessary. Even the companies that produce staple products like toilet paper or band aids go through periods of experimentation or a refresh of the brand. Bottom line is that people (the consumer) get bored easily, and if you do not adapt to changing consumer landscapes, you will be left in the dust – ask Blockbuster. Did you ever think that the concept of ‘Video Rental’ would be a story you would have to tell your grandchildren about?

The CRTC's usage based billing oral hearing concluded yesterday [July 19, 2011] with a final decision expected some time in the fall.  This long post focuses on the shift in CRTC thinking on the state of broadband competition in Canada but wonders whether it comes too late to make a difference.

In the late 1980s, the first wave of modern outsourcing realised the promise of specialisation, labour arbitrage, risk sharing and scale efficiencies. From the late 1990s forward, the era of globalisation saw the forming of the second wave of outsourcing with the rise of offshoring. Now, in the era of social networking, are we seeing the third wave of outsourcing with the emergence of crowdsourcing?

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of Marshall McLuhan's birthday. To commemorate this milestone and recognize McLuhan's ongoing relevance to communication and media theory, various organizations and people have been holding events or writing about McLuhan. Although McLuhan is generally regarded as Canada's preeminent communication scholar and is still well known for his theories and concepts such "The medium is the message" and the "global village", his role as predictor and shaper of digital technology is less well known.

In our previous ERP planning tip, we discussed the importance of feeding an MRP system - or a planning engine - accurate and timely data. In this tip, we start to dig a bit deeper into the types of data that a planning engine needs to make meaningful recommendations.

There is an interesting thread of conversation that is beginning to wage on adoption of EMRs by physicians. This was triggered by a comment made by Tom Closson, President and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), at the recent eHealth Conference in Toronto.

The second day of the CRTC hearing on usage based billing left the Commission with three fairly divergent views on Canadian networks, traffic management, and the wholesale tariff (coverage from the Globe, Cartt.ca, Wire Report). While Bell focused on network congestion in its presentation on the first day, the cable providers and independent ISPs provided a much different perspective, focusing instead on incentives to invest (cable) and competition (independent ISPs).

The CRTC has issued a warning to Rogers in the ongoing dispute over its alleged throttling of World of Warcraft.

The CRTC hearing on wholesale usage based billing opened yesterday [July 11,2011] with Bell leading off in front of a packed room (coverage from the Globe, National Post, Quebecor, and Wire Report).

Most of the clients we work with grow at least to some degree via mergers and acquisitions of other companies. Either they want to branch into new markets, acquire new customers, and/or leverage operational competencies of other companies. Regardless of the drivers of these M&A activities, there are a number of operational and strategic risks and pain points that unfortunately often aren’t adequately addressed by organizations.

From time-to-time, one reads about security breaches as a result of a computer being stolen containing patient's personal health information or breaches as a result of a network being hacked (as occurred recently to Sony's online gaming community). However, as more information is stored in the 'Cloud', how secure is that data and how worried should we be about breaches?

Think of the WORST possible hazard to your business. Is it…

I looked at this blog's stats recently and noticed my post on Canadian Job Posting Sites for Internet Professionals from 2008 is not only my top blog post of all time but continues to be popular every month. I haven't been on the look-out for a job in ages, but I know some of the sources I previously listed are no longer relevant. So I have updated my list and included it below.

The credit crunch and recovery have exposed manufacturers to volatile demand. The earthquake in Japan has exposed manufacturers to volatile supply. The key to effective management of supply and demand lies in a manufacturer's planning activities.

In honour of Canada's birthday, I'm updating my list of Canadian individuals and companies who contributed to digital culture or technology.

Microsoft recently released its Windows Azure Pricing Calculator, adding to the growing list of simple, web-based pricing calculators for cloud platforms. Amazon Web Services, a public cloud pioneer, has had a pricing calculator in place since 2009. Of course, in true cloud fashion, it’s still in beta.

You have likely heard about the business benefits of a strong Twitter presence: competitive intelligence, increased brand awareness and customer engagement, to name just a few. However, if the Twitterverse is still foreign to you and your colleagues, check out these tips for starting and maintaining a meaningful dialogue:

The 2010 National Physician Survey Results are now available online. The numbers tell an interesting story regarding the adoption and use of EMRs.

The OECD has released its latest round of data on broadband services in 33 of the world's most developed countries [update: While today's release [June 23, 2011] is new and incorporates this information into the OECD Communications Outlook 2011, a reader points out the broadband data was first released two months ago].

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada released her PIPEDA annual report yesterday [21 June, 2011] with a clear emphasis on the Internet (Google Buzz & Wifi, Facebook, eHarmony, etc.). The headline grabbing stories included an audit of Staples that found the company had frequently failed to wipe customer information from computers and other devices being resold in the stores and an investigation of eHarmony, the online dating site, that had led to changes to its customer data deletion practices.

It is definitely possible in this obsessively convenient world for you to literally never leave your house and still be completely social, stay current, be entertained, and even build a successful business. Pretty much anything you want to do, you can accomplish from a 10’ x10’ room.

Organizations typically implement ERP systems to help improve business operations, whether it be to increase efficiencies, streamline business processes, or increase revenues. However, our research shows that a full 54-percent of companies have a high level of business risk at the time of going live with their new ERP software.

Given the critical role it plays in communication, culture, and commerce, most people now recognize the importance of Internet access. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes a new report for the United Nations Human Rights Council takes Internet access a step further, however, characterizing it as a human right.

Along with millions of others, earlier this week, I watched a very frail looking Steve Jobs address attendees at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. In addition to demonstrating new operating systems for the Mac and the iPhone/iPad, Apple announced the new iCloud service.

The CRTC's vertical integration hearing opens today with fifty groups scheduled to appear over the next week and a half.  I've written a couple of articles about the issue over the past year. Last September, I noted the Canadian consolidation felt like a last stab at a walled garden approach that has consistently failed and argued:

If the last few years have taught us anything about business, it’s that the successful companies adapt to tempestuous market shifts.

This summer, many of our Atum Team members are ‘on the move’ – moving closer to the office, to a newer-flashier location or simply just for a change in scenery. In some cases the process can be exhausting and stressful, worthy of a half-hour special on HGTV. But many times, it is an absolute necessity based on your individual needs… so in the end, the destination should be worth the journey! Right?

This is the time of year when our clients are either in the midst of ramping up their ERP implementations or are on the verge of selecting an ERP system to implement later in the year. While the ERP selection process is critical to the success of an enterprise software initiative, even the most perfectly aligned software won’t make a bit of difference if it’s not implemented effectively. Since most organizations don’t have the in-house capabilities to handle the associated complexities and risks, they often choose to leverage the expertise of an outside ERP implementation consultant.

Apple has once again captured the attention of the Internet world with the unveiling of the iCloud, an online backup system that will allow users to instantly store their content on Apple computer servers so that they can be accessed anywhere from any device.

Recently on LinkedIn, over 150 Sales + Marketing Executives shared their views on the #1 reason for failure in sales. Several things really struck me from the conversation to date. Learning’s gotten little air time. Nor has better coaching. The need for it. The lack of it.

London, UK-based app developers Blippar will soon be launching a brilliant platform for garnering pull-based mobile response to ads by with some ultra-cool augmented reality tools.

TPI has recently concluded its third annual captive benchmarking study in India. To enhance benchmarking results and analysis, in addition to cost factors we included operational and process complexity parameters to identify key industry trends and actionable insights for the participants.

Many companies running Infor Baan ERP software are reaching a crucial juncture. Do they upgrade to Infor's ERP LN software, stick with their current software or expand the search to include other vendors.

Because telecom costs represent a significant investment for a global organization, effective negotiation of telco/service/product contracts is imperative.

Google's new +1 button, released on July 1st (try it yourself above this post!) is Google's foray into social or "curated" search

With the new Parliamentary session set to kick off today [June 2, 2011] with the election of a new speaker, new cabinet members are busy brushing up on the myriad of issues they will face in the coming months. The appointment to cabinet comes with a private mandate letter from the Prime Minister that sets out his expectations and policy goals.

Christian Paradis delivered his first public speech yesterday [May 31, 2011] as Industry Minister at the Canadian Telecom Summit.

Do you have a job opening you would like to post? Job postings are open to anyone involved directly or indirectly in healthcare as a physician, practice manager, program administrator, vendor, or a healthcare IT professional.

Earlier I posted the first installment of a two-part blog on the importance of using a value plan in performing value assessments and acting on their results. Today I address several steps you should take in conjunction with creating the value plan to help bring about a positive outcome for your company and your service providers. If you haven’t already done so, please read part 1 of the discussion here.

“Be careful what you ask for” — it’s fortune cookie wisdom. We have many client situations where they want to know whether they are really getting the value out of their outsourcing relationships. They ask us to look at the situation from all kinds of angles: services, invoice and resource unit accuracy, risk, productivity and so forth. We do these types of assessments from time to time, and they almost always show that there is some value loss in the relationship.

I remember when there was no Google and Yahoo ruled the roost. Google clearly dominates now in functionality and commercial success, but over the years I've maintained a devotion to Yahoo that began even before there was a Google. My experience with Yahoo, however, provides a lesson of how to lose customers and also reflects Yahoo's progressive irrelevance.

At CanadianEMR, we receive information and feedback from many sources: physicians who submit EMR ratings, users’ comments on the CanadianEMR blog, communications from media and industry representatives, feedback from practice managers and administrative staff. As a result of all of this feedback, we function to some degree as an early warning system. Even if comments are not explicit, it is possible to draw conclusions from overall feedback.

Shaw has announced new broadband plans that offer far more data, faster speeds, and better pricing than comparable plans at competitors such as Rogers, Bell, and Telus.

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Wallet, a system that uses near-field communication devices inside of mobile phones to send payments.

At the AA-ISP Leadership Summit, forward-thinking sales leaders compared notes on what best-in-class inside sales teams are doing to improve their performance. Industry leaders briefed attendees on the results of their initiatives + reflections on industry trends.

Sourcing considerations in ERP environments are not that dissimilar from those of traditional Application Development & Maintenance (ADM) environments in many ways. Yet there are also unique challenges and nuances that are especially applicable when sourcing ERP service providers.

Silicon Valley like its metallic namesake is shiny and alluring to those in the tech and digital media sector. In comparisson, Ontario often seems dull and staid. Although Canada has had its share of tech and Net success stories over the years, the news and blogs are saturated with coverage of the happenings in the Valley. Often Canadian tech companies are only covered in mainstream media when they sell out or move down south.

Earlier this month, Bell and Quebecor, two giants in the Canadian broadcasting and telecom landscape, became embroiled in a dispute over Sun News Network, the recently launched all-news network. At first glance, the dispute appeared to be little more than a typical commercial fight over how much Bell should pay to Quebecor to carry the Sun News Network on its satellite television package.

New Treasury Board President Tony Clement has said he's committed to advancing the government's open data efforts. Clement noted that initaitive is consistent with what he was trying to do as Industry Minister on the digital economy strategy.

ERP implementation failure is a pretty easy topic to write about – fresh material is delivered to my door almost daily. Consider, for example, the California County of Marin’s recent $30 million lawsuit against Deloitte Consulting LLP.