Seb Paquet has just become a free-agent, leaving behind the NRC-IIT in Moncton (bonne chance mon ami!). I’ll miss having Seb close by but look forward to the possibilities of working together in Montreal, hopefully through Mancomm.
Seb’s post is a great indicator of how blogs can work for your professional development. He has basically created a reverse job posting, telling the world that he is available and under what conditions. Instead of roaming the streets with his CV in hand, Seb’s blog is a central location to get to know him or to catch-up on what he’s been up to. I think that these kinds of between-job postings will become popular on the web and I’m sure that someone will even give them a name and sell services around them ;-)
Marratech Free
I’ve been using the synchronous online collaboration system, Marratech, for the past six months and so far I’m pretty impressed (Disclosure: Mancomm Performance, with whom I’m associated, is a reseller of Marratech). The compression for video and audio is excellent and the latest version 5.1 comes with application sharing and co-browsing. However, some of the buttons are not the most intuitive and the built-in browser lacks some functionality.
Overall, it’s one of the better systems that I’ve used (and I’ve used many systems over the past years). The pricing model is also clear, simple and reasonable and you can even make an outright purchase, without annual license fees.
The company has recently introduced Marratech Free which is a limited version for 5 users. You can use it for a whole year so there is no reason to purchase or rent until you’ve had a good chance to test it out. This is also an excellent solution for small businesses looking for a quick and easy collaboration system with more functionality than other freeware and with a much longer trial period than the usual 15 to 30 days.
Harry Potter Injunction is Unconstitutional
Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet & E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law has reviewed a recent BC court decision. The court forces people who have legally purchased an inadvertently available copy of a Harry Potter book to return the book or face legal action.
Having spent much of the day discussing the Harry Potter case, I find myself becoming increasingly troubled by the scope of the injunction issued by the B.C. Supreme Court. The injunction represents more than just a remarkable misuse of copyright law. Quite simply, it is an attack on freedom.
* The freedom to read (the order restrains reading the book).
* The freedom of expression (the order restrains discussing any aspect of the book).
* The freedom associated with personal property (the order compels anyone who has the book to return it, along with any notes, to Raincoast books).
This is all done purely in the name of furthering commercial interests. In Canada, we have some narrow restrictions on hate speech and child pornography. But we do not issue court orders that prohibit children from reading books.
For a judge to issue such a blantantly unconstitutional order is appalling. For a book publisher and a children’s author to request such an order, is shameful. We should tell them so.
* The freedom to read (the order restrains reading the book).
* The freedom of expression (the order restrains discussing any aspect of the book).
* The freedom associated with personal property (the order compels anyone who has the book to return it, along with any notes, to Raincoast books).
This is all done purely in the name of furthering commercial interests. In Canada, we have some narrow restrictions on hate speech and child pornography. But we do not issue court orders that prohibit children from reading books.
For a judge to issue such a blantantly unconstitutional order is appalling. For a book publisher and a children’s author to request such an order, is shameful. We should tell them so.
I agree with Geist. Why should commercial interests be put ahead of our constitutional rights? If the courts don’t look after the rights of those without the money to appeal this decision, then who will? Perhaps this is something that our Senate should look into, since the Senate purports to represent minority rights, such as those of children.
You can contact Raincoast Books.
17 July: Michael Geist follows up with more bad news for our constitutional rights.
FluWiki
FluWiki is a site that endeavours to create a sharing community to prepare for the next flu pandemic.
No one, in any health department or government agency, knows all the things needed to cope with an influenza pandemic. But it is likely someone knows something about some aspect of each of them and if we can pool and share our knowledge we can advance preparation for and the ability to cope with events. This is not meant to be a substitute for planning, preparation and implementation by civil authorities, but a parallel effort that complements, supports and extends those efforts.
This site interests me because we used wikis with internal communities of practice, and the ability to co-edit pages was greatly appreciated by the social workers who developed an online knowledge base. The community seems to be just gearing-up but there is a lot of information already available, including a basic primer on influenza.
Via Denham Grey
Development Gateway
The Development Gateway is a comprehensive, non-profit resource on issues related to economic and social development with a particular focus on information and communication technologies. It includes 28 online communities, such as ICT for Development. I came across this site because I was looking for specific information on ICT’s and Indigenous communities and Development Gateway listed 61 articles on the subject. This is a very easy to use and substantial web resource.
Technologies of Cooperation
I’ve already referred this excellent document to two of my colleagues, so I guess that I’d better blog about it. Entitled Technologies of Cooperation, this paper from the Institute for the Future is available on Howard Reingold’s site as a PDF. A small or a large map is also available. The large map is great to read on your computer but a pain to print.
Technologies for Cooperation is a follow-up and a synthesis of a paper that I talked about last year, called Toward a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business. The recent document is worth a read for those immersed in Web 2.0 as well as anyone trying to get a handle on the two-way web and online communities.
What triggered me to read this report was the recent CCL e-learning workshop. I was reading the Executive Summary just as we were discussing how the CCL could facilitate the creation of communities. The strategic guidelines for the use of these coooperative technologies are covered in detail in the document:
- Shift focus from designing systems to providing platforms
- Engage the community in designing rules to match their culture, objectives, and tools; encourage peer contracts in place of coercive sanctions by distant authority when possible
- Learn how to recognize untapped or invisible resources
- Identify key thresholds for achieving “phase shifts” in behavior or performance
- Track and foster diverse and emergent feedback loops
- Look for ways to convert present knowledge into deep memory
- Support participatory identity
The information in this report is useful to anyone starting or trying to maintain some type of online community. It also shows that top-down approaches and constrained spaces with explicit rules will not foster cooperation. Cooperation is becoming important for all organisations, as the authors conclude, "competition and cooperation will likely become a pair of evolutionary strategies for organizations".
Canada Day 2005
Dominion Day is now called Canada Day – July 1st, the 138th anniversary of Confederation. I still prefer the old appellation, but life goes on.
Forty years ago we also got a new flag, the Maple Leaf, which replaced the red ensign (also the flag for the Canadian Army).
The flag debate in the Commons was rather heated and consensus seemed to be impossible. Many people were upset when the new maple leaf flag was adopted (similar to our recent same-sex marriage debate).
Today, there are few people who would deny the distinct nature of our flag. I wore it proudly as a soldier. Travellers sew them on their backbacks and it is recognised throughout the world.
Sometimes you have to do what is right. This is what Prime Minister Pearson and 162 other Members of Parliament did after forcing closure on the issue. The tyranny of the majority can prevent us from doing what is right. Luckily we have some visionaries from time to time who bring us the likes of universal health care and a distinct flag.
I’m proud to be Canadian, and I like our distinct Maple Leaf. Vive le Canada.
Now it’s time to start our vacation :-)
Ministers of Education Not Happy with Copyright Law
The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) has issued a press release stating their concern with the new copyright law, recently passed. Jamie Muir, Minister of Education for Nova Scotia stated:
“While other countries have copyright laws that support education by protecting student and teacher access to learning resources, Canada has a law that makes routine classroom activities illegal.”
It makes you wonder what is more important, the education of Canadians or profits for a select group of copyright holders. One point about the CMEC’s position that concerns me a bit is the use of the word "classroom" as the only venue where learning happens. Education is not confined to the classroom, but it may be confined by the classroom. Time to drop the classroom metaphor.
Canadian Council on Learning
The CCL had its first elearning workshop today, and I attended from the NRC-IIT video conference facility. The major problem was the technology – we couldn’t get a real conversation going as about 20% of the time we were fighting with the technology. I’m told that the main issue was that users did not know how to use the technology (an open source system, run mostly over the mega-bandwidth CA*Net).
I’m still formulating my thoughts on CCL. Here is what I know so far.
It has received $85M to establish five knowledge centres:
- Adult Learning in Atlantic Canada
- Early Childhood Learning in Quebec
- Work and Learning in Ontario
- Aboriginal Learning in the Prairies, Northwest Territories and Nunavut
- Health and Learning in British Columbia and Yukon
I don’t want to appear too cynical but my first impressions were – It’s a new organisation with a new pot of money, but the same players from other initiatives that have gone by the wayside, with the same issues and agendas as well as the same barriers. That being said, upon further discussion it became evident that CCL could play a pivotal role for learning. That role would be as an objective advocate (since the CCL is not a government agency) to advance good learning practices. Already, the CCL is advocating open source technologies and methodologies within the elearning sphere. This is a good thing, and will enable us to help developing countries and vice-versa.
On the other hand, I don’t see a sustainable business model with CCL. What will happen when the money runs out? I used to work for the Centre for Learning Technologies. We were 85% self-sufficient but it wasn’t enough for the university, so the CLT was closed after five years. How will the CCL continue when the $85M runs out? My experience with not-for-profits is that you have to work on the business model just as hard as you do with any other private sector start-up. I don’t see how the CCL will generate revenue after the initial funding is over. So my basic question is – Is this another flash in the pan?
Any comments here are greatly appreciated, since the CCL does not have a blog/wiki or other collaborative medium (yet).
The Individual is the Organisation
Yesterday, at the QSC opening, I was able to have a much too short discussion with Robert Paterson about organisational change. The gist of our conversation was that since all change happens with the individual, why focus on the organisation for any cultural/organisational change? This has me thinking about my own business, which I have summed up by stating that my consultancy focuses on "Improving organisational performance at the intersection of learning, work and technology". Perhaps a better, and more pragmatic, focus would be on "Improving individual performance …". The lesson being that you should focus your energies on what you can change, and that would be by helping people, one person at a time. It’s pretty well what I am doing, I just haven’t stated it that way.
I think that a focus on individuals could also reduce some of the inherent frustration of consulting. Even if the organisation has not implemented the change, or just parked the report on a shelf, you can walk away from a project knowing that you have helped someone. It’s a parallel activity within a project but could be the most rewarding.