The Government of Canada (GC) hosted Open First Day on Friday, September 28. It was a really interesting opportunity for hundreds of people in public/private sector to get together and share their experiences.
I’d like to start by congratulating them on the title of the event. It wasn’t Consider Open Source Day or Learn about Open Source and Government Day. It Was Open First Day. Open Standards, Open Data, Open Source and Open Government.
The site for this conference was...
I am often inspired by the work of Tim Frick and the team at Mightybytes. He recently published an article on Aligning Your Organization with U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I’m going to try not to repeat the work he’s done, but try to add to it. You should read his article.
The world is facing some rather unprecedented challenges. A great many of these challenges caused by unfettered capitalism. This is made worse with belief that profit is the only goal business should...
After writing this article I learned about IBM’s Content Clarifier from Hassell Inclusion. Something like this could be built right into the workflow of your content creation process.
Accessibility (a11y) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complex, but it doesn't have to be hard. If you have a good routine in place, you can write content that can be compelling for everyone.
So much can come down to the KISS Principle "Keep it simple, stupid". Like everything...
It's hard to avoid the blockchain if you are on the internet these days. Most folks have heard about Bitcoin, Ethereum or EOS because of speculative investments. Highly volatile cryptocurrencies have made some people very wealthy. It's all based on the idea of the blockchain.
A public, distributed ledger that is next to impossible to alter. This makes it very useful for things that go beyond cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain is a pretty amazing technology that will have some great...
The GDPR is in effect. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law that is now in effect. This affects all organizations that service European citizens. In North America, most organizations only became aware of it recently.
The policies of the GDPR are quite broad and establish a bold Privacy by Design framework. Ann Cavoukian published the 7 Foundational Principles of privacy nearly a decade ago. At the time she was the Information and...
I've written on our decision to move ahead an accessibility widget in Personalization & Accessibility with Drupal. I thought it would be worthwhile highlighting some of the various options that are currently being used in a number of sites. I do now believe that they are an important part of building more accessible content.
I wanted to highlight a few of the options for preference widgets because there are just so many and there are very few common patterns. Adding an...
Everybody wants their website to be accessible. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is key for any modern organization. In the Government of Canada, it is a clear part of the Liberal Party's mandate. Setting a strong policy direction is critical, but then what?
Most departments still see accessibility as a one-liner that can be added to an ICT contract. Then the responsibility for any shortfalls lies on the vendor.
Sadly, this doesn't work. Accessibility is a...
The tech sector has undermined personal privacy in the constant pursuit of the latest shiny thing. Privacy is a core component of our democracy and is essential for free expression.
Most have assumed that it is built into the online tools that they use every day. This isn't the case. The media coverage of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook how dangerous this is. The model of surveillance capitalism put forward by Google is now very advanced. Big Data & Artificial Intelligence gives...
There is a lot of excitement about AI (Artificial Intelligence). It shows promise to solve many problems, including some for greater digital inclusion. I see great potential, but also some significant limitations. We need a measured approach to machine intelligence to learn how algorithms can best help.
The Google Translate ProblemLet’s admit it. Google Translate is getting pretty good. However, it isn’t good enough to be as good as a professional translator. At some point, for some...
I have to say that historically, I haven't had a good reason to think much about Estonia. It's just the first of the Baltic countries that we covered in history class in high-school. It wasn't until the FWD50 conference in Ottawa where this really shifted.
Siim Sikkut spoke about Estonia building up a digital government from the ground up. The contemporary Estonian government started only 1992, shortly after the WWW started. There were some bold leaders who decided to start not with...
