Todd's Old Blog

Mostly Ignored

  • Should the Canadian Government Pull the Plug on WebEx?

    Last month I attended the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 Conference from the comfort of my desk. It brought together attendees from around the world using WebEx, a web conferencing technology that includes audio and video conferencing, desktop sharing, and other valuable communication and collaboration features. Later this week, I’ll be attending a meeting with colleagues in…

  • Company Relationship Management (cRM) using Social Media

    Customer relationship management (CRM) is strategy whereby companies use technology “…to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales related activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support. The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the…

  • Cloud Computing in Simple Terms

    Have you heard this term being bandied around in your office or in the media, but don’t have a good grasp of what it really means? This article might make the truly hardcore übergeeks wince, but then it’s not being written for them.  I’d like to help you get a grasp of the concept: a…

  • Open Formats and Open Source for Better Government

    The Government of Canada is currently reliant on proprietary file formats and proprietary software applications, which lock it into a licensing bind with a single software manufacturer — Microsoft.  There is not only a question of cost — as we pay a monopoly corporation for per-seat licenses to run software that already dominates the market…

  • On My Transformation from Social Worker to Public Servant

    I read somewhere that the (median) average age of entry into the Canadian federal public service is 34 years old.  That fits me reasonably well; this is my second career.  For my first 10 years of “professional” employment I was a social worker, and my speciality was child and adolescent mental health.  It was the…

  • Embracing Serendipity

    I came to work for the Government by accident, or so it would seem. Failure to earn a livable wage as a social worker with a growing family was what drove me from full-time employment and part-time Master’s courses (whenever I could balance them), and into full-time education and voluntary unemployment.  Leaving employment had obvious repercussions,…

  • Why Wiki Isn’t New to Government

    In government, where change is recurring and often stressful to the employees affected, Web 2.0 can be a tough sell. One of the biggest hurdles in implementing technology in the workplace is not resistance to technology per se, but the cultural shift that the new software represents.  But when a technology is introduced which replicates…

  • The Thousand Tiny Knives

    In privacy management, it’s the major data breaches that grab the big headlines.  In personal brand management, it’s the high profile embarrassments resulting from carelessness, ignorance and poor judgment that capture public attention.  Janine Krieber, Nathalie Blanchard, Stephen Fry, Tiger Woods… who’ll be next?  Not you, certainly. For most of us, risks to our privacy and reputation…

  • MythTV – The Do-It-Yourself DVR

    My television watching has decreased exponentially with every passing year. It wouldn’t take much statistical analysis to determine a correlation (and probable causal relationship) between this trend and the additional children that have also arrived at Chez Lyons over the years. I’m not complaining; it’s two blessings in one. More tangible enrichment; less etheral mind…