Government 2.0
I hate the whole "name everything 2.0" meme, but stay with me for a second.
As of writing this, I work for Socialtext building "Enterprise 2.0" software. This is basically bringing all the innovation and great new tools that the consumer web has been experiencing as "Web 2.0" - collaborative things like blogs, wikis, flickrs, twitter to the Enterprise. So rather than using these god awful Lotus Notes or crappy intranet sites, companies are discovering ways to use the Web 2.0 tools to make their companies more productive and fun.
How do we bring the tools started by Web 2.0 and the experience we're gaining with Enterprise 2.0 into our public government?
That's the question I'm increasingly asking myself.
I've got some ideas, but I lack experience in the public sector and connections to others that are doing or are interested in similar things. If you're interested in talking about these ideas - be it locally in Vancouver, BC, Nationally or Internationally, please let me know. If there are lists or blogs where these kinds of things are being discussed, please past them on.
Some ideas:
- a feed aggregator of all elected representatives' official blogs
- a google map showing all ridings, with links to a wiki page for that riding
- what if every elected official had a blog?
- what if every citizen had a blog?
- wikis for government collaboration
- wikis, lists and blogs for working groups - best practices
- how can we help our government take advantage of these tools?
If one doesn't yet exist, and there is interest, I'd like to start a mailing list for discussion of web 2.0 tools for governments.
Update: I just found some useful links of similar ideas going on in Portland:
Bell Unlimited
I feel like I have been ripped off by Bell Mobility after purchasing their Unlimited Data plan. This page serves to explain the situation of how this came to happen.
My Situation
As a telecommuter, reliable internet access is very important. After hearing about Bell's Unlimited data plan, I read through the TOS, felt that I could live with it, and so eagerly signed up for the service. Most of the time, I'm working off of wifi connections from home, but the Bell service was SO handy and freeing. Not having to hunt out a wifi access point was such a luxury. I loved this service. The coverage was great, and it was fast.
Not wanting to be locked into one of these ridiculous 2 year contracts, I opted to outright purchase the cell modem for $300, and pay month to month.
I use internet tools to get my job done:
- Web browser - for collaboration, research, development and testing
- SSH - for software development on company servers
- Mail, Chat, RSS - all keep me in touch
Process Notes
- A robot phoned me on the weekend, and asked me to call back during business hours
- I phoned back on Monday, and discussed with the Bell rep:
- Bell rep said that my account had been suspended
- I asked, "Why?"
- She could not tell me what I had done or why it was being suspended other than I used it "excessively"
- Should could tell me how much I had used it. IIRC, she said I had used it for 60MB last month
- I said that I had used it the previous week, when my home internet was sketchy.
- A few minutes later, she looks on my current usage period, and she says I used 1000MB
- I try to understand why this is happening based on my understanding of the contract: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2249/125/
- I ask to speak with some manager that can help me resolve the situation better
- I leave the call understanding that my service is still connected, and a rep will call me back
- On Friday, Terrence Escourse, a bell manger calls me
- Terrence was honest, sympathetic, helpful and real in explaining that Bell was cancelling my account
- Terrence said that they are cancelling the unlimited plan, and moving people to other plans
- Terrence offered to accept a return of the aircard I purchased (provided I had the original packaging and sales invoice) (and they would refund me $300)
- Terrence explained that in Eastern Canada they have 1,2,3 and 5 Gig/month plans for similar prices
- Terrence offered to move me to a $100/month 250MB/month plan - this is the best he could offer
- Shockingly, this is more expensive than my current plan, and is 8.33 MB/day!
Overall Observations
- The Bell people I talked to were quite good - the store manager that sold me on the plan was great and friendly, and Terrence, the manager I spoke to after my account was cancelled, was very helpful and sympathetic
- The bell processes could use some improvement:
- Having a robot phone me on the weekend doesn't show a lot of respect for my time or attention
- Suggestion - When you need to contact your customers, use people, not robots
- I installed an application to track my network usage. To navigate through Bell's website to find their current rate plans, I consumed 1.3MB download.
- That's 20% of the daily usage of Bell's best plan!
- If I wanted to fill my 4Gig iPod Nano with legal music downloads under Bell's best plan it would take 16 months of exclusive use
- Or: $100 for the first 250MB, then $3 for the remaining 3750MB for a total of $11250.
Thoughts to take away
- What was the reason Bell cancelled the contract I had with them?
- The only reason was that I used the service "excessively" in their opinion
- This comes down to using "excessive network capacity in Bell's reasonable opinion"
- So what is their reasonable opinion? From their actions and their suggestion of alternatives, their opinion is clearly not reasonable!
- It is 2008!
- Did Bell ever have the intention to meet this contract?
I can come to no other conclusion that Bell was not prepared to live up to this unlimited contract when they brought it to market.
I loved paying Bell for this service, and I didn't even use it very much! I'm very upset that they have acted in this manner.
Hey so I thought I'd kick while you were down by pointing out that 1G = 1024M so 4G = 4096M not 4000M
Thanks, I guess the point is the same (or worse). :) --lukec
contributed by Guest User on Apr 6 10:29pm
Guest User: you may be right or you may be wrong -- are you talking about network transfers or file storage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
contributed by Glenn Jackman on Apr 9 8:30am
You and every other customer affected by Bell's unilateral and without notice change in the terms of your contract are grounds for a class action law suit. Bell was already successfully sued for pulling the same crap with their First Rate long distance subscribers:
http://www.classactionlaw.ca/content/claims/bellcanadafirstrate/bellcanadafirstrate.html
Bell NEVER learns from their past mistakes!
contributed by Guest User on Apr 13 8:28am
Why would Bell need you to send back the datacard if you are not on a contract, were they going to give you back $300?
Also btw: if you managed to keep the Bell's U720, you can change its esn and use it on Telus, see shadowmite's post at mobile files forum.
contributed by Guest User on Apr 18 11:35pm
They said I could send back the datacard and they would refund the purchase price. Thanks for the tip about Telus, but I don't know if they have a good data plan. --Luke
A new adventure
Tonight I was accepted as a member of the Board of Directors for Free Geek Vancouver.
Free Geek is an organization that not only promotes ethical recycling of computer equipment, but is part of the solution. Free Geek re-uses equipment, providing hardware for other non-profits, recycles that which cannot be re-used, and provides educational programs on free and open source software. I'm happy to be a part of such an organization.
Free Geek is a consensus based organization, so the Directors don't have (in practice) much authority. In addition to making sure the organization stays out of trouble, I hope to learn a lot from the other directors and members. I also hope that I can contribute some of my skills, experience and perspective to the problems and challenges that FG will face in the upcoming year.
Sweet Socialcalc
I've been working with Dan Bricklin on a project called "Sweet Socialcalc", which is to put Dan's web based spreadsheet into the XO Laptop. Dan's got the HTML/JS covered, so I'm working on the packaging and XO integration. The code is available here and you can download the latest Socialcalc.XO file here.
Next steps are to be able to save and load spreadsheets, and then some deeper integration - such as sampling various XO inputs.
Everything Is Miscellaneous
Happy New Year everyone. I hope it's a great year for all of us.
I read Everything is Miscellaneous over the holidays.
The book is about the massive changes in the way we organize information. In the past, we used things like org charts and the dewey decimal system to keep an ordered view of the world. But as we move away from the limitations of the physical world, and begin to use digital technologies, we can organize (or not) things in many different ways. The bottom line is that our old ways of thinking things are exactly a single thing and that they belong in a specific place (after we've "gone through" them, of course).
I created a mindmap of the book as I read it. Some things that resonated with me:
- There is no best way to organize the world
Previously, due to the limitations of paper and the physical world, we had to decide to organize the world in a single way. That limitation is no longer present with the internet. As a result, we've discovered that the best way to organize something depends on many factors - including time, person and objective.
- Everything has it's places
We no longer need to pick one order over others - things can go in multiple places online.
- physical world: bigger is worse. online: bigger offers more possibility
- online, leafs can be on many branches - different for each person, subject
- filter on the way out, not on the way in
Keep all the metadata possible, it may be useful later
- there is value in pointing
(and being able to point at something)
- Wikis get people on the same page. Blogs distribute conversation and knowledge across space and time.
- Implicit information often says more than the explicit
Reporting on how people use the wiki, and who they interact with will be useful. Possibly more useful than asking people who they work with.
- Things aren't precisely things
The world is messy. Things are sometimes only 73% thing.
- Simplicity used to be necessary
In the offline world, simplicity allowed us to look up books in the library or find out who reports to who. Now that simplicity can be a burden.
- Thinking people's skills are defined by department wastes their talent
and finally, my favourite:
- Hoarding knowledge diminishes your power because it diminishes your presence.
Uni ride to the beach
I rode my Coker unicycle down to kits beach on Thursday, and it was so beautiful out I couldn't help but to take some video...
3-count ultimates
At this years Portland Juggling Festival, Marc Weston, Randy Montana and I co-developed the following 3-count roundabout (The 3-countabout).
There is lots of room to play with the 5-count roundabout still...
Wiki Wednesday - July 11, 2007
Today was both Wiki Wednesday and the Vancouver Work From Homes Club. Here are some videos:
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