Open Source
Civil servants cut through the red tape and share government forward
‘Why not?!’ is the motto of Open Government Places.
The Open Government Places project allows civil servants to cut through the red tape, join forces, and share government forward. This project is called Deelstoel in Dutch (‘share chair’) and invites civil servants to ‘hack’ the government and share their workplaces. Government offices are invited to reserve a part of their buildings to be made available to colleagues from other public administrative organizations.
Penguicon--Would you like some sci-fi in your open source?
Perhaps you've looked around a Linux conference and noticed more than a few "Han Shot First" t-shirts. Or maybe you enjoy sci-fi cons and are always pleased to see costumes powered by Arduinos. This year, the tenth annual Penguicon celebrated what happens when you cross those streams.
Mainstreaming the Gov 2.0 message in the Canadian Public Service
A couple of years ago I wrote a Globe Op-Ed "A Click Heard Across the Public Service" that outlined the significance of the clerk using GCPEDIA to communicate with public servants. It was a message - or even more importantly - an action to affirm his commitment to change how government works. For those unfamiliar, the Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the public service for the federal government, a crude analogy would be he is the CEO and the Prime Minister is the Chairman (yes, I know that analogy is going to get me in trouble with people...)
Inspired by Linux? Design a T-shirt
The Linux Foundation launched their annual T-shirt design contest. The theme this year is "Inspired by Linux," and The Linux Foundation created an inspirational video urging people to create a design based on what inspires them.
Need a resume boost? Get involved with an open source project
There are a lot of excellent reasons to get involved with an open source project. You can learn a new language, improve your existing skills, be challenged by a community that is at the top of their field or even get better at managing complex distributed projects. There are also dozens of ways to participate. Open up a project's bug tracker and find an issue that needs to be fixed. Write a useful new extension or plugin. Even if you don't code, just about every open source project out there could use more testing, more documentation and tutorials and help handling the load on their support forums and mailing lists. If you are a heavy user of open source software it feels great to give something back to the community that has contributed so much.
Need cash? NLnet advances open source technology by funding new projects
In April 1982, exactly 30 years ago, the European Internet was launched by the Dutch researcher Teus Hagen, at a European Unix User Group conference in Paris. EUnet was the very first European Internet backbone. NLnet Foundation subsequently took the lead of this initiative, and not only helped shape the European Internet, but was fundamental in establishing the currently biggest Internet exchange on the planet, and also built out a market leadership. In September 1997, so 15 years ago, it was acquired by UUnet, now Verizon. All money was put in a fund with the sole purpose to make the Internet better.
In the second half of its life NLnet became one of the leading
MediaGoblin 0.3.0 released: See what's happening with this media hosting project
MediaGoblin, which released version 0.3.0 this month, is a free and open source media hosting platform. Chris Webber, project founder and lead developer, took a few minutes to talk to us about the project so far and its future.
On Twitter, do you follow or listen?
Something caught my attention in this story by Phil Shapiro. It was something he said in the video presentation he made--as he was describing what Twitter is and what people use it for, he made the argument that the term followers should be changed to listeners. This is where my brain started racing.
Can government agencies be innovative?
Steve Denning recently wrote a great post titled How To Make Government Innovative Again. In his post Denning asks the following:
Why isn’t the Government generally more agile? Why isn’t innovation part of everything government does? Denning’s answer to these questions are: "Simple. The constraints on talented people who work in government agencies are enormous." Denning lists six reasons why government is not more innovative.
How open educational resources from pre-K to 12th grade present accessibility problems
Digital technology and open educational resources have enormous potential and power with young children. For parents of special needs children, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, dyslexic, or physically or cognitively impaired, the situation is compounded. Parents usually have to advocate to ensure that teachers and schools, even preschools, have educational materials are accessible and available for their child's use.
MCA, the DMCA, and stifled collaboration
Earlier this month, the world lost a music pioneer when Adam Yauch, a.k.a “MCA” of the Beastie Boys, succumbed to cancer at the age of 47. A founding member of the Beastie Boys, Yauch expanded upon his success in the music industry to exert his considerable influence and contributions outside music. He had a strong interest in film, which resulted in him directing several of the Boys’ music videos and in 2008 led to him founding Oscilloscope Studios, which produces and promotes independent films. In the 1990s, Yauch adopted Buddhism and began getting involved socially and politically in a variety of charities and activism.
It's the culture, stupid! How Atlassian maintains an open information culture
All modern businesses run on information, so business management is also about Information Management. However, software alone cannot transform an organization. Information Management mastery doesn't come from technology, it comes from the people! More specifically, it comes down to the CEO instilling an Information Culture for staff to follow. It's leadership not by force, but by example.
ACOs and Moneyball medicine part IV: Risk-reduction architectures
We need to "measure what matters" as the saying goes. As we move to new payment models, we'll need to develop platforms that are designed to measure and learn from a wide array of data points about what works in keeping people healthy. Of course, we'll need health care architectures that can support big data across a wide variety of platforms to enable better algorithms and more learning. There's certainly big opportunity for connecting all these systems.
But it's not just the connection of data in and of itself that will lead to improvements in the triple aim of care, health and costs...Health IT architecture itself can improve the likelihood of cost savings. We need to look deeper at the IT platform as a risk-reducer that can significantly reduce health care costs. Could we one day have an actuarial field of study in the network science in health care?
What do I mean by this? How do architectures reduce risk? Well, mostly by connecting problems with solutions, but in other ways as well. Let's explore this a bit.
The next generation of open source software procurement models
One year ago, the new Swedish framework agreement for the procurement of open source became active. Five suppliers were contracted to provide software and services. Central government, the public educational sector, all twenty county councils, and 225 out of the 290 Swedish municipalities are participating. They call off mini competitions for contracts the suppliers then have to battle for. This model differs from the recommendations made in the European 'Guideline on public procurement of Open Source Software', aiming to overcome current barriers and increase the use of open source.
Open source makes you bolder
I earn a living at a public library in the Washington, DC area. About a year ago I was trying to explain Twitter to someone for the fifth time that week. The person listening to me just wasn't getting it. "I need to give a public talk about Twitter here at this library," I muttered to myself. "That way I won't have to explain Twitter to every person who doesn't get it."
Public policy: The big opportunity for health record data
A few weeks ago Colin Hansen - a politician in the governing party in British Columbia (BC) - penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun entitled Unlocking our data to save lives. It's a paper both the current government and opposition should read, as it is filled with some very promising ideas.
In it, he notes that BC has one of the best collections of health data anywhere in the world and that, data mining these records could yield patterns - like longitudinal adverse affects when drugs are combined or the correlations between diseases - that could save billions as well as improve health care outcomes.
SAS v. WPL decision addresses boundaries of copyrights on software
Last week the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest court in the European Union on matters of EU law, issued a judgment in the case of SAS Institute Inc. v. World Programming Ltd, C-406/10, which was referred to the court for a preliminary ruling by the UK's High Court of Justice for England and Wales, Chancery Division.
Your mother was right, so send her an e-card
Your mother was right--about a lot of things most likely--but we think your mother was right because she always told you it is better to share. Sharing is a very important part of the open source way, so tell your lovely mom thanks for teaching you values like sharing with this e-card.
Nepal and the impact of open source
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world with many gender, educational, and digital divides. Yet it is gradually being transformed by open source and digital technology. There's little question that as Nepal seeks to help its citizens become a part of the global digital economy, it faces a series of challenges: political instability, remote physical access, poor infrastructure, and rural poverty. In April 2012, the World Economic Forum released a report that identified Nepal as one of the least networked countries in the world, at the bottom of world rankings.
Find civic engagement tools and their stories at Engagement Commons beta
With civic engagement becoming an increasingly critical component of successful governance in the 21st century, cities around the world are seeking to leverage technology as a tool for citizen participation, but civic leaders face real challenges finding, evaluating, and deploying the right tools in the absence of good information.That’s why earlier this year, we announced our plans to build Engagement Commons: a comprehensive and dynamic catalog of the tools available for civic engagement and the real-world stories of their deployments.
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