BC “Apps for Climate Change” contest needs your vote!

I love open data initiatives; Especially when they are Canadian (my home turf). I wrote about the premise behind the Apps for Climate Change contest back in April, and now that we have submissions, I want to remind you to vote. The total number of submissions that met all requirements is 16, a huge success in my opinion given the infancy of apps contests in Canada. You can see demos and vote for your favourite apps here.

The importance of “context”

It’s official, “context” is my favourite word of the year.

This old classic has had a huge comeback for me. I’ve noticed myself using it more and more in all of my various presentations.

• Wikipedia defines it as: “the surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings which determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event.”
• Websters defines it as: “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning”

It is my strong belief that when context is not set right from the get go, you will not get your message across. Most people don’t realize just how limiting human languages are.

Poorly written “social media” RFP’s

Now that various public sector organizations are slowly starting to realize that social media engagement is not really an option but rather an imminent requirement, numerous “Request for Proposals” (RFP’s) have been coming out of government with “social media” as part of their titles. Unfortunately, in most cases the RFP dictates required elements which are predominantly tactical in nature:

• We want to build a social network
• We want to create a blog
• We want 5000 friends/followers on channel X

I always double check to see if I missed something, something like a page which states “objectives”, or “purpose” or answers the question “why?” Really, any of those will do. To my dismay, no such page is missing, it’s just never thought of.