That was quick

November 1st, 2011 § 0

I was in the news last week. I was interviewed about the success of Montréal Ouvert, a citizen initiative I co-founded last summer which had the goal of encouraging the adoption of an “open-data” policy by the city of Montreal. Last week the city passed a motion and launched their portal.

CBC radio interview and Montreal Gazette

This is my third CBC radio interview – I’m had others in relation to my work at Ile sans fil. It’s also by far my best. Open data is also an important issue for Ajah; we rely on government data in order to offer Fundtracker. Being interested in open data since 2005 was one of the things that helped me see the opportunity to start Ajah.

I really enjoyed working with my co-founders: Jean-Noé, Sébastien Pierre, and Jonathan Brun. We all had different experiences and different ways of going about things, but we worked together very effectively and efficiently for the last 14 months. I also learned a lot about lobbying. We approached different people at the city from different angles: economic development, democracy and transparency, citizen services, etc. The only bummer was that when the city finally went forward with the policy, they tried to erase us from the story. They made no mention of us in their press conference or their press release. I wrote this (slightly whiny) letter to my colleagues on the Chantier sur la démocratie municipale when the news about the creation of a new open data portal went to the list without mentioning us.

Hier c’était un victoire, une victoire qui nous a pris 14 mois de travail.

C’est dommage que la ville n’a pas reconnu que c’est le résultat d’une initiative citoyenne. Il n’y avait aucune discussion à la ville à propos des données ouvertes avant qu’on ne crée le groupe Montréal Ouvert l’été passé. L’adoption de cette nouvelle politique a requise des interventions aux 3 consultations publiques, incluant des dépôts des mémoires, 2 réunions publiques avec plus de 60 personnes présentes à chaque fois, 2 hackathons, 5 applications créées bénévolement par des dévéloppeurs (comme http://www.resto-net.org), des dizaines d’articles dans les journaux, des présentations à plus de 30 conférences, plusieurs réunions avec des fonctionnaires (communications, technologie, Quartier Collective), les groupes qui gravitent autour de la ville (TéchnoMontréal, Montréal 2025), et avec les élus (Applebaum, Dauphin, et autres) pour les informer des enjeux des données ouvertes et pourquoi Montréal, comme toutes les autres grandes villes canadiennes, avait besoin d’adopter une politique sur la chose.

Je vous invite a lire notre communiqué d’hier:

http://montrealouvert.net/2011/10/27/nous-avons-reussi-montreal-devient-une-ville-ouverte/

The other fun thing is that I can definitely count this as my second real success. Ile sans is definitely one in the “win” category. Now Montréal Ouvert and Ajah is on it’s way as a third.

Readings that get me reved

October 22nd, 2011 § 0

A Consumers Guide to Grants Management Software (PDF) Updated Oct 2011

There’s a huge variety of grants management systems, ranging from options for small foundations at only a few thousand dollars a year, specialty options for niches like arts grantmaking or medical research foundations, and robust, completely configurable solutions for large foundations starting at $100,000 or more

Huge variety!? How dope is that? I had no idea.

The Role of Community Organizations in the Transformation of the Social Development Model in Québec – Christian Jetté at UdeM

ABSTRACT
Community organizations have played a major role in the delivery of social services in Québec since the 1970s. Their activities aimed to provide an alternative to the heteronomous, bureaucratic practices of the public sector. But their desire to move away from the public sector did not prevent them from demanding financial support from the state. Historically, these associations’ struggles have led to the establishment
of an original partnership and a funding mode whereby they could retain their organizations’ autonomy. This autonomy was the guarantee of both their specificity and their ability to innovate in terms of social practices. While this state recognition certainly remains in some respects ambivalent, it is nonetheless undeniable that these associations today constitute a significant component of the Québec model of social development.

RÉSUMÉ
Les organismes communautaires jouent un rôle important dans la prestation de services sociaux au Québec depuis les années 1970. Leurs activités se sont développées dans l’optique d’apporter une alternative aux pratiques hétéronomes et bureaucratiques du secteur public. Cette volonté de se distancier du secteur public ne les a toutefois pas empêchés de revendiquer le soutien financier de l’État. Historiquement, les luttes menées par ces associations se sont donc traduites par la mise en place d’un partenariat original et l’établissement d’une mode de financement qui leur permet de préserver l’autonomie de leur organisation. Cette autonomie est le gage de leur spécificité et de leur capacité d’innover sur le plan des pratiques sociales. Certes, cette reconnaissance étatique demeure à certains égards ambiguë. Néanmoins, il est indéniable que ces associations constituent aujourd’hui un élément important du modèle québécois du développement social

Keywords / Mots clés
Community organizations; state; social development model; innovation; funding / Organismes communautaires; État; Modèle de développement social; Innovation; Financement

Read it. True, increased management (the MBA-ing of social service delivery) is going to result in reduced innovation. However, this report is kinda one-sided. There is not sufficient understanding for why that increased management happened and what the results would be if they were removed.

Voluntary Sector Organizations and the State – Building New Relations by Rachel Laforet
Actually, I won’t be reading it since it cost $85. I’ll be reading the first chapter, since it’s available as a sample PDF.

I’ll have to read it before I hear her speak in Toronto. I’ve decided to take a roadtrip to TO for this conference and I’ll add in a few meetings with prospective clients.
The Recession and Beyond: Taking stock of evolving government-nonprofit relations. It’s a one-day conference before an American conference on the non-profit sector also happening in Toronto.

Alright, that’s about it. There’s other stuff that I could share that I’m even more excited about, but I don’t want to give away too many details since it fits into work plans.

Ripples

October 21st, 2011 § 0

I found out today about another Canadian community using some free/open source software that Ile sans fil created in 2003. An excerpt from the email:

Hello,

I have been running the WiFidog service for all 96 of Newfoundland & Labrador Public Libraries for the past 3 years.

http://wifi.nlpl.ca/hotspots_map.php

Currently, the way I have it configured is using 1 WifiDog Authentication server with Gateways in each location. I am in the process of upgrading to Authpuppy.

Here is my question:

“Is it possible to have 1 Gateway located in the same location as the Authentication server? Can that one Gateway then authenticate all 96 nodes if I forward all data from the Wireless of each site directly to that Gateway?”

Has anyone configured it in this way?

Thanks,

(Authpuppy is the software that we started working on in 2009. It’s a nextgen Wifidog.)

Check out that link in his email. All of Nfld and Labrador’s libraries. In Montreal we paid at least $80,000 to set up wireless in each of our libraries.

It’s beyond gratifying to see innovations we developed here in Montreal take root across Québec and in other provinces.

Having time

August 18th, 2011 § 0

So, my company is officially doing well enough that I can imagine spending some time blogging. It’s taken two years to get to this point, and there’s still a ton of stuff to get done before we’re really out of startup mode. But, we’ve established product/market fit and we’re passing “ramen profitable“.

On the one hand, I am not surprised by our success at all. I knew the needs of non-profits and, through Daniel’s involvement, we assembled a very impressive team. It was kind of a foregone conclusion. The only real dangers were the possibility of competitor popping up that was more informed *and* better financed, my having missed some key information about the needs of the market, or our team not staying together because of poor human relations.

On the other hand, I’m freaking out because I’ve been in a desperate survival mode since we started this. Being a CEO is scary. Especially when you work with an accomplished team and it’s your first time. I’m glad that it was a small pond and involved very moderate amounts of money. It would have been that much harder with larger amounts in play and VC’s breathing down my neck.

But it looks like we’ve done it. We’ve bootstrapped our own company into existence.

Launched Montréal Ouvert

August 24th, 2010 § 0

So a small-ish gang of us is trying to promote open-data in Montreal. It’s been a long time since CivicAccess, I’ve worked with Apathy is Boring to deliver CitizenFactory and we figured it was time for something local. Lots of other cities have passed open-data motions and we thought that it was time Montreal gets on board. Hopefully I’ll be able to use lessons I’ve learned from ISF.

MontréalOuvert

Déclaration de mission

Nous sommes une initiative populaire qui a pour but de promouvoir l’accès ouvert aux données civiques de la région de Montréal.

Nous croyons que l’accès aux données et renseignements civiques augmente l’engagement citoyen, rend les services plus accessibles, et facilite l’innovation.

En créant cet espace virtuel, nous espérons initier et soutenir un dialogue entre parties prenantes pour le bénéfice de touTEs les MontréalaisES. Joignez-vous à nous!

Jonathan Brun, Jean-Noé and Sébastien Pierre are my colleagues in this. We’re all busy people, so it’s going to be a real team effort keeping things moving forward, but we’ve met with a lot of support so far.

Our first article, and we have our first conference appearance under our belt. Fingers crossed for the city to embrace this proposal for engaged citizenry and innovation.

I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.

July 15th, 2010 § 3

Yoda would be happy – I’m learning about time. Specifically how much time things take. More specifically how much time organizational development takes.

When I came back from West Africa in 2003 I started Île sans fil with Mina Naguib and David Vincelli. Within 6 months we had a big team of motivated volunteers including powerhouses like Philippe April, Benoit Grégoire, Daniel Drouet, Daniel Lemay, Allison Powell and others (check out this Mirror article to see how pretty macho we were).

One year later, we had a growing network and user base, we had created an open source software project that was addressing our needs and was useful to everyone else in the community wireless movement. Promoting it got me published for the first time (which was awesome!). Many of us started to be invited to speak at conferences and the group started doing projects with academic and media partners.

We were sprinting along, barely setting goals before they would be in our rear-view mirror.

However, organizational development, partnerships, administrative tools and processes – those have taken a long time to put in place. At least, what has felt like a long time.

ISF is currently hiring it’s first full-time staff, is sending (or more accurately, is helping to send) 4 volunteers to the Community Wireless conference in Vienna where one of them will be presenting, and is going to be announcing an alpha version of our second open source project, Authpuppy, and we are working on institutional partnerships and projects with key funders.

And I am not that involved in any of those things. Credit belongs mainy to other people. New people like Laurent Maisonnave, Norman Graziani ( Geneviève Bastien, etc. (there’s many other people that have key roles at ISF, but I’m just giving examples).

As a founder, it’s been frustrating that we are still working on some of the same problems that we were working on in 2004 (hello, portal page [glare]). But much more than that, it has been amazing to see the organization take on a life of it’s own – not just beyond me – that happened early on, but beyond the initial generation of key volunteers. That required an organization, not just good, skilled individuals. The ongoing success of ISF is due to organizational development – continuing to pay attention to the organizational culture, strengthening the board with external members, developing our financial management, learning the language funders use (hello “économie sociale“!) . Things that seem to be minor, or at least non-priority areas, but actually that are directly in our critical path to furthering our mission.

I had no idea in 2003 how long it would take to do the necessary organizational development to allow us to make our first full-time hire. If I had known, I might have been reticent to start this project. However, seven years to move from a grassroots project operating in a marginal domain (collective appropriation of technology, citizen technical innovation) to a credible partner and staffed organization is probably a realistic amount of time, especially considering the people that started the organization didn’t have experience in non-profit administration or fund raising.

Through my time on other boards, I’m also learning how quickly (and slowly) organizations move. To accept that certain things can’t be rushed and that they should be judged with a realistic time frame in mind.

I’m glad – because it helps me lower my stress level but more importantly because it makes me a better strategic planner and community organizer.

Online community informatics course offered

May 24th, 2010 § 0

Prof. Michael Gurstein just sent out the word about a new community informatics course he’ll be teaching at through the University of Alberta. I was lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time around Michael through the CRACIN project that ISF participated in.

I’m tempted to take my course myself even though I have a fair amount of experience in the field and have done a lot of additional reading. Must remember that “Strategy is knowing what not to do”.

EXT 597: Community, Communication, and Organization: An Introduction to Community Informatics

An Elective Course developed for Communications and Technology
Instructor: Dr. Michael Gurstein

Course Description and Objectives

This course will provide an overview and introduction to the emerging field of Community Informatics (CI) which is concerned with the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to enable and empower local as well as virtual communities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_informatics.

The course will present CI from a variety of perspectives including — social, economic, policy, theoretical and technical. Practical examples and cases will be addressed in the Canadian, OECD and developing world contexts. Topics covered will include CI and community networking in Canada and globally; CI and community practice; CI and the digital divide; CI and virtual communities/social networking; and CI and economic and social development in rural and remote communities. Students completing the course will have an understanding of CI in relation to other areas of communications for development and a good background should they wish to pursue additional studies, research or practical activities in community development or community informatics. The course will interest students pursuing specializations in librarianship in the community, rural development practice and theory, technology policy, and on-line communities, among others.

For more information, contact: Susan Petruszczak at (780) 492-1538 or susan.petruszczak at ualberta.ca

@opendataottawa

April 24th, 2010 § 0

Roadtrip to Ottawa today with Daniel Haran , Michael Mulley (OpenParliament.ca) and Bernard Rudny (Citizen Factory through Apathy is Boring). Meeting up with Tracey Lauriault (DataLibre).

Here’s a list of the projects that are being hacked on today:

1) RepresentMe – Shawn Simister – Picture

2) Eat Safe Ottawa – Apple App for restaurant inspection reports – not out yet.

3) Mapping bus stops on a heat map. Interesting…

4) Canal Conditions – great app for finding out if the canal is good to skate on. Has been through a few iterations already.

5) Mapping playgroups in the city. Picture -Positive: lots of them. Problem: lots of them. Make them searchable by address, age, date, and more. :) In design stage. Request to the city is to make the parks + recs information to be more parse-friendly.

6) Iphone App for checking Ottawa city traffic cams. Traffic Ottawa

7) OpenDataApps – list of Open Data apps in Ottawa

8) OpenDataMap.ca – open street map data with a bunch of info / tags

9) OpenParliament – working on the API today.

10) AppleTree Medical Centers location finder and whether they are open or closed.

11) scrapping STO – Société de Transport de Outaouais – He developed a route-finder but only has a desktop interface for it right now. He’s going for an offline app that can update it’s data whenever it’s connected.

12) myTranspo – route-finder that runs on any web-browsing phone and detects geo-location.

13) Samuel showing a scraper library. Multi-threaded scrapping of different sites. Git repository – didn’t catch username on git.

14) GreenMyCapital (site not up yet – one week) – Adaptation of FixMyStreet by an environmental activist (greebelt preservation among others). Involves improving FixMyStreet as well.

15) Expense Visualizer -by FFCTN.com – I can’t get a url but it looks great. There’s a teaser on their homepage

16) CitizenFactory (yay!) Picture

I missed a few but I’m sure that OpenDataOttawa crew will have a comprehensive update after they’ve gotten a sleep cycle in.

It was a great event. Congrats and thanks to the organizers!

If you’re into this stuff, join the CivicAccess mailing list. It’s the best way to keep up to date on this movement across Canada.

Qui est ce petit chiot fringant et dynamique?

April 8th, 2010 § 0

The title is from an email Geneviève sent the volunteers list.

At Ile sans fil we’re finally making the decision to move away from WifiDog. It’s been a tough decision over the past two years deciding to move on because we’ve invested so much of ourselves into WifiDog. ISF originated the project and is responsible for nearly all of its development and success. It’s used all around the world and serves a lot of communities. However, I’m happy to see ISF and the rest of the Québec community wireless groups take on this new challenge.

—————————————————–
from Genevieve Bastien
to WiFiDog Captive Portal
date Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:27 PM
subject [isf-wifidog] Presenting AuthPuppy: a new generation authentication server

Hello all,

This is to announce that there’s a new puppy in town: AuthPuppy, led by the Quebec wireless communities and planned to be the successor of wifidog, under active development.

Wifidog is a great application, and has allowed to build great wireless organizations around the world. But as wireless communities matured and needs became more complex, we (the Alliance of Wireless communities of the province of Quebec) felt that wifidog wasn’t as scalable to those new needs as we could wish for.

Hence the need for AuthPuppy. Developed in php using the symfony framework, with a light core and plugin architecture, it will easily be fitted to anyone’s need.

The puppy is a few weeks old and not mature enough to be used in production yet, but he is ready to show his face to the world! We plan an alpha release for the end of the month. AuthPuppy is only the auth server and the gateways will work with it as well as with wifidog.

The source code is hosted on launchpad : https://launchpad.net/authpuppy
We have a wiki: http://authpuppy.org/wiki
You can reach the developer team (and ask to join in!) at : [email]
We’ll have a mailing list soon. The puppy even has his own twitter account! http://twitter.com/authpuppy

To join the development effort, read http://authpuppy.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started and get started with the puppy! We need help with everything: programming plugins, making the interface nicer, helping with the core, etc.
If you have any suggestions, comments, questions, you may use launchpad.

Wifidog is still alive of course. AuthPuppy is a parallel project that we think will answer the growing needs of our communities better.

Thank you,

–
Geneviève Bastien
_______________________________________________
WiFiDog mailing list
WiFiDog@listes.ilesansfil.org
http://listes.ilesansfil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wifidog

in which the protagonist continues to learns about startups (designers and government funds)

March 11th, 2010 § 0

Yeah -designers. I’ve been in the IT world for …9 years now. And I’ve been project managing web projects off-and-on since 2003 (ah, wifidog). I’ve found designers before, and I’ve worked on branding and logo’s for Ile sans fil and a few other projects. But this is the first time that I feel like I’m really learning the right way to do things. Not that I wasn’t doing them properly before, but it’s at a whole different level now than where I was at.

For our product, since it is a SaaS (Software as a Service) we need different design skills for 1) the logo, 2) the landing page + website, 3) the actual application and probably in our case, 4) another graphic designer / web designer to add some polish to the application design. That doesn’t include some help on testing / usability which doesn’t involve *doing* any actual design, just making corrections and suggestions to improve usability and flow. Each of these designer roles requires differing expertise. Branding vs. Photoshop mastery vs. UI / UX (and data visualization being a sub-expertise (arguably) of UX). I’ve compared the different online contract/competition sites for logos, checked out the outsourcers, prepared design briefs, and this is still the beginning.

Same thing with going after money from funders. I’ve worked on many grants before and I’ve had different meetings with funders. But I’m starting to spend that extra time and energy to hone in on what the funder really wants and needs to know (what they want to hear). We had to “pitch” to qualify for some government assistance for entrepreneurs yesterday. It wasn’t that hard a pitch in that a large percentage of applicants probably end up qualifying, but we did have to work to fit in the 10 minute time and still have it be strong. It helps to be sharing an office with a VC. I won’t be working on that skill a lot right now, because we’re bootstrapping but I’m sure I’ll use it more in the future.

The other area where I’ve been able to polish my skills has been in software project management. Everyone in the office knows more than me about the process of software development and the different ways of managing development. We’re very happy with the software we’re using to PM. It’s called PivotalTracker, it’s free (surprisingly) and it’s great. I’m having a lot of fun doing the product development side of PM as well as being responsible for some of the regular management side of it (velocity + budget). I’ve always liked working with developers, though.

In the near future, I’m really excited to learn the the proper processes and tools for the sales side of a business. Connecting information from the client database (CRM), the analytics from our website, and directly soliciting customer feedback in order to 1) find the right subset of our market that will be the best match for our product (to drive early sales) and 2) to gather the appropriate information in order to improve on the features that our users are most excited about. We’ve still got a bit of time before that, but it’s going to be fun. Speaking of which, Dave McClure is coming to Montreal soon (Startup Metrics for Pirates).

I just re-read this. I’m officially turning into a startup-nerd. I suspected as much when I was talking about sales funnels over drinks last night (sigh).

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