We appreciate the support of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation and I’m looking forward to the attend the conference (even though I *just* saw RDV Web. Actually, I asked my Montréal Ouvert / Québec Ouvert colleagues if they wouldn’t mind if I fielded this speaking engagement. We receive so many requests to speak and to do interviews that the other guys are exhausted and I felt like I could use this particular opportunity to raise Ajah’s profile because the conference was more mainstream and I wasn’t speaking as part of a panel. I had not given a proper public presentation in years so I was pretty nervous, but apparently I did pretty well. At least I was good enough to be invited back to present at the next conference organized by the same team, but this one is focused on “cause” marketing which is much better for Ajah.

And here are some smart things:

Hacking is a pattern of local, opportunistic manipulation of a non-disposable complex system that causes a lowering of its conceptual integrity, creates systemic debt and moves intelligence from systems into human brains.

from Hacking the Non-Disposable Planet by Venkatesh Rao

Especially interesting because Daniel was just speaking to me about complex systems becoming increasingly complex and therefore somehow unable to address their own problems. He was referring to theories expressed in Currency Wars. I didn’t love the entire post, but I was interested in the idea of addressing problems in complex societies through hacks instead of adding complexity. Not sure if works that way.

Michael Gurstein wrote something that I really liked, too. I’ve known Michael for 10 years and while I respect him and his work, I don’t always love the critical anti-techno-utopian academic thing. This post I really enjoyed. I was more able to understand his concern and I also heard an alternative, more positive path than I had heard before (admittedly having read only a fraction of his work).

Does “Inclusion” Matter for Open Government?

Neal Stephenson’s religious order in Anatham probably started with works like this:

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies
This is an amazing resource. URI’s for process. It is the evolution of XKCD’s Citation Needed and LetMeGoogleThatForYou. Shortcuts to use in dialogue which serve pedagogically. I’m impressed with that project. If I had a foundation, that is a project I would have funded.

And Miriam just referred to back when we all used to blog. Back in 2004. About our feelings. And people actually left comments! What a crazy memory. If you don’t read her, you probably should. Although since I don’t put my promote my blog entries through facebook that’s kind of like one deserted town putting up a sign to another deserted town.

————–
Oh yeah – that’s what I forgot. I was interviewed by the the BC Open Data team.

Profile of an Open Data Developer: Ajah Fundtracker’s Michael Lenczner

Last weekend we threw a surprise for my mother’s 65th and this weekend I attended my 5th (6th? 7th?) Passover at my cousins’s. I helped two people join a board that I’m sitting on and I have been arranged to be a co-author of three academic articles, all in peer-reviewed journals. If that ends up happening, I can happily torch my own expectations of one day getting an undergraduate degree by any other means than being awarded an honorary one.

In other news: the city of Montreal is setting up a standing table de concertation on their open data work. Which is fantastic. And solely because of us. I have read fewer than 10 books in the past 2 years, and possibly fewer than 5. I know as much about funding of the non-profit sector in Canada as any person alive, and I truly believe in the benefit of neurological diversity when trying to come up with solutions. The moments of intense fear, almost panic, that I had over the last few years of dying, of the end of our species and of the eventual heat-death of the universe have stopped which strengthens my belief that they were tied to my father’s coronary surgery and subsequent illness. I have taken steps towards joining this organization on a volunteer basis which fulfills a long-standing dream I have had to engage in the field of child abuse.

I’m pretty happy these days, very rarely lonely (unlike my experience of most of my 20′s) and often alone. I believe in my work and I enjoy it. Hopefully the next few years will see me start a family. Until then, I’m enjoying everything I’m learning – especially what I’m learning from my friend, Daniel, about how to reason (engineers are fascinating).

Booyah!

Tracey did tell him that we were talking about getting his autograph, but I did not let him know that I was also thinking about getting a tattoo of his likeness.

Good thing I have a blog so I could announce that.

Hey Mike,

Just an FYI, we’ve switched to WordPress for the development of the next version of the A is B website.

Recent improvements in the language localization plugin we’re looking to use (wpml) have eliminated Drupal’s last clear advantage. Since both I and my primary developer volunteer are more familiar with WordPress, and the user and dev base for WP is so much bigger, it makes sense to make the switch.

If you have questions or concerns about this, just let me know.

Cheers
Pete

–
Peter Meadows
Website and Technology Coordinator :: Coordonnateur du site web et des technologies

I wish this level of technical proficiency was more common among non-profit organizations. Considering the importance of communications for many organizations, it would have a large impact on their ability to fundraise as well as their ability to progress towards their mission.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.