Disqus - Latest Comments for kferaday

Re: Canadians Prefer Twitter To Facebook While At Work

kferaday — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:17:26 -0000

Definitely Twitter. Use it primarily as info source at work.

Re: BMC fires Frei after doping admission

kferaday — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:41:38 -0000

I agree with the comments here giving Frei credit for admitting his guilt rather than dragging out a long and expensive legal process and never admitting any wrongdoing as in the case of Vino. That said I think it is time for the UCI to up the stakes for doping. If you're caught you're done -- no comebacks. Finito. That way we could have avoided the disgraceful podium at L-B-L where not one but two dopers made the podium.

Re: Vino’ wins L-B-L

kferaday — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:13:33 -0000

What a terrible week for cycling. Dopers Vino and Ricco on top of the podium and another doper's podium at L-B-L. Shame. No one should be satisfied with these results.

Re: Flying high

kferaday — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 02:51:37 -0000

So why are you profiling a doper's bike?

Re: Ironman 70.3 Geelong Photo Gallery

kferaday — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:18:15 -0000

THIS IS A PICTURE OF ME KIM FERADAY WINNING THE GEELONG TRIATHLON. DAMN I LOOK GOOD!

Re: Surreal Moments in Journalism – Gotcha trumps substance

kferaday — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:32:37 -0000

That is just bizarre. Hopefully this is not what they're teaching at journalism school -- that is unless all future journalism is going to be shaped in the mould of Fox or newsotainment shows, in which case I completely understand. Maybe having a clairvoyant on retainer during these interviews would help.

Re: Global problem solving? Stephen Harper defends the status quo

kferaday — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 01:01:36 -0000

Garin,

From an investment standpoint Canada is being vastly outspent by most developed countries. Added to that is the fact that sequestration technologies are far more speculative than others that could make a significant contribution (battery technologies, geothermal, wind etc.).

I'm not sure of the intention of your comments about the tarsands but Harper's exclusive focus on them is more than blinkered it's blind. It turns us back in time to becoming hewers of wood and drawers of water. We need a strategy that creates higher value jobs. There is still opportunity even many areas of tech. Pulse Energy, Zenn, Rapid Electric Vehicles and others are examples of Canadian companies that are bringing innovative green solutions to market.

Re: Enterprise 2.0 is a Crock: Discuss

kferaday — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:50:10 -0000

I think you allude to it in your "how do I navigate this huge company point" but providing a mechanism for sales teams to reach out to a broader audience (mostly internal) to support sales efforts is a great one. At my last company we used a wiki/blogs/file sharing to support sales efforts. This included competitive analysis, any intelligence gathered on prospects as well as being able to gather information from R&D to answer specific technical questions from customers that couldn't be answered in the field. This could work equally well for smaller, but distributed organizations. The only real roadblock I see in large organizations is still in discovery -- especially for large organizations. Alot of these solutions need to focus on how they can improve/leverage search services to support discovery.

Re: How to Engage Citizens on a Municipal Website…

kferaday — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:16:36 -0000

Great idea. I just tried it and it's really simple to use. The only thing that would make this better would be if they included the ability to leave a comment and/or include a poll beside issues (maybe not all but at least important ones to the community).

Re: Eat the Young!

kferaday — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:19:56 -0000

As a relatively old geezer (same age as Obama), I still take exception to your comment about old vs. young. It shows a bit of ageism arguing that old guys won't recognize new and emerging ideas. That just isn't true. I know guys who are older than me developing exciting new products (as an example).

As far as extra -political engagement vs. political -- while I agree there are fundamental problems with the political system, those have been there from the beginning. Extra-political oranizations have a role but recreating an entirely new infrastructure outside of the current political system (to address all possible issues) doesn't seem pragmatic. In some ways it also smacks of elitism. If you have the time, energy and resources to commit to creating an effective lobby then you can impose change - that's what makes them so successful. But it doesn't necessarily reflect the general will. And for all its shortcomings that's what the political system does. Supporting that system seems to me to be more than worthwhile.

One last thought. The argument that "youth reject the whole system" sounds exactly like youth 40 years ago. To me it sounds like an excuse not to excercise one of the fundamental obligations we have as citizens. That is to vote.

Re: Who are you? (A little reader/twitter outreach)

kferaday — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:30:11 -0000

I'm Kim Feraday. I have worked mostly for Canadian tech startups including Delrina (acquired by Symantec) and DWL (acquired by IBM). My current interest is in social media analytics.

Re: Feeding the next economy – Give us a stimulus that stimulates, not placates

kferaday — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:36:16 -0000

I'm the worst one for that kind of stuff as my wife will be happy to tell you. Since you're really connected on the government side I'd be interested to hear from you what use cases the government sees for data it's publishing.

Re: Feeding the next economy – Give us a stimulus that stimulates, not placates

kferaday — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:25:54 -0000

It's at the bottom of the link that you provide ($2.3M of value). http://www.appsfordemocracy...

Re: Feeding the next economy – Give us a stimulus that stimulates, not placates

kferaday — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:19:01 -0000

I fully agree that propping up GM and Chrysler is essentially flushing money down the toilet. I also agree that government should invest in the high tech industry. There has been a pretty vigorous debate on the the sorry state of high tech VC in this country over the past 4 months and the government could play a role in stimulating new investment.

This should not be done to the exclusion of other sectors. The next economy is not just the digital economy but in creating diverse local and regional economies that are self sustaining. We should be looking at concepts like those proposed by Riversimple to give us ideas as to how this might evolve and result in actual jobs. Some of this thinking should be applied to high tech, auto, energy etc. to create real jobs that hopefully will be less susceptible to global shocks. Focusing on one sector is, in my opinion, just another recipe for disaster, the more so with high tech since it's even easier to move the jobs. A couple of examples include Sun Life moving actuarial jobs to India or big tech companies like IBM, MS etc. doing the same.

And while the efforts like Apps for Democracy are interesting I would challenge the notion that it has resulted in $2.3M in value. It has possibly resulted in that amount of cost avoidance by DC government, but has generated no revenue on the other side. I would also question the value of some of the apps. This is certainly reflected in the video with Vivek Kunda. He suggests two fundamental problems with the first contest -- requirements gathering and commercialization. If you can't create a market for the stuff then it doesn't have much real value. I got the same impression at Van ChangeCamp. There's been no real thought put into real requirements gathering or how someone can make money from this stuff. That's what's going to create jobs.

Re: Google Wants Artists to Work For Free, Is it Wrong?

kferaday — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:19:49 -0000

You're thinking about this in the wrong way. It comes down to how we attribute value. Google's contention is that the delivery mechanism is of value and content isn't. I think this is a problem. If we don't start placing value in the content then we will be left with nothing but the equivalent of TV reality shows. This is equally true of journalism as it is art. And you're comment that there will always be work for illustrators doesn't hold.

One of the primary reasons for the backlash is that revenue from traditional sources is drying up (according to the NYTs article). Again this is true for journalism. If we continue to put more value in a Starbucks latte than in valuable content then we are heading down a dark path. In the end it comes down to how we make choice and thinking of the opportunity costs in continuing to devalue important goods.

Re: Vancouver enters the age of the open city

kferaday — Sun, 17 May 2009 02:14:53 -0000

Todd,
Sure costs can be lower once you go through the process of analyzing data, standardizing and consolidating it. I'm with you there. And depending on the types of data your talking about you have to worry about privacy and security issues. But once you get it there I completely agree that it's the way to go. I just wouldn't want anyone to understate the potential complexities involved in making the transition. For example, I took a quick look at Freebase (Jim Pick mentions it below). If you're loading more than 1000 records into Freebase there's a data analysis/mapping... that has to go on with their team to get it into Freebase which makes sense.

The point I was trying to make is that it's going to be a lot more complex than a simple declaration. There has to be real $$$ behind the initiative. Given how cash poor most municipalities are I wonder how quickly this will be able to be undertaken.

Re: Vancouver enters the age of the open city

kferaday — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:33:48 -0000

It sounds great. I hate to be a skeptic but has the problem of data integration/data quality etc. been addressed? This could be a very expensive undertaking. The same as you move from legacy to open source -- there's a data migration issue here. Given how cash poor most municipalities it will be interesting to see how quickly this moves forward from paper to reality.

Re: Treating the web as an archive – or finding the financial crisis’ ground zero online

kferaday — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:00:25 -0000

Google News Timelines takes a first stab at showing the lineage of a topic across news, blogs video etc. I think tools that built on this so that you could create communities of interest around a topic or issue might help address some of the issues you're talking about.

Re: The Fraser Institute – a case study in how not to engage young people

kferaday — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:15:25 -0000

It's kind of funny that GW skeptics always use the old "it's cold outside today" argument to support their contention that GW is not real. Really it was hot or cold or snowed on one day a few years ago in an area that's normally much hottter, colder, drier, wetter is their argument? I wish they could come up with something a bit more original than that.

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:11:12 -0000

BTW still waiting Mr. Taylor for what the Conservatives are proposing.

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:10:19 -0000

OK then I you will agree we should stop subsidizing big oil companies and simply let the auto sector die. Not to mention forestry and agriculture. And on and on. The reality is that governments frequently act as market makers. I'm surprised that anyone is making the whole "free markets" are best argument given the almost complete failure of the markets over the last six months (banks in particular). I suggest you read Paul Krugman's editorial from yesterday's NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009.... As for the whole global warming is not real argument well that's just not worth commenting on.

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:04:09 -0000

Actually initially IBM didn't act of their own free will. TLM was thrust on them by the EU.

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:05:22 -0000

Gee, do all Conservatives share the same sentiments? Anyone else want to chime in here? Do you see any value in bringing green jobs to this country?

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:31:53 -0000

What are you looking at? Going green can create new jobs and save people money. Let's look at home heating. For a small home (like the 1100 sq foot home I owned in Toronto) you could install a geothermal heating unit for about $25k. This would reduce your heating costs by 60% (conservative). The unit would pay for itself in about a decade. Now if we could get green mortgages that would pay for itself.

Then there's the auto industry. We should be looking to innovators like Think and Tesla and bringing manufacturing capabilities like that here. That would create jobs. And what about using the manufacturing expertise in Southern Ontario to manufacture windmills or photovoltaic technologies. What about battery technologies. I met a guy out here who is developing a patent for a battery for storing energy from furnaces. We need to start commercializing some of this new technology to create jobs.

Is it your desire that we simply keep chopping trees and digging for oil? Really?

Re: The Liberal Party policy amendment that’s causing a buzz this morning

kferaday — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:24:51 -0000

Paul, I'm well aware of the IBM job cuts. I was one of the casualties. IBM certainly has been one of many companies to outsource skilled white collar jobs to India (SunLife outsourcing actuarial jobs to India is another example). But nowhere in the article you link to does it suggest that one of the reasons for offshoring was to avoid environmental costs. Do you have evidence of this?

My point was that IBM has been relatively forward thinking in terms of environmental practice including total lifecycle management (which to be fair was thrust on the company by the EU but subsequently embraced corporate wide) and innovation (greener data centres for example). So I still think it's a pretty good example of a company embracing environmental practices.

BTW I'm still waiting to here from Mr. Taylor on Conservative plans.