Wry Twist – China Monetary Policies vs. Maintenance Work

Thursday, December 23, 2010 | CIGI | Leave a comment

In a wry twist of fate, we have a small maintenance project at work that’s been impacted by an international economic governance situation. At CIGI (The Centre for International Governance Innovation) we recently installed a TV Studio for doing live media hits. As part of the setup, we’re installing an upgrade to our security system. Although our security company is a local provider, the upgrade has been delayed by over a month due to a part that’s on back order – a part that isn’t available here or anywhere else in Canada. Read More »

The Sound of Raging Designers

Monday, November 22, 2010 | Design, Web | Leave a comment

I just finished reading Peter Merholz’s rant against Ad Agencies on the Adaptive Path blog (Peter is AP’s President) and it’s as filled with rage and vitriol as any good rant should be. What’s most engaging, however, is the flood of replies and comments that were trigged by the post – many of them from other AP employees. If you are interested in the debate of User Experience Designers vs. Advertizing Agencies then I urge you to read the original post, the comments, and the many cross-linked posts in the comments. If you have only a passing interest, then the following summary is for you. Read More »

CIRA Registry Change

Thursday, September 2, 2010 | Web | Leave a comment

I just received an email from OpenSRS that makes me, as a .CA domain name holder, very happy. On October 12, CIRA will be flipping the switch on their new registry platform which will replace their current system (an old, difficult-to-use, and frustrating system) with something much more in keeping with registry standards out there. Here are some highlights of the changes: Read More »

Peer Learning Experiment

Friday, August 27, 2010 | Waterloo Region | 2 Comments

I had a great conversation with a friend yesterday, where we talked about how important it is to be always learning new things, and about how important it is to be always sharing the knowledge that you have. Our conversation meandered to Japanese history, to math to ideas about changing the way our education system works. Although we may not have solved any of life’s great mysteries, we did come up with the idea for an experiment: a peer learning group. Read More »

Three more tools for the toolchest

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 | Design, Web | Leave a comment

This blog post is as much for me to keep track of these three tools, as it is to share with others. I stumbled across three useful tools today, that I think others may appreciate: Read More »

Quick-Mover’s Disadvantage

Wednesday, August 4, 2010 | CIGI, Entrepreneurship | 2 Comments

Unfortunately, Google Wave is officially in the DeadPool. What’s truly unfortunate about this, though, is that it highlights an issue: organizations that put significant money and effort behind an unproven technology, particularly when that technology is backed by a “reliable” player like Google. Read More »

G8 and G20 Summits in Haiku

Sunday, June 27, 2010 | CIGI | Leave a comment

This weekend I’ve been in Toronto for the G8 & G20 summits supporting CIGI‘s G20Net project with OpenText and DFAIT. It has been an interesting experience camping here at the International Media Centre while chaos abounds in the streets…the juxtaposition of riots just outside this building filled with suit-wearing soccer fans is intriguing. I began this post as a discussion of these contrasts, but quickly realized that there was too much to sum up let alone explain. And so, in the spirit of brevity, I present the G8/G20 Summits in Haiku Read More »

Celebrity CEOs in Social Ventures and NFPs

Monday, March 29, 2010 | Waterloo Region | 2 Comments

There’s a great discussion going on at Venture4Change today, and one of the topics is on the role of the Leader/Entrepreneur/CEO in a Social Enterprise or NFP – the consensus at the table is that social enterprises need to eliminate the role of the “Celebrity CEO” and rather focus on building depth and breadth in their organizations. Read More »

Close the Loop! 3 Products That Haven’t Been Completed

Saturday, February 6, 2010 | Design, Web | Leave a comment

I’ve recently found myself getting frustrated at products that don’t close the loop – meaning they don’t come back around and solve their original purpose. Here are three quick examples and my recommendations on how to fix them. If you’re a product designer on any of these products, please feel free to implement any of these features and charge me more for the product – these fixes would be worth higher prices to me. Read More »

Arts & Culture Confab: A Review

Tuesday, December 8, 2009 | Waterloo Region | Leave a comment

Tonight I attended an interesting meetup of young arts/culture enthusiasts, where the topic of discussion was the Waterloo Region Creative Enterprise initiative and the local cultural scene in general. Although there was some great discussion and debate – here are a couple of the highlights for me: Read More »

JosephFung
web tech entrepreneur
waterloo region enthusiast
ninja in-training