Still floating though space-time after experiencing the End of Greatness at the Cultch last night. Lovely theatre, so many ideas. And well done @debcha.bsky.social for being the “nerd on call” and hosting a special talk-back discussion. “We appreciate all of you!” colinthomas.ca/the-end-of-g...
Cory Doctorow with a banger of an opening keynote at DemocracyXChange conference - appreciate the livestream for those of us on the other side of 🇨🇦
Watching with the UCL IIPP Notify case webinar with @eaves.ca and friends with my 🍿 this morning... "How to finance it?" Can't wait for them to dig in.
I'll Wait For You
David Wilson
2025
Howe Sound, British Columbia
Walter J. Phillips
1935
Some lovely turns of phrase and concepts regarding risk, institutional memory, accountability, and bureaucracy in this piece from the weekend Globe. Mnemonic Capital and epistemic negligence had me thinking of @dsquareddigest.bsky.social Gift link:
www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/3be31b0...
@swardley.bsky.social often evokes Thwaites' toaster when contemplating the value chain required in our contemporary tech circumstances. Still a very useful analogy after all these years.
The Tusk
Sandra Harris
2024
The Other Side of the Inlet
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun ~ Hul’q’umi’num Coast Salish, Syilx
2021
Big Spruce Forest, BC
Arthur Lismer
1959
For my service design and delivery friends in govt… this paragraph caught my attn. Even with co-design and participatory methods, is the rhetoric of “easy” and “effortless” govt services undermining the more active forms of democracy Peter is advocating for, creating passive consumer publics?
Last fall, I testified before Quebec's Gallant Commission, which was investigating a $900M software debacle at their DMV. This week, after a year of work, they issued their final report. I'm impressed with how the whole commission worked. We have nothing like this in the U.S., but we really should.
Those flags on your cheeks don't just magically appear, after all. www.theguardian.com/football/gal...
RFP for face painting services at the World Cup
File under: The Things You See Tendered via Public Procurement... It's not all Salesforce licenses, road resurfacing, and office supplies, you know...
- Designing Good Services 18th February (GMT) 23rd June (BST) 20th October (BST) - Stakeholder Leadership 4th February (GMT) 25th June (BST) 22nd October (BST) - Making the Case for Service Design 4th March (GMT) 30th June (BST) 27th October (GMT) - Service Design Leadership 24th and 31st March (GMT) 2nd July and 9th July (BST) 29th October and 5th November (GMT) - Agile Service Design 19th, 26th February and 4th March (GMT) 9th, 16th, 23rd July (MDT) 8th, 15th and 22nd October (BST)
We've spent January working towards a certain new book launch coming soon... but, back to the day to day!
We're just about to kick in to our 2026 public course curriculum for The School of Good Services
Any last training budget left? There are a few courses coming up before the end of March.
📣On March 12, ‘Empire of AI’ author @karenhao.bsky.social joins @naomiaklein.bsky.social to lay out the stakes for the most consequential tech arms race in history, and the role we can all play to ensure that AI benefits everyone.
🎟️Tickets: tinyurl.com/EmpireOfAI
🗓️ March 12, 7:30-9:00PM
Howe Sound - Yesterday, Today and Forever
W.P. Weston
1927
Fir Trees
Emily Carr
1935
ISED’s use of AI to synthesize the 11,000 consultation submissions is unfortunate, but consultation as the federal government tends to conduct it is insufficient whether AI-assisted or not.
Mere listening and summarizing is not democratic engagement.
betakit.com/ottawa-relea...
Wayfinding will be back on Feb 11th with Bianca Wylie and Hillary Hartley in conversation about civics.
luma.com/wayfinding2
Beach, Vancouver Island
Arthur Lismer
n.d.
Auspicious start to the day, as I noticed someone with a copy of Adam Greenfield's Radical Technologies at my morning coffee stop. Amazing how one book can very quickly lead to a nice exchange and some more reading recommendations about shared concerns.
Image of a slide displaying the text "A prototype is a series of questions waiting to be answered."
Love this, wanted to share, from today's Demo Day, by way of design lead Jane. cc @gordonr.ca
Cedar
Emily Carr
1942
Farrell continues to be one of the most eloquent and astute writers of this moment, blending the political, the sociological, the historical... Another great read via his newsletter.
Also, the Hotel Vancouver event that I wrote about in that article is amazingly online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcGc...
About as surreal as one would imagine... He was 67, I was 21 and a bit gobsmacked to say the last (as you can tell from my earnest and rambling reportage): web.archive.org/web/19981201...
Uh, what is this heggie-money stuff, exactly?
This checks out. Last time I heard the term used as frequently was when I interviewed Noam Chomsky in the mid 1990's for my university newspaper (true story).
The path we’re on instead is techno-solutionism: the cheapest, straightest line governments can choose towards efficiency and savings, and the most impoverished innovation strategy possible for a young country with every opportunity to do differently.
www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...
