Category: Geek

Talk About Your Strange Timing

This morning, I decided to voice my displeasure over a lack of visible progress by ICT Toronto, which purports to be a group whose mission is to make Toronto one of the world’s leading centres for information and communications technologies.

Strangely enough, an ICT Toronto breakfast meeting was held yesterday. The only reason I know about this is because Mark “Remarkk!” Kuznicki, whom I know from the DemoCamp/BarCamp scene, acts as a sort of advisor to them and attended that meeting and blogged about it this afternoon.

They Don’t Have to Move in Web Time, But They Do Have to Move

In his post, Mark reminds us that this is a government initiative run by “grey-haired folks” and unlike we Gen-Xers and Millenials who live in the “Web 2.0” world, they don’t move in web time.

I will counter by saying that even by the standards of the 1970s, ICT Toronto’s publicity effort is either lazy or pathetic. I’m not asking for them to start up a blog, wiki, RSS feed or instant-messaging setup or start setting up “unconferences” like BarCamp or DemoCamp. They could still be effective using tools that they’re comfortable with: press releases, networking with local technology and business journalists, hiring a PR agency or communications company to get the word out (and maybe freshen the web site, even if only once a month) — basically using publicity and communciations mechanisms that have been around since Ernst and Young were still earnest and young.

ICT’s silence is the sort of thing that makes people automatically associate the word “government” with “sluggishness and inefficiency”. This is why entrepreneurs and techies tend to have at least a mild libertarian streak.

You Do Your Thing, and We’ll Do Our Thing

The Canadian Opera Company and the Art Gallery of Ontario aren’t what you’d consider to be citizens of the world of Web 2.0, nor do they have the resources to devote to reaching a new audience in that world. They realized this and did the smart thing: they contacted a few prominent local bloggers and gave them “sneak peeks” at some of their events. The Canadian Opera Company number of us were invited to view the new opera house, the Four Seasons Centre, a few days before its grand opening. The Art Gallery of Ontario invited a number of us to a special session before the grand opening of their Andy Warhol: Supernova exhibit and even gave us a one-on-one interview session with its guest curator, David Cronenberg.

The end result was that both institutions were able to concentrate on what they do best — producing and housing art — and were able to reach a new audience of online world denizens by harnessing the power of interested bloggers and letting them do what they do best: communicating in the online world. Although the technology currently used to do so may be unfamiliar to the grey-haired crowd, the concept of inviting communicators to see your what you’re doing and then spread your message is older than the written word.

Simply put, ICT Toronto doesn’t have to be hip and “with it” in the Web 2.0 world: they need only to harness some of the citizens of that world, whose goals are aligned with theirs. It can be a team effort.

Go Read Mark’s Post

I’ll say it again: go read his post (and the comments as well). In addition to covering what happened at that breakfast meeting and what’s being done, Mark has some good suggestions. The most important of these is that ICT should embrace a role as being a convening body for the various communities of practice, interest and geography that make up the technology scene in the Toronto region.

In the meantime, I’m going to let my thoughts about ICT Toronto percolate over the weekend. As a reminder that I’ve made it a pet cause of mine to keep putting their feet to the fire, I’ll close with a little message for them, courtesy of the Stephen Colbert “On Notice Board” Generator:

Back in April, the local press and various banks, investors and city councillors made a lot of hubbub about an initiative called ICT Toronto. The initiative’s goal was laudable: to boost the profile of Toronto in information and communications technologies, bringing us from the #3 area in North America in those fields (New York holds the #2 spot and Silicon Valley is #1) to #2.

I attended the press conference that ICT Toronto held to announce the final report on the current state of information and communications tech in Toronto and what is to be done about it back in April. As I wrote in this entry, the only actual techies there were me and the “DemoCamp Brain Trust” — everyone else seemed to be either an investment banker or someone who worked at City Hall. In a later entry, I wrote:

At the risk of alienating some big players in the local tech scene, I will state that I believe that not only is ICT Toronto’s task too important to be left to ICT Toronto; I think that we will have to accomplish that task in spite of ICT Toronto.

It’s almost five months later, and it appears that not much has happened. I haven’t seen a press release since the one for their launch party, and a Google News search for “ICT Toronto” ends up without any results.

As for their web site — actually a single web page — here’s what you would have seen had you visited it back at the end of April:

And here’s what it looks like now:

In the meantime, Toronto’s techies, without any of the money or manpower earmarked for ICT Toronto have held 4 DemoCamps and a BarCamp, events which have gone a long way to fostering a sense of community and cooperation in the local tech scene. And of course, actually building information and communication technologies, something the suits seem to have completely overlooked.

This is hardly surprising. Silicon Valley was born of good circumstances coupled with the grassroots efforts of ambitious techies doing what they loved, not by government/business fiat. I’d call ICT Toronto a bunch of pointless martini-swilling stuffed shirts, but that’s an insult to martinis and dress shirts, both of which I happen to like.

ICT Toronto’s going to have to do better than produce a glossy report and a party with decent hors d’oeuvres. I hope I’m wrong, but I seriously doubt that they’re up to the task.

The php | works / db | works conference takes place in Toronto from Wednesday, September 13th through Friday, September 15th. I’ll be attending, taking my traditional copious notes and taking accordion requests.

Click here for a complete schedule and synopses of the sessions.