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World Plone Day Toronto 2008 On November 7, 2008, groups in 22 countries on 5 continents participated in World Plone Day 2008. The Toronto Plone User's Group was one of these, and we had a very successful and interesting event. 2008-11-10 Read More

Hi, and welcome to my little corner of DOT's web site! I'm DOT's Director of Global Technology, and I'm going to use my area to talk about my ongoing interests in technology, knowledge sharing and collaboration (and whatever else strikes my fancy). DOT is a great place to work on these concepts because it forces you to push the envelope far more than you would in your typical corporate environment:

• A truly virtual workplace, with global team members and country offices across many countries (sometimes I've worked with people for over a year before meeting some of them);
• The challenge of accommodating people who don't have the broadband connectivity so many of us have come to take for granted
  
• Knowledge-intensive programs built around interns, which is like having a staff turn-over of 85% per year!

And I have the privilege of working with some of the most supportive, positive and talented people I have ever met!

Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

I've come to prefer knowledge sharing and collaboration over the more standard  term knowledge management for two reasons:

Knowledge management is too often thought of as something that is tacked on at the end (r later), rather than integral to the process.

And knowledge management emphasises oversight and management, rather than emphasising the value of sharing and collaboration. The former is just not a concept that inspires participation.

In my experience, on-line learning, knowledge sharing and collaborative tools are all ways of filling the same basic need, connecting people with the people and information they need, when they need it. What is most important is designing all of these so that they are integrated into what people actually do. I hate the term desktop because it's been taken far too literally (one law firm once proudly demonstrated how they forced users to use their portal to launch applications like MS Word, so the portal would be their "desktop"), but the concept is right. If capturing, sharing and finding knowledge isn't a seamless part of what you do every day, it won't get done.

Think of the answer you inevitably get when you ask your kid: "What did you learn in school today?"

Nothin'.

Of course, process integration by itself isn't enough. There are still all the usual challenges: communications, fostering a cultural of sharing, training and support, developing powerful and easy-to-use tools, etc. But if you aren't starting with the idea that knowledge sharing must be inseparable from the work itself, you will have an almost impossible challenge ahead of you.

My goal is to bring together collaboration and social networking tools to enhance how we work together and share knowledge. Our site as it is now represents our very first steps. We have lots of things on the roadmap, and lots to do (and never enough budget or time to do them, alas!).

Free and Open Source Software

Having worked in proprietary (primarily Microsoft) environments for years, I had begun to get interested in open source a few years ago, and jumped at the opportunity DOT offered to work in promoting open source. I have been using Linux as my  home desktop environment for a year before joining DOT, and now do all my work in GNU/Linux. OpenOffice, and similar tools.

I believe in open source not only because it is a great way to develop software, but because I believe in free software. That is, I believe that having the ability to cooperate to improve software, combined with truly open standards, is critical to ensuring freedom in a digital age. As everything becomes digital, ensuring open access to all is one of the most important issues of our time.

Here at DOT, I hope not only to use open source software, but to give back. As we develop our collaborative extensions ("communities") to the Plone content management system, which is the platform this site runs on, we are actively working to get them to a point where they can be publicly released to the Plone community. We recognise the importance of community in the open source world, and want to become participants, not just consumers.

I'm an associate member of the Free Software Foundation, the developers of the most famous of the free software licenses, the GPL.

If you want to understand more about the importance of free software, I heartily recommend this inspiring video Software and Community in the Early 21st Century by Eben Moglen. I was at the 2006 Plone Conference where he gave this talk, and it was an awesome experience.

Professional Background

I have been lucky to work on a number of very exciting projects over the years, encompassing multimedia, virtual reality, transactional and, of course, collaborative systems. I've worked on award-winning systems, such as Royal Bank of Canada's Personal Learning Network and McCarthy Tétrault's Robinette Knowledge Management System. I was also the primary author and editor of the white paper, Knowledge and Knowledge Management: The ii3 Approach (PDF) in 2004.

Before joining DOT I was the CTO of ii3, a knowledge management consultancy and developer. My academic background is actually in the humanities (BA - English Literature and International Relations, MA - English Literature), and I have come to see that this has enabled me to overcome a lot of traditional IT thinking, enabling me to "translate" between the business and technical roles. However, I started in technology as a developer, and that is still something that engages me. Although I don't get to do much coding anymore, I enjoy it when I do. I take an equally active role in both the functional and technical design of the tools here at DOT.

In addition to programming, I also take a keen interest in information security and have held a SANS GSEC Gold certification since 2003.

Personal Background

I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife Aldona. I hope someday to find more time to indulge in programming, so I can contribute to an open source project or two, such as Plone.

We are both devotees of the great writer and thinker G.K. Chesterton, and have been hosting a Chesterton reading group, the High Park Chesterton Society for 10 years now.

The internet has made it possible for creative people to publish and find and audience, and I one of my favourite sources of that creativity is web comics. I read several each day, my favourite being Schlock Mercenary, an extremely funny and well-written family friendly comic about a group of space mercenaries in the 31st century.

Aldona and I both love jazz, and support Toronto's wonderful listener-supported jazz station, Jazz FM.

And often during my work day, I am listening to Radio Paradise, a very eclectic, listener-supported internet radio station. Radio Paradise keeps introducing me to all sorts of new artists, and learning more about existing ones from the on-line forums. By following the playlist on the web site and seeing the listener comments, it's a whole new way to listen to radio.

Skills

Interests