It was a most unusual funeral. On April 29, 2017, 20 people walked mournfully through Toronto’s Kensington neighbourhood. Incense wafted from the front of the procession, followed by a saxophone player and a traditional drummer. Behind them two people carried a mock...
Technology in cars has been steadily taking over more and more control from the driver. 100 years ago we started cars with a hand crank. 50 years ago we manually shifted the gears. 30 years ago we learned about threshold braking and how to pump our breaks to prevent...
Watch and listen as Creative Destruction illustrates the economic cycles that occur within capitalism as technology evolves over time. While this process does not always benefit everyone, it is an essential part of economic growth and innovation.
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has just released The Creative Destruction of the Sharing Economy by Lee Harding, a research associate with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. This paper examines the creative destruction that the sharing economy is having on...
In this essay, I explain that young people should come to university to be educated, and not to become credentialed; the public should support universities because universities educate young people, not because they produce credentialled workers. Why should a...
During the whole of recorded history, the empire has been the most constant and common form of political organization. A basic, self-evident feature of all empire-building has been the successful occupation of the lands of the local, Indigenous inhabitants by outside...
In most ways, our lives are better than those of kings and queens just 200 years ago.
My wish is to see this happen more rapidly in the communications and media sector.
Phonebusters has issued an alert about a telephone – computer scam.
Why didn’t AT&T or the Yellow Pages develop a dominant browser instead of Yahoo, Google, or Bing (Microsoft)? How did Skype make a success of videoconferencing when the telcos couldn’t do it? Why don’t the telephone companies run the Internet?
A recent article in the Report on Business raised the issue of orthodoxies in corporate cultures that block the ability of successful organizations from recognizing disruptive threats and opportunities that can turn their business models upside down.
Telecom and CATV companies really could use a dose of this “design thinking” applied to them. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/managing/business-education/b-schools-use-design-to-crack-the-creativity-crisis/article2124072/
Although the telcos are major ISPs, Yahoo and Google dominate the search engine market. Bell's Sympatico wasn't a bad try at a portal for a telco ISP but it never really captured the market or led to big successes in other applications areas. How could North...
In Bell Canada’s proposed Usage Based Billing (UBB), there is more at stake than just the cost of internet fees for high users.
The Bell UBB proposal for residential internet access is closely connected with changes in how Canadians watch video, and building the capacity for the next generation of internet, particularly in the last mile. The decisions taken over the next few months should continue the policy of promoting competitive options that have generated so much of the creativity in the industry.
Policy and regulatory structure for telecom, internet access and video distribution should be consistent with technology advancements, allowing Canadians full access to internet video, and the opportunity to participate in new service developments.