As regular readers of this blog probably already know, I’ve never exactly been happy with the Canadian telecommunications industry. They’ve been bilking Canadians out of money unfairly for years now, with little or no government intervention to keep them on the straight and narrow.

It appeared that no one in government was willing to take on the big Canadian telecom companies and stand up for Canadians right to not get screwed on telecommunications service provision. It would appear David McGuinty’s Get Connected Fairly Act may change all that.

According to the Canadian Press:

Liberal MP David McGuinty says Canada’s cellphone industry has collected billions of dollars in “misleading” charges over the last 25 years, and he’s proposing legislation to stop it.

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Inside Knowledge has a short, but interesting article by Dave Ulrich, who is a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

The article is mostly about what motivates people to work (Ulrich uses the equation ‘talent = competence + commitment + contribution’ to suggest that talent is no good without the other three components).

I talked about something similar last summer when I described work as an increasingly fractured narrative (although I’ll admit that maybe my undergraduate degree in literature makes me just think of everything as a narrative).

Professor Ulrich uses the word contribution to describe a situation where “employees feel their personal needs are being met”, and where the employee feels the investment of their is meaningful.

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I’ve been lamenting the state of Canadian telecommunications for quite a while now, but today marks a real significant step backwards for this country’s telecom industry.

Rogers, a major Canadian internet service provider, has decided to limit their once-unlimited service to 60 gigabytes per month, and charge users a fee of up to $5 for each additional gigabyte they download (up to a maximum of $25).

While Rogers defines this as download capping, it’s really just a $25 rate increase for their users who are getting the most out of the service they provide. It’s a cash grab, plain and simple.

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I came across a post on Charles Stricklin’s blog about how the Graffitti content management system was knocking WordPress in their Google ads. Now I’m not really that partial to any technology, and I get a little freaked out when people evangelize to me about how great a particular technology is (people in general, I’m not referring to Charles’ post).

But, seriously, WordPress is a pretty great tool — and not only that, it’s free. As I said in response to Charles’ post, the biggest problem with Graffitti’s statement is not whether or not they have a superior product — it’s that it’s just a bad marketing tactic.

Presentation Zen had a great post about this from almost a year ago, that sums things up nicely. The main point: when you talk about your competitors, don’t be a jerk. Be gracious, whether or not you think you do something better than they do, and remember that you can always learn something from the way they do things.

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I read an article recently in The Globe and Mail (a national Canadian daily newspaper) about a new notification system from Rogers (a major Canadian Internet Service Provider) that lets users know when they are approaching their bandwidth download/upload limit.

The article cites various internet and privacy gurus who suggest that this new technology is nothing short of insidious and misleading (with the notable exception of Cynthia Brumfield from IP Democracy, who sees it as just another notification).

In case you’re wondering, here’s what the actual screenshot looks like:

Annoying? Yep, I’d be a bit annoyed with Rogers deciding to take up half my screen space with their bandwidth notification. Pure evil? Hardly. Also note the ‘click here if you don’t want to receive this message in the future’ in the middle of the screen.

What the article completely misses the point on however, is the bandwidth cap itself. I first ran into bandwidth caps when dealing with Videotron (another major Canadian ISP), where I received a surprise bill of several hundred dollars for exceeding the bandwidth cap that was concealed in the fine print of my contract.

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Upon receiving the latest issue of KMWorld, I noticed an article on the front page called The adversity of knowledge by David Weinberger. The article is a take on ex-General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s book Jack: Straight from the Gut.

In the article, David Weinberger suggests that Jack Welch’s adversial, even combative approach to business doesn’t work so well when it comes to knowledge — and rightly so. Yet does this adversarial approach even make sense in business in general?

What we’re really talking about is running your business like you’re waging war. I talked before about the business-as-war metaphor (where I also referenced another very interesting post about business-as-war), and how it’s a really difficult strategy to make stick in the long term (long, drawn-out wars don’t tend to do anyone any good).

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I like to get things done more efficiently — but I also don’t like paying for software or tools to help make me more efficient. Bootstrapper has put together an excellent list of 100 free business tools, along with links to and descriptions of each tool.

While I was originally going to put together my own list of free tools, I think this list points out all the major tools I was going to include as potential tools for knowledge sharing (as well as a few more!). While some of the tools are purely information management-focused, there are a host listed under the ‘Networking’ heading that have great potential for knowledge sharing.

While this is a great list of tools, there are also many other free web tools that can be used to collaborate and share knowledge. Facebook is a great example — while it’s business uses seem ostensibly minimal, there are several cases where I’ve connected with people who I’ve shared a common business interest with.

Experimenting with these tools is the key to finding success with them. The more tools you use, the more likely you are to find a tool that works for the purposes you need it for. Go check out the list at Bootstrapper for more ideas on how you can better use these free tools.

On the way home from visiting some friends at a cottage on the weekend, I had the opportunity to listen to Richard Senett (here’s another interesting profile of him) discussing work, life and sociology in general on the CBC’s Ideas radio program.

One of the recurring themes in the discussion was the fractured nature of work life. Sennett argues that because employees once worked for a single employer for most of their lives, this acted as a driver for sensemaking for that employee.

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Problems are like debts — everyone has them, but no one really wants to talk about them. But being specific about the problem you’re trying to solve can be a great way to get solutions to that problem. So before trying to list solutions, ask yourself: what problem am I trying to solve?

Creating a problem to solution relationship for your ideas also certainly helps to keep them grounded. But is just figuring out the problem enough? Or do you need to go a bit further than that (especially when you’re dealing with a complex or multifaceted problem).

For example, what if the problem you are trying to solve is to create a community? You might start identifying ways that you can build on the community you’re already establishing (like writing in way that attracts the people you want to attract), but what do you do when you’re having trouble even defining the problem, let alone coming up with the solution? Here’s some ideas on where to start.

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Over the course of writing this blog for the past few months, I feel I’ve learned a thing or two along the way about what it takes to make your blog, site or brand stand out from others. I thought I’d share those ideas.

Here’s 12 ways to make sure your blog, site or brand gets noticed (especially when you’re a small fish in a big pond).

1. Imagine where you want to be. Without a plan, you’ll be lost before you know it. But before creating a plan, you need to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing — and imagine where you want to be a month from now, two months from now, and a year from now.

2. Identify your target audience. Know who you want to speak to. If you don’t have a clear understanding of your audience, you won’t know what messages will resonate with that audience. Clearly spell out who will be listening to you — think of every piece you write as if you were standing up before that audience to read it — and make sure they’ll care about what you have to say.

3. Impress your audience. It’s great to understand your audience, but how do you make an impression on that audience? Be original and be honest. Don’t try to too hard to impress your audience — because nothing impresses people like simple writing with a clear message.

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