http://jeremyvernon.com Information Management and Decision Making Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:00:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I am a big proponent of evidence based thinking, especially when it comes to personal planning. Using available data to inform yourself and your planning can go a long way in keeping things realistic and, ideally, rational. The following numbers are, I feel, probably quite accurate. I have no good reason ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=157 After some thought, I decided it would make more sense to create a new blog rather than inject the content into this one - given the established content of this site and the projected content of OrgCog this make sense. OrgCog / Organizational Cognition is a blog where I write about ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=154 I think by describing what ROSI could be, the problems of the existing system and the will to change it will become apparent. I have a dream that the Student Information and Administration System (SIAS), will be a robust, usable and open service for students, faculty and administration. I can see ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=153 As a student of the university of Toronto, I am regularly subject to the exotice bureacratic mind-numbing torture that is the Repository of Student Information, cheerfully dubbed "ROSI." ROSI is crap. Every respiring human being on or off campus who has been within miles of the application knows this. Every season ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=152 Canada's constitution was founded on the primacy of law & order. The federal government was imbued with sweeping powers to ensure the "peace, order and good governance" of the newly formed confederation. The belief was then, as it is now for the most part, that stability and security were paramount for ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=149 A Harris-Decima poll just recently reminded everyone why direct democracy is a profoundly dangerous concept to tinker with. http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jrhYITWLPHiAVsXij2ybrXzou6mw The poll had to do with Net Neutrality, particularly internet traffic control. 20 % of those surveyed had actually heard of it. The remaining 4 out of 5 got all their information from ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=148 Most of the national media outlets have covered what I watched on CPAC today.  Rob Nicholson (Attorney General and Min. Justice) and Peter Van Loan (Min. Public Safety) tabled legislation which is allegedly meant to empower police with greater capacity to fight cyber-crime. It's hard not to feel fatalistic about this ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=145 To some this may seem patently obvious but it's worth repeating that, throughout history, those people we (in this case "Western Civilization") hold in the greatest esteem are those that think in and about systems. These days the best paid employees are CEOs, doctors, lawyers and software developers among many others. ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=144 Systems theories, that is, the mathematical models that account for various behaviours of interacting elements are noticeably absent from any discussion, particularly within the social sciences here at UofT. Thomas Homer-Dixon was an innovator in introducing the concept of complex-adaptive systems to the discourse of young undergrads doing Peace and Conflict ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=140 Journalism was born out of intellectual curiosity and maintained by intellectual laziness.  When Johann Carolus gave us what we understand today as the first printed newspaper he did so to provide a way to disseminate knowledge rapidly, asynchronously and persistently. It allowed a small group of authors to rapidly distribute ... http://jeremyvernon.com/?p=107