BasicGov / BLOG

Vancouver and Whistler are transforming into an Olympic host and the impact of this event are emerging everywhere.

Each day there are new signs, mass transit schedule changes, road closures, route changes, new pavilions and new structures. Our building receives at least 2 or 3 notifications per week of such changes in our immediate area as we are only 2 blocks away from the main media center at the new Vancouver Convention Center. Soon there will be 5000 athletes and hundreds of thousands of new people cramming into the streets, and undoubtedly there will be protests. It is definitely a challenge and not everything will go according to plan.

On the other hand, there are many positive benefits of this event to our city. Our downtown entertainment center has been completely revitalized and there is an influx of art, sculptures and music. There are new entertainment venues where 1000’s of people will be able to watch events live on huge outdoor screens and in theatres. Next to the waters in False Creek, near the Olympic Oval in Richmond, up in Whistler, and in many other areas there will be free live music all day and night from musicians of all types, from all over, for all the people.

For BasicGov employees, we sit here and think about what happened behind the scenes. All of the above required the involvement of political will and city staff to make it happen. Imagine how many building permit and license applications plus scheduled building inspections the City had this year. Sure the Vancouver Olympic Committee was responsible for a majority of the planning, but in the end it was someone in the city that had to assess the impacts of a road closure, put up the new signs, and approve new venues, new bars, and allow the Olympic rings to sit on a barge in the water.

All we are doing now is hoping for colder weather and bit of snow.

Mike

Mike, Lucian and I attended a BCTIA (British Columbia Technology Industry Association) event in Vancouver yesterday with 200 or so other tech enthusiasts to hear from Gartner Fellow and VP Research David Mitchell Smith about cloud computing.

Our BasicGov group sat at a table with Amos Michelson with Kardium Inc. (panel member of the upcoming Dragon Den style Xcelerate forum, Ralph Turfus, Colum Caldwell with Optimal Geomatics, Stephen Nicholson with Software Productivity Center, and Steve Thomson with Thomson & Associates.

David started his presentation saying that the biggest challenge with cloud computing is the many different definitions.

Gartner has defined cloud computing as a “style of computing” which enables flexible and elastic capabilities provided as a service using existing Internet technologies. Gartner gets asked these questions most often: what is cloud computing; which cloud service will emerge; and how to leverage cloud computing.

Cloud computing presentation focussed on cloud’s main benefits:

• Cost – saving and pay as you go model
• Capabilities – provide new solutions that were not technically or economically feasible with previous technology

Gartner’s view is that a hybrid model of cloud and on-premise will dominate the next 10 years but our view is that this is for the larger organizations with more compliance issues such as in the financial industry and in government cloud will dominate. When asked which industries are ahead in the adoption of cloud IT today, David referenced government, education, pharmaceutical, and technology development testing. The biggest challenges to adoption of cloud computing are “attitudes” and it will require time and cultural changes in many industries to leap frog into this technology.

David also talked about how to start using cloud technology today:

• Assess savings
• Select an area of your business to test
• Start and migrate to cloud
• Use it and evaluate

If you’d like a copy of the presentation email me susan.kirk@basicgov.com.