Media Awareness Network has just released a new guidebook, Responding to Online Hate (pdf), to assist educators, law enforcement representatives and community groups in countering hateful content on the internet.

The guide talks about dealing with content that sometimes contravenes federal and provincial Human Rights legislation and, in some cases, the Criminal Code of Canada.

A little while ago, I wrote that many people seem to grant online media an exemption for hate content that is illegal in print form, yet many of these same advocates supported the passage of anti-spam legislation that over-reaches and bans commercial electronic messages that are completely legal on paper.

Media Awareness Network has a wealth of resource materials available to assist teachers and parents in guiding thoughtful consumption of digital content for young people. Online hate is just one of the areas addressed by MNet, a Canadian non-profit organization that has worked to develop media literacy and digital literacy programs since its incorporation in 1996.

Bell Media’s Kevin Crull and CBC’s Kirstine Stewart will speak at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit, bringing new perspectives to attendees on the increasingly converged world of telecommunications. They join 17 other keynote speakers, including Industry Minister Christian Paradis and Acting CRTC Chair Len Katz, as well as 50 other industry leading speakers at Canada’s foremost ICT event, taking place June 4-6, 2012 at the Toronto Congress Centre.

The Canadian Telecom Summit is where leaders of the industry join regulators, policy makers, suppliers, colleagues, customers and competitors to discuss the issues that impact the development of Canada’s digital economy.

This year marks 20 years of competition in  telecommunications services in Canada. Canada’s wireline and wireless carriers, large and small, cable and telephone companies, have followed different strategies to continue to grow, delivering value to their customers and shareholders.

What is ahead? How will government policies impact the development and adoption of ICTs in Canada? How will Canadians find their place in creating and consuming digital content?

You need to be at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Have you registered yet?

Let me reminisce a little.

For the past 25 years or so, automated systems are designed to connect an operator to the oldest call in the line, but it wasn’t always so. In the olden days of manual switchboards, a call to the operator would show up as a flashing red light. Operators had to try to answer the call within a certain time period, or a counter would increment, indicating a late call. Each shift (and totaled each day and each month), the late answer calls would be tallied and measured as a percentage of all calls. So operators could cheat on the service quality metrics by never getting around to answering the really stale calls. After all, once the call is late, it is already scored as a failure. Answering that call would put all of the fresh calls at risk. Automated systems put an end to that kind of gaming, and brought all sorts of new metrics as well.

That brings us to today’s post.

Coming up on two years ago, the federal government launched a multi-faceted consultation to develop a national digital strategy. As I have written many times, the government is embarrassingly late in delivering what was supposed to have been a 12-18 month exercise. I wonder sometimes if we will ever see the output from that consultation, or will it be like the calls that were ultimately abandoned on the switchboards of old.

Late on Thursday, we will see a new federal budget, a new opportunity for the government to demonstrate digital leadership. Will we see a digital strategy line in the budget?

At The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit, June 4-6 in Toronto, we will explore the issue of Building a Digital Canada. It has a powerful lineup of speakers who discuss a wide range of issues associated with transforming our economy to compete effectively in a digital marketplace.

Have you registered yet?

A Washington Post story suggests South Korea may scale back plans to migrate to digital textbooks, a chief element of its plan to transform its education system into the world’s most cutting-edge.

The article cites an editorial from Korea JoongAng Daily from last summer:

The problem we face now, however, is an exaggerated trust in digital education. Some people wrongfully assume that the quality of academic activity will improve with the use of multimedia digital material instead of conventional textbooks. However, without a teacher’s guidance, the impact of digital textbooks may fall short of expectations.

…

A digital textbook is merely a vehicle for instruction and cannot be the goal of education by itself. What matters is the content of the book and the way it is taught. Therefore it is up to the teacher to provide students with smart instruction that makes use of, but does not depend solely on, technology.

At the end of the day, it is the teacher, not the technology, that will make the difference for our kids.

Late this week, new budgets will be introduced by the federal government and in Ontario. Both governments were elected last year with barely a mention of digital issues in their campaigns. The budgets provide insights into the government plans for the coming year.

Will increased digital literacy be a part of those plans?

Canada’s national digital strategy will be discussed in a number of sessions at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit in June. Have you registered yet?

A number of seemingly unrelated news items seem to point to a common theme: increased complexity for managing corporate mobile devices.

• Item 1: Apple overtakes Blackberry as Canada’s hottest smartphone
• Item 2: Canada leads in information leaking from mobile devices
• Item 3: Continued growth in employees’ bringing their own devices (BYOD: Bring it on)

Tie that into an otherwise innocuous press release last week from TELUS and Vox Mobile and I gain a much better appreciation for the appeal of Managed Mobility solutions.

A good friend of mine is the Canadian CFO of a global multi-national. Their central IT policies emanate from Europe and had been strictly administered, until the Canadian CEO decided that her iPhone would be the only device that she would carry. The CIO was told to “Make it so.” Like many organizations, that was the tipping point for BYOD.

It starts with mobile handsets and quickly can move to computing platforms.

So how does an organization manage information security, operating costs, application and operating consistency, business continuity without centralized and standardized control of devices? Corporations could grow their IT organizations to deal with the increased complexity. Or they can outsource.

TELUS’ Managed Mobility Services is the first example of a carrier based offering to solve this challenge. “Your increasingly tech-savvy employees want the freedom to use any mobile device of their choice on the corporate network. And you want to give it to them.” TELUS’ service is powered by Vox Mobile.

It will be interesting to monitor the level of adoption of this approach. Will it succeed by increasing mobile penetration in corporate accounts, driving higher ARPU, reducing churn?

Enterprise mobility will be also be explored as part of the Mobile Commerce panel on Monday June 4 at The 2012 Canadian Telecom Summit. Have you registered yet?