Once Vancouver-based gaming tycoon Calvin Ayre seems to be preparing himself for a return from exile in Costa Rica. As one of the online gaming industry’s most successful pioneers, Ayre disappeared to his Central America safehouse and seemed to be retired from active Bodog duty.
Well, Ayre has been active on Twitter (@CalvinAyre) over the past two months and although most of his tweets are about workouts and social media research, he has hinted at lots of upcoming announcements. According to a recent article on iGaming, Ayre's involvement with Bodog is limited to licensing deals through BodogBrand.com but he is involved in the launch of a new poker network due to be announced in September.
According to Ayre's personal homepage, he's also working on a new media project tagged "Do You Have Enemies?" which is scheduled to launch this fall. Interesting angle for Ayre as we know he has his fair share of enemies in North America - the Vancouver Sun's David Baines is no where to be seen in Ayre's Twitter follower stream.
I don’t know if you were a child of the 80s, but if you were, and if you were lucky enough to catch the commendable childrens’ programing that aired on PBS in the latter half of that decade, you might have watched the mathematics themed show “Square 1” which featured a cop drama spoof called “Mathnet,” in which a couple of detectives used mathematics to solve crime. They even carried calculators in their shoulder holsters; and when the calcs came out, we knew it meant business.
I was an advocate then and I’m an advocate now; and it just happens that we may start to see a uniquely mathematical approach to crime fighting courtesy of an Edmonton Transit security analyst Stephane Contré, and his technology. Contré’s software, called Daily Crime Forecast, uses an algorithm to assess crime incident reports from existing data to pinpoint where and when future crimes are likely to occur.
At first instance it sounds like a pipe dream to be placed along stock market predicting algorithms and time machines; you can’t predict human behaviour, and you can’t predict social systems. But Contré’s software has tested incredibly well. Edmonton Transit has been testing it for over two years now and since its introduction, officer initiated calls (calls from an officer who is already at the scene of a situation) rose by 159% while reactive calls (when an officer has to be dispatched to deal with a situation) dropped by 52%. I’m reminded of watching Kate Monday and George Frankly (calculators drawn) elucidating the concept of triangulation to predict the location of a yet to happen car theft. Technology can indeed help us be in the right place at the right time, most of the time, to address crime.
Contré, who has been working with the assistance of the Edmonton-based Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and its novaNAIT centre for applied research and technology transfer, is now poised to go commercial, and he has piqued the interest of an American police agency, as well as the Canadian Military. The US Military may even trexplore the use of his technology to tackle the devastating challenge of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
“Ultimately,” Contré said, “I would like my product to help communities increase the safety and security of their citizens and provide a better quality of life for all by effectively targeting crime.”
More on this story can be found at Troy Media Corporation
The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology is a leader in technical training and applied education designed to meet the demands of Alberta's... [more]
The TechCrunch50/DEMO Conference feud continues thanks to the DEMO Conference organizers upping the ante with a $1 Million online advertising package being awarding to the top enterprise and consumer technologies.
Not surprisingly, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is steamed and has promised to double the prize package offered by the DEMO Conference.
Unlike last year, attendees no longer have to pick one event over the other as they no longer fall on the same date. With TechCrunch50 taking place on September 14-15th in San Francisco and DEMO the following week in San Diego on September 21-23rd, most assumed the similar startup pitch events could both survive.
Not if it's up to Arrington - he still argues that DEMO's $20K "pay-to-pitch" is bad all-around. Startups get gouged when they are most vulnerable AND attendees get shortchanged as well with the presenting company lineup full of those with the means to pay instead of the best startup ideas.
So, will any of our readers be attending either event in September?
While the world is still figuring out this new method of collaboration, we’d like to salute a few of those fearless, bleeding-edge teams that went out and made the mistakes, so no one else had to...full disclosure, I’m passionate about crowdsourcing. I’ve spent the last three years at Cambrian House, talking to people about what they do and how crowdsourcing might help them.
Launch a brand collaboration campaign without being prepared for what people think of you
“Yeah, let’s try this whole crowdsourcing, user-generated content thing! Sounds like people really go for it.” It’s all fun and games, until a big, ol’ SUV comes to the party. Chevy Tahoe provided video clips and soundtracks to consumers to remix, edit and add text for a commercial. Turns out, consumers think the Tahoe is a gas-guzzling, environment ruining, Republican.
Be prepared for disagreement with your brand, but start with the right purpose. “Tell us why you love us” might have been a better starting point for Chevy.
Don’t plan for the unexpected
Ok, so this ends up being kind of funny. NASA asked the public to name the next ISS module....and Stephen Colbert got his viewers to vote for his name. Are you calling out to the right crowd? Asking the general public something is a great idea, but is it really crowdsourcing if one person manipulates the way an entire group votes? No, unfortunately, it isn’t. Qualifying the people you are asking to participate is just as important as asking them to participate.
This doesn’t mean eliminating negative feedback, Dell, for example, asked customers what they wanted and got a loud, “no Windows” in reply. Dell now ships computers with Linux, much to the appreciation of consumers.
Assume work to happen for free
LinkedIn recently asked its users to translate the site for a “badge of honour,” annoying professional translators. The thing is, if you are asking someone to do something for free, you are telling them what they normally get paid to do has no value. Not a great way to get on people’s Christmas card list.
On the other hand, BT Ieas (no link - it is an internal program) asks its employees for thoughts on saving the business money or making it more revenue. If they implement an idea the employee gets a percent of the money saved/gained. Cause hey – ideas aren’t free.
Expect that a utopian collectivist community to emerge
Yeah, I get it, don’t throw stones...When Cambrian House originally started, we thought we could match "founding teams" to crowdsourced ideas. That’s a little too much accountability for anyone to take on after hours when it isn’t their idea to begin with.
What does work? Involving people with passion at a level they are comfortable with. Through three years of trial, error and discovery we’ve honed in on four areas that crowdsourcing plays really well with: brand collaboration, market prediction, product innovation and research discovery.
Assume people care
Bottom line: People are busy. Is this going to improve their life? If you don’t provide the proper incentive, it just won’t fly. As with everything else on the internet, just getting people to notice is most of the battle. The key to all of successful crowdsourcing is feeding a need that isn’t currently being met.
Crowdsourcing done well can solve seemingly insurmountable challenges, bring you closer to your brand and get stuff done. Hope this gives you a bit more insight.
Launched in 2006, Cambrian House began as a crowdsourcing community using a wisdom of crowds based approach to discover new business and technology... [more]
Abbotsford based web agency Domain7 is opening a second office in Vancouver and will soon be calling Gastown its home away from home. Coming up on its 13th year, Domain7 is one of the largest web development companies in Vancouver, with a team of 25 focused on strategy, design and technology for the web.
Domain7 was founded in Abbotsford by Shawn Neumann and has enjoyed considerable success, in part by recruiting great talent from all over the Fraser Valley.
Domain7's new Vancouver office will be home to a number of the Domain7's current team including business development, account management and graphic design staff.
Domain7 is a web agency, a skilled team of programmers, online marketers, designers and strategists who've assembled to do one thing and do it... [more]
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