Michael Lenczner

So say a panel of experts.

We appreciate the support of the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation and I’m looking forward to the attend the conference (even though I *just* saw Clay Shirky speak last week in person. In person!). I think it will be a great chance to meet some very interesting people.

I’m still alive. The stress levels related to starting a company have begun to recede and my evenings are starting to once again belong to me instead of to my fears. I am now officially (as in on Facebook) in a relationship with someone and I have reasonable hopes for it to continue into the future. I also am getting to be too fat for my pants.

In person. At a meeting that we were both invited to. Proof (well, no, that’s not really proof).

Booyah!

Tracey did tell him that we were talking about getting his autograph, but I did not let him know that I was also thinking about getting a tattoo of his likeness.

Good thing I have a blog so I could announce that.

Being somewhat tech-savy, and having seen many web projects go off the tracks, it was a treat to receive this email from one of the non-profits that I work with:

Hey Mike,

Just an FYI, we’ve switched to WordPress for the development of the next version of the A is B website.

I was in the news last week. I was interviewed about the success of Montréal Ouvert, a citizen initiative I co-founded last summer which had the goal of encouraging the adoption of an “open-data” policy by the city of Montreal. Last week the city passed a motion and launched their portal.

A Consumers Guide to Grants Management Software (PDF) Updated Oct 2011

There’s a huge variety of grants management systems, ranging from options for small foundations at only a few thousand dollars a year, specialty options for niches like arts grantmaking or medical research foundations, and robust, completely configurable solutions for large foundations starting at $100,000 or more

Huge variety!? How dope is that? I had no idea.

I found out today about another Canadian community using some free/open source software that Ile sans fil created in 2003. An excerpt from the email:

Hello,

I have been running the WiFidog service for all 96 of Newfoundland & Labrador Public Libraries for the past 3 years.

http://wifi.nlpl.ca/hotspots_map.php

So, my company is officially doing well enough that I can imagine spending some time blogging. It’s taken two years to get to this point, and there’s still a ton of stuff to get done before we’re really out of startup mode. But, we’ve established product/market fit and we’re passing “ramen profitable“.

So a small-ish gang of us is trying to promote open-data in Montreal. It’s been a long time since CivicAccess, I’ve worked with Apathy is Boring to deliver CitizenFactory and we figured it was time for something local. Lots of other cities have passed open-data motions and we thought that it was time Montreal gets on board. Hopefully I’ll be able to use lessons I’ve learned from ISF.

MontréalOuvert

Yoda would be happy – I’m learning about time. Specifically how much time things take. More specifically how much time organizational development takes.