San Francisco City launches its 311 Open , online government initiative. Includes the mayor of San Francisco, Tim O'reilly and Vivek Kundra (CIO to the Obama Administration).

In my opinion this video and the speakers provide a vision for where government is going online and back it up with some great concrete examples.

SAP's Sapphire conference features some great presentations, (with slides and online video), particularly from successful implementations of large scale SAP Enterprise Systems.

Whether you are a large scale company or a medium sized or small organisation, whether you use SAP or not, there are lessons to be learnt from implementations made by other organisations. The same issues must be worked through:

• Change Management
• Strategic Planning
• Alignment of the Business and IT
• Moving from Silos of data to a single source of truth
• How to embrace web services and much more...

It is a great way to learn how other organisations address these issues.
This year you can attend Sapphire online by registering at http://www.sapphirenow.com/

Wired magazine's July edition had a large section devoted to the emergence of data in all aspect of our life. More posts to follow on this.

One of the areas was discussed was fitness and the success of Nike+ (Nike and Apples) running system. Essentially Nike's shoes are embedded with a chip that shares data with your ipod and allows you to record your training data.

As I wear Asics this wasn't an option for me! So I have downloaded an iPhone Application called Runkeeper (runkeeper.com) that essentially does the same thing. The only downside is that I have to take my iPhone running with me. The GPS in the phone keeps a track of the area I cover (and records in Google Maps), it tells me how fast I am running (not fast enough!) and the time and distance covered. Once I have completed my run I can save the session and upload it to www.runkeeper.com from where I can track my training progress.
The basic application is free with an upgrade available to runkeeper pro which provides training guidance.

I'v yet to see how much my iPhone download usage increases by but I'll keep readers posted. is anyone else using data like this in their personal or  health and fitness life?

The Information Agenda: Unlocking Data

View the video at http://www.internetevolution.com/document.asp?doc_id=168856

IBM's Ambuj Goyal talks about how companies are data rich and information poor, and the approaches, processes and tools necessary to leverage that data and unlock business value. Goyal also talks about some companies that have done this successfully.

This video talks about treating and managing information as a strategic asset, just as you would people. This approach, together with service oriented architecture is enabling business to leverage the value of their data and provide information on demand.