CBoC : Organizations increasingly turning to ‘horizon scanning’ to make business decisions

Horizon Scanning: Gathering Research Evidence to Inform Decision Making

Increasingly, organizations are using horizon scanning – a process used to search out early signs of new trends, opportunities, and risks that might become important – as a tool to complement their policy development and strategic planning cycles.

Six interrelated processes manage information at the core of the scanning function:

1. Identifying information needs
2. Acquiring information
3. Organizing and storing information
4. Developing information products/services
5. Using information in three linked areas : Sensemaking (What do the external signs mean?); knowledge creating (What knowledge do we need and how can we develop it?) and decision making (what course of action is best for the organization?).

I very much enjoyed this report, it touches upon many of the interests I’ve developed into skills in the library and business world. Only 12 pages, very quick read with some good insights. – M.

CD Howe : New report recommends Bilateral Trade Initiative with US

 

Canada needs a trade policy that recognizes the increasing importance of global value chains, and the critical role of Canada-US commercial and regulatory integration in gaining full benefit from their exploitation, according to a study released today by the C.D. Howe Institute.  In Navigating New Trade Routes: The Rise of Value Chains and the Challenges for Canadian Trade Policy, the authors Bill Dymond and Michael Hart argue that Canadian trade policy is at sea, and needs to reflect the new realities of international trade.

They examine the implications of emergent regional and global value chains for trade policy and conventional trade agreements. Dymond and Hart find that as national boundaries recede as key determinants in international exchange, the instruments of trade policy and the agreements they have spawned provide irrelevant and sometimes dysfunctional tools for states, and can yield perverse results for contemporary trade and investment.  Read full report 

World Water Day : Water Law Resources

Via: Michel-Adrien’s Library Boy

World Water Day, an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, was marked on March 20.

The object is to make access to water a universal human right. In 2002 a UN Committee recognized that water is a public good and that everyone is “entitled to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use.”

Here is a compendium of water law resources, both Canadian and international, to mark the day.

1) Canada

• Environment Canada Freshwater Website: under “Water Policy and Legislation” one can find federal, provincial as well as international laws and regulations dealing with water quality, pollution control, and flow regulation; under “The Management of Water”, one can find resources on water exports and conservation.
• Bulk Water Removals: Canadian Legislation (Library of Parliament, May 2007): “On 10 February 1999, the then Foreign Affairs Minister, the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, and the then Environment Minister, the Hon. Christine Stewart, announced a strategy to prohibit the bulk removal of water, including removal for export, from major Canadian water basins (…) The strategy recognized that the provinces have primary responsibility for water management and that the federal government has jurisdiction over boundary waters to the extent specified in the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty. The strategy also noted that actions by territorial governments will be important as they assume greater responsibility over water resource management. The federal government stated that joint participation was essential to develop and implement a permanent Canada-wide solution to bulk water removal (…) The purpose of this paper is to outline, in chart form, the initiatives thus far taken by the federal government, each of the provinces, and the Yukon within their respective jurisdictions with regard to bulk water removals. In each case, references are made to the relevant sections of the appropriate statute and/or regulations.”
• Freshwater Management in Canada I. Jurisdiction (Library of Parliament, September 2004): “Recent water contamination events such as that in Walkerton, and the national debate in recent years about bulk exports of water to the United States, are Canadian symptoms of a worldwide water crisis. Is Canada ready to deal with the problems associated with this crisis, and how do policy makers foresee the future management of this resource? This first paper in a series … examines issues of responsibilities and jurisdiction pertaining to water. Canada’s unique situation in terms of the distribution of responsibilities among the various levels of government, and the fact that responsibilities for some water issues are shared between the federal and provincial governments, have a major effect on water management across the country…”
• Freshwater Management in Canada II. Resources, Use and Treatment (Library of Parliament, September 2004): “Canada has more renewable freshwater than other countries. But how much of it is available for use? How well is Canada managing its water resources? … This second paper … provides facts about our freshwater resources and their use, examines the threats to water quality and availability, and describes the various wastewater and drinking water treatments in use across the country.”
• Freshwater Management in Canada III. Issues and Challenges (Library of Parliament, January 2005): “This third paper … examines current issues and challenges pertaining to water. For Canadians, the most prominent water issues in the coming century will be: drinking water quality; water pollution; water use and conservation; bulk water exports; renewal of infrastructure and; privatization of water.”
• Freshwater Management in Canada IV. Groundwater (Library of Parliament, February 2006): “For most Canadians, ‘freshwater’ means expanses of surface water such as lakes and rivers. But groundwater is just as essential a link in the hydrological cycle as surface water. The two cannot in fact be dissociated. Groundwater is just as essential to life. For almost 9 million Canadians, it is the main source of drinking water, and according to UNESCO more than half the world’s population depends on this source of supply. This paper, the fourth of a series on freshwater management in Canada, focuses on groundwater. Despite being hidden away, groundwater is vulnerable to a number of threats, including climate change and pollution. Protecting it from these threats is vital. But the challenge is complicated by inadequate data about our groundwater. Canadians take access to groundwater resources for granted but this attitude is misguided, largely because of our imperfect knowledge in a number of areas.”
• West Coast Environmental Law – Issues – Water: “Over the past 25 years West Coast has led the way with campaigns to clean up contamination and pollution threatening our water. Our pulp pollution campaign led to regulations on AOX credited with eliminating dioxins and furans from pulp effluent. In the nineties we worked with groups across BC to protect urban streams from development with new streamside regulations. West Coast is focusing on two growing problems in BC: Clean drinking water and cruise ship industry pollution.”
• Canadian Environmental Law Association – Water Sustainability: “The United Nations Environment Program has identified the provision of water as the most important global challenge of the new millennium. As global economic pressures transform the way governments manage water resources, planning is essential to ensure drinking water source protection and equitable public access. Adequate water resources are crucial to population health, food security, biodiversity and ecosystem health. With one-fifth of the earth’s freshwater resources, Ontario must play a key role in planning for world water sustainability and protecting water resources from pollution. The following collections provide CELA’s detailed and summary materials on diverse issues of water quality, quantity, management and protection. “

2) International

• International Water Law Project: “Created and directed by Gabriel Eckstein [Director, Center for Water Law and Policy, Texas Tech University], the mission of the International Water Law Project (IWLP) is to serve as the premier resource on the Internet for international water law and policy issues. Its purpose is to educate and provide relevant resources to the public and to facilitate cooperation over the world’s fresh water resources.” The site includes treaty and convention documents, case law, bibliographies, and links to treaty websites, water law organizations, journals, and discussion lists.
• WATERLEX: carries the full text of treaties and agreements, bi-lateral and multi-lateral, concluded by sovereign countries in regard to the development and management of rivers and lakes, and/or of groundwater resources, which form an international boundary line or which are bisected by such boundary line (1909 to-date).
• Water Law and Standards: a joint project of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. “The legislative section of the database contains an analysis of the legal frameworks governing water resources in selected countries of the world. We have plans to progressively increase the number of countries covered, and to regularly update the analyses stored in the database. The information is broken down into answers to a detailed list of questions about national legal frameworks. FAO developed the list of questions to capture the main features of a country’s legal framework on water that a researcher might want to know. The questions include, for example, whether there is a basic water law in the country; what kinds of water it covers; who owns water; who is authorized to use water and how; whether and how pollution is controlled; and the nature of the government’s administrative structure for water resources management. The legislative part of the database can be used to examine one country’s national legal framework for water, or to compare one or more countries with regard to all or part of their national legislation on water.”
• EISIL International Rivers, Lakes, Groundwater & Wetlands: “This section [of the Electronic Information System for International Law] includes materials providing for regulation of international watercourses, lakes, groundwater and wetlands.”
• UNESCO Water Portal: entry point to UNESCO-led programmes on freshwater. It also provides links to websites of other water-related organizations, government bodies and NGOs through the Water Links and Water Events databases. One of the links is to a series of water law organizations.
• Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law (Peace Palace Library, The Hague): covers international and regional organizations; topics such as boundary waters or lakes, international waterways and canals, groundwater, wetlands, pollution, settlement of disputes, water as a human right etc.
• Georgetown University Law Library Water Resources: broken down into general resources, organizations, water resources management, conflict management, geographical regions, and legal instruments.
• Transboundary Freshwater Treaties and Other Resources: A research guide on the GlobaLex website at the Hauser Global Law School Program at the New York University School of Law. It provides information about major global and regional treaties, databases of international, regional and bilateral agreements, non-treaty instruments, NGOs and intergovernmental organizations, international water commissions such as the Canada-US International Joint Commission as well as sources of caselaw. “Approximately 260 of the world’s river basins, with a majority of the world’s freshwater flow, cross or create international political boundaries. 145 countries, with close to half of the world’s population, are located in international river basins. Although conflicts over water resources date back thousands of years, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the essential role water plays in sustaining human civilization, the nations have found a way to cooperate in sharing and managing water resources. In addition to global conventions and rules governing the use of water resources, hundreds of regional treaties and agreements exist between and among nations, covering a wide range of issues, from border security and navigation to hydro-electric power and water quality and water quantity. Many treaties contain mechanisms for conflict resolution and many establish international commissions for water resource management. In addition to surface water contained in lakes and rivers, the vast majority of the earth’s freshwater consists of groundwater held in underground aquifers. Although a ‘hidden resource’, groundwater serves the basic needs of more than half the world’s population and may be the only source of water in arid and semi-arid countries. A far smaller number of international agreements that address the use and sharing of groundwater resources are in place; international principles are still being developed.”

Washington Post: World has insatiable & unfillable appetite for coal

Coal Can’t Fill World’s Burning Appetite 

By Steven Mufson and Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 20, 2008; A01

<snip>  “Long considered an abundant, reliable and relatively cheap source of energy, coal is suddenly in short supply and high demand worldwide.

An untimely confluence of bad weather, flawed energy policies, low stockpiles and voracious growth in Asia’s appetite has driven international spot prices of coal up by 50 percent or more in the past five months, surpassing the escalation in oil prices.”

<snip>  “We’re at a point where we’re running through the capacity,” said David Khani, a coal analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group. He compares the coal market to the oil market. For coal, he added, “it is unprecedented.”

If high prices last, that would raise the cost of U.S. electricity, half of which is generated by coal-fired powered plants.

Expensive or not, coal is almost always dirtier to burn than are other fossil fuels. Although its use accounts for a quarter of world energy consumption, it generates 39 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Climate change concerns could lead to legislation in many countries imposing higher costs on those who burn coal, forcing utilities and factories to become more efficient and curtail its use. Climatologists warn that without technology to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, burning more coal would be disastrous.”

<snip> “Khani, the FBR analyst, said that “coal use has expanded beyond steam and steel into coal-to-liquids in China and coal-to-chemicals,” which he said would link coal prices to oil as well as natural gas. Given recent oil price levels, that could mean higher prices for coal too.

That could slow U.S. and worldwide economic growth and contribute to a renewed bout of stagflation. Rising commodity prices are “producing real limits on the future of economic growth in the U.K. and overseas,” said Shaun Chamberlin, a specialist in energy and climate change at the Lean Economy Connection, an research institute in London. “In terms of industry, we’re running out of ways of generating energy. We’ve jumped around from one energy source to another, and now we’re running out.”

All this is especially bad news for those worried about climate change. Germany, for example, is caught between its pledge to eliminate nuclear power and its pledge to slash carbon emissions. Because nuclear energy accounts for a quarter of the country’s electricity needs, utilities have filed applications for permits to build two dozen coal-fired plants over the next few years.

“You reach a point where people say you have to stop burning coal,” said Per Nicolai Martens, director of the Institute of Mining Engineering at the Aachen Technical University in Germany. “But when you reach that point, you are forced to ask the question of what happens when you shut it off?”

In the developing world, where growth is paramount, there is no thought of shutting off coal, especially when, on average, a person in China emits about one-sixth and an Indian less than one-tenth as many greenhouse gases as an American “Coal will continue to be king in India. There is no way out,” said Kumar, of the Confederation of Indian Industries. “The other choice is asking the country to stay poor. . . . The question is, are we going to allow poverty or allow a little bit of pollution?” Read the entire article

Two new white papers on the ever expanding Digital Universe : IDC & Google

Both via: Library Boy

The research firm IDC (International Data Corporation) has just released The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe, An Updated Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2011.

As the title indicates, this is an update of IDC’s original forecast of the digital universe published in March 2007.

The 16-page white paper predicts that the amount of digital information produced worldwide in 2011 will be 10 times that produced in 2006. This makes for a compound annual growth rate of close to 60%.

The drivers will be mobility, interactivity, growing social networks, rapidly accelerating Net access in developing countries, real-time information from technologies such as surveillance cameras and RFID-equipped objects, user-created content, and new regulatory compliance demands.

Some of the more interesting thoughts in the white paper:

• “… only about half of the digital footprint would be related to individual actions — taking pictures, making VoIP phone calls, uploading videos to YouTube, downloading digital content, and so on. We called the remainder ‘ambient’ content. It is digital images of you on a surveillance camera and records in banking, brokerage, retail, airline, telephone, and medical databases. It is information about Web searches and general backup data.” Organizations and enterprises will need to spend more and more to ensure information is secure against breaches, yet few are ready to integrate these new data types into their information management procedures.
• the rate of growth in the amount of information that “might be subject to significant requirements for security; be subject to legal and compliance requirements such as ediscovery, … or Sarbanes-Oxley; or be valuable enough to expect to store for 10 years or more” is assumed by the authors to be “much faster than the 10-times-in-five-years growth of the overall digital universe.”

****************************************

At the end of 2007, Google conducted an annual online survey of messaging professionals. Called the 2008 Annual Google Communications Intelligence Report and providing insight into the major communications trends in the past year as well as the pressing issues and concerns for the coming one, this survey is the result of 575 global interviews with CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs in large, multinational enterprises as well as small organizations.

“This white paper summarizes the key findings of the survey, including detailed statistical analysis of the key trends in business communications in 2007 and how these trends translate into priorities for business communications professionals in the year ahead (…)”

“Key findings:

1. The number of electronic messages increased in 2007, with spam still a huge issue for most organization
2. Executives look to IT personnel – not end-users – to ensure security and compliance
3. IT professionals face serious challenges in reaching security and compliance goals
4. Security and compliance challenges negatively impact IT productivity
5. Communications security and compliance solutions based on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model can address these productivity issues
6. In the year ahead, Google expects the number of threats to stabilize but the complexity of these threats to increase dramatically”

Key markets in Canada for US companies : US Commercial Service

From : Doing Business in Canada 2008 : A country commerical guide for US companies, U.S. Commercial Service (pdf, 111 p.)

Market Opportunities

The best prospect sectors over the 2008-2009 period are expected to be:

1. Security/Safety Equipment (SEC)
2. General Industrial Machinery (GIE)
3. Aerospace and Defense (DFN)
4. Electrical Power Systems (EPS)
5. Telecommunications Equipment (TEL)
6. Building Products (BLD)
7. Medical Devises (MED)
8. Travel and tourism (TRA)
9. Compter Software (CSF)
10. Computer Hardware and Peripherals (CPT)
11. Oil and Gas Field Machinery (OGM)
12. Automotive Parts and Service Equipment (APS)

The fastest growing commercial sectors in Canada are medical devices, security/safety equipment, general industrial machinery, aerospace and defense and electrical power systems. For Canadian companies upgrading their plants and equipment, as well as for those constructing new facilities, the United States is a principal source of new machinery and technology. This is especially true given the strength of the Canadian dollar. U.S. companies will continue to find Canada an extremely attractive and accessible place to do business.

Major project opportunities recently reported by U.S. Commercial Service Canada in the Market Research Library on the U.S. Export Portal website include:

Alberta oil sands development
Atlantic Canada renewable energy projects
Ontario energy sector and Canada power projects
British Columbia construction and port development projects
Security projects for maritime and ports
Ontario highway infrastructure projects
Canada’s strong defense budget

March 11, 2008

Database: NAFTA Regional Information

Via: resourceshelf NAFTA Regional Database by Export.gov

Click on the arrow pointing to each country — Canada, Mexico — and NAFTA. This will expand each into the following categories in which documentation can be found –

+ Business Travel & Etiquette

+ Customs Information & Import Documentation

+ General Economic Information

+ General Marketing Information

+ Key Contacts & Websites

+ Laws & Procedures for Licensing & Investing

+ Sectoral & Product Specific Information

+ U.S. Government Regulations & Restrictions

New report on Corporate Social Responsibility in Canada

Corporate Social Responsibility in Canada: The 2008 Ivey-Jantzi Research Report

The first edition of the annual Ivey-Jantzi CSR Report. The objective is to examine the social responsibility of Canadian firms. The report highlights macro trends across and within industries in Canada and is intended to help firms understand overarching trends in order to inform their own policies and initiatives. Over time, the report will include historic data to develop a picture of long-term CSR trends in Canada. Read full report

Via: Winspear Business & Economics News

StatsCan : Profile of Canadian Exporters

Profile of Canadian exporters

1996 to 2006

The number of Canadian establishments that export merchandise fell for the second consecutive year in 2006, but the total value of their exports rose to a record high, according to the latest version of the Exporter Register.

In 2006, 45,641 establishments exported merchandise, down 5.0% from 2005. However, this amount was 19% higher than it was in 1996 and slightly higher than in 2000.

These establishments exported a record $404.4 billion of merchandise in 2006, a marginal gain of 0.7% from 2005. This was the third consecutive annual increase, following three years of declining exports that began in 2001.

In the manufacturing sector, the number of exporters declined 2.9% to about 21,000. This sector accounted for about one-quarter of the overall decline in the number of exporters.

Even so, the value of exports from the manufacturing sector remained steady at $248.4 billion, which represented 61% of total merchandise exports in 2006.

In the wholesale trade industry, the number of exporters fell 5.2% to 10,297. This industry accounted for just under one-quarter (23%) of the overall decline in number of exporters. However, wholesalers represented 58% of the total increase in the value of exports between 2005 and 2006.

The number of exporters fell in every province. Ontario represented 40% of the national decline, followed by British Columbia, which accounted for 27% and Quebec, 16%.

Establishments that export more than $25 million annually continued to account for the majority of merchandise exports.

The largest 4% of exporting establishments accounted for 84% of the total value of merchandise exports in 2006. Those exporting less than $1 million a year represented 72% of all establishments, but only 1.5% of the total value.

Establishments with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 73% of all exporting establishments, but only 31% of the total value.

Conversely, only 6% of all exporters employed more than 200 people. However, they represented 43% of the total value.

Number of exporters by industry grouping
Industry grouping (NAICS)	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
	number of exporters (establishments)
Agriculture, forestry, fishing hunting	2,024	2,116	2,237	2,239	2,445	2,496	2,523	2,307	2,263	2,145	1,954
Mining, oil and gas extraction	404	424	405	418	461	509	476	515	489	514	513
Utilities	53	58	57	61	69	64	69	59	66	68	68
Construction	829	901	945	1,132	1,209	1,286	1,356	1,365	1,425	1,401	1,282
Manufacturing (total)	17,847	18,746	19,342	19,998	20,596	20,884	21,450	21,647	21,685	21,640	21,004
Wholesale trade	9,555	10,008	10,050	10,337	10,454	10,640	10,785	10,938	10,938	10,865	10,297
Retail trade	1,639	1,625	1,807	2,153	2,241	2,372	2,585	2,326	2,358	2,252	1,961
Transportation and warehousing	1,182	1,229	1,452	1,437	1,549	1,544	1,533	1,468	1,644	1,641	1,514
Information and cultural industries	522	543	545	567	601	591	568	576	600	596	511
Finance and insurance	893	935	984	1,054	1,128	1,167	1,144	1,157	1,257	1,286	1,215
Business service	2,499	2,795	2,910	3,088	3,278	3,427	3,516	3,656	3,812	3,883	3,683
Other1	998	1,076	1,130	1,285	1,372	1,456	1,493	1,559	1,721	1,776	1,639
Exporter registry total	38,445	40,456	41,864	43,769	45,403	46,436	47,498	47,573	48,258	48,067	45,641
1. Includes service industries such as government and education.

Computerworld : Facebook vs LinkedIn

Via:  resourceshelf

 

Facebook vs. LinkedIn: Which is better for business?
From the article:

Social networking is no longer the Next Big Thing; it’s now as much part of our Web experience as search engines. Previously considered the province of kids who wanted to keep up with class gossip, social networking services are being co-opted by grownups who are examining ways to use them both within and outside of their places of employment.

Source: Computerworld