CBC’s network briefly blocked employees from from visiting social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace this morning. Also, some personal blogs, like John Gushue’s and the popular anonymous Teamakers blog were not accessible.

John Mang, operations manager for B.C. radio said: “It looks like was was a technical glitch. It was certainly unintentional. One phone call and it is being fixed.”

Ray Carnovale, head of CBC’s I.T. confirmed that and said the blockage “may be something going on external to us.”

All regions should have access to all those sites again.

What I think was interesting was just how fast news spread in the Corporation. I was on-air at the time and was getting dozens of CBC folks emailing me within the space of an hour. It spread quickly within the Vancouver radio newsroom and, presumably, others.

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	I.T., Workstations and Desktops	Posted at 10:27 am (31 Oct 2007)

CBC/Radio-Canada is training its Information Technology staff with a simulation game that recreates the Apollo 13 space mission.

But rather than training on how to survive on space food and moving efficiently through cramped quarters — both skills that CBC’s I.T. team has already mastered — the training puts staff in events and situations that correlate with incident, problem and capacity management.

“One of the biggest benefits of it was the team building aspect,” Fiona Soward, service manager for technology and quality of services at CBC/Radio-Canada, said. “Sometimes, we had people in different roles that they wouldn’t normally play within the organization. We would have senior management at a potentially lower position, so it’s interesting to see how they perceive the work being done at that level.”

From IT World:

The simulation, offered by Montreal-based Nexio Technologies, is a mix of screen projections which takes users through the different stages of the game, as well as direction from an instructor who drives the problems that occur during the flight.

“The users will play the role of mission control,” Stephen Goulet, vice-president of research and development at Nexio Technologies, said. “They will go through different incidents that will cause problems. They need to manage costs and make decisions in order to meet my expectations as mission director.”

More

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	I.T.	Posted at 6:55 pm (06 Sep 2007)