I know this is probably going to be unpopular with my male audience, but I’m hoping it will touch a nerve with the females 🙂 I love this sequence. And apparently, I’m not the only one! I’m not a fan of Sarah Jessica Parker herself, but the shoot is gorgeous. The music is beautiful, the dresses are amazing and the photo shoot is very well done. For your viewing pleasure (and even if it’s not, at least it is for MY viewing pleasure. Because, you know… it’s all about ME)
This tip actually has resonated more with me recently, as I just had a conversation about the topic with Robert Ballantyne. I have always been more successful in life whenever I surround myself with people who teach me new things and challenge my own views of the world. That’s one of the reasons why I am an academic, why I did a PhD and why I am so excited with social media.
Social media is a field that I entered without knowing absolutely anything. I used to read blogs once in a while, but I never really paid attention. My first foray into trying to understand the field of internet and society came when I stumbled across danah boyd’s work. She has completed her PhD now at University of California Berkeley, and I was always interested in what she had to say.
The great thing about having smart people who will be always teaching you something (and to whose development you can also contribute) is that your brain never gets stale. That’s one of the best things I ever did – I always made sure to spend time having intellectual discussions with my students, with other faculty members, with my peers, etc.
Many people see me as a socialite in the Vancouver tech/social media scene. That’s true, to a certain extent. The socialization part is something I have enjoyed because of my personality, but it is the many opportunities to learn what keeps me in this world. I have learned SO MUCH in the past year that you could not ever imagine.
If you want to be productive, surround yourself with people who challenge your views, offer alternate viewpoints and give you opportunities for growth.
We all know the phrase… “I’m a night owl”. I happen to be one of those. My best hours and most productive? 10pm to 6 am. Lately, because of a (luckily unsuccessful) attempted entry into my house, I’ve had my Circadian rhythm really switched around.
The idea here is that you should listen to your body when it asks you to rest and work when it can be more alert. I’ve learned to go to sleep and have a nap when my body asks me for it. That’s what I did when I was most productive, and right now I’m doing the same. Don’t push yourself indiscriminately. Try to just follow your rhythms.
“1st 10 ppl to post a new photo (twitpic, blog, flickr, etc) wearing a vinaroon button or drinking farmstead wine get a special gift from us”
My photo was taken right before I opened a bottle of a really fantastic Martin Arndorfer Grüner Veltliner Strasser Weinberge 2006″. I don’t know what people might think of this wine, but I absolutely loved it. It’s smooth and sleek, in my humble opinion.
Funny how things go, two PhDs have scored gifts so far (Dr. Rachel Black and well, myself!). I haven’t met Rachel in person but I find her research fascinating). Wine, and in particular Farmstead Wines have brought really awesome and interesting people to my life, and very positive, interesting and exciting discussions about pathways towards more sustainable farming.
Check out Farmstead Wines’ blog and submit a photo to the contest soon!
When I get bored of learning about tech issues, social media and blogging, you can rest assured of one thing: I’ll quit. Yes, I will. Why? Because as many people have always recommended, I should do this because I am passionate about it. And I’m passionate about learning about social media and about making new friends. THAT is what I love doing. The rest, is just icing in the cake.
Technorati doesn’t help me make new friends, of course. But it provides me a barometer against which to assess how my content is being read. Still, as I mentioned in the previous post (the one I linked just above), it’s the learning that makes it all worth it. So imagine my surprise when I was exploring my new Dashboard (WP.com and WP.org have slightly different Dashboards) and OH SURPRISE…. I had the option of having a semi-private blog ticked! When I moved over to my new host, I didn’t even think about the implications. Well, it turns out that my blog hasn’t been indexed by Google nor Technorati for the past two weeks.
So the question I posed on Twitter the other day (why isn’t my authority increasing when I’m clearly being linked by new blogs?) loses all value because, well, I wasn’t letting Technorati OR Google index my blog. Which actually might also provide an explanation to why my page views on UrbanSpoon have decreased. Since my blog isn’t being indexed, my restaurant reviews don’t appear in the first few pages of Google.
And if my thoughts are true, as of today, you should be see changes about that right about now. No, I haven’t fixed my stats package yet. But that’s something I’ll deal with after fixing a few other things that aren’t blogging related. Like, you know, spending time with a civilian friend.
[UPDATE – Yes, I was right. I am now being indexed by Google AND Technorati. And my Technorati authority went up to what I thought it would. I *love* being right about something techie!]
Dr. Mark Latham from VoterMedia.org and I had been trying to schedule a meeting sometime to talk about politics, the web, the VoterMedia project and scholarly stuff for a long time, but it didn’t happen until recently when we went for lunch to Kishu Japanese House on Seymour Street, in the downtown core.
I’ve previously reviewed other Kishu restaurants, and I think this particular one is the “Mother Ship”. We both ordered boxes (since we were going there for a quick lunch), mostly in the range of $6.95 – $8.95. I’m always a fan of California rolls and miso soup, and to me, these tasted pretty generic. While I have to admit that I sincerely prefer Kishu Mountain to this one, I can’t complain. The sushi that we got at Kishu (Japanese) is pretty much like a vast majority of sushi joints – sustenance. Not gourmet sushi, but not bad sushi either. It’s good for the value.
Since it is so close to my downtown office, I suspect that I will be visiting Kishu (Japanese) in the future. It’s also very strategically located near the Granville Skytrain station. Overall, good food, within the confines of a downtown, quick lunch joint.
The company was, by far, the best part of this lunch. I had been looking forward to having lunch with Mark and talking academic shop. A large part of my PhD training was in political science, and having taught public policy, I am always interested in talking municipal politics. I also think that the project that Mark has undertaken is very worthy and I look forward to the next phase.
My friend Jonathon Narvey appears to be in the middle of a controversy! He is nominated in Best of 604 for Best Political Blog, but some people seem to disagree that he is indeed writing a political blog! I don’t know where this controversy will end, but I’ll be monitoring the situation closely. And while you are at it, go and vote for all your favorite Metro Vancouver blogs on Best of 604!
I’ve noticed that I rarely have done this in the past two or three years, but during my most productive time, I did it without ever faltering: taking a break at least once a week. Right now, with Twitter, and blogs, and stuff like that, I am online almost 7 days a week. However, during my most productive time, I always took Sundays off.
My Sunday routine (which has changed simply because I don’t live with my Mom and my brother anymore) consisted of Sunday breakfast (usually menudo), followed by either a visit to the church or a visit to the cemetery to drop flowers on my Grandma, Grandpa and aunt’s graves. Then we would go and have a stroll in the park or go shopping (the three of us, my brother, Mom and I). Finally, we would go for a movie and late dinner. We made a point (and it was me who suggested it) of NEVER checking email on Sunday.
Of course, sometimes we had to check email at night before going to bed simply to ensure that our routines on Monday would include stuff that was a priority. But for the most part, we simply disconnected on Sundays.
To this day, I try to disconnect on Sundays, although my routine is different. It usually includes brunch, dining out and spending time one on one with JT, but I do sometimes do work on Sundays. I still haven’t managed to completely extricate myself. But I *am* working on it!
[Note – When I say my most productive time, it doesn’t mean that it’s not productive now, but as I’ve indicated in previous posts, the three years 2004-2006 were by far my most productive, and these were the strategies I implemented to get to that point!]
I’ve always admired the work of Sean Penn. Admittedly, people can pigeonhole him as “Madonna’s ex-husband” or “the guy who never cared much about winning an Oscar and finally was recognized for his work“. However, I would like to praise Penn for taking on a rather challenging role as the lead actor in “Milk” and depicting Harvey Milk in such a human, vibrant way. Harvey Milk wasn’t perfect nor super-human. He was a gay man who succeeded in making a difference. And Penn does a wonderful job of incarnating Harvey Milk. In this movie, Penn IS Harvey Milk.
Milk is recognized for being the first openly gay man ever elected to public office in the United States, and for his efforts to defeat Proposition 6 which denied gay rights. Milk was assassinated along with then-Mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone. The movie is both heart-wrenching and heart-warming, mixing footage from the era (circa 1978) with the actual movie.
Some of my friends have indicated that maybe if “Milk” had opened just a few weeks earlier, then maybe the outcome on Proposition 8 might have changed. I am not sure, since there is no counter-factual to assess this outcome against.
Still, I just can’t understand how so many people have given themselves the supreme/divine right to “eliminate the rights of gay people“. Um, hello? Weren’t we all created all the same? While watching the movie, every time I heard Anita Bryant’s (or any other bigoted, hatred-inducing creep shown in the movie) I cringed.
I can’t believe some people actually think of homosexuals as deviant and worthy of being attacked. I have always praised Vancouver and its society for their openness, but, seriously, it is times like this (with the passing of Proposition 8 in the US and recent hate-mongering against The Laramie Project) that I am SO glad I live in Vancouver.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sean Penn was nominated again for an Oscar, and even though I think Josh Brolin did a wonderful job, I would probably nominate James Franco for Best Actor in a Supporting Role if I had my way. Franco is phenomenal in this role.
I know that Ianiv and Arieanna and Airdrie saw this movie the night before I did, so I’ll have to chat with them and get their impressions.
This tip actually got me through a lot. I have always loved to commit to doing a bunch of stuff. Conference papers, journal articles, books, reading students’ papers, etc. Whenever I felt that I couldn’t finish a full paper in a weekend, I always felt frustrated. But I found a way to feel as though I had reached a milestone: I broke the task in smaller pieces.
Many self-help books and websites recommend this, but what they don’t often recognize is that each task that you engage in should be seen as an intermediate goal (and it should be rewarded as such). So, for example – if I know I can’t finish a journal article, I always make sure that at least I have the bibliography prepared. Each day I do something that puts me forward in each task. That way, if I can’t reach my ultimate goal, at least I am reaching intermediate goals on a daily basis.
Degan and I had been talking about hanging out in a less-crowded, more low-key environment and talkin about Ethiopian food. My readers might remember that I am an absolute die-hard fan of The Red Sea Cafe on Broadway and almost Fraser Street. But I’m always up for trying new places and the only restaurant I hadn’t tried that served Ethiopian food was Gojo Little Africa.
Located around 12th Avenue and Commercial, Gojo not a really tiny place, but since that area of Commercial is somewhat darker and less illuminated, you could easily blink and miss it. I was actually very happy with the place as it is spacious, very nicely decorated and well illuminated.
We ordered a veggie combo and a yedoro wat, which is one of my very favorite dishes (a spicy chicken stew) to share.
The food was great and while neither of us were hungry afterwards (we were actually quite full), I still have my money on The Red Sea Cafe. The portions are bigger there, but again, we didn’t really end up having to order more food. I’ve tried almost every single Ethiopian restaurant in the city and I still love Red Sea Cafe. Of course, my second and third choices would definitely be tough ones, as Fassil, Gojo, Harambe and Addis Cafe are all excellent.
After finishing our dinner, Degan and I spent some time talking about the possibility of having a dinner with the rest of the Vancouver food bloggers, which I am sure would be a lot of fun. I am hoping to organize this in the next little while, hopefully before the year 2008 is over.
Overall, I would definitely recommend Gojo Little Africa for dinner. I am actually very surprised that there aren’t a lot of restaurants between 12th and 14th Avenue on Commercial. That area is really underrated. It should get way more business, in my humble opinion.
Degan is an absolute pleasure to hang out with, she is really a lot of fun, very easygoing and really easy to get along with and I definitely see this as the first of many adventures of us two in our role as Vancouver’s food bloggers 🙂 Hopefully more of them will join us next time!
One of the main criticisms I’ve had to field from my civilian friends is that my blog has become too tech/social media oriented, and that I’ve written much less about my personal life. Surprisingly enough, many tech people have told me that my blog is very personal. I can’t win!
At any rate, this weekend was a very good mix of civilian and social media life. By social media life I don’t mean that I actually did any social media event coverage, I just hung out with friend I’ve met through my blogging.
Thursday, after drinks with Lorraine and Dale, where we had a chance to see Simon (worth recapping on their own post) and dinner with Degan (restaurant review also forthcoming), and the live blog of Vancouver 2010 indie media centre meeting, I was really exhausted.
Friday was a good civilian day, spent most of the day a bit sick and in between naps, but luckily I managed to still go out at night. Saturday I had coffee with Lorraine at the Ovaltine, then coffee with Jonathon Narvey and Joe Solomon at JJ Beans, then dinner with Ianiv and Arieanna and a bunch of other social media and non-socmed folks at Earl’s Paramount (restaurant review forthcoming), and finally a Saint Nicholas party with Oana and Matt and a few other folks.
Today, I am basically out of commission as it’s my traditional JT evening and I’m going to spend most of the morning dealing with personal stuff such as laundry, etc. Hope you all are having a great weekend!
Recently, I had the chance to celebrate one of my very best friends’ birthday (LB). We went to graduate school together, lived in the same residence and are still very close. Her party had a DJ spinning tunes and one of the tunes that really made me dance was this one: Sneaky Sound System – Pictures (Tonite Only Remix). Judge for yourself.
Duane just gave me a quick heads up on the launch of the shiny and wonderfully designed and coded WordCamp Whistler website.
I am hoping to give a talk up there, but it’s not guaranteed at this point. Many of you may know that I gave a talk at WordCamp Fraser Valley on how I switched platforms from Blogger to WordPress earlier this year. As someone who came into WordPress practically from zero, I would hope that I could help other blogging newbies. I’ve already pitched my talk via the speaker form.
I do know is that Lorelle VanFossen will be the keynote speaker and that Andy Peatling will be talking about BuddyPress after the official December 15th release. It should be lots of fun!
As it so happens, I tagged Arieanna and Ianiv on the sixth photo meme, but they also got tagged by Derek, and in turn, Arieanna tagged me. So this time, I’m going to let anyone who wants to tag him or herself on the meme to do it. I was also lucky because I just recently uploaded a bunch of photos to my Flickr, so you won’t see exactly the same photo that you saw the previous time I did it 🙂
Everybody who reads my blog may know by now that my laptop is pretty much defunct. The screen goes black at the worst times and I just can’t cope with it anymore. So I was looking for an inexpensive laptop and came across BC Digital Divide.
“BC Digital Divide is a volunteer organization that works strictly with donated computers. As such, we can only give out what is provided to us. But wherever possible, we try to provide the style of computer the recipient is hoping for.” [BC Digital Divide]
While I am definitely not eligible for their program (simply because I can actually buy a laptop with some smart budgeting and money management) I was very impressed by what they are doing. It’s a great charity and I’d definitely recommend to our resident Vancouver geeks to check it out.
One of the intrinsic characteristics that makes Web 2.0 particularly interesting to me is how collaboration emerges. Having studied Complex Adaptive Systems theory in the past (mostly to examine ecological systems), I couldn’t help but think that the way in which we organized to collaborate and share what we were doing at RainCity Studios had definitely properties of self-organization and emergence.
This may not be news to you, but it is definitely news to me. Remember, I am a specialist in environmental issues. I don’t actually do research on internet and society. Thus, for me, learning about Web 2.0 is always delightful and amazes me on a day-to-day basis.
While sometimes I have my doubts as to whether I want to continue blogging (for my very own personal reasons, which I will not reveal here), it is times like last night at RainCity Studios that make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Collaboration at its best.
I recognize that this tip may be a little bit more complicated to implement than others simply because it may (or may not) entail some cash disbursement. But this particular tip has been perhaps the one that gave me the highest degree of productivity in 2004-2006.
One particular shortcoming I’ve found in the academic world is a lack of research manager positions. It seems as though the funding bodies think that researchers also have to do their own budgeting, booking airplane tickets, etc. What is a research manager, you ask? Well, the person who runs all the administrative and logistical support for a researcher. The “behind the scenes” crew. Two of my very best friends (both of them civilians) have held positions like these (in Canada). But they were exceptions to the rule. Most granting agencies won’t fund a research manager position (that is my experience).
I have been in both sides of the world. During graduate school, I was a research assistant. I had to go and photocopy journal articles, book chapters. I did online and archival research, etc. When I did independent research, I hired a personal/project assistant, and my productivity went through the roof. I delegated all the administrative and non-scholarly tasks to my project assistant, who through time became my research manager.
Granted, not everyone can do that simply because you need money to pay for help (most of the time). But for example, you could crowdsource stuff (if you want to know all about crowdsourcing, talk to my friend Monica Hamburg). Delegate the tasks that you can within your budget and organizational structure. Don’t try to do everything yourself. There is always someone out there who does what you need and in the end you will save time and energy. And as somebody said, time is the currency of life!
But I did have brunch there very recently with MJ and Dale, for the AIDS Benedict brunch. While I absolutely hate eggs Benedict, I wanted to participate in the event and so I sent out a Twitter invitation. I was very pleased and touched that both MJ and Dale accepted, as we had a really good time. Neither of them had met each other before, and I’m always happy when I help build connections amongst my friends from the Vancouver tech scene.
Both MJ and Dale ordered eggs Benedict while I ordered scrambled eggs with chorizo and toast. As far as the quality of food goes, it was really, really good. I did remember The Alibi Room being this good. The service was a mixed bag. Both our servers were incredibly sweet and nice and they went out of their way in keeping our coffee cups refilled. Both of those elements were highlights.
The very small downside? The servers seemed to struggle to keep up with everyone, and our food took a while to get to our table, but we didn’t mind as we were having a really good time.
My verdict? I will come back to The Alibi Room many, many times. It’s spacious, it’s well designed, it has good food (brunch is good and I remember dinner being good too. I’ll have to come back for that). Service is ok, and more than anything, it’s pretty strategically located. The Vancouver tech community visits The Alibi Room with frequency, and it’s close to my downtown office and to my home (well, if I take the bus anyways).
I’d definitely recommend The Alibi Room for brunch, although frankly, I still do love my Nice Cafe and Crave on Main. In my humble opinion, two of the best brunch places in town.
UPDATE 5.03 pm – Robert Scales is right now welcoming us all to the meeting. A lot of conversation. This is not a protest, this is about citizen journalism, people who want to distribute the content over the internet. We are trying to move towards facilitating access to content about the 2010 Olympics. The reason why Robert, Kris and DaveO have been working on this
1) We are fans.
2) We were in Torino on the ground.
3) We did a bunch of segments in Beijing, and definitely around 2010 we want to talk about the stories beyond the Olympics, and create a conversation around that.
The importance we see in this media center is that we want to cover beyond what the mainstream media is covering. Some of the social impacts, some of the various forms of impact of the 2010. Robert is now turning it over to Kris. The meeting will be around 1 hour, 1hr 20 mins.
KRIS
The way we see it – an accredited media center, like a Tier 1. It will give some sorts of special rights. And then there will be an unaccredited media centre (some of the local folks). When you hear unaccredited media center, it doesn’t mean us, it means big mainstream media folks who didn’t win the support (Tier 2). We are looking for a Tier 3 – we want to have a place for social media.
2 parts of the conversation come together:
A – The folks who want to cover the arts, and other social elements and,
B – Provide a physical space to provide folks who are covering (bloggers, and other people) to be able to tell their stories.
That’s about as much as we know. We know we need some space, and this meeting is for us to figure out together what we are going to need. We will need to look at issues like
– Room, space
– Branding of the media center
– Catering
We are looking to build a space and a place for this independent media center. Build the networks and connections. We need to find sponsors, for example.
– Should there be one, or multiple locations?
– What kind of resources do we need (printers, phones, fax machines)?
– Share sources, leads, resources.
– What kind of daily program do we want?
– Do we put in a Symposium as well?
– Do you want some gallery space, for local artists?
– People who aren’t covering the stuff that others are covering?
– How are we going to pay?
– Is it catered, and who?
Those are the questions that Kris wants to throw out so that we can all answer together.
DaveO is going to talk about what we can all do and how everyone can get involved.
DAVE OLSON
A couple of little tensions we need to deal with. There seems to be a shroud of “us” and “them”. Issues that Kris and DaveO. How open are VANOC main offices going to be about this stuff? We are deciding to be very open and translucent. It’s important to keep the dialogue open. DaveO threw online some of those tools. What DaveO hopes to talk is talk about some of these questions.
We don’t even know how to name the place (independent vs. indie vs. alternative). How do we do the branding? This is a grassroots effort, so how do we brand it in a positive way. We have a space here, but realistically, this office isn’t ideal. Maybe we need to think about other ways for people to collaborate and communicate. All these resources will be online.
The next step is talk about how to do this – openly and publicly. We have different experiences to share. Let’s just put it all on the table. Dave O threw on the site – the stuff that drives all this effort. From Dave O, he wants to give people a motivation, so he put up the work of Robert and Kris (photographs from Beijing).
– Google Mailing List
– Wiki
Kris jumps in – we have seen that one by one is easy to lock us out, but we have enough common natures in terms of access and what we are looking for, we can allow for bigger organizations to fall behind us. If we are all working together and we are a whole bunch of people who are working together, we kind of have more of a voice, and they’ll need to kind of address us better.
Another part of it is that many of us have been creating collaborative ecosystems. Competitors choose to be collaborators. Kris’ idea here is that the best ideas – a lot of those people are represented in this room. They don’t realize is that we are trying to meet their own objectives – first Olympics that will be covered by citizens and social media and alternative media. We can change the perceptions of people in how things are happening with the Olympics.
We have a chance to show to the world that Vancouver’s tech and social media and citizen journalism scene can be powerful enough to showcase how things are happening in the 2010 Olympics. Robert is mentioning that in Beijing there was no actual control of social media (iPhone-taken photos). If you want to collaborate, you put the content on your website. The IOC doesn’t seem to think that this (social media) is the right model (e.g. including social media), but one of our goals is to make enough noise to force them to change the strategy.
They may have vested interests in keeping the mainstream media coverage, but we don’t want to substitute that coverage, we want to actually FURTHER advance that coverage to include social media, stories, social elements.
VANOC has a big PDF of what you can do and can’t do. We need to learn how to talk in the appropriate way, not the inappropriate way. We all have to read the branding and guidelines, and stuff. We have to work within the system.
VANOC also has a roster where you can sign up. As much as you want to be involved, we are jumpstarting the collaboration. There are folks like us everywhere in the world, and everywhere in Canada. We can start interviews about the programming, what people want to put up there. Start talking about it and talk to DaveO, Kris, Robert. They have already some connections and can help with that.
OPENING THE FLOOR TO THE DISCUSSION
Kris would like to have a “requirements” document. Apparently Telus already has a plan. There is someone here who has worked with The Vancouver Sun. Robert, Dave O and Kris already applied for accreditation (but we have one full year for that, hehe).
For them, it’s absolutely new ground (social media, bloggers). They said they want to have bloggers and new media. How do they decide who gets accredited? It may be based on unique hits or some criteria. They may want the social media there, but they may not know how to accreditate someone. This needs to establish the conversation. There’s some groundwork that has been done in Torino, you can get some pointers from there. There was a beautiful media centers with laptops, connections, etc.
Torino was trying to push their mandate. They were very open and welcoming. Beijing – you needed a specific visa (J) and some people who had to ‘almost fly under the radar’. But it probably was related more to the regulation. How are we going to deal with it in Canada? As long as people are following the branding guidelines you’ll be able to talk about the stories.
Lorraine asks how many people are going to be working on this? Robert and Kris said “as much space as possible”. They want to have enough space to put on soirees, etc. As much space as possible.
Would it be possible to get an assessment of a virtual space allocation? How much space do we already have? What needs do we have in terms of space. R- We can do that (W2 and stuff, we do have some space that we could volunteer but we need more)
How would you feel if a company like Pepsi would like to provide funding? R – That’s AWESOME! We are going to be open, so we’ll be open to whatever funding and support we have. We are trying to keep this apolitical.
Anybody can be part of the planning process. There is no one document that has been created. All of this is happening in the open. We know that the chances of happening in this RCS office there might be some need for managing it, but the ideal would be an ideal, neutral location. A bunch of printers, a bunch of laptops/computers. Get stuff out, make art, create stuff. Whoever wants to give us money to get our message out.
Q.- Hard to monitor whether people are saying things that are bad (or not through the guidelines) on Twitter, blogs, etc. How to deal with it? R.- The place/facility we are talking about is a place where bloggers and citizen journalists will be able to have resources. But it’s the blogger’s responsibility to follow the guidelines. The bottom line is – the conversations that people create are their own property, their own content. So they are responsible.
Check the closures map.
Q.- Lorraine – a casual commitment to make sourcing local a priority. R.- Kris thinks that there is no organization to which a commitment can be made. As a value of whatever the group comes, we should try to keep it local. This stays apolitical. Something to think about.
Robert asks an open question – on the assumption of building a steering committee, who would be interested (you can sign in the wiki, etc.)
Q.- How do you see athletes fitting into this (athletes who are interested in having access)? R.- DaveO says that we’ll be reaching out heavily, and we’ll invite them if they want to come and spread the message.
Robert – creating a team profile – out of the box Drupal-hosted websites. Building a specific profile with a target team and allow them to write their own blogs. There are certain guidelines that the athletes can’t cross. We would like to work with them.
Kris – what type of stuff, programming. For the programming you will need to learn about the guidelines and what you can and cannot present. The only times that they can stop you from posting stuff on the internet, the print media is trying to make the transition into the social media. If you can’t broadcast on the internet your own videos, then what’s up?
Q.- It would be really neat to have videocams and recording devices on the internet. R.- Getting cameras and distributing. Apparently some people are thinking about getting videocameras and stuff like that. Fearless City are goin gto send people. They are going to be partners in this. Robert and Kris could do some livestream at some venues, etc. But always within the guidelines.
Andy (Univ of Scotland) – studies the intersection of media and the olympics.
Dave O will what can folks do? Let’s brainstorm. Blog your ideas. We want to have a space for dance, or for art, or whatever.
Take away items – sign up to the websites, start making wiki pages, right now. Share in your ideas of what you see should be the content, the programming of the centre.
Q.- So is there really an embargo on imagery? R.- If there is imagery that has venue (Olympic rings) intellectual property violations then you may get in trouble.
I am guilty of not using enough technology in my life (despite the fact that I’m in the Vancouver social media and tech scene). Not because I don’t want to, but because right now my budget doesn’t allow for all those tech gadgets that would make my life oh-so-much-easier. But let’s assume that YOU can buy or acquire or gain access to the technology.
In my case, I started using EndNote, a reference manager for Windows. My brothers (who also have PhDs) use LaTeX, but since I am not as mathematically-inclined as they are (they do really complex modeling) I decided against it. LaTeX would allow you to write your papers and create the PDFs really quickly, with awesome equations and endnotes/footnotes.
Since I am a Windows/MS Word kind of guy, I opted to use EndNote to insert the references into my conference papers and journal articles. I also used my EndNote libraries as a way to organize all my readings and index cards. I saved notes on each one of the articles and books I read, and to this day, it is a wonderful resource, with over 1,700 entries so far. I also create libraries for each article I write, because it allows me to really know what I’ve read in a minute.
If you are a mathematically-oriented researcher (or quantitative) invest in good statistics or econometrics or computer modeling program. If you are a qualitative researcher, invest in Nvivo or Atlas Ti (qualitative research software). If you do geographical information systems, learn to use ArcView and MapInfo, and stuff like that.
Technology is not a goal, it’s a means to an end. Use it wisely, and to your advantage! Don’t be a luddite and embrace it! This is also true for social media tools. I’ve embraced Twitter and I’ve been even more productive because of it. For me, it’s not a waste of time, it is a tool that allows me to learn more about a world that I’m not used to, and to strengthen my tech skills.
Let me know how the implementation of these tips is going for you!
For ML’s birthday, my friends AF, BS, ML and myself headed to Sweet Revenge Patisserie on Main Street and about 26th Avenue. This Victorian-themed, little hole-in-the-wall is home to some of the best dessert this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Sweet Revenge *does* look a bit like the old English tea houses.
We had several delicious desserts (and none of us was actually able to finish any of them, they were SO decadent!). You can see more of these sweet creations on my Flickr stream.
The past couple of days have been very rough for me, so I’ve had very little to time to analyze the current political crisis of the Conservative-led government in Canada. Therefore, I can’t really offer much analysis. But one point that really strikes me as kind of odd is that the general perception I see on the mainstream media (AND on social media too) is that the coalition government is a bad thing in light of the current global economic crisis.
Let me bring you back to the notion of “creative destruction” popularized by the economist John Schumpeter (those of you who have studied the economics of innovation and technological change will immediately recognize the name). The basic premise underlying creative destruction is that innovation is spurred by the demise of obsolete technologies and the creation of new ones.
What does creative destruction have to do with political stability? Well, here’s my hypothesis – unless current Primer Minister Harper is unseated and its Conservative government is brought down, serious changes in the Canadian governance structure will never see the light of day. Why? Because the Conservatives need to really understand and get a grip on why they won the recent Oct 14, 2008 election. They didn’t win out of being THE BEST option. They won because of FEAR of the unknown.
Fear is really the worst adviser. I am well aware that fear of domestic political instability (coupled with economic destabilization) may lead Canadians who might have voted for the Liberals to actually support the current Conservative government (in hopes that by virtue of keeping Harper in the PM office, this fact in and of itself may bring stability to the country). But you can’t win without losing first. To me, it looks as though this could actually be beneficial for the Conservatives: learn from the BIG mistake of fear-mongering and learn to GOVERN.
I’ve said it numerous times, I am very lucky for being part of the local Vancouver tech community because I’ve learned a lot from my peers. A particular group of people within the larger community that I find particularly sweet AND enabling is the Tazzu community, led by my friends Rastin Mehr and Jen Duguay. Both of these folks have been up to their eye-balls with work, so I was very happy to see them organize a social function and not have to over-work themselves.
I was very happy to see familiar faces and friends of mine, including Tris Hussey, Monica Hamburg, Tanya Davis, John Chow (who unfortunately is, at the time of writing, at the hospital because of some sort of gallbladder stone), and Teresa Matheson.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for long as I had a gazillion things to do, but I look forward to the next event!
I know what you’re going to say… “but … checking my email is part of work, and I *am* being productive“. No, you’re actually fooling yourself. Email is one of the primary time-wasters and you could be better off by not checking your email (or in some cases, Twitter) until you have accomplished something productive, at least one produced element.
What do I mean by produced element? Say that you are (like me) an academic, and you need to prepare a lecture. So you’d start your day by reading a journal article or a book chapter to start getting your creative juices flowing. Or say that you are a freelance writer… you can start by drafting a blog entry in your WordPress editor.
Just reserve some time in the morning, before you actually check your email or Twitter, to engage in some sort of production. This term “production” still feels weird when I write it, and it refers to “producing” content or ‘stuff’. Whatever the stuff you ‘produce’ for a living, make sure that you spend at least some time in the mornings before checking your email creating something productive.
For example, what I did when I was in graduate school (and I owe this piece of advice to two professors in the Geography and Anthropology departments) was to never turn on my email before I read a journal article, a book chapter, or at least wrote a good solid 1 page with raw thoughts. This really helped my creative juices flowing and I could feel much more focused.
I also had the opportunity to be faster and more responsive on email because I was already on a roll, so I didn’t want email to distract me from accomplishing stuff. I suggest that you don’t let email (or Twitter) get in the way of your productivity first thing in the morning. Engage in some form of production for one hour or two at the beginning of your work day!
Let me know how these tips are working for you… they worked for me and still do!
