I was out at Currency early this morning having a meeting about our upcoming campaign. As always they have come up with exactly the approach that fits perfectly with us. You get a sense when working on these things that there is a synergy that really moves ideas and thoughts exactly to the place they need to be. When we look back over the past few years at what we have had done and see where we are going it still all fits together with nothing out on the limb. I am pretty excited about this as once again we are going to be doing something that makes our difference a key element on what we do and how we are viewed. It took a few months to get there but creativity is not something you can turn on or off. It is like jello, it has to set a while.

What a difference an hour makes! I was out for a quick walk tonight. It was sunset. And everyone and everyone’s dog was out for a walk. Kids were out with their basketballs, little kids in their designer buggies ( they must call these things something else and definitely not baby buggies) dogs leashed and unleashed and just that new vibrant green that seems to be oozing out everywhere. Spring has sprung!

Was out for a walk this afternoon. At 14 degrees it was actually warm. We don’t have to have many reasons as to why we live here when you can see this everywhere.

This is a good one (from goddess spiral)
Book Meme
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of this sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
As noted on goddess spiral my results from Douglas Adams’ – the Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul was: “Huh?’
Things can never cease to amaze us huh?

Guy Kawasaki has a great write up on how to remain sane. We all need that! He also describes a blogger: Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.

Tomorrow is the last day of March and this weekend the time change to daylight savings time. This really puts spring at the forefront and tells me winter is over. Yes dear, the snowtires are off and stored in the garage. Now everyone should be coming out of their grey winter moods. I don’t know what it was this winter, maybe all the rain and lack of sunshine, but everyone seemed to either be overly tired or fighting the flu bug these last few months. We need some springtime jolt to get us going. Those long shadows of winter need to be made shorter.

Today, while having lunch, I had a great view of English Bay and out towards UBC. It was from the 9th floor of the BC Central Credit Union building. I had never noticed that Spanish Banks at low tide appears like a strip of land out into Burrard Inlet. It goes out quite a way looking from the Burrard Street Bridge. You can see the pylons and warning lights at Locarno Beach and west but it never seems that the stretch of sand at low tide really goes out that far. That view is a favourite with the north shore mountains looming over the mass of downtown buildings.

After moving books and CDs around in a number of bookcases, 2 CDs finally appeared; Joni Mitchell’s – Both Sides Now (which is about 2 years overdue at the New Westminster Public Library) and Jean-Michel Jarre’s – The Concerts in China. Joni’s CD is going back immediately. I refused to pay the $27 they wanted as a replacement cost. Now I am wondering what the overdue fine will amount to. I will probably be banned for life from that library!

The Jarre CD is compilation of concerts that he gave in 1982. They were given in Peking and Shanghai (that line should date them immediately). They were the first performances of rock or contemporary music ever given in the People’s Republic of China. There are no lyrics. It is a very interesting and melodic CD. Funny thing is that we bought it on the island of Crete and it still has this cryptic Greek music center tag on the front.

This has been the longest time between posts. Why? Enough is happening at the moment to fill 1.5 lives.

Rob Cottingham had a very interesting post on March 16th. The summation is:

“Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn’t place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”

You can guess what the topic is. Great antimetabole.

After exploring even more Web 2.0 applications today my head finally hurts. There is an absolute ton of stuff out there. A good place to start is TechCrunch with their index. There are 441 different applications here. That doesn’t mean everyone is different.

There are lots of Flickr type applications. But here are some very different & neat ones.

remember the milk. A great, simple to-do list application. What makes this one different? Its simplicity. You don’t get lost, the concepts are understandable, everything works, and it has every feature you can use. There is not much “dreamware” here –stuff that look great that you would never use. It allows you to tag your entries!

Nuvvo. It may sound a little lame but this application allows you to construct a way to teach on the web. If you want to teach someone something, this is an interesting example of how you could do this. You devise all aspects about teaching any subject matter. Very interesting and you can begin to see the possibilities for groups and small businesses.

Squidoo. This has an “educational” flavour to it but is more a depository of references that allows you to use a number of built in modules in development. Let’s say you love Chevelles. In fact you spend most of your non-working and waking hours with these cars. So with all that specialized knowledge that you want to share how would you do it? Voila! Just click on this link and you get the idea.

There will be some fallout with some of the sites. It doesn’t seem possible that all will exist in a year from now. They all need enough of a following to make them continue. Some are possibly hoping for something to happen to them like Flickr–purchased for $30M+ by Yahoo. The important point is this shows what is happening with the internet technologies. The hardware and tools needed to put ideas into action is now possible for just about anyone. And there are enough users to view, use and critique whatever is put on the internet. 10 years ago you would only have been able to deliver the idea in a stand alone program, then you would have had to put it into enough peoples hands to get some idea on usefulness. Now the production and delivery are the same vehicle. Another barrier has been obliterated. Interesting that the technology got faster, and the people that have the ideas got a lot smarter.

There are some extremely interesting web applications that are surfacing daily. I have been trying ma.gnolia as a tagging process and find it a little different and maybe easier to use than del.icio.us. Ma.gnolia supports some applets that fit in with Camino which makes tagging a snap. Del.icio.us does the same thing on Safari.

Tagging is a concept that in simplest of terms is the next dimension for organizing. It goes beyond the classic bookmark idea. With tagging you can create a multi-dimensional view (mulitple tags) of any web page. And your tagging category name can be anything you choose. Ma.gnolia lets you use single words or phrases for tagging categories and you separate your tags by a comma. You could call tagging the web based concept for keywords. It then takes another step by allowing your to share your tags with others. These tags can then become part of a group which is just a networked method of sharing with others a common interested topic. You need to try it to appreciate how it works.

I can only guess at how this and other Web 2.0 applications will evolve. But the creativity that is being shown by so many sites is phenomonal.

This weekend was spent getting the basement prepared for painting and moving everything down into this new area for my desk and stuff. Of course everyone has a good idea on what they want their home office to look like but in the end there is a lot of give and take. The advantage of this new space is that it is out of the way and well lit. And it should be much cooler in the summer. Looks like I will need another gallon (whoops 3.67 litres) of paint to finnish the other side of this room.

On Saturday Fleming and I attended a 6 hour workshop at Lee Valley Tools on the Leigh jig. This is a tool, when used with a router, that will produce beautiful dovetail joints. We spent some time learning about the setup and had a little project to complete. To my amazement the project turned out beautifully. Woodworking is pretty good therapy, nothing like making something with your hands. The smell of fresh cut wood also helps!

Haven’t paid much attention other than the medal winnings of Canada. Funny that when we get a great womens hockey team that is head and shoulders above the competition, then someone wants to change the rules. Can anyone say summer Olympics – Mens basketball? The most interesting thing to date is the gold medal winner from Australia, mogul skier Dale Begg-Smith. One really can’t disagree with the view on this site. And it is very humorous that the Globe & Mail this week published a front page photo of this guy. Given they are a business oriented newspapers he probably cost most of their company business readers a lot of time and money.

So Mr. Moore launches his lawsuit against Bertuzzi for $15 million plus. Right in the middle of the Olympics. Great for the game isn’t it. Could have done it a few weeks earlier but waited for the last day. By doing this he sure makes a huge wave in the hockey world and we get to relive the moment once again. Though what TB did was wrong, when does this thing end? Maybe Moore is suing for so much because he would never have ever made close to that amount as a hockey player and this is his one shot at it. So when is enough enough. I remember attending that game and that pool of blood that was left on the ice is a pretty haunting memory. Before they started playing for the final minutes the referees were trying to scrape the blood colour out of the ice like the goalies do before the games starts. No matter how hard they tried it just didn’t go away. Seems this event will just never go away for TB, Canuck fans and now all hockey fans.

I was reading the blog entry at Posthegemony for October 5, 2005 titled speed. He opens with the typical depiction of Latin America as a place of languor and lassitude and goes on to refute this perception. In fact it is exactly the opposite. But why have we viewed it so differently? What gives our culture such exclusivity that it can define any other culture in such absolute and sometimes senseless terms? What arrogance we maintain and the horror is that we don’t even view it as that. We in North America sometimes can only view the world through a T.V. set, no matter which channel is picked.

A very different day than the first. Quieter and less energy maybe due to the difference in the attendees. There were more neophyte bloggers and a much larger crowd.

I thought Julie Leung’s opening keynote was good. It was powerful and full of imagery. There was a full exploration of the theme “storytelling” which is essential to any good blog. It brought much of the human element into the sometimes purely technical world of blogs.

Dave Sifry and Tim Bray were good. Dave will really churn out ideas and has a passion for blogging and his business. Tim always has a unique point to bring forward. They would be great as a podcast team.

I thought Nancy White’s – Snow White and the Seven Competencies of Online Interaction was the highlight presentation of the day. If you ever have a chance to see Nancy run, don’t walk to her presentation. It was excellent and touched on some wonderful ideas and issues. She has posted the presentation on Flickr.

The afternoon sessions were much easier to fathom. You have to remember your brain can only work at 100% for only so long. Blogging in Education was very academic, Geek Out has some great tips and technology presentations and last but not least Five Ways Your Blog can Change the World with only Rob Cottingham (the other 3 presenters weren’t there for various reasons) was pretty good considering. I felt sorry for Rob. Can you imagine being part of a group of 4 for an hour presentation and ending up doing the whole thing yourself. They did make a connection with a cell phone to one of the other presenters for some of the time.

Was it as good as last year? Yes but in a different fashion. Blogging has a bit more age and depth to it now. It is taking a different form that was not apparent before. And having moved into a maturer methodology/technology it becomes less vibrant for some. It hasn’t lost it’s excitement, it has just become more common. The venue is great even if it was crowded at times and it is close to some great eating spots for lunch. The people who put in on really do a fantastic job. Most of them get little time to attend the events making sure everything in the background is running smoothly. The big difference was seeing the people and meeting the individuals. For over a year now I have read numerous blogs and really started to understand various peoples points of view and events in their lives. You get to “know” people in a way that is really very different. (someone is going to have to come up with a word to describe that kind of relationship) And so when you finally get to meet them it is pretty special. Northern Voice really sets the stage to encounter the person behind the blog. I don’t know how it does it but it works for me. And that is why I’ll be there again next year.

PS Only one suggestion – have a quick closing with everyone gathered. It puts a proper closure to the event.

Just getting my head together after an event-full day at this blogging conference. Today was the MooseCamp. Excellent speakers and dialogue with not one dull moment. You have to prepare for an event like this by keeping your brain prepared for the plethora of ideas that are presented.

The DabbleDB demo with Avi Bryant and Andrew Catton was very good. This is going to be a very sought after web app by individuals and business. Simple and elegant. And definitely fills a need.

Michael Tippett spoke on NowPublic. Interesting how the real time reporting by anyone can also be an agent of change. Interesting question to ask– Isn’t anyones perception of any news event just as valid as anyone elses?

David Sifry gave a great presentation on Leadership Hacks with some thought provoking input by a lot of the attendees. This says a lot about how the conference has a strong sharing attitude by everyone.

More tomorrow.

Northern Voice 2006

Yesterday when we were moving the kids to their new place there was a power outage in the area of Costco in Burnaby. In fact Costco was closed when we drove by at noon. The stoplights in the area were out. Now if there is anything I remember when taking the driver’s test it was the question on what to do when you come to an intersection with traffic lights that aren’t working — it becomes a four way stop. Simple. Takes time but works. Always a few that forget the rule but what the heck.
After a few trips back and forth we noticed that the first light off the Gaglardi exchange was not working and it was the most dangerous. Most of the traffic off the freeway was not stopping. They just drove right on through. We all were pretty sure that there was going to be an accident. Sure enough on our final trip home there was. Someone must have been cruising through just off the freeway and broadsided the car making a left hand turn. Ambulance, Fire Deparment, the whole works. It didn’t look too good.
Once again the question to ask — how do some of these people get their drivers licence? from a cereal package or what? Driving is a privilege not a right but it seems most don’t even bother to think in those terms.

Jan brings up a good point about coasting. Stepping out of the comfort zone and taking on new challenges. But after spending your daylight hours at work doing just that, how does one get the energy to do anything but coasting? In fact it isn’t coasting that is the problem. Everyone needs a little coasting. It’s habitual coasting—that is not a good thing. And of course in our lives we meet those that are perma-coasting. So indulge yourself a little, coasting in small doses isn’t all that bad.

This Friday is Northern Voice. And I am even more excited than last year about going. There are quite a few people who were there last year so it should be fun meeting up with them again. When one reads what has been happening in various peoples lives over the year you really look forward to seeing them and having that one on one conversation. Bloggers are a very different group of people. Expressive, passionate, very quick, genuine, just a great bunch to be with for a few days. The credit union I work for is co-sponsoring this event (with 12 others) and though our budget doesn’t allow us to give some expensive schwag I think what we are giving out will be different and appreciated.

Tomorrow is moving day for my son and daughter-in-law. There should be a lot of people helping and they don’t have a mansion’s worth of stuff to move so it should be more fun than work. It is a big step and one that you always know is coming when you have kids. It is just that you didn’t expect it to be so bittersweet.

Tonight my wife and I went to our son’s one-man art show at the Downtown Eastside Gallery. This is a very small eclectic gallery whose sole reason is to show art in whatever fashion to those whose interest is art. Period. No politics or seeing what is in vogue or “in”. It is a labour of love by 3 individuals who own the gallery and just want to see art and all of its benefits presented to the public at large. One of the co-owners said she pours money into it because to her it is important. When you meet people who are ardent in what they do and believe what they do is important you realize you have come to the right place.

Now who would attend a small gallery on the edge of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside on Powell and Victoria Drive? Young unpretenious people who make viewing art part of their social life. They want to be together and share. There is a vibrancy in what they see, in what they discuss and their lack of inhibition in discussing art. This is the new generation that is becoming part of the world of many. They are not leaving the culture we live in but in many way creating it in a fashion that at times is foreign to us who are children of the 60’s. In some small way it does remind you of that time. But the war we saw and heard about (Vietnam) is now invisible and unknown. It is the quiet world of the powerful that they want to be different from. They show a concern for all and not a concern for a few. It was an interesting and refreshing experience.

This week we finally finnished installing the new telephone banking product. To the project team go all the thanks. They pulled it off without any major hitches. And the programmers at SmartSolution and TelTek were great. We just kept plowing through the bits and pieces that needed small fixes. The product is much easier to use and managing the system is simple with a lot of options.

The first option, and probably the most difficult, was implementing bill payments via voice. Once you get to that sub-menu of paying bills you can do everything via voice. No more buttons. It is really strange to pay Telus just by speaking to a telephone handset. The next step is to have all the menus activated by and chosen by voice.

And now we begin implementing a new internet banking system, compliments of Credit Union Central of B.C. We basically clone our current system and then work at developing various products and services i.e. electronic bill presentment with payment, delivery and archiving our monthly statements in PDF format, secure messaging, and the list goes on. Our major goal is to develop products that gives the user the ability to choose delivery and product variables through the internet banking product. For example if you don’t want your statement mailed then you should be able to choose to turn that function off. You should be able to choose an electronic delivery method instead. And you should be able to do that anytime. Want to be notified when your payroll deposit comes into your account via e-mail or text messaging? (We have our MemberNote doing that now but just for ATM and Interac transactions). Again you should be able to choose that through an internet banking program. We hope in some small way we can begin to develop some creative ways of banking. And with today’s technology, why not?

So we get out and vote tomorrow. And the question most of us have in our mind — Who to vote for? Liberal – do they deserve a vote given the scandals. Conservative – who knows what Harper is going to do. NDP – they won’t get elected in but are they to become the king makers. I haven’t heard anything from any of them other than the typical election promises which in 6 months are so conveniently forgotten.
So we vote and wait. Maybe it will all be decided by the rest of Canada. The election could be over by 8:01 p.m. Monday night. So what else is new?

Who really wants to be around for a new record of consecutive days raining? Only the locals!

Apple released there new Intel based powerbook this last week. Looks like a new cycle of upgrades for both software and hardware. The Classic operating system is unofficially dead.

Bad manners. It would seem to me that much of what we encounter on any given day can only be attributed to bad manners. If you try to figure out why a person has done something you can only end up confused. Never mind trying to understand their actions. In the final analysis it was just bad manners = rudeness.

Northern Voice published their speakers list. Julie Leung, Nancy White, Tim Bray will interview Technorati founder/CEO David Sifry, exploring the current state of the blogosphere and what might be next on the Net’s agenda, etc. etc. Mt. Lehman Credit Union is one of the sponsors this year. The ideas and discussions at this blogging gathering are unbelievable.

Today I had to go to a meeting. It was a day off and there was a meeting to go to. Luckily it was raining, raining very hard.

It was a good meeting as meetings go. There was an agenda, someone was taking minutes, the coffee and cookies were pretty good and there was a time when the meeting should end. The discussions were pretty lively and we came to some conclusions by consensus.

But for the life of me I don’t know what number the meeting would be if all meetings attended had been given a number. 2,500? more? So what is the deal with meetings anyway. Sometimes we have to realize that we are social animals. We live in the world of digital and analogue communications. Today the meeting was with real people and sometimes that is what we really need — seeing, communicating and laughing with a group of people. That is what life is about at times, not feeling alone and part of a group of people. Not a bad outcome of any meeting.