Without a Yard

Dec 19

you’re a nasty wasty skunk

So much for bahhumbuggery. The outpouring of charitable donations & goodwill from #hohoto warmed this Grinch’s cockles (huge aside: like manna from heaven a perfect lil’case study floated down demonstrating the power of online tools, social networks & digital communities when they manifest themselves in the *gasp* real world to affect change - let’s scroll down & tag this bad boy under eAdvocacy, shall we?). Of course I jest, this year has been filled with loads of NGO-time/volunteering/donations/etc…Here’s hoping that 2009, with all of its financial navel-gazing & wallet-snappin’, brings out the best in the uber-lucky-gainfully-employed peeps & reminds all that there’s more to life than griping about our investments tanking.

Photo w/ Sharanwrap courtesy of/snapped by Rannie

Top Twenty Xmas Tunes - Annotated, natch.

Baby It’s Cold Outside - Dean Martin (Gotta love Deano’s studio chatter at the beginning of the track…you know he was totes sexually harassing those poor backup babes.)
Linus & Lucy - Vince Guaraldi Trio (Classic. Will be playing this on the ol’upright in 3 days!)
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Thurl Ravenscroft (Three words: Stink. Stank. Stunk.)
Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley (C’mon. Total cheesy goodness. You know he’s hurtin’.)
The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole (Ditto. From the good’ol days, before your royalty-grabbin’ kids’d sing creepy duets w/ya)
Frosty The Snowman - The Ronettes (Ok, has there ever been a feminist scholar that’s appropriately dissected the strength, essence & impact of the Ronettes? They survived Spector’s insane maniacal clutches & triumph over one of the lamest, flattest Xmas carols of all time - RESPECT.)
The Little Girl’s Wish - Spike Jones (No he wasn’t married to Sophia Coppola, you silly goose. Before the Avalanches’ 9zillion samples & before digital shorts on SNL - there was Spike. Bow down you musicomediantypes.)
Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt (Annie says this song should be embargoed. But Eartha’s version is sultry without being slutty. You know you love it.)
Little Drummer Boy - Neil Diamond (Buddha bless the heart of the Jewish crooner that can pull off first-person-recounting the gifting inadequacies felt by a percussionist accompanying baby Jeebus’ birth. You go Neil.)
Christmas Bells - Bing Crosby (Just can’t upload the Bowie duet. It’s pa-rum-pa-pa-creepy.)
Snoopy’s Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio (close your eyes, lift your head up, shake your arms & dance like the dog already)
Have yourself a merry little Christmas - Judy Garland (Y’all knew I’ve ALWAYS been a friend of Judy
Let it snow - Frank Sinatra (Frank’d be cool during a tsunami with his Rat Pack aloof sensibilities)
Here comes Santa Claus - Elvis Presley (He’s the King - of course he gets 2 spots!)
Christmas time is here - Alvin & The Chipmunks (If this song doesn’t make you smile, you probably eat kitten cereal in a baby seal bowl)
Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry (Badass scorching guitar mastery)
Rockin’ around the Christmas tree - Brenda Lee (Two words: Home Alone)
Jazzy Christmas - Duke Ellington (The Duke’s jazz approach - crisp’n'clean’n'clear makes for sharp edges & bright touch - perfect for xmas tunes & frosty weather)
Socko the littlest snowball - Spike Jones (Sooo goofy & good, worth a double dip)
Winter Wonderland - Tony Bennett (The master of all things smooth…pre-ChiliPeppersEndorsement/Unplugged lauds, elder fam statesman turned me onto TB’s LPs)

But where is the *real* top ten, you ask…I, sigh, dunno…quite yet. Got a buncha other cool (charitable! volunteer-iffic!) events & projects on the go…& that whole work thing…yeah. Thankfully today’s snow allowed me some catchup time & I suspect this undergrad-style campout will continue throughout the weekend…but there have been so many amazing albums out this year…I’m overwhelmed!

Dec 09

Forget your perfect offering. there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

Posted in: eAdvocacy

So here’s the Facebook‘ed cut’n'paste from the cut’n'thrust from the demo-discussion (name removed to protect the innocent). Some interesting ideas incubating this week, probably as a result of last week’s blowout. Thinking more about the public consultation process, using digital tools to drive grassroots participation, citizen engagement & how to build better public consultation forums. But I digress - this is pure politics below. Comments welcome

Subject: Twitter
Between You and JohnD’Oh

JohnD’Oh
December 5 at 5:31pm

I tried d replying on Twitter, but you’re not following me!

My $0.02:
- I disagree with the coalition. When I cast my ballot for the NDP, it was precisely because I didn’t want to vote for Stephan Dion. Their “62% majority” is counting me as though I support the coalition.

- I disagree with the GG’s decision to suspend parliament. Her role is to let parliament fight it out, and not interfere.

- I think it’s irresponsible and somewhat childish to be doing this at a time when we all need parliament to actually do some real work.

- I’m a little sick of the endless chatter on the news and radio. More talk isn’t going to get things moving

… and if an election were to be called right now, I’d switch from the NDP to the Conservatives.

So whats this event you’re organizing? Sounds interesting.

JohnD’Oh
—-
Meghan Warby
December 7 at 11:16am

Hey! I just clicked follow yesterday - sorry about that! Can I blog about this? May I use your email with or without attribution - it’s a great jumping off point….

I see your point of view on how the coalition was not an ideal governance path for many Canadians, however I respectfully point out that if you disagree with the GG choosing prorogation over a vote (’fight it out’), which would inevitably lead to a coalition-led non confidence motion/dissolution, that you are now entering cake having & eating mode. We elected a parliament, not a president & that parliament, if left to ‘fight it out’ was prepared to execute a plan they negotiated among three parties to govern.

As for ‘childish’ actions - that’s an at-times-fair but trite & over-used accusation dismissing politicians’ motivations. It is childish (or naive) to believe that you can affect change aligning yourself with an organization anchored in a set of values, policies & actions - these politicos should be duke-ing it out mano-a-mano on Bay Street, right? Or putting aside their differences & working to solve a stalemate through a coalition, oh, wait, that’s what was proposed. I’ve never joined a political party, but I was a card-carrying member of innumerable crunchy-granola-eating-hackey-sack-playing organizations when I was a teenager - I mailed hundreds of dollars to NGOs in mini-increments to contribute to causes in which I believed, wrote letters, organized events - pretty childish to think that I could make a difference, huh?

However, I feel that childish is a fair description of two policy pronouncements - taunting political parties by threatening to remove public funding ($30M per year= a lot of rubber chicken) & an additional jab with a threat to remove the right to strike from public sector workers (why should someone’s employer determine their labour rights so long as they are not providing emergency services or other classifications that have already been laid out provincially?). Outside of the blissfully ignorant economic statement, with conveniently oblivious assertions that we will not run a deficit, these two policies were too much to stomach & assaulted the core beliefs of left-leaning parties, and also a natural (some say crass…) self-preservation instinct for the parties’ administration.

& THIS is what really, really bothers me about blase political critics - feigned exhaustion.

I’m NOT sick of the chatter because it serves to refresh, remind & re-educate Canadians of the machinery - the basics - of our political system. People toss off phrases like ‘plead the fifth’ mindlessly without knowing that in OUR COUNTRY this means that Parliament sets out the MPs’ powers & immunities & it in no way relates to keeping mum after an arrest! Rallies, web campaigns, blogs - this is not just ’static’ - people have woken from a paralyzing coma that engulfed them during an (admittedly) tepid political campaign & (thanks to ‘chatter’) recognize the power of Parliament. This is empowering, should be encouraged & fuels more ‘chatter’ - it is incumbent upon citizen journalists & mass media outlets to air divergent opinions on the future of our government, because it directly impacts our quality of life & reputation abroad.

I will not even TOUCH the logic(?) behind your threat to ‘punish’ the NDP by voting Tory in the next election.

I will, however, buy you a beverage of your choice (maybe this deserves 2) at an upcoming event, since I’ve unloaded my nerdy enthusiasm for all things political on your unsuspecting inbox.

Your fan,
Meegs

Dec 07

The highways and cars were sacrificed for agriculture; I thought that we’d start over but I guess I was wrong

Posted in: eAdvocacy

Pretty wild week to say the least. Today marks the one-week return date - how I wish I’d stayed blissfully ignorant in San Francisco, but as Soul II Soul would say - Back to Life, Back to Reality. Micro Level - I have a lot to learn from the macro level…Humble thanks to the wagoneers circling.

Macro Level - It has been wonderful engaging in thoughtful, passionate conversations with colleagues & friends about our rough political waters. The Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy has an event in the works to bring an even-keeled non-partisan discussion to the community, & I’m prouder of our work every year. As many thoughtful conversations swirl within inter-office-listserv’d emails, some have sprouted from friendly Tweets, so I wanted to plant a seed in the hopes that, like the last post, a comments thread can blossom…

My favourite response was from a MESH-met bud, who shall remain nameless…& my reply to him, will be posted here, eventually…but first I’d like your thoughts on what a successful event would look & feel like. Too many people are lamenting the system, attacking the personalities, feigning exhaustion - Ideally, this would be a forum to discuss how to USE parliamentary democracy to its highest capacity, involve more Canadians, represent more perspectives, nurture more voices to speak up. (& discourage thoughtless, petty, opportunistic aggressive bullying, I am stopping now before I indemnify myself…) Traditional & new media ideas welcome…basic event infrastructure & specific subject-matter/speaker suggestions appreciated…

Nov 29

No king, no prince with gold ring pinky

Posted in: eAdvocacy

Posted a link on FB this week that prompted some cool comments. Thought I’d migrate the string of conversation blog-side to see if it elicits any other responses…

Step One - Read the Torontoist article, ‘The Political Side of Canadian Glam Rock,’ a very well-written interview with one of my long-time favourite Canadian recording artists (not to mention Muskoka-area lovelies), Hawksley Workman, about his music tour, which coincided with our recent federal election campaign.

Step Two - Dig deep & suss out your own feelings about the recent election. I was caught up in the tech crunchiness of the month, & was nerd-neutral on that platform, which I appreciate in hindsight - it was a great experience to write about digital communications & partisan politics, especially while American election static was reaching an all-time high.

Step Three - Dive in & let me know what you think. Couldn’t help feeling pangs of guilty pleasure after reading HK’s snarkiest quotes, but let’s start the convo with my favourite HW quote: “…our country is being dragged back to a time when people were asking less questions.”

To answer the whaddayathink prompt - Simon cited romanempire.net’s examples of media/entertainment being used as a tool to replace/distract citizens from political rights. We still see this in the fluffier of the policy outputs, the sloganeering, black’n'white-ing of issues during a campaign - & that side of politics certainly isn’t new, most recently we had pooping puffins, doctored tapes, etc, etc.

Roger chimed in to say that questions are being posed “within a smaller ‘lobbying/activist’ cohort” more than others…hrm…dunno if I agree with that, but I do like his follow-ups, that “Political double speak, unclear priorities, and in-action, don’t exactly inspire the masses to engage in the process.”

Do you agree that we ask less questions? of government? of our institutions? each other? Y’all just tired of all the politickin’ & gun shy of the parliamentary gong show that could result from a possible coalition government?

Nov 28

Just because you look up doesn’t mean it’s got to rain

Posted in: eAdvocacy

Rediscovering CBC Radio3 couldn’t have come at a better time…mentally & work-ily preparing for the trek back to Canuckistan. Like a good little borderline OCD nerd, I’ve got a zillion notes & links & half-finished thoughts & nutty schemes that I’m eager to launch. Need to take a step back & synthesise all the thoughtful answers, interesting case studies & inspiring organizations I’ve encountered over the past two weeks & puree that into some coherent thematically-linked presentation. Yeah. Easy.

Well, my colleague Boyd makes it LOOK easy - he has a lovely post on his Intangibles Blog here after attending a lecture by Rahaf Harfoush (Obama social networking/new media strategist) at U of T’s Rotman School of Management.

Boyd’s takeaways beyond Rahaf’s presentation - in brief:
1. SocMedia platform should improve intimacy among your audience
2. Integrate, integrate, integrate
3. No off-the-shelf social media solutions
4. Find the digital sweet spot but prize agility

Would like to add my 2-cents/4-points after a two-week-pre-inauguration-navel-gazing-immersion-course (parantheses-&-hyphens-a-plenty, of course…):

1. If you build it, they won’t all come, so deal with it - MyBO.com had significant membership (2M, & whether it was a ‘true’ social network prompted a cool debate during a meeting in DC…), but the BO team wasn’t so arrogant as to think that MyBO would supplant a robust presence on existing, popular social networks. BlackPlanet, MiGente, Hi5, MySpace, Twitter, Eons, Facebook (Esp. ‘Facebook Connect’ w/ MyBO.com application broadcasting actions into NewsFeed), you name it, BO was there (16 sites total, over 5M external site ‘friends’). (Bitter aside: If the Dean crew had a YouTube channel to leverage in 2004 & hadn’t been, essentially, forced to create DeanTV, it would have been a different ballgame…)

2. ‘Social Objects’ are more relevant than the networks themselves. To blatantly rip off TX’n transplant-guru Hugh, our intentions online isn’t to have a solitary experience - it’s to find a human, collaborative, shared space. BO was successful because *he* became a social object - AntiBushites/Progressives/DeclaredDems/Disaffected*InsertGroupHere* name-dropped BO, & later co-opted his name, image, video clips, iPod playlists, history, narrative, quotes, & everything he represented/touched to coalesce as a group.

3. ( or 2.a)?) Build a digital infrastructure rooted in #1 & #2 - which means developing easy, slick, compelling prompts, apps, sites & materials to grow your audience, on all platforms. Ex-1. BO’s iPhone app had a two-front visceral halo effect - physically people gather around someone as they demo it on their phone & are then compelled to ask its owner to email them (or vice-versa - people receive content from the app & want to watch it ‘in person/at work’). Ex-2. Self-starting enthusiasts didn’t wait for permission to help/advocate/volunteer from campaign HQ via MySpace & Facebook - this is unprecedented from a political standpoint & generally with overall advocacy work via NGOs, etc.

4. And Then? To defy assertions made in this seminal film, there must be an ‘and then.’ BO supporters were happy to take on the campaign gruntwork - logistically & organizationally - now they’re eager to share ideas. How can we use online collaborative tools to improve contact with government officials, link like-minded organizations, create more effective/efficient coalitions & crowd-source solutions? How can we take advantage of the innumerable free tools, enthusiastic & skilled users eager to contribute? First step - embrace transparency, design cleaner interfaces for data accessibility & farm-out raw data to organizations that can better organize/mashup/display what is public information.

Shrapnel

Facebook sprawls: 10M of its 30M users are 30+ years old, 3.3M are 40+ (FB Ads Data) - BO had 3.2M fans & there were 5.4M ‘I Voted’ Americans on E-Day
Hugh is true: “People respond to genuine social gestures instead of being bombarded with messages.”
This was the first election cycle where *boomers* were comfortable passing on political information online. Even if a boomer wasn’t on Facebook, their email list makes them ’21st century political pamphleteers’ - (phrase h/t to Andrew Rasiej, Personal Democracy Forum)
To quote the first TV Pres, JFK, “Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.” Successful online strategies require the equivalent of successful field strategies - research, manpower, accurate demographics, compelling content and a charismatic leader (or social object).

Nov 24

Be more like the trees and less like the clouds stop movin’ around so much

Posted in: eAdvocacy

Gawking around downtown LA, staring up at the oddly familiar buildings, such as the iconic HQ of Capitol Records, reinforces the trope that huge differences exist - architecturally, culturally sociologically - among the two coasts. Politically, they’re often clumped together, as a blue bastion where liberal-minded/creative class caricatures perform a post-grad pilgrimage, but there is larger difference in the pace of life & attitude re. work than I imagined (or expected from the Canuck TO vs. Van distinctions). Just a couple days ago, I was gawking at another capitol building, in DC, as an inauguration stage was being built, AIDS-awareness protesters milled around & security detail amiably chatted with tourists. What a difference a ‘miracle of human flight’ trek across the continent makes.

In Washington, I was very lucky to participate & observe thoughtful conversations with/among poli-web pioneers, campaign vets & community organizers, who are assessing the impact of the recent American election. Speaking with people who had first-hand experience in mobilizing groups through web-based communications strategies will always be inspiring. (If you’d like to view first-hand accounts about the campaign & intelligent assessments of how the media framed Obama’s successful execution of a thorough web/grassroots strategy - I’d highly recommend you go here, the Internet Advocacy Roundtable page from the Centre for American Progress to download this video from their panel last week.)

In LA, I’ll be learning from creative mavens, cultural contributors & tech-savvy entrepreneurs - who are creating ‘meaningful media‘ (to swipe the name of an actual interviewees company…) to engage audiences & eventually affect social change.

I’ll back blog the best of NYC & DC - in terms of quoteable quotes & anecdotal gems, but true end-game is a SlideShare version that combines key learnings across the sectors, cities & interviews. The deck’ll’be anchored the eAdvocacy theme: developing a toolkit that’s customizable for an organization’s needs & establishing a set of standards to execute a thorough digital strategy (integrated *seamlessly* with overall comms plan, of course) that encourages political engagement, social change, grassroots advocacy & in many cases fundraising.

Nov 17

These days I’ll sit on cornerstones & count the time in quarter tones to ten

Posted in: Music, Tech, eAdvocacy

Feeling like Eloise holed up in a nice hotel for this long. Due to scheduling conflicts & miscellaneous foils, two of today’s interviews (eHealth comms pioneer & architect of major NGO’s digital strategy/re-weblaunch) were over the phone. Produced very enlightening conversations nonetheless (made for easier note taking/furious non-eye-contact-typing, too). Wrapped the day chatting in SoHo, visiting a collaborate social network for artists that’s taking community management/user engagement to the next level, growing exponentially & moving forward with innovative & useful (not just bright’n’shiny) tools for their ‘uber-users’ to beta test before full rollout.

One theme tied these very diverse chats together - know your user. SurprisingEx. Mobile platform adaptation/adoption was not a huge concern for 2/3 interviewees because: 1) they’ve got bigger fish to fry; 2) their pool of users aren’t online via mobile devices & 3) it doesn’t serve the fundamental goals of the org.

All three organizations invested time tracking metrics, studying demographics and soliciting feedback to develop a very good sense of who they were/needed to reach.

The three organizations varied in size, scope & shape bigtime. The largest, a more advocacy-focused NGO that’s registered over 300K members in its 70 years, is challenged by numerous offices mounting different campaigns & de-bureaucratizing/un-siloing an old-school site. Engaging staff at all levels to adopt/accept a new web philosophy is a work in progress. Shared colleague Collin’s phrase ‘Return on Intention’ to echo the interviewee’s explaining to colleagues that “the ‘front page’ is not nearly as important as you think it is in terms of findability or navigation.” No doubt it’ll take many eAdvocates awhile, especially if they’re in older organizations with massive press-release-filled sites, to successfully proselytize the virtues of caring about the other ROI.

Will be publishing a white-paper-style presentation after the meetings this month, leaning against developing one-post write ups for each interview, too, it already lives in GoogleDocs, couldn’t hurt to publish mini vignettes, I just don’t want to create a siloed monolitic brutal web1.0 site of my own…

Hm. What do you think I should do?

Nov 16

bright lights, tv screens, feels like looking in a magazine

Posted in: Music, eAdvocacy

Hate to get all meta on y’allsies again, but need a segueway to relaunch…however painfully brutal this may be…As you can see, I’m WordPressing* not Blogspotting after a training period for some political thing. Besides that one-month foray into politics&tech, I haven’t uploaded any text outside of Twitter since the unspectacular campaign wrapped in Canuckistan.

No shortage of amazing shows before, after & during the that time period, too. Refer to Roberto’s YouTube to boo David Byrne’s Massey Hall show, which was - bar none - the cream of the crop (not to disparage Nick Cave, Chromeo, Spinto Band, Wm Del Ray, Feist, Hot Chip, Radiohead, She+Him, Lykke Li, Emily+Delta, Samantha Martin, & a ton of others I’m too sleep deprived to remember…). Check out a pixelated posse of miscellaneous concert/life snaps via Facebook & the FlickrFiles to refresh memories I can’t dredge.

Anyway, it was a really, really good autumn - so good, in fact, that there was no time to capture it on the intertubes. Winter ahoy, then - shifting the focus from Toronto tidbits to publish a series of interviews I’ve been lucky to secure (lucky = having a very progressive & encouraging employer + kind, generous & well-connected friends) around the theme of ‘eAdvocacy.’

I’m beyond psyched (& honoured, flabbergasted, overwhelmed, etc…) that I’m blagging my way across the U-S-of-Eh so soon after the most significant ideological/political paradigm shift in my gen’s lifetime. Hyperboles aside, I hope to canvass the wide array of technophiles using/creating/modifying the web to create communities, raise awareness & - above all - affect change.

This wouldn’t be withoutayard proper withoutasoundtrack, though, right?

NYC Hotel Gym Playlist - or - How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Knicks

1 - Back In Your Head (Stop Die Resusitate Remix) - Tegan & Sara

2 - My Moon My Man (Boys Noize Remix) - Feist

3 - Suspicious Loop Affair (Immuzikation Mashup) - My Morning Jacket/Hercules & Love Affair/US3

4 - Dur dur d`etre un bebe - Jordy

5 - Working Together (Boys Noize Vox Mix) - Gonzales

6 - Fancy Footwork (RAC Mix) - Chromeo

7 - Suenos Dulces (DLake Remix) - Thunderheist

8 - Damn Girl (Curtis Vodka Remix) - Kid Sister

9 - Working for Vacation - Cibo Matto

10 - Raise Me Up - Hercules & Love Affair