how can it possibly be that i haven't written in here since may? i suppose i keep saying, week after week, that i don't know where the time is going; and i suppose i keep thinking, 'i really need to slow down and take stock'; and i suppose, too, i feel like i haven't actually stopped in months ... so i suppose i have found my answer(s).
and maybe i've discovered the topic for this post, too.
i recently attended a 'power within' weekend at whistler, thanks to the very generous people at my office, and although i came away inspired and ignited by several speakers, i was absolutely entranced by arianna huffington, who spoke during the weekend on becoming a leader, being a woman in business, remaining strong, and maintaining some semblance of balance if one happens to be engaged in all of these activities. i think she struck me particularly because she seemed to speak from the heart, and because she didn't appear to be at all fearful of exposing any vulnerability in doing so. what an amazing woman. and yet she seemed approachable, too, like someone i have known. perhaps it's the best speakers and leaders make one feel that way.
in any case, arianna made a call for new bloggers on her site, the huffington post, and in listening to the call, and in excitedly contemplating what it would sound like to say 'yeah, i'm doing some blogging for the huffington post on the side, no big whoop' i realized that i'd better kick my own butt and start blogging regularly again.
i'll be back.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Lessons in Licensing and Red Rubber Balls
About a week ago, I attended a presentation at SFU on "Rights and Contracts in the Digital Age." (I have to mention here that I attended this presentation on a sunny Friday night at 5pm -- I do expect congratulations for that.)
I thought I was going to die of boredom during the first presentation. Although it turned out to offer one or two good nuggets of information, Karen Gilmore's session on "Contract Issues in the Digital Age" consisted of her talking through a two-page handout containing various legal clauses. Not exactly my bag. I couldn't even look out the window longingly because we were in a sealed room. I satisfied myself with making a list of home renovation projects I'd like to undertake if I ever found the time. Incidentally, if anyone knows anything about bathroom renovations, let me know.
I was there in the first place to gather information, really, about whether what we're doing in online magazine publishing is on the up-and-up, and how to ensure that we stay on the right side of the law, and on the right side of our authors.
Turns out that we're OK. Hoorah!
The big bonus of attending the session was learning more from a fellow named Andy Kaplan about Creative Commons: a fascinating oasis for me within the dullest of dull topics and justification for missing out on early Friday afternoon sunlight. Creative Commons is all about letting artists reserve 'some rights' on their work rather than going for the whole shebang (the traditional 'All Rights Reserved'), and thereby preventing anyone else from having any fun whatsoever with it. The concept seems to be born from the entire idea of remixing and mashing which is a grounding principle of the whole Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it movement.
In short, an artist can now, under Creative Commons, choose what to secure copyright on, and clarify -- legally -- exactly how other people can use their work. Just one example of a Creative Commons license would be this: Non-commercial, requires attribution, and share-alike. What that means is that: the work can't be used to make money; if anyone else uses it they need to reveal who the original author was; and yes, it can be used for re-mixing or mashing AS LONG AS the new work that results is also licensed under the share-alike terms of Creative Commons, too. Pretty nerdily cool.
In other news
I attended a half-day of the Vision marketing conference here in Vancouver last Friday (another one I wasn't super-wild about attending but still determined to learn something from) and was absolutely gobsmacked by the presentation of Kevin Karroll -- an absolutely lovely, inspiring guy who anyone could learn from when it comes to public speaking. Really incredible stuff. His message was a simple one: nurture your creativity, be passionate about what you do, and remember how to play. "What is your red rubber ball," he asked. "What is it that you want to jump out of bed and chase every morning?"
Good questions indeed.
I thought I was going to die of boredom during the first presentation. Although it turned out to offer one or two good nuggets of information, Karen Gilmore's session on "Contract Issues in the Digital Age" consisted of her talking through a two-page handout containing various legal clauses. Not exactly my bag. I couldn't even look out the window longingly because we were in a sealed room. I satisfied myself with making a list of home renovation projects I'd like to undertake if I ever found the time. Incidentally, if anyone knows anything about bathroom renovations, let me know.
I was there in the first place to gather information, really, about whether what we're doing in online magazine publishing is on the up-and-up, and how to ensure that we stay on the right side of the law, and on the right side of our authors.
Turns out that we're OK. Hoorah!
The big bonus of attending the session was learning more from a fellow named Andy Kaplan about Creative Commons: a fascinating oasis for me within the dullest of dull topics and justification for missing out on early Friday afternoon sunlight. Creative Commons is all about letting artists reserve 'some rights' on their work rather than going for the whole shebang (the traditional 'All Rights Reserved'), and thereby preventing anyone else from having any fun whatsoever with it. The concept seems to be born from the entire idea of remixing and mashing which is a grounding principle of the whole Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it movement.
In short, an artist can now, under Creative Commons, choose what to secure copyright on, and clarify -- legally -- exactly how other people can use their work. Just one example of a Creative Commons license would be this: Non-commercial, requires attribution, and share-alike. What that means is that: the work can't be used to make money; if anyone else uses it they need to reveal who the original author was; and yes, it can be used for re-mixing or mashing AS LONG AS the new work that results is also licensed under the share-alike terms of Creative Commons, too. Pretty nerdily cool.
In other news
I attended a half-day of the Vision marketing conference here in Vancouver last Friday (another one I wasn't super-wild about attending but still determined to learn something from) and was absolutely gobsmacked by the presentation of Kevin Karroll -- an absolutely lovely, inspiring guy who anyone could learn from when it comes to public speaking. Really incredible stuff. His message was a simple one: nurture your creativity, be passionate about what you do, and remember how to play. "What is your red rubber ball," he asked. "What is it that you want to jump out of bed and chase every morning?"
Good questions indeed.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Northern Voice 2007
Heading out to my second day of Northern Voice 2007, a blogging conference hosted here in Vancouver by a group of incredibly bright, passionate people -- and being attended by same. My head was spinning yesterday as I considered everything I learned and heard (not always one and the same, unfortunately) and all the amazing people I met.
Day One was called Moosecamp and billed itself as an "unconference", meaning that volunteers came forward with ideas for sessions and pitched them first thing in the morning, and the group itself scheduled them throughout the day. Sounds chaotic, but it worked brilliantly. Not all sessions were brilliant, mind you, but the best more than made up for the so-so. Most useful to me: a session on getting sound right in podcasting (with a reference to an incredible new FREE tool called the Levelator that I'm going to be downloading first thing Monday morning at work); an open discussion on community identity; and a presentation on search engine optimization for blogging by Alexandre Brabant, a super-bright and passionate guy behind eMarketing 101. Incredibly useful stuff. More today.
Oh and the New York trip is off. I'm bummed, but in the end was the one who actually made the call. We're launching our first mini-site next week and it would be crazy if I weren't around. Next year, I guess.
Day One was called Moosecamp and billed itself as an "unconference", meaning that volunteers came forward with ideas for sessions and pitched them first thing in the morning, and the group itself scheduled them throughout the day. Sounds chaotic, but it worked brilliantly. Not all sessions were brilliant, mind you, but the best more than made up for the so-so. Most useful to me: a session on getting sound right in podcasting (with a reference to an incredible new FREE tool called the Levelator that I'm going to be downloading first thing Monday morning at work); an open discussion on community identity; and a presentation on search engine optimization for blogging by Alexandre Brabant, a super-bright and passionate guy behind eMarketing 101. Incredibly useful stuff. More today.
Oh and the New York trip is off. I'm bummed, but in the end was the one who actually made the call. We're launching our first mini-site next week and it would be crazy if I weren't around. Next year, I guess.
Monday, February 19, 2007
success tips
I haven't been a reader of Business 2.0, but have subscribed to their RSS feed and am finding it surprisingly useful. I particularly liked this feature I discovered today: How to Succeed in 2007. Who's not interested in that? It features succinct tips from a diverse range of success stories, including Richard Branson, Steven Covey, and Muhammad Yunus. My favourites: Yunus (who talks about how to do well by doing good) and of course Michael Scott of The Office. Chocolate as a motivator. Brilliant.
As a side note, my trip to New York is now up in the air. We'll make a final call this week. Cross your fingers for me.
As a side note, my trip to New York is now up in the air. We'll make a final call this week. Cross your fingers for me.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
new york city!
Woo hoo! It looks like I'm heading to New York for an amazing-sounding conference on digital magazines.
Magazines 24/7 promises to be a fast-paced primer on publishing online -- absolutely perfect for me right now. Presentations of particular interest for me include:
Magazines 24/7 promises to be a fast-paced primer on publishing online -- absolutely perfect for me right now. Presentations of particular interest for me include:
- Perry Nelson of Dwell magazine speaking on Dwell.com's relaunch
- Reps from Business Week, TVGuide.com, and nymagc.om speaking on blogging strategies
- Deanna Brown from Yahoo! Media Group discussing the use of a variety of mag content on a web site
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Random Thoughts on A Few Cool Resources
I've been working on about a thousand things lately as I get more comfortable with my role in developing a digital division for a print publishing company here in Burnaby, and in my varied research have come across these excellent resources ...
On Digg, I found a link to Smashing Magazine.com which links in turn to some of the best free templates on the web -- CSS, whole websites, and Flash. Very potentially useful.
Through my RSS subscription to Read/Write Web (which is fantastic) I found this article from BusinessWeek.com yesterday about how social networking sites like Facebook are making themselves more available to third-party developers -- kind of like a controlled open-source-ish model for improving themselves and inviting innovation. This is interesting to me as my company is now considering using Drupal, an open-source CMS for our online publishing going forward. I love the idea that a piece of software can be continually improved by a group of passionate, smart people -- and with Drupal am really impressed by the look, feel and quality of the software. I also particularly like this quote from the BusinessWeek.com article:
"Part of what's exciting about a developer community is you don't know what people are going to do," says Lucian Beebe, director of product management at LinkedIn, which is considering opening up its software. "It offers you the ability to harness innovation."
I have to add that I'm liking LinkedIn a lot, as well, particularly because as we proceed with hiring for our growing Digital team, I've discovered that LinkedIn lets you post jobs to your personal network for no fee. It lets you post more widely, too, for a small fee ($125/job, I think) but by just posting to your contacts, you can feel out your network -- people you trust -- for interest in prospective jobs. This works for me, as I'm not quite sure I'm ready to post positions widely yet, but am interested in finding out about the types of people who might be up for the positions we will have open soon.
On Digg, I found a link to Smashing Magazine.com which links in turn to some of the best free templates on the web -- CSS, whole websites, and Flash. Very potentially useful.
Through my RSS subscription to Read/Write Web (which is fantastic) I found this article from BusinessWeek.com yesterday about how social networking sites like Facebook are making themselves more available to third-party developers -- kind of like a controlled open-source-ish model for improving themselves and inviting innovation. This is interesting to me as my company is now considering using Drupal, an open-source CMS for our online publishing going forward. I love the idea that a piece of software can be continually improved by a group of passionate, smart people -- and with Drupal am really impressed by the look, feel and quality of the software. I also particularly like this quote from the BusinessWeek.com article:
"Part of what's exciting about a developer community is you don't know what people are going to do," says Lucian Beebe, director of product management at LinkedIn, which is considering opening up its software. "It offers you the ability to harness innovation."
I have to add that I'm liking LinkedIn a lot, as well, particularly because as we proceed with hiring for our growing Digital team, I've discovered that LinkedIn lets you post jobs to your personal network for no fee. It lets you post more widely, too, for a small fee ($125/job, I think) but by just posting to your contacts, you can feel out your network -- people you trust -- for interest in prospective jobs. This works for me, as I'm not quite sure I'm ready to post positions widely yet, but am interested in finding out about the types of people who might be up for the positions we will have open soon.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Post-Knowledge
Just renamed my blog after realizing that the former title (How Do You Manage Knowledge Anyway?) doesn't so much apply to my world any more. Sure, I'm managing knowledge personally, and will continue to learn and apply as much as I can concerning knowledge management to my business practices, but I'm also managing so much more now -- including a brand new marriage and a brand new job.
The key to my new blog title is that I really don't feel that I know anything any more (I got lost going to the parkade last week, for example) ... I feel a bit like I'm taking each step not knowing quite whether there will be ground under the next step -- and I feel great about it.
I feel a bit post-everything, to be honest -- which to me means that some things that needed to change have changed, and that there's room to start again. To learn. To get things right. And yes, to make some new mistakes.
More on the new job in posts to come.
In the meantime, I'm still in a post-wedded state of bliss. Brent and I just celebrated our marriage at a party on the weekend in Vancouver and I'm completely voiceless as a result. But ecstatic. What lovely friends we have -- and Campoverde, what a perfect venue for a smallish group (50-60 people). Check out wedding photos on our group site at www.flickr.com/groups/shannonandbrent06. I'll be posting some photos from our wedding reception this past weekend as well.
The key to my new blog title is that I really don't feel that I know anything any more (I got lost going to the parkade last week, for example) ... I feel a bit like I'm taking each step not knowing quite whether there will be ground under the next step -- and I feel great about it.
I feel a bit post-everything, to be honest -- which to me means that some things that needed to change have changed, and that there's room to start again. To learn. To get things right. And yes, to make some new mistakes.
More on the new job in posts to come.
In the meantime, I'm still in a post-wedded state of bliss. Brent and I just celebrated our marriage at a party on the weekend in Vancouver and I'm completely voiceless as a result. But ecstatic. What lovely friends we have -- and Campoverde, what a perfect venue for a smallish group (50-60 people). Check out wedding photos on our group site at www.flickr.com/groups/shannonandbrent06. I'll be posting some photos from our wedding reception this past weekend as well.
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