I’m going to take ten days away from my my online activities.  The process will begin on Saturday, December 20.  I figure I’ll get over the DT’s after about three days.  I’ll turn my email and social media tools back on around December 30.  I expect I’ll be overwhelmed by the backlog and will take a few days to gear back up to my regular rhythm.

All the best to you and yours for a happy, healthy and safe holiday season!

Sincerely,
Mark

Photo sourced by Michael Ain

I received an email from the Barenaked Ladies about a holiday album offer they have with Amazon.com.  For $2.99, you can download the MP3 version of their album Barenaked for the Holidays.  Why not?  We enjoy BNL, you can’t beat the price and we don’t have the album, yet.

So, I followed the link, submitted the order, installed the Amazon downloader, clicked the link to download the album and then…

This seems like obvious front end messaging, doesn’t it?

I was interviewed by Nestor E. Arellano of itbusiness.ca last week about the recent decision by the Ontario government to back down from its plan to add further restrictions to the graduated licensing program for Ontario drivers (Facebook backlash over Ontario teen driver restrictions a “wake-up call” published today).  It’s likely the now more than 151,000 member Facebook group created by Jordan Sterling (Young Drivers Against New Ontario Laws) to raise awareness on the issue played a pivotal role in helping the government make its decision.

People shouldn’t get too excited about the government taking its cues directly from social media.  I believe the Facebook group served as a vehicle for information dissemination and the debate over approaches for students to plead their case to the government.  While there was the typical flaming and pontificating of uninformed opinion, I was impressed by the amount of informed discussion, productive debate and collaborating/strategizing.  In that respect, the Facebook community, made up largely of non-voting students, served a significant purpose and achieved an incredible victory.

Did Facebook change the government’s mind?

In the end, I believe it was the letter-writing, emails and phone calls to MPs that made the difference.  A lot of that was clearly organized through the Facebook group.  Social media alone did not win the fight.  It was the balance between old and new, and speaking to the government on its terms.

Government and businesses, though, will have to learn this new way of interacting with their audiences.  The marketplaces, railway cars and town halls are now on the Internet and smart phones.  Commerce and policy are relocating and those that choose to ignore this move (or choose to fear it) are limiting their usefulness.

As part of the interview, I was asked to provide three-to-five steps for government and business to consider in their move to embrace social media.  I’ve adapted them slightly from the way in which they appear in the article:

1. Acknowledge social media– Just as organizations have used written and phone surveys to gather public sentiment and feedback, social networks – such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter – can be a very effective means of finding out what people think of policies and what they would like the organization to achieve.
2. Join various forums – Rather than trying to block access to social networks (which seems to be the blanket approach the days), an organization should research which online “gathering places” are appropriate for its operations and then develop policies and practices on how to use these sites.
3. Create your own “gathering place” – Adopt an existing social networking tool or develop your own social networking site to create a place where people can reach you and engage with you. Many companies bolster in-house communication between leaders and employees with the use of corporate wikis, podcasts or blogs. Special sites designed to cultivate online communities are also very useful in elevating an organization’s public profile.
4. Listen to the people – Any form of communication is no good if one of its participants turns a deaf ear to the other.  Social media amplifies this need to listen.  If your organization isn’t prepared to meet the needs of its target audience, why does it exist?
5. Engage/respond – When you receive feedback or gather data, you need to act accordingly. Realize that your “community” is vital and that it needs feedback and action from you as well. Provide people with the information they need at the time they need it and provide them with suggested actions that keep them engaged with you.

An all-encapsulating sentence that Andrea wrote as part of our review of the children’s book Sleeping Dragons All Around for our Just One More Book!! children’s book podcast (JOMB for short) will appear as one of four testimonials on the dust jacket of the 20th anniversary edition of the book.

We’ve become friendly with author Sheree Fitch since we interviewed her for JOMB episode 54, published on November 13, 2006, and we’ve always told her how disappointed we are that Sleeping Dragons and other children’s books she’s written, are no longer available.  For Sleeping Dragons, that ends when the 20th anniversary edition is released on January 25, 2009.

A two part series on the release is being featured on Just One More Book.  Part one was released earlier today and part two will be released on Monday (December 15).

This is the second time a JOMB testimonial has appeared on the dust jacket of a children’s book.  The first time was on Lee Edward Fodi’s book Kendra Kandlestar and the Door to Unger.

I’ve been one of the many voices expressing concern about the longevity of the PodPress, the incredible podcasting plugin many of us WordPress users have adopted because of its powerful features and ease of use.

It’s been easy to worry about the plugin.  Some time has past since the last update (code or even news of plans), and, more obviously, the disappearance of the support forums following a SPAM attack.

I spoke with PodPress creator Dan Kuykendall, yesterday.  Dan has been busy with work and his new dual-role as both a techie and CEO and hasn’t been able to attend to PodPress on a day-to-day basis.  He did say that he’s working on a new release and expects to put some time into the coding during the holidays later this month.

So, if you’re a PodPress user, hang in there!

A few days ago I called on my Twitter network to participate in a vote to help brothers Kyle and Brady Baldwin win $10,000 with which to buy and distribute 8,000 books to needy children through the My Own Book Foundation they set up when they were 14 and 16 years old (hear an interview with Kyle and Brady Baldwin, here).  The competition for the money is run by Ashoka’s Youth Venture and is apparently sponsored by Best Buy.  The voting procedures aren’t the simplest and the site is anything but user-friendly, but it was worth it to spread the word for a good cause and to help these two young and selfless Boy Scouts raise money to continue the amazing work they do.

I called on the goodwill of my own community and specifically asked influential people like Mitch Joel (3,500 followers), Chris Penn (3,500 followers) and Chris Brogan (25,000 followers) to help spread the word to their networks and they helped spread the word.  More people continued to retweet the appeal for voters.  It seemed exciting to me that there would be a chance at helping Kyle and Brady win their money.

Alas, Ashoka’s Youth Venture website is not ready for prime time.  The voting interface regularly fails or gets stuck when you submit your vote then tells you that you don’t have appropriate privileges to vote.  You’re supposed to be able to vote once each day (not so).  To make matters worse, the contact page doesn’t load so you can’t report any problems.  I found another route to report concerns, and after 48 hours have heard nothing.

I blew the call.  It would have been far better to appeal to everyone to donate $5 to the My Own Book Foundation.  Even if only 3,500 people donated $5 each, Kyle and Brady would raise $17,500 — much more than they stand to win through a site that for all, intents and purposes, doesn’t really exist.  Imagine if 25,000 people pitched in???

This is typically the time of year that social media folks make predictions for the coming year.  I’ve been known to offer my own thoughts (Web 2.0.08 and An eye on 2007).  The problem is there’s no point making the obvious predictions (since they’re obvious) so it becomes a game of speculation and incredible odds in which someone invariably calls you on the ones that didn’t come through.

So, this year I’ve decided to go with setting goals, publicly, because achieving goals is something we all have control over.  I’m also hoping that I can inspire others to do the same (that’s both a goal and a prediction).

Here, in no particular order, are my hobby and professional goals for 2009:

• Create a mentor group for myself

• Produce something that will be picked up by public radio

• Officially begin an ambitious documentary project I have in mind

• Help make PAB2009 the most exciting social media conference of 2009

• Increase the number of my speaking engagements

• Discover new and exciting ways to use media for communications and engagement

What are your goals?

Photo: Gol / Goal by Antonio Martinez.

Creative Commons is conducting a study of what ‘non-commercial use’ of a creative work means to people.  I was involved in a discussion on this topic some time ago when Bob Goyetche and I learned that podcast.com was applying advertising to our our content on their site (see Is podcast.com making money from your podcast).

Be sure to participate in the survey.

Hat tip: Terrence McLean.

One of the exciting things about the goings-on inside and outside of Canada’s House of Commons, is the education many of us are getting about how the parliamentary system works — mudslinging aside.

Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party have been claiming that Canadians elected the Conservative government and that they specifically chose him as Prime Minister of Canada.  We didn’t.  Canadians don’t elect the Prime Minister.  Canadians vote for the individual or party to represent their riding.  It’s very locally-minded with the hope that the party they support will be elected to govern the country (or at least provide balance in the House of Commons).  When Parliament convenes, the members of the House select the governing party and, by extension, the Prime Minister.  The decision is obvious when there’s a majority party; that is, a party with more than half of the seats in the House of Commons, not just more seats than any other single party or group of parties.

It’s good sense for the ‘minority’ governing party to work collaboratively with the other parties in the House of Commons if they expect to have support for their agenda.  Now, more than ever, collaboration is an exciting idea for many people in the world.  Not so for old-school politicians, especially (so it would appear) the Conservatives and Stephen Harper whose political future is at stake here.  After all, he called an unnecessary election (breaking his own govern-your-term policy for an opportunistic power-grab), won more seats and yet managed to lose support of the House after only six weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, the Conservatives have collaborated with other parties in the past.  They managed to rally the support of The Bloc for some key votes over the last few years.  Oddly, they’re accusing the newly struck Liberal-NDP coallition of including a separatist party in their agreement.  Not so.  They’re counting on Bloc support for key votes.  Oh… and the opposition leaders did gather around the Canadian flag, by the way.

It’s very easy to be confused by soundbites played out of context and the misinformed arguments and shouting over the last week.  Don’t be misled by the accusations being thrown around, or be convinced by the Conservatives that the Parliamentary and Republican systems of government are the same.

I’m guessing that Canada’s elementary and even high school politics lessons haven’t covered the intricacies of our current situation.  I certainly hope they do now.

Photo of Stephen Harper from the Ottawa Sun, December 3.
Photo of Jack Layton, Stephane Dion and Gilles Duceppe by Chris Wattie/Reuters.

I guess it’s my day to catch up on meme’s I’ve fallen behind on.  Thankfully, this one only dates back to yesterday –  Derek K. Miller tagged me so blame him.

It works like this:  if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog.  The resulting photo (below) captures fellow panelists in action at the Kidlit ‘08 conference in Portland, OR.

And because it’s a meme, I’m obliged to tag six more people.  I’ll tag Steve Garfield, John Meadows, Bob Goyetche, Bill Deys, Sylvain Grand’maison and Daryl Cognito.