2010.01.31
Andrea and I are really disappointed that we won’t be able to attend PodCamp Toronto this year. It’s always a great event at which to learn, meet new people and reconnect with our friends. However, with Andrea in chemotherapy right now, we have to sit this one out.
The good news is that we’ll be able to attend from the comfort of our home and we’ve been invited to deliver a session via video Skype. Our session is called Textual Healing: The use of social media for narrative therapy, connection and support.
Here’s how our session is described:
Communities can exist for many reasons, but one of the most striking recent examples is the support community that has arisen around Canadian social media fixtures Andrea Ross and Mark Blevis, as together they work to make Andrea a breast cancer Survivor.
Their place of wellness on the web, WeCanRebuildHer.com, and the community that has gathered there is “something that’s good for them”, their supporters and for others in similar situations.
In this presentation, Andrea and Mark will join PodCamp Toronto via live Skype video from Ottawa to share their use of social media as a key tool in Andrea’s strategy to survive and thrive and will offer their top tips for healing and sharing in a digital world.
If you’re going to be in Toronto on the weekend of February 20-21, 2010, I recommend you register for and attend PCTO2010.
2010.01.29
Nearly a year ago, a friend and two of his colleagues launched a monthly podcast to help the public understand important information about their company’s products. The idea came about because they felt the officially sanctioned podcast didn’t speak to its intended audience on the audience’s terms.
The resulting podcast series is informative and fun and serves to augment information from official corporate channels — as disclaimed during the intro of each episode. They record after hours (read: on the employees’ personal time), taking turns making the complicated understandable and addressing what they feel are the kinds of questions and concerns the public will have.
Powers that be within the organization recognized the value of the podcast and publicized it on the company website in a list ranked by downloads, which didn’t appear to be a problem until the thousands of downloads each month of the unofficial podcast caused it to rank (several) higher than the official one.
The disappearance of the very popular unofficial podcast from the “top” list suggests the guys who do this from their heart have been able to do something the paid folks haven’t.
Whether a senior person was protecting a financial investment or someone didn’t like being seen as second (or fourth in this case) to an unofficial effort, you have to question a decision that punishes the public and the organization to preserve pride.
All this to say, there is a fantastic opportunity for every organization — commercial, political and non-profit — to embrace podcasts, blogs, videos, etc… produced through unofficial and external channels that support their efforts. Noone’s pride needs to be hurt. In fact, you’ll make yourself more valuable to your consumers/clients, partners and stakeholders if you promote the hand that feeds.
Photo: Lion that Lunches by rofanator on Flickr.
2010.01.28
Somehow, I’ve managed to avoid a lot of the discussion about the iPad — no easy feat considering Apple’s newest piece of technology has been the focus of a lot of buzz over the last 24 hours (er… several months).
With the exception of hearing that some people can’t get their hands on an iPad quickly enough and that others can’t believe Apple would release a glorified iPhone/eReader, I’ve dodged all of the details about the device. So, what I’m about to share is based almost exclusively on the demonstation of the iPad during yesterday’s product announcement which I watched earlier today.
Like many Apple products, the iPad is a groundbreaking new form with the potential for incredible function. At the moment it’s somewhere between a MacBook and an iPhone, offering some of the greatest advantages of mobile convergence (save the phone) and desktop productivity, with the added bonus of having an eBook reader built in. This means the iPad isn’t going to compete with eReaders like the Kindle and its brethren based on the iPad’s limited battery life (10 hours), but a brand new technology that will likely displace the eReader because it does so much more as both an entertainment centre and business tool in a single device.
That’s right. The iPad is supposed to make you leave your laptop and Kindle at home. If it had a phone capabilities, you could leave your cell behind also.
The iPad is first generation, though. And that means Apple put it on the market to make waves and set the stage for something bigger and better. That’s to say, future releases of the OS will make the iPad a Blue Ocean of mobile computing. Imagine – and I’m speculating here – a stylus that turns the iPad into ePaper. You could take notes, doodle, draw, sketch and design, and have the ability to dog ear and scrawl notes in the margins of your eBook. Uh, oh! There’s the real threat to commercial paper AND eReaders.In fact, the iPad could also become a threat to the Livescribe pen if Apple unifies a stylus and audio recording capabilities.
Remember when I said I wouldn’t buy an iPod? Now I don’t even own a PC. Yeah… I’ll probably get an iPad. Just, maybe not until OS or hardware 2.0.
