One year ago we enjoyed an incredible week long vacation on Beaver Lake. We had the privilege of using the cottage of a family that had kindly donated its available weeks to Cottage Dreams, a charity called which connects people who have been through cancer treatment with cottages that are vacant for one week periods. It’s simple. [...]
I was quoted in a piece by Misty Harris of Postmedia earlier today (see Taking it to the tweets: Obama wages debt battle online). Misty and I have spoken several times over the last few months about the role of digital channels in political communication and engagement. Most of the time our conversations take place [...]
The last few months have kept me busy with family, work, digital political research, PAB (a content creation and audience engagement conference) and my hernia. That both explains and doesn’t explain my inconsistent blogging. I haven’t yet blogged with any depth about PAB. That’s coming. Know that the conference and conversations I had there, and my [...]
PincBox.org (a commercial venture, despite the .org facade) and Miss Blatt seem to have come undone in the last few hours. After two days 24 hours of criticism in blogs, on Twitter and in Facebook for marketing a high-priced ensemble of stationary and soap as a way (it would seem) to show their support for [...]
The first of the PAB2011 videos has been posted. It’s a video of excerpts from the PAB2011 keynote speech delivered by IMAX cinematographer and director of photography Mark Poirier. Mark kicked off PAB2011 with an insightful talk about technology being in service to story, how to think visually and using the psychology of light to tell [...]
If nothing else, I’ve learned the creative process is never over. Case in point… a video I produced earlier this week has already gone through two updates. It’s invigorating to know the process never ends and the product always evolves. I guess that makes it important to keep your source material and project files for [...]
Sysomos published a case study on the digital research and analysis we collaborated on during the most recent Canadian federal election (download). The case study provides some insight into the objectives and results for a project that came together quite suddenly on March 25. We’re already starting to talk about monitoring and analysis projects for [...]
This is a bit off topic. Actually, it almost has no place here. Except for the fact that this is my blog and what follows came to me while cleaning up my daughter’s bedroom last night, thinking about our kids at camp and how our roles as parents change. I was once a lead off [...]
Three years ago I completed a creative project I’d never considered having the skills necessary to complete. I didn’t when I started. I had the curiosity and drive to give it a try. I learned as I went. I read some books and studied some models. While I wanted to use familiar styles, I also [...]
I requested an interview with an international performing arts organization a couple of weeks ago. My hope was to talk to someone, or a team of people, involved in the creative side to discuss how they put their performances together as well as the skills and effort involved in realizing the creative vision. I received [...]
I wrote the following article for the June 2011 (current) issue of Campaigns and Elections Magazine (Canadian Edition). When our 41st general federal election was called, I proclaimed it would not be “The Twitter Election” many people were claiming it would be. While the label might have intended to recognize this particular election was going [...]
Andrea and I began talking about reinventing our wedding rings after our tenth anniversary. It was the spring of 2009 and we started to really explore the idea during a weekend getaway to Kingston, ON. We visited one of our favourite jewelers, Nicole Horlor has a shop called Zeal Metal on Sydenham Street, just a [...]
One of our annual Canada Day traditions is watching the Parliament Hill fireworks show from the roof of our house (we have a fabulous view). Actually, the first year we attempted that tradition was 2001 just a few months after we’d moved into our current house. That was the year it was about 10 degrees [...]
