I joined the Causeurs Sussex Speakers chapter of Toastmasters one year ago and achieved the goal I set out for myself: to complete my Competent Communicator manual in my first year. In May, I was elected club President of the 2008/09 year and today, served my first day in that role.

One of the first duties one must perform as President is to set a theme for the year. I struggled with framing the various ideas I had for the theme though I knew, somehow, the ideas were all connected. Then, as I was going through my correspondence with Marcel — a Toastmasters colleague whom I nominated for a position of Sergeant At Arms (he was elected) — in the week following his death in a car accident, I discovered the theme in one of his emails to me. In accepting his nomination, Marcel wrote that he looked forward to “expanding my comfort zone”. That was exactly what I was trying to say.

The board accepted my theme and today, I announced it to the club. Although… I still haven’t selected a logo that represents that theme (does anyone have any ideas they want to submit?).

The best way to create new experiences and discover your potential is to stretch beyond the safe boundaries you set for yourself. What are you doing to expand your comfort zone?

Congratulations to Ian Graham. His vision of a collaborative, co-working space becomes a reality later today when he hosts an open house at The Code Factory, 246 Queen Street (Ottawa), second floor.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the open house. Instead, I dropped by The Code Factory to congratulate Ian and Jocelyn Kartes (Minister of First Impressions) during lunch, yesterday. The space looks great!

Ian will be organizing a series of lunch-and-learn sessions for the community. He showed me a wish list of sessions and speakers and it looks like a great lineup.

We received a package from Andrea Beaty, author of several children’s books including Iggy Peck, Architect (a Time Magazine top-10 children’s book for 2007) and Dr. Ted.

We ceremoniously opened our package this morning and uncovered two boxes of Gummi Bandaids for our two daughters, and three ‘prescription notepads’ that promote her book, Dr. Ted.

What a brilliant idea!

Click on the image to see a large version and take a look at how the text on the pad is used to promote the book and the publishing company. The campaign would have been perfect if it had a URL to the book itself.

Click here to listen to an interview with Andrea Beaty.

As you may have heard, Ross (Zee and Zed, Dry Shave) had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery last week. Bob Goyetche and I have been in contact with Ross and Karen and have found out what they need and where to send it.

Please send your humourous get well cards by May 5 to:

Zee
c/o Mark Blevis
PO Box 4813, Station E
Ottawa, ON K1S 5H9
Canada

I will forward them on to Ross to enjoy.

During a recent lunch, a friend of mine and I discussed our careers and how, over time, we’ve gradually moved up the various layers of the seven-layer OSI Reference Model. In English, we’ve moved further away from the bits and bytes level of data communication to the applications that make human interaction using machines possible. The essence of the model is that each of the seven layers serves to transfer information to its adjacent layers as they move data from one system to another across a network.

My friend pointed out that he and I have moved beyond the application layer (or highest layer in the model) to a human level. This led to a discussion on a new layer for the model, something we called layer 8 or the Social Layer.

I was excited by the idea and as I walked home I mapped out a long discussion on the topic for a blog post. My ideas centered around the social web and real, in-person, interaction that involves a Chinese-buffet lunch, not machines.

As it turns out, there has been a lot of this discussion about this very idea on the web. One site does it particularly well.

In their 2004 citation, A Human Factors Extension to the Seven-Layer OSI Reference Model, Ben Bauer and Andrew S. Patrick identify three additional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) layers and justify their relevance by noting “a user does not directly interact with, nor perceive, any of [the data networking] layers in getting some task done”.

Their proposed HCI layers are noted here, working down the model toward the bits and bytes level:

• Layer 10: Human Needs (communication, education, acquisition, security, entertainment…)

• Layer 9: Human Performance (perception, cognition, memory, motor control, social…)

• Layer 8: Display (keyboard, GUI/CLI, vocal…)

In their analysis, the authors take time to identify two very interesting ideas:

• Human interaction drives — and should drive — the need for technology. Therefore, the method of interaction should be driven by the purpose and intended dynamic of the interaction (whether it’s more appropriate to meet person instead of connecting on the phone, sending correspondence through postal mail, text messaging over a cell phone, emailing or micro-blogging online, creating a podcast or conducting a webcast).

• Quality of Experience (QoE) is a way of focusing on the human experience as it is (or can be) affected by Quality of Service (QoS), a quantitative measure of  (and method of managing) network traffic and performance.

I love finding papers like this because they take ideas we kind-a-sort-a already know and relate them to other concepts that have been used to drive innovation.

Connecting communities by synthesizing ideas for a common discussion is a good thing.

When it comes to a career in art, design and illustration, Bob Staake has seemingly done it all. Among his many accomplishments, Bob has done covers for The New Yorker magazine, corporate work for the likes of Coca Cola, and has written some amazing children’s books.

While this may be subjective, the pinnacle of his career could be an appearance as an interview guest on the Just One More Book!! podcast earlier this week, and then doing one of his signature doodlekaboodle sketches of Andrea and me in action at our favourite coffee shop.  What an honour!

Upon seeing the sketch, our eight-year-old said to me “it looks more like you than you do”.

Thanks a million for the great sketch, Bob!

ars technica reported, yesterday, that Bell Canada has come clean and announced that it has implemented traffic throttling technology across its DSL service and expects to complete the rollout by early April (Canadian ISPs furious about Bell Canada’s traffic throttling).  And in the same way that it’s not much of a shock that Bell has made this unpopular move, it’s no shock that they did this secretly, leaving downstream ISPs to face the music of unhappy customers.

Nora Young and the production team of CBC Radio’s Spark have published this video which explains the origins and inner workings of their fantastic radio show — with only a bit of humour.

Yesterday, after Bryan Person pointed out that there were some problems with it, I removed the FriendsRoll block from my site.  Steve, one of the developers at 76design, whipped into action and released a corrected v1.2 beta.

My FriendsRoll block is back online.

I attended the Facing up to Facebook session at the University of Ottawa, yesterday. It was a panel discussion with Law and Technology Faculty Professors Jeremy de Beer, Ian Kerr, Jane Bailey, Val Steeves and Michael Geist and it was moderated by Andy Kaplan-Myrth.

The discussion was lively and informative and had a unique mix of social media participants (Profs de Beer, Kerr and Geist) and observers/researchers (Profs Bailey and Steeves). While there was a clear recognition of the role of social media tools such as Facebook, the discussion focussed largely on the impacts of these technological gathering places on culture and privacy, and their not-so-subtle use for corporate interests.

I found it particularly interesting when the panel explored the influence of culture on the need for social media tools and influence of social media tools on culture. Prof. de Beer introduced the room to John Fiske’s concept of Semiotic Democracy, “the delegation of the production of meanings and pleasures to viewers”.

The majority of the conversation focused on privacy concerns, the misrepresentation of information sharing controls as privacy controls and the use of aggregate information (not specific information) to generate consumer profiles. Prof. Bailey wondered if privacy is now passé. Indeed, social media tools are about publicity and micro-celebrity rather than privacy.

The session reinforced my realization that businesses that have stood up social media services (such as Facebook) are manufacturing a three-tiered privacy-crippled environment:

• crippling amounts of information that creates an environment in which privacy may be possible through obscurity
• crippling suite of options designed to perpetuate a false sense of privacy
• crippling terms of use agreements designed to protect the interests of companies through obscure language, excessive text and circular references beyond the patience and comprehension of most people

Excerpts of the Facing up to Facebook session are available in this week’s episode (#95) of the Canadian Podcast Buffet. The entire session will be released as a podcast through the University of Ottawa.