Archive for the 'blogging' Category

The Latest Blog Day Post

Published
by
Ehren
on September 1, 2008
in Mentions, blogging and technology
. 3 Comments

I just decided to dub this post the latest because I’m sure by now those who intended on participating in the Blog Day festivities have done so already!  My excuse is that I just got back from Ohio — I blame the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for making me stay there for so long, and my mom’s excessive shopping.  Lucky for me, she doesn’t read this blog :)  Actually neither the Rock Hall or my mom has anything to do with this.  The true story is that I was away and when I came back, I checked out Shey Smith’s blog (as I regularly do) and found out about Nir Ofir’s initiative — Blog Day 2008.  I’m skipping a few steps that were outlined in the instructions but what the hay … I’m already late!

When I run across blogs I typically look for something unique about them that really invites me to partake in the conversation.  A lot of blogs tend to be a one-way street (i.e. probably mine, because of all the ranting) and there are many that are thriving realms of conversation, but there are also many that don’t necessarily need to be literally a two-way conversation in the comments section.

Here are 5 Blogs that always provide me with inspiration, and really everyone should check out:

Rands as Repose:  He doesn’t blog frequently but when he does, the world has the opportunity to re-think how things are done and maybe, just maybe how things can be improved.  Okay maybe only I think that.  Rands writes some extremely insightful and detailed articles on management and tech life.  One article that I think everyone generally loves, and that I always point to is The Nerd Handbook.

YongFook:  This guy doesn’t blog frequently either.  In fact he believes the blog is dead.  What he has instead is a pure lifestream.  But then again, he still blogs — in some sense.

So Misguided:  More likely to blog than YongFook and Rands, this blog is powered by internet marketer Monique Trottier who is well acquainted with the Canadian book publishing industry. I always enjoy hearing her perspective on issues surrounding the book industry and her take on different events or new technology.  Posts ranging from books to technology, pretty good eh?  I have to note the heavy presence of Harry Potter :)  [Yes I admit I'm not a big fan...]

hughmcguire.net: A good thorough dose of philosophy, ideas, and technology — at least good for me!  I generally enjoy reading his take and opinion on the various newsworthy and off-beat items he decides upon ranging from Marc Garneau’s website to how the book industry needs a shake-up [wow, don't get me started on that one!].

Ke5ter.com:  Nathan W. Kester has an awesome blog.  That pretty much sums it up.  The fact that he ponders about various topics without resorting to long winded ranting like I do simply illustrates how much better he writes.

I know Blog Day asked for five blogs but since I was a day late, I figured I’d add a sixth.

Mara Triangle Blog:  No one should go a day without reading about what Joseph Kimojino and his fellow rangers do at the Mara Triangle

Thanks to Shey once again for pointing me in the right direction.

Blog Day 2008

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This Week’s Worth of Inspiration

Published
by
Ehren
on August 19, 2008
in Interests, blogging, fun and weekly inspiration
. 0 Comments

I’m back from my vacation — sort of. For two weeks on the road, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder and take photographs. In fact, I took over 3000 photographs and now I’m sorting them out so I won’t talk about my adventure on the road yet.

In the meanwhile, I thought I’d post a few things that have really inspired me this week as I struggle to catch up with the two weeks worth of work and decision making that I have on my desk and the top of my mind respectively.

Know Your Math … or not

My dad used to tell me that no matter what you do, where you go, and how you live; you will need math. It was decided then that he would teach me algebra while I was in grade one while all my peers were out playing outdoors. I sucked at math. I still suck at math. But only closer examination, I am primarily bad at arithmetic. Algebra and word problems are no problem! Thank you calculator! Nevertheless as I got further into coding, I gained a greater appreciation for mathematics and the beauty of the mathematical equation and formula. Actually I probably prefer them over chemical formulas. This talk by Robert Lang was stunning and as a fan of origami myself (I enjoy folding action origami frogs), Lang’s illustration of the intimate connection between mathematics, design and origami is brilliant.

Living life in a Carnival

I’ve been to a few carnivals — typically big city ones. I’ve never been to small town carnivals and I’ve never thought about joining the carnival and working the circuit but Globe and Mail’s feature, The Long Summer by Charla Jones, on life in the Carnival, a fading way of life, brought me that much closer to it. It wasn’t the typical article in the newspaper — it was much more than that and for that, I have to applaud Jones and the G&M.

Actions vs. Politics

If it’s one thing that reminds me of working in government, it is the lack of action. There’s nothing bad about it because that is the nature of government, civil service, and hammering out a policy that works for as many stakeholders as possible. But you need patience and a heck of a lot of it. Other times you have to tip toe around sensitive issues — even in businesses. George Ayittey reminds me of how bureaucracy and the reluctance to leap into action — sometimes even corruption, can create disillusion and discontent.

I am reminded of what a number of my friends and colleagues strive for: Get the job done and get it done right.

Connect the Pics

Lastly I had just had to share this because I love photography. David Griffin talks about how photography connects us to our world and how photos can help resolve or identify issues. I particularly liked how he pointed out that amateur photography is now playing a greater role.

Lastly this week, I am inspired by Blog Action Day — coming October 15th when bloggers all around the world are encouraged to examine the issue of poverty from their own perspective. What better way is there for individuals to attempt to tackle a problem that affects so many people, than to begin with looking at the world around themselves and each other.

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Following that Yellow Line

Published
by
Ehren
on July 31, 2008
in Aspirations, blogging, fun and travel
. 0 Comments

Every year I typically take off on a road trip of some sort.  Most full-time employees get vacation days from their employer.  Some take a few days here and there through out the year.  Others like myself don’t take holidays for the entire year until we save up enough for a long enough trip or two in some cases.  This year I’m fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take off once again on the road and venture through parts of the American mid-west and Western states that I’ve never visited before or that I’ve been to but spent very little time in.

There’s still nothing quite like road tripping with your favourite music playing or tuning into the local radio station.  Even better is the thought of driving into the horizon and to just keep driving past my vacation time! (Folks, I’m kidding…)

While I’m Away…

I’ve invited my colleague Erin Winzer who works as a publicist to guest blog a little while I’m away.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy the change in voice — i.e. listening to me rave and rant about ideas.  She hasn’t really decided whether or not she will actually guest blog so I’ve left it as an open invitation.  Let’s cheer her on!  She’s still learning the ropes when it comes to blogging (but she’s been blogging pretty consistently for almost a year so she’s actually quite good at it!) –  so do be kind but I’m sure she won’t mind if you challenge her when it comes to ideas surrounding publicity and promotion!

Since I spend so much time blogging or conversing on twitter, I’m going to stop here.  However I do invite you to join me over the next two weeks as I wander around.  Depending on how much demand there is, I’ll post up to three photographs each day over the next two weeks.  That said, there may be a couple of days when I lack wifi and thus won’t have access to the Internet.  Don’t worry … I will make up for missing days with additional photographs!

Thats all Im bringing

That's all I'm bringing

Yea… I’m bringing a 24 pack of water — I’ll get food along the way.  Off I go!

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Re-thinking

Published
by
Ehren
on March 13, 2008
in blogging
. 0 Comments

Every so often, web designers, bloggers, marketers, and individuals like to redesign their website.  I guess this is a form of re-thinking their position and role in the world.

Expect to see some changes with this blog.

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Work, School, and Idea Survival

Published
by
Ehren
on February 6, 2008
in Aspirations, Interests, Unthinkables, blogging, books, design, fun, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Definitely a blogging slowdown:

1. Full-time work.

2. Taking three part-time courses (with a hearty amount of homework!)

3. Still lots of ideas in my head but no time to blog about them.

That’s probably why I like my twitter account. The blogosphere continues to evolve as a population’s behaviour shifts and twitter allows me to share my findings or short ideas.

What I’d like next? An Amazon Kindle so I can read whatever book I want (and surf the web) in a convenient, wireless way. Maybe even blog wirelessly.

For now: Still waiting in Canada…

Recently Chip Kidd had an interesting response to the Kindle. To say the least I was disappointed to hear that from a normally forward-thinking designer.

Two words to describe my initial opinion of Kidd’s response: wow and stubborn

When the printed book was first introduced — people were skeptical.  This is to be expected for change in general.  To dismiss the fact that there are actually many people who want to read books in another way is just a silly way of saying that you just don’t like it.

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Two aggregators I enjoy using most

Published
by
Ehren
on October 30, 2007
in Mentions, applications, blogging, fun, marketing, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

With all the websites and social mediums I try out, it’s difficult to keep track of everything.  Lately there are a few options that can help aggregate everything you use.  I had run across suprglu.com a while back, and I enjoy tinkering around with it on occasion, but today I ran across yet another aggregator called soup.io.  Both are very easy to use and oddly enough, I enjoy playing with the customization features.  So in the end, I have to congratulate both of them for making their site fun
to use which I ultimately think must be the goal in mind when developing these new web 2.0 sites.  All too often, I find myself regarding these websites as work, or rather putting in more effort to customize what I want than if I were to simply code my own website.

On the note of aggregators, I have to extend an honourable mention to lijit, a search engine that allows anyone to search through all of your contributions in the social media realm.  It is essentially an aggregator but a very different one indeed.  You can see and try out the search widget on the left side of my blog.  I’m still waiting for a little more customization ability for this widget and their facebook application.

In case you were wondering…

My Soup  / My Suprglu

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Google Book Search Unveils Share Feature

Published
by
Ehren
on September 6, 2007
in Aspirations, Mentions, applications, blogging, books, marketing, technology and web 2.0
. 0 Comments

Over the past year, HarperCollins and Random House have introduced their own custom developed “sharing” feature for many of their books so that people have the ability to share an excerpt of a book on their blog or website.  Unfortunately for many Canadian publishers, there has been no sign of a solution that would provide them with the same competitive edge — at least not without additional funding that would allow for them to compete with the larger publishing houses (who are often also subsidiaries of multinational corporations).

People knock Google a lot for what they do against the publishing community, but from my perspective Google has done more for smaller presses in a smaller amount of time than any additional funding could have done for Canadian publishers.  Google and numerous other Internet revolutionaries have levelled the playing field for any company, small or big, to be successful.  Why is this ultimately the way things should be?  Because it helps the customer.  What use is a great product if a customer can’t find it?  What use is a great product if a crappy product is overshadowing it with its million dollar marketing campaign?  The bigger picture and vision is out there for Canadian book publishers to grasp, we just have to get around this whole hurdle that we keep trying to get our heads around, and that is absolute control.  No one, no organization and no company can have absolute control any longer, it is just not viable — not even for Google.

Google has introduced an excerpt sharing function that allows for people to share excerpts from books in the public domain.  I think this is a great beginning and I hope they will build upon this idea to allow publishers to do the same.  By doing so, the edge that larger companies have had will diminish and at least Canadian book publishers regardless of size will have a voice that is somewhat equal in volume.

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I hate trends

Published
by
Ehren
on July 17, 2007
in Mentions, Ponderings, blogging, books, marketing, reviews, technology and web 2.0
. 2 Comments

Yet it’s my job.  For some reason I don’t hate my job.  I despise following the masses, I much prefer creating my own path and trying something new.  But I have to admit it is important to know what it is out there and what has worked.

Bokardo.com is one of the blogs that I enjoy reading because of its blend of perspectives between design and marketing.  In reality, everything is marketing because regardless of what we are specifically doing … we are marketing.  I also don’t like the fact that I will have to state that life revolves around marketing.  The fact that I am stating this makes me gag.  Some may suggest it is economics but in my opinion, economics is the study of the cause and reaction which are taken from the impact and consequences of marketing (simplification, I know).  Bokardo.com has a great blog post about What Do People Talk About? which mentions Guy Kawasaki’s post about next-generation marketing and a book called Beyond Buzz:  The Next Generation of Word-of-mouth Marketing (look at that, already marketing…).

Bokardo.com and Guy Kawasaki both list the 9 major themes from this book so I won’t bother listing them here.  I do find it interesting that marketers (and humans in general) will always attempt to label describe human behaviour with such simplicity.  So that at the end of the day, I ask myself … are we sheep or are we sheep-ish?  Regardless, as I stated in the beginning, it’s my job to understand this stuff and I would agree with Joshua Porter of Bokardo.com that the themes listed in the book are overused.  I must also point out that these 9 major themes appear overused because they have been simplified and because they are simplified, they are now technically overused reasoning.

This brings me to what I really want to discuss and that is Buzz Canuck’s 1% Army blogging tournament.  I actually didn’t really want to get into this, but I figure I should have some fun with blogging and experiment with marketing ideas.  Then again, I hate trends.  The idea is to blog as usual and submit your best posts against other blogs to be evaluated.  We’ll see how this crazy little cog does eh?  Maybe I will survive this trend.  It should be fun to participate with fellow Canadians who blog about marketing, social media, design and digital creations.

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