Fade to Play

Over this summer, the focus of this blog will be changing as I develop a strategy for using these new media tools to share my thoughts and related research as a UBC PhD student. I also figuring out how I can best keep my committee informed through new media.

What may be best then is to create another blog/tumblr to use exclusively for my photography and new media responsibilities. I’m sorting out the best way to do this.

Tonight I joined the Society for Geek Advancement, which was created by Shira Lazar.

THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT was founded upon the principles that we should all embrace our inner and outer geek and have fun while doing it. As individuals who love learning, innovating and believe in possibility as well as change, the second step of responsibility is to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. As a member of SGA, we work together as a global community to provide the tools and help others realize their true potential too!

As someone that is constantly using his Blackberry to update twitter, check Facebook, and read Google News, I am excited that this society now exists.

What is even cooler is that the society is connected with Room to Read, a great charity created by former Microsoft exec, John Wood, which partners with local communities in developing countries to build libraries, construct schools, and create local language children’s literature.

So get out there and tell others about the Society for Geek Advancement.

Yes, I am a Geek (and totally love it)!

Today is World Water Day and the fourth year of the Water for Life Decade.

The Water for Life Decade 2005-2015 will give a high profile to implementing water-related programmes and the participation of women. The UN hopes that the Decade will boost the chances of achieving international water-related goals and the United Nations Millennium Declaration.

In Canada, there are a number of initiatives promoting water as a public right such as the Blue Communities Project and World Water Week events in British Columbia.

According to Oxfam Canada:

• 890 million people – about a seventh of the world’s population – do not have access to safe drinking water.

• Some 2.5 billion people also live without access to basic sanitation.

• 1.2 billion of which have no access to any form of sanitation.

What is really cool is how social media (e.g. twitter, blogs, Slideshare) are being used to promote safe drinking water:

Leslie Bradshaw tweeted about how her followers on twitter could get involved. Each person that follows @WorldH20 or @chlorine on twitter or joins the corresponding Facebook group would result in 100 liters of water being donated to those in need.

According to Leslie Bradshaw:

The project itself has been made possible by the American Chemistry Council (a client I have enjoyed working with via New Media Strategies), in partnership with GOOD Magazine, Population Services International and a group of leading health organizations.

This is a great cause, so get on twitter and Facebook and help out. Each of us can play our part.

Relevance: shows the power of social media

With Heather Armstrong and Maggie Mason - Vancouver Digital Week 2008

Vancouver Digital Week organised by New Media BC is only 2 months away. I attended last year and had an incredible time. Highlights included: getting a photo with Heather Armstrong & Maggie Mason, interviewing Grant McCracken, and watching local luminaries playing Rock Band at the PopVox Awards.

The three events most of interest to me are: Convergence 2009, NextMEDIA Vancouver, and the PopVox Awards.

Convergence 2009 is organised by Cossette West. I was able to interview Sandy Fleischer last year about his expectations for the event. This year should be even better.

A gathering of digital-savvy marketing and communications thought-leaders from across North America sharing ideas on how to stay competitive in the ever-shifting digital landscape. This year we focus on digital branding through social media and why you should integrate it into your marketing strategy…starting now.

NextMEDIA Vancouver is new to the Vancouver Digital Week. I attended their nextMEDIA Banff event last year and expect their keynote and reception to be top-notch and an excellent opportunity for networking. It will be fun to catch up with the nextMEDIA team.

The PopVox Awards are totally fun and entertaining. Can’t wait to see what surprises are planned this year.

Submit your project or nominate a peer (or yourself!) to win prizes and celebrate the diverse achievements of this dynamic sector. After all the votes are in, the winners will be announced at the POPVOX AWARDS Gala on May 13th, 2009.

This year Vancouver Digital Week takes place at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Hope to see you there!

You can also add everyone on twitter: Cossette West, Vancouver Digital Week, PopVox Awards.

Relevance: Anyone interested in learning more about digital media should be here. I made some real good friends last year and it definitely enhanced my knowledge about new media.

Hayfa Makes Music

Last Thursday I was privileged to attend a fundraiser for Coree @ The End Cafe, Vancouver.  She just got accepted to take part in an Otesha Project cycling and performing tour through British Columbia during the summer of 2009.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the Otesha Project (www.otesha.ca) was founded by two 21 year-old women in 2002 with the aim of mobilizing youth to create local and global change through their daily consumer choices. Coree and her team mates will cycle 2,253 km starting in Vancouver, cycling up the inside passage, across to the island, north to Port McNeil and then south again, ending in Victoria. During that time, they’ll deliver dozens of theatre-based performances and workshops that focus on the many ways our choices impact the world, and how we can make that impact more positive.

Three groups (Hayfa Makes Music, The Blenheim Street Project, and Leigh Denholm) performed.  The music was great. Definitely, check them out on myspace.

Leigh Denholm

The Blenheim Street Project

Kathleen Forrester


Hayfa Abichahine

John Cullen


The indie music scene in Vancouver is pretty cool.

Although YouTube can be thought of as a site to watch your favourite music videos, it has also become an environment for young people to express their creativity through singing or the playing of instruments. In the Toronto Star online, there is a story about Yunior Lopez, a 20-year old Toronto viola student that is one of 5 Canadians chosen for one of 90 positions in the YouTube Symphony that will play together in a live concert at Carnegie Hall in April.

The young Cuban-born violist grew up in the world’s gambling capital, where his scientist father had gone to take a job in construction. He said he picked up the viola at age 11, when he had to choose an instrument in his arts-school orchestra.

“I really wanted to play the cello, but I rode my bike to school and there was no way I would’ve been able to do it with a cello,” Lopez recalled.

He made so much progress that he landed a contract with the Las Vegas Symphony “at the same time that I was supposed to start my senior year” in high school.

Relevance: This is very cool. What other examples exist of social media being used to solicit talent?

Today I was interviewed by CBC News - The National for a segment they are doing on Facebook. It was taped and will air in the future.  It was my first time being interviewed for TV so I’m pretty excited to see the segment. In the interview, I cited stats from themeaningofweb.com regarding how 10.6 million Canadians use Facebook while talking about the popularity of Facebook.

Here is a quick video I made prior to the interview:

Relevance: Do you think about what you are saying before you post to a public Facebook group?  Do you have concerns about what people might say on a Facebook group you’ve created or are the admin for? Do you monitor the wall conversations?

On January 13th, I was part of a panel hosted by the Office of Learning Technology as part of the Teaching and Learning with Technology Speaker Series at UBC.

Facebook’s popularity is uncontested but questions remain as to its role and purpose in an educational setting. How are students and educators using Facebook? What are the benefits and drawbacks of this social networking tool? Come join our diverse panel for a discussion that promises to provide multiple perspectives, deeper understanding and further questions.

The other two panelist were:
Sheryl Adam, a Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian, Koerner Library
Cyprien Lomas, Director of the Learning Centre in Land and Food Systems

The panel was moderated by Cindy Underhill, Office of Learning Technology

I enjoyed being a part of the panel. It was a great opportunity to learn from the staff and professors in attendance about their opinion regarding how Facebook can be used to network with each other and how they were using it educational purposes. There were comments made that the focus of these discussions shouldn’t be limited to Facebook but should involve how social media can be beneficial for education.

In addition, as there were not alot of students in attendance, there were questions about how best to reach students so that they can be adequately informed about Faceboook privacy issues? For example, for some exchange or foreign students coming to UBC, (e.g. China), this is their first exposure to Facebook.

I would love to see a panel about social media and education in which we discuss the advantages of tools like twitter for learning environments. Another beneficial panel would be about applications like Evernote and how they can enhance time management and productivity for students.

There is a podcast available.

Thanks to Catherine Paul, Office of Learning Technology for organising this panel.

Relevance: Knowledge about the social media, facebook, and online productivity tools is beneficial in understanding not only why a certain application may have value for educational settings, but to clarify why another may be better.

Early this morning at 1:04am PST I received in my email @reply messages that I had been sent through the day. I didn’t change any settings on twitter so I’m unclear whether this is a bug or a new feature.

Anyone else have this happen to them?

Relevance: Trying to sort out why this happened

update: I figured it out. Apparently I signed up for a 3rd party service and forgot I had done that.

Below are some of my favourite photos that I took in 2008 along with a commentary describing how it came to be.

50 mm (1.8), f/3.5, 1/160, ISO 100

On February 5th, I watched the Super Tuesday results and realised that Barack Obama was still in the race to be the democratic nominee. On February 6th, I found out that there might be a rally on February 8th in Seattle. I decided that I would make an effort to attend the rally. Around 2pm on February 7th, my friend Stephanie was able to confirm the rally was a go and we decided to head down that afternoon on the Greyhound. We spent the night at her friend’s house, waking up early the next morning to attend the rally.

While we waited in line, these girls were selling Obama cookies for $2. Unfortunately I only had Canadian money, which was not accepted by them, even though it was worth more than the US dollar at the time. February 8th was by far my favourite day in 2008, as I sat memorised as Barack Obama spoke and energised the crowd. The auditorium was full (18 000) with 3 500 listening outside in an overflow area. I still feel “fired up, and ready to go”.

50mm lens (1.8), f/5.6, 1/6, ISO 800)

I was getting some work done at Blenz cafe in Yaletown while having conversations with Ryo from Japan about why he was here in Vancouver and how he was enjoying his experiences in Canada. I decided to use the opportunity to take a photograph of him. He was surprised with the photo as he was focused on work, not me. He liked it, thanked me, and emailed it home to his friends.

50 mm lens (1.8), f/4.5, 1/40, ISO 800

I attended Congress 2008 this year on a media pass as it was taking place here at UBC. I hadn’t heard about Richard Florida before, but after reading about him at the conference, I knew I had to see his talk.

After his presentation, when he was taking questions, I took this picture. I thought it represented well his confidence in speaking without notes and the cool way he told stories about urban life. I bought his book Who’s my City? and got it autographed. A very good day.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/1600, ISO 100

For a year, I took a daily self-portrait for a popular flickr group called 365 days. It was a beautiful day so following an afternoon workout, I went outside and tried a number of different poses and stretches before settling on this picture. Of the 365 self-portraits, it is my favourite one, because I probably won’t be this fit again.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/160, ISO 800

At the VIDFEST PopVox awards after Jenn Lowther and Nadia Nascimento won an award for memelabs, I went outside with Nadia and took a picture of her in front of the train car. It was a beautiful setting and she looked great which helped with my confidence. This picture has inspired me to learn to take more fashion photos in the future.

Canon SD 400

The day before I headed down to SXSW, I was walking by a candy store in Vancouver and in the window display was a Junior Mints lunch box. I thought it would be the perfect gift for someone I was meeting there for the first time - ijustine.

I gave it to Justine with treats inside at Gary Vaynerchuk’s impromptu twitter party at the Cork & Co. It was placed in a plastic bag inside a larger cloth bag so she didn’t have time to look inside the bag as she was running to dinner .

I took this picture outside the DIGG party that night.  She told me she loved the gift and she showed me how she was using it as a purse - rad! She had already eaten the treats at dinner leaving lots of room for night-out essentials.

Relevance: Photography is fun for me.