General Interest Stuff « Colin's Blog

2Feb/100

Pranav Mistry on SixthSense Technology (TED Tuesday)

ted_logo Welcome to TED Tuesdays on the blog. Each Tuesday, I will post a video from TED with a little commentary from me on why I think it's worth sharing. I don't want to compete with TED itself, so I'll be reaching back several months for these.

This absolutely blew my mind. The video pretty much speaks for itself, so I'll shut up now and let you watch.

Filed under: General Interest Stuff No Comments

9Jan/100

It’s All In The Timing

photo credit: How can I recycle this

I was recently reminded of this little story and thought I'd share.

I was at a "local search" conference and one of the keynote speakers was the owner of an upstart yellow pages publisher that was taking a huge chunk of the market share in a major Metro.

In the Q&A, the guy was asked: How did you erode the incumbent's market-share so quickly?

His answer went something like this:

"Ma'am, what do you do with your old yellowpages book as soon as the new one shows up?"

Her answer was, predictably, "Get rid of it."

He continued: "Of course! Which is precisely why we publish our book three months after the other guys."

Tagged as: anecdotes, conferences, Internet Yellow Pages, Local Search, yellowpages No Comments

5Jan/100

Janine Benyus on biomimicry in action (TED Tuesday)

ted_logo Welcome to TED Tuesdays on the blog. Each Tuesday, I will post a video from TED with a little commentary from me on why I think it's worth sharing.

I thought I would kick off 2010 with a little science. It has always occurred to me that there were solutions to many of our problems all around us - but I have never seen this demonstrated as effectively as it is here.

Tagged as: Janine Benyus, science, TED Tuesday, tedtalk, video No Comments

4Jan/105

Beautiful Decay

Michigan Central Station - Marchand and Meffre Photography

I have no idea why I'm subscribed to the RSS feed io9.com... I'm sure I had a reason. But when these photos popped into Google Reader this morning, I was awestruck. Dumbfounded. Speechless.

As a guy with strong ties to Michigan, I have a soft spot for Detroit. I think it may be one of the most interesting cities I've experienced - but folks rarely get past the "Motor City" moniker to see the beauty of Detroit.

This collection of photos by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture an unusual beauty - the beauty of decay. It is not really beautiful, of course, but heart-breaking to see these architectural masterpieces crumbling. Michigan Central Station has always intrigued me as it is plainly visible from the interstate feeding the Ambassador Bridge and I have stared at its broken windows many times over the years wondering what would become of it.

Marchand and Meffre's photographs make me a little sad - but I'm glad that they've been able to create some beautiful art from such miserable circumstances.

Tagged as: art, decay, Detroit, photography, photos, urban 5 Comments

25Dec/090

CoWorking in Galt – Next Steps

photo credit: hillary h

Several of us met on Monday night to chat about coworking in Galt. and it was a fantastic discussion that covered all kinds of ground. This wasn't a formal meeting of any kind, but several points of view were expressed, concerns raised, questions answered and points clarified. In a word, it was great.

We realized that we have several options going forward - only one of which is setting up an NPO from scratch and going it alone. In order to properly move ahead - and fairly assess the options - it was decided that the most prudent next step was to identify clearly (and succinctly) what we mean when we say we want a coworking space in Galt - a definition.

We set an aggressive deadline of January 4th to have the definition completed. We will use the same Google DOc we used for brainstorming to keep things together: http://colincarmichael.ca/galtcoworkdoc

So have at it!

Tagged as: cowork, coworking, galtcowork No Comments

24Dec/090

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you a Very Merry Christmas from all of us here at Carmichael HQ:

Emma, Colin, Hannah, Arminta, Isabella, William

Tagged as: Christmas, Family No Comments

23Dec/090

A Pomplamoose Christmas Message

One quick post before Christmas. Have you discovered Pomplamoose yet? No, not the fruit, the band! They are, in a word, amazing. They do really cool music video covers of really cool songs. Here are a few of my faves. But don't watch those yet, watch the one below - it's the coolest one yet and all Christmas-y.

Oh, and the goat message at the end? I have an alternative suggestion below the video - so watch it and then scroll down.

Giving a goat through World Vision is a great idea, but it isn't the only way to divert Christmas spending to those in need. I humbly suggest the Gifts of Change catalogue from The Presbyterian Church in Canada. There are opportunities there to help out those in need overseasor here at home.

Tagged as: Christmas, Gifts of Change, Music, Pomplamousse, video, YouTube No Comments

22Dec/090

Alain de Botton on a kinder, gentler philosophy of success (TED Tuesday)

ted_logo Welcome to TED Tuesdays on the blog. Each Tuesday, I will post a video from TED with a little commentary from me on why I think it's worth sharing.

Staying with the career/work theme from last week (for no particular reason) Alain de Botton talks about philosophies of success and failure. Alain is a pretty smart guy (understatement) so anything he says is worth listening to, but I found this presentation to be especially engaging and relevant.

So what I want to argue for, is not that we should give up on our ideas of success. But we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas. And make sure that we own them, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough, not getting what you want. But it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out at the end of a journey, that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html

Tagged as: Alain de Botton, business, career, TED Tuesday, video No Comments

Older Entries »

Colin Who?

I'm a digital communications executive specializing in community engagement, social marketing, and online identity management currently serving asthe Associate Secretary, Communications, at the national offices of The Presbyterian Church in Canada. I can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook.

What I’ve Said

What You’ve Said

The Cloud

blackberry Blogging Business 2.0 Christmas Common Craft conferences Detroit Explosion Facebook Family Family Sunday Google Hannah Hockey Jeremiah Owyang kids Lang Michener Lawyers LinkedIn local Local Search Mesh08 news Newspapers Nifty Tools Obama Personal Politics RSS Scoble Sebastien Provencher seo SMG social media tedtalk TED Tuesday tweetup Twitter user engagement video VKH web 2.0 What were they thinking? wordpress World Issues

On the Twitter...

.@divorcewealth um, thanks for the DM offering help with "divorce stuff" - but since I'm happily married, no thanks. #unfollow 2010-02-11
RT @mariobourque: lets see some resumes http://bit.ly/trapezewebdesigner Solid company, 1 of Canada's largest software co's, great benefits 2010-02-10
this is not cool... www.theglobeandmail.com hijacks the keyboard shortcut for search-in-page and sends focus to their site search! Argh! 2010-02-10
On a quest to regain my Mayoralty! Maybe the other guy will have to pull out due to a sex scandal. (@ Melville Cafe) http://4sq.com/7yn7la 2010-02-10
The headline @acoyne was waiting for... ;) RT @andrewbrett: That's what she said. RT @TorontoStar Giambrone pulls out #voteTO #Giambrone 2010-02-10
More updates...

Colin's Blog My thoughts on everything.