I really don’t know what to think on this one.

There seems to be plenty of blame to spread around. Prime Minister Harper seemed pretty eager to goad the opposition with inaction on a stimulus package and the elimination of political subsidies (now off the table). The opposition seem all to keen to exploit this apparent misstep for all it’s worth. And poor, nerdy Elizabeth May is still trying to get a seat at the table.

What’s Best For Canadians?

It’s a simple question to ask, but I can’t answer it. Who are the better guides through murky economic waters? The Conservatives or a coalition? What kind of economic stimulus package (in your pants–sorry, just needed to get that out of the way) does the country need? And should we really bail out the auto industry? I’m philosophically opposed to such bailouts, but that’s a pretty unthinking response.

And then there are the ins and outs of parliamentary procedure. I’m pretty ambivalent about the whole mandate issue. Everybody in the House of Commons has a mandate. Prime Minister Harper’s high ground looks no taller than a pitcher’s mound when you consider his minority position and the fact that his party only received 38% of the popular vote.

Several of my left-leaning colleagues have invited me sign petitions or join Facebook groups supporting the coalition of the Liberals, NDP (doesn’t Mr. Layton look like an eager spaniel these days?) and the Bloc. I won’t blindly do so just because I voted Green in the last election. It seems a little petty, particularly when there are parliamentary processes in place for the parties to resolve matters, one way or another.

I’m not usually a fence-sitter. I’d like to hear the summarized professional opinions of about fifty economists regarding what Canada needs to weather the economic downturn. That might clarify what I think the country needs.

Where do you stand?

Checks on purchases will always be expensive, because the harder it is to sell something to you, the more it has to cost. And not merely linearly, either. If you’re hard enough to sell to, the people who are best at making things don’t want to bother. The only people who will sell to you are companies that specialize in selling to you. Then you’ve sunk to a whole new level of inefficiency. Market mechanisms no longer protect you, because the good suppliers are no longer in the market.

In thinking about my day job at Capulet, this article really resonated with me. We’ve been lucky to have no shortage of work over the past few years, and the luxury to be pickier about which clients we take on.

We’ve got sundry criteria for what makes an ideal client. One consideration is the formality of their processes.

When talking with a potential client, I start to worry if they ask for a lengthy, formal proposal. It’s rarely worth our time to write such proposals (and, you know, they’re no fun to do). More importantly, such a request tends to imply that the client may be running a formal and (at least in my experience) inflexible operation. That may work for them, but we like nimble, open minded clients.

Generally our proposed strategies can be summarized in a longish email message. If that, plus referrals to existing clients, isn’t satisfactory, we’ll often take a pass. This is why, for example, we’re not likely to get much work out of the Olympics.

Another sign of this issue is if they want us to talk to a half dozen people in an organization. If they’re not respectful of their own staff’s time, they’re unlikely to be mindful of ours.

1. Jiibe Connection - This is a fun video project for Jiibe, kind of eHarmony (or Lavalife, if you prefer) for jobs. It’s hosted on Strutta’s new contest platform, and Giant Ant Media made one of the videos. Watch the job seeker’s video, then each of the employer videos, and match the seeker with the appropriate employer. All of the employers are from Vancouver companies–you might recognize them. One participant will win an iPod Nano.
2. Bear Your Soul - We’re running a photo contest in a Flickr group for the Save the Great Bear project. It’s easy to enter, and there are tons (well, twelve) of great prizes.
3. DreamBank’s Giving and Getting Survey - An 11-question survey about your gift giving and receiving practices. Again, there’s an iPod Nano up for grabs, or an equivalent donation to your DreamBank dream.

While in Vancouver this week, I’ve had the chance to look through a couple of copies of the Vancouver Sun. I was interested to page through the front section of Friday’s paper. I snapped photos of the front page and pages A3 and A4. Look for the little portrait shots of the columnists:

Here’s what I was struck by: in the three (I assume) most-read pages of the paper, there were more column inches given over to editorial commentary than hard news. The same is true, as I look at it, for Saturday’s front page. It features three stories–one news piece and two editorials. I’m hesitant to use the term, but I’m struck by how bloggy the Sun is looking these days.

Is this evidence of the paper’s recognition that it is not, first and foremost, a source of timely news?

I was chatting with a reporter at a regional newspaper the other day, and she commented that her periodical was “circling the drain”. I have little sympathy for newspapers, because their operators were handed every opportunity to lead the web-based new media charge a decade ago. They declined, and they’re suffering the consequences of playing catch-up. There are obviously exceptions–The Guardian springs to mind–but too many papers seem to be clinging to an expiring paradigm.

At 128 minutes, the film suffers from the usual biopic compression, and there’s a little too much foreshadowing and thematic repetition, especially for a director as willfully experimental as Gus Van Sant. (As an expository device, our troubled hero narrates into a Dictaphone near the end of his life.) If anything, the maker of My Own Private Idaho, working from a fairy conventional script by Dustin Lance Black, could have splashed out a little more in his re-creation of the Castro district of the butterfly-collared ’70s.

I guess “dairy conventional script” might have also worked. In any case, the early returns for the film are quite good. I’ll probably go see it, despite my dislike for Penn’s rather broad performance style.

I’d kind of forgotten about these subsidies, so here’s a little summary from the CBC:

Parties currently receive $1.95 for every vote they receive in a federal election, provided they win at least two per cent of the nationwide popular vote. The annual subsidy is used to pay for staff and expenses.

On the surface, it would appear Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have the most to lose if subsidies were cut because they garnered the most votes in the October election. The Conservatives earned $10 million in subsidies, compared to $7.7 million for the Liberals, $4.9 million for the NDP, $2.6 million for the Bloc Québécois and $1.8 million for the Greens.

But because the Conservatives have such a strong fundraising base, their subsidy represents only 37 per cent of the party’s total revenues. By comparison, the subsidy amounts to 63 per cent of the Liberals’ funding, 86 per cent of the Bloc’s, 57 per cent of the NDP’s and 65 per cent of the Greens’.

There is also, it’s worth noting, a $1000 cap on donations from unions, corporations and other organizations.

When the Liberals introduced this plan in 2003, I thought it was a terrifically democratic idea. Not only does it make each vote more meaningful, but it enables smaller and fringe parties to have a little more money to work with. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation supports the cuts, saying:

“It’s absurd that Canadian taxpayers are forced to subsidize through their taxes, political parties that they do not support, especially in the case of the Bloc Quebecois — a party that seeks to break up our country.”

I disagree. What could be more democratic than giving resources to all of the political voices, even the country’s critics? I don’t want my politicians beholden to corporate interests to the degree they are in the US.

In any case, there’s a great deal of sturm und drang in Ottawa about the proposed budget cuts. They amount, I gather, to about $50 million. The Conservatives knew this would be hugely controversial, and that it would look like they were exploiting home field advantage. Is their strategy backfiring (a bit like their cuts to the arts), or do they have a bigger picture in mind?

I might have done the implementation differently (enabling people to search a database by location, date lost, etc), but it’s a good start. The site will become more invaluable once photo-matching and recognition technology becomes more available.

But that’s what you get when you visit Central America in the rainy season. I’ve traveled to its neighbour Costa Rica twice around this time of year, and managed to have a good time, so I’m not overly worried.

There has been extensive flooding in the region we’re visiting, but it’s from rain-swollen rivers. Hopefully the place we’re staying (out in the ocean on stilts) will stay dry.

I couldn’t get the whole newsstand in, but this is certainly representative. You can find a smattering of men’s interest magazines on the top shelf, but that’s really it. And most are buried in the third or fourth row, the way girlie magazines used to be.

I’m not actually lobbying that men deserve more shelf space. It’s pure economics. Consider this table from the Magazine Publishers of America. Of the top 50 magazines sold in 2007, only three could be considered primarily of interest to men (by my count, two others might qualify as appealing equally to both genders). The top male interest magazine, Men’s Health, is in the 17th spot, with a single copy circulation of 544,054. Cosompolitan, the top magazine, has a circulation of 1,882,061.

Men just aren’t buying magazines. Or, more accurately, women are buying a lot more magazines than men.

In brief, we’d like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience while keeping out of the way of the IOC IP lawyers…

We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide. We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience.

That led to an article in the Vancouver Sun, and a response from a VANOC spokesperson.

This feels like a good place to start. As Dave says, social media types aren’t expecting all-access passes to the gold medal hockey games. He’s right to point out that there’s a big hole to fill in the media coverage for such an event. I was thinking about it, and drew this little Venn diagram:

The CTVs and CBCs are going to have the major, breaking news covered. It’s all that green space–that’s where social media creators can live. Through various channels, I’m seeing several ways forward for benefits for both parties. Social media creators get some tools, resources and access to help with their citizen journalism efforts, and VANOC enjoys a whole new layer of news coverage. Such a partnership would also highlight Vancouver’s place as a global for new media, citizen journalism and the like.

If the “yes” side wins, the local Greenland government has the chance to take control of new areas such as natural resource management, justice and police affairs and to a certain extent foreign affairs.

There are potentially lucrative revenues from the natural resources under Greenland’s seabed, which according to international experts is home to large oil deposits. Greenlandic would also be recognised as the island’s official language.

In case you were wondering (and I sure was), Greenlandic is a close cousin of the Inuit languages.

They’re hard to read in the photo, but each of the 12 speeds has an accompanying term associated with it. As a former technical writer, I’m troubled by the willy-nilly use of both gerunds (”mixing”, “folding”) and specific foods (”quick breads”, “puddings”) in the list. Do they still do this on new mixers and blenders? As you might imagine, I’m not much for the baking.

Today Statistics Canada released data on divorces across the country in 2005 (the newest year available, presumably). Using their handy data manipulation tool, I generated this chart:

So which province has the highest divorce rate? As you can see, it’s Alberta. I’m ignoring the northern territories, because the sample size is pretty small (Nunavut suffered all of 10 divorces in 2005).

What gives? Why are there 27% more divorces per capita in Alberta than in Saskatchewan? Is this like the US, where so-called conservative red states have a considerably higher incidence of divorce than blue states?

Here’s one thesis: people marry younger in Alberta, and the younger you marry, the likelier you are to get divorced. That’s disproven, though, because Saskatchewan has the lowest marriage age (27 for women, 29.3 for men) in the country as well as a low divorce rate.

There’s really no need for that, is there?

• Guy catches glasses with face - Subsequently attributed to Ray-ban.
• Cellphone Popcorn - Courtesy of Cardo Systems.
• Guys backflip into jeans - A Levis commercial
• Bike Hero - Recently revealed as promotion for Guitar Hero: World Tour.

The process usually goes like this: These videos are posted with only obscure or oblique references to the brands they’re promoting. They’re remarkable and amazing feats (either real or CGI) make then viral hits on YouTube. Sooner or later, the companies behind them disclose the videos’ true origins.

What Do The Brands Stand To Gain?

As in the case of the Cardo Systems video, the company sometimes replaces the video with a new one promoting their brand. Alternately, as in the Ray-ban video, they add a link to their website.

However, in other cases–Levis and Guitar Hero–there’s still no indication on the video page that the video isn’t a legitimate, user-generated and unaffiliated with a corporation.

So why bother? The only tangible, measurable result that I can think of is the free media the companies earn when they go public with the revelation. Of course, this only pays off if the video itself is a success. How many of these corporate stealth videos never get revealed because they only received 8700 views?

There’s considerable value in that earned media. However, this article indicates that “Bike Hero” required four weeks worth of production by an ad agency. That’s quite an expense for what I imagine to be fairly middling media exposure.

As far as I can figure, there isn’t much of a brand awareness gain. After all, the videos usually don’t promote specific brands–that only appears in the subsequent media coverage. And “Bike Hero” isn’t effective unless you’re already familiar with Guitar Hero, the game.

There’s also the question of possible damage to the brand when it’s revealed that the videos are, in fact, from lame corporations. I don’t think that matters very much in the fluid world of YouTube, but it’s worth considering.

So what else do these brands stand to gain?

We’re doing some work with Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club of BC and ForestEthics on the continuing campaign to save BC’s Great Bear rainforest.

The Great Bear Rainforest is a huge swath of the land–the size of Austria–on BC’s central coast. It’s home to three kinds of bears, six million migratory birds, 3000 genetically distinct salmon stocks and many species of plants unique to the region. Most importantly, it’s the largest tract of intact coastal temperate rainforest left on Earth.

As you may recall, there was a landmark agreement in 2006 among various stakeholders–the provincial government, logging companies, First Nations and environmentalists. They agreed to a new approach to resource planning developed by an independent team of scientists, and committed to its implementation by March 31, 2009. But we’re not (ahem) out of the woods yet. From the petition:

A couple of years ago, Premier Campbell made a very specific commitment to preserve this precious rainforest. The final countdown is on for the BC government to make their promise a reality by the March 31, 2009 deadline. Premier Campbell needs to hear from you.

We are down to the wire. Unless all elements of the promise are kept, the ecological health of the rainforest will be in jeopardy once again. We’ve come so far towards the rare success of having a vast unspoiled forest safeguarded, let’s not undermine all this good work by not reaching the finish line.

Give Me an Early Christmas Present: Sign This Petition

If you can spare 37 seconds, I’d really appreciate it if you would sign the petition urging the government of BC to keep their promises regarding this precious region. You don’t have to be from BC, either–support from other parts of the globe really helps.

If you’re keen to help beyond signing the petition, consider any of the following:

• Digg the petition.
• Email the link to the petition to your friends. Here’s a shortened URL for that: http://bit.ly/QnOJ
• Join the Facebook group.
• Submit your photos to our Flickr-powered photo contest (sweet prizes therein)
• Blog, tweet, bookmark or otherwise spread the word on the campaign.
• Watch, favourite and share this two-minute YouTube video about the project:

Thanks to Emily, Raul, Monique, Rebecca and everybody else who has written about the campaign thus far. We’re making good progress, but we’ve got a ways to go.

Yesterday I got a media release from the Belfry, summarizing their AGM and reporting on their last year’s work. It reminded me that they’re also currently one of the most financially stable and successful theatres that I know of.

They have an huge subscriber base of 6700 people for a theatre that only seats 277. Their average attendance for their mainstage shows last season was a mind-boggling 92%. They recently extended their production runs from four to five weeks when many Canadian theatres are reducing theirs to three.

I’ve always been an keen observer of arts funding and economics, and so was interested to see where the Belfry got its money from. And, as regular readers know, I love a chart. I produced a couple. The first shows where the Belfry’s revenue comes from:

The second shows the blue chunk of the big pie–private fundraising:

I asked Mark Dusseault at the Belfry about why ‘gaming money’, funding from BC Lottery Corporation, is under ‘private fundraising’. He explained that there were various reasons: government accounting practice, no peer review process and the way the money used to be doled out.

When gaming was originally set up we (staff and volunteers from the theatre) had to go and work the events. We spent a couple of days a year either at a bingo parlour or casino. We were, in essence, fundraising. We had to apply to participate and there was no guarantee as to how much money we would make (or lose).

I actually remember doing this once at a casino for some Vancouver theatre company.

The green slice is public money from sundry agencies: Canada Council for the Arts, CRD Arts Development and BC Cultural Services are the biggest contributors. Their entire budget is about $2.3 this year.

Where Does the Money Go?

I suppose the other question is how is that money spent?

I don’t have any great insights into these numbers. I just wanted to explore them a little, and make pretty charts. Do you have any insights?

On the basis of a study of the architectural elements uncovered at the site, the researchers have been able to determine that the mausoleum, among the remains of which Herod’s sarcophagus was found, was a lavish two-story structure with a concave-conical roof, about 25 meters high — a structure fully appropriate to Herod’s status and taste. The excavations there have also yielded many fragments of two additional sarcophagi, which the researchers estimate to have been members of Herod’s family.

There are some photos of the dig on this slow-loading FTP site.

And today, scientists confirmed that they’d identified the remains of 16th-century astronomer Copernicus.

Researchers said Thursday they have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer’s books.

The findings could put an end to centuries of speculation about the exact resting spot of Copernicus, a priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe.

A hair from one of his books? That is seriously CSI. If you follow the link, they’ve got a ‘facial forensic reconstruction’ of the man. He looks a little cross-eyed.

Given my relocation to Victoria and busyness, I’m taking a year off from the organizing committee. We’ve got a schwack of great new organizers this year though, with fresh blood and ideas. I’m planning on attending the conference and volunteering on the day. I may try to organize a panel or something, time-permitting. I’ve been kicking around some ideas about the social media sphere and maturity.

It is thrilling to see how our little conference has grown since its humble origins in 2005 (website only sort of works).

• Remember SaveKaryn.com? She parlayed her debt-ridden slackerdom into a book deal, and now she’s written a novel, too.
• For some reason, portraits of 5000 iPods from around the world are less exciting than they used to be.
• Good to see that the Goldberg family is still doing well.
• Jewelry created from the carbon remains of your loved ones.
• A great database of childhood beliefs.
• And one link to my own site. I was really unimpressed with Ryan Adams in concert back in 2002.