Archives for 2010

Digital Storytellers: My TEDx Ottawa Presentation

Last month, I was incredibly honoured to speak at TEDx Ottawa. The shared ideas that came out on the day from the other speakers and the attendees was nothing short of amazing.

My presentation was entitled Digital Storytellers: What We Can Learn from George Lucas, and looked at how technology can enhance our lives as long as we remember the human connections around it. I was delighted to have local teenager Graeme Stewart share his story through music as well.

You can see the other talks over at the TEDx Ottawa YouTube channel. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Digital Storytellers and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the presentation topic in the comments below.

Learning from Noah

Most folks know the story of Noah. How God warned him about an upcoming flood that would last for 40 days and 40 nights. To preserve nature, Noah took two of every animal onto his Ark in readiness for breeding once the storm had passed.

However, you could also look at it another way. If a cow died, Noah would still have had one cow left for beef and milk. He and his family wouldn’t starve, and they could come back to land and start afresh.

Moral of the story? Always have a back-up plan.

The Future is Now

I’m not usually one to get too excited about buzz. Very often, buzz is simply over-hyping what can’t possibly hope to live up to the claims in reality (I still recall the PlayStation 2 real-time demos that turned out to be just highly crafted CGI).

But now and again I see something and I think, that’s a possibility. This video from Time, Inc and The Wonderfactory is one such example. And with the imminent release of Apple’s own tablet, the future may be closer than we think.

If this is what we have to look forward to, you can just start to imagine the possibilities. Marketers have a captive audience; advertisers can really get creative; non-profits can use images and media to connect emotionally while showing where the donations go. And that’s just for starters – the possibilities are endless.

How do you see something like this being used?

Is Blogging Dead? Yep, That Old Chestnut Again

Almost as regular as Tila Tequila’s shameless self-promotion efforts, the question of blogging being dead keeps springing up. I’ve spoken about it before (my take – most definitely not dead) as have many others.

One of the best posts I’ve read about it, though, is by Grant Griffiths, where he takes “Steve Rubel and his cronies” to task about claims that are often contradictory.

It’s a great read, and the comments add some excellent insights. Check it out now, and be sure to leave your views in the comments too.

Obviously…

A new study by the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada comes up with some amazing facts:

Teen girls who smoke marijuana are much more likely to be sexually active
Getting drunk more often correlates with an increased likelihood of sexual activity

Um… no shit, Sherlock. (To be fair, there’s also an alarming statistic about suicide).

Studies that report what we already know aren’t studies; they’re merely expensive validations of common sense. How about reporting what we don’t know? Or is that too much like common sense, too?