A Big Sensation

RHOK Toronto

2011-05-19T08:28:00.000-07:00

I'm part of a team organizing Random Hacks of Kindness in Toronto. Technical people will spend their weekend hacking, programming, designing, etc. to solve the world's problems. We need sponsors to help cover the cost of food and prizes.

Please help us out if you can!

Mojo: Beyond Comment Threads

2011-05-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

The Problem: Comment threads are long, filled with trolls who spout slander and uninformed opinions, and the good comments and dialogue gets diluted in useless posts.

Require a login/password – by forcing a login process, you immediately increase the barrier for involvement. It's not a huge barrier, but it's enough to dissuade a lot of people who may otherwise leave less than thought-provoking comments. It also allows you to reward or discipline for good or negative comments, respectively.

Facilitate discussion – The problem with much online discussion is that people are free to comment on any aspect of a story, and there is nothing to organize whether you're talking about an issue, the personalities involved, the politics behind a decision, or something else entirely. When all of these discussions happen in the same comment thread, nothing is in place to keep any of of them on track to promote healthy discussion. The simplest method would be to build “Discussion Questions” into your article publishing process. If you had two or three questions leading to different forums the discussion would be more directed and focused to the topics specified. If there was a question like “Why is this a proposal a good or bad idea?” you'd get far fewer comments like “This guy is stupid.” In classic journalism terms, don't ask “yes or no” questions. Ask questions that require a more thoughtful explanation.

Make it a game/challenge – Like so many of the submissions, I believe that introducing a gaming or voting element inspires a desire to make quality arguments in your comment posts. Good posts get voted up, and bad posts get voted down. A good debate would have popular posts from both sides of an argument, without erupting into a flamewar. Awarding badges for quality posts, debate wins, and the like, would again, inspire people to post insightful and well written comments. Making the “debate” and the badges embeddable or shareable on Twitter, Facebook, and blog sites would allow your comments to be seen elsewhere AND invite more users into the conversation.

Trends in Unlocking Video Submissions

2011-05-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of chatter lately about the "next big thing" in internet trends. Two of the biggest are the surge in mobile devices leading to GPS-driven apps and functions, and also a movement to introduce "gaming" into a lot of internet projects. Both of these themes appeared in many of the submissions in the Knight Mozilla Unlocking Video Challenge.

My own submission, for example, involved mapping crowdsourced video. Many of the other participants produced a similar plan involving geo-location. Considering the proliferation of GPS devices, especially in mobile phones, images and videos tagged with an exact location can easily be plotted on maps thanks to open APIs like Google Maps or OpenStreetMap. Using the crowd to collect images, and then sharing their specific location is a practice already in use, but will clearly be a staple in online journalism moving forward. Collecting and sorting this video is clearly the challenge.

Many of the projects also suggested gaming or badging. Adding a gaming element can be as simple as distributing points for a submission, awarding badges or making any sort of task into a competition. Foursquare is an example of an application that awards points and badges for location-based challenges. The more you check in, the more points you get, and the more badges you unlock. Like any game, whoever has the most points is the winner... or at least winning, as these games are often ongoing.

A lot of submissions thought that offering challenges (or assignments) and offering points or badges would inspire citizen journalists to submit their video to news sites. I can see this being an effective method to source content because it's essentially the model behind every thriving online community. Each online group has a higherarchy, whether its explicitly stated or not. Some might count your forum posts, or wiki edits, or the number of Twitter followers, but regardless of the kind of "points," people who are enthusiastic about participating in an online community always want more and therefore, particpate more. When online communities already function on an unwritten points system, creating a structured reward system just plays on a model that already exists.

These two trends come from very different places. GPS tracking for video is a technology that has become available to the masses in recent years in the latest mobile phones. Gaming just preys on the human desire to compete, collect, and win. One is a technological advancement, the other, a psychological factor that has influenced humans for millenia.

It is no shock to me that these two trends kept surfacing. I would have argued they're two of the driving forces behind the current generation of the internet, along with open technologies and mobile applications. I expect to see these themes pop up again and again in the rest of the challenges.

Mojo: Unlocking Video

2011-05-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Problem: These days, every mobile phone can shoot video. As journalists, it offers an opportunity to collect images from cameras belonging to an army of citizen shooters. The difficulty, however, is collecting and arranging this video, and more importantly, offering context and information about the video. More often than not, cellphone videos are left on the phone or laptop, or occasionally uploaded to YouTube. Only in the most outstanding cases does mobile video find its way into mainstream news.

The Opportunity: As mobile devices evolve, so does their camera technology. The iPhone4, for example, now shoots full HD video. Considering they sold 3 million of them in the first three weeks of availability, there are now millions of opportunities to collect footage of newsworthy events as they unfold. Considering the fact that even major news organizations can't be everywhere at once, taking advantage of these cameras and the "crowd" allows them to expand their coverage and show perspectives they otherwise wouldn't collect.

The Project: For major news events, we'll create an interface that invites users to upload their video, label it with appropriate tags, map the exact location where it was collected (many phones will geo-tag the video anyway), and place it on a map/timeline to display the sequence and location of each citizen video. For an event like the Olympics, your timeline may cover weeks. For a crisis unfolding unexpectedly, your timeline may only be a few minutes long. The location feature would also cover a broad range of focus. For some stories, your map may show a city block. For others it could display images from around the world, perhaps to show international responses to a particular incident.

Just as Wikipedia pages grow over the course of a few hours as new information becomes available, this interface would show the evolution of a news story as it unfolds using information collected from citizen cameras. Not only would the video be collected and categorized, it would also be mapped to give the viewers perspective. This functionality exists already in products like Panoramio but that is intended for geo-tagged photosharing. Taking the same idea and applying it to news would open the doors for citizen reporters to share their experiences, and introducing a timeline would allow the viewer to experience the stories in sequence.

As the timeline evolves, points could be marked to indicate happenings within the event. In the case of the G20 Protests in Toronto, you could have a city wide map with "Protesters gather - 9:15 am" and "Police car set on fire - 1:23 pm" marked as notable points. Video of the protests, the police presence, the car of fire, would all be plotted accordingly on the timeline, between those key points.

Why?: We already rely on crowdsourcing video (YouTube), news and opinions (Twitter/Blogs), and mapping (OpenStreetMap/Ushahidi). This project would combine those three things to offer a complete perspective of newsworthy events. It would engage citizen journalists AND provide a more comprehensive story when all is said and done.

Brian Chick
Toronto, Canada
brian.chick -at- left-button.com

It should be noted...

2011-05-03T13:21:00.001-07:00

This blog was originally intended to be a learning journal for the final stages of my Masters studies at the University of Alberta. I documented my thoughts and progress as I attempted to finish my final project which was intended to look at how age affected new technology acceptance at a major media outlet.

I did, in fact, finish the project and handed my final version in on September 11, 2009. I graduated in November.

This blog has been retired since, but I find myself returning to it more and more lately. I may continute to post from time to time, but the majority of my rambling can be found on a handful of other sites... like left-button.com and brianchick.com. Due to some life craziness, they're both sadly out of date, but they will both be kickstarted again soon.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found something that scratched your brain.

Draft .5 is in!

2009-06-05T05:39:00.000-07:00

Sometime in the early evening on Wedneday night, I sent in the first draft of my Introduction, Literature Review, and Methodology sections. They add up to about 18 pages... I was aiming for 20, but I hate stretching things out for the sake of filling pages. I like to be succinct.

I also interviewed my boss, Dave Collier, who summed up a thought nicely by saying that this Net-Genertation is "conditioned for a constant evolution of technology." While I completely believe that, it's still a generalization, and perhaps, my research will prove that the generation you grew up in is NOT the primary factor in how you use computers...

And the results are in...

2009-05-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

After 10 days, 3 reminder emails, and a few calls to various colleagues for help, my survey closed with 142 responses, a number I'm quite pleased with. I started glancing at the data, comparing some numbers, and planning on which numbers my analysis will be based. I have a plan, and will institute it shortly, but first I'm trying to get some of my introduction and methodology sections done for the actual paper part.

It feels great to finally get moving on this after so many months of dreading it. Now I'm just itching to fight through it and get it done.

Of course, at the same time, everything else in my life has gotten super busy. So that's wonderful.

And so it begins...

2009-05-15T11:50:00.000-07:00

After several weeks, and a few attempts, my ethics application was finally approved. It took longer than expected, so I'm a few weeks behind where I wanted to be, but still in good shape to finish this whole thing on time. I ran everything by my boss, and got the OK that I could send it out, and fired my survey out to almost 4,000 people last night.

Realistically, I don't think 2,000+ will even read it. The nature of our newsroom would lead me to believe that most employees in our radio departments won't even know it's there, because they use the system differently. Of the 2,000 that DO read it, I doubt 1,000 will give it more than a look, meaning that roughly 1,000 people will read it and consider doing it. If 1 in 10, or 2 in 10 take it, I'll have between 100-200 reponses, which will make me happy. Any more than that, and I'll be thrilled.

The good news is that less than 16 hours in, I already have 39 responses, which pleases me. Let's hope this pace keeps up.

508 - Enemy at the Gates

2009-04-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

After several months and several drafts, I've finally received the go-ahead from my advisor, and am currently awaiting the results of my ethics application. Considering the banal nature of my survey, I don't expect ethics to take too long, and imagine that I should get that one back within a few days. As soon as that happens, however, the actual study must begin... as soon as I return from Las Vegas. Actually, I'll hopefully send out the survey BEFORE I leave, and have some results by the time I return.

Over the few drafts, the study has evolved slightly. Before it was essentially asking if young people and old people have different comfort levels with technology. While the answer to that would likely prove to be an obvious "yes," we dont' really learn much other than what we already know. Instead, I'm looking at what factors actually influence the different levels of technology acceptance in different age groups. What I expect to find is that other factors are more influential than age... many of them just happen to correlate to age.

Anyway, I'm excited to get started. But also dreading the mountain of work at awaits.

So... it's almost time to put my head down and start hammering. But first... VEGAS!

That didn't take long...

2008-10-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

About 20 minutes later, Terence was no longer... Seriously, they don't give you a lot of time to prove that you're interesting, famous, or important!

Social Biography Experiment

2008-10-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Today at work, we decided to run a little experiment. My friend Terence said he wanted to open his life up for editing through the magic of Wikipedia. After creating a blank page with his name on it, he started filling in details (so far, completely accurate) about his life, but we're encouraging everyone we know to create a far more impressive biography for him with ensuing Wikipedia edits. I will add my own shortly.

While fundamentally this goes against everything that makes Wikis good, we're hoping that it grows in that way that only viral internet things can. A new form of non-factual infotainment will be born. Now, we've already been made aware by Wikipedia that the page was the target for rapid deletion because they didn't know who he was... but we've jumped through the first hoops, and can now watch it bloom...

Without further ado, please help us write the life story of Terence Yip.

New Obsession: Google Earth

2008-10-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

After reading Alex Roy's "The Driver," I became immensely interested in his cross country trips, and the technology he used to prepare for his drive from New York City to L.A. In the book, Roy talks about his quest to break the accepted NY to LA record of 32 Hours, 7 minutes. After 2 test runs for research and reconnaisance purposes, countless calculations for gas consumption, listing and mapping known speed traps, and developing a protocol and backup for any possible snag, he took off from Manhattan headed for California, went as fast as he could (safely) and avoided cops, traffic, and stops along the way. Along the way, he had a series of toys (GPS, Radar Detectors/Jammers, Police Scanners) to play with. Overall, however, it was the use of technology and the extensive preparation that fascinated me. A pimped out BMW M5 added to the glamour a bit, I'll admit.

Fast forward a couple years... Roy has since mapped out his famous run in a Google Earth .kmz file. People who have GE installed (free here) can run his file and see a map pinpointing where they were at what time, where they stopped for gas and tolls, and how fast they were going at various checkpoints, using data from either of the GPS receivers in the M5. They kept the GPS data to verify that their super secret cross-country dash actually happened in the time they claimed (along with gas receipts, toll receipts, and time-coded video), however, that file and my ensuing fiddling with GE have turned me in to a GPS-obsessed, .kmz-generating nerd. What's more exciting these days, is that it's possible to generate and update these files real-time. Recently, Roy was approached with a business opportunity and turned his experience and passion into a company dealing with real-time GPS tracking. He speaks about the technology, his car, his run, etc. in the Authors @ Google series here...

Pocket-PCs, iPhones, and Blackberries all have the capability to capture GPS coordinates in Google Earth formats, upload them to live servers, and broadcast current locations across the internets in near real-life times. Within seconds, my whereabouts can be uploaded and downloaded, and the pushpin that indicates my location on the Google map, will move to indicate my progress.

While I'm still in the "holy crap, that's awesome" phase, there are countless opportunities to turn this technology into useful and profitable ventures. Already companies can run tours, advertise their services, and build their store (or a 3D model of the building at least) in Google Earth, but with real-time tracking, options become more and more exciting.

The kind of surveillance usually reserved for secret government operations suddenly becomes a reality if you can get your hands on the right cell phone... Scary, but also pretty friggin cool.

SI Wrap Up

2008-05-26T13:45:00.001-07:00

I've returned to Toronto and spent a few days settling in to my regular life. Unfortunately, however, it seems to be taking a little while longer than expected. I keep thinking about things like social capital, facebook's implications on corporate networks, and the benefits of instant messaging in the workplace (while I waste time in the workplace on MSN). The fact is, however, 506 was a very useful course for practical things in the context of social networking... who knew?

So... to wrap up this learning journal, I'm going to review and comment on each of the 5 groups and their presentations to see what nuggets of wisdom I can pull from my memories of each presentation.

Group 1 - Facebook for non-profits - There were two very different sides to this issue. One I agree with, and one I do not. Facebook is a great way to promote events, using the social networks of people who are connected to your cause. A "cause" page is a good thing to have, as is a business/organization profile page. All good things, considering how many people use Facebook these days, especially when you take into account that there is no cost for these things. However, the idea of using facebook as a corporate directory to build social capital within the company is a bad one. If people want to do that, they can. But don't encourage people to do it when some people have social lives that they don't want to mix up with their business lives...

Group 2 - Social Bookmarking - I admit to not knowing much about the whole digg/technorati/etc. bookmarking craze, and I think this group's presentation did a good job of showing how it could be used in a real-life situation. I was more intrigued, however, by things like Google Notebook that allow you to flag specific sentences, pictures, etc. on a site and have them displayed when you return to that site.

Group 3 - We were awesome. Enough said.

Group 4 - Jeet Kune Do - I found this presentation to be a little confusing. While the design and delivery was very well done, I was left wondering what the proposed technology actually was. I reread the briefing document, and it confirmed that most of their effort was about addressing social capital problems without much use of technology, let alone a specific one. I heard some talk of the group lamenting that they didn't really have a technical person among them to take charge of technical aspects (this is grapevine chit-chat, so it may not be entirely true) but I feel that we've been in enough of these courses that somebody could have figured out a way to pick something a little more specific. Group 2, for example, deliberately chose something they knew nothing about.

Group 5 - Model UN video game - I found it unfortunate that I was supposed to respond to this presentation because I honestly thought it was the most innovative and well done. Of course, my role was to challenge them, ask tough questions, and pick their brains for possible explanations to issues they may have overlooked. Like most groups, they tap danced around the bits they didn't expect, and threw statistics and studies at the ones they did. Overall, I thought that it was a brilliant idea... I also thought it was brilliant to include a massive grant from Bill Gates to address any potential funding problems.

Overall, I found the 506 experience to be very thought provoking. As stated in previous entries, I'm a very social person, and perhaps that influences my thoughts on social interaction. It's a fascinating area of study and I could see myself spending more time in the study of such a field. Not now though... I'll be worrying about technology acceptance for the next year or so. Perhaps the PhD project will be more relevant to these topics. ;)

Bongwarrior: Wiki Jedi

2008-05-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

Today, we discussed wikis and knowledge sharing, and more specifically, Wikipedia. The class discussed just what it was that made contributing to Wikipedia, or any online forum worthwhile. There is no money involved, there is little or no prestige involved, and yet people spend hours, days, and months of their lives adding and subtracting facts, fixing punctuation, and removing vandalism to any number of posts.

As the discussion leader for the day, I was clicking around on Wikipedia and we decided to check out the Pop-tarts page that was mentioned in the article we were reading. The page has over 1000 edits, the most recent change taking place just two days ago. We checked out recent change by a user who calls himself "Bongwarrior." He decided to include the fact that microwaving a pop-tart can actually turn the middle into an amorphous solid. While we had a good laugh about his screenname, I wondered what motivated him to write such a thing. I figured he was just high and he thought it would be funny.

A bit of resarch (Wikipedia makes this very easy) showed me that Bongwarrior is not a a stoner bonehead vandalizing posts under the influence of medicinal canabis, but actually quite the opposite. In the last week alone, he's made more than 500 edits, mostly patrolling recent posts for vandalism and reverting to the most recent acceptable versions.

According to his user profile page, he enjoys heavy metal music, supports the legalization of canabis, likes Stephen King, plays acoustic guitar, and claims to know pi to two decimal places. Sounds like quite a scholar!

Not surprisingly, however, the only posts he's actually made recent text edits to (as opposed to reverting to non-vandalized versions), are about Stephen King and Megadeth. By recently, of course, I mean in the last two days. On May 14th alone, he made a total of nearly 50 adjustments.

What does he get out of this? What does anybody get out of this? Sure, a sense of sharing knowledge, a chance to be "right," and the feeling of some sort of community, I guess. There must be more to it though, because people obviously get hooked and go at this thing with great fervour. And what does it say that of the 500 edits he's made in the last week, 3 of them were actually his contributions to a post. The rest were fighting vandalism. Has Wikipedia jumped the shark? Or will this army of moderators keep up with vandals?

At some point, something's gotta give. And when it does, Bongwarrior will either be a hero in the annals of Wikihistory, or he'll be forgotten like that guy who did that thing...

Using OS to fight PSSORPGA

2008-05-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

MMORPGs - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. This is both what we talked about all afternoon, and something I've avoided ever since I was a young boy and decided that I might someday want to meet a real girl and perhaps even touch her. I can pretty much guarantee you that if I had ever decided to play World of Warcraft (WOW) or any such game, I'd still be trying to finish the 11th grade... but I'd be a 900th level wizard troll or something. I would also have a PSSORPGA (Pathetically Serious Solo Online Role Playing Game Addiction).

ps - i'm sorry for the nickelback... truly

Given my current addiction to the regular text and photo internet, my vivid imagination, and my love for fantasy, it's a miracle that I was never swept up in this craze. Frankly, I'm not sure how it avoided me, given the thousands of hours logged at my computer, cruising aimlessly around the Internets. My best guess is something called "Organized Sports."

As far as I can tell OS is just like WOW... We meet in these strange grassy places called "parks" and form different guilds and clans called "teams." Depending on which park you're at and when you've decided to show up, an opposing clan will offer you a challenge in the form of a physical contest. These contests all have different rules, which are agreed upon ahead of time, and overseen by an aged sage known as an "umpire." In the interests of keeping things interesting, many of the oldest and wisest sages are also blind, which makes their ability to oversee any contest simply mindboggling.

Each team has a variety of players, who frequently choose to dress their real-life avatars in matching tunics for the physical challenge. The players are all different sizes and shapes, and depending on how many of these challenges (sometimes called "games" or "matches") they've competed in, skill levels can vary from the very high to the not so high. Those with the highest skill levels or the wisest mind to orchestrate the strategy for that challenge are given titles like "Captain," "All-Star," and "Player of the Game." After the challenge is won or lost, the avatars will sit down in part of this physical world and partake of ale often provided by the guild member whose turn it is that week. They will frequently nurse wounds from battle, and tale great tales from past challenges, when a guild member performed a feat so miraculous that a challenge was won by his skill alone...

After a series of these challenges is complete, the winner of the most challenges is crowned champion and players are awarded points in the areas of pride, skill, and luck. Often awards also come in the form of physical additions a player's avatar, such as a new hat or tunic.

... but then again, I've never actually played WOW, so I can't say for sure if this is anything like it.

A Connector? Me?

2008-05-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell has come up a few times in our 506 course. When discussing social network, I mentioned that there was a chapter about it in the book, and sure enough it was referenced in one of our other readings. In every group of people, there are some who are better at making and maintaining social relationships. Gladwell calls those people connectors. In some of our discussions, both in class and elsewhere, classmates identified me as a connector, and I agreed. I take my socializing very seriously.

So I decided to find out if this is actually true. Am I a connector? Gladwell tests this by giving subjects a list of 250 surnames. Counting how many people you know with those surnames gives you an indication of how "connected" you are. The average for college students was 21. The average for professionals in their 20s and 30s was 39. My number was...

27.

Frankly, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping for a huge number, but alas, it was not to be. The list of names came from a Manhattan phone book. I genuinely believe that if the list had come from a Canadian phonebook the results would have been different. I'm just making excuses. I'd be interested in trying it with a few lists and comparing. Maybe there's a research project there... for another time.

The other thing that it could indicate is that being a social butterfly doesn't make you a connector. That could very well be the case here. There are a lot of things that could change the results, but for now, I'll just have to be content with being well below average.

The Economics of Social Capital - Volume 2

2008-05-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was going to include this in the first one, but it was getting a bit long already, and it was late, and I was tired and I wasn't really firing on all cylinders. By the time I got to the end of the post, I couldn't quite find the metaphor I was looking for... I'm still not sure I have, but I'm going to try, because there's something that needs addressing.

Yesterday, I said that all personal relationships are worth the same in terms of social capital. It's hard to wrap your head around of course, because personal relationships can come in different styles and intensities. My relationship with my brother is not the same as my relationship with the doorman in my apartment building. However, yesterday I argued that they possess the same social capital. How can that be?

The thing I realized is that it doesn't matter how much money you have, the thing that matters is how you spend it. Sometimes you get a good deal and are able to use a weak connection and turn it into something great. Wayne's example was about a guy he met at a conference who in turn invited him to another function in Chicago. That was a dollar well spent. Meanwhile, your mom's dollar buys a lifetime of love, support, and nagging about eating vegetables. Another dollar well spent, but in a completely different store. You can't possibly shop in every store, and you certainly don't buy every item in the stores you do enter. Sometimes you shop for specific things and you know which store to go to. Other times, you wander around the mall until something grabs your attention and intices make a transaction. No matter how you break it down, it only matters how and where you choose to invest your social capital.

Of course, you can't put price tags on things like a personal support network or good conversation, but you can safely say that those with a lot of social capital probably afford these things a lot easier.

Next time: Professional Capital (aka - competence)

The Economics of Social Capital

2008-05-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

We've been talking about "social capital" in class. It's the idea that the benefits and drawbacks from personal relationships over social networks (in real-life or in virtual situations) make deposits and withdrawls in our overall accounts of human interaction. Apparently, the more positive relationships you have with family, friends, coworkers, friends of friends, acquaintances, etc., the more social capital you've achieved. If you abuse those connections and the relationships turn sour, your social capital fund can suffer a slide. Social capital can then be used within your social network for the powers of good (get a job, get a discount, get advice, etc.).

It's a great system, quite similar to the "emotional bank account" described in 7 Habits of Highly Effective people. What makes this more interesting, if you make the direct comparison to money, a lot of other metaphors come into play. You can invest capital, expecting a return. You can have debts, you can forclose or go bankrupt, you can be rich or poor.

One concept we discussed in our group was inflation. My original thought was that "dollars" of social capital must be worth less than they used to be, because many years ago, it was much harder to keep in touch, and therefore the circle of friends and acquaintances would have been smaller. Then the telephone showed up, and the circle grew. Then email showed up, and suddenly long distance charges were overcome. Then chat became popular and you could have 50 people from all over the world on your desktop available to message at any point. Then social media started telling us that we now can contact hundreds of "friends" at the touch of a button.

So if someone with 20 friends used to be rich in social capital, am I absolutely dirty rotten filthy stinkin' rich because I have 375 friends on Facebook? Or has the value of social capital just depreciated?

Wayne was wise enough to point out that some great things come from continued contacts with these obscure acquaintances, so the value can't be that low. Experiences that would not otherwise be possible, can now be arranged because somebody had email, a cellphone, Facebook, etc. I completely agreed with him, but was certain that our relationships aren't as... potent... as they once were.

Perhaps what we lack in potency, we now make up in volume. While that seems like a prime definition for inflation, I finally figured out that the difference is this. Human relationships are unique. What you feel about your mother is nowhere near what you feel for a classmate, for example (unless you've got some mommy issues that need some attention). On the other hand, what you feel for one dollar is exactly what you feel for the next dollar and the next. No single Loonie gets priority treatment. It doesn't matter if it's been in your pocket for a year, or five minutes, a dollar is a dollar.

Social capital is NOT subject to inflation because in this system, a person is a person. Your mom, your classmate, your spouse, your boss, that friend of a friend, that girl from the bar who took your phone and put her number in under "Ashley maddy," and that guy you met at the conference last year all have the same value: one personal relationship. They're all just loonies in your pocket... and now, because of continuously improving technology, we're all much richer.

LVS - YYZ - CBC - YYZ - YEG

2008-05-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since my last post. First of all, I sent in my abstract. Then I went to Vegas for 4 nights, barely slept, and returned home on the Tuesday night red-eye, in time to grab a quick nap and work Wednesday afternoon, then normal days on Thursday and Friday. On Sunday morning at 5:30am Toronto time, I got up, showered, headed to the airport, to catch my 8:10am flight to Edmonton. So after a three time zones in five days, not enough sleep in any of them, I've become convinced that my body hates me, and is genuinely confused.

That being said, today was the first day of school. Our first in person session of 501 with Yuping "Ruby" Mao was more of a getting to know you session, and an airing of everyone's research projects. Suggestions were thrown around, and quite honestly, the topics are far more diverse than I had originally anticipated based on the online discussion. Hearing the class discuss both my project and their own gave me some ideas on how to frame my study, people to talk to, and what kinds of issues to address. Wayne also suggested a book that I plan on picking up(Out of Control by Kevin Kelly)... if only I could read without falling asleep.

The afternoon session of 506, hosted by Stan Ruecker, was equally eye-opening. Stan has a lot of research experience, and specifically U of A experience, and seems like he might be a very useful resource in the completion of the final project. The course is about social networks, but most of the time was spent discussing research projects, ethics, assignments, and later on... blogs.

Blogging is a weird thing for me. Perhaps it's that I like imagining I have an audience, even if nobody reads this. With my personal blog, people tell me from time to time that they visited it, and comment on something in it... and it usually surprises me, entrigues me, and motivates me to keep writing. It happens infrequently, but it's usually enough to keep me going. And now that this has been hyped in class, I feel obligated to deliver raw, unedited, free flowing, typo-filled, braindumps. And I look forward to reading yours too, class. Hmm?

Vegas, Baby

2008-04-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, made a few adjustments to my abstract, sent it in... and now it's time to get out of bed. I have lots to do... get my dryer fixed,pack, return a rental car, hopefully pick up a phone, and then go to Las Vegas.

So I'll talk to you all in a week or so!!

Draft Day: Abstract Beta 0.1

2008-04-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I finally sat down and hammered out the first draft of my abstract. I really wasn't too worried about it, once I narrowed my topic, and oddly enough, reading some of the textbook helped me figure out how I plan to attack it. So here we go...

Technology vs. The Bureaucratic Machine: Will the Net-Generation Bring Change to Canada's Broadcaster?"
The presence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is felt everywhere in Canada. From the largest cities to the smallest towns, CBC television and radio reaches millions of homes across the country. Once thought of as a bureaucratic machine, slow to embrace change, attitudes are shifting, as the workforce becomes younger and more tech-savvy. While CBC still struggles to keep up with changing times, in other areas they are leading the way with emerging technologies like streaming video and podcasts. In the coming years, as the net-generation (or millenials) take over CBC, will the pace of change increase or will the bureaucracy of a massive organization hold it back like it has in the past? What will be the impact of these wired new wonderkids? Drawing from the author's own experience working in CBC Technology, this study will combine qualitative methods like interviews with key members in the CBC community and quantitative measures like employee surveys to assess opinions across the rest of the corporation."

Just to show you how cutting edge the CBC can be, check out this little gem from a 1993 edition of The National.

Why work when you can delegate?

2008-04-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

I've figured something out. If you're stumped and can't quite figure out the right way to say something, get someone else to do it for you. Perhaps the glory of an online degree in communication and technology is that you know the people in your classes are probably stuck on the internet as much as you are. So in an online chat with a classmate, we were lamenting out collective lack of answerable research questions. Jen Flynn and I both had rather broad ideas about our topics but couldn't sum them up succinctly (oh..say for an abstract, for example).

Then this conversation happened:

Mr. Chick says: well, cbc is notoriously slow to adapt to newer technology...
Jennifer Flynn says: And your question is "why"?
Mr. Chick says: or will that change with a more tech-savvy generation taking things over?
Jennifer Flynn says: So what is the predicted impact of the advancing millenial generation on the pace of technological adoption?
Mr. Chick says: pretty much exactly that...

Suddenly, I had a succicnt research question! So if you're struggling, talk to Jen and she'll write a good one for you.

Now, to wrap it up in a few more sentences and call it an abstract... then go to Vegas and back before Spring Institute.

The boy has issues

2008-04-19T12:36:00.001-07:00

As I look ahead about 5 days, I'm starting to fret a little bit about a deadline looming in the near future. We're supposed to hand in an short paragraph abstract explaining our research projects (Sidenote: I'm not sure why I'm explaining this considering I think MACT people are the only ones reading this, and likely know that already!). Anyway... I'm trying to put into words the project that I'll spend the next year working on.

While I have an area I'd like to address, I don't know the specifics. While talking to a friend of mine who recently completed his masters in a similar discipline, he suggested limiting the scope to something manageable instead of attacking the topic as a whole. This, of course, makes great sense, but I seem to want to deal with the whole thing, and not a specific aspect of it. So if I'm dealing with a shift in the workforce and in lifestyles, how do I limit it to something I can measure?

My friend suggested limiting it to a specific company or a particular group. But who? Frankly, I'm sick of using my company (CBC) as a case study for every assignment. I don't have the same kind of access to other companies, but perhaps I should work something out. I've posed the question to a classmate working on a very similar topic, so I'm curious how she plans to attack it.

In the meantime, the countdown is on... I'll have to hand this in just before I go to Vegas!

I love the phone. That's where I get my email.

2008-04-14T12:06:00.001-07:00

Some of the reading I've done asks the question of why one is attacking a particular research topic. Other people in my class have struggled with the idea of researching something they love vs. something that interests them, and I think this topic falls somewhere in the middle for me. I've realized that I'm a big nerd and that I beat the hell out of Web 2.0 more than a lot of people.

In the past week, I've...

Written entries in my 3 different blogs (this one, brianchick.com, and sportsguys.ca)
Uploaded 4 videos to youtube and linked to them on blogs and facebook.
Administered blogs for 2 other projects, and designed or maintained 8 other websites.
Edited entries in the 2 wikis I administer.
Bought something on ebay
Updated my facebook profile via my phone
Collaborated cross country on 2 different writing projects
looked at photos on Flickr, but haven't actually posted any because it was a boring week
spent whole days on MSN, talking to people in other provinces, countries, and continents
took a picture and emailed it via my phone (twice)

Short of Ghandi's "Be the change you want to see in the world," I'd argue that I'm an example of the change that is happening in the world, whether we want it or not. I want to understand it, however, and help others understand it by examining this change, and identifying the issues that are coming with it. There's a clash, no matter how subtle, between the old way and the new way, and I'm going to look at where the lines are drawn and what exactly that means.

Do I love this stuff? Yes. Do I find it interesting? Absolutely.

More importantly though, I think it will cause a major change in the way work gets done. Anticipating that shift now will make for easier adjustments in the future.

Alternative Titles

2008-04-11T14:22:00.001-07:00

I spent far too long trying to figure out what to call this thing. I was working on a pun with "net-gen" or "age" and trying to tie in computers and technology, and just got frustrated with the corniness of it all and gave up.

So then I started thinking about "My Generation" by The Who. Once I gave it a listen and examined the lyrics, I was really struck by the line "don't try to dig what we all say." I was almost going to try donttrytodig.blogspot, but my inner grammar nerd doesn't like URLs that should have an apostrophe in them. Then I started looking at some of the history behind the song and was going to go with "Shout and Shimmy" which was the B-Side of "My Generation" for its original UK Release, but shoutandshimmy was already a registered blog. The B-Side for the US Release was "Out in the Street" but it didn't have the same ring.

So I went back to the lyrics, and the sensation line jumped out at me. It really sums things up nicely for me though because I honestly believe that the song parallels today's technology environment pretty acurately. We're not trying to cause a big sensation, but the older crowd doesn't quite understand how we do things, and does not know how to grasp the shift in mentality that is taking place.

"I'm just talking about my generation..."

A Big Sensation

2008-04-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to A Big Sensation, a blog aimed at tracking the progress of my Masters Final Project. The project will examine the shift happening in the world right now as the Net-Generation (sometimes called Millenials) enter and gain prominence in the work force, and as the older generations adapt to emerging technologies. Beyond that, the focus is still a bit vague, but that will develop in time.

In many of our class discussions, I've felt like one of a few "young ones" who see things a little bit differently than some of our older classmates. We are part of that generation who grew up with computers, were among the first generation to adopt things like chat, instant messaging, and email for social purposes, and have gotten used to adapting year after year to constantly changing technology.

Why "A Big Sensation," you might ask? In the song "My Generation" by The Who, there is a lyric "I'm not trying to cause a big sensation." As this project is really about My Generation, and I honestly believe it IS a rather big deal (or sensation even), I felt the title was appropriate.