Random Thoughts For The Greatest Image Of All Time Sunday July 3, 2011

Alright, everyone has probably already seen this.

I know I’ve posted it at least a dozen of times since I stumbled upon it from CalgaryPuck.com… But it’s just too good not to officially post on the old c.t.overdrive.

I know it’s probably totally not appropriate, but hey, Happy Canada Day kiddies.

First – This come via JimBones, but it’s a fantastic sneak peak at the rebranding of Canada’s Olympic Team

My favourite part has to be the evolution of the Maple Leaf from 1920s to the 1970s. So there you guys go, there’s my Canada Day present.

Second – I featured this story and the game on the yycapps.com web site, but CBC Calgary has a great interview with Rob McCready (A brooks iPhone app developer) on the development of Infinity Control and his battle with the West Nile Disease.

If you want to hear an impressive story, please check out this interview from the CBC. Rob’s determination to get Infinity Control into the Apple iTunes store is a great inspiration.

Third – I love the new simplified versions of the Nashville Predators Branding, especially the fantastic new gold and blue colour scheme

Fourth – If I was about 10-12 years younger I’d be all over these Marvel Superhero Hoodies… Although, I’m pretty sure that the only one I might be able to pull off without looking like a complete Muppet is the Venom hoodie.

Fifth It’s fifty kids that are far cooler than you will ever be… Just like this kid. (NSFW)

Sixth – From what I can heard, of course only from a distance, Sled Island was a smashing success. Even better it appears that for the first time in a long time, the entire Olympic Plaza main stage was open to serve alcohol (i.e. no restrictive beer gardens)… Which is awesome news for the city.

Well done Calgary, we’re one step closer to being all grown ups.

Seventh – OffTheBeatenTracks.tv is back and with it, one of my favorite indie Canadian Darlings is featured – Montreal’s Winter Gloves.

Eighth – Because it’s the start of the Holiday/Party season, it’s Girl Talk’s Summer BBQ Mix. 140 odd tracks of rump shaking goodness.

Ninth – If you’ve ever read the site, you’ll know that I pretty much despise the daily coupon trend… well unless you’re company’s name is Living Social… but this sounds intresting. Yipit is a daily aggregratitor of all the Hyper-Coupons in your specific city. So instead of signing on to 6 different email chains you can instead, sign-up for Yipit and get access to dozens of coupon sites in your area.

See now that’s the thinking that will push the Coupon industry in the right direction.

Tenth – Found this via the Globe and Mail, but it’s the new ‘it’ Post Secret called “Dear Photograph”:
http://dearphotograph.com/. You can read the incredible story via the Globe and Mail … or you could just look at this photo.

Categories: The-Random, The-Canada-Vibe, The ArtWorld, The Blogosphere, The Canada Vibe, The Flames, The Humourous, The Inane, The Urban

Why Election 41 is Not Canada's Social Media Election Thursday April 7, 2011

We all know that Canadians are heading to the polls for first time since Social Media crept into our daily consciousness. Canadian mainstream media has be salivating at the so-called Twitter and Facebook Revolutions across the middle east and recent social media successes of Barack Obama and Naheed Nenshi. Because of which, most national news outlets are jumping on the Social Media bandwagon and transposing those scenarios on to Election 41, dubbing it Canada’s Twitter Election.

While Social Media will play a part in the remainder of the campaign, I can say with almost certainty that Election 2011 will not be ‘won’ by a Social Media Movement.

… and here’s why.

A Good Social Media Campaign is about Influence and Momentum

Anyone who has ever run a successful Social Media campaign will tell you that the returns on these campaigns are never instantaneous. A successful Social Media campaign takes time, patience and a whole lot of hard work.

The mainstream media loves to portray the big successful Social Media campaigns of the past few years as these amazing brightly coloured rockets of excitement, which shot out of nowhere to captivate our collective imaginations. Which is all find and dandy, but it’s far from the reality. Rather a well orchestrated Social Media campaign is a slow and tedious grind. But with steady persistence and a bit of luck it can be turned into an avalanche of activity and excitement at the right time.

Of course the most popular example is Barak Obama’s grassroots online campaign. Every media outlet loves to champion this as the quintessential template for a political Social Media campaign. But anyone who followed the campaign, understands that it didn’t just appear on September 1st, 2008. No, the true momentum started building during the Democratic Leadership primaries of 2007. Where excited and influential supporters (Think Oprah) started jumping on board the Obama-train. From there it quietly built it’s momentum, like a small snowball, until November 2008 when Obama was elected.

Another, more local, example is the Social Media campaign of Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi’s. For those who followed the municipal campaign for much of 2010, they’ll tell you that Nenshi’s campaign didn’t start on August 12th. Rather his campaign started gaining traction with an influential circle of supporters way back in April of 2010. It started with an innocent little Facebook page. From there it shifted gears from a small group of excited supporters to a full on political movement. The campaign quietly built a solid online foundation; picking-up casual supporters and influential champions (something which I wrote about early in the Municipal election) up until October, where Naheed was elected Mayor of Calgary.

Which brings me back to Election 41.

Don’t get me wrong, I cherish the Canadian Parliamentary system. Especially the ability of opposition parties to force a non-confidence vote on minority governments. Unfortunately, an unplanned election doesn’t provide the most conducive environment to build a powerful online movement. Successful Social Media campaigns, especially in the political realm take time and patience; something which is not available to any political organization during a spur of the moment two month campaign.

The suddenness of this election means that any real sustaining momentum or movement won’t be able to gain traction until it’s far too late.

This isn’t a Clean Slate of Choices

Using the Obama and Nenshi examples, one of the key elements in both scenarios was that it was a clean slate for the respective electorate populations. In the US, George W. Bush had finished his last term as president. Because of which, there was a fresh slate of political figures vying for the leadership of the two national parties. In the Nenshi example, we had an incumbent mayor who was stepping down after years at the helm, allowing a fresh new slate of challengers to replace him. One of the key factors in both situations, was that there was an unusual opportunity of change – an opportunity which is easy to rally a grassroots movement around and to captivate an audience.

Meanwhile in the run up to Election 41, there really isn’t the same sort of urgency or freshness to Canada’s political parties. Most of the leaders, with Michael Ignatieff as the lone oddity, have been at the helm of their respective parties for quite sometime. There is a national familiarity and sense of repetitiveness with this election and it’s showing with the underlying national feeling of apathy.

And yes, a case could be made that there is a different sort of urgency in this election. One where it is either a push for a Conservative Majority or to defend a Conservative Minority, but it’s not the same as a clean political slate. Many Canadians are already deeply entrenched in their loyalties to one party or the other. There isn’t the same level of excitement or variety during an election with already establish party leaders and a series of stale agendas.

In a clean slate political environment, there is a inherit new sense of excitement and opportunity. There is also an unusual amount of undecided voters. Maybe blame it on the attention span of the Gen X’ers, Gen Ys and The Millennial, but there really isn’t buzz or sense of newness with this election. In addition, there isn’t a bevy of undecided voters looking for a party to represent their values. So an online movement from either party is going to be hard pressed to gain any sort of traction, especially in a short two month time period.

What Does it All Mean

Now don’t get me wrong, Social Media will play a part in Election 2011. But I think it would be foolish to think that it will have as big as an impact as the mainstream media is hoping for. There are far too many situational factors working against the Social Media organizers of either party to truly cultivate any real momentum for their causes.

I’ve been watching the proceedings from the comfort of my DC apartment and from simple observations, I’m are not seeing the same sort of buzz creeping into Canadian’s online conversations. The rhetoric is there in snippets, but we are not seeing the heavy influences on either network championing a Conservative, Liberal or NDP agenda. Yes, there have been a couple of blips. For example the campaign to have Elizabeth May added to the leaders debate gained some traction and there was a bit of a ground swirl revolving around the Ignateuff-Harper debate. But overall the conversation has been quiet and subdued.

It’s because of these factors that I’m pretty confident that Social Media won’t be as big of a factor in 2011. But that’s not to say that Social Media’s influence in the political spectrum is dead. One only needs to start looking at the grassroots movements cultivating in Alberta for the upcoming provincial election in 2012 to see that it will continue to be as important as ever.

A quick peak online sees the perfect storm for Social Media to wield it’s heavy influence. You have an incumbent Premier stepping down, a growing group of fresh faced Progressive Conservative leadership candidates gaining traction and a growing wave of optimism and opportunity surrounding two upstart opposition parties – The WildRose Alliance and The Alberta Party. Who are both generating an incredible sense of buzz in their own right.

So yes, while Social Media will probably be deemed ineffective in 2011, one only needs to look to Alberta in 2012 to see its future… Or better yet wait till Election 42 if the Conservatives receive another minority and a clean slate of political leaders are brought to the table.

Categories: The-Canada-Vibe, The-Soapbox, The Political World

Polaris Music Prize 2010 Tuesday September 21, 2010

Ahh the Polaris Music Prize let me count the ways you’ve driven me nuts.

Well this years winner, from a field which included Teagan & Sara, Broken Social Scene and Caribou, is…

Karkwa For Les Chemins De Verre

Who?

Did you honestly think that the obvious choice would be the winner? It is the Polaris Music Prize after all . But instead of going into my usual rant, I am actually going to praise the Polaris Music Prize.

Or rly – Rly.

See, I’m not surprised that a Francophone record finally won. There have been a few strong Francophone records on the shortlist in the past and it was only a matter of time. So essentially, they were due. Plus, Radio Radio’s francophone rap record is pretty decent, in the same way that some of the original Len record was kinda killer for a couple of moments.

But one of the things the Polaris Music Prize is really good at is handing out exposure. We all know that Metric, Kaa’an, Hey Rosetta, Japandroids, K-OS, and Chad Vangaalen all received a strong popularity boost for losing the Polaris Music Prize. Since everyone knows that the best artists aren’t the ones that win. Most real fans of music will go to the site and go who the fuck, there’s got to be someone better and upon further inspection will find a record that knocks their socks off.

So to the Polaris Music Prize, thank you for having Shad on this year’s short list, because he’s now invigorated my music shopping habits.

Shad – We, Myself and I by The Mad Bloggers

Categories: The-Canada-Vibe, The-Music,

Random Thoughts For A Happy Canada Day. Friday July 2, 2010

Happy Canada Day kiddies… From your favorite Canadian Bloggers down south.

First This is a great article on the downfall of Las Vegas’ economy. Over the past five to six years, Las Vegas has been universally seen as one of the Golden boys of economic growth in America, but once the recession hit … all hell broke lose in Sin City.

Second – A neat little article from the Calgary Herald on the Web Sites of the mayoral and alderman candidates for this year’s civic elections in October.

Third – I won’t dwell on this, but at least our coach doesn’t eat his own… Well you’ll see.

Fourth – 25 Star Wars – De-motivational Posters... Luke Skywalker incest jokes + Motivational Posters = Win.

Fifth – To good to pass up.

Sixth – If the last video was too good to pass up, then this one is GUARANTEED FRESH!.

Spock, Kirk and the rest of the Red Shirts vs. Ke$ha.

Seventh – Holy F&ck vs. Robin Smith. Via the HoodInternet

The Hood Internet – Show Me Red Lights (Robin S. x Holy Fuck) by hoodinternet

Eighth – Even though it’s in Helevetica, I solely approve of this T-Shirt.

Categories: The-Random, The-Canada-Vibe, The Blogosphere, The Football, The Humourous, The Inane, The Music, The T-Shirts, The Twitter-verse

This Could Have Gone Really Wrong... But This Kid Is Killing It Wednesday February 24, 2010

So this will explain how nutbar the past couple of weeks have been. Anyways, I meant to post this after the Opening ceremonies last week, but it slipped my mind. So here we go.

I am not one that enjoys opening ceremonies. In my entire life, I may have sat through two possible, three opening ceremonies. So I was kinda shocked to find myself glued to the Vancouver 2010 opening ceremonies. For as much as I’m not a huge fan of Vancouver, I’ll take my prairie blue skies over the coast any day, I found the opening ceremonies captivating. They were really well done and personally, I think they were a huge moment for this country.

But one of the moments that will stick out in my memory is the one of Shane Koyczan dropping his poem We Are More. First off, I’m not a hugely patriotic Canadian, I tend to lean towards Calgary as a city and my Irish/English roots over my connection to this vast country. Secondly, I’ve seen my fair share of Slam Poetry in my live and well… Let me put it this way, it can typically go one of two ways. It can be really good, like Saul Williams or it can go horribly horribly wrong. It can be so bad that you want leave the room and duck your head under the covers because it goes that bad. So when they announced on CTV that a Slam Poet from the Yukon I almost cried. Nothing in the world could take those ceremonies from spectacular to cheesy like really bad slam poetry.

But to Shane’s credit. He not only nailed it, but he fucking killed it. Truly. It was an amazing moment and one that I oddly feel patriotic to be associated with. So for those who missed it here’s his original rendition of We Are More.

Oh Canada is right. Well done Vancouver.

Categories: The-World, The-Canada-Vibe,