Generation gaps in blogging

The simple matter of fact is that some people get blogging and others don’t. When you start point the finger at generation gaps, that gets even more sticky.

This comes in reference to a series of posts that Arpit Jacob wrote about in this post.

Check this post here by the so called usability Guru Jakob Nielsen on his website (I refuse to call it a blog, if you can’t comment then its not a blog) were he is typically saying blogging sucks. Lately he’s either been out of touch or he is getting too old. My dad can’t understand what a blog is or why I spend so much time after coming back home from work even though I am tired. My mom once saw my Orkut profile and she asked me if it was my Website. I think Jakob Nielsen belongs to the same generation. Sure he was once a respected usability guru. But if he writes any more silly articles like the one above I might have to label him an old Grandpa. [clazh]

I can say first hand that some of this is true. It’s tough for some people to grasp on to new techniques or methods while holding on to the roots that have been instilled via education and experience. Even though one person can stand to gain so much with the world literally at their doorstep, there is hesitation to step out of what is known. You can only spend so much time learning new things as well, but here is where folks like us, in the trenches, come in to help out.

Blogging gets a bad rap because it being so equated to spilling our personal guts out onto the Internet. While some of that is true for some, it’s far from that for others. It’s a presentation of what you want out there, professional, personal, hobbies, sports related, cat related, etc. It’s whatever you want it to be.

Still, helping anyone see the light in all the tools that are out there is tough. I’m fortunate to have a family that understands some of this, but there are some days that you want to pull your hair out when it comes to others, especially when it’s a fresh college graduate who equates blogging to email. Eh… What can you do?

What I would like to see from the NHL

Going back to my post about attending the state of the Canucks franchise with J.J., I thought I would hit a few points that stuck out to me. More so, it’s something that a lot of hockey minded folks, from broadcasters to fans, have been talking about. It was the opening panel that inspires me to mention a few of the following topics.

Getting set for the panel discussion

I can’t remember who said it, but the basic jest was that we, the fans, need to speak up about what we want from the things we enjoy and love. Truly, that can go for anything you follow, sports related or not, and the truth is that fans make things like the NHL exist.

Speaking of a lack of fans making things not exist, look at the Nashville Predators. Great team, horrible fan base, and a relocation of the franchise is constant soap opera. There are about four locations being tossed around: Las Vegas, NV, Kansas City, MO, Hamilton, ON, and Winnipeg, MB. Basically, the southwest desert, midwest U.S., hockey saturated Ontario, and a return of the NHL to the Canadian prairie.

I’ve stated my feelings about KC before, even though that was about the Penguins who are staying in Pittsburgh, and I still stand by what I said. However, I will add that if the Predators are going to relocate within the U.S., then it should be to KC, not Las Vegas. Another Canadian team is something I am all in support of, but not in Ontario. Return it to Winnipeg where people are hockey lovers, and it’s a well known fact that all the Canadian teams in the NHL are making a large bulk of profits for the entire league. It just makes better business sense to move the team where hockey is loved and will make a hell of a lot more money than the desert.

If you move a team to Las Vegas, you’ll have to spend a lot of marketing dollars on teaching fans that the team exists on top of teaching the game. At least if you move the team to Kansas City, the team will be closer to the 49th parallel where hockey is more prevalent. Another team in the desert, where there is never enough ice to even skate on, is a ridiculous move.

Speaking of ridiculous, kill the television contract with Versus. Nuke it. Rip it up. There are way too many people who have a hard enough time getting NHL coverage in the U.S. with the way it stands, so something needs to change. There are those who can’t even get the network, so why would you invest in something that has lackluster exposure?

A little side note, but an interesting one, the annual Iowa vs. Iowa State football game will be on Versus this year, opposed to one of the major broadcast networks or ESPN. That even has a few people asking questions about what a Versus actually is. Being the good Hawkeye fan that I am, that article made me laugh as well as sad.

Anyway, I have liked the NBC deal thus far, and it’s even better with Brett Hull leaving to take a job with the Dallas Stars. I don’t like them leaving a game early because a game runs long, especially for a horse race that has one hour pre-show for a two minute event. I can’t think of a better way to turn off a new fan who discovers hockey in the midst of the Stanley Cup playoffs, much like I did in my early teens.

Lastly (because I know you’re listening, NHL), take a long, hard look at what the New York Islanders are doing with allowing bloggers access to their franchise. Not only am I a huge fan of this, but this is a remarkable step in allowing those who love their team to report on their team. It’s true that this has its good and bad qualities to it, but there is a lot of difference between sports reporting (i.e. radio or newspaper) and sports blogging.

Canucks Open Practice
Recording a podcast episode of The Crazy Canucks from the press box in GM Place.
(Photo credit: Miss604 on Flickr)

In blogging, and podcasting for that matter, we brew a community. We have comments, interaction, and other people blog what someone else blogs about. It’s a world wide conversation, and we’re talking hockey on a scale that is much different than what sports reporters do in press or behind the desk or mic. We’re not bound by deadlines or schedules, but there is precedence on being honest about what you love, which is your hockey team. True that this can be biased, but people write what they are passionate about. That’s blogging, and they post views about the team they are the fans of, expanding and strengthening the team and league around the world.

The NHL should make more of an effort to expand this concept throughout the league. Want examples of how much blogging benefits a team like the Canucks? Check out J.J., Alanah, or Zanstorm. They are fans, but they offer news, viewpoints, and a unique voice that speak to people more than a sports reporter might. At least I know that I can count on all of those folks to translate league news into something I can readily understand.

Those are the big issues for me right now, and I know that there are more that will creep up later. I’ll try to post about them when I think of them. If you have something to say, then post it in the comments. Better yet, get your voice out there, too. Who knows if we can change anything in the end, but speaking up is a start.

Trying to make money off John Chow

I am constantly amazed by John Chow. He’s a making-money-online mad man. As much as I would love to make as much money as he does off his blog, I am far from obtaining the success that he has.

One thing that the guy does is give away free things on his site every so often, and he has something that I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on. Consider this my formal entry.

John Chow dot Com, a blog that helps you make money is giving away a 24″ wide screen LCD monitor! To enter, you just have to write about it. This is my entry. Now give me the monitor! The contest is sponsored by BluFur, who wants to let you know that they’re hosting Canada and the rest of the world.

I think that making this post is all I have to do to get my name put into the hat. 🙂

Making and keeping friends with blogging

I’m trying to fulfill a bit of a promise to my buddy Andy about the things I have learned from blogging. I think that anyone who does blog learns something, and that all makes us a slice of an expert in whatever it is that we are launching out into the world of the Internet. That can be kinda scary because it is the whole world, and there are moments that, when you get into the depths of blogging, you need to take a step back and examine where you are with this whole thing.

Stats: The Forbidden Love 3 I guess this comes from looking at the total number of posts that I have made last night, and it surprised me.

After 3.5 years and 66 entries ago, I passed the 1000 post mark.

No need to bust out the champagne or give me any pats on the back, but the significance is worth noting. When I did start blogging in January 2004, I kept things pretty low profile. For a few years before that, I journaled by hand, and a college course in nonfiction writing gave me some inspiration for wanting to do more of something I’ve found to enjoy. Not saying I was or am great at it, but it was the kick starter for developing my own style and voice for what I wanted to my writing outlets to become.

My family picked up on the blog first, and after moving to Vancouver, it’s a great way for them to keep tabs on my adventures, not to mention the same thing about some of my friends. However, not all of them are as tech savvy or hip to the whole social media/networking/web2.0 thing.

Down the Hatch
Photo credit: duanestorey on Flickr

Then there is that fact that I moved to Vancouver and knew only Rebecca. There’s a handful of other people that I knew through her and are still good friends with, but making new ties would be a lot tougher if it wasn’t for blogging. In fact, blogging is what led to the camping trip from the past weekend, and that is a real unique thing in my mind.

I equate it to my first year in college because I got stuck in temporary housing for almost the whole fall semester, living in a dorm lounge with six other guys. The awkwardness wore off in a few weeks, and pretty soon you all start hanging out together, taking road trips, and being good pals (of which we all stay in contact, for the most part).

Canucks Open Practice
Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Blogging, for me, has turned into that, but on a much different level. I have been able to meet some really great people and develop friendships that are building into a community like I have never experienced before. We all do our own thing, and when you actually meetup, you already have something to talk about and expand the back story on. In turn, those experiences can lead to more material to write about later. It’s an intriguing circle, if not tons of fun.

When I think about it, I hate the idea of defining what we do as blogging as much as it is actual writing. Those who write for a living, in the literal sense, will disagree, but there is merit to the things we post about. It might not get published in a hard cover book or The New Yorker, but there are things that we say and do that can affect the world, even if it is just one person, on a variety of levels. Within that, you breed a community that establishes a variety of friendships.

DemoCamp Vancouver
Photo credit: miss604 on Flickr

Whether it’s tech, podcasting, hockey, tv, movies, or whatever, the things I write about allow me to share my thoughts, opinions, and loves. Then, I’m able to become apart of so many communities and make some really amazing friendships.

Two screens are better than one

My dad had an epiphany while he was visiting us in Vancouver back in April. Instead of one really huge monitor, you can get a lot more out of having two. When I told him about having three, I think that kinda blew his mind.

Chris Pirillo, who apparently I am a lookalike of, posted about this today, so I sent it on to Dad. He replies, “I already have one.”

Dad’s Duel Monitor Setup

“There is no way I’ll go back to the single monitor on my work setup. It is too nice; too productive; too fun; and a new world all together.”

Designing electronics like he does, it makes a whole lot of sense, eh?

Jeff Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997)

I was going to let my last post about Jeff Buckley ride, but there has been a little bit of commenting on that post to make me do a little bit of a quick update.

It was today in 1997, Jeff Buckley passed away.

On May 29, 1997, as the band’s plane touched down on the runway to join him in his Memphis studio, Buckley went swimming in Wolf River Harbor, a tributary of the Mississippi River, while wearing steel-toed boots, all of his clothing, and singing along to a radio playing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. A roadie of Buckley’s band, Keith Foti, remained ashore. After moving the radio and a guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, Foti looked up to see that Buckley was gone. Despite a determined rescue effort that night, Buckley remained missing, and the search was called off the following day due to heavy rain. One week later his body was spotted by a tourist on a riverboat marina and was brought ashore. [wikipedia]

A new album has been released, as of today, featuring some best of studio tracks as well as recordings of certain live performances.

The recognition of his brief time in rock and roll history is getting a lot more attention from fans than I expected, but it’s not too surprising. Amar Bakshi for the Washington Post left a comment about an interview he did with British singer Karima Francis, and it’s worth checking out the effect that Buckley is still having on musicians, ten years after the fact. NPR has a nice story about him as well.

I want to do more and explain why I’ve come to appreciate his music like I do, but the fact is that we don’t have much to go on. As he was rising up as an artist, the world lost an incredible talent. We’ll never know how good it could have been. When I go back to the small catalog that is, it makes you wonder. Plus, there are only so many people who can cover “Lilac Wine” and do it well, especially when you consider that Nina Simone did the same.

Mentioned in the Tyee

Matthew Good made a guest contribution to the Tyee today and mentioned Rebecca as being one of his top five, favorite blogs that he reads. As cool as that is, I also got mentioned and linked in the post, riding on the coattails that is Miss604. Of course, I say that sarcastically, but if you read both of our respective blogs, I’m just as much of a fan of hers as you are. 😉

Very cool stuff and many thanks to Mr. Good for the link love.

Response from students who opposed a U.K. rock show

Awhile back, I made a post about how I couldn’t believe that students at a small college in the U.K. protested against a rock show by the band Clinic so they could focus on their studies instead. You can read my post and get more background information here.

The beauty of the internet is that someone who was actually there found my post and left a comment on it, four months after the whole ordeal. Additionally, “Sue” was one of those students who opposed the show and gave her account of what happened and why. I find this incredibly fascinating that I’m posting her comment here to make an update to my previous post in this topic.

This is such an old story if feels odd posting a comment, but I only came across all the internet ranting on the issue today. I was one of the students that protested about the gig, to be honest we were told it had moved venue and thought nothing more of the matter. However now I feel that I should set the record straight(although probably no-one will even read this).

The gig that was to “last a couple of hours” demanded that we destroy our sculptures in order to move out of the performance space; our studios. We were given one weeks notice. A couple of weeks after the scheduled gig we had a very important assessment that lead directly into our degree show. After three years of studying our result is determined by the degree show. This assesment was CRUCIAL. However we were told to remove everything from the studio(which demanded destroying many of the works). We would have less than 1 week to build new work before our 3 year degree began to be assessed on the basis on what was being presented.

Also in response to the endless record company lies, It wasn’t the first gig to be played there since the sex pistol. A year prior to the clinic scheduled gig a big promotional gig with the paddingtons had happened to mark the 30th anniversary of the sex pistol’s first gig. Central Saint Martins has used this fact to establish itself as a venue to whore band, making false connection with rock’s history, to create artifical connections between the music industry and art students, when infact its just the old money making men pushing promotional bullshit. It was a disguting act of record label PR/branding. Yuk!!!

And finally, not to be rude but St Martins is not a “small” school, it is internationally reknowned for its on going contribution to our creative environment. Its just a shame that the reality of this reputation (you see really the sex pistols played for 5 minutes before college heads unplugged them and chucked them out)is perpetuated by vulgar marketing, where the dean ignores his students in order to contrive PR stunts with money hungry record companies.

Thanks for the clarification, and I certainly stand corrected on the details. I am very much against having anything destroyed when it comes to art, so you officially have my support, Sue. This shows a real beauty in the reach that blogging has, and your comment certainly reached me.

Blogging code of conduct

I’ve heard this term being tossed around in light of the Kathy Sierra situation. For those not in the know, trackback to what Scoble wrote about taking the week off because of the personal attacks towards his wife and the effects of threats on Sierra has had on him. That saves me time explaining it, but the basic lowdown is that bloggers are finding themselves in the line of fire. Thus, a “blogging code of conduct” has been mentioned to help the situation.

To me, this already exist, but on a very unspoken level. There are some things that you do and don’t do if you want your online presence to be respectable. For some, having that level of respect is the last thing they want, and this is not about respect in terms of popularity. It’s about not being an ass, plain and simple.

Death threats, defamation, slander, and everything else negative that is going on in relation to the already mentioned situation is simple human behavior. It’s an elementary school playground.
Continue reading “Blogging code of conduct”

Blog: Ikea Hacker

Ikea HackerI showed this to Rebecca this morning before she left for work, and she asked me where I had discovered Ikea Hacker. For the life of me, I cannot remember. I’ve been reading it for the past few months, enjoying the neat creations that people have cobbled together to make there own breed of Swedish furniture. It’s something I am really curious about doing myself, but even I scare myself with the possible monstrosities I could create.

It was this recent post that came through to me this morning that really peaked my love for this blog. Take an Ikea desk, computers, throw some cable management at it, and holy crap is my mind full of ideas now. That’s the brilliance of this site. My courage is getting stronger to try something crazy myself.

True that some of the posts are nothing spectacular, but I can always use some sources of inspiration to get me going again. The desktop PC of Rebecca’s sits on this little Ikea workstation that we got from some of our good friends. They were pretty impressed when I mounted our network router underneath the bottom shelf with some twist-ties. Now I have all sorts of ideas. Just need more ties.