Sleep Debt - Time for More Shut-Eye

At the end of this study many of these subjects reported feeling a level of clarity, and a quality of awareness, that they have never before experienced in their lives. Now what does that say about our society and the lived experience of the people living

This morning walking to work I had the opportunity to join project FU H2. I’ve been cruisin’ around flippin’ off Hummers all week but this was the first time I had quick access to my camera phone in order to document it. I sent it into the the FUH2.com website photo gallery today and will link to it once they post it.

From their website, here’s some good reasons for you to give the bird to HumVee’s and their owners too….

* The H2 is the ultimate poseur vehicle. It has the chassis of a Chevy Tahoe and a body that looks like the original Hummer; i.e. it’s a Chevy Tahoe in disguise.

* The H2 is a gas guzzler. Because it has a gross vehicle weight rating over 8500 lbs, the US government does not require it to meet federal fuel efficiency regulations. Hummer isn’t even required to publish its fuel economy (owners indicate that they get around 10 mpg for normal use). So while our brothers and sisters are off in the Middle East risking their lives to secure America’s fossil fuel future, H2 drivers are pissing away our “spoils of victory” during each trip to the grocery store.

* The H2 is a polluter. Based on G.M.’s optimistic claim that it gets13 mpg, an H2 will produce 3.4 metric tons of carbon emissions in a typical year, nearly double that of G.M.’s Chevrolet Malibu sedan.

* The H2 is a death machine. You’d better hope that you don’t collide with an H2 in your economy car. You can kiss your ass goodbye thanks to the H2’s massive weight and raised bumpers. Too bad you couldn’t afford an urban assault vehicle of your own. Or could you…?

* The H2 is a tax loophole. Under the current tax laws, business owners can deduct nearly half the cost of their H2s. If you are in the highest tax bracket, that’s a tax savings of nearly $10,000! The government rewards you more savings for buying an H2 than you’d get for buying an electric car.

Family Picture Christmas Cards

Each year I open my cards with anticipation hoping that this might be the year that I actually get a picture where the family has given up trying to get everyone perfect. Instead the shot is a depiction of what it was really like - someone running into th

Last week at Blogs N Dogs in Banff I gave several presentations including one about using blogging and web technologies specifically for indendent artists and creatives. Christina Carr was cool enough to take copius notes and post them to her blog. Thx Christina.

Blogging for the Creative Crew.

Blogs’n’dogs at The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada - an intense workshop put on by Raincity Studios in the art of telling it like it is. This event gathered experts for North America, combined with a range of participants from novice to seasoned geek, and essentially gave us a creative licence to talk to each other, effectively. It’s about conversation, and it’s an egalitarian world on the blogosphere.

As an innocent in this new democracy, and as a writer, teacher and artist, I’d like to share with you some of the most pertinent features of blogging that I discovered through our ‘Blogging for creative people’ session, run by Kris Krug.

Reasons why you, as a creative person, will need to explore the bloggosphere are pretty obvious once you consider that this is where you can:

1. get feedback for your stuff - after all, you want to be able to gage the public response to what it is you’re putting out there; whether you let it impact your work or not, you need to know the score.
2. connect with ‘fans’ - the people who like your stuff will want to talk to you, and you will want to listen, especially if you’ve got something to sell.
3. set up an online store to start trading - whether it be photography, jewellery design, a portraiture service or doggie accessories, you need to set up a PayPal account and a CafePress account.
4. establish yourself as a presence - build your discussion with information about and around your area of expertise - the aura of photography compared to painting; minimalism in the 21st century; the impact of music for increasing brainwave activity (or the opposite).

Apart from the obvious benefits of blogging yourself a network of business contacts, ‘lest us forget’ that blogging is a conversation that adds the greatest value to you and your talk-fest jamboree as a creative interaction, and then in regards to your stuff as a commodity. Blogging is about a-u-t-h-e-n-t-i-c-i-t-y. Otherwise, it’s no better than bogus PR collateral you get in the snail mail telling you that you’re the lucky winner of some advertising executive’s tired brainspark, and that he’s gonna put you in the draw to win a million, “so call us to find out about this amazing opportunity”.

Getting with the program - approaching the blog

A blog is not a website, but often makes a good component of one, or it can run its own ring. The main difference being that a website is a professional face, while a blog is the conversational part of it - a blog is the human face as opposed to the ’suit’.

The best way to get a handle on blogging is to follow the ‘program’ that  Kris Krug, our ‘Blogging for creative people’ guru, advises. Week 1 - read as many blogs as you can. Week 2 - set up your own blog, but just for now, concentrate on commenting to other people’s blogs. Week 3 - start blogging.

Blogging is like keeping a public diary. Every post is archived, somewhere, in the ether, despite that ‘delete’ command you’ve been relying on to rewrite history. So firstly, never blog anything in anger (unless you aspire to the reputation of Jerry Springer or his guests). But, like Jerry Springer, the most successful blogs are contraversial so don’t spit it out just to be nasty, remember authenticity? Try telling it like it is, from the heart. Secondly, try and use the permanent diary type fact to your benefit - use it to capture where you were and how you’ve changed over the years of chatter splatter, and how your community has responded. This is a really exciting feature! It’s gold. It’s about you as a personality, not as a business name, and your writing style needs to say as much.

Don’t hog the blog - let other people help you out so that you’re not having to do everything - design, copy, sales, yourself. You may be a great photographer but you might just be crap at stringing those ‘personality’ words together so please, let that silver-tongued friend of yours help you write up your intro to get the conversation started, and make sure you pay him.

“So, what’s you’re strategy?” Experts at Blogs’n’dogs agree that you should attempt your blog with a child-like quality that allows you to experiment - start if off, let it grow and see what shape it takes on. Allow it to breathe and to be organic rather than planning it out. A better question might be, “So, what d’you want to discuss?”

Getting your blog in the game - exercising the blog

How you discuss is very interesting. In a blog, each post you enter will index separately using keywords, such as ‘photography’ or ‘biography’ (keywords are automatically identified by search engines). This means that your blog entry will be weighted according to how you structure the keywords in your text. So, for example, a keyword in the title might weigh 50%; a keyword in the sub-heading might result in 30%; and in the paragraphs, it might get you 20%.

The better you work out your indexing, the higher up on the list of Google, for example, your blog will rate when someone punches in one of those keywords for a search. So, write your blog with indexing in mind. Include keywords in your title where you can. And, when you have some information to add to the blog you already posted yesterday, post a follow up blog so that Google counts this as a separate entry and rates you higher on its searchability.

You need to investigate what words are driving the search for your site so you know how to pitch the words you use in your content. You also want to fnd out who your audience is, and where they are, geographically, especially if you plan on posting delicate artworks across the globe. A really useful site for gathering facts about your audience is statcounter.com You will also want to buy your domain name to secure your online identity.

Don’t stop talking - maintaining the blog 

Following up on the conversation is one of the most relevant things you can do in managing your blog space. After all, we hate it when our friends forget to call us back - this is no different. People will want to join your community and if you snub them, they’ll drop you like the arrogant schmuck that you are. This community may then start it’s own conversation without you, and you won’t know what’s going on unless you make it a priority to find out.

Depending on how focused you are on business, being incommunicado could also mean a breakdown at a busy intersection where you stand to lose a lot of traffick and discover that your fans have decided to make a detour to another writer, musician, artist /photographer’s camp, with their PayPal order.

Your blog is the perfect space to learn about what your community is interested in, and what it wants in terms of the creative clout you have to offer. Keep talking - start a survey, do some market research, but be up front about it.

Artist profile - Kris Krug

Now you may want to think about how you conduct business - do you want to share your stuff for free, to get exposure, or do you want to establish a pricing niche straight off? Some photographers for example prefer the Creative Commons approach of free art over the web to help build their folio and following, and rely on that exposure to secure worthwhile jobs. This is the approach adopted by Kris Krug. Here’s his 7 step story to developing his photographic business, and the community that supports it:

1. Bought a camera
2. Got a flickr account
3. Formed a blogging community
4. Met up in actual space with his community
5. Created a business
6. Positioned the business online
7. Used contacts to set up an actual exhibition space

Blogging doesn’t make you a nerd, unless you are one already. It’s an exciting way to connect and explore, and as you can see from the 7 step story above, it can only help you transfer the conversation from the wireless realm of inside workstations to the sensory world out there. Blog on.

The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005

So in spirit of the holidays, here is a list of some of the best Web 2.0 software that I’ve come across so far. You may have heard of some of these, but hopefully you’ll find a few nice new Christmas presents under your Web 2.0 tree.

Moving On - Some words that I would love to see retired from my existence for quite some time:

If you want to impress me, here are some buzzwords you can try out: “context-free grammar,” “naked women,” “python,” and “can I get you a beer?”

Recovering from Blog-Verload

Yes! I just coined a new blog word. Or did I? Let’s see, a quick Technorati search should be able to determine that… Technorati says: There are no English posts about: blog-verload (or blogverload, for that matter) Done and done. I’m the first.

Blogging for the creative crew

As an innocent in this new democracy, and as a writer, teacher and artist, I’d like to share with you some of the most pertinent features of blogging that I discovered through our ‘Blogging for creative people’ session, run by Kris Krug.

Bold predictions for the savvy designer, 2006 edition

“that Fisher Price look”: “Big buttons, big text, big everything. Yes, it definitely has its place at times. But I wonder if we belittle users with visuals that implicitly say, ‘Hey, you’re too foolish to choose what to do next, so I’ve put a

Web Design and Development Trends for 2006

Designs will soften, with more rounded corners, pastel colours and hinted boxes.” and “2006 is going to see Ruby on Rails development take off in a big way.

Last night we got together and did some podcasting at the pub here in Banff. It was a great time… 20+ people from the confernce showed up, and in the end we ended up with 3 solid podcasts.

Download Podcast 001

Zen. Yoga. Spirituality.

Sarah Pullman, Len Edgerly, Val Gregory, and Nick Erly chat about how they maintain their focus and sanity in our fast paced, techno schizophrenic, modern wired lives.

Read Sarah’s post on the whole experience.

Download Podcast 002

Lee Lefever, Satchi Lefever, Travis Smith and Monique Trottier discuss technology and travel at the pub here in Banff @ Blogs N Dogs.

Download Podcast 003

The third and final podcast of the evening… check out Robert Scales, Will Pate, Hal Josephson, and Eric Rice in an America versus Canada battle royale.

Canada.com Redesigns Without RSS Feeds

Canada.com recently launched a long-overdue redesign of their website. I’ll let you decide what you think on your own, but I find it way too busy, deeply unusable and just plain ugly. As somebody recently remarked, they went from looking like an early-n

Things I Didn’t Know Before Yesterday

A number of people asked me yesterday what I learned at the conference, and I had a hard time answering, not because I didn’t learn anything but because the things I learned were a bunch of small things rather than one large thing.

Why We Love JPG Magazine: Photography is Not a Crime

We are not terrorists. We are not dangerous. And we are certainly not a threat. For Issue 5, we’re asking you to go out in public and take photos. Insist on your rights as a photographer. Shoot where people tell you not to. Talk to people about why you’re

The Dogs Part of the Equation

So, perhaps you were wondering why this geek conference I’m at was called Blogs N Dogs? Well, wonder no longer because I’m here to tell you that today I went dogsledding with my fellow geeks. And jaysus murphy was it ever cold.

Robert Scales pointed out that the ‘kriskrug‘ and the ‘kk‘ tags on Flickr both made the most popular list today. *blush*

My business partner, Rhonda Fast, is having a photography show at the Wicked Cafe in Vancouver. It’s a part of a 12 month series we’re running featuring emerging Vancouver photographers and Rhonda is the 3rd artist to exhibit. Her show is titled “Strike”. The idea behind minimalist art is that it lacks concept, focusing on geometric shape, monochromatic color palettes and anonymity of style. That’s where the journey for “Strike” began. However, as will happen, it evolved, concept started to develop and location became of utmost importance. Strike is a new look at the commonplace; a twist on the mundane of an iconic pastime. An exploration in minimalism with concept. The show will run for about a month and we’d love for you to join us at the opening on December 16th @ 7pm.

Wicked Cafe
7th & Hemlock
Vancouver, BC

Greetings from Banff

Right now in Kris Krug’s room there are 7 people, 8 computers and quite inexplicably, a double turntable with a mixer. This is going to be fun. We just got into Banff this afternoon and the mountains are big and the temps are low, like single digits.

Welcome to BlogsnDogs

The faculty and their guests are almost all here and Robert Scales confirms that yes, we are all geeking out. In proper journalistic form, Travis Smith has some numbers on the run up.

The Quest to Acheive Buzzword Compliancy

…will I really have to start referring to things like my DLA? Or my PSP? In the middle of sentences as if everyone knows what I’m talking about? (Which they would, here at Blogs N Dogs.)