Even if we are, as he says, tired of hearing about this hour after hour, Michael Enright’s take on this week’s Ghomeshi revelations is worth a listen. Comforting to still have his perspective after all this.
Over this past week I’ve noticed a new trend really catching on: the Twitter essay.
Twitter essays (or “tweet storms”) have been around for quite a while, enough so that in May we had Buzzfeed rallying against the practice and Fred Wilson pontificating on what it accomplished. But it was the must-read takes on this week’s big Canadian story from Jeet Heer (example) that I think made the Twitter essay take off in my own network. Now I’m seeing the Twitter essay everywhere, and I’m not alone:
I go on twitter and see that everyone is doing numbered essays. I then realize I’m history’s greatest monster. That’s going to happen soon
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 2, 2014
I do think there is a certain appeal to the Twitter essay, many of which were captured by Wilson in his own experiment. To me, these are the key things that make a Twitter essay better than a blog post:
1. It is more visible. All someone needs to do is see one of the tweets from your thread in order for them to be drawn into the whole thing. If they miss numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 but capture 5 and are interested in it, they’ll easily be able to see the rest.
2. It is more shareable. A number of website have been playing with ways to make individual sentences easier to Tweet- some even have suggested tweets as pullquotes. But if every single portion of your writing is a Tweet, it’s already broken into its component, shareable parts.
3. It is happening in real time. This is something Wilson captured that I would not have thought of on my own. If you manage to catch a tweet storm in progress it is more exciting because you don’t know what is going to come next. You stick around. It’s actually closer to listening to live radio than anything I’ve seen on the internet.
Add those three things to the low stakes of only having to write 140 characters at a time and the low access to entry, and the Twitter essay’s appeal is clear.
So I was thinking about this throughout the week, and then yesterday I noticed a whole other trend: the middling blog post. The whole discussion apparently started with Andy Baio who suggested that between Twitter for short thoughts and Medium for long ones, the middling-length thought is being squeezed out. He was joined by Gina Trapani, Jason Snell, and Marco Arment, among others, who, generally speaking, thought something was being lost in this process.
Summarizing their thoughts and my own, there’s a permanence that the blog post has that the Twitter essay doesn’t have, and there’s value in capturing those middle-length thoughts in the same way that longer ones are. I should point out the difficulty I had finding the beginning of Jeet Heer’s essays that are less than a week old, so I can only imagine how tough it will be a year from now. By contrast, finding links to all those blog posts took almost no time at all.
Which isn’t to say any one way is right or wrong, they are just different with their own strengths or weaknesses. I think what I’m going to be doing is writing where it feels natural but then thinking about whether I want that preserved. I already did that twice this week, when a Twitter essay and a Facebook post were turned into blogs after I realized they meant more to me than something that would be lost to some other social network. If you are a prolific writer in other platforms I would encourage you to do the same.
Addendum: Interestingly, as I tweeted this out, Heer Jeet was in the process of yet another Twitter essay, one that started with him explaining why he chooses the format.
“2b My twitter essays are essays in the original French meaning of the term: attempts, exercises in thinking out loud, provisional thoughts” #
“2c I’ve more than once changed my mind or the direction of my thought mid-stream in a twitter essay based on someone’s comments.” #
“2d It’s precisely because I respond to peoples comments while thinking out loud I use twitter essay format & not blogging or something else” #
So there we are.
I’ve had a draft blog post sitting around for a long time about feminism. It’s not really well written, more just a bunch of disparate thoughts. It starts with how I’ve always believed men and women to be equal in the sense that there is nothing men can do that women can’t and that women shouldn’t be treated differently because they are women.
It then goes on to explain that what I didn’t realize is that just because I believed that, and the school system and my parents and most forms of media all said that, it doesn’t mean that’s the way things actually are. It’s only been recently that I’ve become more aware of the fact that even though lots of people will speak about the importance of equality- and, crucially, believe in the importance of equality- that doesn’t prevent us from living in a system and society that is in many ways inherently unequal, often at the expense of women, and often unseen and unnoticed.
Anyway, I’ve had a draft of that sitting around and I’ve never gotten around to fleshing it out and publishing it, in part because it kind of feels like who cares? People have been noticing this stuff for years and writing about it and articulating in ways far more powerfully than I ever could. I am a straight white dude who only recently has moved beyond the basic “yeah, women are equal to men, of course” to “oh wow there sure are a lot of ways men and women aren’t equal still geez this is heavy stuff.”
So over the course of the last year or so as we’ve been seeing countless discussions about #YesAllWomen and #AmINext and #BeenRapedNeverReported I’ve chosen to be an observer and learner. Trying to jump in while these discussions were happening always felt to me like I would be like “Hey there I’m a man and although I’ve never had to go through anything as difficult as what you have I have feelings about it too!” which is, in my mind, not a particularly helpful thing to do. ((Please note that I have seen a number of men jump in and add useful points to the conversation and increased my own learning. I don’t automatically want to dismiss anyone who does feel like speaking on these issues, I just want to explain how I personally would feel about jumping in.))
That continues to be the case, but I’m starting to think there might be something to be gained from identifying myself as a feminist. Please understand I am not trying to do this for internet points, or likes, or retweets or favourites or kudos of any sort because in my mind all I’m doing is saying ‘people should be equal and there are still lots of things that prevent that from happening, and lots of those things affect women on an individual level more than they do men’ and you know what? I don’t deserve a cookie for that.
The only reason I’m doing this is in the hope that, I dunno, it makes it even the tiniest bit easier for a woman in my life to talk to me about a problem she’s experienced or the slightest bit more likely that another guy who hasn’t explored these issues will think about maybe exploring them. I don’t know if that will actually happen but if it does, all the better.
Anyway, like I said there are other people with far more powerful things to say on this subject, so here are some of them that I’ve managed to bookmark properly:
Back in 2010, when I had a college radio show, I made an episode consisting entirely of songs with “ghost” in the title. Somehow it actually wound up being a pretty good mix, and I like to listen to it every Hallowe’en. Anyways, here’s a version without any vocals from me and the addition of a key track that wasn’t there the first (“Ghost Town” by the Specials). Enjoy.
download | rdio
Tracklist:
“The Ghost Inside” by Broken Bells
“Walking With A Ghost” by Tegan and Sara
“The Ghost of You Lingers” by Spoon
“Ghosts of the Future” by Green Go
“Ghost Town” by the Bicycles
“Ghost Town” by the Specials
“Ghostwriter” by RJD2
“Ghost Train” by the Gorillaz
“Hunting Ghosts” by the Library Voices
“The Ghost of Genova Heights” by Stars
“Friendly Ghost” by Harlem
“Every Ghost I Know” by Wisconsin Dream Guitar
“Ghosting” by Mother Mother
“Ghost of a Chance” by Ron Sexsmith
“Tuff Ghost” by the Unicorns
“Moar Ghosts N Stuff” by Deadmau5
“Weighty Ghost” by Wintersleep
This is an update to a post I wrote days ago, as the news that CBC Radio and Jian Ghomeshi were parting ways was first breaking. Much has changed since them.
I am leaving what I wrote there as it was when we didn’t have the information we have now. This story has developed fast, and in ways I wouldn’t have dared to believe.
At this point the Prince George event has been cancelled. More is coming out seemingly by the hour. I echo the sentiments of Mike Finnerty at Dayreak Montreal who Tweeted earlier “Stunned, shocked, betrayed. These are tough days at CBC Radio.”
I agree.
By now, I’ve heard the interview, with the promise of another to come. What little hope that this might somehow just go away has dissipated.
I learned from Jian. I only met him a couple of times, less than five minutes each, but like many I was a listener. As I wrote before, the first time my name was heard on CBC airwaves came when a letter I wrote to his old show, 50 Tracks, was read by him on air. When I became a host on my own regional show, his voice was one of a handful I studied. His interview technique was one I admired most.
How do you reconcile that?
As a part of this organization, his success felt like my success. His glow radiated outwards across the country. When that glow turns darker, it’s hard not to feel like a part of that, as well.
I recognize the effect this information is having on me is minimal compared to the effect on the (yes, alleged, yes, mostly anonymous) women who learned all this first-hand, in ways unimaginable to me. I recognize how I feel pales in comparison to how they (yes, allegedly) must have felt. On As It Happens one of the woman describes how she had to turn off her radio every time his voice came on.
Radio is an intimate medium. When you are given that platform, it is a privilege to address an audience every day. You are asking for their trust- that they will come with you, share your perspective, learn from you, and when it’s all done, come back again tomorrow.
I keep wanting to write about how I feel betrayed. Betrayed as a listener and betrayed as a fellow broadcaster. I guess to an extent I’m doing that now.
There’s more I want to say, about the loss I feel over losing a once trusted voice, my empathy for the people tasked with moving Q forward amidst all of this, about how terribly terribly tragic it would be to lose any of my female colleagues to the fear and misunderstanding that still surrounds claims of sexual abuse and harassment.
But I have a show to make. It’s not as big and it’s not as high-profile and it will never have anywhere near the number of listeners Q does. But it has an audience, and I feel an obligation to that audience. To be a source of pride. A source of trust.
To quote one of the people still making Q happen on a daily basis.
“We move forward.”
Update, October 29, 10 pm. Much has changed.
What follows is a record of what was written before we knew what we know now.
I woke up this morning to this statement in my inbox and a number of Tweets and Facebook posts announcing that Jian Ghomeshi and CBC have parted ways.
At this point I want to make something clear: I am writing this as Andrew, the guy who works for CBC, not the CBC, or as an official spokesperson for CBC , or anything like that. I am finding this out the same way everyone else is – via Tweets, reporters, and statements. I don’t know anything that isn’t publicly available. And I’m not speaking for anyone but myself.
That said, I’m writing this because I do work for CBC in Prince George, and Jian Ghomeshi is/was scheduled to come speak here in November and there is also a campaign to bring Q to Prince George this coming February. So there are questions being asked around those things and I can say what I know which, be forewarned, isn’t much.
Update: yes, I’ve seen the Facebook post. So now I know that version/side. But I can’t conclude the guilt or innocence of anyone without more than this. I simply don’t have enough information to conclude who, if anyone, is in the wrong here. I am not close enough to anything to make any definitive conclusions. I’m aware of the conversations and context around the way women are treated and often dismissed in these cases. I am not ruling that out. I’m not ruling out any other possibilities, either. I simply don’t know. But I am having a tough time imagining a conclusion where all involved look good, and I feel good about all involved. I just feel sad about the whole thing.
Why is Jian leaving CBC?
The only official statement I have is the screenshot above from CBC’s internal communications. That same statement appears on the CBC story about the departure, which has now been updated to include the bit about Jian suing for $50 million. The same information appears on the Globe and Mail and elsewhere. I will note that there is also a line in the notice of court action that Ghomeshi will “commence grievance for reinstatement under the CBC’s collective agreement.” So the door is there for him to return, but your guess is as good as mine as to whether that will happen.
Update: Jian Ghomeshi made a statement on Facebook saying he was fired for private, consensual sexual acts that turned into a campaign of false allegations. Again, I’ve no clue as to how much of this is true or untrue or what. Just the statement.
Is Jian coming to Prince George in November?
Jian Ghomeshi was originally scheduled to come speak in Prince George at the end of September. That was rescheduled because of his father’s health issues, which resulted in his recent passing. The new date chosen was November 7.
This appearance was independent of Ghomeshi’s role with CBC. It is being organized by the Prince George Citizen and Ghomeshi’s role with the National Speakers Bureau. I’ve asked the Citizen for any updates they have, but this whole thing is developing, and I’m sure they only have a slightly better idea than I do at this point.
Update: I’ve been told there have been no changes to the plans as of yet.
This was prior to Jian’s Facebook post, which may or may not affect anything. Another update, post-Facebook: the editor of the Citizen says “we haven’t heard from @jianghomeshi or his agent so @PGCitizen believes he will honour his nov.7 speaking engagement in #cityofPG”
Will Q come to Prince George?
Concurrent with Ghomeshi coming as a speaker, there has been a campaign underway to have his radio program Q record an episode in Prince George sometime in 2014.
The status of that was positive – Ghomeshi and his producers were aware of the campaign, had positive things to say about it, and were looking into the logistics.
Obviously, Q and Jian Ghomeshi are one and the same in many people’s minds, mine included. So when the campaign was to bring Q to Prince George the thinking was it would be Q with Jian Ghomeshi coming to Prince George. But it looks as though Q with Jian Ghomeshi may be a thing of the past.
For now, CBC has said Q will continue with guest hosts. How that would affect their decision to come to Prince George or not, I don’t know. I can only imagine how difficult it would be trying to organize the logistics of the next week of Q right now, let alone their travel schedule for the next year.
My personal thoughts
The first time my name was ever on CBC was when Jian read my letter in support of the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive” on the series 50 Tracks back in 2004. I was a first year university student and this was the first CBC show I had listened to with any regularity. After it came on, I got phone calls and messages from family and friends in other places that had heard it. I experienced first-hand the power a national broadcaster has to unite people across the country, even if it’s over something as simple as a pop song.
That show and that experience was one of my gateways into the world of CBC. The influence Jian’s had on both on my own career and on CBC in general is immeasurable. When I was an announcer, he was one of about three or four people who’s delivery I analyzed to try and develop my best possible radio voice. I once jokingly wrote a list of things people ask you when they find out if you work at CBC, and “do you know Jian?” was near the top.
Again, I don’t know the details of this. I know CBC as a place that has been great for me to work and Jian Ghomeshi as a voice that has been great for me to listen to and learn from. I don’t know anything the full story behind why they are parting ways, who did what, or what’s been said. I am not choosing sides because, frankly, I don’t know what the sides are or if they even exist. I joked on Twitter that this is like finding out your parents are getting a divorce and mom is suing dad for $50 million. It’s an exaggeration, but the sentiment does ring true. They seemed to get along so well! How could this possibly be happening?
At this point I am simply a fan. A fan of CBC, of the Q team, and of Jian Ghomeshi as a broadcaster. I am sad to see them part ways, but I have no doubt that all involved are talented enough to find success in whatever they do next, should that be in the cards. So I’ll simply echo much of what’s already been said, to all involved: thank you, and good luck.
Update: again, I’ve seen the Facebook post. And I’ve seen the rumours. I am not close enough to anything to make any definitive conclusions. I’m aware of the conversations and context around the way women are treated and often dismissed in these cases. I am not ruling that out. I’m not ruling out any other possibilities, either. I simply don’t know. But I am having a tough time imagining a conclusion where all involved look good, and I feel good about all involved. I just feel sad about the whole thing.
There’s a new program in Prince George that hopes to eradicate all graffiti in the downtown area. It views graffiti in pretty black-and-white terms:
“Graffiti markings suggest that a neighborhood is unsafe, does not care or cannot cope with the problem. Studies have shown that when graffiti markings are left unattended for as little as one week there is almost a 100% chance that additional graffiti markings will be placed at the original site or in the nearby community.
“When left unattended, graffiti may contribute to an escalation to more serious vandalism and other crimes in the community. Graffiti plays a role in increased resident anxiety and the economic decline of neighbourhoods.”
There’s graffiti in my neighbourhood. Here’s what it looks like:
It’s been sitting there for at least four years, and so far no additional markings have been placed on this garbage can. It has not increased my anxiety, and house prices here have been on a steady climb.
I’m not trying to minimize the damaging effects that graffiti can have, particularly the tagging and the cuss words, but I think there’s room for a slightly more nuanced discussion than “graffiti = bad”. For example, here are two walls next to an empty lot downtown (click for larger versions):
Which would you rather see while walking around a neighbourhood? Which shows more pride of place, sense of character? Will visitors to the downtown come away with a better impression of the city if they encounter a blank grey wall versus a cheeky slogan surrounded by fluffy sheep?
Do you think coming across this mailbox is more likely to cause you to smile or get scared about the bad neighbourhood you’ve wandered into?
I’ve had visitors to Prince George ask me about Listen Bird and even go on walks to find other examples that are sprinkled throughout the downtown core. It’s also been a source of inspiration for me. Here’s a thing I wrote about it a while ago:
“The Listen Bird… serves as a reminder that there’s always a story left untold. The people and the things you can find in this city are as interesting and enlightening as anywhere else in the world… This is open to everyone. We can all find it. All we have to do is listen.”
The Listen Bird is my personal favourite, but I’ve come across plenty of hidden messages that make me pause. One of my favourite things to do when visiting a different city is to find the graffiti. I feel like it showcases the unique voice of the area- if the graffiti is fun and creative, imagine how good everything else is? By the same token, if it’s rude and threatening, I totally understand the idea that it sends out bad vibes and can aid in the decline of an area. I’m not arguing that.
But my point isn’t that all graffiti is good, it’s just that I don’t necessarily agree that all graffiti is bad. Blank walls, untouched electrical boxes, back alleys devoid of any signs of human life… I mean, yeah, I guess they can signal there’s no crime. But they can also signal there’s no anything. No creativity, no pedestrians, nobody with any interest in adding some fun and creativity to the neighbourhood. Speaking solely as an explorer of urban areas, I’ll take a clever doodle or colourful picture over a blank concrete wall anytime. It’s much more inviting.
I’m not a fan of covering crime for its own sake. I understand people are interested in the details, but there’s a lot of crime and it would be easy to fill our days with gory details of shootings and murders from around the world. Not much public value in that.
At the same time, there is a real public value in understanding what leads to crimes and seeing what lessons can be learned to prevent future ones. Which brings me to the trial of Cody Legebokoff.
Such was the assessment of Justice Glen Parrett, the judge who sentenced Cody Legebokoff to life in prison for the murder of four women in northern B.C. He was speaking about the night that RCMP officer Aaron Kehler stopped Legebokoff after he saw him speeding off a logging road.
The justice praised Kehler for employing good instincts, and the work of RCMP that uncovered the four killings and ultimately led to the conviction. But at the same time he made it clear that had Kehler not happened to be on that road that night, Legebokoff could still be out there, and could have killed again.
So what lessons to be learned from this that help prevent future crimes?
Justice Parrett raised a few issues in his sentencing. One was the fact the RCMP unit tasked with investigating missing and murdered women along Highway 16, aka the Highway of Tears, has had its budget cut by 84% over the last two years.
* * *
The night the jury found Legebokoff guilty, I was on the steps of the court house. About two dozen people were outside, drumming and holding a poster of other women who have been lost in B.C.’s north. I spoke with Brenda Wilson, who lost her sister in Smithers about twenty years ago.
“I hope that some day I’ll be able to go through the same process,” she told me. “My sister was murdered twenty years ago… and we have no closure.”
After the guilty verdict, families spoke. Judy Maas’ sister Cynthia was among the four who were killed. She used the moment to address the issues vulnerable people in our society face.
“They were more than just a sex trade worker or a drug addict or a mental health issues,” she said of the women, including her sister. “They were truly human beings who lost their way. And without the services and programs, there’s going to be more of this type of thing.”
* * *
There’s been more than enough of this type of thing already. RCMP have confirmed hundreds of cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women across the country over the past decades. The numbers stand out enough that leaders and thinkers have made the case for a national inquiry.
This past Sunday, an “Am I Next?” rally was held on the steps of the Prince George court house to raise awareness for the issue. “Am I Next?” is an online campaign, in which Aboriginal women take a picture of themselves along with the words “Am I Next?” It was started by Holly Jarrett of Hamilton, whose cousin Loretta Saunders was found dead earlier this year.
Jessi King is the UNBC PhD student who organized the Prince George rally.
“It hit me personally,” she says of the campaign. “They were indigenous sisters of mine.”
Justice Parrett addressed calls for a national inquiry in his sentencing. “It is a mistake to limit the seriousness of this issue,” he said. He pointed out that of the four women Legebokoff was found guilty of killing, two were Aboriginal and two were caucasian. He also pointed out that the women in these cases were in a high-risk lifestyle. He called it a sociological problem.
Outside, my colleague Wil Fundal spoke to a woman who said she knew Cynthia Maas from her life on the street. She took hope from the sentencing and the justice’s comments.
“It’s the beginning of people realizing that women do need help down here and everywhere else,” she said.
The trial is over. Four murders have been solved.
We’ll see what happens next.
Yesterday afternoon, CBC Radio stations across the country experienced an audio glitch that caused a short audio loop to repeat… and repeat… and repeat. After establishing that our technical team was on it (they were) and answering phone calls from concerned listeners, I decided to have some fun with the error and create a little hip-hop mashup:
It’s gotten reasonably popular among the subset of people who are CBC listeners that share my absurd sense of humour, with retweets from no less than CBC Vancouver host Stephen Quinn and Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, among others. A few people have commented on the quick turnaround time on this (I had it up with an hour), so I thought I’d share how I did it.
1. Record the samples
Fortunatley, I’m in a radio station so this was pretty easy, but you could do it with any computer with an internet feed. Audacity is a good, free, cross-platform audio editor, and Garageband comes standard on most Macs. Really, anything would work. Just figure out how to record off of the internet and you’re good to go.I grabbed feeds from Prince George, Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, and Saskatoon, and would have gotten more but the problem was fixed by then (our techs were on it).
2. Figure out the beats-per-minute
I have a terrible ear for beats. Fortunately in this case I case I had a pretty clear delineater to work with- any time one of the vocal samples began, that was a new beat. There are a bunch of free beats-per-minute tools online that give you a calculation based on mouse clicks. So I started clicking here every time the “That’s it” vocal began and was told that I was working with 60 bpm.
3. Find a free-to-use song that is 60 bpm
The creative commons is a wonderful place. It’s a space where creators share their work in a way that others can use, update, and remix it. A number of websites like Flickr and Soundcloud actually have Creative Commons search engines built right into them. So I went to Soundcloud and searched for “60 bpm“. Then I filtered it down to items that were licenced to use and modify. Then I filtered it down to tracks that had been tagged for hip-hop. At this point I was left with just one track, “All” by eauxbleak. Fortunately, it was exactly what I was looking for.
A screenshot of my filtered search, with the relevant filters circled:
4. Put it together
I’m going to assume that you have some knowledge of audio editing here. If not, and you’re interested, I encourage you to get the aformentioned Garageband or Audacity and start learning- the internet is full of tutorials, and YouTube is a vast resource of step-by-step guides to just about everything. Ultimately, I worked with eight tracks and just sort of drag-and-dropped things around until I liked what I heard. Listening this morning there’s things I would change, but how seriously can you possibly take something like this? From the time I started recording to the final upload took about forty minutes, not a bad use of a break.
5. Bonus step: create some sweet glitch art
A few people have commented on the cover photo for the track, a glitched-out CBC logo. Again, Google is your friend. I searched for “free glitch art creator” and found this website from German designer Georg Fischer. I uploaded the classic CBC logo and hit “random” until I found something I liked.
What you’ll notice in all these steps is that I relied heavily on the tools and expertise of others. I had the idea, but there’s no way I could have pulled it off without the vast repository of creativity and generosity that you can find out there on the internet. That’s why I write posts like this- I benefit so much from people giving away ideas and information for free, and like to contribute where I can. This is a silly exercise, but it’s fun. I enjoyed it, and I’m glad some other people do, too.
DOUBLE BONUS
And I’m not the only one to think of this. Here are a few other mixes courtesy Rafferty Baker, spry bry, Scott Lilwall, and Lee Roosevere.
I received a comment earlier this week from Grant Potter on my post about about delegation that included this line:
“Your thinking in the open here is really great – enjoying following along.”
I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s exactly what I was doing. I didn’t have any fully-formed thoughts about delegation, and definitely didn’t have any solutions, but it was on my mind and I started writing about it. By the end I had come to something of a conclusion- or at least a greater understanding of my own barriers and a better attitude on how to idea them.
Lots of people recommend keeping a journal to help work through difficult problems. I’ve tried doing that but for whatever reason it never sticks. But looking back it seems like I do feel comfortable working through things here on my blog- out in the open.
I don’t know what that says about me, but I do know some of the most important lessons I’ve learned have come through reading the blogs of other people doing essentially the same thing. Successful people in high-level jobs sitting down and typing about their work, problems, and possible solutions. Fred Wilson is an obvious one, but also people like Buster Benson talking about productivity methods he’s tried and Cap Watkins chronicling his move from being a designer to a product manager.
So I think I’m going to give myself permission to think out loud around here a little more. I find it useful, and maybe other people will to.
There’s a feeling of anticipation in the city as summer ends. The approach of winter means the approach of 2015 and the tripartite celebrations that will surround the city of Prince George’s 100th anniversary, the Canada Winter Games, and the 25th anniversary of the University of Northern British Columbia.
I’m just a few years older than UNBC so I don’t really have a memory of the city without its existence. Vague memories of touring the campus with my parents, and the knowledge that the Queen was in town are about it.
Given that it’s such recent history, I find it fascinating how foreign some of the attitudes are when learning about the push to create UNBC in the first place. Yesterday on CBC there was an interview with Edward John of the Tl’azt’en First Nation, one of the key people who helped establish the university. He recalled that the attitude- a negative one- of many was that the university would only be for “lesbians and Indians.” I haven’t been able to track down any quotes yet, but I’m told this is something that respected people could/did express in public. Tough to imagine today.
This morning I’m having a read through “UNBC, A Northern Crusade” by Charles J. McCaffray, one of the key person in the the creation of the university. In it he documents the many, many obstacles that had to be overcome by the “No-Name Group” of leaders and supporters who wanted to establish a university in the north. The famous one is the advanced education minister telling the Globe and Mail in 1989 that
“In the interior…people don’t think of education beyond grade twelve. The questions they ask at the end of the day are ‘How many trees did you cut today?’ or ‘How were things down in the mine?'”
It was a controversial statement, but certainly not the only attitude that had to be overcome. Throughout the book, the No-Name Group encounters people, both in the south and right in Prince George and other nearby communities, who don’t think that northerners will actually be interested in attending a university in the province’s north. UBC and Simon Fraser in Vancouver, ten-hours-plus away, do a good enough job at serving the small number of people in the north who would be interested in getting a BA.
It’s tough to list all the ways UNBC has impacted the region, but I can tell you how it’s impacted my own life. Even though it was only a fifteen minute drive from my home, I encountered so many new people and ideas as a result of the campus that shaped who I am today. I was able to walk into the campus newspaper office and get a writing job, and I was able to start a radio show on CFUR. I got to know my profs, and they gave me advice and pointed me towards opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. I met my future wife.
I would likely have had many similar experiences if I had gone to U of A or UBC or anywhere else in the world, but the key difference is that I went to UNBC and had these experiences in Prince George. Spending my early twenties here made me see the city in a new light- I started going to concerts, I learned about the local history. I fell in love with the city I had spent my whole life in. Had I had all these formative experiences somewhere else- well, I don’t know that I would have come back.
Also key is the number of people I know who are only in Prince George because of the university. My friend Reza springs to mind- he was an exchange student from Iran when I met him. Now he’s the owner of the first Persian restaurant in the north, and an even bigger advocate for the city than I am. He’s embraced the north and it’s embraced him.
So the university has helped create new attitudes. And it was created, in part, because of the leadership of people at northern colleges who saw that there was room for higher education options in the north to grow. And those colleges were created by people who had the vision to create higher education of any sort in cities where there had once only been high school. And so on. Growth begets growth begets growth.
Ultimately, this is one of the reasons I’m so interested in being here. Every day you can see people building the foundations for the next steps in northern B.C.’s future. There’s problems and bad attitutudes, for sure, but there always has been. It’s not inevitable that those will be overcome… but as recent history proves, it’s not impossible, either.
So if you ever wonder why I’m so enthusiastic about Prince George, this is it. I’m inspired by how much things have changed, so quickly, and excited by what that can mean for the future- along with the right attitude.
I’m discovering that I’m not very good at delegation.
I’ve just started a new job. One with quite a few new tasks and responsibilities that I didn’t have in my old job. And yet I’ve found that I’m still holding onto the responsibilities from my old job- and the job I had before that, and before that.
This is not good.
I’m working too late, every day. At first, I chalked it up to settling into a new role, catching up on things that would soon become routine. But every day that the clock roles past quitting time and I find myself with a couple hours worth of things to do it’s further proof that I am attempting too much.
I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve had conversations with friends who find themselves in similar situations. And so I’m looking for ways to get better.
So far, I’ve found a couple of good ones (both via Shawn Blanc). The first is the “grid of focus, determination, and elimination:”
The grid of focus, delegation, and elimination: http://t.co/5F1QOYA3Bz
— Shawn Blanc (@shawnblanc) February 6, 2014
The second is this article by Randy Murry on creating a to-do list for others:
“Today’s tip is deceptively simple: review your to-do list and ask yourself, “Am I the right person to do this?” If the answer is “no,” then you’ll need to ask the right person if they’re willing to do the job. It’s likely that you can trim your list and create lists for other people in your organization or family.”
Already I feel myself resisting the idea of giving some of my jobs to other people. Part of it is I worry they won’t know how to do it. Another, bigger part is I worry they won’t want to do it. And then I feel guilty.
But here’s the thing: there are jobs that I am doing now that I was doing when I was the part-time new guy. And a lot of those jobs seem trivial, but are essential to the running of the office. And the reason I’m qualified to run the office at all is because I know how to do all these tasks. So by not teaching and telling other people how to do these task, I’m preventing them from gaining the same skills and having the opportunity to move into this role. And I don’t want that.
So: I have to learn to delegate.
PS. If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them. Twitter: @akurjata, email andrew@kurjata.ca. I look forward to hearing from you.
Last year around this time I wrote a post called “I Miss Blogger.” I talked about how before everyone was on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr, there were just a few people I knew who would update their personal blogs every few days or so, and the personal touch you got from seeing their design changes, font choices, and logos, even if they were mostly from a pre-produced group of templates.
Today, virtually nobody I know in real life blogs. And I think that’s too bad.
I have friends on Facebook who regularly write thoughtful, insightful, and humorous posts that expand to 500 words or more, plenty for a blog post. But they leave it as a status update and it’s gone, fast, swept away under a sea of promoted pages and quizzes.
I’ve seen a few posts this week about the value of personal blogging, but one of my favourites is from a blogger named Jesper, who writes
“Social media has come to symbolize, for me, the tyranny of having to appear relevant, visible and clean to everyone else, the inability to define my own boundaries and the uncertainty about what’s going to happen tomorrow to the fundamental structure of this tool that I’m using – all the while someone either makes money off of me or adds to the looming amorphousness trying to stay afloat.”
Let’s expand on that. I have not heard of Jesper before someone linked to this post, but I can easily visit his website and browse through his archives. I am able to cleanly and easily read his thoughts on a variety of subjects without being invited to “like” a thing. There is no third-party involved. He’s the writer, I’m the reader.
Now let’s say I wanted to do the same with someone whose writing I enjoyed on Facebook. I could visit their personal pages to find these thoughtful, insightful, and humourous posts, but for the most part I only get the first few lines, squeezed between apps and memes other people have posted on their page. Even if it’s immaculately clean, half the space on a profile is taken up by a list of movies and sports teams that they’ve told Facebook they ‘like’ after consistently being harassed to do so. And once you go back more than a few months, Facebook starts trunctuating things with “highlights.”
Facebook is not a space for sharing in the same way blogs are. Facebook is there for Facebook, and what you see is based on what their algorithm determines is best for their potential profitability. And one of the things they don’t seem to be interested in is actually giving you a space that’s truly yours.
I’m not quitting Facebook. It has utitility. I’m going to hit “publish” on this post, and then I’m going to share it, because that’s where the people are- for now. But I’m not throwing my writing, my thoughts, into a space that hungrily swallows everything, without some sort of backup plan.
After reading Jesper’s post, another blogger named Brent Simmons adds this:
“My blog’s older than Twitter and Facebook, and it will outlive them. It has seen Flickr explode and then fade. It’s seen Google Wave and Google Reader come and go, and it’ll still be here as Google Plus fades. When Medium and Tumblr are gone, my blog will be here.
“The things that will last on the internet are not owned. Plain old websites, blogs, RSS, irc, email.”
Not everyone is going to feel this way. But I’d encourage you to consider it. Think of a post or a moment that you put on Facebook or Twitter from a year or two ago, something you’d like to be able to access in the future. How easily can you find it? How easy will it be to find in five, ten, fifty years from now? If you’re not satisfied with the answer, then you may want to stop posting and start blogging.
PS One of the things I started doing in reaction to the stream of social media is start a newsletter. It’s an irregular highlight of the things I find online in digest form, rather than an endless stream. You can subscribe to it below:
Ad nauseam
twitter
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linkedin
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November 2 2014 | ∞
There’s a piece worth reading by Vinay Menon in the Toronto Star about this week’s big story and how it played out in the court of public opinon without hitting the legal system. Minay asks
It’s a good question. And a relevant one given the number of people who questioned the ethics of the Star, CBC and others about publishing allegations that hadn’t been proven in the courts.
While it is exceedingly important to carefully assess the facts of a story before assuming it is true, and it’s always good to have a little bit of skepticism, I take issue with the idea that until something is proven in the legal system it should be assumed false.
The fact of the matter is we report and act on information that hasn’t been proven in the courts all the time. There’s the mundane- John Tory is the newly elected mayor of Toronto- to the deadly serious – suicide bomber in Pakistan kills more than 50 people. Neither one has gone to the courts, even the one that ended in over 50 deaths. As anyone who has ever spent time reading court documents can tell you, the legal system has a lot more questions about what happened and how before coming to the same conclusion that respected journalists, governments, and the general public use all the time.
By the way, if you’re still among those wondering why this hadn’t gone to the courts years ago, this piece by Elizabeth Renzetti is required reading.
Filed under: journalism