Merry shopping and happy spending in the new year

Not sure about you but I have done my bit for supporting the economy, all in preparation for the coming holidays.

This year, during my Christmas shopping binges, the fear of credit card overload kept popping in my head. I am curious how retailers feel about the news push on this scary topic, specifically at this time of the year.

 "Personal debt a threat to recovery"

We are meant to be blissfully, mindlessly shopping now, not worrying about credit card debt. But it is a silly conundrum - why do I deny my children things all year long only to gorge on crazy spending for one day of the year.

At least I am not a hauler. And another curiosity, how two opposing cultural experiences can be highlighted at the same time - Haulers vs. Hoarders. 





But as I sign off just before Christmas, I have to leave on a fun note. Carl Jones, VP Executive Creative Director for Grey Canada shared this link to everyone in our agency about a real Mad Men office party in the UK - I don't think Carl is at the party, but you never know, he may be very good at hiding his true age!

All the best to you and yours over the holidays.

Christmas Hamper Drive Day

Last night my son and I did our traditional spreading of Christmas cheer by delivering Food Hampers as part of the House of Friendship Christmas Hamper program. We have been doing it since I joined the board of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region over seven years ago. It is always a great bonding experience for mother and son. And a great reality check to be thankful for what we have been given and for the opportunities that we are able to benefit from.

Tony Bender from House of Friendship does an AMAZING job of pulling this project together and this years need was higher than ever. Thank you Tony for organizing a event that provides this community with a conduit to share good fortune with our neighbours.

It is BELL day at the Hub

No, not these kind of bells.

These kind of bells.

Date:     December 8, 2010           

To:          The Tannery Tenants

RE:          Ringing of Bells

On December 16th, 2010, G.K. Sullivan will be ringing the fire bells throughout the whole building during the morning.

We apologize for any inconvenience and disturbance this may cause.

We thank you for your co-operation

Regards

Alan Hurdle

I can't wait to play Munchies Lunch over the holidays

I love to play computer games. I enjoy the whole experience of being sucked into a game. And as a parent of a teenage son, a certain online game provided a bonding opportunity during a time when I had a very low cool rating.

What is even more interesting than playing a game is witnessing its development. The Footloose Games team, led by their charismatic President and Co-Founder Vlado Jokic, has really embraced the philosophy of the Hub and are involving many of us in their beta testing process. His team of designers and developers are hard at work to have a sharable beta version by the Christmas Holidays and he will be asking for our support in testing the game.

I am looking forward to being able to play the beta over the holidays. My family will understand - I am playing for work, it is research and supporting the Footloose Games team as a beta tester! Really!

Munchies' Lunch is a fun adventure-puzzle PC-based game for the whole family. Simply download the game from our website, and you’ll embark on an epic journey with the Munchie family as they say goodbye to their homeland and travel the world to find a peaceful place where they can settle down.

ClevrU is building its global presence

ClevrU, a tenant here at the Hub, is a gateway to higher education and greater collaboration on any device with any language. This software company provides Universities with the capability to expand their knowledge catchment. 

ClevrU is receiving strong interest from developing countries, who recognize that to build a strong, secure economy they must provide their citizens with access to knowledge and higher learning. Due to housing and transportation infrastructure challenges faced by Universities and Colleges in developing nations, and personal economic hardship within those nations, there is always a potential market for efficient correspondence learning models. 

ClevrU has taken on the challenge of helping students learn on their own and has smartly added a predictive learning component to their software - the software continually analyzes, interprets and organizes the content and the activities of its members to deliver a richer, more robust learning experience - the pace of learning can be set based on the needs of the student. 

For developing nations who are heavy mobile phone users with citizens who do not have the funds for personal computers, there is a tremendous opportunity to share more knowledge and expand the training capabilities via a mobile network. Mobile devices will provide them with opportunity to connect with information more cost effectively.

CleverU has already had meetings with ChinaMoble and the Minister of Education for China and there are three projects in development that they expect will be launched very early in the new year.

There is also great interest from India.There are approximately 450 million post secondary students living in rural communities in India and universities have been challenged with how to share their intellectual property with those communities. And there are many other developing nations with strong mobile penetration.

ClevrU's executive team met with Grey Canada President Ann Nurock, SVP Director of Planning Harjot Singh and myself to discuss next steps for developing their marketing campaign. Harjots insight into the markets of both China and India, based on his years of experience while working as a Brand Planner and Researcher in those countries was extremely valuable. Ann, who was the CEO of Grey's Africa offices, offered tremendous insight into their next developing nation target. She also had some insight to share about Nokia who was a client of Greys. And with Grey's offices located in 96 countries around the globe, there is a wide range of support we may be able to provide.

We are very excited to help ClevrU get their marketing work aligned, ensuring they present a strong offering to Universities and Governments around the globe. As a small company with a tremendously large idea (that's usually how it all begins) they have some unique marketing challenges in demonstrating capability and credibility. But they have been very smart to be part of the Hub as there have been many introductions made here at the Hub (via Communitech connections, Government connections and University connections) that may not have happened elsewhere. Location, location, location.

We are all excited to watch their progress. 

Grey's latest Wireless Wave spot

"This spot developed for Wirelesswave by Grey Vancouver illustrates the relationships people have with their old, grotty phones versus their new shiny ones. You hate the old one and love the new one. Everyone can relate because deep down we're all suckers for shiny objects...are we right? The ad looks at things from the phone's perspective, and after watching it you can't help but feel a little bit sorry for the old phone because, man, it gets beat up pretty bad. We'd like to take this opportunity to point out that we realize that cell phones are, in fact, not alive."
This was Stimulantonline.ca description about the spot that is too good not to use.

Elusive twitter stats

A collegue has asked me if I had come across any demographics of Canadians on Twitter. Sadly even with my trusty friends Google, Yahoo and Mashable I didn't uncover a great deal of current statistical information. I spent more than an hour scouring the web for any details on stats and demographics on Twitter users. There are tons of informative sites but I could find none with straight forward, current details about how many Canadians are on Twitter or how the Twitter population breaks down.

What I could find:

There are 165 million registered users and 100 million tweets sent a day, according to Bloomberg.

Found this Quantcast Study that states that 59.1 million Americans have Twitter accounts.

Am I just getting bad at research or are Twitter stats just not that interesting to anyone any more?

Some fun stuff I did find about Twitter:

This cool visual overview of the twittersphere

This odd mish mash of Canadians on Twitter

and this photo of a carved watermelon - I swear this came up in one of my searches for Twitter stats!

Art at the Hub

It is not just about digital media here at the Hub!

Prints by Aaron Bartley have been displayed and appreciated at the Hub. These prints have blended very nicely with the interior design of the Hub and have added some colourful touches to the walls.

There will be a new collection displayed soon. I will post information as it is updated. These exhibits are a great opportunity for local artist to present their collections. The rotating exhibit I believe will be managed by Art Allies.

"Art Allies was founded to build bridges between the fabulous artists and untapped art collectors in Waterloo Region. Our goal is to build the art collector community by making it easy for people to purchase original fine art. We scour the Region for the most interesting, innovative artists so you don't have to."

There has also been an intiative within the Hub to provide further financial support to the displaying artist; this is also a sign of our appreciation for en living our space with their talent. You can make an anonymous contribution of support and if support is strong enough there may be an opportunity for the Hub to purchase one of the prints. Feel free to make a contribution when you visit the Hub and support local artists. There is a ballot box behind Hub reception. 

 

The Dignity Project

In my youth, my Grandmother Christine embedded the value of the services of the Salvation Army and the importance of supporting those services. I remember very clearly her telling me "Always give to the Salvation Army. They have helped many, me included, at times when things really seemed hopeless. Always give back and be grateful for what you have." I know there were times when she relied upon the kindness of strangers. It is not just giving to those we know that makes a community, it is sharing with those you don't.

As a member of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region and author of their tag line "Sharing with my community" I am a strong believer in that philosophy. And I think it was when I did the rebranding work for the Food Bank, in 2002, that I feel in love with the region of Waterloo. I had lived here for more than 12 years but I had not emotionally committed to the region until that project. Through the brand research I did, talking to volunteers and supporters of the Food Bank I saw what a great community this is. We care about one another. We may not get along all the time but deep down we know that it is all for one and one for all.

I love the work Grey Canada does for the Salvation Army. And this spot we produced for the Dignity Project was very powerful for me, it brought tears to my eyes.

Google sign is up

Today was the day to post the sign

They are still hauling in things through the windows. Not sure when they are moving in.

I use Facebook to plan my family Christmas party

And I bet I am not the only one.

I am one of five children. I have kids and three of my siblings have kids; my oldest brother has five who are now all grown with families of their own. Needless to say we have a large family and they have many commitments over the holidays. But we do love to get together, to laugh, eat and catchup.

This year I saved time by inviting everyone to our gathering via Facebook. My family, like many are very busy on Facebook. Instead of the chain of phone calls that I used to have to make, and hope that the information gets through to everyone, I logged on and clicked keys. I got the word out to those who need to know very quickly.

I didn't use the sophisticated Group Invite thing, too much time to figure that out. And I tried that once for a book club group and set it up wrong and we got more people wanting to come to our book club than were members (I wonder if those interlopers are still waiting for the club to get started). No, I just used cut and paste and posted to the walls that needed to know. And I did all of my inviting work through my BlackBerry, didn't even need to fire up the laptop. It was great!

Ahh, life is so much simpler now. If only I had a robot to make my home-made lasagna and special ribs for our event. Well actually I like doing the making of the food. It is the cleaning up of the making of the food that I would use the robot for.