greggscott dot com

BC FIlm Production Lists

2008-09-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

ACFC 2020 [Ongoing]

BC Film Commission [Tue PM]

DGC BC * [Fri AM]

IATSE 669 * [Mon PM]

IATSE 891 * [Alt Fri]

Teamsters 155 * [Daily]

UBCP [Thur PM]

Reel West - BC [Alt Wed]

Playback - National [Alt Mon]

( * Denotes PDF/Get Reader Here )

Sunset At The Window

2008-08-14T21:36:00.001-07:00

Sunset At The WIndow, originally uploaded by greggscott.

It is said that no two sunsets are the same. This is probably true. However, I have lived looking out to this apartment and tree for 8 years and have never seen dusk look anything like this.

I like this particular photo because it almost makes it appear that the fiery light of the setting sun is blasting right through the building. I shot this scene a number of times but the one where the tenant of the suite appears at the window is my favorite. In truth, I didn't even notice her until after I uploaded the .jpegs to my MacBook. Without her the image, although colorful, is static.

As is custom with most of my personal photography, no Photoshop effects or post-processing of any kind was done with this digital still. I employ only in-camera adjustments while shooting. In this case I added a polarizing filter.

Power Of The Sun

2008-08-14T21:31:00.001-07:00

Power Of The Sun, originally uploaded by greggscott.

There had to be something spectacular to take my eyes away from watching the broadcast of the Beijing Olympics as athletes were competing for medals. As it turned out the gold was in the setting mid-August sun just outside my window.

As is custom with most of my personal photography, no Photoshop effects or post-processing of any kind was done with this digital still. I employ only in-camera adjustments while shooting. In this case I added a polarizing filter.

Is The Hub The Future Of Shop?

2008-08-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

The big box store is about as fulfilling an experience as, well, shopping in a big box store. When you've become your own frame of reference your time is really up.

Futureshop in West Vancouver’s Park Royal has introduced a pilot project - with Edmonton's 55,000 square feet wheelhouse to open next – they call the Hub. The Hub is about connecting—connecting you to your devices and your devices to your devices.

West Vancouver's Future Shop at Park Royal next to where the Capilano River "connects" to the Pacific Ocean.

This concept, which borrows heavily from Apple's Genius Bar, invites a customer to ask questions before venturing into the wilderness of heavily stocked shelves and commissioned sales people. In some instances Futureshop Connectivity Experts will accompany the buyer through the product selection. Other times they will be handed off to an associate.

The “Connected Home” Hub is, as is geometrically accurate, in the centre of the wheel with it's four spokes; Living(refrigerators, washer/dryers), Playing(video gaming, DVDs, music), Working(laptops, printers) and On The Go(cell phones, PDAs).

This appears to be a genuine change of the culture of Future Shop and a marked transformation. Stores will be laid out according to the regional preferences as determined by extensive market research and focus group testing. Customer-centric?

Susan Kirk shared with me that in Calgary the number of Moms who came in and purchased used video games(ala Electronic Boutique, Rogers and Blockbuster) soared beyond expectations. Are these Women buying the games for themselves or their children? I suggested that the home appliance section might enjoy a 'halo' effect should West Van Mom's populate the video game aisles. But unless EA releases a shrubbery pruning RPG I don't see my West Van mom making a bee-line to the new shrine-like video game tower.

A gaggle of Vancouver tech Bloggers enter the hub. Tris Hussey, Roland Tanglao, Raul, John Beihler, Arienne & Ianiv, Derek K. Miller, Monica Hamburg and out host Darren Barefoot.

For commodities like socks and pickles the big boxes suffice but for high-priced non-perishable technology the customer experience had to change. We form relationships with and through our new technology. The introduction and integration of new digital components into our lives has ramifications that Monster cables and monster retail outlets cannot prepare us for.

The concept is already being employed in other sectors. When I left that Hub and entered another one - the West End of Vancouver - I was promptly pulled over by a motorcycle cop and given a ticket for driving without wearing a seat belt. Enforcement Officer #1935 verbosely explained why I was pulled over, why the fine has been increased in the past year and how important it is to wear the seat belt. He was so cordial I even thanked him for the privilege of paying the $167 fine. That's customer service from someone wearing a uniform.

Flights For Vancouver Birds Grounded For 35 Minutes

2008-08-03T00:43:00.001-07:00

The silhouette of a seagull who sits patiently just meters away from a nesting chick atop a Kitsilano apartment roof while the 'Celebration of Light' fireworks take place across the water in English Bay in Vancouver on August 2, 2008.

Interestingly the chick's Mother returned to the spire where the baby bird rests immediately following the fireworks display as if her watch were over.

Best Of Gregg Scott's Twitter. 04.20.2008

2008-04-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

04.20.2008

Pope's Visit Weather: Partly guilty with scattered 'sorry's. Shame heavy at times overnight. Sunday, Hail in the morning. Then mostly funny.
02:04 AM April 20, 2008

On Twitter as the graph demonstrates it's all about I, I'm, Me, You and sometimes We.
03:01 AM April 20, 2008

By only inches I avoid the violent expulsion from a crow perched overhead while sitting on a sidewalk bench.
02:18 PM April 20, 2008

By the time I found a rock big enough to throw at the offending bird he, or she, had left the crime scene.
02:22 PM April 20, 2008

Life lesson: Time spent trying to punish those who have done you wrong or in this case almost done you wrong is a precious resource wasted.
02:25 PM April 20, 2008

The amount of housework being accomplished in the interest of avoiding doing taxes is phenomenal. 02:52 PM April 20, 2008

Having Sushi with the boys. 3 men. Raw meat. 'Nuf said.
07:31 PM April 20, 2008

At first glance I thought the sign in the parking garage said 'MAX IRISHMAN'. Who? No. Upon closer examination it read 'MAX 1HR15MIN'.
08:20 PM April 20, 2008

Cruising with the guys. Sharing our feelings with each other. Brief moments of empathy followed by cutting mockery.
08:46 PM April 20, 2008

My buddies oblige my Twittering with the same congenial tolerance you might have for a dog that can't stop licking his nuts.
09:07 PM April 20, 2008

Clean Emissions From Al Gore's Laugh Factory

2008-04-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day 2008 - Get A Globe On!

2008-04-22T04:40:00.000-07:00

It's Earth Day 2008.

The degree to which we are in a 'climate crisis' can be hotly debated. It's clear we're in one though. 'Climate crisis' is a much better term then Global Warming. For much of the Northern Hemisphere we'd all welcome less severe Winters so when we hear about a condition that may heat us up we aren't overly concerned. The reality though is the weather will not only get hotter but more extreme. I'll bet that you personally have witnessed some out of the ordinary weather in the last year.

I introduced a Twitter Meme this morning by Tweeting to a number of the people I am Following: "Can you help spread the word of the Earth Day Twitter avatar Meme? Just get a globe on! http://xrl.us/earthpic "

Today if you can put your own needs second and Mother Earth's first I'm sure she'll appreciate it. Show you care about her by replacing your profile picture on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site that you frequent with a gorgeous photo of the planet. There are a bunch of them here.

Happy Earth Day to you.

Crowd Sourcing. A Twitter Cast.

2008-04-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

On a Third Tuesday Public Relations MeetUp Monica Hamburg spoke to the relatively new phenomenon of 'Crowdsourcing'.

I TwitterCast the event live. Miss604 generously live Blogged. Jenn Lowther of Invoke Media took amazing notes too. Between the three of us and the Flickr photos you'll get the gist of Monica's dynamic and fast-paced presentation. What follows are the bullet points posted live via Text message.

Crowd Sourcing is new but not the answer to everything. Wired's Jeff Howe introduced the term in 2006.

Comments on Blogs demonstrate the collective knowledge of the audience.

WikiPedia is an excellent example of the shared intelligence.

SellaBand.com asks visitors/fans/participants to contribute financially to the recording of an album from their 'believers'.

Threadless is a crowd-sourcing t-shirt manufacturing company.

NetFlix has put up a Million dollars for a better movie rating algorithm for more relevant results.

Lego has crowd-sourced toys. Google has Image Labeler.

Passion is why we Crowd-Source. Money can help tip the scales. We want to be seen as experts. We want to feel connected.AskSpace and Wired's Project Zero are examples of failed crowd-sourcing. Books written by many doesn't work either.

Good leadership, being open to feedback, transparency, and clear benefits to the contributor are vital.

Engaging a crowd that trusts social media is very important.

Crowd sourcing is a long term commitment.

Passion, community and respect drive crowd sourcing involvement.

Tap into a cause that people are passionate about to gain momentum.

Appeal to a community that may exist already.

Respect your contributor. Be clear on what their tangible benefit is for participating.

Q&A

Q&A WikiPedia and some crowd-sourcing suffer from the Hawthorne Effect. This is an initial surge of interest followed by a drop off.

Q&A Facilitation is more important than leadership perse when crowd sourcing.

Q&A Innocentive is an example of a using a very specific community.

Q&A Assignment Zero suffered from an inundation of information and mission creep

Q&A Contributors to a crowd sourced project crave credit and recognition.

Q&A Crowd sourcing is generally not for profit but can benefit the creator from the Halo effect.

Q&A There's a person who is crowd sourcing who is from Beirut, Lebanon looking
for support to grow a tech community there.

The End. Applause. We now resume regular programming.

Raul clarifies one of his questions and brainstorms some potential problems when Crowdsourcing.

Now Exists A Gaping Void

2008-04-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

Now I can rest assured that my Timeline-gobbling rant of 10 days ago isn't the reason Hugh MacLeod closed shop. It was only reason he stopped Following me.

This is a bold and courageous move as Twitter is becoming a vortex - perhaps a vital one - in which I find it hard to manage or even attend to real life.

An artist's aura of empathy is a precious field which can so easily be corrupted by distraction; even good distraction.

I look forward the 2008 panel on the History of Your Blog.

I thank you for your thoughtful discourse in the Twitter Timeline on the legacy of W. and the ramifications of the 49th Parallel.

Say what you will of Twitter but it is quite unlikely that I would have had the opportunity to converse with the likes of Steve Gillmor, Laura Fitton and yourself without it.

Now, I'm going to text @mydishes and tell them to wash themselves so I can check my current replies.

The Twitter Logo Is A-Changing

2008-03-25T01:12:00.000-07:00

On this first full day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, 2008, something is graphically a-Twitter.

As Tweeted by the savvy consultant Internet Geek Girl, Stephanie Agresta, Twitter has in fact amended their logo. They appear to have dropped the Web 2.0 style gradient for a solid - and a tad darker - shade of teal blue.

Oh-oh. That Venture Capital money has people already jimmying with the works.

I have been Twittering since 01:27 AM January 24, 2007.

Should I feel sad? Is this a small sign of more transformations ahead that will somehow alter the simple joy that is Twitter.

Stay tuned!

www.greggscott.com
www.twitter.com//greggscott

Greggle News Headlines

2007-02-12T03:13:00.000-08:00

State Of Florida Sets Up Toll-Free 1-800# To Field Flood Of Calls From Would-Be Dads Of Anna Nicole Smith Baby

ABC News - 3 hours ago
Saying that calls were coming in 'faster than Hamas claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing' a State official confirmed yesterday that a special command center had been set up to deal with the onslaught. Not wanting to be specific, and speaking off the record, the official told ABC News that the amount of calls so far was 'approximately equal to the number of sperm in male ejaculate....ironically.'

Thousands of men who fantasized about having sex with Smith now fantasize about being Millionaire's by claiming to be the child's Father

Offers Anna Nicole's Baby Own Reality Show 'Who's My Daddy?

Bi-curious waitress who had one nighter with Smith latest to claim they're the Father