Currents by Jonathon Narvey

US Finally Gets Its Priorities Straight on Health Care

jnarvey — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:16:28 +0000

While $100 billion per year to insure 36 million Americans for health care may seem steep to some, these same critics won’t bat an eye at an extra $100 billion thrown at the defense budget.

Definitely a step in the right direction. Nicely done, Mr. Obama.

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Hard Times Here to Stay? Looks that Way. What Do You Think?

jnarvey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:40:41 +0000

The news on Canada’s economy is not looking good. But what do the experts really know? Time for a poll.

Sad to say, I know a lot of people affected by this recession who have lost their job or their business and are going through some very tough times. I’m grateful for my good fortune in avoiding the worst effects of this economic tsunami in my own life and work and send my best wishes to those friends and family members who have been affected directly or indirectly.

This too shall pass.

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Do You Practice What You Preach in Social Media?

jnarvey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:40:52 +0000

If social media is all about conversations, engagement and community building, what to do when there is only broadcasting and not actual conversation? As social media enthusiasts (and I call myself one), do we look in the mirror often enough and ask of ourselves am I really engaging or just pushing my message out?. Is social media becoming an echo chamber again? – Hummingbird604

So, do I practice what I preach when it comes to social media? Not always. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I’m long overdue for a social media-themed post, so I’m glad I saw Hummingbird604’s query. I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while.

Linking to his post is a social act, so at least I’ve got that going for me. But like many social media evangelists of late, automation through Web 2.0 tools has gone from supplemental aid to crutch to virtual substitute for engagement. I still try to engage when I can, but I’d guess that upwards of 70 per cent of my messages in social media are broadcasting.

But that’s OK.

What is broadcasting, anyway? It’s not “anti-social” behavior, just not directly “conversational”. Mostly, I’m talking about those automated 140-character messages, usually containing links, that get churned out automatically from blog RSS feeds to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, hopefully engaging the eyeballs of my combined audiences. I do want to share interesting content with my friends and followers, and logging into separate profiles to do so is not an option. I just don’t have the time.

Don’t get me wrong. I love it when people respond to these syndicated messages with their own tweets, comments and email messages — and I do strike up conversations when that happens (And before I forget, if you do find this post interesting, please leave a comment!).

But how often do my “broadcasts” result in these conversations? Probably less than half the time. and I usually don’t have the time to engage beyond a few back-and-forth tweets before a project deadline wrenches my attention away. I have to keep my “social” conversations pretty streamlined — the equivalent of meeting a friend in real life for a pint, enjoying some stimulating dialogue and then skipping out 15 minutes later, just as things are getting good.

And how often am I actively visiting other people’s social media profiles and blogs to leave a comment or spark a discussion? Certainly, not as often as I’d like. I can probably count on one hand the number of comments I’ve left on blogs in the past month.

Partly, it’s a reflection of a tough economy where marketers have to justify their efforts with shorter-term ROI. Social media engagement can pay off big for organizations, even in the short term. Abandoning social media campaigns entirely to bots with RSS feeds — or just abandoning them, period, is a recipe for failure if you’re really looking to engage an audience. But when we find ourselves wearing so many hats and facing increasing pressures at work to deliver more with less, the “social” part of social media, just like the “social” part of our our non-work existence, will inevitably take a hit.

Social networking and social media are here to stay. The real engagement that comes with it is also here to stay, too. But work is work and there’s a time and place — online or in the real world — for conversations. We do what we can.

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My Early Childhood Education with Sesame Street

jnarvey — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:51:48 +0000

Like many of my generation, the television acted as both babysitter and educator throughout my childhood. Sesame Street, now in it’s fortieth season, was a comfort and staple for my brain. I learned a number of important lessons.

“C” is for Cookie. Hmmm. Makes sense.

The importance of customer service.

Counting is fun. (It might be even more fun for the undead)

The Islamic nation will rule the world. The answer is an AK-47. We will destroy the chair of the despots…

Oh, wait. That was a different show.

Early childhood education has a huge impact on the kind of society we want to have. But it works both ways.

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Until Victory

jnarvey — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:59:17 +0000

Sometimes, you just have to choose sides and bloody well get on with it, and the civilized world has chosen sides.

It’s all true.

The tough slog just got tougher. But it was always going to be a hard fight.

Let’s get on with it.

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Who are these Olympic Protesters and What Do They Want?

jnarvey — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:23:05 +0000

A mob of demonstrators blocked the Olympic torch relay last week and protests are expected to continue from now until the Olympics are done. Which brings us to the main question: What is the point of these protests?

Plenty of demonstrators seem incensed at the money spent on the Olympics instead of, say, health care, education or housing. But that money has already been spent. And it’s not like the protesters are going to be able to actually prevent the Olympics from taking place. So what do you think the demonstrators want? Isn’t the traditional media falling down on the job here in terms of probing the protesters with basic questions…

Continue reading this article in the Vancouver Sun’s Community of Interest.

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Transforming an Economy to Make Minimum Wage Meaningless

jnarvey — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:49:53 +0000

It’s pretty clear that BC is trailing the pack when it comes to minimum wage. At $8 per hour, we’re dead last across Canada. That’s a shame and it needs to change. But ideally, BC’s business class and political leadership will be able to set a foundation where it’s essentially irrelevant.

BC Federation of Labour’s Jim Sinclair calls the minimum wage situation a disgrace. It’s hard to argue the point.

Given our cost of living, minimum wage in Vancouver should at least be higher than in my original home town of Winnipeg. In Manitoba, minimum wage is set at $9 per hour. My fellow Vancouverites will howl in disbelief as I inform them that a friend of mine in Winnipeg bought a four-bedroom house there a few years back for about $70,000. That’s not a typo — there’s really not a zero missing. Sure, my friend’s spacious place is a bit of a fixer-upper, and it’s not exactly central, but try buying a four-bedroom house on the boundary of Vancouver and Burnaby for ten-times that purchase price. Good luck. That’s just one indication, but Metro Vancouver also has the highest rental rate in Canada. The point is, it’s expensive to live here.

Should someone flipping burgers or delivering pizzas naturally have the scratch for a down-payment on a house virtually anywhere in the country? Probably not. No one is “entitled” to live in Vancouver’s west end or Toronto’s ritzier burbs. Sure, some low-wage earners have to work two or three jobs to pay the rent and put food on the table for their growing families. Well, that’s life. We don’t have a caste system in Canada. The class system here is arguably even more permeable than in the USA, so-called land of opportunity. And there are certainly government programs making it easier for anyone to get the education and training they need to do what they want with their life. Given that, what is a fair minimum wage?

I don’t want to argue the merits of a particular level of minimum wage, somewhere between “enough for someone living with their parents to buy comic books and cigarettes” to “enough to support a small family and keep the fridge stocked with beer”. Frankly, I have no idea what constitutes fair in a society where the top level-CEOs make as much in the first 15 minutes of the year as I do all year.

But frankly, I don’t really want our politicians and business leaders in BC to spend all that much time on minimum wage. Top it up by a buck or two and be done with it until the coffee servers in Osborne Village once again start looking uppity.

Instead, I’d like to hear more about how this province is going to be positioned to train and produce the knowledge workers required to boost our fortunes in coming years. The recession is a temporary bump in the global process of a flattening international economy. North Americans need to become much better at building and sustaining a knowledge economy based on technological innovation, since we know where all the manufacturing and low-skilled labor has moved over the past decades.

If BC is successful in promoting this kind of success to augment its traditional resource-extraction based industries, minimum wage will become irrelevant. It seems natural that the so-called “green economy” will be a big part of this, as there are already plenty of companies in BC building capacity in the fields of alternative energy and more sustainable products. When the economy is roaring again, minimum wage will once more be the preserve of high school students and ambitious but unskilled laborers training at night for future opportunities.

Jim Sinclair calling for an increase from BC’s $8 minimum wage — in 2006

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Are the Stars Right This Halloween?

jnarvey — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:42:19 +0000

Maybe. Here’s a glimpse of what may be happening this Hallow’s Eve.

Hard to say, since no one living today actually speaks the same language as a giant squid-faced creature who trampled the Earth long before the dinosaurs came and went.

As an example of the difficulty involved here in judging the timing of the slimy one’s return, even the most famous saying about Cthulhu, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” (”In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”), is often embarrassingly misspelled in such a way as to be translatable as “In a sushi restaurant in Ryloth topless Cthulhu waits tables.” (Unquotable Cthulhu)

But if not on Halloween, then when?

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Biting the Hand that Feeds

jnarvey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:46:43 +0000

Dramatization of the international talks between the USA and Pakistan on the war along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border:

PAKISTAN
How dare you attack the militant thugs we’ve sworn to destroy as well?

USA
Um, ah, well…

PAKISTAN
The Taliban are attacking our people in our schools, public markets and even our supposedly secure army headquarters… and meanwhile, you’re blowing them up these killers with your drones! What do you have to say for yourself!?

USA
Um… You’re welcome?

PAKISTAN
Infidel dog! Don’t you know that only Pakistan has the sovereign right to attack the Taliban that resides within our own borders and threatens the very existence of our nation — and that we’ll take care of them when we’re good and ready?

USA
OK, then. Are you moving your army in to finish them off once and for all?

PAKISTAN
Of course! We’ve sent in two per cent of our army to do this job. And I can guarantee that less than half of our officers are actively working with the Taliban. How much more of a commitment can we possibly show to you?

USA (OPENING HIS WALLET)
OK, OK. How many more billions of dollars did you need this year?

PAKISTAN
Our glorious and independent nation is willing to accept $7.5 billion as tribute and a show of goodwill. But don’t think this gets you anything in return. Just so we’re clear, everybody here hates you. And of course, any decrease in funding next year will be seen as a sign of the most wicked betrayal in human history. Got it?

USA
Got it. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.

PAKISTAN
Go f**k yourself.

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Halloween Public Service Announcement on Zombies

jnarvey — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:02:28 +0000

All Canadians are advised to get vaccinated for H1N1. But the zombie virus outbreak that so recently descended on Vancouver should not be forgotten, particularly given that today is the day when freaky stuff tends to happen.

Below is a handy video tutorial on how to survive a zombie plague. Enjoy.

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