To be perfectly honest, this came as a compete surprise. I knew that business was slow, but I didn’t think that it would result in any job cuts at the firm. I’ll spare pouring out all the details on my blog.; but in my opinion things could have happened differently. I’ve gone through the full range of emotions, and I’ve accepted what happened.

I find myself with lots of time on my hands though. Aside from fixing up my resume, and submitting job applications, I have very few standing obligations.  So I hope to devote some more of my time to social media. If you think I might have some expertise to offer you, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

I’m very involved in the social media scene in London, as many of my posts have expressed. Both in the public side with personal interactions, and the business side and various consulting projects.  So I speak with some authority when I posed the above question.

Granted most people using Facebook probably won’t know about a social media firm, or that such beasts exist. But I do, and I should know about you. Especially if you are in London, and claim any level of expertise.

I realise that sounds like I’m tooting my own horn. However  if you want to play the game, you’ve got to know the players on your own team. At this point though  some of the people trying out might as well be invisible to those already on the court.

I’ll let Brian’s words from the first post describe it:

It would be great to see #ldnbeta concept (or some other iteration) picked up and used to drive the conversation — not just here, but on people’s own blogs, on Twitter, face-to-face, everywhere  – exploring and advocating new opportunities for social media in London.

And

To sum up, this isn’t the venue for complaining about road repairs and garbage collection. This is for exploring ways to make our blogs and the social media scene in London better… so when you complain about roads and garbage on your own blog it’ll be more effective.

Here is how I what Ldn Beta to evolve; It’s a resource, it’s a community meeting place, it’s a sounding board, and an ideas blog. All told it should encourage people to tap into the social aspect of the web and how that effects everyone here in London. It should serve as encouragement that we can effect positive change in the city, and we can do that through collaboration.

I’m excited to be a part of this with Brian. I encourage people in London to join in on the converstation. To input your ideas in whatever forum you would traditionally do that. Tag things with #ldnbeta or #ldn or #londonont or whatever you want. Join in the conversation though, thats where the fun happens.

I think these parents are insane, and their views are harmful to society as a whole. But what is worse for a liberal democracy is the power a few social workers can have.

This Manitoba story has raised larger questions in my mind. Specifically; what consititutes “membership” in a state, and how much interference do outside agencies have in our private lives.

As private citizens there is no reason that anyone should be interfering in your life, unless you have a direct, and I exclude any indirect, effect on the life liberty and pursuit of happiness, of any other member of the state.

I’m going to further my thoughts and reasoning on this issue.  I’d apprecitate feedback in the comments; perhaps the direction I should take, or further “points to ponder”

More generally, plans are ramping up for the wedding which is less then a month away. If you ask me everything seems to be coming together nicely without too much stress, but I’m sure there are people who would disagree.

I’ve run into a bit of an annoyance with the house lately. The drains from the kitchen have slowed to a crawl, with water collecting in the laundry tub. I tried to clean it out with a simple hand snake, but without success. I’m going to have to rent a power drain auger to see if that solves the problem.

There have been a few cosmetic changes to the house, and once I find my microSD adapter I’ll post some pics from my phone.

Yesterday I wrote up my overview of PodCamp London. In the process I mentioned people in this city that I feel are producing intriguing and prolific content. One of those people was a blogger at the London Free Press.

I sat back and thought about that today. What I did was intriguing on a couple of levels, and I wasn’t even aware of it at the time.

Most bloggers still think that there is a dichotomy between “Old” media and “New” media.  Its a David and Goliath story. Us versus Them. Towards that end amateurs writing on the web don’t want to acknowledge traditional and professional writers.

I didn’t even think for a second that Dan Brown writes for a living, and for a “dying business model”.  I think thats because the LF Press is doing such an amazing job; connecting with readers and producing online content.So much so that the wall between the people (Third Estate) and the London press (Fourth Estate) has all but crumbled in my mind.

Bloggers and online media need to understand our pedigree.  Trained journalists and most often the ones who have laid the groundwork that allow us the freedoms to write how and what we do.

I’m continually impressed by the content turned out by the London community. From insightful commentary to our own local memes, this group is incredibly prolific.

I’m glad that PodCamp London was a chance for lots of these people to get together, to meet in person, and to create some amazing content. If it was your first time out to a Social Media event like this in the City of London, I would encourage you to attend the Montly Meetup.

Continue to foster relationships with the people you met. Take the connections you made one step further. Don’t complain that London has no community, or nothing for you. I just presented a list of people who disagree with that sentiment;  emulate them and do something amazing!

You will like this book though if you are into gritty, dark, crime and mystery novels.

I can’t say that this is a genre that I am completely familiar with, at least the more modern offers of such. I grew up reading mystery novels of the Rex Stout variety, so this novel was a bit of a change.

That being said I did enjoy reading it. It was the perfect type of book for a long weekend. I can see it being very popular vacation reading.

Loser’s Town appears to be the first in a new series featuring the main character, David Spandau. He’s an interesting character, and I look forward to seeing him developed further.

My one criticism is with the author’s opinion that the reader needs to be shocked into seeing how gritty the book’s setting is. With gratuitous sex scenes, that seem to serve no purpose, and language thatattempts to be “street” but just comes across as stilted and forced, Depp would do better to work on his prose then pure shock.

As I have eluded in the past, both on here and Twitter, about the “exciting things” taking place in London.

I am thrilled  to annouce, finally and  publicly here, that I have become involved with the London Ontario Live Arts festival - better known as LOLA. I’m very excited because I have participated as a concert goer in the LOLA festival in previous years and had a great time. Despite the stereotype that London does not have an arts community, LOLA has flourished, and shown both this city and the whole country a different part of Southwestern Ontario.

There is going to be lots of oppurtunity to explore different parts of social media and online promotion as a result of this. I’m interested to see how things develop, before, during, and after the concert. There are ongoing concert series during the year and I will be promoting those as well.

The next bit of news that I would like to share is my involvement with Penguin Canada. As part of their promotions, the book publisher has started to branch out online. I have been selected to help promote various books and authors as part of my blog and online presence.This is a great oppurtunity for me, and my readers. I am an avid reader and I love sharing my opinion.

In all of this though I promise to continue to have a transparent website. I’ll make it clear when I am promoting / working on behalf of someone else. I’m going to share my opnion honestly. If I like something I’ll recommend it. If not then I won’t lie. I think these relationships are going to benefit everyone in the end.

I’d like to update the layout a bit - maybe get a bit more of a blog roll going.  It won’t be a list though. I think a page of different categories would be a lot nicer. Maybe I’ll take some time and “highlight” local social medians in the city of London too.

I’ve already updated the title to the blog - A Life Untold - Social Media, Twitter, Blogging and Life.  I don’t want to become exclusively about social media so that is why I appended “life”.

I’m going to keep things balanced. Especially over the next few months as I make improvements to the new house (already stripped down a room’s wallpaper - pictures soon) and I prepare to get married in June.

My lovely fiance and I just recently purchased our first house. And to make it even scarier - I’m going from living at home to owning a house. I’ve skipped the transitional apartment and jumped into the deep end.

But unlike a scared 3 year old at a pool - we are both amazingly excited. We take possession tomorrow (March 31st) and that couldn’t come sooner.

Despite worrying that we would have no furniture to fill it, we’ve slowly been accumulating more and more “things”. I’m still sure that it will take a while for it to feel as homey as home, but at least we won’t feel like squaters.

There are a few improvements to be made and I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures as the work progresses.

Things are truly coming together for PodCamp London at the end of April. Its going to be an amazing event and I know for sure that it will be a great weekend. I’m working on lots of things behind the scenes so to speak and I’m excited to announce more in the coming weeks.

There is more then just PodCamp going on in London. I don’t want to reveal to much now, but suffice it to say  social media is going to be huge in London this year.

Until then

I’ve noticed something tonight (and throughout the week); London still has a small town atmosphere.

I’ve thought about that before bug it really came home to me fonigt as I popped into Joe Kool’s. A lot of people know each other. More then just casually too. A don’t think this is because they are regulars either.

London has small town connections with big city pluses.

I think it has somethig to do with the isolation here. While relatively spread out, eveyone still lives in the same geographic area called London. Unlike Toronto where you could be from and identify with any area ins two hour radius

I hope, for all our sake, that this isn’t the case. My reasons are not personal, nor are they because I have a favorite MSM news source. Rather, there is something about a news corporation’s ability to gather and report on news that is vital to a healthy democracy. (I’m going to have to leave that thought there for now, it’ll be something I come back to in a later post)

But in order to avoid falling into this recessionary mindset; that the only solution is to give up, or to think that the internet is out to get them, the MSM needs to embrace the web, and combine its features with their resources.

And that is why I am so happy to see what is going on here in the city of London. The local paper; the London Free Press, is heavily involved in Twitter. Not just as a newswire, but personal accounts from their editors and journalists. The LFP has gotten into live streaming events around the City and many of their personallities blog. A real blog with comments and an RSS feed.

Some of the radio stations in the city have also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. And they too are actively involved in building a community with their listeners online.

But London’s MSM is not there yet. They still have a few vestigial behaviors. Here is my list of what still needs to be done (Its not particular to the LFP either).

1. We work together - make it easy for us to provide you with our opinion and the news see happening everyday around us. And then make it easier for us to consume your product. Which means:
2. Redesign your web interface so that it actually contains more  content then ads. That might involve
3. Getting out from under your parent corporation

Now I don’t think that the last one is really a possibility. But in order for MSM and news in London to become fully social again (I would argue that at one point in history news was an incredible social activity) we need to become completely local - with no outside influence explaining how things should be run.

This is my thought

I will gladly pay $5 a month for a M-F podcast (audio or video) summarizing the daily news, local sports and weather. Thats all I ask - it wouldn’t have to be long. And I’m sure the data is all publicly accessible - I just want someone else to collect it for me.

So, when can I expect to see that in my feed reader?