Last night was titled “WALK THE TALK: GREEN YOUR CITY”, with the talks centring on sustainability. What struck me is the passion of each of the speakers (well… most of them. There were a couple “huh??” moments… but overall awesome). Like watching TED talks, I’m inspired when listening to people who can’t help but put into action something they’re passionate about.

The night was full of good information and inspiration, with a packed house of 2000 at the Queen E Theatre. Besides sustainability and the surprisingly pro-economic benefits, the theme of collaborative leadership came up again and again. While the speakers were chosen as leaders in their field, it’s their ability to build strong, authentic connections that creates action & movement on their issue.

Here are some bullet points I couldn’t resist jotting down in my phone as the talks progressed:

• Inspiration leads to action
• Products are a common currency. They bring people together. What if they could be all good? (fairware.ca)
• Imagine the subjectivity of others, especially the less privileged
• Difference is a point of negotiation
• Community based around food
• “A One Planet Footprint”
• Play = activity together
• Building beyond the property line. Green buildings are stronger together, connecting the capabilities of a neighbourhood to create a net-zero unit.
• Live like you plan on staying

Overall a great night! I can’t wait for the next one…

How, in the opening ceremonies, rather than celebrate a single significant athlete, five of our athletic heros – in both physical and public arenas – lit the torch together. Among them was Rick Hansen, a torch bearer for the disabled, a marginalized group given hope by his round-the-world tour.

How, in 106 days we orchestrated a torch relay that ignited a spirit of unity witnessed by 15 million Canadians across a physically disparate country (that’s nearly half our population!)

And how, all around town, the chatter is that with the Olympics in town, Vancouver really knows how to party.

These events seem to be releasing a dormant trait in us – we have it, but have often found reasons not to exercise it (the weather, the oft-cited Canadianism of “the man” or some lack of resources). These Olympics, the varied-face-events that they are, have provide an opportunity for Vancouver to show the world one of our best and growing attributes: the will to do great things together, to have our heros, and more to be heros together for the things we believe in. Those things may be in competition (the Olympics vs. activists against their social impact for example). But in the competition we rally around the things we care about and make something happen.

So for once I think I can let my Canadian demeanour slide a bit and take a bit of pride in my city. For all the ups and downs, the villains and oppressors, we have something greater: a community that has learned how to rally around their causes.

Henry Jenkins on Transmedia – November 2009 from niko on Vimeo.

Author of “Convergence Culture,” talks about Transmedia. A great five-minute watch.

(h/t cinematech)

© 2008 Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures.

I’m preparing for my next short film, and beginning the process of storyboarding. I ran across Karen J Lloyd, whose site is an excellent storyboarding resource. While the site’s focus is professional artists, she recently completed a series on Wall•E which I’m reading through now: The Shot Tells the Story. While Wall•E works on many levels, the shot selection is a big part of the storytelling in a movie with no dialogue (much like my next project).

Take a look if you’re interested to see how shots break down to tell the story of Wall•E.

= 1 great week.

Stu Maschowitz, of DV Rebel fame, and The Orphanage (may she rest in peace) is a leading expert on the ups and downs of the post-production tool-chain. In a vent of frustration, Stu posted a chain of comments to Twitter, a top-ten of the 15 worst things our beloved post-production apps are bad at. There’s still no great way to summarize a Twitter conversation, so I’m posting it here. Pretty great for all you post-pro pixel lovers/haters out there.

• Give Final Cut Pro a pixel, it’ll screw up the gamma.
• Give Avid a pixel, it’ll screw up the 16-235 thing.
• Give Motion a pixel, and as long as you leave it at that you’re real time all the way baby!
• Give After Effects a pixel and it will color manage it “correctly,” i.e. matching none of your other apps.
• Give Flame a pixel. That will be $2,300 please.
• Give Premiere Pro a pixel. Oops, wait, project’s still loading
• Give Shake a pixel. And put the new Sugar Ray CD in your 6-disk changer while you’re at it.
• Give Commotion a pixel. On that beige Mac you keep in the back room running OS9 so you can still use version 3.1.
• Give Photoshop a pixel. No, no, not Brightness and Contrast! Idiot.
• Give Aperture a pixel. Then do basically nothing to it using Aperture’s built-in controls, just fire up one of your $300 Nik plug-ins.
• Give Toxik a pixel. Feel lonely?
• Give Fusion a pixel. Look, your desktop!
• Give Nuke a pixel. And, uh, now what.
• Give Lightroom a pixel. Double click it. It becomes full-screen. But somehow you’re still not in edit mode. Did you read the five rules?
• Give Apple Color a pixel. Good luck getting it back!

The thread begins here if you want to read it from the source.

A very interesting article from the ever-interesting GOOD magazine.

It covers the chicken/egg problem of which is better for the developing world: laptops or cell phones? I’ve witnessed the dramatic proliferation of cell phones across Africa and, along with the mobility of Toyota “matatu” van taxis, the accompanying economic activity.

…voice communications do not require literacy, and are thus more egalitarian and more inclusive.

– Iqbal Quadir, founder of Grameenphone

But Negroponte argues that while cell phones connect, laptops are a window to literacy:

Asynchronous and high latency communications is very inexpensive… When we ship 100 laptops into a village, each can have 100 different books. That means 10,000 in the village, without any connectivity other than to each other.

– Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT

An interesting anecdote from Negroponte:

Ten years ago, most students are MIT and Harvard wanted to start companies and make money. Today, those students want to be social entrepreneurs. They are more interested in changing the world and doing good.

h/t Kara

Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness

– Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers

Just read this article in Harvard Business Review. According to Malcolm Gladwell and Geoffrey Colvin, becoming great at anything — whether it’s art, business, sports etc. — requires ten years of practice and 1,000 hours of practice every year.

It’s repetitive, which means that when it’s time to perform for real (sinking a putt, pitching a product), you don’t feel the pressure. It’s informed by continuous feedback; practice only works if you can see how you’re improving. And it isn’t much fun, which isn’t all bad. “It means that most people won’t do it,” Colvin says.

– Bill Taylor, Harvard Business Review

I’m a Mac fanatic.

I haven’t always been. In my Software Engineering days I slagged the Mac as a shiny, expensive toy. Outwardly hostile, inwardly I eyed them with envy.

On the side, I built a recording and IT consulting business based on the Windows world. I would make money off of the failures of Microsoft, fixing problems that ought not to have existed. In my own creative space, I chose PCs for music & photography out of necessity. I could get discounted PC hardware, leaving more money for paying the rent.

But as I grew out of enjoying the tinkering and into actually wanting to get work done, my enthusiasm for the DIY World of Windows quickly faded.

The final straw: one day, a well-meaning roommate inadvertently plugged my PC workstation into the internet without a firewall. Within five minutes, the machine was completely locked up with malware & viruses. Not only that, but it took two days of OS updates, driver installs, and software installation to get it back to a usable state.

Ever since then I’ve been sold on the Mac.

Not long before, I had set up my first video editing suite: Final Cut Pro, and a shiny new G4. Robb, my local Mac evangelist, dropped off the machine and took it out of the box for me. He plugged in the power. He plugged in the monitor. He plugged in the keyboard & mouse, and turned it on. He dropped in the install DVD and let it churn… and that was it. 15 minutes top to tail, and I had a working edit suite.

They’re still computers, and they still drive me nuts at times. But I’ve been won over. The user interface is designed & thoroughly thought through. The APIs given to third-party developers have been created in a way to make applications have an air of familiarity, even if they do vastly different tasks. There’s consistency. There’s simplicity, with the underlying power of Unix (if I really want to hack away).

And there’s the beauty of the thing, both in the software and Apple’s renowned industrial design.

With all that, I think my favourite part about the Mac is the ecosystem it creates for 3rd-party software. While Apple covers the bases well with the included applications, every productivity or creativity task you can think of, has been… and turned into a simple program to allow you to work. Apple’s design philosophy trickles down into these applications, where interface design and engaging me as a user is as important as the functions the software performs.

They still drive me nuts. Really. But if I have to choose a desert-island companion, my Mac just might win over my camera. Maybe.

I’m happy with how often I seem to be drawn here to post. It comes and goes… but there are times this web canvas is an attractive forum for thought. When I’m in deeper trouble, I tend to be more introspective and less ends up here. I turn to my sketchpad, my personal thought-bucket. The thoughts trickle back into public places once I’ve had a “Eureka!” moment, or when I can’t hold it in any longer.

This is one of those times.

I am working out something within me that seems to nag whenever I reach a period of stability. Somehow, right now, I have more passion and creativity; but it’s stagnated, dirty water in a puddle: like I have words but nothing to say. I am more prepared than ever before to burst into what I want to do, but I’m creating less than any previous period. Why?

I feel trapped by stability.

For me, freedom is a Very Big Thing™. Keeping my options open falls above engagement in my subconscious reflexes. Options give me the illusion of control.

Bizarrely, and – this is where I’m wanting to understand myself – I pair aloofness with responsibility. I frequently bind myself to roles and ways of thinking that negatively cut down the emotional and creative side, in the name of duty – and in the name of power: power to keep my options open.

In the end I bind myself twice – to self-imposed responsibilities and exile from true engagement.

That’s why I turn to writing, sketching, drawing. Not usually here, public like this – but writing helps me work out my ideas, just like photography & music help me work out my emotions. I’ve been taught how to listen to my internal themes to avoid the siren call of distraction, and when something’s up my gut pulls me to express it so I can work things out.

And this writing, this expression is the art. It helps me remember: I am not bound to freedom. I am free so that I can live life fully – to create, engage, be broken and re-create. That, to be bound to things worth holding is not a cage.

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

– Dr. Howard Thurman

[updated to work out the 3AM writing delirium]