Author: kempton

Celebrating Neil Young and Leonard Cohen. Here is a CBC video clip, Cool to be Canadian.

Filed under: Canada, Love, Lovemarks, Music, Video

The Outsider is a documentary, a hidden treasure, that I discovered from the Calgary Public Library. You see, I had no idea who James Toback was before watching the film. I borrowed it from the library because Robert Downey Jr. is in it and I like documentary.

After watching the film, the viewers will get a sense of who this edgy and off beat film director James Toback as a person from the likes of Woody Allen, Roger Ebert and Harvey Keitel. And as an unexpected and added bonus, viewers will also get to better know Neve Campbell, Robert Downey Jr., Brooke Shields in the bonus materials. These stars acted and talked like regular people who they were having an engaging conversation with the interviewer.

In this and other good documentaries, viewers feel like they get to know the subjects better and in some case want to know the subjects even more.

This reporter has been attending and reporting the Calgary International Film Festival for the last few years, and one very enjoyable experience is to watch very different type of films. And now you can borrow many different types and styles of drama or documentary from Calgary Public Library for free.

Borrow The Outsider and see for yourself. Here is a trailer.

Filed under: Arts, Calgary, Documentary, people, Video, YouTube

Join the new virtual city “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament“.

Thanks tiganatoo @ Flickr.

Filed under: Arts, Canada, Democracy, digital democracy, Digital-Revolution, social media, social network

Update: Yeah! Clara will carry the flag for Canada at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Vancouver Games!

***

The great summer & winter Olympian Clara Hughes has a nice interview with Toronto Star. Watch it & enjoy.

Filed under: 2010-Olympics, Canada, Love, people, Video

Jonathan Schwartz is very likely the first CEO blogs that I read and I am really saddened to see him leaving.

Mike Dillion remains the only General Counsel that I know has a blog and share his legal expertise, views, and even some cases commentaries openly. And I’ve enjoyed Mike’s blog since day one.

Thanks Jonathan and Mike for sharing your insights.

(Note: At press time, I’m not sure if Mike will be staying with Oracle. I kinda miss reading Mike’s blog.)

Filed under: Computer Science, insightful, people, Science & Technology

“An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s.” – J. D. Salinger (quotes)

[HT BMD]

Filed under: people, Quotes I Love

Mr. Rod Charko, CEO of Alberta Enterprise Corp (started in Sept 2009), came to Calgary last week to explain to Calgarians what AEC plans to do with the $100 million Alberta government (through AET) has entrusted him and AEC. After the presentation, Rod was very kind and spend more than half an hour with this reporter to answer some questions.

Rod stated clearly that AEC is NOT in the business of investing in individual startup companies. By government mandate, AEC is only allowed to invest in investment funds which may then invest in the startup companies. The funds that AEC is reviewing include funds in ICT, BioTech, CleanTech, and funds that are involve in multiple sectors. One of the investment criteria is the venture funds have to have a partner permanently station in Alberta and opening an office in the province.

In the long run, what AEC is trying to do is to create an environment of which venture capitalists will want to stay and keep investing in Alberta.

Another mandate of AEC is to increases deal-flows by working with Alberta organizations like VCAA (Venture Capital Association of Alberta), the alumni associations of universities, angel investors, mentors, and proven CEOs to help entrepreneurs in Alberta and help connect startup with venture funds.

Startups in Calgary also really need to have expertise, industry advice, board members who have direct experiences in the sectors they want to operate in. For example, medical device startup, Java software startup, solar CleanTech, etc these type of companies all need their own very specialized expertise and advices. The venture funds AEC are trying to bring to Alberta will have the needed connection to expertise in the Valley ready to help these Alberta startups.

To give you some idea, the following are some of the questions I’ve asked Rod. I’ve included the video clips at the end of this article so you can watch Rod answer my questions in his words.

* The funds AEC look at, are they VCs in Alberta, in Canada or in US (e.g. Silicon Valley)?

* AEC is trying to create a culture like the Valley here in Alberta. Will Calgary and Edmonton be featured or emphasized equally? Or does it matter? (short answer: AEC doesn’t tell VCs where to setup shop.)

* So your job is to find a good VC with a good track record that you can trust?

* How do you define metrics of success when their recent past performance may not be that good? (short answer: good fund managers have history of deal-flows, lessons learned from good and bad deals, operating experiences in startups and sectors they are addressing.)

* I asked Rod to talk about his background (Rod used to be an investment fund manager).

* Have you worked with this team of AEC people for years before? How many AEC people are there (excluding admin staff)?

* What does AEC plan to do to enhance the entrepreneurship environment in Alberta? Is this a long term thing that AEC will involve? (short answer: AEC’s philosophy is to have private industry own the ecosystem and deal-flow over time.)

* Does AEC have a website, a blog, etc to keep people informed? (short answer: only very high level information at AEC’s website, don’t really want to be a clearing house of information because Rod believes these are better done by private industry).

* The AEC arranged presentation and round table discussions can be recorded for wider viewing?

* How does the AEC funding process work? How long will it take AEC to deploy/invest the $100 million? How will the money trickle out to the investment funds to invest? Explain some of the industrial practice of how the system work (“cash call”, “calling money”, etc).

* AEC is a crown corporation, how does Rod make it transparent and accountable to Albertans? (short answer: AEC is an arms-length corp with an independent board of directors, report to Minister of AET.)

* AEC was started in Sept 2009, when will the first investment expected to be made? (short answer: looking at 35 already, deep due diligence with a few funds, possibly first investment in first quarter.)

* (clip 3, time code 3:05)What will be a happy picture (or ideal scenario) for AEC in ten years?

* Have other jurisdictions in the world been successful in duplicating the success of Silicon Valley?

* A discussion of education. The idea of teaching engineers, scientists, and people in other fields about business seems more viable than teaching business grads about technologies. Rod also talking about models that he is trying to follow (e.g. the Stanford example).

The following are video clips of my interview with Rod in three segments.

Filed under: Alberta, Business, Calgary, Canada, Economics, Entrepreneurship, InterviewByKempton, InterviewByKempton-Business, investment, people, politics, Science & Technology, Video, YouTube

While I must have seen many photos by Annie Leibovitz, the first time I really know about her, unfortunately, was in reference to her financial troubles. So it was my great pleasure to finally get to know Annie properly through the documentary DVD Life through a lens. The DVD is available form the Calgary Public Library.

Annie broke grounds (and is still breaking new grounds) like no one else. And as with any good and insightful documentary, it is ALWAYS about the people in the doc. The people Annie got to photograph over the years coming on camera and talking about their experiences with Annie.

In one particular touching scene, Yoko Ono talked about a beautiful photo Annie shot of her and John Lennon where a tragic fate was waiting for John only 4-5 hours later.

If there is a secret to good photograph or documentary about people, I suppose is the photographer or documentarian’s willingness to spend time with the subject and then become invisible.

Filed under: Calgary, Documentary, Love, Lovemarks, Photography, united states

When I tallied up the signatures last night, there were 357 signatures collected last Saturday on a snowy and cold day! The numbers were more than the organizing committees had hoped. Great job Calgary!

inside stephen harper’s office (yes, his Calgary office is OPEN, as opposed to the Parliament being shutdown)

Filed under: Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Democracy, people, politics, social media, social network, Video, YouTube

How to make it:

1. One 8.5 x 11 piece of White paper (heavy card stock works better)
2. roll it up (don’t roll to tight/small)
3. tape the paper on the side
4. tape one small Canadian flag on the outside at the TOP of the “Torch”
5. tape a second (if you have an extra) Canadian flag on the inside in the matching location as the outside.
6. Done!
7. Have fun in exercising your Digital Democratic Muscle!

P.S. I’ve learned not to be afraid in making mistakes and making rapid prototypes from reading and learning from Bill Buxton over the years. By the way, Bill’s “Sketching User Experiences” is highly recommended to those who cares about design and user experiences.

Posted in Business, Calgary, Canada, Democracy, digital democracy, Digital-Revolution, Law, Love, people, Photography, politics, Video, World, YouTube

There were a lot of excitement in the launch of the Apple iPad. Here is a link to UK Guardian Apple iPad reactions. Here is what CBC reports,

Chief executive Steve Jobs announced the device — basically a supersized iPod Touch — on Wednesday to a crowd of Apple faithful at an event in San Francisco. The iPad is about the size of a hardcover book, half an inch thick and with a 9.7-inch multi-touch screen, similar to the iPod Touch and iPhone. The device can surf the web using its Safari browser, send emails via an on-screen QWERTY keypad, play music, videos and games, and display e-books.

The iPad is surely one cool piece of technology. Check out the promo video of Apple iPad. I can’t wait until it shows up in a local Calgary Mac store for me to touch and play with one.

Why will Apple iPad “FAIL”?

For this reporter, the biggest (yes, biggest) disappointment is the fact it doesn’t have a camera (in fact, it needs two cameras). Apple unfortunately may have underestimated how much people are attached to their camera and video camera.

It is puzzling to think why Apple decided to not put the ubiquitous little circle thingy (also known as the tiny camera lens) right on the front and back of the iPad? Was it for cost reason? Or was it a power reason? Or was it for space? If you have a theory, please help.

Unfortunately, for this reporter, iPad without cameras is a “deal breaker“. A reporter in the new digital age without a camera & video camera just doesn’t cut it any more.

Why will Apple iPad “WIN”?

You can’t really beat the US$499 price. As a brand new and innovative product from Apple, a $499 price tag may attract many iPhone users to try the iPad and expand the reach of Apple products into people’s home and office. Now, comparing to iPad, other ebook readers now look like a piece of “beep”. (smile)

The iPad will be nice to use to surf web, do emails, and watch movies, and some light applications (iWorks and Page for presentation). But it will not be a machine that can do heavy duty video editing and complex Photoshop operations, etc for sure.

Some buying advices.

If you are one of those that must have all the new gadgets to play with and to show your friends, hey, the price tag is only $499, go ahead, line up to buy it and play with it and have some fun.

But if you do care about value for money and don’t mind waiting a bit for a better iteration, then wait a few months or a year for the second or third iterations.

As always with technologies, buy what you need and can use NOW. If you buy for future needs, then you will be paying a lot more than you need now because those newer and faster technologies will be cheaper in a year or two (aka “the future”).

Here is a video news clip showing off the iPad.

***

Jan 28 Update: Good post “8 Things That Suck About the iPad“, and I agree with all eight reasons, yikes! I will add “No Multitasking” and “No HDMI Out” and “No Flash” plus “A Closed App Ecosystem” to my list.

Massive hype sometimes has a price. And looks like Apple is paying for it today.

Posted in Business, design, Love, Lovemarks, Science & Technology, united states, Video, World

From CBC report “Liberals pledge watchdog independence” (emphasis and notes added),

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Tuesday his party would put limits on the federal government’s influence over its watchdogs.

“I’m willing to accept those limits, and we will put forward in the Liberal platform in the months ahead some clear definitions of how we would safeguard the independence of these tribunals …,” said Ignatieff.

Ignatieff spoke following a Liberal roundtable on governance, which heard from the former heads of three agencies who say they experienced interference from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

The speakers included former nuclear safety commission head Linda Keen, former RCMP public complaints commission head Paul Kennedy, and Peter Tinsley, the former military police complaints commissioner.

Keen called her dismissal “an attack without precedent in Canada.” In 2008, the Conservatives said she lost the government’s confidence over the way she handled the shutdown of a medical isotope-producing nuclear reactor. [K note: Sadly, Ms. Keen’s concern was later proved right as her science was correct.]

CBC’s Katie has an excellent live blog entry which I will be reading much closer. Here is an excerpt,

[Former President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Linda] Keen notes that tribunals are often called ‘cousins of the court’, and as such, must be allowed to operate independently. She, on the other hand, was ‘fired by the prime minister’ the day before she was scheduled to testify before committee on the isotope crisis (the last one, that is), but she recalls that her termination came after a ’strange year’ of relations between herself and the then-minister. She recaps the decision to hold the tribunal responsible, which she calls ‘an unprecedented attack’ — and one that left commissioners fearing for their jobs. She pays tribute to two of the other panelists — also former commissioners, noting that ‘Paul and Peter did their jobs.’ As for her, she now works as a risk advisor in the private sector.

Because of Ms. Keen’s sad and unjust experiences (see a search of my blog entries written about Ms. Keen), I now put my trust in a trained-scientist much more than the ill-advised federal politicians from all parties (yes, MPs from all parties collectively over-rule Ms. Keen’s scientific judgement, and these federal politicians were all “beeping” wrong). I will always remember “Parliament voted to bypass the order of the safety regulator and the reactor was restarted Dec. 16 [2007].”

Posted in Canada, ethics, politics, Science, Science & Technology

The following are some defenders of Canadian Democracy from around the world (New York, San Francisco, Netherlands, Oman, London, Beijing, etc). Thank you all for caring.

Posted in Canada, people, Photography, politics, World

The Monopoly Canadian edition has created itself a successful promotion campaign by creating the website MonopolyVote.ca for residents in different Canadian cities to vote to have their own cities be added to the board game. The campaign is reported in CTV Calgary tonight and CBC earlier and reported in CTV Edmonton.

Is the campaign a win for Monopoly?

This is an absolute and unqualified YES! The effort of creating the website and the limited marketing cost to get the press release out and other associated cost is tiny when compared to the free TV air time given for free by TV stations involved. Plus these coverage are BETTER than paid-advertising because they are reported as NEWS!

Is the campaign a win for Calgary (and the other cities involved, Edmonton, Toronto, Halifax, etc)?

Well, it is not that straight forward. It is unlikely tourist will want to visit Calgary (or another winning city) simply because they are on a board game. And it is not like residents in that city need Monopoly to remind them their city is great or nice to live in.

In fact, one may be successful in arguing the winning city that beat off other cities may be HATED by residents in those losing cities. (smile)

Is the campaign a win for the city politicians (or former politicians) involved?

Well, the answer to this one is easier. It is an unqualified YES because mayors/city councillors (or any former city politicans) can appear to help promote the city and promote themselves at the same time! Why not?! (another smile)

Is the campaign a win for the TV news shows who air these kind of “NEWS”?

Well, some may argue that fluffy news like the MonopolyVote.ca vote is a “feel nice” story for the city and doesn’t do much harm. But at the same time, marketers are getting smarter these days and can find very innovative ways to dress up their advertising, marketing and promotion campaigns as “news-look-alike” and then issue them as “news” where they often get reported as news as those smart marketers planned.

Is the campaign a win for the viewers who watch these “NEWS”?

Well, if the viewers simply watch these “NEWS” without thinking about the potential hidden agenda, then people may get brainwashed at the same time. And that can be bad in the long run.

On the other hand, if the viewers watching these “NEWS” realize these “NEWS” are actually advertisings, and then decide to expose these types of “NEWS” and talk about these tricks, then may be viewers can learn to immunize themselves from these so-called “NEWS” in the long-run. And TV stations will learn to filter out these kinds of “NEWS”.

Forewarned is forearmed. Feel free to share your personal experiences in the comments.

Postscript: This reporter is very keenly aware of the irony in the additional publicity created by reporting of the website MonopolyVote.ca.

If this reporter was Monopoly’s marketing consultant, the only worry would be the media completely ignoring this campaign and say nothing (good or bad) about it.

So, in a game of Monopoly, the constant winner is the ultimate owner (Hasbro) of Monopoly! (big smile)

Posted in Alberta, Business, Calgary, Canada, Creative, Marketing

I’ve been waiting for Objectified, Gary Hustwit’s latest documentary about design and our relationship with manufactured objects, for some time now. And now a few copies of the film DVD is finally available to borrow for free from the Calgary Public Library. Of course, you can also buy a copy of the film, rent it form iTune or buy some stuff from Gary’s website if you want to.

Here is a synopsis of Objectified from Amazon,

“Nearly everyone spends their life surrounded by the work of industrial designers, but very few people understand the process by which your furniture, cell phone, or alarm clock came to look and feel the way they do, and how the elements of design interact with our own ideas and assumptions about value and functionality. […] Filmmaker Gary Hustwit takes viewers on a journey through the elusive world of industrial design and the interaction of people with the objects they’ve brought into their lives in the documentary Objectified, which features interviews with a number of major designers who discuss how products move from the drawing board to the marketplace, and the philosophy behind the look, feel, and function of the things in your home.”

Before I go on to talk more about the documentary, here is a clip of the film to give you a taste of what you will see,

• As a lover of many Apple designed products, Jonathan Ive’s discussion is just great to watch over and over again.
• This reporter was amazed to see the number of apple peelers the designers looked at before they come up with a better one.
• A hackable iRobot vacuum cleaner that showed a hamster driving the iRobot, yes, the hamster’s movement drives the vacuum cleaner. Very cute and funny.
• The toothbrush re-design discussion at IDEO, a world leading global design consultancy firm, is amazingly insightful and not to be missed.

And even the extra bonus interviews on the DVD were very insightful and interesting. One of the interviewee talked about “Design and China”. At the moment, China is the manufacturing plant of the world. But the Chinese government has put in lots of resources to train their graduates. Now, imagine, one day in the not too distant future, China starts designing interesting products with Chinese visual sensibility and understanding of the world. It will be interesting to see what comes out of China.

Finally, in the “extras”, the Dunne & Raby discussion of their “Evidence Dolls” project was fascinating. The idea of the “Evidence Dolls” was to use objects as a tool to ask question. (Warning: Potentially mature content. I will be watching this series of Evidence Dolls Interviews by a number of women. Very touching and deeply soulful.)

And here is a most insightful post screening Q&A at the Walker Art Center where the host is one of the subject interviewed by Gary in the film. Great stuff.

(P.S. By the way, you can also watch Bill Buxton’s very insightful interview of Gary Hustwit.)

Posted in Business, Calgary, Canada, Creative, design, Documentary, insightful, Love, World

Q: What do you think a young journalist like me can learn from an old school journalist like you?

Don Hewitt: […] It is four words that every child in the world knows. “Tell me a story.“

Watched a great 60 Minutes episode about Don Hewitt this past Sunday (I missed it when it first aired in Aug, 2009).

Check out this video segment by Steve. You can find more videos and news about Don here.

Posted in drama, people, politics, Television, united states, Video, World

As a steering committee member of the Calgarians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group and organizer of the Calgary anit-prorogation rally, and a Canadian with the ability to communicate in Chinese, I felt it was my responsibility to explain to my fellow Chinese-Canadians the danger of an unjust and partisan prorogation (shutdown) of Parliament.

Now, allow me to first sink to mr stephen harper’s calculating and manipulating level for a moment. stephen harper is a good strategist that has been courting the Chinese votes for years. So it is extremely important to let Chinese-Canadians understand the danger and seriousness of a prime minister that is willing to shutdown Parliament to avoid being held accountable by the Parliament.

The prime minister is accountable to the Parliament, NOT the other way around. harper may be the prime minister, but WE are his BOSS!

The sad irony is that many Chinese left mainland China and Hong Kong where they had no way to hold their governments accountable. In a sad and twisted irony, even the Hong Kong government DID NOT dare to shutdown the Legislative Council to avoid being held accountable by the legislators. In the last few days, some HK legislators have been challenging the rotten core foundation of the Hong Kong political system. And YET the HK Legislative Council is open for business!

It breaks the hearts of many Canadians with Hong Kong and Chinese connections to see our beloved Canada, thanks to stephen harper, is now even LESS democratic than Hong Kong.

The following is a video of the OMNI news report of Jan 23rd, 2010, rally in Calgary (more blog entries about the Calgary and other protests here, here, here, here, and here).

And a video of the Calgary rally,

Posted in Calgary, Canada, CBC, China, Chinese, Democracy, digital democracy, Digital-Revolution, ethics, Hong Kong, Law, Love, people, politics, social media, social network, Television, Video, YouTube

I am so proud to be a Canadian and a long time lover of National Film Board (NFB) films. Quoting “One year after putting NFB films online – Here are the stats…“

Total Film Views on NFB.ca (Jan 2009-Jan 2010)
* 3.7 million total online film views since we launched a year ago
* 2.2 million online film views in Canada (59% of views)
* 1.5 million views International (not including Canada) on the web
* Total international views: 1.45 million views
* Total views: 3 768 628

Film Views on iPhone App (Since October 21 2009)
* 396, 190 views on iPhone in Canada
* 131, 332 views on iPhone outside Canada
* 527, 522 Total film views on iPhone
* Total number of apps downloaded: 171 271

NFB is seriously cool, keep up the great work NFB.

The most popular film in 2009 is “A Sunday at 105, (13:20) with 155,183 views“. After watching the film, I don’t think anyone can resist the charming 105 years old leading lady! Here is the synopsis of “A Sunday at 105“,

“A 105 year old Acadian agrees to be filmed one Sunday as she goes about her daily routine and ruminates on life. Filmed by her great-grandson, Aldéa Pellerin-Cormier comments wisely on politics, sex and religion. From getting ready in the morning to drinking her nightcap before bed, every moment is punctuated with a witticism or existential thought. Respectful of the old woman’s privacy, Daniel Léger’s first documentary looks at wisdom, serenity and enjoyment of life. In French with English subtitles.”

Enjoy.

[HT Michael]

Posted in Arts, Canada, Documentary, people, Video, World