Saatchi & Saatchi’s Kevin Roberts on Ideas as the Currency of the Future

Ideas are the Currency of the Future.

Here is Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts speaking at Wharton about Ideas as the Currency of the Future (see ideas Revolution).

Toshiba shows 64GB SDXC card

“Toshiba has exhibited its first SDXC (Extended Capacity) memory card at the CES 2010 show in Las Vegas.” More info in an earlier press release.

I haven’t been paying attention to SDXC, it applies to cards with capacities over 32GB and up to 2TB.

The $10 billion decade of vaccine

Via @BillGates, “Bill and Melinda Gates Pledge $10 Billion in Call for Decade of Vaccines (with livestream video)“,

DAVOS, Switzerland — Bill and Melinda Gates announced today that their foundation will commit $10 billion over the next 10 years to help research, develop and deliver vaccines for the world’s poorest countries.The Gateses said that increased investment in vaccines by governments and the private sector could help developing countries dramatically reduce child mortality by the end of the decade, and they called for others to help fill critical financing gaps in both research funding and childhood immunization programs.

“We must make this the decade of vaccines,” said Bill Gates. “Vaccines already save and improve millions of lives in developing countries. Innovation will make it possible to save more children than ever before.”

Listen to the many insightful examples and stories Melinda Gates told at the press conference. Very inspiring stuff!

Banking service can be provided to the poorest people in the world. Melinda gave an example in Malawi. An organization the foundation supports taking a large truck into a rural area (a mobile banking unit), giving them ways to safely save their money (so money are not stolen or literally being eaten by rats). Scanning people’s finger prints, giving them a smart card so they can access their money. The mobile unit goes out to the village twice a week and people line up to deposit their money (200 Kwacha which is US$1.40). When the time school fees are to be paid, the people then have the money to pay their child’s school fees to send them to school.

Amazing and inspiring stuff!

What a 9-year-old girl thinks

Beautiful video shot and edited video series by Toronto Star “What a 9-year-old girl thinks“,

“As part of the Secret Life of Girls series, the Star asked six girls what makes them happy and sad, about their neighbourhood and their thoughts on boys. Video by Bernard Weil.”

See more of this series here.

How To Report The News

UK Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker has this interesting and funny take on the news language, and “How To Report The News” in the following clip.

Here is an excerpt from Charlie’s column “‘Take Me Out is a cross between Blind Date and Boots’ Here Come The Girls campaign’“

If you’re not familiar with the [TV show] format (maybe you had harpsichord practice last Saturday), it’s a studio-based cross between Blind Date and Boots’ mortifying Here Come The Girls campaign. I’m willing to bet Here Come The Girls was a working title. It’s hosted by Paddy McGuinness, who arrives on the studio floor by descending down a huge glittery pipe, like a showbiz turd being flushed into the nation’s lap. He introduces 30 women – yes, 30 – who march in jiggling their tits and blowing kisses at the camera, cackling and screaming and winking like a hen night filling the front row at a Wham! reunion. It’s a crash course in misogyny.

The girls line up behind a row of illuminated podiums, and the first of the men arrives, sliding down the same pipe Paddy used earlier (if you’ll pardon the expression). Said bloke must impress the women by speaking, dancing, performing party tricks, and so on, like a jester desperately trying to stave off his own execution at the hands of a capricious female emperor. If he does a back-flip and six of the girls didn’t like the way his buttocks shook as he landed, they switch their podium lights off, thereby whittling down his selection of available mates, and by extension, the gene pool.

[...] The clever bit – in format terms at any rate – is that the girls return each week, so we get to know their “characters”. And they’re all “characters”. There are mouthy ones, stupid ones, sweet ones, gothic ones, young ones, old ones, and identical twin ones. All human life is here, apart from anyone you’d actually want to spend the rest of your days with. Or more than about an hour on a Saturday night, come to that.In summary: yes, it’s horrible. But that’s its job.

Cam Christiansen interview (Calgary-based multiple awards winning animator)

Cam Christiansen is a really talented Calgary-based animator that I’ve the pleasure to know for a few years. (See my latest interview with Cam at the bottom of this post.)

If you haven’t heard of Cam, his 2009 short film “5HOLE Tales of Hockey Erotica” was selected as one of Top 10 Canadian short films in 2009.

Cam’s 2008 short film The Real Place, a poetic short film commissioned by NFB about the life of John Murrell in celebration of John’s 2008 Governor’s Performing Arts Award, won Cam 6 Rosie,

The Real Place, an animated NFB short taking audiences into the vivid imagination of playwright John Murrell, was the single most awarded production at the 35th annual celebration of Alberta’s film and television industry, hosted by AMPIA (Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association).

Created in honour of Murrell’s lifetime achievement award from the Governor General, and populated by characters from his plays, this highly original offering took home six Rosie Awards — including honours for its narrator (Murrell himself), its musical score (Dewi Wood), its screenplay (Blake Brooker), its direction and its animation (Cam Christiansen).

You can watch some sample clips of “The Real Place” here, and hear my audio interviewwith Cam when his film was screened at the 2008 Calgary International Film Festival.

Cam’s 2007 short film “I have seen the future” won best Alberta short film and it was widely screened in international film festivals including the likes of Toronto Film Festival and Sundance.

The following two YouTube videos are my latest interview with Cam about his up and coming animation “My Misspent Youth” based on an essay of the same name by Meghan Daum. Read and learn more of Cam’s process in making “My Misspent Youth” here in this post by him.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers – An insightful and touching film

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a little known but wonderfully made film (another DVD I discovered from the Calgary Public Library). It was made by the Chinese American director Wayne Wang (best known for his The Joy Luck Club).

Here is a synopsis of the film (reworking from the back cover info),

A woman in her early 40s moved from China more than 10 years ago to America to start a new life. Her father comes to visit her because of her recent divorce. Their social and generational conflicts end up revealing the darker lies and cover-ups within her family during the Cultural Revolution.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is a based on a short story by YiYun Li. According to Guardian, “Yiyun Li’s 2005 debut story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers earned her comparisons with Chekhov and Alice Munro.”

This reporter really admire Wayne Wang for trying to telling American Chinese stories that can be universally appealing to everyone who cares to pay attention. Henry O plays the father in the film and his own story as he tells us in the DVD bonus section was deeply insightful and shows how he himself survived the Cultural Revolution in his own way. The interview with YiYun Li is a lot of fun to watch as well.

prime minister harper shutdown Freedom of Press

prime minister stephen harper had so much fun shutting down democracy and parliament, he has shutdown Freedom of Press as well.

From CBC “Media have no flight plan on PM’s plane” (emphasis added),

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is sneaking back into Canada through the front door.

Harper flew back from Switzerland today.

While in the air his office announced the appointment of five new Senators and the Supreme Court ruled he has the power to decide to ask if Omar Khadr could be repatriated.

What does Harper have to say about these developments? Nothing.

Journalists travelling with Harper are being kept on the plane to ensure the Prime Minister doesn’t face any questions in his short jaunt from the bottom of the staircase to his waiting limousine.

A prime minister that refuse to answer questions from the press, especially after important decisions of national significance, has lost the moral authority to govern.

The Line is Drawn in Hong Kong

My friend Daisann and Long Hair (Leung Kwok Hung) went up the stage to sing Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times they are a’Changing“. Here is a link to Daisann’s insightful blog entry “The Line is Drawn”. Here is an excerpt,

“Wednesday night, 6:30pm, the phone rings: it’s Long Hair. “Can you play guitar for me at the rally tonight? I want to sing Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times they are a’Changing”.

My first reaction: Uh oh. Leung Kwok Hung loves music, loves Bob Dylan and loves to sing. But keeping him in rhythm and in tune is like trying to steer a sailboat through a typhoon.

“I have the lyrics already!” he urges. “Come down to Chater Garden, bring your guitar, okay?”"

I have been trying to track down a YouTube clips of the performance without success until this morning. My friend is humble in talking about her performance. Let me put it this way, the sound system/the camera’s mic magically turns Daisann & Long Hair’s performance into something even Bob Dylan can’t do a better job. (smile)

On a more serious note, I deeply admire their and others’ willingness to standup and fight for Hong Kong.

Neil Young & Leonard Cohen – Cool to be Canadian

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

The Outsider (documentary DVD) – a hidden treasure in Calgary Public Library

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.

Pop. 220,000 “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament”

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

Thanks tiganatoo @ Flickr.

Love Clara Hughes – TorStar video interview

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

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

Thanks Jonathan Schwartz, CEO; Mike Dillion, GC (Sun Microsystems)

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.)

J. D. Salinger (1919 – 2010)

“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]

Rod Charko, $100 million man, CEO Alberta Enterprise – Alberta’s opportunities & challenges

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.

Life through a lens – Annie Leibovitz

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.

Petition signatures delivery to stephen harper’s office

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)

Home made Democracy Torch prototype

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.

Why Apple iPad will WIN? Why Apple iPad will FAIL? Some buying advices.

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.

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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.