“This is an opportunity. The entire world is watching and there is nothing on. So quickly, everyone pull together a design, a caption, the folks from Oreo were in the room, and we got something out in just a few minutes [kempton's note: 360i was ready in only 5 mins after the power outage but waited for 5 more mins to confirm people were safe before the tweet].“ - Sarah Hofstetter, president of 360i (WSJ Video interview, Feb 4th, 2013)
Happy belated 102nd Birthday to Nobel Economics Laureate Professor Ronald Coase. Wishing professor Coase good health and all the best in 2013!
In 2009, I took the initiative to spend a few days to download, process, upload, transcribe (small part of), and time-code professor Coase‘s 2003 Coase Lecture (a massive .mov file) to share on YouTube (6 clips in a playlist) to allow interested people from around the world to watch and learn as a way to celebrate professor Coase‘s 99th birthday.
For the last few birthdays of professor Coase, I mainly reshare the above video clips (with a new text interview in 2011). This time around, I’ve taken a new initiative to honour professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday. You see, a few years ago I went to the University of Calgary Law Library to conduct some US patent research for a client. As a bonus/treat for myself, I spent some time to download quite a few academic papers by professor Coase.
To celebrate professor Coase‘s 102nd birthday, I’ve uploaded the following three important papers plus a bonus paper as a special gift to readers of professor Coase‘s ideas.
“The only support I got was from my contemporaries. […] If this tale has any general significance, it is that new ideas are most likely to come from the young who are also the group most likely to recognize the significance of those ideas.”
For me personally, I received these important papers for free from the Law Library. And I see them (Firm, FCC, Lighthouse) deserve to be read by as many people as possible instead of under the messed up limited JSTOR manner. The bottom line, to me, by having these papers available by a single click here is that this save people’s physical travel time to go down to their local university libraries where these papers can be downloaded for free anyway!
It has not escaped my attention and noticed the paradox that The Lighthouse in Economics is a paper that disprove, with facts, the incorrect belief by many people (including my former MBA classmate who has a B.A. degree in Economics) that Lighthouse services cannot be charged thus has to be made freely available by the governments!
*** Concluding thoughts ***
I want to emphasize that I totally agree with the many academics in the #PDFtribute movement and Aaron that it is about time we in Canada and US require academic papers to be made publicly downloadable for FREE in perpetuity if any part (or whole) of their research funding come from any level of government (thus tax payers’ money, our money)!
I wish I had the opportunity to know you before you left us. In the words of George Bernard Shaw,
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
You were one of the brightest & most unreasonable men we had. With your sad & tragic passing, it is up to us to carry on your work and do our part.
2013 Jan 17 update re: Twitter #PDFTribute to Aaron:
- Washington Post video interview with Eva Vivalt, the woman behind the campaign, tells us why she launched it, “Aaron Swartz honored with #PDFTribute“
I’m first of all puzzled and wondering “Why is @IKEACanada silent during global trending Twitter #ikeamonkey ?” I see people from around the world on Twitters write and write about #ikeamonkey. And the media outlets not just in Canada but from aroundtheworld are also turning this into a viral discussion! But then paradoxically, I see the @IKEACanada account (yes, the official verified IKEA Canada Twitter account) being completely silent on #ikeamonkey! Why is the IKEA Canada social media tweeting nothing about #ikeamonkey? And, more seriously, why is the Toronto-based Leo Burnett, IKEA’s creative agency of record (since March 2011) NOT convincing IKEA Canada to do something creative and fun to engage all the people tweeting about IKEA!
Questions for Leo Burnett & IKEA Canada
Why is Judy John, chief creative officer, Leo Burnett and her team doing nothing? Are there heavy resistent from IKEA Canada? Now, may be they are doing something but in the Twitter age inside a perfect viral storm, one viral #ikeamonkey day is easily more than 100 human days! Since monkey Darwin was first spotted by shoppers at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, so one viral #ikeamonkey day (100 human days) has officially passed without something fun or engaging from @IKEACanada or Leo Burnett! What a waste of social media positive energy.
Lets have some fun IKEA Canada & Leo Burnett
There are many ways to engage and have fun. I spent a few quick minutes to come up with a few. Feel free to post and share yours in the comment.
Here are my free #ikeamonkey ideas/advices 2 @IKEACanada & @LeoBurnett#hint #youshouldreallypayme4myideas #yyc #canada
At this point, some thoughtful social engagement by @IKEACanada about #ikeamonkey will tremendous good for IKEA as a global brand.
Now, I don’t mean to criticize Leo Burnett (Toronto) too harshly as I think they have done some great work over the years like this one, “Ikea’s Cardboard Outdoor Posters Fold Down Into Moving Boxes Take one and start packing.” But I just can’t help but think about the wasted positive worldwide fun & positive attention to IKEA (not just IKEA Canada). What a waste! I feel like someone dumping tons and tons of preciously liquid gold randomly into ocean, once lost, they can’t be found again! It sucks!
Update: I rethink a little, since this is an article about social media, I will wait & see if @IKEACanada or @LeoBurnett see my Twitter tags re this article or do anything today. If I have time or want to do a followup article on this, I will then call up Leo Burnett and see if I can get a comment.
Note: This post is cross-posted by me at examiner.
Alison Klayman, director of Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, was very nice and cool to do her first post-Oscar-shortlist video interview with me on the day after she came back from a Bangkok film festival trip. Here is my video interview with Alison.
I just noticed on the back wall in the following film still, the pictures are the concept drawings that lead to the Remembering (2009), an installation for the Façade of the House of German Art.
Alison and I talked about the middle finger salute in the interview. To me, it is a show of defiance to the powerful, be it the one-party ruled Chinese government or any other governments or powerful institutions.
P.S. When I find more time, I still plan to write up an in-depth article (possibly also conducting one or more interviews) to allow Canadians (and citizens in other countries) to see how social media tools have been used by police forces from around the world. And may be opportunities for police forces to learn from each others. Stay tuned.
P.S. It is too early to tell but I haven’t heard of any advance warning signs for the tragic event unfolded last night (“Colorado theater shooting: a deadly attack delivered with brutal precision“). On a day like today, I want and try to think positive and hope that some future tragedies can be avoided by police departments getting more involved in social media.
“Average readers may not know but police services are now using social media tools to help communicate with citizens, report crimes, and, in some cases, even prevent crimes. Think for a moment, “prevent crimes” amazing right?!”
I am going to dispense some advices (my brand of poison, borrowing a phrase from a friend) and try to turn this epic #fail into a potentially valuable teachable moment for Rogers and us all. Feel free to share your thoughts in the moderated comments.
1) Twitter promoted hashtag/bashtag
If the epic #fail #Rogers1Number and #McDStories campaigns have taught us anything, it is that these promoted hashtags can get out of control, can be risky, and can lead to destructive unintended consequences. You know what, the companies promoting the hashtag will also be paying for these bashtags!
Yes, the companies are literally paying to get bad press! The companies are paying to let the world know how dissatisfied their customers, ex-customers, potential customers feel about them.
NOTE 1: Not all hashtags are bad. I think the organically “grow” hashtag from some greatly loved companies can be possibly useful. But even then, company encouraged, sponsored, or paid hashtags can still become lightning rods for unhappy customers or people with complains. So use hashtags with extreme caution like holding a lightning rod in a stormy area.
2) Sample #Rogers1Number tweets:
I’ve spent some time to find some sample tweets and I try to check to ensure the tweets are not from troll accounts newly created just to bash Rogers.
- “The saddest part of the #Rogers1Number backlash is nothing will change, #Rogers will learn nothing and customer will still get poor service.” (via Twitter)
- “I’m really loving reading all the nasty backlash at#Rogers it’s making my night, keep it up guys they’re paying per tweet! #rogers1number” (via Twitter)
- “When I call Rogers to resolve an issue two more magically appear #rogers1number They can’t get one thing right” (via Twitter)
- “#Rogers1Number ”We’re in social media to listen”. Right. Not to change. Just to listen. Hear this: Shitty PR stunts can kill a company fast” (via Twitter)
- “.@RogersKeith Rogers deems data so valuable u charge $2/GB when I go OVER. Why not get credit when I stay UNDER monthly max? #Rogers1Number” (via Twitter)
According to some projection, Twitter will have its 500 millionth user today (Wed Feb 22, 2012 at about 3pm EST). I seriously wonder if that “user” will be a Chinese political spam bot?
You see, I sometimes tweet about the Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei@aiww or talk about the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry@AWWNeverSorry. In the last 4 days alone, there were 15 brand new Chinese gov spam bots spamming me! The Chinese government wants to give the impression that lots of different people support its views.
Based on my experiences, the Chinese government and its agents have created many many Twitter spam bots, each only send out only about 120 or so personal @ message tweets to different people at the same time and then simply discard these accounts and left them unused! Try tweeting about Ai Weiwei@aiww and be spammed by the famous Chinese government spam bot yourself!
So thanks to brave opposition voices from people like Ai Weiwei, will the Chinese government and other spam bots creators be creating Twitter’s Six Millionth or even One Billionth user?
Note: I am not sure if these bots are fully automated or partially run by hired Chinese, also known as the 50 Cent Army/Party (in simplified Chinese: 五毛党; traditional Chinese: 五毛黨).
Also, I want to be clear that Weiwei is NOT the only target of these spam bots, I got spammed by them because I tweeted about Weiwei. Other people got spammed for tweeting about other people the Chinese government happen to disagree with.
Here are six of the 15 Chinese gov spam bot accounts (all different) that spammed me in the last 4 days! Click pix to zoom it. The first image is the collection of many of the spam messages on one page.
The following tweets are viruses that try to infect you and steal your passwords, etc. Forewarned is forearmed. You are now vaccinated again these stupid Twitter viruses.
* “Hey theres a bad blog going around about you, seen it yet?“ <a-link-to-infect-you>
* “lmao…omg i am laughing so hard at this pic u i just found” <a-link-to-infect-you>
If you have come across other twitter virus, please share the text (skip the link) in the comment section.
If you don’t have time to read the full article, (actually you should really find the time as it is fun and insightful reading), here is an excerpt from “Xplornet asked me not to write this“,
“In the interests of fair and balanced journalism, here is what you should know about Xplornet and what they want you to know. I’ll even put their stuff in bold:
It took 16 months for Xplornet to conform to the CRTC’s disclosure demands. But they weren’t ignoring the CRTC—they were in constant communication during that time.
When they did finally tell customers what they were doing, it was after the CRTC threatened to haul them into a public proceeding—but that’s not why they did it.
They degraded the speed of a competitor’s Internet phone service (VOIP) to the point where it was unusable—but they did so by accident. It was a technical problem with a codec.
Perhaps Xplornet is satisfied that this matter is now cleared up. Or perhaps they regret accidentally turning a spotlight on themselves while fumbling to shut off the power.”
Of course, as a reporter, I have to wonder why not?
May be Richard has another more important and urgent file that he is working on at Edelman?? But wait, the Murdoch‘s phone hacking scandal is the talk of the whole wide world. Easily the largest “crisis” any corporations have ever seen. A multi-billion dollars deal was killed because of this. Some suspect the scandal has the potential of bringing down or severely weaken Murdoch‘s media empire (a media company without trust or respect is not much if anything). And even capable of bringing down a government (just look at David Cameron’s recent damage control and tell me he is not worried)!
So as Global Leader of Edelman Crisis and Issues Management, yes Global Leader, why is Richard NOT involved in this most important and high profile Edelman file? I hate to put Richard on the spot because I used to admire him a lot and hope I can still admire him (but, what can I say, he is a “PR man” now). Will Richard be involved in the Murdoch‘s phone hacking scandal later, just not now? Or is Richard NOT involved by choice, quoting his own words when he joined Edelman,
The creditability of a man, especially a newsman, takes a lifetime to earn. I hope Richard‘s creditability and reputation can remain intact after the Rupert Murdoch‘s phone hacking scandals have passed with whatever outcome it will result in.
“Richard Sambrook, the BBC’s Director of Global News and a member of the BBC’s Management Board for the last ten years, will be joining Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR firm, as Global Vice Chairman and Chief Content Officer in May. Read the rest of this entry »
May be it is the blogger/freelance reporter in me, I am often very curious about people and things. So this morning, while I researched and wrote an article about often being mixed up with Kempton Park (the UK race track) on Twitter and checking my tweets, I ended up following three people I don’t know at all. My “philosophy” is that I believe I can often learn something new and interesting from people I don’t know and often in unexpected settings.
Give it a try yourself, follow a few random people on Twitter and try to learn from them.
Note: This idea isn’t by me, I forgot who I learned it from. Also, who you “follow” on Twitter or blogs you read may also change over time, so don’t worry too much of picking the wrong person to follow or read, there isn’t really a right/wrong.
His new company began with similarly modest aims: give anyone the ability to accept credit card payments through a tiny reader that plugs into their iPads and smartphones. Called Square, it has signed up hundreds of thousands of merchants and processed $66 million in transactions in the first quarter of 2011 alone. The startup is also building a vast database of financial information that its customers can tap into. [Kempton's note: The transaction processed is one thing ($66 million for a new gadget). What is as interesting is the financial information Square tracks.] It tracks each sale conducted through its credit card readers, allowing the company to calculate everything from the busiest sales day of the week (Saturday) to the average price of a cappuccino ($3.09 as of April 18).
The power of that kind of data analysis helps explain why Square was able to close a second round of funding in January: $27.5 million fromSequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, and others, which valued the young company at $240 million. Then Visa invested an undisclosed sum in April. [Kempton: I like the Visa investment. Interesting to know: "how much" & "under what terms"?] .Wired sat down with Dorsey at Square’s offices in downtown San Francisco.
Wired: You got the idea for Square after an artist friend lost a $2,000 sale because he couldn’t process credit cards.
Jack Dorsey: Right now there are about 8 million merchants in the US that accept credit cards. That doesn’t include people who do transactions over craigslist or dog walkers or people fund-raising for the PTA. There is such untapped demand. Like, we had a couch in the office that was really ugly, and we sold it for $5,000, and we accepted a credit card. There are moments in life when that’s necessary. And that’s what we’re focused on.
To me, Alex and Scott are so level-headed that their actions are worth thinking about and possibly learning from. Would you or should you let “money” (even if it is millions) change your life out of the blue? Or will you strive to live the best life you can after working hard and applying the skills/talent/knowledge you have?
June 20th update: Oh well, it was nice to think Scott and Alex won’t try to cash in for a day. “Vancouver riot couple hire PR agency Markson Sparks in Australia“. I remember watching Ricky Gervais at Banff reminding us/warning us, the danger of making money off just ”being famous” (having talent or skills are different, I am talking about simply “being famous” or “being a celebrity”).
What a wonderful job Rich Lam has done in giving us all a tiny bit of hope out of this totally disgraceful mess. To me, Rich has definitely captured a perfect example of Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s “decisive moment“, good job Rich!
““How’s that for making love, not war,” astonished dad Brett Jones declared on his Facebook page, telling the world that the famous Romeo in a Vancouver riot picture is his son.
If you haven’t seen it, Scott Jones, 29, is lying on a street locked in an embrace with girlfriend Alexandra Thomas as they’re flanked by riot police Wednesday night.
“She had actually been injured,” Brett Jones told the Star Friday morning from his home in Perth, Australia. “She had been knocked down by a shield” from the riot police.
“He lay down next to her to comfort her. She was crying and he just kissed her to calm her down.” [Kempton's note: What a lovely moment.]
Even as a young boy, said Brett Jones, Scott demonstrated his “gentle side for other people. I’m not surprised he would comfort Alex.”“
“At first Alexandra Thomas couldn’t believe that was she and her boyfriend on the ground sandwiched in between riot police on a calamitous Vancouver street.
“When I first saw it, I thought, ‘No way, that’s not … I can’t believe that’s us,’ ” said Thomas in an interview with the Toronto Star this morning. “Then I looked some more and realized, that is us. That’s a very revealing picture of us.”
[...] Thomas said this morning that everything happened so fast that there was just massive confusion all around.
“I was trying to understand what was going on. The photo was definitely not something we expected to happen,” said Thomas.
The couple is leaving in three days on a trip to California, before Scott heads back to Australia. Thomas said the response from her friends and family has been overwhelming.
“When I saw that picture I couldn’t believe it and then I looked at it more and realize it’s quite artistic and really something beautiful.”
[...] Jones senior can see that the couple’s now-iconic photograph may follow them for the rest of their lives, for good or ill.
“Relationships do buckle under that pressure unless you have the ability to be very centred. Even if it wasn’t Scott, the guy who took the picture captured a moment in time that is iconic.”
Brett Jones has also counselled Scott not to buckle to the doubters, rampant on the skeptical, know-it-all Internet, who say the photograph was staged.
“Tell your story as it happened and there’s nothing you can do about them,” he told his son. “I think it’s amazing.” [Kempton: Wise counsel from a great dad!]“
Finally, I think we humans are an optimistic species. We gravitates towards hope and love even when (may be especially) the world around us seems to be falling apart and failing us. The photo reminds me of the dialogues and images in the opening of the movie “Love Actually”.
9. Think for a moment: People who took photos & videos of the rioters’ crazy acts were indirectly “giving” the rioters an interested audiences and cameras to perform to! Yes, this is paradoxical and contrary to #10.
8. Take public transportation. Do not park your vehicles near the general area where you expect a ton of people to gather in a public event (in this case, well over 100,000+ people). Plus public transportation is better for the environment anyway! :)
7. It only takes a few short hours to undo a positive international image that takes _years_ to build!
6. The “Kissing photo” at the Vancouver riot had generated lots of web interest. Is this our collective minds hoping/wishing to see something positive out of this mess?
Jun 17, 11:30am MST update: Scott’s mom said, “I knew it was him because he doesn’t have a lot of clothes with him and he always puts on the same thing. I’d have to have my house flooded to get on the news, but he just has to kiss a beautiful girl.” [HT Atlantic Wire & Kevin]
5. People who took photos of themselves with burning cars or rioting acts as the backdropwere actually “fuelling” the symbolical flames of the riots.
4. Rioters/looters’ self incriminating photos will _forever_ be archived on the internet. “Youthful” indiscretions now leave a _permanent_ and non-erasable trail.
3. Riots can happen in any major Canadian cities (Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, etc). We just can’t defend against organized criminal minds/mobs who are ready to take advantage of special events or occasions to loot/rob/steal. Essential items in a rioters/looters tool kit are simple things like newspaper boxes, portable chairs/tables, bandanas, hammers, gasoline in bottles to start fires or use as Molotov cocktails. How can you defend against a few committed criminals in a sea of thousands without harming the innocent people by accident?
2. Social media/online initiatives like @VancouverClean on Twitter and “Canucks fans against the 2011 Vancouver Riots” on Facebook can have meaningful & positive impact in our real world. Show the rioters/looters and the world that committed citizens _can_ and _do_ make a positive difference.
In particular, I started crying when I looked at this picture because thoughtful and committed people are thoughtful and committed _individuals_ coming together to achieve a common goal!
Kempton: You are involved in social media a lot: e.g. Twitter and Facebook. With Twitter, do you actually write your own tweets?
Brett: I do probably 90% of my tweets but I have staff who feed me. Cause other outside organizations are now saying, “Look, you’ve got a large following in Twitter, would you make mention of our charity?” As long as it is causes that I am already active with, or events that are of use to my following and people I am working with, I will look into doing that. Some of the tweets are pre-formatted and provided to me. But I rarely just cut and paste. There is usually a little bit of Brett that has to go into them.
So typically Twitter is 90% Brett. Facebook is maybe 10% Brett because what will happen is my team will take the best of the Twitter announcements, whether it is an article that I have done or a story that I would like to recommend, they will pop it into Facebook. Cause if I can write it in 140 characters, they can then expand it into Facebook. It is harder to take the large story in Facebook and compress it to Twitter.
Now I know that you can feed stuff right through from one media to another. [Kempton: automatically] I don’t like doing that. I think that it is disrespectful of the [readers]. As much as I don’t write all the stuff that goes into Facebook, its based on my materials. It is not ghostwritten for me by others without knowledge of what interests me. I am very much on top of all of those things.
You would think no Canadians should be blocked from following minister’s *public* policy announcements and *public* discussions/debates with Canadian journalists/citizens, right? Well, you would be wrong. I had to jump through hoops (very time consuming, if possible at all) in order to follow what is going on.
When the current Canadian government is charged of contempt of Parliament and will likely fail a confidence motion because of said contempt, I thought it is time for me to take my own democratic right more seriously. Democracy is not free, so I took some time to write and send in the following complain. I know my chance of seeing any positive changes is really small but sometimes one has to do what is right.
Here is an excerpt for the record.
To: Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper (Member of Parliament for Calgary SW)
cc: Heritage Minister Mr. James Moore
Opposition Party Leaders
Mr. Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal Heritage critic
Mr. Charlie Angus, NDP Heritage critic
March 24, 2011
Dear Mr. Harper,
I am writing you as a Canadian living in your Calgary SW riding. I hope you can promptly help me to restore my democratic right to be an informed citizen so that I can vote in an knowledgable manner.
Recently, ministers have been announcing important policy decisions on the social media platformTwitter and using Twitter for active debates and discussions with Canadian citizens and journalists. With a possible election coming soon, Minister James Moore‘s (note: new Twitter account, the letters “MP” have been expunged and _org added) discriminatory act of blocking me from following his Tweets (see background info below and attached files) has become impossible to ignore. Let me emphasize, Moore’s discriminatory act of blocking me on Twitter has become increasingly detrimental to my ability to exercise my democratic right and duty to be informed & engaged in public discussions/debates, and to stay informed on Canadian government policies when I vote in an election. Read the rest of this entry »
RT @emmgryner: OMG just got off the phone w @Cmdr_Hadfield who signed off saying "see ya when I get back to Earth"...and I got chills 1 week ago
RT @WilliamShatner: I watch @Cmdr_Hadfield 's Space Oddity video last night and I have 2 words for him: "SHOW OFF!" I'd even look good floa… 1 week ago
RT @emmgryner: I am going to bed blown away by all the feedback and love re @Cmdr_Hadfield's Space Oddity. So proud to be a part of it. Wow… 1 week ago
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