3 Ways to Make This A Day To #Remember. #RemembranceDay2012

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada and other Commonwealth countries.
The express purpose of the Day is to remember that at the 11:00th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, World War I hostilities officially ended with a signed treaty. It's often marked by observing a minute of silence at 11:00am every year on November 11.

Remembering war sacrifice is important.
In addition, remembering itself is important, and can apply more broadly.
Especially since Remembrance Day falls on a Sunday this year, it seems appropriate to consider other remembrances that have shaped, or can shape, who we are. 

1. Especially now that I'm a dad, I quite often think back and remember that my parents made a ton of sacrifices to give us a chance at success. My Mom actually got a little choked up thinking she may have failed me in some way in her mothering and I assured her that she didn't. Our family was wrapped up in the turmoil of China post-WWII. It's complicated, yet still has common earmarks of many in our boat: uprooting a young family from Asia to Canada (we landed in Toronto in winter. I was 3 months old. That feat alone is herculean to me). Mom and Dad spent their lives working and saving so we could have every opportunity possible. This strikes me as a good thing to remember.
2. Even more simply: think back to when you said "I should remember this" or "I don't want to forget this." You can hold me accountable to this: assuming my wife doesn't see my blog beforehand, I plan to spring the question on her with roughly this scripting:
   "Hey, do you remember the last few times one of us said, 'hey, we should remember this'?Because it's Remembrance Day today and even though we're supposed to remember war sacrifices, I think it would be nice for us to remember those little things too."
   I actually kind of need this because I vaguely remember my wife saying "we should remember this" and actually can't remember what it was we were supposed to remember. We've been quite short on sleep for the last two years and I think our memory might be affected. And also our memory (yes, that's a joke). 
3. There are some things coming up that I want to remember. I'm currently reviewing a book called Stop With The BS. In it, author Shane Mac references a Tim Ferriss (the Four-Hour Work Week guy) principle:  “It is not our ability to take notes, it is our ability to find them later.” A dead simple idea but so true (in the book and probably on Tim's blog, there's a simple enough remedy). So if I get to it, I plan to have a more indexed system of referring back to notes I've jotted down. Having Evernote on my phone & computer helps. Theoretically. Anyway, point also is to pre-populate some big milestones ahead, which also draws together success-related practices like visualizing and goal-setting.

So there it is: three ways to remember today.
Feel free to comment in and check up on my homework, and add your own thoughts or reactions. Wishing you a memorable day.

the #Movember plan for "#worldDomination" 1min vid

In case you thought Movember was just an excuse for us guys to not shave our upper lips, here's a nice little YouTube post about where some of the funding is going, namely to fund increased worldwide collaboration among Prostate Cancer researchers to combat the #1 cancer affecting men.

I'd say, though, it is nice to have an excuse to halve my shaving time...

My Mo's progress through week 1 is posted on my Mo page if, for some reason, you want to see my moustache grow or, more to the point, you want to give to the cause.

my early pick to win #TheVoice is...

I like NBC's The Voice.
It's one of these shows that part of me feels embarassed to like (possibly a topic for another post).

The show's #UniqueSellingProposition: celebrity judges have their backs turned to the singing contestants. They pick them for their team (almost) solely on their voice (the almost: they also see the crowd's reaction). A few other things that, in my mind, set this show apart, though:
1. Initial quality. Contestants WIN a spot in front of judges. They've already gone through an intense selection process to get there. There's no interest in showing deluded singers and being mean to them, which is such a relief. As a result, the initial blind auditions send home some singers who are still fantastic & talented.
2. Note the phrasing: "their" team. The judges pick the team they coach and thus co-own success. Maroon 5's Adam Levine and country star Blake Shelton coached the first two seasons' winners respectively and are not shy about saying it.
There's probably some HR/Leadership principles at play here. Just sayin'.

So my early pick to win is Trevin Hunte.
Apparently I'm not alone in early-picking him.
It's not so much a professional odds-on prediction as much as a wish: he seems like a really authentic 18-year-old who's got so much talent, he doesn't seem to totally grasp it yet. A big part of his story is a major rejection from an earlier music teacher who didn't believe he could "make it". So he's so genuinely appreciative of every chance he's getting. It was quite touching and telling too: this big 18-year-old kid cried when he won his last televised battle, eliminating a team-member who'd taken him under his wing.

Some aspects of Trevin's story remind me of me at a similar age. I don't put it out there a lot but I had a meagre start in choir singing. I enjoyed being in the background and was okay with not getting solos, but one conductor saw something in me, trained me & put me up there (I shared the stage once with a guy who was semi-pro at the time and became a stellar classically-trained soloist).
I think back fondly to being picked in this way.
I also find it odd that that set of memories didn't really surface while watching any of last season, and really only came back to me while considering Trevin's case.

Wanted to slip this in a little bit before they start the Live Finales tonight.

Someone will win this thing. Someone amazing.
I'm really pulling for Trevin Hunte. Go Trevin! 

The-kind-of-odd-tangent-my-brain-does: I wondered why I wanted to spell Trevin's name with a Y in it and it's because his first name is close to Trayvon Martin's: a sad note in 2012 American events. It'd seem a sort of cosmic redemption for Trevin to win this thing for that reason too.

My wife's early pick is 35-year-old Scottish rocker Terry McDermott.
I think he's a good emotional pick too.

 

Remember remember the 1st of #Movember.

Day 1 of Movember.
I have to tell you I'm joining this movement this year.
I have to tell you because if I don't, you likely won't know I'm trying to grow a moustache until maybe November 26.

Movember is men growing their moustaches throughout November to raise funds and awareness for Men's Health issues. They stem around Prostate Cancer but it's kind of also about us men getting over the barriers to getting checked out by a doctor, because there's a lot of health doo-doo we could prevent if we get checked out early. 

I've never done it before, but this year I'm joining forces with my brother in Toronto, forming the Mo Tang Clan alliance to grow our facial hair(s) for the cause. So far I have my daughter's pic as my Mo pictorial presence. I doubt I can beat the appeal of her fruity Mo.

I'm toying with "thon"-ing the concept: having people pledge an amount for every time someone comments on the 'stache. It's part of the objective of the month, plus I'm curious if anyone would ask. Again, might not be an issue for me till after the 26th...

Anyway, here's my Mo page.
And here's the Mo Tang Clan team page. 

Please give early and often. Thanks for your support!

Dexter: a darkly dreaming post for #Halloween

via youtube.com

I had fond memories of Dexter's Laboratory and was more than pleased to share this cartoon gem with my 21-month-old daughter on the tube. Imagine our surprise when we clicked on the show Dexter and...
...I'm totally just kidding. I can tell the difference (could you imagine, though? I wonder if the show's creators had banked on that kind of snafu...).

I started watching Dexter this fall.
I watched the first 3 episodes of Season 1, then read the plot synopses through Season 6, then watched the Season 7 premier. It was a neat way to go. I was so very glad to see the title sequence had remained the tight-focused innuendo-laden visual (the video posted above) since the beginning. Also, Season 7 ended with the biggest of big reveals (I'll not spoil it if you've yet to catch it...).

In a small nutshell: Dexter is a blood splatter expert for the Miami Police Dep't. He's also a closet serial killer, using his "gift" to moonlight as a killer of other killers. 

Dexter's very much an ordinary guy, just with a talent and unusual affinity for homicide. Not that it makes it hugely forgiveable, but he's become very neat and efficient at it. And therein lies the crux of a fascinating premise: the primal urge for eye-for-eye justice is expressed in fighting darkness with equal and opposite darkness. In the show, it occasionally works out neatly but very often, in individual cases as well as in the overarching story, Dexter's private and public lives are an unbelievable mess to manage, with heart-wrenching collateral damage.

Dexter is based on a short story called Darkly Dreaming Dexter and those words resonate with the spirit of what it is, and with the spirit of today: we all have a dark side which is a bit more allowed to peer through on Hallowe'en.
Sometimes the release is healthy.
When it's out and/or acted upon too much, though, things can get real complicated.

Is this a bagful of candy for #nerds? a post on the primo #HalloweenTreat

Is this the Hallowe'en treat for adults? I got the image here.

There's a lot of scary going on right now.
And I'd planned to blog scary for Hallowe'en.

After some thought, though, I re-discovered a core truth about Hallowe'en that was just a little off the scary obvious: to the target market, kids, Halloween is, in many ways aboutcandy.

Gobs of candy.

Candy by the handful.
Candy by the bagful.
At no other time of year are handfuls and bagfuls the measure of candy. 

I'm not sure if my Hallowe'en experience was typical or not. We not only went for volume, but quality: we pinpointed the primo treats (for us, there were cans of pop, full-size candy bars, and chips) and devised ways to repeat-visit them.

This got me thinking about what a treat would be in marketing.
One adult equivalent is tradeshow swag.

And in that realm, the Lancope light-up ninja sword really stuck with me as a primo treat. To me, Lancope really understood their target (tech nerds at a computer security conference) and treated them to branded merch that tapped into a core essence of both the security product AND the aspiring ninja inside any self-respecting nerd. Kudos to Lancope for suitably equipping their prospective customers (quite possibly for Hallowe'en).

According to my research, witty T-Shirts are a close runner-up for primo nerd swag.

Note: I use the term "nerd" with affection. I love nerds and consider myself one. If I were at this show, I'd either have grabbed one of these swords or been really disappointed when they ran out.

I'll have the scary post go up deeper into Hallowe'en.
Stay safe. Have fun. And please enjoy your gobs of candy responsibly.

something scary at the bottom of the stairs...

See the full gallery on Posterous

At the fairly well-known educational institute I'm currently attending, the above is what greets you when you try to walk out from the main floor in Stairwell 1.

The doors on every floor toggle (arbitrarily?) between a Keep Closed warning and an Alarm Will Sound warning. While I'm about 60% sure that even the Alarm Will Sound ones won't actually sound an alarm when you open it, I'm not about to test this theory out and risk an inadvertant school bell fiasco in the middle of downtown Vancouver. This one looks like it's going to ring about 5 alarms, doesn't it?! Then again, maybe I'm just too easily scared.

Showing this as photo evidence of something that could be made much easier, to encourage the healthiness of walking instead of using the elevator. For me, it was a two-day affair figuring out how to walk the stairs to my regular classroom, and even then I have to change stairwells part way.

I'm almost annoyed enough to send it to Seth Godin's ThisIsBroken.com but the site's pretty old and this doesn't seem quite broken enough. Partly posting her because my mini-experiment kind of works: if you toggle between pictures 1 and 2, you get some approximation of the flashing light scenario down there.

(actually) writing good writing #writingTip @ErnieSchenck2

An old Communication Arts column by Creative Director Ernie Schenck recommended kickstarting creativity and the rhythms of writing by actually re-writing good writing by hand. I haven't taken the time to do this as much as I'd like, and I'm not sure it's improved my writing yet. Still, this was a nice piece I picked up while my hard drive was defragging (IT guys, is that actually a thing?...).

If nothing else, it provides a uniquely intimate look at writing you admire.
(by the way this is Herman, one of my favo[u]rite cartoons of all time)

(creative @dobronski waxes poetic on) Brevity http://t.co/8YiK8FNq

CD Doug Brown's one-sentence post about brevity: http://t.co/8YiK8FNq
I've now exceeded his length by one sentence (edited out a picture though) but I'll leave it at that bc we could likely all use a bit of a breather heading into the weekend...

My birthday: an occasion for all to give thanks

My birthday's a national holiday.

At least it is this year.

And the year I was born.

My birthday's a Monday this year and when that happens, it's Thanksgiving Monday in Canada.

I'm not sure if this happy coincidence has magically made me more thankful.
What I feel in my current season, which is far from problem-free, is still an almost inexplicable appreciation and love for life. 

In general, I'd think most of us like appreciativeness in people.
Genuine gratitude seems to imbue life and positive energy.

A common Thanksgiving question is "What are you thankful for?".

While is a nice question to consider, I propose two variations on the question to refine our Thanksgiving, based on how my own gratitude is shifting:

1

I'll call this thanks of omission: wherever we're at in life, there are infinite circumstances that could be worse for us. I think particularly of the space we're in right now: I have time, energy and resources to write a blog post; you have time, energy and resources to read it. Our ability to make this little mental transaction instead of, say, spending our days fighting for our lives, is a privilege only a small percentage of the world population gets (a similar thought in this post: How to Rule the Whole Freaking World.by Sonia Simone).

Two other odd examples for me personally:
a. I've never had an injury involving broken bones or losing teeth.
b. I've never had to deal with broken windows in my car. Even after having one totalled several years back. And after living and parking in high auto theft areas in Canada.
So... what's an omission in your life that you're thankful for?

2
Particularly over the last few years, when I think about being thankful, my thoughts gravitate more to people than to things (with lots of room still to grow in this area). However, this thankfulness comes into strangely sharper focus after you've helped bring a person into the world: our 20-month-old daughter isn't perfect, but lately she's had moments where she's a living breathing cartoon character out of Disney's Steamboat Willy.
On one level, she does nothing for me.
On a deeper level, she's probably more a saving grace for me than I may ever realize.

I'm thankful for my wife who's helped her be this way, and believes in me even in my less-than-perfect present situation. Lovingly taking care of the combined birthday/Thanksgiving baking while I sit at my laptop is something I'm also immensely grateful for.

I'm thankful for family & friends who've embraced and not judged.
They've helped me enjoy the many omissions from point 1.

So... who are you thankful for? (technically it's whom but that looks a touch too hifallutin...).

Wish you all a great Thanksgiving!

title image: Freedom From Want by Norman Rockwell

Books you can borrow...

I'm giving away comic books.
It's something I've never done in my life which is testament to the kind of pack rat I am. We could use the space though. Dana will be pleased I think.

If you'd like to borrow these, I'm donating them to my local library (Richmond Brighouse location) so if all goes well, you'll be able to sign them out there in the very near future. I'm posting the photo largely for my own reference: my memory is so shot sometimes these days, I'm quite sure I'll be looking for one of these on our shelf pretty soon and wondering why I'm not finding it.

Using your Jealousy. from Quiet: thepowerofintroverts.com - By Susan Cain

via thepowerofintroverts.com

Susan Cain wrote an excellent book on Introverts this year. It's really stuck with me.

She writes with vivid candour about her own struggles with introversion, this book being the fruit of this struggle and some resolution.

The following quote is from her chapter on life direction.

Seems appropriate as we enter another post-LabourDay season. Enjoy!

...pay attention to what you envy. Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. I met my own envy after some of my former law school classmates got together and compared notes on alumni career tracks. They spoke with admiration and, yes, jealousy, of a classmate who argued regularly before the Supreme Court. At first I felt critical. More power to that classmate! I thought, congratulating myself on my magnanimity. Then I realized that my largesse came cheap, because I didn't aspire to argue a case before the Supreme Court, or to any of the other accolades of lawyering. When I asked myself whom I did envy, the answer came back instantly. My college classmates who'd grown up to be writers or psychologists. Today I'm pursuing my own version of both those roles.

from Quiet by Susan Cain (pp975-6 of the digital/iPhone edition) 

posterousfolio: longer copy / techie writing

elite.pdf Download this file

assist.pdf Download this file

overview_2.pdf Download this file

Longer form and more technical writing for what's now SAP.

posterousfolio: that gut feeling we have

RiceTalesBrochure_Final.pdf Download this file

I wish we could have said we sampled lots of product to get here.
I know I had a nice feeling of satisfaction when we got through this anyway, though.

Art Director / coCreative Director: David Yu

posterousfolio: FirstPeople church glossy

FirstPeople_Winter07-R01.pdf Download this file

A full magazine I was editor-in-chief on.
The article on Depression has really stuck with me years after.

Twitter-Owned Posterous Loses Databases, Suffers 17-Hour Outage

via thenextweb.com

My website was down for 17.5 hrs.
Since it was a Sunday, I'm assuming both my followers had better things to do.
I was in fact camping with the family and hope you were doing something similarly offline-y and Sunday-y.
The gruesome details are at:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/22/twitter-owned-posterous-loses-multip...

Where’s the workplace love (aka AppreciationAtWork.com)? A Book (P)Review - @DrPaulWhite

via appreciationatwork.com

Why do companies lose people?
In a recent online presentation, Dr. Paul White cited research indicating that for 78 or 79% of people who quit a company, “lack of appreciation” is a top reason. An off-the-top-of-your-head think would probably lead you to one conclusion he presented: among companies that don’t appreciate, many have some kind of appreciation program, like an employee-of-the-month or “Dundies” or that ilk. It’s just not perceived as genuine appreciative so, ironically, it’s not so appreciated.

Dr. White offers four (4) handy hints for workplace appreciation. People feel appreciated IF:
1 it’s communicated regularly
2 it’s expressed in language relevant to the recipient
3 it’s individualized and delivered personally (i.e. not just a giftcard, but one the recipient would enjoy using)
4 it’s viewed as authentic

Dr. Paul White is the co-author The 5 Languages of Appreciation In The Workplace with Dr. Gary Chapman and presented these 5 languages*:
1 Words of Affirmation
2 Acts of Service
3 Tangible Gifts
4 Quality Time
5 Physical Touch
*not totally sure if there’s a preferred order, this was kind of reading it from the Appreciation At Work website.

If these sound familiar, it’s because Appreciation At Work is co-authored by Gary Chapman, the guy who brought us the 5 Love Languages (slightly different: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch).

A friend of mine suggested that you get the main idea of the 5 Love Languages by just knowing what the 5 Languages are. I actually read that book but tend to agree. And I’d hazard a guess that the 5 Languages of Workplace Appreciation are likely in the same boat.

The main takeaway of the whole idea, to me, is simply to give appreciation some thought when you do it, if it’s what you do. Multiplied over however many people you’re dealing with, or with staff very different from you (think introvert vs extrovert), and it can be hard work. Like love is. And like love, any given moment might not seem like it pays off, but we trust it does in the long run. There’s likely a lesson about appreciation (aka love) there beyond just the workplace.

Oh, I came across these cute freebie office tools on the book website too...

Corporation's New Logo Changes Everything | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

via theonion.com

This is the dream, isn't it?
Check out that first paragraph. Gotta love the Onion.

Little (<5min) Clip from #LittlePerson #StandupComedian @TanyaleeDavis #ff #FollowFriday

via tanyaleedavis.com

Language Warning! Tanya Lee Davis is a comedian, thus probably contractually obligated to drop a 4-letter-bomb in this bit. Surprising that CBC kept it in.

As headliner for the Stand Up For Mental Health 2012 grad class show that my friend was in last Monday, Tanya Lee Davis had me laughing so hard, parts of my face twitched that I didn't think could twitch. If all goes well, I'll plunk an inevitably late post about the night on my Late News blog. Speaking of late news, this past week was Mental Health Week.

Posterousfolio: a website solution for finding solutions

via ettechnologiesinc.com

I wrote the content for this website, including the concept for the little flash animation intro.
Was an interesting exercise to find a solution for a solution-finder...

Art Direction: David Yu
Flash Development: Cody Nicol