Alphablogs

Here we are again, friends, with Canada 9-5, the showcase for Canadian – well, what kind of Canadian blogs? Business blogs, corporate blogs, blogs by non-profit organizations, blogs about the life of the citizenry. Or, if you’d like a reverse definition: non-cat blogs (which doesn’t mean they’re dog blogs), blogs that aren’t about celebrities or personal experiences, about baby pictures or games or iPhones.

As of this writing, it appears that Canada 9-5 is still the only place where these blogs are showcased on a regular basis. That probably means that we are well on our way to fame …

Let’s see what we one the menu today.

Life balance for lawyers
Laurie Mapp, who runs Halo Secretarial Services somewhere in central Alberta, talks about work-life balance

I think balance is an elusive but achievable goal - it just takes having an open mind to doing things a different way. This is the part law firms struggle with I think - there is often a tendency to do things as they have always been done, since it has worked for so long. But there is a long list of ways to give your employees some flexibility while still achieving the firm’s goals and providing results for the client.

Corporate recruiters: Paying attention to details
Kate Baggott is a recruiter. Her article For the Price of a Cup of Coffee points out that even small details about how recruiters do business can turn an impressive candidate on or off. Read about how one company lost a potential hire over the price of a cup of coffee.

Vancouver online newspaper: Women in jail
The Vancouver Observer is a newspaper done in blog style. It has the feel of a community newspaper (reminds me a bit of the South Vancouver Revue, for which I used to write an environmental column way back when) and thus talks about every topic under the sun. I liked this little interview with Betty Krawzyck, a B.C. senior who had become famous for going to jail for her environmental activism. Here’s an excerpt where Betty talks about her new book:

I also try to illuminate the lives of women in jail. Most women are there because of conditions and abuse that we really cannot imagine – most of us that is. Poverty is the underlying condition that sends a woman into the penal system and of course, when one discusses poverty, one has to speak about the disproportionate number of First Nations women there are in prisons – on average at least 60% - and you have to discern why this occurs.

Green interior design
Next is an interior designer who writes about greening your home. It’s interesting that environmental consciousness has taken such a leap in the last few years; it all happened after Al Gore’s video. From what I hear, his home isn’t very green; I’m willing to bet Betty Krawcyck’s is, though! At any rate, here are some ideas from a list of 10. I think I’m going to go out and get myself an aloe plant, and am going to check into what exactly an organic bed is.

3. Change the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescents, but as they require replacing, begin to use LED bulbs, which consume very little energy and do not contain mercury, so disposal is less of a concern.

7. Unplug all unnecessary electrical devices when not in use or not needed, including televisions, computers, microwaves, clocks, stereos and lighting. Electrical devices which are instant on use power all the time, even when turned off. For easy on/off operation plug as much as you can into a power bar and turn it off when not in use.

8. Use green plants to clean the indoor air. Aloe Vera, English ivy, corn plant, golden pothos, peace lily and weeping fig are all excellent choices to remove formaldehyde and benzene.

9. Buy an organic bed. A good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed that emits absolutely no toxins is paramount to green living. After all, it is where we spend most of our time at home.

Books on money
Let’s take a sharp right here and go to Canadian Capitalist, one of the top Canadian finance blogs according to The Globe and Mail. Here’s a list of the Capitalist’s top ten money books. These two look interesting to me:

Your Money & Your Brain by Jason Zweig. What happens inside our brains when we think about money? (Full Review)
Unconventional Success by David Swensen. A guide to constructing a portfolio for individual investors.

Communication – or, in this case: miscommunication
Heath Slawner has a blog about persuasion. I’d like to find out a bit more about Heath; it seems to me that someone who clearly uses his blog as a part of his business would do well to tell a bit about himself on his blog. I presume he’s a salesperson – maybe he’ll see this article and will enlighten us. Heath offers a post on the cost of misunderstanding

Have you ever wondered how much a misunderstanding costs? According to a recent report by UK-based consulting firm Cognisco , misunderstandings and miscommunication among workers are costing companies US$37-billion a year.

Masterminds
We’ve had Evan Carmichael from Toronto here before, in our February edition. He has a section on his blog that exclusively discusses Mastermind Groups. What are mastermind groups?

A mastermind group offers a combination of masterminding, peer brainstorming and support in a group setting. The beauty of mastermind groups is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. Mastermind group members act as catalysts for growth, devil’s advocates and supportive colleagues. This is the essence and value of mastermind groups.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Hueina Su, one of my blogging friends from Change Therapy, is writing a series of articles here. Having been part of similar success groups myself, this one really spoke to me, about the necessity for commitment in such groups

Some of the members started to miss quite a few meetings, due to other activities and commitments. Others started to question whether they are committed to our mastermind group and see it as a priority. Overall, we were unhappy that some members kept missing our meetings, and it’s a sign of lack of commitment and respect.

Scrape!
Let’s round this off with something amusing. Rob Cottingham from Social Signal, a blog for a Vancouver company that “builds online community with real life impact” (they started the credit union VanCity’s Change Everything site) just wrote a series of articles on blog scrapers. He set a funny little trap for them – well, you have to see for yourself.

That’s it for this time around. The next edition of Canada 9-5 will come out on August 8. If you have or know of a Canadian business or non-profit blog, submit it here so that we can include it!

Here are some amazing blogging statistics collected on the Blog World Expo site. (The big enormous Blog World Expo will be held in Las Vegas this year.) These stats are American only, and don’t even touch the Canadian, or world-wide blogging universe. When I checked their links for the sources of their stats, some of them are of earlier reports, such as Pew dated 2005! So extrapolate that to the present. When I started with wordpress.com, there were already 60,000 bloggers there. Now, we have 3,392,124 blogs with 93,184 new posts today. And that’s only wordpress.com.

So if you are thinking about starting a blog, or have heard about it and wonder what it’s all about, don’t wait any longer to join this tsunami wave of participation. Blogging is no longer a rare or unique activity, it’s decidedly mainstream.

Look at these Blog World numbers!

I hope my friend Raul won’t be disappointed with this, him being Mr. Vancouver restaurant reviewer.

But I need to grab Buzz Bishop’s challenge and tell you that yes, I have eaten at the Brave Bull.

It’s been quite a while so maybe Raul can give an update. Although for a place like the Brave Bull, I’m not sure that six, seven years make a difference.

Actually, the other day I was meeting with one of my old friends from the Downtown Eastside, we weren’t quite sure where to eat – but when I proposed the Brave Bull I could just see a big black question mark form over her heavily furrowed brow.

I only have pleasant memories of the Brave Bull.

For example the time I went there with someone who was later going to become one of my closest friends. The Brace Bull is (was?) a cosy, tucked-away place if you like peace and quiet and that old-fashioned diner feel. It’s one of those 60s mixtures of “Chinese and Canadian Cuisine”, both in décor and food. Which means, of course, watery, pale iceberg lettuce – but you don’t go there for the veggies, do you? That’s what Greens & Gourmet is for.

So anyways, Haedy and I hung out there for two hours or so, I forgot what we ate, the old Chinese lady who’s always been there ever since I first darkened the doors of that establishment would pad over to us once in a while in motherly fashion and refill our coffee. It remains in my memory as one of the pivotal moments in our friendship. Haedy also told me that once in a while she’d take her husband there for a good dose of trucker’s steak.

My husband used to work in that area, just a bit up on Clark in one of the industrial areas, so once in a while I’d truck down to the Brave Bull and we’d have lunch together. Invariably, I’d have their oyster sandwich. I love oysters! Four plump deep-fried oysters with a bit of tartar sauce on a piece of white “bread” – again, don’t go there for your health food. Don’t matter; you know what, I still find myself wanting to go there once in a while, just for those oysters. I even took my educated-palate son there once and he liked it. Oh, and I remember my husband having beef dip there and liking it.

Other times were when I took one of my daughters to volunteer at the SPCA, and I’d make a point of hanging out at the Brave Bull (or the Old Foundry, with their fabulous sign that says EAT) waiting for her, reading a book, slurping coffee, eating – you guessed it – an oyster sandwich.

Now if you’re not into the romance of old greasy spoons where they still don’t use point-of-sale computers, where they haven’t changed the curtains since 1979, and where a salad still means a slice of tomato and three leaves of lettuce – well then maybe the Brave Bull is not for you. But if you like that kind of nostalgia, go and try it out!

(What do you think, Raul, maybe we should go there together?)

(And next time I guess we should go back to regular programming and do a blog review)

(Image by Buzz Bishop)

Okay, Smartypants, you figure it out! Get in there and dig (digg?) - isn’t this what research is all about? Or is it the cool composed review of previously digested information? All you have to do is look for it and list it, right? Well, not exactly.

While working on a research project recently, I’ve been thinking about the nature of research itself.

When I was teaching Research Skills for Writers and Reporters, I shared many tips and tricks of the trade, including the reality of hours of searching that may or may not yield the result that is being sought. A simple research timelog reveals the process. Hours spent in one direction that brings another lead, then several, then the branching out of the mind from item to lead to dead end to lateral correlation to new lead, and so it goes through the windy twisty passageways. Research doesn’t always reveal the answer directly, but through resonance and correspondance leads are found. And sometimes, there is a big pay off! Aladdin’s Cave of treasure: it’s all there for the picking!

I see research as a subtle dance between intuition and intelligence. It helps if your mind has been trained to categorize and make connections. It helps if you can keep track of what you have done, to retrace your steps if need be. And it helps if you can trust a hunch, make a lateral leap of the mind, think poetically to synthesize concepts. Intelligence serves the intuition at that point, and new ideas are formed that make new sense of old information.

The results of research are more than just a list of quotes and places. They are a synthesis of the information. Information is easy to find. The need is to make sense of the information, to be in a position to prioritize that information and to define uses for the most salient aspects of the information. Research is more than finding and keeping, it is a process of sorting and defining that ultimately yields new information that can be acted upon.

Today you can find us over at Ron Schenone’s blog, investigating the question of how truly global the internet is. Ron Schenone blogs on one of Chris Pirillo’s Lockergnome blogs.

(Image by Stirwise)

As you can see, these days I’m intrigued by the whole multilingual theme. So I thought I’d finally do something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while – write a bilingual blog post.

This was inspired by the German blog Blogschrott who asks bloggers who twitter to explain why they use Twitter. As you can tell from my last post, I’ve been reading more and more German Twitters – I get the impression that it Twitter is just now becoming quite the interesting tool over in Germany.

So this is what I’ll do. First I’ll answer the questions in English, and then in German. (They won’t be exactly the same – I’m not applying for a translator’s job here Here we go

Why do you use twitter, where do you find meaning in it?

One of my prime motivators is fun, or a sense of pleasure and excitement. Every time I open my twitter page (I only use it in a browser), I’m happy. I like the visual appeal of both my site and of seeing all these neat avatars. I like the wittiness, intelligence and social consciousness of my Twitter friends. So the meaning is mostly pleasure – intellectual pleasure, sense-pleasure, and the pleasure of making and nurturing connections.

What do you tweet? Personal stuff, internet news, or a mix?

Anything and everything. It’s pretty impulsive (one of the other reasons I like it) I’d say 60% of the time I ask myself, is that of any interest to my friends? I do more and more retweeting, that is, passing on info that one of my Twitter contacts tweeted about – for example, a reminder to schedule cancer check-ups. There’s also little Twitter conversations. Lately, I’ve been posting a “global earth” motto every day, and a reflection on it, inspired by a list of things to do to become more globally and earth conscious that a friend had sent me a propos Earth Day. Once or twice a week I might mention one of my posts. Oh, and I also enjoy writing Twitter haiku, which I call twaiku – like this one here.

How do you use Twitter? Do you use a plugin, etc.?

As I said, I only use it via browser. I don’t even have the little Twitter widget on my blog anymore. I already spend way too much time on the computer, if I start using more than one medium to access something as addictive as Twitter, I’d never sleep!

Now for the German version:

Warum nutzt Du Twitter, wo liegt für Dich der Sinn?

Was mich motiviert is Spass, oder sagen wir mal Freude, oder ein gewisser Sinnesgenuss, eine gewisse Reizung. Jedesmal wenn ich meine Twitterseite oeffne (ich benutze es nur in einem Browser), freue ich mich. Ich freue mich darueber, wie meine Seite aussieht, und ueber all diese coolen Avatars. Ich freue mich ueber den Humor, die Intelligenz und das Sozialbewusstsein meiner Twitter-Freunde. Der Sinn liegt also in Freude – in intellektueller und sinnlicher Freude, und der Freude daran, neue Verbindungen zu machen and zu unterhalten.

Was twitterst Du? Eher private Sachen, News aus dem Web, oder ein Mix aus beidem?

So ziemlich alles. Es ist recht impulsiv (ein weiterer Grund, weshalb mir Twitter gefaellt). Ich wuerde sagen, 60% der Zeit frage ich mich, ob mein Tweet meine Kontakte interessieren wuerde. Ich “retweete” mehr und mehr, das heisst, ich gebe Information von meinen Kontakten weiter, z.B. hier, eine Erinnerung fuer Krebsvorsorgeuntersuchungen. Dann sind da auch kleine Twitter-Unterhaltungen. Neuerdings twittere ich auch taeglich ein Global Earth-Motto, und einen kurzen Gedanken darueber, inspiriert durch eine Liste, die uns hilft, mehr global und umweltfreundlich zu denken, die mir von einer Freundin fuer Earth Day geschickt hatte. Ein oder zweimal die Woche erwaehne ich einen meiner Blog-Artikel. Oh, und ich habe auch Spass daran, Haiku zu schrieben, die ich Twaiku nenne, hier zum Beispiel.

Wie nutzt Du Twitter? Über Twitter.com direkt, oder über ein Plugin? Wenn ja, wo liegen die Vorteile des jeweiligen Tools?

Wie gesagt, ich benutze nur die Webseite. Ich habe noch nicht mal mehr das kleine Twitter-Widget auf meinem Blog. Ich verbrauche schon viel zu viel Zeit mit dem Computer. Wenn ich mit einem weiteren Tool anfinge oder auch meinen Handy benutzen wuerde fuer sowas verfuehrerisches wie Twitter, wuerde ich nie wieder schlafen!

Image by smitty

Returning to the English is not the only language” theme, through my Twitter friend @Lotree I just came across a new Twitter meme (or tweme – you can see them all here; on Twitter you will see them identified with a # hashtag, like this one). They are German “Twitterweisheiten” or “Twitter wisdoms”. I quite like them so I’ll translate them here:

Sprachspielerin (“language player”, of the female sort, with her blog here) says

He who sows tweets shall reap a thunderstorm.
As you shout into the twittersphere, so shall it echo back.
There is no tweet unless you tweet it.
I tweet that I tweet nothing [leaning on Socrates]
You cannot step twice into the same tweet. Or: Everything twitters.
The tweet is the goal.

Lotree, a “reader and information broker” with his blog here)

More truculent than a tweet are often a tweet’s followers.

Werkstatt (“workshop” – a social science guy from my hometown Munich whose blog is called knowledge workshop)

And why Twitter and not, rather, Nothing? That is the question. [leaning on German philosopher Heidegger]
Whereof you cannot tweet you must keep silent.
Everything you can say you can say as a tweet. [leaning on German philosopher Wittgenstein]
Nothing is twittered as hot as it is cooked.
Where there is a tweet there is a way.
The next tweet is always the hardest.

rrho who lives in Berlin and has a blog here

Where there is one tweet there is more.

textundblog (”text and blog”) from Hamburg, a Spanish translator, among other things. His blog is here.

Speech is silver. Tweet is gold.

PickiHH Tina Pickhardt from Hamburg, who’s into CRM, with her Blog Themenriff

A hashtag does not a tweet make.

bosch who waxes intelligently at Boschblog:

Before the tweet is after the tweet.
And of course after the tweet is also before the tweet and vice versa.

jati - Jan Tissler, a journalist from Berlin who blogs here

The really interesting things happen bewteen the tweets.

Iranerin, an Iranian feminist in Hamburg, who has been blogging since 2004. Read it if your Farsi is good!

A life without twitting is a life without pleasure!

(Amusing little sidenote: I was just about to publish this when I realized that I had gotten my languages mixed up and capitalized the word “blog” throughout - for a momen I was confused … how do you write that in English again?)

Welcome to Canada 9-5 – still the best place to find out about Canadian blogs that talk about work and business. For our May 2008 edition, we go right across the board again, from finance to ethical manufacturing and healing, and we even throw in a bit of IT, although that’s not our main focus here. Tech blogs are easy to find; what we here at Alphablogs are doing is to dig up business owners, professionals and non-profits who are smart enough to realize that blogging isn’t just for techies – it’s a great way to connect with your clients.

Finance
The Four Pillars blog is one I found through my blogging friend Nancy. It has great down-to-earth financial advice, and even has a category called 9-5! (And I just found out that it made it into the Globe & Mail’s best Canadian financial blogs. Good on you, Mike!) A good analysis of where to concentrate one’s financial effort is here, in Labour vs. Investment Income.

Some PF bloggers spend tons of time analyzing stocks and devising sophisticated strategies that incorporate geopolitical issues and long term forecasts of economics trends. Then you read that their portfolio is worth $24,000. Any benefit from their work is going to be minimal, simply because they have so little to work with. If they were to go out and earn minimum wage from their time, they’d be far further ahead than trying to “juice” the returns on a small investment.

Ethical Manufacturing
You got to think of our children is the title of the latest post on Mountain Equipment Co-Op’s blog. I think this is a fabulous example of using blogs to stay in touch with customer community. To those of you outside of Canada, MEC is Canada’s leading retailer of outdoor clothing and equipment, providing quality products and services for self-propelled activities like hiking, climbing and skiing. MEC has more than 2.5 million members; they are part owners, with a real voice in how MEC is run. MEC is a force for positive social and environmental change. They are committed to sustainability, from reducing the ecological footprint of their business to providing support to Canadian conservation and outdoor recreation groups. True to its mission, MEC’s blog focuses on ethical sourcing of its material.

“You got to think of our children” is how Mr. Anbukani, the proprietor of our organic wovens factory in India, rationalized his dedication to his community and environment. Mr. Abukani is one of three brothers who own and operate a handful of factories in Southern India. Together, they manufacture apparel for MEC, premium European brands and the French military.

What sets the Anbukani clan apart from other factories I’ve visited is its commitment to the community and environment.

Books
Monique Trottier’s So Misguided is mostly about books – but about all kinds of other things, too: product reviews, “tap dancing, technology, and the other amusements of Monique Trottier.” That’s one of the things I like about blogging. You want to be somewhat focused but then – well, we’re human and we’re interested in all kinds of things, no?

I like this little post because it’s short and sweet – and yet it needs little more than a quick question – “what are you reading right now?” - to interest Monique’s readership.

Healing
Reiki In The News is a post by Astrid Lee, North Vancouver Reiki Master, who says

Reiki is a modality of energy healing that is nearly effortless and mindful. Reiki helps the recipient relax and balance, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. My blog says it all, but now also the Vancouver press is getting tuned in: Mind Body Soul, Georgia Straight has featured my work. Hurray!

IT
In a highly competitive market, Jimson Lee, a Vancouver-based CRM Analyst blog reviews another BC based CRM on-demand software company, here at Simple Sales Tracking - Simplicity at its Core: Sales!

Management
Lastly, we have something by Phil For Humanity who I think is Canadian. He talks about different types of managers.

***

That’s it for the May 2008 edition! Please submit your Canadian business blog here for the next edition on June 28. If you have or know of any interesting Canadian blogs that talk about work or business, send them in – you can use this form.

Sunshine in Vancouver brings out the best in us all, and no one wants to stay indoors unless forced. So yesterday I played up on the roofdeck with the Photo Booth application that comes with the mac.

I love the automatic way it forces out an iconic image. Plus there’s video too. It’s dead easy to work and there is some serendipitous stuff that just happens with this software.

And don’t forget the Warhol homage: