Artistic Roots

Bloor St. West location


Test Pattern dress

Motherboard skirt

Roots x Douglas Coupland: offical site

Coupland's Cool Canadiana
Artist shares his vision in new clothing line for Roots

Toronto Design Week

Jan.19-24, 2010

COVERAGE & RESOURCES
+Wallpaper*
+Designboom
+NOW Magazine
+Interior Design Show - review
+Interior Design Show - official site
+Come Up to My Room

Radio Canada__Science & Sons

Slob Screen__Science & Sons

Side table__Michal Maciej Bartosik

Orchid Stacking Stool__Kevin Karst

Toronto Interior Design Show 2010: Prototype

Groenart

Chair Table__Al Groen & Steve Euser

(detail)
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NEW POSTS
Bill Charles Represents
Design Moment
Lyrical MCs
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Going Green

Plot: A writer partners with a con man to launder money.
Screenwriter: Douglas Coupland (Generation X)

Quote: "Actually, according to my therapist, I am a masochist. But I can break through the wall. Upgrade from being a masochist to being a doormat."

Paulo Costanzo (Road Trip, Joey, Royal Pains)

Paulo Costanzo as "Ryan"

JR Bourne (l) as "Bryce"

Steph Song as "Ming Yu"

+About
+Review
+Trailer
+Clip: Office Cruise
+Paulo Costanzo interview (vid)
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NEW POSTS
Flickr Fave
Today's Pic

GOLD!

Their Game, Their Gold: Crosby's OT Goal Gives Canada Win Vs. USA

Your Turn

[Pics: Cityfile.com via Flickr.com]

49 States Dusted with Snow; Hawaii's the Holdout

China's Record Snowfall: Photos

Record Snow Hits China and South Korea

Vancouver 2010 to Be Warmest Winter Olympics Yet

What Lies Beneath

Col. Russell Williams

Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38 & Jessica Lloyd, 26

+CFB Trenton Commander Charged With Murder
+Col. Williams Placed on Suicide Watch at Quinte Jail
+Col. Williams is a Man No One Really Knew - bio, part 1.
+Col. Willams - bio, part 2.
+Police Probing if Williams Could be Linked to Cold Cases
+The Tire Track That Broke the Case Wide Open
+'Lingerie Break-ins' and a 'Treasure Trove' of Photo Evidence
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NEW POST
R.I.P. Alexander McQueen
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Holier Than Thou

Homophobic Remarks Slam Gay MP's Christmas Card
It has all the hallmarks of a politician's glossy Christmas card.

Pastoral setting? Check.

Doe-eyed golden retriever? Check.

Handsome couple dressed in smart casual? Check.

Same-sex couple?

That was too much for "a handful of bigots" who objected to Scott Brison's holiday greeting card depicting him and spouse Maxime St. Pierre, according to the Nova Scotia Liberal MP.

"The overwhelming response has been very positive," Brison said from Windsor, N.S. "There's always a very, very tiny minority of bigots. It's their problem, it's not my problem."

At least one news website had to shut down its comments section running under a story about the card. The Globe and Mail web editor said the section was shut down because of "hateful and homophobic remarks." [...]

Matt Mills, editorial director of the gay news group Pink Triangle Press, said it's a mistake to block homophobes.

"Gay and lesbian people do know that homophobia exists and is expressed all the time," he said.

"Our approach is that shutting down comments when there are homophobic remarks that come out really just drives that homophobia underground and out of the public eye. It is an exercise, in some ways, in denial. And I don't think that's constructive ... We can't fight it if we can't see it." [...]

'Bigots' React to Brison's Christmas Card
COMMENT
edrick169 writes:
"I have every RIGHT to voice those opinions in a respectful manner without being called or labeled a "bigot" or "homophobic".
----------------------------------------
Almost right, but not. You do enjoy the right to express your opinion respectfully. And those who disagree enjoy the same right to respond.

You can't claim the right to free speech only to deny that for others. "Bigot" and "homophobic" are acceptable terms in English parlance. And if it is the opinion of others that you are a bigot and a homophobe, then it is simply that .. their opinion.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but these rights are universal and guaranteed by the Charter.

Canadian Lawmaker Scott Brison and His Brokeback Christmas Card
COMMENTS
It looks like the ending to one of those mood alteration med ads…. lol I LIKE IT

Scott Brison is my MP in Nova Scotia. Although it's wonderful that he was elected to Parliament as an openly gay man, I can tell you I didn't vote for him. His support of free trade between Canada and Columbia, and his previous support of two tiered health care (although where he stands now, I don't know [because he didn't respond to my letter]) are things I can't look past.
Cute photo though.

Does it weird anyone else out how much they look like brothers?…

I really do not get how this is a Christmas card. Where's the snow, reindeer, santa etc… I think you missed the boat Scott.
Happy Holidays
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NEW POSTS
Gig Posters
Class of 09: Fashion
00's Most Popular
Pharma Fries

At Par

1.00 USD =

1.06 CAD

Does this mean we're even now??

Canadian Dollar Weakens as Central Bank Warn's It's Too Strong

Minus 22

TONIGHT, I was flipping channels when the weather broadcast caught my eye. Horrifying numbers made me do a double take, until I realized I wasn't really looking at Toronto, but at...

...Yellowknife.

Yes, it's going to be -22 degrees Celsius in the "Diamond Capital of North America". Yikes!

All of a sudden, I feel inspired to write a love letter to my hometown:

Dear Toronto,
It's only going to be -3 degrees tonight and I love you for it. Remember: No storms this winter and please send lots of snow for Christmas.
xoxo, missdelite

UPDATE (NOV.9th): It's the first storm of the season with light, blowing snow and a windchill of -7. I'm freezing my ASS off. Thank you, Toronto. Where's my fucking passport???

"Downtown" Yellowknife

DID YOU KNOW?
Yellowknife is located on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake at 62°27’N and 114°22’W, 201 air km northeast of Hay River.

Yellowknife’s name originates from the copper-wielding Chipewyan tribe which fought the Dene for many years. Organized gold mining began in the mid-1930s when Consolidated Mining and Smelting began operations at the present Miramar Con Mine site. During the gold rush days before the start of the Second World War, plywood shacks and shanties littered Latham Island, Peace River Flats and Willow Flats. The few remaining original buildings show the no-frills approach to construction. [Stats.gov.nt.ca]

Just in case you were wondering
Total Pop (2007): 19,155
Males: 9,700
Females: 9,455
Aboriginal: 4,445
Non-Aboriginal: 14,710


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NEW POST
Russ, Mike & Bill

Steven & Chris

Chris Hyndman & Steven Sabados, hosts of Steven & Chris on CBC

The Steven and Chris Show: Two Gay Hosts Take Canadian TV by Storm
Move over Martha: former Designer Guys Steven Sabados and Chris Hyndman will be taking up residence on Canada's national station, CBC, with a fresh new daytime talk show. Think Queer Eye meets Oprah.

Toted as a "lifestyles" show, Steven and Chris will tackle pertinent issues of the day such as entertaining, cooking, fashion, health, and their specialty, home decor. The bickering boys will also interview a slew of celebrity guests, who no doubt will have to fight to get a word in edgewise amidst the hosts' constant (and entertaining) cattiness.

This will be the fourth show that the Canadian twosome have hosted together. They are more widely known for their design program, Designer Guys, which aired for 3 seasons and has been seen in the US and over 17 countries worldwide. The premise of that show had the two guys coming into someone's space and helping them revamp the decor, complete with snarly comments usually directed at one another. A spin-off show, Design Rivals, had the two competing to win a client by offering up two different re-decorating scenarios. Whomever the client chooses to go with is the design that they must carry out. So Chic With Steven & Chris saw them moving away from their design roots and instead, overhauling innocent women and showing them how to be chic on a shoe-string budget.

Previously relegated to specialty channels like Home and Garden Television, Steven and Chris have finally made it onto a mainstream network with the CBC. This marks the first daytime talk show ever to be hosted by not one, but two, openly gay men. Kudos to CBC for putting it on the air! And with personalities as big as Steven and Chris', there is no doubt that this will be a program worth tuning into. Steven and Chris premieres January 14th, 2008 on CBC.

"Designer Guys" Come Out as Lovers
[BGay.com / 01-10-08]

TORONTO, CANADA -- Canada's former Designer Guys hosts Steven Sabados and Chris Hyndman have officially come out as lovers, and have just taped the first episode of their new daytime lifestyle show, Steven and Chris.

The long-time gay couple was busy Wednesday with taping the very first episode of their new show, which debuts Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET on Canadas CBC TV station.

Together for years, Sabados is the more serious half of the couple who keeps his emotions in check, while Hyndman is the joker, cracking wise and cracking up routinely, The Canadian Press reports.

"I am a control freak," Sabados admits backstage after the lifestyles coach told him as much on-air.

"That's exactly what he is," Hyndman agrees.

"I now take that as a positive," Sabados says.

"Well, you have to love yourself, don't you? It's important to love yourself no matter what. I'm a freak and you're a control freak so that's the way it works."

Despite their different personalities, the couple say they rarely get on one another's nerves even after long and hectic days at work.

"It's like we don't know anything different," Hyndman says.

They fight sometimes, Sabados says, but it's nothing out of the ordinary.

"Of course we do, everyone does, but what's nice about it is that I can say: 'I had a really exhausting day, I'm fried and I'm wired.' And he had the same day. Neither one of us is going to want to go out and party."

The pair is delighted the CBC is taking a chance on them with the new show, and pleased they've got a lot of input into what "Steven and Chris" will explore every day.

"They're producing a show around what we love, what we do, what our hobbies are, what our passions are, what we're interested in, so they've taken everything that we do and made it into a show," says Hyndman. "We're not really just hosts - this show represents who we are."

CBC-TV Ends Production on Fashion File, Steven & Chris
Citing economic concerns, CBC-TV announced Tuesday it is ending production on two lifestyle shows: daytime chat-fest Steven & Chris and long-running runway chronicle Fashion File.

"Like every other media organization right now, we're facing big challenges as a result of a significant drop in advertising revenues," Kirstine Layfield, CBC-TV's executive director of network programming, said in a statement.

"We're not able at present to make the kind of expenditures we ordinarily would."

Steven & Chris will conclude production April 15, while Fashion File will wrap up March 31. According to CBC spokesman Jeff Keay, the decision affects 34 jobs: six permanent and 28 contract positions.

After production ends on the two programs, the shows will continue in their respective time slots in reruns, until the announcement of a new afternoon schedule "in several weeks," Keay said. [...]

COMMENTS
[CBC.ca]
I can't believe that the show is going off the air. It is one of the few CBC television shows I truly enjoy. Big mistake as far as I'm concerned. You could go a different route with the show to suit the economic times. We've got great Canadian talent here, and CBC could really be tapping into something big. If not I'm sure they will be picked up by another television studio. Hope you change your mind!

This is the worst day ever for Canadian Television. I absolutely love Steven and Chris, as well as Fashion File. This is terrible. Whatever they are replaced with will never be as good.

It's a sad day when a show as good as Steven and Chris gets a hiatus. It is a great, uplifting show......but I bet the networks will still want to keep showing all of us the bad news in the world, and that won't be cut! We need to keep these good shows going! If I win a lottery I am gonna try and help them out!

London, England__[Twitter.com / 10-15-09]

Steven & Chris - blog
YOUR BOYS ARE BACK!
[10-08-09]

Life has just become little more fabulous! Steven and Chris are coming back with new episodes starting January 4, 2010 at 2 PM everyday on CBC!

During the summer, Steven and Chris travelled across the country and abroad, researching the latest trends in lifestyle, decor, food, fashion and more. They have returned rested, fresh, and excited to share their experiences with all of you!

The boys will kick off their return in December with a prime-time Holiday Special, and will follow in January with new daily shows. They'll be expanding 'Ask Steven and Chris', where you can get the boys' expert advice on your pressing decor questions, and will continue to host experts and celebrities to bring you the latest trends in entertaining, exercising, beauty, relationships and more.

We hope you're as excited as we are, and that you'll join us again in the New Year for more fun, laughter and fabulousness!

Steven and Chris - design collection & bios
Steven believes the most important design element of any decor is the person who will be living in it. [...]

Even at a young age, Chris Hyndman understood that color was often the lifeblood of a room, bringing a vital energy to everyone who entered. [...]


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LINK
Adam Lambert's Album Cover is Bad
COMMENT
Uh, Dana, I think the people on this website know more about "challenging the views of gender roles" than a straight female. Do you know where you are here, sweetie? LMAO

(soto voce: don't do it…don't do it. Oh, f*ck, what the hell!)

And Dana, some of us here are Adam fans, but we're still trying to get over the way he prostituted himself so ludicrously last week for his "straight female" fans. I for one did not like seeing him make such fool out of himself. The album cover's kinda cool, kinda tacky, and really majorly ADAM! But why don't you ladies stay out of here and let us heal. LMAO!!!!!!
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NEW POST
Autumn

Space Cadet

Guy Laliberté, founder and CEO of Cirque du Soleil




Space-Travelling Cirque Founder About to Host Biggest Show in the Universe
MONTREAL - Canada's first space tourist is hours away from hosting the biggest show in the known universe.

Guy Laliberte has spent months planning an event some are dubbing 'Spacestock' - a concert on five continents, with the Cirque du Soleil founder acting as the master of ceremonies from the International Space Station.

The billionaire circus impresario hopes his grandiose event will focus the world's attention on an important cause: water conservation. [...]

The production costs for the multilingual show are estimated to be between $6 million and $10 million - which is on top of the US$35 million Laliberte paid to become Canada's first space tourist.

It will be seen on the Internet beginning at 8 p.m EDT through the website of Laliberte's One Drop Foundation at OneDrop.org. [...]

Bono, Shakira and Al Gore Team Up for Water Education
Tonight (October 9), a multitude of celebrities will take part in a global event dubbed "Moving Stars and Earth for Water." Musicians, movie stars, politicians and environmentalists will unite for one common cause: Bringing the world more and better water. This diverse group includes Shakira, Salma Hayek, Bono, Joss Stone and former Vice President Al Gore. Perhaps the most riveting component of the show? On the same day we searched the moon for water, the event will be broadcast into outer space.

Why? Because the architect of the entire project is Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, who has been on a personally-financed mission to the International Space Station since October 2. He describes the event as a "poetic social mission." Laliberte intends to use his time off Earth to find supplies of one of the world's most important resources. "My mission is dedicated to making a difference on this vital resource by using what I know best: artistry," Laliberte said. [...]



Guy Laliberté, OC, CQ (born September 2, 1959) is a French Canadian entrepreneur, currently the CEO of Cirque du Soleil. Starting out as an accordion player, stiltwalker and fire-eater; Laliberté created his circus which is a synthesis of all circus styles around the world. In 2006, the 95% share holder of the US$1.2 billion Cirque Du Soleil was named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. [...]

We're No. 1

Canada a Top Producer of Ecstasy, Methamphetamine, Says UN
[ca.news.yahoo.com - Jne.09]

WASHINGTON - The United Nations' drug czar is urging Canada to take action on a UN report that identifies Canadian gangs as the leading suppliers of ecstasy in North America and increasingly proficient producers of methamphetamine for markets around the world.

"Canada has emerged an important hub for ecstasy and amphetamines," Antonio Maria Costa told a news conference Wednesday in the U.S. capital as he released the agency's 2009 World Drug Report.

Costa said the lucrative underground industry of manufacturing amphetamines has migrated north to Canada since both the U.S. and Mexico banned the chemical precursors used to make the drugs.

"These important measures taken by countries inevitably tend to create a problem somewhere else unless similar measures are undertaken," he said.

"So I am inviting Canada to be equally proactive in taking the measures which are preventive strikes to avoid the proliferation of manufacturing of amphetamines in that country."

An anti-gang bill currently before Parliament is being held up by the Liberal majority in the Senate, said Rob Nicholson, Canada's justice minister.

"Under the new legislation, these people are looking at two-year prison terms as a minimum," said Nicholson, who blamed the holdup on Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff.

"I am asking him to do something, call people, get this bill moving through the system. I am hoping this increases the pressure on him to make this a priority and get this bill passed."

Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. President Barack Obama's drug watchdog, said the UN report isn't likely to lead to any further border security tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

"For quite a while we've exchanged guns going into Canada for drugs coming back," said Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy and a one-time chief of police in the border cities of Seattle and Buffalo.

Law enforcement agencies on both sides of the border are "absolutely committed to working together, to sharing information, and I know the United States is committed to working hard on those border checkpoints."

The UN report found that since 2003-2004, "Canada has emerged as the primary source of ecstasy-group substances for North American markets, and increasingly for other regions."

Before 2003, Europe was the leading producer of U.S.-bound ecstasy, or methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) - a synthetic, psychoactive drug that produces feelings of increased energy, euphoria and emotional warmth.

But the trade was effectively dismantled, the UN report says, and "Canadian intelligence reports indicate that Canada-based drug trafficking organizations are attempting to fill the supply void, and have drastically increased their ecstasy production and trafficking."

Asian organized crime groups primarily control ecstasy labs in Canada, using chemicals smuggled into the country in sea containers from China.

In 2007, half the ecstasy produced in Canada was destined for markets outside Canada, most of it bound for the U.S., Australia and Japan, the report found.

Japan has identified Canada as the single biggest source for seized ecstasy tablets, followed by the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

The report also found that Canadian organized crime groups have significantly increased their participation in the meth trade over the past few years.

"By 2006, law enforcement intelligence noted that Asian organized crime and traditional outlaw motorcycle gangs operating in Canada had increased the amount of methamphetamine they manufactured and exported, primarily into the USA, but also to Oceania and east and southeast Asia," the report found.

Australia says Canada accounts for 83 per cent of total seized meth imports by weight; in Japan, the figure is 62 per cent.

"Although only five per cent of domestically manufactured methamphetamine was exported in 2006, by 2007 that figure was 20 per cent," the report said.

The report also found that while global markets for cocaine, opiates and marijuana are holding steady or in decline, some 28 million people are heavy drug users who are likely to be physically or psychologically dependent on drugs.

Opium cultivation in Afghanistan, where 93 per cent of the world's opium is grown, dropped by 19 per cent last year, and there was a 28 per cent decline - the report called it staggering - in production of cocaine in Colombia, which produces half the world's cocaine.

Marijuana, or cannabis, remained the most widely used and cultivated drug in the world and it is more harmful than commonly believed, with more users reporting dependency problems, the report said. Roughly 167 million people use marijuana at least occasionally.

Canada is also a leading producer of hydroponic marijuana, Costa said. There are high rates of domestic consumption as well as exportation south of the border.

"I believe there is a lot of work that needs to be done on these two problems in Canada and elsewhere," he said.

The report , however, found that production and demand for most illegal drugs is declining, except for a rise in amphetamines. Illegal drug seizures were up in 2007, and all drug seizure totals were at all-time highs or close to all-time highs. There are also declining rates of drug addiction, Costa said.

"The drug control regime has contained drug abuse in terms of percentages of the population to a fraction compared to tobacco addiction," he said. "Basically we have not seen an increase; we have seen flat and now decreasing rates."

Costa credits improved prevention and awareness about drug use. "We now know how to deal with it in terms of treatment and in terms of prevention."

The UN report advises against decriminalizing illegal drugs, but Costa said drug addicts must not be treated as criminals.

"We are very strongly in favour of decriminalizing drug abuse," Costa said. "We deal with addicts ... they need to be put in hospital, not in prison."

But that doesn't mean the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs should be decriminalized, he said, despite suggestions that legalization could help eliminate organized crime and contribute to cash-strapped government coffers if drugs like marijuana were taxed.

"Why should we should unleash a public health problem in potential drug abuse in order to deal with a subject matter than can be dealt with, namely public security issues and organized crime?" he said

"I don't believe there's a tradeoff ... we should deal with both the public security and the public health problem without surrendering one of the two."

Kerlikowske also shut down any talk of decriminalization during the news conference.

"In regards to legalization, it's not in the president's vocabulary and it's not in mine."
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NEW POSTS
Cooper Union
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
Prague is for Lovers
Sexy SL
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It looks like I'm raping the sofa.

Bif Naked

Bio
Bif Naked (nee Beth Torbert) was born in New Delhi, India and adopted by American missionaries. Part of her childhood was spent in Lexington, Kentucky, where her father was a professor at the University of Kentucky. After living in The Pas, Manitoba, her family eventually settled in Winnipeg, MB. [...]


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NEW POST
Luxury Supercars

Play Whuff

Tara Hunt, author

Reviews
Embrace the chaos! The Whuffie Factor weaves stories from Moleskine, 37Signals, Threadless, Willitblend, and Gary Vaynerchuk into a compelling story of the way business is now done. Tara doesn’t just talk about it, of course, she does it herself.

Social capital may be the most powerful currency of the twenty-first century, and this book is a guide to its care and feeding. Bursting with energy and enthusiasm, Tara Hunt shows us how to win friends and influence people in a Web 2.0 world.

You might not be familiar with the term Whuffie before reading this book. I know I wasn't. It supposedly stands for "the store of social capital that is the currency in the digital world." Marketing today in the New Media is about building relationships. It's about give and take. It's not about "in your face" or just throwing money into advertising campaigns. By reading this book you should better understand what online marketing has migrated to be about and why it is important to go with the flow.

Whuffie is slang for social capital: your reputation, your credibility, your personal bankability. It's not as simple as the number of followers you have on Twitter, because that doesn't necessarily indicate your trustworthiness - there's plenty of spammers who've mastered the art of the followback. It's not as simple as the number of posts you've made on a forum somewhere, because that just indicates you're really good at clicking the Submit button.
Tara writes about marketing in new ways that I'd never considered. Marketing wasn't just a bunch of sexist guys designing magazine ads of barely-clothed women holding their product in provocative positions. Marketing meant understanding that places like forums, web sites and Twitter are, as The Whuffie Factor explains:
"...a simple but powerful online community where thousands of buying decisions are made every single day."
This message isn't just for companies: it's for employees. "Who cares," you ask, "if I'm not selling a product?" Even if you're not working a street corner, you're selling yourself. Future employers, future clients, and future coworkers are taking stock of your every action.
The Whuffie Factor demystifies the workings of social capital and marketing, and these explanations work great for IT geeks. Let's face it: we suck at networking, and we suck at marketing. We need all the help we can get. This book is the help, and we don't need a marketing background to understand how it applies to us.
The chapter "Become a Part of the Community You Serve" and the book's repeated message about turning the bullhorn around especially resonate with me, and it illustrates the problems with so many IT communities. Tara discusses how she worked with a web site to throw away their imaginary user profiles and connect directly with several real users instead using their own product. They became more and more intertwined with their own customers, and as a result, built better products. I've learned these lessons personally, and I found myself nodding over and over - and not because I was going to sleep.
Throughout the book, Tara gives simple, straightforward explanations of how to get whuffie, what happens if you do it right, and what happens if you do it wrong.

I'm using The Whuffie Factor right now to help a client understand the broader principles at stake beyond their current weak benchmarks in terms of external links, and other mentions of company resources online.
As a practitioner of search marketing (what is often misunderstood to be a narrowly technical field), increasingly I see the companies who increase their whuffie across the board to be very resilient in terms of the bottom-line-enhancing digital referrals they consistently get from search engines and similar sources.
It's all interconnected.
The value of this book isn't in proving that the author herself used social media tactics to promote her own business (those examples are self-reinforcing, in a way). It's that old-school companies who now hope that you can gaze at the keyword density of a few key pages on a website, and increase "rank" and "traffic," need the practical insights here that add up to a much broader audience building strategy: increase your Whuffie.
The Whuffie concept is well chosen and will help reinforce your sense of just how universally important it is to build your social currency, in any walk of life.

By traditional marketing standards, this book is everything I detest. It has an annoyingly cute and trendy title. It is about a subject I think I already know a lot about.
Too make things worse, the first paragraph inside the fly cover starts off "The book that catches the crest of Web 2.0 and shows how any business can harness its power ..." If I were browsing books at a bookstore, that would probably be enough for me to put the book right back on the shelf, assuming I would have taken it off the shelf in the first place.
However, Tara Hunt sent a message out on Twitter asking for people to review the book, and because Tara has incredible whuffie and knows how to use it, I agreed to review the book and I'm glad I did.

Before starting a coworking space, I interviewed Tara Hunt, and was suitably informed. I told her I wanted to keep up with what she's doing, and she said "Oh, just follow me on Twitter."
I'm not exactly an internoob, but from what I'd heard, Twitter was a gossip engine for adolescent shut-ins. But I joined, and followed, and initially thought my initial suspicion was justified. There was a lot of "OMG, I can't believe the way my hair looks today" and "saw the cutest shoes at Macy's" and "having lunch with @bff", etc. And then, "registering for this conference (link)".
Turned out to be a conference in my industry. One I'd never heard of. And in two days. I registered, went to the event, discovered there was a huge segment of people I'd never reached before. Because I'm not using the channels they pay attention to.
Since then, I've been learning all I can about the statusphere and its importance to growing a business in the 21st century. Tara Hunt's new book is an essential primer for anyone whose business is dependent on the good will of their customers, suppliers, partners, and team members. Which is to say: all of them.
I don't care if you're a one-man-brand or a 20 billion dollar corporation, if you don't master these fundamental community-sustaining competencies, you will fail.

Interview with Tara Hunt
Tara Hunt is a name that means a lot to Social Media experts but not only. Enterprise marketers are also - or should be - familiar with her earlier attempts at promoting a new form of marketing philosophy entitled Pinko Marketing, the aim of which was to prolong the work that had been initiated by the cluetrain manifesto team at the end of the 1990's. Beside her involvement in Barcamp and the coworking project, the San Francisco-based Canadian online marketer has got back to writing a new book The Whuffie Factor which is now available in the UK. I have asked Tara to present her new opus to our Orange readers in this exclusive interview:

Tara, I saw in Twitter and on your blog that you were preparing a new book entitled "the Whuffie factor". Why did you choose that name and what is the message behind it?
The name evolved for me and was suggested by the publisher. The working title of the book was 'How to Be a Social Capitalist: building your business with online communities' but the publisher thought that social capital was too vague and meant too many things. When he saw that I told the story of Cory Doctorow's Whuffie*, John Mahaney (editor) shopped the word around and found that people really responded to it. First they would laugh, then after the term was explained, they would remember it. The Whuffie Factor means, in basic terms, that people should pay attention to their actions in online communities.
(*Whuffie is a term taken from SF writer Cory DOctorow's book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.)

And what has it got to do with Social Media and marketing?
Well, the key point to understand about social media is that it is meant to be social. Facebook and Twitter and Flickr weren't built as platforms for sales pitches, they were built as platforms for human interaction: conversations, relationship building, trust, support, etc. The Whuffie Factor is about how well you do on that level. The 'marketing' part will just happen naturally in these communities because people are talking about their everyday lives, looking for guidance on their purchases and choices and looking to get that guidance from their trusted circle of friends. If you've built good relationships, you will do well. The book is about how you get to that point.

Before we delve into Social Media, can you please tell us why enterprises have to do marketing differently?
I don't think this is news at all, but people have been talking about this little thing called the Internet for a little while now. And what the Internet opened up was the ability for individuals to increase the size of their networks and expand their conversations. In doing that, the one-way communication of mass media started to lose it's power. There have been a few good studies lately that show that Word of Mouth recommendations between friends and 'people like me' are only getting stronger. Therefore, the marketing that uses pure bullhorn type techniques (ads, SEO, etc.) are missing out on a huge opportunity.

So Social media can help us get to grips with this new way of marketing products and services. Can you explain?
It's about taking the marketing out of it all together for the time being. I don't even like calling the fantastic interactions I have online 'social media'. Prior to online communities, I didn't call my relationships 'social face to faces'. The way you can come to grips is by taking off your marketers hat and putting on your customer hat. When you hang out with your friends, what do you talk about? I'm guessing you are open and honest with them. You share stuff with them. You ask them about their lives. You figure out what their needs are so you can help out as a friend. And...when the time is right...you can help one another out. There are just more sophisticated tools available so you can do this with more people. That's it.

As a consequence, Social Media isn't just a toy for geeks, it's serious stuff for serious business people. Does it mean that the role of managing communities is the job of the future?
I'm torn on that one. On the one hand, having the role puts priority on it. It says, "community is important to us, so we're paying an employee to make sure it is taken care of." On the other hand, by delegating that role to one person, a company loses many opportunities to build multiple relationships between customers and the company.

So should we start considering pricing our products in Whuffie rather than dollars or pounds?
Ha. in my opinion, no. I'd like to stay away from measuring it in the near future. Cory Doctorow, who came up with the term, warned us of the inherent problems of measuring whuffie in his book Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. The biggest issue is that, once measured, it is totally gameable.

If you had only one piece of advice for our readers to get the Whuffie factor right, what would it be?
Imagine yourself at a party. How do you act if you want to meet people and make friends? Do you enter the party and just talk about yourself and leave once you get what you want? Or do you slowly enter the conversations, listening to people, joining in when you have something to contribute, asking people about themselves, exchanging jokes and being light-hearted? Probably the latter. That's also how you need to approach online communities if you want to raise your Whuffie.
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NEW POSTS
Olafur Eliasson
Diddo Velema
Civilization
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My Theme Song

In 1972 in Victoria, Canada, a rookie policeman wrote a poem for his girlfriend while driving home in his police car. Dave "the Cop" Richardson gave the poem to his young friend David Foster, an aspiring musician looking for material for his new band. Foster passed it along to Skylark guitarist Doug Edwards who set it to music. It was the first song Edwards had ever composed.
Skylark's WILDFLOWER went to Number Eight on the Billboard Top Ten and sold over a million copies.
Over 30 years WILDFLOWER has sold multiple millions in more than fifty versions. It's been honored with a BMI Millionaire's Award and SOCAN Classic and Crystal Awards. It's the song that launched David Foster's career.




Lotus Flower Set