What do you guys think of that Boston Pizza “Foodie” commercial? Like or Dislike?

— Joallore (@clickflickca) February 27, 2013

Here’s the commercial – Joallore linked to it in a subsequent tweet.

I think the commercial is well made. It targets Boston Pizza’s audience; down to the distain you hear in the final declaration “Just be careful you don’t become a foodie.” Boston Pizza doesn’t do anything special or original.

My view of the term foodie doesn’t much matter. I said earlier that I think there’s a lot of pretentiousness behind the term. Not that I think everyone who self-identifies as a foodie is pretentious.

Foodie culture has done a lot of great things for the restaurant and food supply industry. Niche markets have expanded and the number of premium prepared foods has increased.

Chefs have more opportunities to practice their art, and are allowed greater creative freedoms as people’s pallets have become more adventurous. Restaurants have diversified and raised the bar in many markets.

How do I define the term “foodie”? They are a food geek, someone whose passions include food and the food industry. Sharing a great restaurant or ingredient discovery, or a special recipe is truly rewarding. I enjoy food quite a bit, and I find the experience of sharing an excellent meal with friends a fantastic pursuit. However, I have too many interests that I geek out over already, and can’t give food the necessary attention to cross into foodie territory!

So where does the pretentiousness come in? When one attaches social status to the list of restaurants they have visited, or number of syllables in the name of the cheese they used in their latest recipe.  The enjoyment of food is deeply personal and subjective, not something to connect to status.

This is how Boston Pizza is positioning their menu – tasty but unpretentious.

Did Boston Pizza put the last nail in the coffin of the word “Foodie”, or did they just nail their objective?

Surely this time-honoured communications medium still has its place in marketing and communications. But do they still work, when nearly everyone has ubiquitous web access from connected smartphones?

Sometimes an organization’s clients like to receive brochures, even request them. They’re easy to file, they’re portable, and can be passed between hands.

Not everyone is immersed in the world of the social web, where links are shared like words at the water cooler. For those who operate outside of this space a brochure might be the equivalent to these hyper-sharable links.

But if your brochure is going to be effective, it has to resonate with the reader in some way. Think about the things people share online. They elicit a reaction; they make the reader laugh, or cry, or they inform and teach something interesting or useful. They connect with us on some level.

Does your brochure do that? If not, it’s inert. Maybe even dead and likely to wind up in someone’s recycling bin. My title wasn’t really asking if THE brochure is dead, but whether YOURS is.

I’m not suggesting that brochures are websites, photos or videos. I’m suggesting that a brochure is like a short story. Maybe it could be the 4-pane comic adaptation of your company or organization’s novel. Those 4-pane comics get stuck to refrigerators and bulletin boards all the time.

Maybe your story needs to be told with some slick photos or graphics, and words you could fit into speech bubbles.

The writer didn’t mean stop striking out with your tent and camera bag. But to stop forming “camps” that claim their way of photography is the right way. There are film purists and digital believers; those who swear by Photoshop and others who cry blasphemy at anything beyond basic touch-ups. And the list goes on.

Digital photography is what got me into the art of creating pictures out of light. However, I’ve begun taking pictures with film, and find it a more thoughtful photographic experience, and a different aesthetic. I would never say it’s better – but different. And I would recommend any photographer who joined the art post-digital revolution to shoot with some film now and then.

How’d I come to this?

My first good cameras were digital. Before that, I had some cheap cameras that used the diminutive 110 format film. It was horrible, and the cameras I used it in were even worse.

I had two early fixed focus digital cameras – an AGFA 1MP digital camera, and a 2MP Fuji. Neither were very expensive and I used both to take photos that I could put on the web pages I was learning to design in my late teens and early twenties.

But it was the Canon SD400 that I won while working at Futureshop that gave me the creative capability to work in some composition. A few years later, I’d saved some money and bought a Rebel XSi. Then I was hooked.

Then I rediscovered 35mm film

First with my father’s 1970s-ish Canon FTb, and then with a EOS 650 circa 1987 that was given to me. Using film has a certain level of scarcity that makes a photo opportunity feel more precious. I find I’m much more thoughtful when I’m using my film camera, than I am with digital. With a 16GB CF card, I can take hundreds of RAW or thousands of Jpeg images in a single outing.

I do love my new Canon 7D, but when I pick up my EOS 650 (really, the 7D’s closest early relative) I feel like I’m holding a piece of magic, rather than the incredibly advanced technological marvel of the digital SLR. Granted, the 650 was a marvel in its own right when it was new.

I find the colour representation of Kodak Gold, and the grain of Ilford give a photo a personality. Sure, you can achieve similar styles with post-processing of digital. But then you can achieve beauty through plastic surgery too. It’s different.

If you haven’t used film for a long time, or if you’ve never used it, I encourage you to get yourself a camera and bring some with you on your next photo outing. Grab a few different types! It is a satisfying experience.

Albatross

Of course, this album is really Ian Thornley’s post-Big Wreck bandmates, Thornley, re-adopting the Big Wreck name.

It’s a really good album, and I enjoyed my first listen a lot. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed the first Big Wreck album, In Loving Memory Of…

This takes me back to 1997, when Soundgarden announced that they were breaking up. Soundgarden was one of my favorite bands as a teenager; and the first favorite of mine to break up. Before then, I just hadn’t considered that people in bands would decide to stop working together, when they seemed to be making good music. Give me a break, I was 16 years old.

I mean, Nirvana split after Kurt Cobain’s sudden death. A far more tragic and shocking end.

I knew bands split up when members died, or retired at a ripe old ages. Or joined other bands.

But to just call it quits? I didn’t realize there was such a thing as “Creative Differences” before then. Of course, I came to grips with it after I thought about it a lot, listened to Badmotorfinger fifty-thousand more times, and discovered Big Wreck.

The striking similarities between the vocals of Chris Cornell and Ian Thornley, as well as Big Wreck’s similar if slightly more upbeat musical composition was a consolation. They were kind of like “Soundgarden Lite” for me, and over time and repeated listening, I gained a deeper appreciation for Big Wreck’s first album, and their songwriting. They became their own sound, in my mind.

Albatross is every bit a Big Wreck album, and I like it a lot. It certainly reminds me those innocent days when I thought bands just had fun, made music, and got along like best pals. Probably even more than Soundgarden’s reunion reminded me of those days… Kind of weird, eh?

Photo Credit: David Patte/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

My client was my former swim coach, from back in the day. She required some fresh photographic material for the Clarington Martial Arts website.

The entire day was a lot of fun. It really challenged me, as a photographer, which is fantastic. Firstly, it was a challenging space to shoot photos in – odd lighting, lots of mirrors, and lots of people on the periphery.

I was also shooting with my brand new Canon 7D. After one week with it, wasn’t as familiar as my old Rebel Xsi. That said, it’s an amazing camera, and I’ll quickly become as comfortable with it as I was with my old camera.

I’m really pleased with a lot of the photos that came from the afternoon. Here’s a sample of a sparring photo. I snapped this one of brothers, Malcolm and  Marshall, having a round in the ring together.

As a martial artist myself, it was a lot of fun to be in that space taking pictures. It was also a lot of fun taking pictures of the younger kids sparring and breaking their first boards. What they lack in strength and coordination, they more than make up for in intensity!

I caught this picture of Malcolm and Marshall’s younger brother John, doing a drop break – the board breaking equivalent to a self pitch in baseball. It requires a lot of speed and power.

Using the Canon 7D’s extremely fast continuous shooting, I took a great series of one of the junior instructors at Clarington Martial Arts doing a spectacular wall flip. I wish I had used faster shutter speed, but I do like this picture all the same.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to check my Flickr photostream. I have a few other shots from Clarington Martial Arts, and many more.

Luo Yonghao, popular blogger and owner of  Laoluo English Training School, discovered a little over a month ago that he wasn’t the only one having difficulty with the door of his Siemens brand refrigerator. Using the extremely popular Weibo (aka “Chinese Twitter”), he’s found more and more people whose refrigerator doors won’t close properly.

Early on Sunday, November 20, Luo gathered outside the Siemens headquarters in Beijing with 3 of the faulty fridges and a small cluster of protestors and media. They proceeded to smash the fridges with sledgehammers. Now, Luo didn’t want to create a public scene, so he hired someone to clean up afterwards. He was going for media attention more than public disturbance, anyways.

Now, the story is just reaching English media. Luo’s quite a character, and he’s made it his personal mission to seek justice for fellow consumers. He’s demanding that Siemens acknowledge the design flaw, apologize and offer a recall for the affected fridges.

So far Siemens of China has denied that there is a flaw in the design or manufacturing of the fridges. In October, Siemens published an offer to send repair technicians to owner’s homes to fix the faulty doors.

This story is a lot like the antennagate issue that came up with the launch of the iPhone 4 in July 2010. Apple didn’t offer a recall, but gave early purchasers a free case or bumper.

According to communications shared by Luo and reported in English on a Chinese blog (wait for it, this link loads slowly), Siemens’ PR agency spoke with Luo and discussed the issue with him. He made some recommendations for an announcement, which was then heavily spun before being released. Then the agency posted astroturf-style messages online defending Siemens.

This is all entertaining as an outsider, but this is a missed opportunity for a multinational manufacturer with a good international reputation in a gigantic market with the fastest growing economy.

Apple’s uniqueness, excellent customer service and a fantastic product easily overcame antennagate, but can a common fridge do the same?

One thing is for sure, social media is showing its ability to influence consumer behaviour in China, just as it’s shown here.

My father’s father was a jew from Eastern Europe, who managed to make it to Canada before World War II. He came to Canada to make a better life than he could in his home city of Cluj. As far as I know, he was the only one of his family who came before the war.

But his cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, and friends that he left behind were captured by Nazi Germany and many were thrown into concentration camps. Some of them survived. And the survival of those who experienced the horrors of the camps is owed to the soldiers who risked, and gave, their lives to defend the values we hold dear.

11/11/2011

For most of human history, our day-to-day survival was intimately linked to the world around us. Small changes in weather patterns, over hunting of herds, over-harvesting of wild plants, and poor maintenance of soils, directly impacted the success of nomadic people. To the point where a tribe considered their impact on their surroundings with everything they did.

As humans developed farming technology, keeping of animals, and stationary civilizations, we gained a greater level of control over our success.

To the point where, over generations, we forgot how important it is to consider the impact of our activities on the environment. Technology and the industrial revolution accelerated the damage to environments, and people noticed drastic changes within individual lifetimes and we remembered how intimately we are connection to the environments around us.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is one of the leading environmental organizations in the world today. WWF has launched their Living Planet @ Work community, with major partner Hewlett Packard, to bring workplaces on board with considering the impacts of the decisions made in their offices every day, and placing people and the planet above profits.

Using clear calls to action, checklists, reference materials and whitepapers WWF aims to develop a community of Green Champions in companies around the world. These champions are asked to put green on their company’s agenda and support WWF programs through fundraising.

I’m involved in PWGSC’s “Green Team” in our Ontario Region office, to what extent I’m able. I’ve helped with editing and developing messaging for the team’s events or activities in the office. Most recently, for Waste Reduction Week, where the team aimed to increase awareness around unnecessary printing; asking people in the office to really think about what they print and whether it’s necessary to create paper copies of documents.

Clear goals and calls to action are absolutely key to bringing new people into these types of initiatives. I think WWF has done a great job with Living Planet @ Work.

I joined the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises (OSME). It’s part of PWGSC, so I am still working for the same federal department, but I’m learning a lot of new things. I worked with OSME frequently when I was in the corporate communications group, so I had some familiarity with the group. But government procurement is a whole new beast for me to learn about.

What does OSME do?

OSME is a small group in PWGSC that helps SMEs learn to navigate the Government of Canada’s procurement processes. This is done through seminars (free to attend at 4900 Yonge Street, every Wednesday – register on buyandsell.gc.ca).

OSME also partners with community organizations like municipal economic development groups, chambers of commerce, and others, to bring seminars to communities across Ontario (and other regional offices serve communities across Canada).

Its been a fun 7 weeks so far. I’ve been to “exciting” places like Windsor, Peterborough and Oshawa, becoming familiar with how these events are organized and rolled out. I hadn’t posted anything because it began as a 2-month assignment, after which, I didn’t know where I would be. Fortunately, I was extended to help promote the Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program, which wraps up in March, 2013.

What is CICP?

The Canadian Innovation Commercialization Program was created to do two things

1. encourage the use of innovative goods and services by government, with the goal being improved efficiencies and/or capabilities.
2. offer an opportunity for companies with a pre-commercial innovative product or service to sell to the government.

It’s the first program of its kind in Canada, and it launched last September. Its different, because every other federal program to encourage research and development has focused on the early R&D stages. CICP helps companies in the final stages of development when they have a field-ready product or service. Government end users work with suppliers to create a test plan and feedback is given throughout the process.

It’s a pilot program, and companies need to submit proposals and be selected based on various criteria. There will be several Calls for Proposal until the pilot ends in March 2013. These are similar to tenders, and are posted on MERX.

OSME is a new challenge, and its a place where I can apply my communications experience in a different context.

How about you, have you started a new project or accepted a new position recently?

In episode 10, Eric and co-host Sean Howard continue a discussion from episode 9 with their first guest Douglas Reid.

In # 10, they talk about how we measure our lives. Is it meaningful to use quantitative measurements, like salary, possessions, job title, number of subordinates on the org chart, or formal education?

They’re all very simple things to measure. But are they really meaningful to anyone outside of the CRA or IRS?

Douglas spoke of two people he recalls fondly.

• One who has a PhD in Biology and did some amazing research,  and then went on to become a fine woodworker and lead a fulfilling life;
• and a former student of his who changed her course of study, traveled, married and settled down to become a potter, and do other things that are meaningful to her, I’m sure.

I’ve considered both fine woodworking and pottery as ways I would like to spend my days.

I’ve also considered finding an apprenticeship to become an electrician – something I strongly considered when I was in high school. And, I could also become a Kung Fu master (do you think I’m joking?)

Right now, I’m doing interesting work that I like, and I enjoy a stable salary and some benefits. In the long term, I want to do different things and listening to Eric and Sean’s podcast may have ratified my thoughts a little bit more. Not that I needed it, but it’s encouraging to hear.

So give Attention Surplus a listen, and it might resonate with you, too.