Wanderlust and Words

As the year draws to an end, I have been counting my blessings. This has been a very good year for me. I have been healthy and strong and full of energy. I have a solid network of family and friends who sustain and support me. My apartment has become a comfortable home with the addition of new flooring and new furniture. 2009 has been a year of discovery and learning and beauty: I have moved outside my comfort zone in networking and promoting my freelance business.   I spent three glorious weeks in Spain studying architecture and design, trying my best to learn a new language, and exploring a new culture completely on my own. I have taken thousands of photographs and even gave a slide show about Spain at the public library. I have read voraciously on so many different subjects - creativity, economics, politics, and more.  I am learning new computer skills, so essential in our current age. I developed a professional website and started using Google Reader and Del...

We make thousands of decisions every day – what we want to eat or drink, whether or not to purchase a new electronic device, how to carry out our job. Jonah Lehrer’s book, How We Decide, is a fascinating look at how we arrive at all these different decisions. What surprised me the most was the absolutely vital role played by our emotions: “every feeling is really a summary of data, a visceral response to all of the information that can’t be accessed directly.” Our emotions help us to interpret complicated information. They serve as the link between all the information stored in our brains and our response to a new situation. We rely on stored memory to help us decide when to swing at a baseball or when to brake. We don’t have time to consciously think through each of these actions, but instinct and emotions help us decide on the right response. In fact, if we think too much about how we swing our arm or how we steer, we’ll make mistakes. Emotions also help us sort through compl...

Life is a Celebration How many guitar players and bands are writing alternate national anthems? Not many, I suspect. But the Mighty Popo did. Because citizenship matters to him. Mighty Popo was born to Rwandan parents in a Burundi refugee camp. He had no citizenship, no country that he could claim as home until he was granted Canadian citizenship. Mighty Popo and two of his band members played at a recent symposium on immigration in Saskatoon, and he had many of us up and dancing. He kept repeating that, “Life is a celebration.” Mighty Popo’s albums are available from Amazon and on iTunes. He's also one of the featured artists on the CBC's two-part African Guitar Summit . Refugee Success Story For more information about Rwanda and Burundi and the life of a refugee, I highly recommend reading Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. The book recounts the story of Deo, a young Burundi man, who arrives in New York City, with nothing. He deliveries groceries and makes fr...

I really wonder why I bother to vote and why we spend so much money on maintaining a parliamentary system when our politicians seem incapable of taking a stand and establishing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. George Monbiot has singled Canada out as one of the major threats to reaching an international agreement in Copenhagen. Why? Are the politicians too busy squabbling amongst themselves or are they protecting the oil industry, particularly the tar sands? It was reassuring to attend a lecture at the University of Saskatchewan by Dr. Marc Jaccard, an energy systems analyst who builds models to understand the interrelationships between policy, technology and economics. Jaccard says that it is increasingly obvious that we have the technologies to dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions with marginal cost increases. (Of course, we still have to have the political and social will to do it.) I’m not going to try and reproduce his talk, but he made some points th...

The Opposable Mind: How successful leaders win through integrative thinking by Roger Martin Roger Martin’s book is a very accessible study of how successful business leaders resolve conflicting opinions, question long-standing points of view and develop creative solutions to their problems. The book is based on interviews with a number of successful leaders, many of whom are Canadian, and provides concrete tools that all of us can use to improve our decision-making capacity. I took three specific ideas away with me: Existing models ≠ Reality Martin defines integrative thinking as “the ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each.” We avoid complexity by accepting either/or solutions rather than drawing out the best elements of each and combining them as a creative ne...

I’m a weekly visitor to the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market , part of an evolving redevelopment of the City’s South Downtown . It’s a delight to watch as the riverfront walkway is expanded and new features are added. There are two wonderful sculptures adjacent to the Farmer’s Market, which celebrate some of the City’s earliest residents. Egg Money Egg Money is a particularly appropriate addition to the Farmers’ Market. Designed by Don and Shirley Begg and donated by the German community of Saskatoon, it honours the resourcefulness of Prairie women and their children, who raised chickens and sold the eggs to buy essential items for their families. Storytelling Chairs The Storytelling Chairs , designed by  Jyhling Lee and Paul Koopman, are part of the courtyard behind the Farmers’ Market. They’re a great place to sit and eat your breakfast on a sunny Saturday morning, but they also tell the story of the Immigration Hall, which used to stand on the site (now outlined in stone). ...

Which would you rather read – a statistical report full of charts and graphs – or a novel with interesting characters? For most of us, that’s not a difficult decision. We’re interested in people, what they do and how they think. In fact, non-profits have learned that people will donate more money if we see one individual in need rather than facts about the thousands of people who are dying from disease or hunger. Dan Baum , a former staff writer for The New Yorker, found a way to bridge the gap between fact and fiction. In order to write Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans , Baum held in-depth interviews with nine residents of New Orleans – from a Mardi Gras King to a police officer to a transsexual barkeeper to a successful establishment lawyer. The people come to life on the page, and it’s hard to believe it’s not a work of fiction. Another character is a strong but unseen presence on every page – the City of New Orleans. We listen in on union discussions around integrat...

I have just posted Easy to Understand: 5 Tips for Plain Language Writing as an attachment on my website. I hope you find it useful.

Saskatoon has been enriched over the past few months through the establishment of Great Places , a discussion forum on current issues in the built environment. On Wednesday, November 18, three local professionals shared their perspectives on renovation and design. Structure Supports Ideology Jyhling Lee , architect, public artist and designer, discussed three heritage buildings in Toronto that have been renovated to serve as cultural centres. While respecting the original integrity of the buildings, the structures have been adapted to meet social and environmental needs. 401 Richmond , formerly a factory, is now home to 140 cultural organizations. The entrance way, lobby and wide hallways are social meeting places that build community. The roof garden includes an urban garden, a greenhouse, a deck with free internet access and a 3,000 square foot green roof. The gardens insulate the building, prevent stormwater runoff and counter air pollution. The Centre for Social Innovation ...

Introduction Over the past few years, the public has increasingly demanded greater accountability and transparency from both public and private organizations, and this has had a major impact on communications professionals. It has changed not only what we write but also how we write it. But people are requesting even greater openness, particularly from government. In the past, most citizens believed that they had done their civic duty by voting. After that, it was up to the politicians to make the decisions. That’s no longer the case. People are disillusioned with their politicians. They want more information and greater involvement. A study on Leadership in Customer Service indicated that citizens “do not accept the idea that politicians and civil servants can effectively shape public services simply on the basis of their own assumptions of what is best for citizens. Instead, they want access to channels that will offer them the chance to engage with politicians and public manag...

Great Places will be hosting a discussion on Adaptive Reuse and Cultural Spaces on Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 7 PM at the Frances Morrison Library (main downtown branch) in Saskatoon . Information about the event is copied from the flyer distributed by Great Places. Jyhling Lee, Andrew Wallace and Curtis Olson will share their unique perspectives on renovation and design in an evening devoted to the discussion of adaptive reuse and cultural spaces. Jyhling Lee - architect, public artist, and designer - will introduce three adaptive reuse projects which have become important creative cultural complexes within their urban Toronto neighborhoods. She will describe 401 Richmond, The Centre for Social Innovation - Robertson Building, and the Wychwood Barns and discuss how the existing heritage structures have positively influenced their building’s new functional program and the refurbished architectural spaces. In his presentation of Whitby’s Station Gallery, Andrew Wallace -...

I have just finished reading Fordlandia by Greg Grandin, and I am appalled by the human desire to dominate and control the world around us. It’s well known that Henry Ford invented the assembly line, dividing up the act of building a car into 7,882 separate actions. But he had much grander schemes than that. He paid his workers well, but he didn’t want them to waste their money so he set up a Sociological Department and dispatched inspectors to probe into the most personal corners of his employees’ lives. “By 1919, the Sociological Department employed hundreds of agents who spread out over Dearborn and Detroit asking questions, taking notes, and writing up personnel reports. . . . Sociological men came around not just once but two, three, or four times interviewing family members, friends, and landlords to make sure previous reports of probity were accurate. They of course discouraged drinking, smoking, and gambling and encouraged saving, clean living habits, keeping flies off food,...

After a grey day of snow and rain, today's sunshine pulled me out of doors and into the country. The sun was still low in the sky when I arrived at Beaver Creek, and the shadows were darkly drawn upon the land. By the time I left, there was golden sunshine but a strong wind that was pulling the last leaves from the trees and speeding the migrating birds on their way south. beaver creek nov1 09

I have been pouring a great deal of energy and emotion this past year into establishing myself as a freelance consultant. Paul Graham’s blog posting on What Startups Are Really Like was very reassuring as it demonstrated that I am not alone and that the challenges I am facing are faced by every entrepreneur. Graham says that startups take over your life and are an emotional rollercoaster. He also emphasizes that you have to be persistent and think long term. You have to view your startup idea as a hypothesis and be flexible as it may need to be changed. Luck is a big factor: success depends on skill, determination – and luck. Graham says that people are often surprised by their freelance/startup experience because it’s not like a job. “Everyone's model of work is a job. It's completely pervasive. Even if you've never had a job, your parents probably did, along with practically every other adult you've met. Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job,...

It can be difficult to find an appropriate balance between complexity and simplicity. We have so many, many choices when deciding how to live our lives. How do we determine what is important and what isn’t? Do we try to do and be everything, or do we set rigid limits on our activities? The following statement by Tim Brown , author of Change by Design and CEO of Ideo, makes a lot of sense to me. He says that “minimalism has come to represent a style and as such is limited in its usefulness. It represents a reaction to complexity whereas simplicity relies on an understanding of the complex. This is an important difference. One is about the surface, about the stuff. The other is about our experience and requires a deep appreciation of how things work so as to make them just simple enough.”

I have reached an age where many of my friends are retired or preparing for retirement. Not me! Instead, I am pouring my energy into establishing myself as a freelance consultant. One of the challenges has been defining my area of expertise and the type of work that I can do. I used to define myself as a Communications Specialist because I’m a really good writer. But I’ve been told that I’m selling myself short with that description as it fails to incorporate my analytical skills, my Master’s degree in Public Affairs, and my research and municipal government experience. So, I’ve revamped my resume, and my website, and my business card to include Research, Evaluation, and Communication – Observe, Understand, Share. When I’m tired, it’s chaotic and overwhelming. But it’s also liberating, and I’m excited about exploring future possibilities. Visit my website – recommend me to your friends – hire me!

It was a grey, gusty day at Cranberry Flats (just south of Saskatoon) – but it felt so good to be outdoors in the fresh air. cranberry flats oct09

Blue Ocean Strategy I have just finished reading Blue Ocean Strategy: How to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. It’s an engaging account of the steps businesses or organizations can take to expand their market by identifying new market opportunities rather than simply engaging in business as usual. For example, Cirque du Soleil took the concept of circuses to an entirely new level by introducing elements of music, dance and theatre. They didn’t compete with other circuses by being bigger or cheaper; they created a new form of entertainment. Southwest Airlines recognized that their competition was not only other airlines; it was other forms of transportation. They transformed their business by focusing on providing “the speed of a plane at the price of a car – whenever you need it.” Strategic Planning I found the chapter on strategic planning to be particularly useful as I think most strategic plans are of l...

I am devoting a great deal of time at present to looking for new work opportunities. I know that I have great skills and a reputation for doing good work. But I am still very anxious – When will I get another contract? Will I ever be able to afford to travel abroad again? (Yeah, I’m a worrier!) I was “lucky” enough to find an article on how people make their own luck and on how I can improve my chances of being “lucky.” Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, observed 400 people who described themselves as either lucky or unlucky. His research indicates that we can maximize our good fortune through three easy techniques: "Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an a...

I will be showing slides of my holiday in southern Spain on Friday, October 9 at 2 pm at the main downtown branch of the Saskatoon Public Library. I am so happy to have this opportunity to share some of the sensual delights of Andalucia – houses and streets decked in flowers; perfumed gardens with dancing fountains; Roman mosaics; the ruined arches of the 10th century Moorish palace of Medina Azahara; the intricate stone lacework of the Alhambra Palaces; the Renaissance architecture of Baeza and Ubeda. Not to mention sunshine, outdoor restaurants, and olive trees. I realize the slide show is during work hours, but I'd be delighted to see some familiar faces in the audience.

One of my tai chi instructors is dying, and so over 25 of us went and did a set of tai chi on his lawn while he and his family watched from the living room window. It was very moving. I was grateful for the opportunity to tell him I cared and to let him know that he wasn’t forgotten. Birth and death are two sides of the same coin, but North Americans shy away from discussing death. When I was in Mexico, I went to a wonderful craft museum in Ixmal that was full of papier mache skeletons. There were skeletons on bicycles delivering bread with their girlfriend on the handlebars and a whole funeral procession of skeletons – priests, young children, mourners. Life and death, joy and sorrow, were fully integrated. Mexicans believe that during the Day of the Dead it is easier for the souls of the departed to visit the living. They hold picnics at the graveside, and they build private altars with favourite foods, photos and memorabilia. That’s a foreign concept in North America; however, my f...

In the summer, I do the majority of my grocery shopping at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market . I am trying to buy organic, local food. Sometimes it’s easy. I bought a bag of flour at the Market, and when I asked if it was Saskatchewan wheat, the vendor could tell me the four locations in Saskatchewan where the wheat had been grown, including a farm 12 miles from his home. But it’s not always that easy. Do I buy local strawberries at the Market, which may not be organic, or do I buy organic strawberries from the United States? Do I non-organic apples sold from a van at the Market, or do I buy organic apples from New Zealand? I try to eat seasonal fruits and vegetables, but that’s difficult in Saskatchewan. I know I would be more successful if I bought a large freezer and spent the summer canning and freezing food to eat in the winter. But I don’t want to. I will eat lots of cabbage and potatoes and beets this winter, but I’ll supplement it with fresh or frozen greens and fruits and vegetab...

33 degrees and sunshine – surely one of the warmest days of the year, and yet it is September 19 and winter looms on the horizon. Like a sunflower, I rotate towards the heat of the sun. (Is it any wonder after living in Africa for the first six years of my life?) So I headed downtown through Kiwanis Park to the Spadina Freehouse to enjoy a cold beer on the outdoor patio. Wedding parties and conference goers passed by on the sidewalk, and I had an up-close view of the carvings on the Hotel Bessborough across the street. Just in passing, I should mention that the Spadina Freehouse has the most vegetarian options of any restaurant in town as well as a wide variety of beers on tap. Now, if they just had olives, I wouldn’t need to go to Spain (well, maybe!). On my way out, I pick up an ice cream cone at the double decker bus parked across the street and then meander home along the river. The sky is turning pink, and the cormorants are settling in for the night on the power lines that cross...

It’s really easy to get stuck in a rut, to base decisions on a set of beliefs and to never challenge their validity. Thinkertoys: a handbook of creative-thinking techniques by Michael Michalko is a compilation of exercises to help you clarify your problem, challenge your assumptions and brainstorm possible solutions. Here are a couple of examples. You can find many more exercises on Michael Michalko’s website . Tick-Tock (to help overcomes fears, doubts, uncertainties) 1. Zero in on and write down those negative thoughts that are preventing you from realizing your goal. Write them under “Tick.” 2. Sit quietly and examine the negatives. Learn how you are irrationally twisting things and blowing them out of proportion. 3. Substitute an objective, positive thought for each subjective, negative one. Write these under “Tock.” Brutethink 1. When you are looking for a fresh approach to a challenge, bring in a random word. The word you bring in must be truly random and...

As the comments on yesterday’s post indicate, it is easy to feel discouraged about creating people-friendly cities. But Jan Gehl believes it is possible – by changing attitudes and by changing the design of your city. It doesn’t happen overnight, but he believes it can be done, and he gave his enthusiastic audience good ideas on how we can make it happen in Saskatoon. Changing Attitudes I took the bus to last night’s lecture, despite the fact that buses only run once an hour in the evening. The schedule doesn’t encourage people to take the bus, but there were only 3 people on my bus at 10:15 pm – the demand isn’t there to generate more frequent buses. It’s a vicious circle, and you can’t change that overnight. Gehl says that part of the solution is to keep making it less convenient for people to drive a car – provide less roads and less parking – because the more roads you have, the more cars you will have. Another part of the solution is to adopt a policy that says, “In this ci...

I went to the first of two public talks by Jan Gehl , a leading Danish urban planner, last evening. It was immensely satisfying to be part of a crowd of 500 people applauding Jan Gehl as he advocating designing cities for people not cars. Cities were originally created as a place where people could meet and sell their goods. They were also transportation hubs, but the focus was on people. But in the ‘50s, cities were invaded by cars, and city planning revolved around moving cars from Point A to Point B. Sidewalks were unnecessary; parts of Miami have no streetlights because cars don’t need them. Too bad if you want to walk your dog or jog. You can walk in the mall from 8-10 every morning. Gehl’s home town of Copenhagen, like a handful of other cities around the world, have chosen to return their cities to people. In 1962, 18 of Copenhagen’s town squares were being used as parking lots; they are now all spaces for people to sit and talk and watch the world go by. They have outdoor ...

I have been thinking about my father when he was in his 50s like me, wondering how much I resemble him and whether my struggles with abandoned dreams and self doubt parallel his. Then I read a friend’s blog about her craptacular year so I was in a receptive mood for an essay by Tim Kreider about humanity’s elusive search for happiness. He questions what we are really looking for. “Maybe we mistakenly think we want ‘happiness,’ which we tend to picture in very vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged intensity of experience.” Certainly some of my clearest memories are not of “happy” moments. I wasn’t happy as I confronted complications following major surgery, but I was certainly fully alive. And I’m fully alive when I’m on holidays in a foreign country. Everything is new and unfamiliar; I can’t take anything for granted. Whether it’s sitting quietly watching pelicans flying low over the toppling waves in Nicaragua or getting lost in the sun-baked, cobble...

Just for fun, take this quiz to see what font best represents your personality. According to the quiz results, I'm Times New Roman - "a class act" - but, unfortunately, I hate Times New Roman and never use it. Maybe it's time to change my personality to match my font. With thanks to Presentation Zen for the link.

Some of my travel photographs are excellent examples of effective advertising. For example, the store in Nicaragua that has a picture of a machete, accompanied by the words - "cutting prices." Surely humour is effective when asking dog owners in Prague to clean up after their animals. And I'm tempted to drink sherry if it means that I too will lead a life of beauty, luxury and leisure.

“The primary objective of visual design is to present content to your readers in a manner that highlights what’s important, arranges it for clarity, and leads them through it in the sequence that tells the story best.” The two primary goals of tables and graphs are to present quantitative, numerical information and to point out patterns, trends and exceptions. In his book Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten (Analytics Press, 2004), Stephen Few points out that “very few of us have been trained to design tables and graphs effectively” so they tend to be hard to read and don’t provide sufficient information to help readers understand and make business decisions based on the numerical information. Few insists that writers and designers must not only pass on the information but also help readers to interpret it: “The right numbers have an important story to tell. They have to rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice.” Show Me the Numbers is packed wi...

There was a chill in the air and deer in the field when I arrived at Beaver Creek. Ripe berries, goldenrod and blazingstar were splashes of bright colour on a green and yellow background. “ I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes ” (ee cummings) Beaver Creek aug9 09 Note: The title is a quote from Grass, Sky, Song: promise and peril in the world of grassland birds by Trevor Herriot

When I started dreaming in French, I knew that I was finally absorbing the language on a subconscious as well as a conscious level. But I never thought that the people who speak different languages think differently. So I was fascinated to read an article by Lera Boroditsky explaining how language shapes the way we think. The Kuuk Thaayorre (an Aboriginal community in northern Australia) use cardinal directions to refer to space , for example, “There’s an ant on your southeast leg.” “The normal greeting in Kuuk Thaayorre is "Where are you going?" and the answer should be something like " Southsoutheast, in the middle distance." If you don't know which way you're facing, you can't even get past "Hello." Many languages have masculine and feminine words, and researchers have discovered that this shapes the way people think about those objects. "In one study, we asked German and Spanish speakers to describe objects having opposite gender assi...

Do you trust the federal government to make good decisions? Are you happy with the directions being taken by provincial or local politicians? I’m not, and I’m not alone. According to the Conference Board of Canada (October 2008), nearly 45% of eligible Canadians don’t bother to vote and only 41% of Canadians have a high level of trust in Parliament (compared to 70% in Norway and 22% in Japan). There has to be a better way to run this country or this city than by placing blind trust in a small group of politicians and public employees. As a result, I’ve been observing with considerable interest the development of open government projects in both Canada and the United States. “Techies” and “computer geeks” appear to be taking the lead in increasing transparency and public involvement. What is Open Government? Programmers have witnessed the development of open source software. Volunteers have been instrumental in developing Mozilla and LibraryThing and a huge range of other software p...

Charles de Lint and Iain Pears are long-standing authors who have written many books. But their most recent novels particularly interested me as they demonstrated how much these two men have developed and expanded their writing style. Charles de Lint initially wrote enjoyable but simple fantasies and fairy tales. In contrast, his latest book – The Mystery of Grace – is a powerful story that dares to explore some troubling concepts. Iain Pears’ first seven books were Italian art mysteries, relatively short and straightforward. In contrast, Stone’s Fall , published in 2009, is 900 pages spanning three generations, multiple locations and an amazingly convoluted plot. I found the book somewhat too long and complicated, but I was in awe at how Pears developed and maintained an incredibly complex plot interweaving a large set of characters. The two books set me to thinking about how some authors develop a successful writing formula – Dick Francis, J.D. Robb, Janet Evanovich. I enjoy all ...

My brother owns a software company and emphasizes the importance of providing good service in order to attract and retain customers. I was reminded of this when I was shopping this weekend. Saskatoon is prospering and is developing specialty food and drink stores. Cava Secreta is the city’s first specialty wine store, and two delicatessens have opened downtown this month. I visited Souleio on Friday. The store and restaurant are in a heritage building, and it’s a very attractive, high-ceilinged facility. But they serve food on disposable plates: neither attractive nor environmentally-friendly. But I was pleased to see that they had chocolate hazelnut cheesecake on display – just what I was looking for. But, when asked, the staff told me that they were only selling it as a whole cake – it was too much trouble to cut it and serve slices. I wasn’t impressed. Sous Chef has just opened a second downtown location. It’s a small deli with a more limited selection, but their staff were friendl...