Wanderlust and Words

In 1945, the average Canadian house size was 800 square feet. In 2006, it was 1800 . And yet, household size is decreasing. Tiny Houses , by Mimi Zeiger, looks at 30 houses, all under 1000 square feet. One renovated house includes two units – a 600 sq. ft. house and a 400 sq. ft. in-law suite. There is a guest-sleeping loft in the space above the kitchen cabinets. The tiny, three-storey Japanese house in the photo looks a little claustrophobic to me! It’s made of reinforced plastic and perforated steel grating. Zeiger, editor of Loud Paper Magazine , lives in a studio apartment and says that she uses public spaces when she wants more space: “I go up to the park, the farmers’ market, or the local café so not only am I living tiny but I’m living big in the real world.” A reviewer suggests that the tiny houses could serve as a blueprint for a much-needed architectural trend: modesty. (via Dwell )

I am not a particular fan of historical novels, so I was surprised to discover how much I enjoyed reading Medicus by Ruth Downie . Medicus is about a Roman doctor who has just moved to the Roman army base in present-day Chester, England. He does solve a mystery, but the intrigue is secondary to the wonderfully complex characters and setting. (In an interview , Downie comments that, “Having a mystery to solve helps to ground the plot and curtail its tendencies to meander about.” That makes sense.) Readers get an intimate picture of medical practices (cataract surgery), advertising (painted on the walls), tensions between occupiers and occupied, and much more. Even the minor characters have complex, well-developed personalities so you get to know some of the Roman administrators as well as the local prostitutes. The book is funny as well – Ruso lives in a run-down shack full of mice and puppies, forgets to shave and is completely confused when he purchases his first pair of trousers. It...

. . . when the world is mud-luscious” ( e.e. cummings ) – that’s when the crocuses start to bloom on the Prairies. They are so fragile and yet so sturdy – the first sign of new life returning to the barren ground after a long, hard winter. But the challenge is finding the crocuses. You have to time your walk across the Prairies to just the right moment, and the crocuses are usually hidden in sheltered hollows. The Houston Chronicle (via CyberJournalist ) has created an interactive web page so that locals can post photos and the location of the wildflowers they have seen. What a lovely idea! And for those of you who, like me, enjoy poetry and are still waiting longingly for spring, here’s another poem by e.e. cummings : 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 (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;this is the bi...

I have always had a messy office with piles of paper stacked every which way. I am currently writing a major report, and I’m relying on a paper copy of my research notes to organize my thoughts. There are notes in 3 colours of ink scribbled in the margins, 3 colours of highlighter pointing to or underlining key sections, and a revolving series of post-it notes indexing the comments on the topic currently under consideration. Malcolm Gladwell has written a fascinating article on The Social Life of Paper . He says that, “Paper is spatially flexible, meaning that we can spread it out and arrange it in the way that suits us best. And it's tailorable: we can easily annotate it, and scribble on it as we read, without altering the original text.” He goes on to discuss the piles of paper on many people’s desks: “The piles look like a mess, but they aren't. When a group at Apple Computer studied piling behavior several years ago, they found that even the most disorderly piles usually ma...

The highlight of my week is the Big Fat Ass Dance Class on Friday mornings. I am stiff; I hold stress in my body; my shoulders are hiked up above my ears; and I’m far too inhibited to dance normally. But for an hour and a half, once a week, I let loose. It’s a magical class as it combines yoga poses (I love the pose where I wiggle my tongue and flash lightning from my fingertips), play follow the leader, make strange noises, chase invisible balls, and do improv. dance on our own or in groups. It’s just plain fun – like being a child again. I leave class feeling loose and relaxed and at peace with myself and the world. We build trust between us. We share things that scare us. We were strangers before the class, but we come to trust each other. I really admire the instructor, Aileen Hayden , as she’s created a very special place for women to get some exercise, stretch their bodies and have fun, while also offering and receiving emotional support. The following video is of a dance celebra...

There’s an economic downturn, and people are losing their jobs. But all is not doom and gloom – some people are using this opportunity to create their own jobs. There have been a lot of media stories this past week about the important role played by small businesses and entrepreneurs. Upsetting the Apple Cart Entrepreneurs can be narrowly defined as somebody who “upsets and disorganizes” (Peter Drucker). They create new and innovative products or solutions. For example, Alex Andon is building jellyfish aquariums, using new technology that helps the fragile creatures survive in captivity (via O'Reilly Radar ). The School of Life in London, England is turning the traditional job search on its head. They are inviting job seekers to write an ad for the job of their dreams and to let employers decide if they can offer it to them. The School of Life is itself an innovative organization. They define themselves as a “new social enterprise offering good ideas for everyday living” and offer ...

We are living in an age of upheaval and change. Long-established institutions, such as the automotive and publishing industries, are crumbling. It’s frightening because the alternatives are not immediately obvious. Clay Shirky has posted a provocative story about the future of newspapers (the quote below is just part of a much-longer article which is well worth reading). He says: “Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke. With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of...

If you’re not a techie, it’s really difficult to keep up to date on new software programs or internet options. And it’s not enough to just hear about a new program; I also need to determine if it will be of benefit to me. I am very grateful that my brother is a techie – without him I’d still be back in the dark ages. One of my discoveries this past winter has been how many useful programs Google offers. Sure, I knew that I could use Google to search the web, and Google Maps are very useful. But I didn’t know that I could use Google Sites to set up a personal website at absolutely no cost. My design choices were somewhat limited, but I’m very satisfied with the end product. And it certainly suited my budget. I’ve also started using Google Reader , and it’s great! There is so much information on the web, and I’m looking for different voices to add depth and diversity to my knowledge and perspective. With Google Reader, I can subscribe to a wide range of different RSS feeds and blogs, an...

I have just started preparing to write a report on culture change within a municipal department. It’s a complex topic with many different strands of information and ideas, and I have 43 typewritten pages of notes from 20 interviews with key stakeholders. I was not sure what my key points were so there was no way that I was ready to prepare an outline. Instead, I went through my notes and jotted down all the key words or themes. Then I drew a mind map to help me link all the different ideas. A mind map is a graphic way to organize your thoughts. You start with your central theme and then branch out from it with all the different sub-themes. Then you start linking related ideas to the secondary themes. And you start identifying lateral connections between one idea and another so you connect them with a line as well. I find it a really effective way to group related topics, make the connections between different ideas, and identify the primary themes. Once that’s done, I’m ready to draft...

The comments on today’s posting about Newsletters and Blogs reminded me that I shouldn’t take communications principles for granted. You Need an Editor I was taking for granted that, if an organization chose to use a blog to communicate with its members, they would have someone who was responsible for soliciting and editing articles. It takes time and thought to recognize good topics and then to make sure that the articles get written. And, let’s not forget, someone needs to review the articles and do some basic editing. If you want to recruit and retain members, you need to be prepared to put some effort into your communications tools. And the Alpine Club used to have a great newsletter – so I’m sad to hear it’s been replaced by an ineffective blog. Consider Your Audience Most voluntary organizations, and many large corporations, think that their newsletter or magazine must include a message from the president. Why? The president may well have some useful or interesting information...

I have created newsletters for a number of volunteer organizations over the years – as well as a few larger organizations. And all of them faced two significant barriers: compiling the stories for a specific deadline and motivating people to actually read the newsletter. Organizations with a computer-savvy membership can save a lot of money by distributing their newsletter electronically. So they have two options: to distribute a PDF of the newsletter or – and I am beginning to think this is the superior option – maintain a blog. The PDF is an electronic version of a print newsletter. You will have big challenges soliciting and compiling the material and persuading people to read it. And you’ll have to fret about layout and design in a static format that was not designed for the web. A blog, on the other hand, offers immediacy. You can post one story today and another tomorrow. You can do away with boring, never-read features like the President’s Message. You don’t have to write long a...

I love to travel – and I love to read about other countries. Here are some of the (mostly online) resources I’ve used in preparing for my trip to Spain in May. Magazine Wanderlust magazine is a British travel magazine “for people with a passion for travel.” It’s a large-format magazine with lots of photographs. The ads are fascinating because they are for English companies, which aren’t as well known in North America – ethical hiking in the Sinai , snowmobile safaris in Russia and tours with the Royal Horticultural Society . Wanderlust’s website has a large archive of articles and a job shop. Their companion website, wander.com , is a spot for travellers to share their experiences. Books Longitude Books has a great selection of travel books. You can sign up for their monthly newsletter or purchase books online. Newspapers I’ve signed up for the RSS feed for the New York Times travel articles . You can also review their archives of articles for specific countries. The Telegraph's ...

I delight in reading quirky books that break the mold and appreciate books that witness to humanity’s inherent goodness. So I was thrilled to find A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson as it meets both these criteria. Mr. Malik is a retired Asian gentleman living in Nairobi, Kenya. Every Tuesday morning he goes bird watching with a group of bird lovers led by Rose Mbikwa. And shy Mr. Malik is gradually building up courage to ask Rose out when his nemesis from boarding school days – Harry Khan – reappears on the scene. It becomes a contest to see who will spot the most birds in a week and thereby win the opportunity to ask Rose to accompany them to the Hunt Club Ball. A humorous plot, but the characters have hidden depths, and the book detours into Kenyan politics, Somali bandits armed with AK47s and love stories. BookBrowse.com has an interesting interview with Nicholas Drayson. When asked if he enjoys writing, he says: "When I started writing my first novel, i...

In an essay in the Journal of Cell Science, Martin Schwartz discusses the importance of stupidity in scientific research. It’s an intriguing concept that can apply to all aspects of human endeavour. In high school, we judge our success by whether or not we get the right answers on the tests. Once we reach university, particularly at the graduate level, success is not so easily measured. As Schwartz discovered while working on his PhD, nobody has the answer to research problems; you have to work it out for yourself. As Schwartz explains, “The crucial lesson was that the scope of things I didn't know wasn't merely vast; it was, for all practical purposes, infinite. That realization, instead of being discouraging, was liberating. If our ignorance is infinite, the only possible course of action is to muddle through as best we can. . . . research is immersion in the unknown. We just don't know what we're doing. We can't be sure whether we're asking the right questio...

I wanted to add a video clip to my blog posting recently, but I didn’t know how. It’s actually quite straightforward – once you know how! Step One Open the website with the video clip you want to paste on your blog Look for a field or button labelled Embed or Link (or something similar). With YouTube, there will be a field labelled Embed . With Google Maps, choose Link in the upper right hand corner Highlight and use Ctrl + C to copy the HTML code Step Two Now open your blog posting and choose Edit (These instructions apply to Google Blogger, but other blog sites should be similar) Choose the Edit Html tab (just above the window where you enter your text) and paste ( Ctrl + V ) the code from the video website in the spot where you want to place the video Return to the Compose tab Choose Preview to check that the video clip is in place (it probably won’t be visible in the Compose screen) You’re ready to post your blog and video clip See Also: Capturing Screen Shots

I’ve been cynical about Twitter. I feel no need to have instant communication with my friends or family. I don’t need to know that they’re going to a movie or just had dinner at a restaurant. However, some recent online articles/videos have made me aware that Twitter is being used in a great many unexpected ways that move far beyond gossip. Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, gave a talk in February at TED. Even he has been surprised by some of the ways in which people have used Twitter: · During the San Diego wildfires, local residents, the fire department and the Red Cross used Twitter to identify trouble spots. · A roaming barbecue truck uses Twitter to broadcast its current location, and people let each other know, via Twitter, where you can buy cheaper gas. · You can set up your plants so that they twitter when they need water. · You can raise thousands of dollars for charity. DIYcity (there are Canadian groups in Toronto and Ottawa) is a tech m...

I am in the process of carrying out 20 interviews about culture change in a municipal department. Once I’ve collected the information, I’ll prepare a report documenting the department’s achievements and providing a how-to guide for other departments. This is the second corporate oral history that I have undertaken, and I have a better understanding of the process now than I did six months ago. Each interview lasts 30-75 minutes, so the sheer quantity of information is overwhelming at first. The research topic is very broad, encompassing objectives, outcomes, processes and people; and the interview questions are, of necessity, open ended. In addition, I am coming in as a complete outsider and have limited knowledge of the subject matter, so the topic evolves as I carry out the interviews and learn more and more. I have to be flexible and open to new information that may alter my initial comprehension of the topic. Of course, it’s also my greatest strength that I am an outsider because I...