I was fortunate to inherit some tickets to a Net Change Week panel called “The Future of Web and the World” at the MaRS building. During the presentation, featuring Dr. Gerri Sinclain, Dr. Lucy Bernholz, and John Thackara, there was much discussion of Crisis Camps (mainly due to Dr. Bernholz). If you’re familiar with Left Button Solutions, you know that we’ve been involved as participants in CrisisCamp Toronto, and also as a sponsor, supplying coffee, snacks, and blog hosting.

Following the panel discussion, I was able to offer a plug for the Toronto group, and invited people to talk to me about the program, and how it works. I handed out a few business cards, all of which point here, so I wanted to list some of the resources people might want to check out for further information regarding Crisis Camps, and Crisis Commons.

• CrisisCamp Toronto - our blog can be found here.
• CrisisCommons (the organizing body) lives at CrisisCommons.org
• CrisisCommons Wiki is where all the project, camp, and organizing information lives.
• There are also Google Groups for CrisisCommons and CrisisCampTO but all major happenings will be blogged or tweeted.
• Speaking of Twitter, you should follow: @CrisisCommons, @CrisisCampTO, @HeatherLeson,  and of course, @leftbutton

As stated in at the panel discussion, the next big thing for CrisisCommons is an upcoming international congress, happening in Washington DC in July. There, the group will develop some governance, some policy, and some direction to help refine the global effort that has mobilized more than 2,000 volunteers in more than 25 different cities.

Again, thank you all for indulding the shameless plug… feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

On June 9th, Left Button Solutions will be offering a free session at Camaraderie Co-Working space in Toronto. It’s called “Social Media for Small Business” and is intended to be a crash course introduction to Facebook, Twitter, and some potential uses of these tools in a small business environment. For people who have yet to embrace these Web2.0 tools, this is a good place to start.

The event is being hosted by Camaraderie, a co-working space for small business and freelancers in Toronto. It is free to attend and there are 25 seats available.

To register, please visit this link: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/710565320

Hope to see you there!

Following the earthquakes that devastated Haiti, humanitarian aid is hugely necessary in the country. Not everybody has the money, the time, or the resources to fly down there to help offer medical attention, aid in the rescue efforts, or volunteer in some other capacity. CrisisCommons.org, however, has created opportunities for techie folks all over the world to pool their resources and volunteer efforts to create useful projects to help those in need.

Left Button Solutions has gotten on board with CrisisCamp - Toronto, the local chapter of CrisisCommons. So far LBS has built a blog to use as a central coordinating location, but in the future efforts could expand to a wiki, or other multimedia projects. LBS is happy to be on board, and grateful to CrisisCommons.org for making the opportunity to get involved so simple.

The Toronto group is headed by Heather Leson and plans to have their first meeting on January 24, 2010.

Left Button Solutions would like to wish you all the best this holiday season.  We hope your year was filled with joy, adventure, and prosperity, and that 2010 brings you just as much excitement. The holidays are a time for celebration and family, and to reflect on all the joy that is present in our lives.

2009 was a busy year for LBS. Aside from what felt like non-stop travel, our founder Brian Chick graduated from his Masters of Arts (Communications and Technology) program in November, and moved the company to a new office in December.  It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but we’re excited to move forward as several new projects are looming on the horizon. 2010 looks to be another busy year.

Thank you to all our wonderful clients. We look forward to continuing our relationship into 2010 and beyond… and of course, if you have any friends who need some technical consulting, blog, wiki, web 2.0 work done, we’d be happy to help them out!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all the best in 2010!

Now that I’ve had a couple of days to reflect on my time in Utah, I figured it was a good idea to put some of those thoughts down in writing to make them feel more official. The ACLEA conference was a wonderful experience for me, as was the chance to present with my friend (and client) Jennifer Flynn. Our presentation on LESA’s wiki project was well received, although we got a bit sidetracked answering philosphical questions (”How does an author get credit in a wiki?” and “Wouldn’t it decrease the quality of your material?” etc.), so we didn’t actually get to showcase the actual technology that much.  I’m sure we could have gone on quite happily about wikis for several more hours if it hadn’t been lunch time.

I was fortunate to meet a variety of people in the Continuing Legal Education field and many of them were interested in the topic of wikis and other technology. It was wonderful to talk to a group so passionate about what they do, and willing to try new things to improve their existing methods of content delivery. Over the course of the weekend, there were several discussions involving Web 2.0, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and it made me aware of the huge gap between those who get it and those who don’t. I left with some ideas and over the next few days tried to put them into actual thoughts. And here’s one of them.

The Webcast Dilemma

Of the dozens of sessions, ACLEA was able to formally offer 7 of them as live webcasts. While most of us agreed that it was a nice thing if you couldn’t actually make it to the conference, there was some debate over whether it would ever be an adequate replacement for in-person seminars. And at dinner and over drinks, it was said again and again, “You don’t get this kind of networking experience from a webcast.” And I agree. Those who argue that webcasts are the seminars of the future, take a few minutes and think about these three points.

1) Nobody likes to sit at their computer watching fuzzy video. Your monitor is not a TV, and the seminar is not Entourage (or Dexter, Sopranos, Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, etc… Take your pick). Television is entertaining and informative because it is written, produced, edited, vetted, colour-corrected, audio-adjusted, and formally packaged to look and sound great on your TV. Pointing a handi-cam at a speaker and a Powerpoint presentation in a poorly lit conference room isn’t quite the same.

2) These sessions are generally an hour or more in length. Think about any video you’ve watched on the internet. If it was produced with a handicam, webcam, or by any sort of non-TV/Film people, it was likely less than 10 minutes long. Think of the last thing you watched on the internet that was MORE than 10 minutes long… chances are, it was done by professionals. The point? If you’re convinced that you need to put your seminar online with limited staff and budget, keep it short. Either offer it in small pieces, or perhaps cut a highlight reel of some sort.

3) Don’t go live. Unless you’re a reporter at the scene of a major event, there is very rarely a compelling case to do a LIVE webcast. Sure, for important announcements or speeches, or if you decide that instant online feedback is required, you can hire somebody to shoot, encode, deliver, and generally manage your live webcast. If you think your viewers can wait 20 minutes to see the presentation, then other than shooting, that whole process can be done by our friends at YouTube or Vimeo for the low, low, price of… FREE. Speaking with the experience of eight years in live television production, I assure you it adds pressure you don’t need, variables you can’t always address, and the potential for disaster that can simply be avoided.

4) Finally, people don’t use the internet like they use a conference hall. You don’t sit down at the table with your binder of presentation materials and a coffee, and intently take notes. The internet is a different animal. People sitting at a computer will have the urge to click on things if you’re not keeping them riveted. So why not offer them some useful things to click on? Aside from your presentation material, offer some useful links and resources to complement the actual content of the session. So even if they aren’t paying attention to you, they’re at least taking in some of your message.

Do I write this in the first person, or the third? … Third

Brian Chick, Director of Technology for Left Button Solutions, has been invited to present alongside Jennifer Flynn, from the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA), at this year’s Association for Continuing Legal Education (ACLEA) Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

On July 27, 2009, they will lead a conference session called “Are Wikis the Solution to the Online Publishing Dilemma?” based on LESA’s recent wiki pilot project. Left Button Solutions was contracted to turn an 800 page Real Estate Conveyance Manual into a shared, online, knowledge base that anybody with an account could edit. Video tutorials explaining the new wiki and how to use it were also designed and provided by LBS.

Brian is looking forward to this opportunity, and for the chance to continue working with Jennifer and LESA.

For more information, click here for the conference brochure.

Left Button Solutions is proud to announce the completion of a pilot wiki for Service Alberta. Taking a 90-page correspondence manual and turning it into a wiki, complete with images, downloadable sample documents, and internal links, LBS was able to deliver a product that blew away the expectations of the client.

Sandamali Senaratne, Manager - Ministry Advisory Services for Service Alberta’s Ministerial Correspondence Unit said the wiki was extremely well-received at her official launch. She is anxious to see the progress and growth of the project over the course of her six-month pilot project. By the end of its first day, users had already begun to make edits and updates.

Left Button Solutions also eagerly awaits the feedback from this pilot project, so we can learn and continue improving our high level of service. If you have any questions, or think that your company might like to try a wiki, or other Web 2.0 based solution, feel free to contact us.

With the calendar flipped to a new year, people always spend the first few weeks of January trying to preserve the resolutions they made under the influence of one-too-many holiday cocktails. My resolution this year is a little cliché, because it seems to be the product of Al Gore and half of Hollywood. But in 2009 and beyond, I resolve to be more “green.”

Those of us comfortable in the digital world ditched paper a long time ago for most things. Personal communication, commerce, and banking have all evolved to be accomplished online using things like websites, email, and PDFs. But then I look around my office and I wonder… why do I still get paper statements from my credit card companies, cable and phone companies, and banks?

Do I really need 3 printed pages and an envelope from my credit card company so I can go to my computer and pay my bill through online banking?

I’m going to do my best to be green by first canceling all my paper-bills for any company possible. There was never a good reason not to, except “I never got around to it.” I’ll continue to walk to work and ride public transit (a simple choice when you live downtown in a big city). I’ll continue to recycle all waste possible at home. But in any instance possible, I will make a conscious decision to be more considerate of the environment than I was last year, or the year before.

While many Left Button projects are aimed at putting paper content online, the benefits far exceed the ability to search, edit, and instantly access your material. One current project is going to allow an organization to avoid printing thousands of copies of a 600-page manual. Saving paper is a healthy side effect of the digital revolution.

Is your company wasting paper on manuals that could live online? Are you wasting postage and paper on communication that could easily be digital? Think about that as the year progresses, and perhaps we can help your company be a little greener too.

Happy New Year!

The folks at Left Button Solutions would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If Christmas isn’t your thing, then we hope you enjoy your own holiday season with friends and family. May your winter celebrations treat you all well, and may we get through the season sharing joy and friendship.

Please travel safely, and enjoy your holiday festivities. If you drink, don’t drive… and if you drive, drive with caution on snowy and icy roads.

Best wishes from us to you, and have a wonderful 2009!!