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.

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.

Last week, millions of people across the U.S. and Canada were glued to the television watching a silver, flying saucer-shaped balloon sail through the Colorado skies, praying that the little boy inside could be rescued safely. Assuming, of course, that he actually WAS in the balloon like his family said.

While Wolf Blitzer was interviewing balloon experts and the family’s neighbours, the internet was a flurry of Tweets, Facebook Status updates, and blog posts wishing the boy, 6 year-old Falcon Heene, good luck and a safe return home. What struck me, however, was the number of posts about the child’s father, and how eccentric he was.

Many linked to articles about the family’s appearance on Wife Swap, others chose to focus on his “life on Mars” discovery and UFO hunting, while others noted that the family had an obvious, self-publicizing, YouTube presence (note - Since the incident most Heene family YouTube clips have been “removed by user”). Any article referencing Richard Heene indicated that he was a borderline mad scientist who loved any attention he could get. His MySpace page also gave off that impression (it has also since been removed).

Even before the balloon landed, I knew more about this family, and specifically their crazy father, than you’d think was possible. But what I had learned about him was nothing flattering; quite the opposite in fact. Aside from the quirks, many indications were that he was an absolute loud-mouth jerk. To be fair, his neighbour was interviewed on CNN and said he was a great guy… just “different.” Then again, his Wife-Swap appearances were already famous on the Internet for his temper, childish antics, and over the top reactions.

Long story short… I was pretty sure it was all a hoax before the balloon hit the ground. Why? Because the Internet was FILLED with information on how unbalanced this guy is. It seemed very obvious that he would be the kind of guy who would pull this kind of stunt. And sure enough I was right.

Balloon Boy Sr. was drumming up media attention so somebody might bite at their pitch for a reality show based on their family. All the hints were there… although having Balloon Boy himself out the conspiracy on national TV didn’t help me buy it either.

So what can we learn from this? Take a look at your own internet presence. What does it say about you? Spend an hour trying to find yourself in Google. Are the results accurate? Are they the messages you want to send? We’ve heard stories of criminals getting caught because of their Internet presence, and while we’d like to think we’re much smarter than that, it’s worth checking out how you might be sabotaging your own missions by what you leave lying around out there.

Takes some time and check out how you’re represented. Maybe spend a day tidying up your profiles on various websites. Take down some of the “less professional” photos that may be lingering on Facebook or those inane blog posts from a moodier time. If your name is on it, people will find it. If they do, make sure it tells them what you want it to.

Otherwise, you’re taking your chances… like a 6 year-old adrift in a homemade foil weather balloon flying saucer. (You can’t make this stuff up… oh wait… I guess you can.)

I’ve decided to take a Web 2.0 approach to two recent undertakings. The two things are very different in nature, have little in common, but can be effectively addressed using Youtube, Blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.

#1) Teaching - People who know me are aware that I spend a good portion of my summer vacation coaching curling at various junior camps around the world. This year, I was in Fuessen, Germany for a World Curling Federation Camp, Halifax for a Curl Atlantic camp, and Guelph, ON for two weeks of the Ontario Curling Association camp.  These camps are like any summer camp with fun and games and minigolf and so on, only the main focus of each camp is to produce high level curlers. On the ice, and in the classroom, we teach lessons about various nuances of the game (depending on the level of the group, it could range from the basics of throwing a stone to the physics behind various angles).

For my group in Halifax this year, I had four teams (16 campers) of older kids (16-18). They all had cellphones and abused the internet all day everyday, so I figured I’d reach them in their own comfort zone. For every lesson we did on the ice, I had the campers recreate a short teaching video (shot simply on a digital camera) recapping the points they were taught. I posted this video to Youtube, then linked to it from our group blog, where we spent a few minutes of the next class session writing a summary. This modified learning journal, complete with photos, videos, and links went over very well and allowed them to access all this information from home, or from their curling clubs with their everyday coaches. Check that one out here: Whitecap’s Purple Group. The football pads were just for a goofy camp sketch contest.

#2) Awareness - Not long ago, I decided to ride in a fundraising effort called the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Aside from being physically prepared to ride my bike (which until recently had been covered with dust) 200 kilometers, I also set my goal to raise $3,200 as part of our team effort. Instead of just asking people for money, I decided to come up with a program that would involve them, and constantly remind them that I needed support for this cause. I created a blog called 200 Songs for 200 Klicks where I plan on posting 200 original performances of other people’s songs, dedicated to cancer survivors, victims, patients, and their families. Through Facebook and Twitter I can announce when new songs are up, hint that donations might be welcome, and remind people to visit the site.

Without asking anybody for money, I’ve already gotten donations from three different people, have requests from 18 people, and promises for each from many more. Using the power of Web 2.0 (a little more creatively than making my Twitter “STILL NEED DONATIONS FOR CANCER RIDE!!”), I’ve been able to solicit interest from a lot more people than would otherwise see. Check out 200 Songs here…

In this month’s Wired magazine, Paul Boutin published a short piece about the death of blogs, and the evolution of egomaniacal self promotion and online publishing. The Economist had a similar piece, simultaneously declaring that blogging was both dead and too mainstream. Clearly, blogging isn’t what it used to be, but issuing the Death Certificate is dangerously premature.

Both of these articles indicate that the gritty, independent appeal of early blogs has been replaced by something more “corporate” and for folks who embodied the spirit of alternative media, this might as well be death. While that may be a little harsh, many of the most popular blogs now belong to companies and organizations, often with many writers pumping out several posts a day. While most individuals can’t keep up with that pace, blogging still offers them the opportunity to publish what they want, when they want.

People still blog. People still read blogs. More and more these days, people are using blog sites to publish news stories and for generic content management. And the most popular blogs are still alternative media, just more popular and better-read than they once were. While the numbers are down, and the dynamic is shifting, blogging is still very much alive.

Did rock n’ roll die when the record companies embraced it? What about when punk music ended up on a car commercial? Is blogging too anti-establishment that it stopped being cool when “the man” got in on it?

Regardless of what these articles say, Twitter will not replace blogging. The 140-character limit on a user’s answer to “What are you doing right now?” is not a substitute for well crafted, opinionated prose (into which bloggers often embed video, audio, and images). Facebook offers a slightly better substitute, but only publishes your notes to the folks a) with Facebook accounts and b) with permission to see your profile. A legitimate blog has no such limitations, which is why there are still millions of fully public blogs updated frequently, and millions of readers clicking on them everyday.

That doesn’t sound like death to me.