Signs of the Times - Locusts Next

Ice Shelf larger than 11,000 football fields breaks free of Artic Circle
Cloned Meat for Human Consumption Needs No Labels
193 Killed in Indonesian floods

3 significant stories.
1 day.
How are we ever going to keep up, and change before it’s too late?
Methinks I need to watch some lighter entertainment for the next while, else this blog becomes something a little too serious.
I need to get back to basics. Where did that Pirates of the Carribean DVD go?



Technorati Tags: Artic Circle, Cloned Meat, Indonesian floods

PayPerPost Acquires Performancing... Gulp

Man, i love Performancing. Now it's going to feel funny. Funny strange, not funny haha.

PayPerPost just announced today that it's bought up Performancing. Just another angle to increase respectability? Despite the disclosure requirements, and the legal implications now of *not* disclosing, it's still hotly debated as to the value of pay-per-post.
I use performancing for editing, as well as to see what different traffic stats are registering for this blog. I wonder if this announcement will affect the other folks who have been using performancing?
Man.


Technorati Tags: Performancing, PayPerPost

Changing the World, One DVD at a Time

The Wiz got me 2 very outstanding DVDs this Christmas - The Corporation and An Inconvenient Truth.


The Corporation was by far the most revealing movie I’d seen since Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.  Even Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room pales in comparison of what terrible repercussions corporate cultures can inflict on society. The fact that coporations have enough muscle to push around government and media; to impact laws that protect society, with their only interest being profit, is terrifying.  Likely I’ve been too much of an optimistic twit to not catch onto this earlier.  And now that I’ve seen, I’m curious, and more than a little pissed off.

The idea of the corporation as a psychopathic person, with no accountability is almost beyond comprehension.  We spent the better part of 3 hours wondering what we didn’t know about the companies we bought things from, and if they were *good* or *bad*. Now we’ve got a bit of homework to check into:

Monsanto, Gap, LLBean. Eddie Bauer, Loblaws, Nestle, etc….. It may come down to making some serious choices about what we buy and who we buy it from. It could also come down to who you work for.

What sort of corporation do you work for, are they sustainable, do they have ethics, morals and good government? TELUS is pretty serious about community, the environment and ensuring that it’s sustainable and non-invasive.  AT&T? Well… you know.

An Inconvenient Truth was a continuation to the themes already being illustrated in The Corporation, and made us both talk to our families about what is going to happen to the world in the next 20 years, if global exploitation remained unchecked.

It all comes down to global responsibility. Corporate and citizen responsibility. Government responsibility. Your responsibility.


Technorati Tags: An Inconvenient Truth, The Corporation, Global Warming, TELUS, AT&T, Al Gore

Update on Friday, December 29, 2006 at 10:27AM by jules

Changing in the right direction:  check out The Naked Corporation.

It’s by Don Tapscott and David Ticoll. 

If you have to be naked, you had better be buff. We are entering an extraordinary age of transparency, where businesses must for the first time make themselves clearly visible to shareholders, customers, employees, partners, and society. Financial data, employee grievances, internal memos, environmental disasters, product weaknesses, international protests, scandals and policies, good news and bad; all can be seen by anyone who knows where to look. Welcome to the world of the naked corporation. Transparency is revolutionizing every aspect of our economy and its industries and forcing firms to rethink their fundamental values.

Excerpt from The Naked Corporation

Christmas Relief - 362 Days

For another 362 days, we are spared from the excess, from the over indulgence, from the consumerism and the commercialism.
Spared from children who turn into christmas monsters for 72 hours. Fighting for that last present under the tree.
Spared from cartons and cartons of ripped papers, torn boxes and wrinkled tissue.

Next year, I vow to make a difference.
Next year, I vow to make it different.

Canadian Shoppers - We are Small but Mighty B!tchy

As I wrap the last of the pressies, I have a smug smile and a feeling of relief.  Again, for the 3rd year, I’ve been able to avoid shopping, and still managed to get presents and gifts bought for everyone on my list. In fact, this year I bought more than i budgeted for, and loved it all.


I’m the kind of girl who adores shopping, and abhors malls, people, parking and crowds. It’s all on-line baby, it’s all on-line.  I’m on a first name basis with my UPS dude, and the Canada post dolly.

Mark Evans talks about the canadian e-commerce chicken and egg scenario, and says that Canadians are browsers, and it’s impacting the Canadian ecommerce industry.  No retail store wants to set up an e-commerce site, because they are worried that no one will visit and buy. Canadians don’t really buy because there are no good canadian e-commerce sites. And it’s not been until recently that it’s become easier to buy from the US. Borderfree helps, but I want to see Borderfree help Canadian consumers buy stuff in the states (from sites who won’t ship to Canada), not just American retailers wanting to ship stuff to Canadians.

Hey Canadian Retailers, Guess What? I managed to buy only half of what I wanted from Canada. The rest came from the US.  Finally US e-tailers are figuring out how to ship to Canada on the cheap. They are eating your Canadian lunch, and if you dn’t get your Canadian shit together, the US e-tailers are going to be eating your dinner as well. How much do you think an average Canadian Family spends at Christmas, all told? I’d say between $2000 and $5000. Aren’t you sad that most of my spend went to the US?

The average Canadian spends about $900 on Christmas presents each year, or roughly $30-billion altogether: more than annual sales of tobacco, alcohol and lottery tickets, combined.

Where did I buy good stuff?

• LL Bean
• Walkabout Farms
• Signals - this is the most outstanding store - and the delivery was so very fast!!
  
• art.com
• Etsy
• The Body Shop - this one was wacky - they set up a Yahoo store for Canadians - it wasn’t the prettiest, but wow! It worked, and it was fast, and it kept me from going to the mall.
• Hockey Geeks
  
• Goalie Monkey
• The Grand River Toy Company - My only real Canadian Store. 1000 times better than ToysRUS
• Cafepress
• Chapters
  

Canadian retailers who really need to get their e-commerce shit together (and don’t deserve my link):

1. Canadian Tire - don’t be an ass and tell me there are only certain things I can buy online.
2. LaSenza - you can do better - especially with the LaSenza Girl Site
3. Le Chateau - you simply suck. Thanks for a *window* into what you have in your stores, so I can look before I leave the house.
4. Pier 1 - yes Pier 1, there really is a Canada.
5. Urban Barn - your stores are nifty, you are an outstanding competitive force for Pier 1 and The Pottery Barn.  Best of all, you are Canadian. Get your ecommerce mojo together! You aren’t so good that I *HAVE* to shop live in your store.

I don’t particularly care if you’ve been naughty or nice, just have a reasonable on-line shopping cart, ship to Canada and Santa Jules will make sure you get something good in your stocking.

Technorati Tags: Canadian ecommerce, Mark Evans, Borderfree

Still Life with Goalie...

It's 8:20 am, and I'm awoken to a plea, "promise you won't be mad"? I roll over, realizing it's 8:20.

Sure, I promise.

All my hockey gear is downstairs.

So? it's usually downstairs. At the front door. I trip over it, I'm used to it.

No....it's downstairs, and all spread out, trying to dry.

Oh. That's different. That means that the smell of hockey equipment has had all night to invade the the house. That's just not right. That equipment does *not* smell like daisies. Not at all. My Christmas tree smell doesn't stand a chance against hockey equipment. Goalie equipment is the worst.

Assmonkey.


Technorati Tags: goalie, hockey, ass monkey

Crystal Holiday Greetings

IMG_0507
Originally uploaded by julebule.

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year!!

-jules

Tree Sheds Faster than Golden Retriever in Nevada...

And the stockings are hung by the gas fireplace with care.

So much to buy still, and so little time. What with work tid bits and cleaning the house and figuring out christmas eve nibblies and boxing day nibblies and wrapping every present under the sun. It’s beginning to feel alot like christmas.

If only the tree manages to hold its remaining needles for another 5 days, we are golden.  Now, if the dog even *looks* at the tree, the tree sheds a few more. It may be easier to rake than vacuum. Mmmm, nothing says christmas like a good old fashioned needle rake-up.


To be wrapped:

1. One Calgary flames Jersey
2. 2 TELUS Balls
3. 3 TELUS Flamingoes
4. 4 Blocks of Floam

(i get points for *attempting* to twist this post into a 12 days of christmas them, but really, who needs *5* of ANYTHING?

;-)
No, this is not my tree. It’s Timmy and Georgie’s masterpiece. It looks amazing. And I checked, it’s got all its needles.



Technorati Tags: christmas, presents

The Dumbness of Email

And it’s not even email’s fault.
I subscribed to Red Herring last month, as a christmas present to me, and I’ve been anxiously waiting for the first issue to arrive (I should go and check the mailbox again after this posting).  This morning, I received an email from Red Herring, telling me to hurry and renew my subscription, and I could get 2 years for the price of 1.

Sheesh. That’s a little premature.
You can’t tell me that they don’t know when I subscribed, or when my subscription REALLY is ready to be renewed. Why wouldn’t they make a smarter linkage between the email server and the customer database server? Why blanket their customerbase with renewal notices, when the vast matority of them probably aren’t in the *renewal window*? Laziness.

It’s not just Red Herring, it’s almost every organization who sends out email to its customer base. The laziness of not really caring about customre specific information.

In another life, The Wiz worked for a web company that specialized in software and customer databases that would allow companies to send VERY smart emails. It was an outstanding platform that would marry customer personal preference with email content, and then also track the success of those email programs.

Imagine a Canadian Tire email, that was tailored to YOU. You would receive an email if the tools you liked were on sale. Same deal with Shoppers Drug Mart, or even Pizza Pizza.  These retailers know almost everything about the preferences of their customers, yet do nothing to tailor the email experience. It’s all about relevance. We push for relevance in voice communication (think Iotum), why not with email communication?




Technorati Tags: email relevance, Red Herring, Iotum

To Get Ben Metcalfe into Quadruple digits...

…on Technorati.
Tis the season.
Happy Blogidays, Ben!

(If one link is good, two must be better!!

Technorati Tags: Ben Metcalfe, Technorati

To Get Ben Metcalfe into Quadruple Digits...

…on Technorati.
Tis the season.
Happy Blogidays, Ben!


Technorati Tags: Ben Metcalfe, Technorati

I Covet My Privacy in Strange Ways

The other day I bought a LaSenza gift certificate for someone, and was asked for my phone number. Nope, no thank you, I'm not interested in giving you my phone number. Same for ANY store who asks me for a phone number. Now, a postal code, ehh, fine, I'll give you a postal code of the house I lived in... in the 90's.

The phone rang, and it was someone from Canada Trust, wanting to sell something, but wanted to confirm personal bits about me - nope, no thank you. If I want something, I will call *you* and be thrilled to provide you with personal bits.
Martin Geddes had this same problem! Telemarketers who want to confirm pieces of my life? No thanks, you aren't bonded, you aren't reqired to take an ethics course; there is NO WAY i am telling someone who makes an hourly wage anything private about myself. No offence.


On the other hand - I'm RIGHT HERE.  Right out here. Which, by virtue of being on the net 7/24 isn't all that private. Still. I'm not going to tell you anything like where my bothmark is , or what the balance is on my line of credit, or what rewards program I use.

1.  On my left leg
2.  $0.00
3.  aeroplan

Oh. Ok.
That was easy.



Technorati Tags: privacy, martin geddes, blogging

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Thursday is Garbage Day

Thursday is garbage day on my street.  The neighbourhood is very regimented on when you *put out* the garbage.  It's got to be done between 10:00 pm wednesday night and 7:00 am thursday morning. Heaven help you if you are late.

And I am.

I'm the nerd shuffling out in her jammies and headset at 11:30 Thursday morning, usually engrossed in a conference call, trying to beat the recycling truck to the curb. Classy, I know. It's not easy, this garbage thing. The pressure grows every week to conform to the neighbourhood. Trying to keep up with the Jones' has taken on a whole new meaning.

Next week, I'm going to set my alarm clock earlier.

There are days when I miss the old familiar "garbage chute".  Back then, any day you needed to get rid of a Hefty Bag was garbage day.

Technorati Tags: garbage, Oak Ridges

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Holy Cats! OTTAWA takes the Leash off Telcos for Local Voice Services

Good Monday News!  The CRTC has been overruled by Ottawa yet again. Last month it was deregulation of Voice over IP services, now it’s the deregulation of local voice services, one of the last, locked down, traditional components of the major incumbents. Industry Misister Maxime Bernier has given BELL, TELUS and the rest of the incumbents the power to set their own prices, as long as there is sufficient competition in the local area.  Hmmm…. I don’t see a definition for “sufficient competition” yet. (Updated: Mark Goldberg’s got the definition, and it’s EASY!)  It used to be required that 25% of the local services had to be held by a competitive carrier in an area, before BELL could change their pricing. This could change the face of local voice services, which can only be good news for the Canadian consumer.  Mark Evans has more details.

Monday’s move throws out the old CRTC threshold policy and furtherreinforces Bernier’s reputation as a minister who favours free-marketsolutions to telecom issues.

Ottawa overrules CRTC; to accelerate deregulation of local phone service

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Free Advice from Robert Scoble and an Adventure

Oh!  I love freebies. And I love the roundabout way I came across this one!
From my blog, I found Miss Rogue in mybloglog and one of the neat new posts in her community was by Mike Cassidy kidding about Robert Scoble being a Rascal.

And that's when I found out Robert had some nifty free advice. I love it when adventures take you someplace new.


Help a San Jose Mercury News columnist blog « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger

Technorati Tags: Tara Hunt, Robert Scoble, Mike Cassidy

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Angry MADD Volunteers

Sort of ironic, don't you think?  That the volunteers who support MADD, are angry at the charity for squandering millions in donations?
I've always been suspicious of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). It's not what you are thinking... Way back in the late '80s, I was one of the eager highschool kids who helped bring SADD (Students against Drunk Driving) into high schools in Ontario, and specifically into my own. It was outstanding, the support, the fundraising we did on our own, the awareness, especially in a town where "crop touring" was easily the easiest entertainment on a Friday night. We made our own public service annoncements, arranged theatrical performances.

And then MADD Canada showed up.

It was a battle royale of the anti-drinking and driving charities. MADD claimed that we were infringing on their name, and we had to cease and desist. SADD had to be come OSAID, and any good marketer knows, that's just not the same. There's still a SADD USA, but now SADD stands for Students Against Destructive Decisions.  I guess they didn't want to get lumped in with the MADD folks.

It's amazing how such a great idea, with grass roots support can be turned into a corporate monster.

TheStar.com - MADD's `exorbitant costs' anger charity's volunteers

Technorati Tags: MADD, SADD, OSAID, GDHS

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Urban Myths: Bullsh&t?

This month's Maxim Online has nailed down some of the more famous Urban Legends, and tracked down, using somewhat scientific methodology, the truth or lack thereof behind them. There is a debunking of the "cellphone will cause cancer" myth, which is also nicely supported by a research report that was released out of Denmark this week, (thanks mark).  The twist to the "cell phone will cause cancer" challenge is that all studies seem to only deal with adults will fully grown brains, not with children.  I'd like to see a study of how high cell phone usage affects kids from 12 to 18.  But who want's to donate their child's brain to research?
Ever had to touch a baby bird, knowing full well you might be sentencing it to death-by-mother-abandonment? According to Maxim, and the environmental expert it found, baby birds are safe to touch, but baby rabbits, now that's another story.
:-)


Technorati Tags: maxim, urban legends

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The Garage: The Last Bastion for Smokers

It's that time of the year.
It's too cold to hang out on the back deck, too cold to pop out on the front porch.
It's that time of the year when hundreds of garage lights turn on and off, seamingly magically, at all hours of the day and night.

It's winter for the smokers. All over Canada, people are bundling up to head out to their garages for a quick one. Not to be confused with the quickie, which, as far as I can tell, is still allowed inside the house. The Ministry of Health in Saskatchewan (where it's BITTER cold, even recommends smoking in the garage. Odd for a health Agency, but with winter windchills of -30, who can complain? However, this credo (and the complete ban on public smoking in Saskatchewan) has caused a new trend, that of the "garage bar" where hundreds of bar patrons now congregate in parking garages, parking lots, and in the back of the farm machinery dealership, just to have a smoke and perhaps a beer before "heading back" into the licenced liquor establishments.

I'm actually starting to see a resurgence in people putting in couches in their garages, just to have a place to sit, for when smoking guests need to be accomodated, not for an audience for the "garage band". Of course, this also leads to more cars being parked outside again ;-).

Have you been to a party lately where half the guests troup out enmass, only to return 9 minutes later, again en masse?  Are we creating a societal division?

It's a curious phenomenon.
The Smoking Garage.

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I Lead a Sheltered Blogging Life

Yesterday i rhymed off a dozen or so blogs i read regularly. Today I stumble across Trainwrecks and realize i've been completely missing the seedy underbelly of the blog-o-whore-osphere.

My life is now complete. Seediness and all.




Technorati Tags: trainwrecks, blog-o-whore-osphere

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Who's in *YOUR* RSS Reader?

RSS - my guilty pleasure. Part newspaper, part shopping list, part procrastination tool. It's the only thing I do in the morning between 6:30 and 7:30.  3 cups 'o coffee and my reader; catching up on who's saying what, and what's going on in the world.  If I didn't have a reader, I'd never have known that Fiji went through a government change ;-)

In my RSS reader:

• Rob Hyndman***pretty damn savvy for a lawyer
• etc.***for those times when you have time.  Always has something worth poking around at.
• factory City***just because I also really like Horse,Pig,Cow
• Telecom Trends***how else would I know what the CRTC has up its sleeve?
• Alec Saunders .LOG***VoIP is a big deal. Alec knows all about it.
• Matthew Ingram***Pretty much the techiest newspaper journalist there is (especially since Mark Evans defected to the blog world.
• The Good Blogs***it just goes without saying.
• How To of the Day***because some days you want to know how to do things.
• Digital Photography School***always handy to sprinkle in some real learning.
• The BIG NYC Adventure***the story of a gurl transplanted from Toronto to NYC
  
• craphound.com***he's from canada, he's a scifi writer, he's done 7 billion cool things. Nuff said.
  
• Dooce***everyone needs Dooce
• Successful Blog***a girl can always dream
• the.idea.dude***ideas are GOOD.
• a rain of frogs***blogs are not always simply about the good side
• ProBlogger Job Board***for when I want to think about career changes
• Mighty Goods***quite possibly the best for shopping
  

Plus a zillion more..... who's in YOUR RSS reader?


Technorati Tags: rss reader, jules dot ca

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