Please stop it. Stop it now.

It’s beginning to feel like I’ve forgotten how to use my computer. The routine repeats itself every few days now. I fire up the browser to complete a quick task. Mouse in hand (or finger on mobile device), my automatic reflexes kick in and I unexpectedly stop in my tracks.

Wait.

What happened?

Where’s—?

Oh… there it is. Ok, they made a change.

So how do I…?

Do I click this?

Hey, what did I just do? How do I undo that?

That’s how I ended up accidentally accepting the switch over to Google Drive and Facebook’s much over-hyped timeline feature.

Not only has my work been interrupted, I’m now distracted by figuring out if my other favourite, useful features have been changed.

What happened to letting users know beforehand that changes will be forthcoming?

Is it a drain on the network’s communicators if they spend some time drafting up communications?

Would issuing a communiqué each and every time there’s an update create fatigue in users?

Maybe they have made announcements but since there’s so much information overload these days that it’s easy to miss anything that isn’t overly major (1 billion dollars, really, Facebook? 1 billion?).

Or maybe Facebook’s bad Ux habits formed a new habit in everyone accepting the fact that “even though I hate the new Facebook, I’ll be used to it in a day”.

Perhaps all the negative tweets about a surprise change makes for free press.

Whatever it is, it’s like a telemarketer interrupting my dinner. Just let me work!

Came across this cool video talking about the story behind the famous “Keep Calm And Carry On” posters from World War 2 Britain (not to mention a cool use of an old railway station!).

I had a brainstorm at the mention of King George VI‘s crown on the poster. I stutter and enjoyed The King’s Speech a lot. Thus, I decided to create my own Keep Calm parody (see below).

Keep Calm And Stammer On. Pretty much the motto of my podcast, Stuttering is Cool. The cyan colour is the colour chosen for stuttering awareness.

Create your own Keep Calm poster with the Keep Calm-O-Matic!

It’s too bad the iPad doesn’t take very good photos indoors. But that still doesn’t take away my excitement of being interviewed on CBC Radio One’s superb afternoon drive program, Here and Now hosted by Laura Di Battista last night!

We chatted about my latest digital venture, Stutter Social, how social media tools are useful for support groups, The King’s Speech, and what’s it like to grow up stuttering. Best of all, I also had the chance to debunk a few common stuttering misconceptions and spread a little awareness. The host also mentioned my podcast!

It was quite thrilling to come into the studio and chat for 7 minutes (that’s a long time for radio!). Of course, I was nervous but once I was on the air, I was completely at ease and happy to stutter in front of CBC Radio One’s listening audience :) Much thanks to Laura Di Battista for making me feel totally comfortable. She’s a great interviewer.

It was also cool to see Jim Curran sitting beside me reporting on Toronto’s rush hour traffic. It was great to be able to put a face on the voice I heard many, many times as I listened to Hear And Now over the years.

To my delight, my interview is archived on the Here And Now website on it’s own page called, naturally, Stutter Social.

Related reading: I was interviewed on CBC Radio

While I love this idea and think it’s perfectly the right direction for any television studio or network to go, I can’t help thinking about rural Canada’s under served Internet service. It’s 2012 now and there are lots of places in Canada still using dial-up because the monopolies deem it too expensive to bring broadband. Even where I live —a hop, skip and jump away from Toronto— I can only get 3Mbps on a good day.

However, fortunately, digital media doesn’t only mean live streaming Hockey Night In Canada. There is a wealth of possibilities to take advantage of: apps, games, video digest clips, buffers, you name it (but proper broadband would be nice).

This idea of CBC TV going totally digital reminds me alot of the Al-Jazeera English channel’s use of Youtube to connect with viewers (started up by a former CBC head honcho). Particularly, their show, The Stream.

CBC Radio has done a great job in embracing digital media in recent years. From posting videos of their radio shows like Q to fully integrating social media like my favourite show, Spark.

The video above is part of a national, grassroots campaign of CBC TV fans brainstorming ideas.

Stutter Social is a new organization I recently co-founded with my friend, David Resnick. It connects our fellow stutterers all over the world through group video chats. Using Google Plus.

Why would we want to do that? Because it’s often difficult to meet other people who stutter in your geographical area so you end up facing your unique social challenge alone. It is said that only 1% of the population stutters. We are faced with many prejudices including bullying at school, losing job interviews and worse of all, stuttering is misunderstood as a character flaw. Science continues to prove that it is neurologically based.

So meeting other stutterers online is the next best thing! In fact, that is our goal with Stutter Social. To spread the message of the National Stuttering Association – if you stutter, you’re not alone.

Why Google+?

We decided to use Google+ Hangouts because it’s free to use, pretty easy to use and a lot more stable than Skype. When David, myself or our other Hangout hosts starts a chat, we post the link to the Stutter Social Google+ page. As well as the Stutter Social Facebook page, Twitter account and right on the Stutter Social website homepage via a great big green button. You can’t miss it.

We host three to four Hangouts per week right now and momentum is growing to include more in timezones around the world (stuttering is taboo in some geographical locations while others do not even have speech therapists!). On average we get about five to nine people hanging out at one time and our Hangouts last about 2 hours. Sometimes longer! Topics of conversation include stuttering, of course, our experiences and off topic stuff like, well, whatever happens to be on our minds at the time!

Hangout Hopping and going viral

Thanks to a brilliant Chrome plugin named Hangout Canopy, which allows users to go “Hangout Hopping”, Stutter Social even played a role in spreading awareness about stuttering. In fact, one night, David suddenly found himself educating a large number of Hangout Hoppers. The next day – blog posts about our unique use of Google+ Hangouts started popping up in G+ Streams. Such as this article written by Peter McDermott. And David being interviewed on Sarah Hill’s KOMU News program.

New website

Initially, we used Google Sites to host the Stutter Social website. But as momentum and media attention grew, we knew it was time for a new home for our organization. As creative director, I designed the new Stutter Social website with a simple user interface consisting of only need-to-know information up front and center to bring users to our Hangouts as quickly as possible. Or to find future Hangouts via an embedded Google Calendar.

David and I really like using Google+ Hangouts for Stutter Social and now with the arrival of “Hangout with extras“, we have a few more features to engage participants.

David and I chatted about Stutter Social on a recent episode of my podcast, Stuttering is Cool. You can also listen to a few snippets of typical conversations in our Hangouts.

Stutterer or not, I hope to see you in a future Stutter Social Hangout. I’d also love to hear how you are using Google+ Hangouts in unique ways. Please share your story in the comment section below.

My 4th Sketchbook Video has me flipping through my watercolour Moleskine sketchbook from sometime in 2008 or 2009 (I really should add dates in my sketchbooks).

In spite of having grown up frustrated with the medium, I was inspired by the beautiful watercolour work by Calvin & Hobbes creator, Bill Watterson. I thought perhaps I should give watercolours another try. Plus, it gave me an excuse to buy the watercolour Moleskine.

Also featured in this video is a wordless comic strip mystery. Can you figure out what is happening in the story?

My latest sketchbook video features the sketchbooks I used to draw my Snert Oh No web comic in 2010.

I’d draw a one-panel comic during the 1.5 hour wait for my Toastmasters meeting every Wednesday after work. Then I used my iPhone for photographing, post-processing and posting (until a suitable app came along) it on snertohno.com (I wanted to use my laptop as little as possible). You can read all about it on my blog from way back when.

I enjoyed the challenge of drawing in ink without means to erase any mistakes. It sharpens your drawing skills. You’ll see evidence of that in the video – I call them retakes.

I mentioned my 2007 trip to Paris in my last Sketchbook Video. So the sketchbook I used during my trip is featured in my latest episode (I like how that sounds. I guess I’m a video podcaster now).

It’s a Paris Moleskine City notebook. I highly recommend these little things. They are the tour guide you create yourself!

You’ll see quite the strange colour palette I used in this sketchbook. That’s the fault of some Japanese markers I bought in a Japanese store in Pairs (go figure!). They came in weirdest combination. Though frustrating, it did provide some creative ideas on its own (as seen in my previous video).

My second sketchbook video features my followup pocket Moleskine from 2007ish (unlike the first one, I didn’t date my sketches).

I remember this time vividly. I loved the idea of having sketchbooks full of colourful works of art however I ended up forcing myself to create works of art for each page as quickly as possible.

So naturally, that hampered creativity. You’ll see a lot of unfinished pieces among some gems that I am really pleased with.

Lesson learned.

Well, thanks home video technology in my DSLR, iMovie and Vimeo, it can happen a little more than often. I’ve begun making short videos of my flipping through my sketchbooks. So, if you want to flip through them, you’re saved a trip!

Above is my first video which features my Moleskine sketchbook from 2006. This was a time where I was trying different mediums and techniques other than my usual pencil. You’ll see how some methods worked while others didn’t. I further developed those that did work and learned a lot from what didn’t.