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.

I drew and posted this comic on my graphic blog after suffering from a bout of social media information overload.

I created a four-part series over at my graphic blog teaching a little bit about the similarities of the telegraph and today’s Internet. It’s inspired by the book, The Victorian Internet, and it “takes place” in a fictional version of PodCamp and PAB called, well, TelegraphCamp.

I keep returning because the community is awesome. In fact, as I was unpacking last night, I came to realize that the appropriate term for PAB conference attendees is “participants”.

You go to the conference and your fellow attendees are speaking. It’s a more direct, friendlier form of “unconference”. No focus on using Facebook or Twitter to improve . PAB is exactly like getting together with your fellow social media and digital (and analogue) content nerds except it’s over 3 days and you really, really, really want to hear from everyone. And you learn so much from each other.

This year’s theme was “Your story needs to be told. Well”. Being a natural born storyteller, I was definitely in my element. PAB always proves without a doubt that CONTENT IS KING (get over it).

It’s interesting to note that a number of sessions centered around telling and preserving family histories. And a lot of the comments from the audience was along the lines of “My family did that, too!”.

Add to that the sessions by a director of photography at IMAX, artists, embracing and learning from your worst works, those (good) shiver moments that our favourite movies and music form, and learning from the Catholic Church’s appoach to one-to-many, one-to-one communication instead of prosthelytizing.

So if you’re a natural born storyteller like me who believes the importance of quality in the content you post online, then definitely check out PAB next year in Ottawa from June 15-17.

I was a Harry Potter fanatic back in the day. Not so much a fan of the movies, but the amount of imagination in the books… how could I resist? So my interest was really perked up when I heard about Pottermore. Even the branding – note the use of the title’s font different from the movies and books. This is clearly showing that this site is after the books (and movie). It is not the same as the books (and movie). It is an entity on its own.

The author herself explains what to expect from the new website, opening in October:

I can’t wait to see what comes out of this experience and the lessons and ideas to be learned!

Day 1 focused on digital activism, cyber warfare and Repression 2.0. We got a reality check on all the hacking going on as we go on our daily online business. More about this on future posts my comic journalism blog (oh yeah, forgot to mention, I launched something new recently). We also got a healthy dose of myth busting Al-Jazeera English‘s bad reputation. Turns out, it’s not so bad at all. A news outlet not tied to any government and I admit, their slogan is quite catchy; “Journalism Without Frontiers”. Plus, it’s headed by an ex-CBC editor-in-chief and executive director. One show I’m definitely checking out is The Stream. It’s Al-Jazeera’s social media show.

Day 2 focused on a new buzz word for me (I admit, I grew tired of all the redundant social media blogs out there and started to read less and less of them lately); gamification. Long story short: us humans like to play games. We are social. Who knew? Therefore, apply game elements  your online campaigns, website, whatever – heck, even offline experiential marketing (buzz buzz). Forget ‘join the conversation’ and all those other rules of social media. Replace them with ‘fun and engagement’. Putting the user square in the center of everything.

The keynote for this was delivered by Gabe Zichermann, fantastically engaging and enthusiastic speaker who stressed – and proved – the effectiveness and success behind making whatever it is that you do fun. Like games. This completely changed my way of thinking about web and mobile – and good old fashioned in-store – campaigns. And gave me a few ideas on mobile apps and enhancements to my other sites. I’m definitely keeping my eye on Gabe’s blog.

The Mesh Conference is also going west.

For the past four days, a robin has been repeatedly flying into my window. It would return back to a nearby tree and try again. Over and over. For hours. I’ve seen birds do something like this a few times years ago but never to my house. So I took out my DSLR to video it and possibly share it on Facebook or something for a few chuckles.

I didn’t end up uploading the clip, however, when the bird returned the following morning, I had the idea of having a little fun with the video. Why not make a short film out it?

Well, not a serious short film:

Keepin’ Busy from Daniele Rossi on Vimeo.

The bird returned the next day so I made a sequel:

Keepin’ Busy 2: Still At It from Daniele Rossi on Vimeo.

I hoped the bird would return on the third day so I can complete the trilogy:

Keepin’ Busy 3: This Completes The Trilogy from Daniele Rossi on Vimeo.

I got a little more creative with the third one.

It was fun creating these short films. I was able to finally put iMovie to good use (beyond just splicing clips together) and got to learn a little bit about observing wildlife.

Trying to learn iMovie was frustrating. However, once I found out how to do something simple like fade audio and, well, add a clip, the true power of iMovie shined. It took me about half an hour to assemble and crop each video. But a lot longer to source audio (that’s a story for another post).

And as for observing wildlife? The first day, the bird spent at least seven hours slamming itself against my window. Pecking at it’s reflection. Pooing all over the ground.

By the third day, the bird would come and go throughout the day, flying into my window a few times with each visit. By this morning, it seems to be content with sitting by the window.

So why the attraction to my window? It’s clear that the bird sees its reflection (and other trees) in my window. It thinks the reflection is another bird. A Google search turned up a few theories:

1. The bird built a nest nearby and is protecting it. I don’t think this is the reason. I haven’t noticed any birds building nests in my area (spring hasn’t quite sprung yet).

2. Well, it’s spring! And the male bird is trying to fend off rivals in his territory. I didn’t know birds can be territorial (I mean, outside of their nests).

3. Well, it’s spring! And the male bird thinks his reflection is a female bird.

Ornithology.com cleared it up for me (theory number three above it ain’t). It’s at the bottom of this page.

I first speak with fellow Canadian, Tanya Cole and Shareka Bentham from Barbados. They host a regular live industry chat on Twitter using their joint profile @SLPChat and hash tag #SLPChat. The chats are then archived for later reading on Chirpstory. Both ladies describe the tremendous benefit that Twitter provides in knowledge sharing and connecting with other speech therapists and “slp geeks” (or #SLPeeps) around the world who share the same interests in their field.

My second interviewee and fellow Canadian, Marcus Little describes the large, active community of speech therapists on Twitter. At any random time of day, we both run into the #SLPeeps hash tag or see a question being asked and answered.

Marcus uses Skype to offer speech therapy to clients all over the world. With the disastrously huge cuts in support for speech therapy in Ontario schools, the Internet’s global community opens up a lot of opportunities. Skype gives Marcus the benefit of both audio and video when demonstrating techniques to his clients. In fact, even when the video becomes choppy, Marcus is still able to monitor his client’s progress by listening to audio.

We then proceed to talk about how a quick coaching session is always possible with cameras now appearing on smartphones and tablets.

My third interviewee, Uri Schneider, splits his time between New York and Israel. He also helps clients all over the world using various social media tools in teletherapy sessions. For example, along with Skype, Uri uses DropBox for providing session material. I can see this coming in handy with huge time zone differences. And it’s another unique way of involving the parents in their child’s therapy. We then chat about Uri’s use of social media tools for public advocacy and sharing the documentary films he produced with Dr. Phil Schneider.

Have a listen to my episode for the complete story and useful tips. Feel free to send me your questions about stuttering and I’ll answer them on my next episode. Please subscribe if you are interested in learning about the stuttering experience :)

Then I came across this beautiful idea, Under The City. It’s a documentary about Montreal’s lost rivers (long story short: rivers were dried up to make way for urban development). And of course, in this day and age, a film is complemented with a website. But my attention got perked when I saw that an accompanying iPhone app is currently in the making.

There used to be a river where I am now walking

The app will allow users to explore Montreal’s lost rivers via geo location and storytelling.

I think this is a fascinating way to continue the documentary long after the closing credits. With their smartphones, viewers will be able to experience the content as they go about their business in the city. And it’s a fun, interesting way to learn about an invisible history of your city.