And for that, I am thankful.

Thank you.

Thank you for being a friend, family, a lover or foe.
Thank you for being someone I want to meet or someone I already know.

Thank you for being an inspiration, a questioner, a helper, a light.
Thank you for writing, reading, creating, living, and putting up the fight.

Thank you for being some that’s gone and has left their gifts.
Thank you for being someone who inspired me and someone I’ll miss.

Thank you for seeing me through happiness, sadness, surprise and fear.
Thank you for being for being someone in my life this year.

Thank you for ‘08 and what may come in ‘09 too.
And most of all,
Thank you for being you.

See you all in 2009.

Image of Wall·E by Giulia, found via Meghan’s tumblelog.

We’d encourage all the students to assemble in the dining hall and serve hot cocoa and doughnuts and help them with the process of writing letters to governments and organizations in order to support Amnesty’s campaigns for human rights. We’d pick certain campaigns that we thought were relevant to the students, and educate them about the issues and encourage them to take action.

For most students, letter-writing nights were great social events where they got to do something good at the same time. For many of us, the letters felt like relatively insignificant demonstrations of solidarity with Amnesty International — important as a marker of support, but relatively ineffective at creating real change.

We were wrong.

A few days ago, I found a great video on my friend Dayna’s blog that shows just how much impact every single one of our actions really had.

The video is part of a project by Amnesty International called Protect the Human, a site designed to “make it really easy to find human rights video, links and images from around the web.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted sixty years ago this month. It’s often easy to forget that there are still people out there in the world (and in our own backyards!) that are being denied the basic rights outlined in the Declaration.

It’s even easier to forget that our participation and action — gathering with friends to drink hot cocoa and write a letter can be a small but integral show of support — is truly powerful and can make a difference.

This video was the reminder I needed to spur me back into action.

What will be yours?

Fifteen stories below my window, a young boy reaches down to pick up a handful of greyish-white powder off the ground and comes up with a mitten-full of densely-packed snow. He cups his other mitten over the pile in his hand in an attempt to form a vaguely-spherical snowball ready to be thrown at the young girl in front of him.

The young boy fixes his gaze at the back of the young girl’s head, running his eyes across the ridges at the bottom of her bright yellow toque, trying to find the perfect target for his snowball. Less than a second later, he raises his mitten, squints his eyes to focus in on his prey, and cocks back his elbow to get the necessary torque for his throw.

He pauses.

The young boy, as if suddenly possessed, drops his arm to his side, cups the snowball with both his mittenned-hands, and runs up to the young girl in the bright yellow toque and hands her the snowball. A gift. Not a weapon, or instrument of pain or humiliation, but instead a physical manifestation of the fact that he was thinking of her.

She smiles.

Fifteen stories above, at my window, I smile too. Because I remember that I was that boy once, and that even though I’m behind my window and not packing a snowball in my mittens to give to you as a gift, I’m still thinking of you.

Winter Wonderland

I’m not the only one enjoying the snow. The President-Elect seems to like it too.

I found that photo on Meghan’s tumblelog, which is always full of great gems. Check it out. Seriously. And tell her I sent you.

Hope you’re enjoying the snow, or the weather wherever you are. If you have any snow-related stories, please do share them!

I love Christmas because a large part of the culture of the holiday is about giving gifts to people you love.

As many of you know, I love gift giving.

I’ve spent about four hours on Etsy in the past few weeks ordering gifts. I’ve already finished my gift shopping at Chapters/Indigo, and am planning on heading over to the Apple Store next week to pick up my last batch of gifts before I head out to Canada Post to mail them all out to people around the world.

But in the midst of all this consumerism, I wanted to encourage you all — and remind myself, actually — that giving takes many forms and we can make a difference in someone’s life by giving of our time, money, and resources to the people that need them most.

Give List

Allison Fine and Marnie Webb just kicked off a project called Give List which is encouraging people to give of their time and resources this holiday season and throughout the year. From the site:

Times are tight. We know, we know. We’ve all seen the scary headlines. Too many of the scary headlines. And we’re all feeling the pressure in other ways too.

But, still, we want to contribute what we can to making the world the better place.

The GiveList gives you ideas and inspiration for just that: ways that you contribute without spending or buying. Or maybe giving while buying and spending a little less than usual.

If you’re looking for some great ideas on where to donate your time and resources this holiday season, I’d check out the site, but I’d also like to throw in a few suggestions of my own from the Toronto area:

• The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award: The award programme is always looking for motivated individuals to be group leaders or activity mentors. Commit as much time as you have and help motivate young people in the community to achieve their personal potential.
• Canadian Mental Health Association: Mental illnesses still carry more stigma than almost any other kind of health condition. Make a difference by helping educate the public about the realities of mental health and mental disorders.
• Lawyers Feed the Hungry: You don’t have to be a lawyer or law student to volunteer at this soup kitchen at Osgoode Hall, but you do need to have a desire to help the less-fortunate residents of the city find nourishment, warmth, and a friendly smile.

If time’s a bit tight right now but money’s not, here are a few places that would be happy to put your donations to excellent use:

• Aga Khan Foundation Canada
• Focus Humanitarian Assistance
• Toronto Arts Council Foundation
• Kiva.org

Hope you all have a great giving season. And while I’d much rather you all spend your time and money on the causes above, if you really do want to get me something for Christmas, I do have a few things sitting on my wishlist.

You know, just in case you’ve got some cash to burn.

In 1856, two quarry workers found some bones at their limestone quarry near Düsseldorf and passed the bones along to their manager. Those bones ended up being the first official discovery of remains of Neanderthal man. But what would have happened if those workers had simply thrown away the bones?

There are tons of examples of serendipitous discoveries, but what’s often forgotten in those reports is that the people that made the discoveries decided to explore anomalies instead of just throwing them away.

We throw valuable information away every second. Not all the information we receive will lead to great discoveries, but every piece of information that comes our way has the possibility to teach us new and exciting things if we just take it in instead of throwing it away.

That strange blip on your site statistics? That odd reaction by that one user? That little bug in your application that never seems to go away? Don’t throw away those anomalies: they could be hiding great discoveries.

What kinds of amazing things are you throwing away every day?

Great DJs don’t just play music — they dictate the pulse of the night, keep people moving and entertained, and provide fodder for interaction and conversation.

Great DJs take input from the crowd and make their product better right there, on the spot, on the fly.

Nobody goes up to the DJ and tells them that they’re not feeling the music selection in their set. Instead, DJs have to gauge their audience through more subtle clues: the amount of people leaving the dance floor, the intensity of the dancing, and the number of people singing along to their mix. Great DJs read the crowd and get better.

Why are you waiting for your users or your community to give you explicit feedback on what you’re doing wrong?

Instead of waiting for emails of complaint or blog posts blasting your service or product, pick up on the hidden hints: diminishing quality of comments, less trackback diversity, fewer Twitter mentions, increased response waiting times, changes in return visit numbers, etc.

If DJs waited until someone complained before tweaking or enhancing their set, there would be empty dance floors across the city. Great DJs evolve constantly by reading the pulse of the crowd through barely-noticeable behavioral changes.

Isn’t it time you start doing that too?

As an aside, if you’re looking for a great party in Toronto, check out Richie Favalaro at the Courthouse every Saturday night.

If that sounds like you, here’s some advice: stop consuming and start creating.

If you can’t find good stuff, make it.

The 90-9-1 Principle says that only 1% of all users in any online community actually create content. The rest only consume content or occasionally edit existing content.

You can join that 1% at the top of the pyramid. You should join that 1% of content creators.

Creating content is good for you. It makes you think critically and creatively. If you create good content, you’re more likely to find and consume good content as well.

You don’t need to know how to write well or produce professional video. You don’t need to make a killer web application or change the way people think. All you have to do is commit yourself to creation, and commit yourself to creating things of value. The rest is up to you.

Preaching to the choir?

Maybe you know all of this. I’d argue that most people reading this blog are already avid content creators, or are at least working towards that goal. So here’s a better question for you:

How are you encouraging others to create and add value?

Are you visiting lesser-known blogs and leaving insightful and encouraging comments? Are you contacting the creators of your favorite freeware applications and telling them how much you appreciate their work (and maybe send them a few bucks)? Are you helping your less web-savvy friends post their amazing illustrations online?

Everyone has the potential to create, and create great things. We all need to encourage people who are willing to take that potential and turn it into action.

Are you creating? If you are, then are you also helping others create?

I do, however, remember the sacrifices that millions of people made and continue to make in order to protect our safety, our rights, our freedoms, and most importantly, our responsibilities towards our fellow man.

No matter what you may think of your current political administration or their stance on warfare and international conflict, it is impossible to deny the value of the young men and women that have put their lives on the line to make sure we can have the life we currently live.

Today, while I remember the sacrifices of those that fought in the past, I also pray for the safety for the men and women who are on the front lines right now.

I pray for the safety for my friend the pilot in Afghanistan who delivers medical supplies to coalition forces bases across the country. I pray for the safety for my friend the engineer who works in the Persian Gulf on an aircraft carrier fixing vital military equipment. I pray for the safety for my friend the medic in Sudan who takes care of UN Peacekeepers that are injured during their duties. And I pray for the safety for all of the people, my friends or not, who continue to put their lives on the line, each and every day.

I pray. I remember.

(Photo of poppy by Hobvias Sudoneighm.)

“Hey brother, are you married?”

I replied that I wasn’t, at which point he started screaming that I was “a sinner and that I was going to hell.”

I’m not sure when being a single 26-year-old became a sin and grounds for eternal damnation, but I sure didn’t get the memo on that one.

Over the past summer, three of my really close friends got married. In the next three weeks, another two people who have been significant in my life are about to tie the knot. There are wedding bells ringing everywhere. Which reminded me of a great post on marriage that I found on Anil’s blog the other day.

In his post, Anil speaks about how marriage continues to get a bad rap in popular culture:

I feel like I got hoodwinked as a single guy because I heard marriage described so often as some cross between a prison, being grounded as a misbehaving teen, and being castrated. I don’t doubt that lots of people make mistakes in who they marry, and I am not trying to be a pollyanna about the very real fact that a successful marriage takes a lot of dedicated effort, or that some people just can’t make it work even with their best efforts. But most marriages work, even if the people who don’t get it quite right end up being a lot louder about it.

He goes on to talk about Proposition 8 and why voting no on the proposition was the right thing to do:

It is now a historical inevitability that our country will legalize marriage for all couples. Though the fight is particularly polarized right now, and we will naturally face serious setbacks on the way to civil rights for all, I believe the time is close. As we saw in the fight against interracial marriages, the forces against progress are most extreme and invested right when they realize that history is against them.

Which got me thinking: as an umarried straight man in Canada, why was I so upset that people voted yes on Proposition 8 in California?

I came up with two basic reasons. The first is intrinsically tied to basic human rights. However you feel about homosexuality or marriage in general, it is fundamentally wrong to deny a civil liberty to only one group of people without any compelling and substantial reason. Denying the right to marriage for gay couples and allowing it for other couples makes about as much sense as denying the right to sit on park benches to people who have blue eyes. (Yeah, I’m not sure where that analogy came from either, but it works.)

The second reason — and here’s where you’re allowed to be surprised — is that I think that marriage is one of the most beautiful social institutions that exists in our culture.

I’ll allow you to catch your breath. Yes, I’m the same guy that goes around saying that marriage isn’t for me and that in its anthropological essence, marriage is nothing but an economic contract. I still believe that, to an extent.

But in all honesty, it’s impossible not to be completely enamored with the whole concept of marriage: that two people can feel so strongly drawn to each other that they are willing to devote themselves to each other for life — or at least try to do just that. There’s so much beauty in that whole idea that I’m tearing up just writing about it now.

Plus, I’m a sucker for a good love story.

Denying someone the right to engage in one of the most beautiful acts of devotion just because their sexual orientation is different than yours is not only wrong, but cruel and heartless. People that voted yes to Proposition 8 may think that they’re exercising their political opinion, but instead, they’re just demonstrating that the world is still capable of immense callousness and lack of compassion. And that’s just sad.

One more quote by Anil before I sign off:

Denying the right of marriage to any of us attacks and disrespects the institution of marriage for all of us. As it turns out, marriage is worth defending, no matter what you might see on TV.

With that, I’m wishing both Julia & Adam and Ami & Rohan congratulations on their upcoming weddings. Thanks for continuing to fill my life with the hope that love and selflessness still exist.

I’m in the process of applying for a small work gig and they’ve come back with a few questions for me. I was wondering if any of you had any insight that you can share on the following questions:

• What do you foresee the most “socially-successful” institutions will be doing with their users/web presence in 5/10 years?
• What could be done in the space of 1-2 years to see overwhelmingly positive results from a social media strategy? What could backfire?
• How would you go about convincing an overworked researcher that using social media is a good idea?

Can’t really share too much context right now, but if you have some thoughts please email me or leave me a comment on this post. I’ll email you back and give you more information personally.

Thank you so much for your help. Looking forward to your insights!