This is an amusing video showing how a large giant like Kodak can rethink their corporate vision and starts thinking like an everyman photographer again.



Flickr held a global photography event last Saturday (May 5th) called “24 hours of flickr”. The people participating in the event (moi!) took photos during the day and placed all the photos into the group page (here). At the moment, it looks as though over 23,000 people signed up for the event. I made up a slideshow of the photos I took on Saturday... (here).

There is so much happening in the field of photography, for any one to use. I thought I’d link you to a few of the new applications or tutorials (here, here, and here) and gadgets (here and here) for fun. Then when you have a selection of photos, there is so much you can do with them (here and here).

I’ve tried printing some of my collages as cards and I am amazed at how good the quality is. About fifteen years or so ago, I printed up a series of postcards to sell in Grenada. What a long and torturous process that was. I made up the layout in Luebeck, and sent the film proofs (sorry, don’t know the word in English) to the printer in Barbados, and they printed up 8,000 postcards. The quality of the print was good, though the colour tones were not at all as I imagined. Not bad, but just not as I thought they would be. In the end, I managed to sell all of the postcards. Thankfully so.

I really wish I knew of a digital printer site where I could get cards or postcards on demand a few hundred at a time. Ideally, this site would allow me to change the motifs as well. Unfortunately, the offers I know of on sites like mypix.com are really only good for personal use. If any of you know of a company that I could use for commercial use, I’d really appreciate hearing from you.

If any of you are looking for information/inspiration about what sort of things should be happening in your schools (if you are an educator) or your children’s schools (if you are a parent) take a look at this. If you do not know what Jeff Utecht is talking about in this posting, then it is time you started informing yourself about how education could be.

What I particularly like about this posting is the following:

First, Jeff decided to try out something new this time around.

He started with getting his students to read (RSS reader: a program that searches websites and blogs for content related to your personal interests) and he is waiting until their interests are peaked before starting them on blogging.

Some people (myself included) often try to get the students up and blogging right away; out of a notion that participation/writing is better than being passive/reading. The idea is, once the children start writing then they quickly reach a wider audience (e.g., other students, parents, teachers) with their writing and this excites them to write more.

Yet, more and more, I am hearing about educators taking the route that Jeff is taking, reading first then writing. It will be interesting to see what the advantages and disadvantages are later on in the process.

Secondly, technical glitches occur.

This is the reality of working with people and technology. It is probably the main reason teachers and parents don’t actively partake in new technological trends… out a feeling of helplessness. Yes, technical problems occur all the time. And yes, sometimes it is difficult to find help or get the right answers. Still, feeling overwhelmed or fearful does not excuses
us from the responsibility of exploring new technology.

The reality is, in most schools today in western countries, the only media literacy our children are acquiring is learning to use Microsoft programs to present information or learning to use the Internet to search for information. What they should be doing is actively partaking in all sorts of social, educational, political, environmental programs: collaboration processes. Active participation creates knowledge learning experiences, which our children will remember throughout their lives. Learning and presenting information doesn’t.

Thirdly, the younger and older students are contributing and exchanging their ideas on the same platform.

Sometimes I wonder whether the students of today are even concerned about who is reading their web content. Some say students are only concerned about their peer group (think myspace “friends”), others say a reader's audience is not important; the main motivator is presentation of self. It is good to hear in this posting that students of all ages are reading the posts of others.

It is good for young and old students to realise there are students with interesting ideas and personalities at every grade level. It takes courage to write something that is personally meaningful. Yet, there is nothing more motivating than receiving positive feedback from someone outside of your age group to set you out on the road again.

Many of the readers of my blogs are not my age. I find this exciting because, hopefully, it means that what I write doesn’t only fit one size.

Been trying to think of what to write this month on the media safe 101 page. Unfortunately, nothing has hit me as yet. I am presently doing a virtual Advent calendar on my other blog. So, feel free to check out the various links.


I’ll be back, the gods willing, at the end of the month with something new and fresh.

A friend and I are off on an escape weekend: her from her hectic job and me from any form of family obligations. Today we had a very interesting conversation about how possibly media, particularly cell phones and blackberrys, beget social misbehaviour. The reason we started talking about this topic was because of this article I read on BlogHer today.

The gist of my friend’s and my ensuing discussion is that we are convinced that all the different forms of communication media isn’t helping us to communicate better and it is also possibly resulting in poor social behaviour. And this, purely because social etiquette instructions are missing in all the devices’ operational manuals.

Just a quick example about what I mean by social misbehaviour… Years ago it was socially unacceptable to be late for a dinner date. Now you just call the person on their cell phone and say something mundane like, “Sorry, blah blah blah (Excuse 1, Unforseen Circumstance 2, Lie 3) and so I’ll be twenty minutes late. Hope you understand”. And what does that person in the restaurant do, says no problem, they’ll wait. As if making the call on the cell phone eradicates the error the ways of the person who is unpunctual. It doesn’t; it’s still rude to leave someone waiting in the restaurant alone.

Before cell phones came into existence there probably was a lot more punctuality. If for no other reason than the fact it was more difficult to mask bad behaviour. In the above-mentioned example, it meant you had to find a telephone book to look up the restaurant’s telephone number, call up, go through the agonising embarrassing experience of describing your friend to the proprietor and explain your predicament, ask the proprietor to make excuses for you, and you didn’t know whether you friend would still be at the restaurant when you arrived… You get my drift; it was just easier to be on time.

This is, of course, rather a minor incident, but it is just one of many. Take the example of couples that constantly send sms, emails, or call each other on their cell phones throughout the day. Some people find this cute; they think this indicates a connectivity or closeness. Other, myself included, feel this is a form of harassment and indicates a lack of respect for personal boundaries. Fortunately, I’ve never had anyone who felt the need to contact me throughout the day, but I have had the annoying experience of sitting across from a colleague whose partner “communicated” with her an average of once or twice an hour.

Where is all of this accessibility getting us? Do we have to unite and claim a right to proper civil behaviour again, both at home and in the office? Maybe we can start by turning off all of the devices, voluntarily, during a family dinner, in church, during a concert, over a conversation with a friend who needs our full attention, or even during a bus or train ride (no one wants to listen in on “informal” business meetings), or while waiting in a waiting line at the grocery store (I don’t want to listen to the person standing behind me tell her boyfriend about what she is going to make for dinner that evening).

Don’t get me wrong; I’m a Digital Gal. I absolutely embrace and feel excited about digital media. I just would like a bit of respect.

A few years ago, I looked at Oprah’s website and read the summary of a show she did on computer games. (I’ve never actually “seen” one of her shows on television, but I’ve read about the shows on her site. Don’t ask… it’s too complicated to explain.) She was asking parents what they felt about their children playing computer games. Did gaming create aggressive or antisocial behaviour? Was there any redeeming behaviour that could be associated with this form of entertainment?

The only part of the show that I remember was a father saying his wife’s attitude of gaming being a complete waste of time, and Oprah and the audience’s somewhat sanctimonious rejection of the possibility that gaming might even encourage communication, was, in his opinion very wrong. He went on to explain that this whole women ritual of sitting down at a table with a nice cup of coffee and chatting about all-and-everything-in-between, might be fine for some, but for a lot of guys it just doesn’t work that way. He went on the recall all the hours he and his sons sat in front of the computer while one of them played a computer game, and how, yes, they would often discuss the strategy and going-ons of the game, but they would just as easily talk about other matters. And, occasionally, he says, they would Really Talk. And that one true pearl of a conversation made all those hours spent in each other’s company talking about the gaming details worth it.

Last week Tammy sent me this text in an email:

“One thing that's been going through my head - probably in response to your ideas about communication, is the use of media to create dialogue. We hear so much bad about TV, but I find that it can be an important source for conversation-starters. For instance, if we watch a show where we see aggression, I might toss out a comment, "Wow, that seemed like childish way for so-and-so to handle that - what do you think?" Or if we see a show where someone is drunk, I can point out how terribly they are embarrassing themselves. Some of the reality shows are the best for this, when you see people behaving rather than acting.”

When she wrote this, I immediately thought of that father a long time ago, speaking exactly the same sentiments. And, if you had asked me what I thought about this ten months ago, previous to our household acquiring broadband Internet access, I’d probably have said they were “talking things pretty” (a nice polite German expression for BS). Now, I am not sure what I think, now that we have broadband access.

For in our family, we are constantly talking about something we recently heard in a podcast or webcast (e.g. on creativity), or some information on blog (Nomad Son’s blog), or some film we watched on YouTube (here and here), or some aspect of a game they are playing (experience points, quests, armour, dungeons, guest houses). Since we don’t have a television (yet), most of our exposure to pop culture is derived from music (here and here), or movies (here, when the films are finally are out on DVDs), or through all of the fantastic things we discovered over the Internet (here, here, or here).

Some of all of this is exciting. Some of it is very dubious in nature. We are all just treading water here, aren’t we? It is all just such a large grey zone when it comes to the different forms of media and their influences on our society and our relationships to particular persons. How do we find the Middle Way in a society saturated in a surplus of information and multi-channels of knowledge exchange?

This month’s Media Safe 101 is about virtual friendliness. This whole business of participating in the virtual blogosphere* is rather confusing. What is so puzzling is how the behaviour and language codex of this community or society differs from the real world, or at least the world that I have lived in for the last forty-nine years.

How can I behave friendly towards someone who I have just met virtually without signalling that I consider that person a friend or that I am looking for a friend? That vast pool of knowledge we usually communicate through our senses (e.g. facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, and verbal inflection) now is communicated through written words or an occasional photo. And this form of communication seems wrought with inadequacies and misinterpretation.

Most people seem to thrive and embrace the virtual communities (e.g. MySpace, Dodgeball and Facebook) because it offers them a form of social interaction they enjoy. I can only think that through this interaction they feel validated, recognised, acknowledged, or a sense of belonging. That is perhaps seeing the positive effects of this world. The negative effects run the gambit from ludicrous self-promotion to spewing vindictive verbal garbage into the blogosphere. For most people, fortunately, it is the former effects they seem to seek when writing or reading/commenting on blogs.

I have been reading/commenting on blogs for possibly a year-and-a-half or two years now. I have been writing blogs for nearly a year now. Not a long time, but in the world of blogging, not to be poopoohed. I had hoped, over time, that I would become less confused about my virtual persona and more assured of expressing myself. This isn’t so.

As those of you who know me, I have the sort of face people feel comfortable to approach, I “suggest” that I can be trusted with intimate details, and I can also be leaned upon in times of need. Yet, in the virtual world, I feel very handicapped when communicating to people I haven’t actually met in real life.

Yes, it is possible to get a sense of what they are like over a period of time, but I have no notion of how I come across. I cannot see how they react to my words or my questions or when I speak of personal observations. So much of normal conversation, or even the art of making and keeping friends, is a dance along the thin line between the abstract and the personal.

Recently, a blogger I read regularly asked her readers for some advice about how to do research for a book she is writing. I quickly sent her a strategy she could use and she reacted enthusiastically and asked whether it is possible to use my text in her blog. I agreed, but asked her to wait until I reworked the text before putting it in her blog.

Somewhere between the time I sent her the original text and the reworked text, her attitude towards the text or my person changed. She went from being enthusiastic and complementary to silently non-communicative. Since we do not know each other, there is no basis to inquire about this change in her attitude. I find her silence confusing for, in the real world, silence is often a form of rejection or disapproval.

Normally, we use all of our senses when talking to another person. A good friend of mine, who does coaching and management consulting, says that true communication has very little to do with the words you say and very much to do with voice and body and that ethereal “empathy” factor. So, where does that leave us in the virtual world?

Take away the words, you are left with writing style (for someone who has not actively participated in an English-speaking milieu for nearly twenty-five years a bit of a handicap), dispersing smilies (happy) and capital letters (shouting) in your communication, pauses between communication (does this signal accessibility?) and, last but not least, silences. All of these tools have to be learnt and I don’t know how to learn to use them. After nearly two years of participating in one form or another in the world of blogs and podcasts, I still feel like a country bumpkin at a slick city gala.

Does anyone know of a source that deals with this topic? What is acceptable behaviour when trying to be friendly but not friends? Are there guidelines that show you how to communicate how impassioned you are about your writing topic, without appearing fanatical or inflexibly pedantic? How can you walk the tightrope between personal and intimate? Do people even care about these things?

* Blogosphere is the collective term encompassing all blogs as a community or social network. Many weblogs are densely interconnected; bloggers read others' blogs, link to them, reference them in their own writing, and post comments on each others' blogs. Because of this, the interconnected blogs have grown their own culture. (Wikipedia)

The last entry to Media Safe 101 was about whether machines demonstrate human behaviour. This one is about how we tend to cope, or not cope, with new technology, how it is important for men to ask a few questions before going off to buy the newest digital device, how women tend to internalise or personalize the erratic behaviour of digital media (i.e., not only computers, but banking machines, digital cameras, and software programs as well), and how we can all learn from our children.

Ions ago, I studied electrical engineering and, even though I was never a brilliant engineer, I worked as an engineer for nearly twenty years and I’ve continued to work in a technical field the last six years as well. Throughout these twenty-five years, I’ve always been involved, in some capacity or another, in instructing others about how to use/repair/inspect machines. For the first twenty years, I taught men (i.e., technicians and engineers) and for the last three years I’ve been teaching women and children (e.g. grade school teachers and high school teachers and their students). Now, I know that doesn’t make me an expert, but I’d like to share with you what I’ve learnt about how people cope with new technologies:

First, many people think men have no trepidation about embracing new technology, which is not true. They fear change as much as any fellowman, but, and this is a big but, they are just intrinsically interested to know what the new device has to offer in comparison to the old one. It is this curiosity, which allows them to overcome their initial inhibitions.

In German they have a fear called “Berührungsangst” which translates as the fear of contact, touch, or encounter. And this is something that separates the men/boys from the women/girls. Ok, shoot me if I am wrong, but as a generality, men just do not experience Berührungsangst when it comes to new technology.

I can remember yelling at my son when he was young and he was making a beeline towards my friend’s complex (expensive) stereo equipment or running towards some sort of main control panel the moment we entered in an electronic store, “look with your eyes and not your fingers”; because he would be saying, “just looking, mom” at the very moment his fingers were pressing red buttons in a sequence I suspected would set off a nuclear explosion.

If anything, men tend to be a bit greedy and possessive about acquiring new technological devices. It’s-mine type of thinking often reigns in their heads and pockets. Men would benefit if they posed the following questions before they purchase their next gadget: do I really, and I mean really, need it: will this make a definite improvement to my life: does it improve the quality of communication or does it just make me more accessible: will this take me away from home and family or will it connect me to them in an important way.

Second generalisation, women tend to internalise or personalize things when machines or software programs don’t work in the manner they are intended to work, or as they previously worked, or as their husbands or boyfriends told them they would work. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you how often I hear excuses like, “I don’t know why, but my email program isn’t working anymore”, to “my word processor doesn’t do what I want it to do”, to “my new computer doesn’t like me”: and this over and over again.

It is just not enough, in this age of technology, to be satisfied with a level of media proficiency that can only determine that something is broken. You have to be able to posses enough technical aplomb to fix the problems. Now, I am not suggesting opening up an operation manual here, heaven forbid, but you have to work out who you can talk to about the problem, or where you can take the defective digital camera to get fixed, or even possibly, what can I do differently that might produce better results.

Take it from me, 90% of computer problems lies with the user. That doesn’t mean that your 90% in the wrong, or 90% too stupid to do what it right, rather, 90% of the time you don’t handle the situation properly. It’s not personal. You just don’t have the right strategy or method to handle the situation properly. Honest, it’s as simple as that.

The fact is most of the digital media we use today is developed by men whose motivation for developing these products is anything but altruistic. They want to experience success, fame and large profit, and if possible, quickly. They spend more money and time on marketing than they do on usability and quality control. This does not excuse for them producing unstable and difficult-to-understand systems, it is just an explanation.

Once you know it is so, you have to figure out how to make things work for you: changing from a desktop email program (where you have to do all the updates and program configuration yourself) to an Internet-based email system (you log in and pick up your emails and that’s it), writing cheat sheets about certain functions you only use occasionally on your word processor (e.g., making certain types of tables or inserting photos), or creating a buddy system with a friend or an acquaintance to help you understand the quirks and whistles of you new computer.

Thirdly, and lastly, children, in general have it right when it comes to using new technology. You can sit a child before a new software program or digital device and say click on this button, then that one, then that, and that and that and ... on and on, forever, and they will do it enthusiastically, patiently, oh so patiently, without kicking up a fuss, with a natural curiosity, with an innate ability to deduce or extrapolate that would amaze most adults… basically they possess a greater ability to wander through the complex labyrinth of technology than most adults do. We adults, male and female, can truly learn from our children’s ability to unequivocally embrace new programs or processes.

They do not ask, what does it cost (well, at least not initially), will this give me an advantage over my next door neighbour, why do I have to use this new update when the older version works just fine, I like my old camera why go digital - they are happy to give it a try without questioning what personal gain they will reap.

Yes, this does mean that children, potentially, run the greatest risk of becoming consumers of media instead of participators, but that depends upon what type of educators and parental guidance they encounter.

What is important to know is that children can learn from us, but we also can learn more from them.