Today was the last day of classes at school for me, and although I still have a few loose ends to tie up (DVD authoring and I, for some reason, completely forgot to include audio on a project that required audio.) I'm feeling like it's summer already.
Excitingly enough, I've been hired on as a full time employee at 21inc for the summer. I'm pretty excited because I get to work in my field, and I haven't even graduated yet. It's nice because I'll finally have the time to get everything I want to done (on the website, with videos and our newsletter)
I also have been picking up a bit of French, I'm sure you will be happy to hear. I've been attempting to (roughly) translate some text for the website into French and I found that has been helpful
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
1800 kilomètres en 8 jours, seule!
« J’ai l’impression de faire ma propre tournée provinciale », disais-je aux anciens. Je faisais référence à la tournée provinciale pendant laquelle les participants du programme des 21 Leaders de 21inc font l’expérience de la province du Nouveau-Brunswick ensemble, en autobus, pendant plus d’une semaine. Cette tournée provinciale est vite devenue la pierre angulaire de l’expérience de 21inc; je le sais, je l’ai vécue en 2008.
La semaine dernière, dans le cadre de mon boulot avec 21inc, j’ai pris la route vers le nord de la province, armée de baladodiffusions et de cartes Google imprimées. Mon objectif : rendre visite à nos anciens et anciennes qui vivent dans ces régions pour discuter de la communauté des anciens que nous voulons créer, et pour documenter les résultats de leur participation au programme. À l’horaire : Halifax - Moncton – Tracadie – Caraquet – Bathurst – Edmundston – Fredericton - Halifax.
Le nord de la province, de la Péninsule jusqu’au Madawaska, en passant par la région Chaleur, est une partie de la province que je ne connais pas très bien, j’avoue. J’ai ouvert grand mes oreilles à ce que me disaient les anciens et les anciennes de nos programmes au sujet des bienfaits et des résultats de leur expérience avec 21inc jusqu’à présent. Des informations et des anecdotes qui vont alimenter notre programmation pour les anciens, ainsi que nos programmes avenirs.
Tout ça, et puis je me suis laissé emporter…Il n’y a rien de mieux que l’autoroute pour se laisse voyager l’esprit. J’ai songé à l’Acadie et à l’ « acadienneté », à nos communautés rurales, à la résolution et l’engagement de nos anciens à ces communautés du nord, au bilinguisme, et j’en passe.
Trois ans après avoir eu des discussions stimulantes, enrageantes et inspirantes avec ma cohorte de 21 Leaders, j’ai refait l’expérience en solo. Ma conclusion? Il n’y a rien comme faire un peu d’autoroute pour réfléchir sur les choses vraies, les choses qui comptent. Que ça soit fait seul ou avec 20 de ses pairs.
Il suffit d’avoir la force d’éteindre son iPod.
*Un gros merci à nos anciens et nos anciennes pour leur hospitalité.*
Monday, April 18, 2011
Getting Government to Innovate
Readers of this blog know that I’m into social innovation, which is simply improving the way we tackle public challenges.
Last week, Tim Draimin, the Executive Director of SIG, tweeted that the world’s leading social innovator, Christian Bason, was coming to Toronto. I had no idea who this Bason guy was and why he’d be regarded by one of Canada’s leading social innovators as the world’s best.
It takes Google 0.17 seconds to return more than 110,000 hits bearing his name. It’s not hard to learn about him. And the more I looked, the more I realized what he does is needed our region.
Bason leads MindLab, a “cross-ministerial” research centre that involves business, citizens, and government to find creative solutions for society. It’s an incubator inside government focused on delivering new ideas, and housed in a gorgeous building. Which no doubt is an inspiring place to do their work.
Their work has helped retain foreign workers, reduced red tape through a citizen’s perspective (with a focus on young people), combined workplace safety with mentoring, and developed a business led climate change strategy.
At last week's panel on Governing New Brunswick, it was shown that our system puts up almost insurmountable barriers to doing the work that's needed. The province's fiscal situation fosters more conservative behavior, despite the need for innovation and creativity. From conversations in the other Maritime Provinces, this is true throughout.
A MindLab type organization on a regional scale could be our anecdote.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
It's that day of the week again!
It's another Thursday, which means I'm due for another post.
Initially I was going to write a big long post about how I don't know how to drive, to continue on the "things Sarah doesn't know how to do" train of thought, but I figured I'd spare you most of that. I would, however, like to state that I have driven a tractor once, and a car twice. The second car incident involved me almost driving my friend's car into a snowbank while my sister sat in the backseat yelling at me (The joys of winter and being stuck in the snow. Everyone was okay. Even the car! I said almost into the snowbank.)
Ahem. Onto a different topic.
I have recently started paying more attention to politics. It started when I began working here for the most part, but it started cropping up in all areas of my life - My brother often discusses politics with me, it occasionally comes up at both of my jobs, and at school the other day we took a political test. I've been able to vote for the past couple years. I voted the first time I was able to, the second time I did not because I had moved, but this year I'm going to. Tim told me yesterday about vote mobs and it's actually pretty inspiring. There's one happening in Fredericton this Saturday, and I'm going to attend. (there's a good article here about it)
And it's all thanks to Rick Mercer... And even if you aren't attending a vote mob or anything like that - Please just take 20 minutes out of your day and vote, as he says.
Initially I was going to write a big long post about how I don't know how to drive, to continue on the "things Sarah doesn't know how to do" train of thought, but I figured I'd spare you most of that. I would, however, like to state that I have driven a tractor once, and a car twice. The second car incident involved me almost driving my friend's car into a snowbank while my sister sat in the backseat yelling at me (The joys of winter and being stuck in the snow. Everyone was okay. Even the car! I said almost into the snowbank.)
Ahem. Onto a different topic.
I have recently started paying more attention to politics. It started when I began working here for the most part, but it started cropping up in all areas of my life - My brother often discusses politics with me, it occasionally comes up at both of my jobs, and at school the other day we took a political test. I've been able to vote for the past couple years. I voted the first time I was able to, the second time I did not because I had moved, but this year I'm going to. Tim told me yesterday about vote mobs and it's actually pretty inspiring. There's one happening in Fredericton this Saturday, and I'm going to attend. (there's a good article here about it)
And it's all thanks to Rick Mercer... And even if you aren't attending a vote mob or anything like that - Please just take 20 minutes out of your day and vote, as he says.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Can we be too happy?
Can we be too happy?
I asked this question on the closing panel of the Ignite Leadership Conference at St. Mary’s University. It was in response to another panelist lamenting how much Haligonians (and I’d argue, Atlantic Canadians) spend whining about the state of things. In fact, this panelists said, we have much to celebrate.
This is true. One of those things should be our high scores on a slew of happiness rankings. A key indicator behind these happiness indicators is the strength of one’s relationships. Atlantic Canada is well known for strong ties, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we rank particularly high.
But we don’t rank high on a host of other issues that also matter – education, health, innovation, business starts. We’re close to, if not at, the bottom.
Recently Jim Meek wrote a piece in Progress Magazine about the dark side of happiness - being happy may lead to complacency. If one is happy, why change? Why stick your nick out and maybe fail if life is good? As another panelist said yesterday, Halifax seems to have a lot of people devoted to the status quo.
Many of the young leaders going through our programs have tapped into wells of motivation by recognizing how their efforts make a real difference against these challenges. Whether that’s through starting a business, adapting one’s behavior and getting better results, or working with their mentor on a particular challenge, achieving one’s goal brought satisfaction.
This isn’t a post against happiness –I wish everyone supportive families, friends, and community. But we can’t be blind either. When our leaders become more willing and able to do something about the challenges before them, that makes me happy.
I asked this question on the closing panel of the Ignite Leadership Conference at St. Mary’s University. It was in response to another panelist lamenting how much Haligonians (and I’d argue, Atlantic Canadians) spend whining about the state of things. In fact, this panelists said, we have much to celebrate.
This is true. One of those things should be our high scores on a slew of happiness rankings. A key indicator behind these happiness indicators is the strength of one’s relationships. Atlantic Canada is well known for strong ties, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we rank particularly high.
But we don’t rank high on a host of other issues that also matter – education, health, innovation, business starts. We’re close to, if not at, the bottom.
Recently Jim Meek wrote a piece in Progress Magazine about the dark side of happiness - being happy may lead to complacency. If one is happy, why change? Why stick your nick out and maybe fail if life is good? As another panelist said yesterday, Halifax seems to have a lot of people devoted to the status quo.
Many of the young leaders going through our programs have tapped into wells of motivation by recognizing how their efforts make a real difference against these challenges. Whether that’s through starting a business, adapting one’s behavior and getting better results, or working with their mentor on a particular challenge, achieving one’s goal brought satisfaction.
This isn’t a post against happiness –I wish everyone supportive families, friends, and community. But we can’t be blind either. When our leaders become more willing and able to do something about the challenges before them, that makes me happy.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Intern post number two
I have a (small) confession to make.
I don't know French.
I never learned French when I was younger, and now I'm wishing I had. It would make things a bit easier for me. I never really saw it as something I needed to know (though I wanted to learn after I took a trip to Montreal last summer) but something that I kept procrastinating (gasp!) on learning. Most of the time if someone speaks slowly to me in French I get an idea of what they're saying, but it's not perfect. Where does this fit in with 21inc? Everything is bilingual. Which I think is awesome. Except I keep making changes to the website and then am reminded that I have to go in and change the French version too. If it's text? Have to wait for someone to translate it.
So something I would like to gain out of working at 21inc is to at least have a grasp on French. My title does have the word 'communications' in it, and probably that should stretch to both languages. (This will be put on the backburner until after school is finished. My other summer goals are to paint more, get into traditional illustration, make comics and go to the beach.)
One thing that I'm already gaining in my (so far) short time here is experience working in an office environment. I've had a few jobs before this (I actually go to school full time and have another job) so I know what it's like to work somewhere, but usually there's a lot of managers telling you "you have to do this and that and so on and so forth..." but here.. I have a number of things that Tim and I decided I'd be working on, and I get to self-direct myself. I have a really short attention span, so it's nice because I have a number of very different things I can work on (layouts, video editing, web stuff) so once I need a break from one thing I can move on to something else. I find that that's how I work best when I'm doing homework, so it's nice to see that I can apply that to a workplace as well (though obviously things that have a deadline get priority.)
What I've been working on today is a webisode for our e-newsletter, with interview footage that I took at the event at Up a few weeks ago. It's actually really convenient because in my A/V production class we just recently went over documentary editing (which was basically putting interviews together) so it seems less daunting now. Putting all the footage together is almost like a puzzle though, but not in a bad way.
I don't know French.
I never learned French when I was younger, and now I'm wishing I had. It would make things a bit easier for me. I never really saw it as something I needed to know (though I wanted to learn after I took a trip to Montreal last summer) but something that I kept procrastinating (gasp!) on learning. Most of the time if someone speaks slowly to me in French I get an idea of what they're saying, but it's not perfect. Where does this fit in with 21inc? Everything is bilingual. Which I think is awesome. Except I keep making changes to the website and then am reminded that I have to go in and change the French version too. If it's text? Have to wait for someone to translate it.
So something I would like to gain out of working at 21inc is to at least have a grasp on French. My title does have the word 'communications' in it, and probably that should stretch to both languages. (This will be put on the backburner until after school is finished. My other summer goals are to paint more, get into traditional illustration, make comics and go to the beach.)
One thing that I'm already gaining in my (so far) short time here is experience working in an office environment. I've had a few jobs before this (I actually go to school full time and have another job) so I know what it's like to work somewhere, but usually there's a lot of managers telling you "you have to do this and that and so on and so forth..." but here.. I have a number of things that Tim and I decided I'd be working on, and I get to self-direct myself. I have a really short attention span, so it's nice because I have a number of very different things I can work on (layouts, video editing, web stuff) so once I need a break from one thing I can move on to something else. I find that that's how I work best when I'm doing homework, so it's nice to see that I can apply that to a workplace as well (though obviously things that have a deadline get priority.)
What I've been working on today is a webisode for our e-newsletter, with interview footage that I took at the event at Up a few weeks ago. It's actually really convenient because in my A/V production class we just recently went over documentary editing (which was basically putting interviews together) so it seems less daunting now. Putting all the footage together is almost like a puzzle though, but not in a bad way.