In 2010, I created a Flickr photo project I called 365joy.  I tried to capture a picture of what made me joyful every day of the year. I did this in memory of my friend Jennifer Webster who passed away on December 31st 2009.  I was a hard year leading up to Jennifer’s death and I truly wanted to remember what made me joyful every day afterwards.

I found it difficult to take a picture every day even with a iPhone in hand for most of the year.  I decided to abandon that project in 2011 (after trying a weekly image) but with a year between me and my photo stream of joy, I have to say I have missed it immensely.  As I look back at 2011, I have very few pictures and therefore, almost no captured memories of the year.  As I glance through my 2010 365joy project, I can experience so many small moments that brought me so much joy.  I can see the values and people I hold dear in my life.  It’s time to look at this project in a different light.

This year I am starting 365Keepers and I think I’m going to use a Tumblr blog.  I’m looking for something that’s visual and fun and will allow me to share pics, videos, and text easily and via my iPhone.  I’m trying it out over the next week and the big launch will happen January 1.

I found that my 365joy project opened my eyes to every day in a different way.  I hope that by mixing the media I will be able to make my goal of 365 keepers.  Even if I don’t, I know that I will experience each day a little differently in 2012 and I look forward to that daily sense of adventure and wonder.

I need to thank Alex Couros who I follow on Twitter and first suggested in a Tweet the value of a 365 picture project.  I also need to acknowledge the last little push I needed to get this project back on track which was the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I’ve just started the book but it got me thinking about being aware of the joy, happiness and keepers that are all around me. Thanks to you both!  I needed a creative project and macrame is no longer in fashion.

Three years ago when we started WhyHire.me the innovators were experimenting with social media.  Twitter was the new tool of choice getting all the attention.  Three years later, Twitter has kept its profile and stature in the social media sphere.  Tools like LinkedIn and Twitter have become almost as popular as Facebook or at least they have become part of our cultural expectations.

There has been a proliferation of additional tools that enhance our social experience.  Just Google ’social media tools’ and you will be presented with hundreds of options.  As the early majority start to jump on board, there are still a simple set of key players in the social world – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogging.  The most popular blogging tools are still Blogger, WordPress and more recently Tumblr has taken a significant jump in popularity.  There are many nuances to these tools but overall the key is having a strong message, understanding what your objective is with each tool, opening the doors to connecting, and linking the pieces together to make a stronger impact.

I will be covering many of these principles at the next IWES training session starting tomorrow.  Compared to our first session over a year ago, this audience will be more open and receptive because these social tools have become part of our cultural fabric.  Although there are differences from country to country. This will also be discussed with this culturally diverse group.

Myself and my partners have been involved with the IWES program for the past two years.  Andy, Rob and myself have all had the pleasure of sharing our personal branding and social media experience with a variety of newcomers to Canada.  These wonderful individuals have shown amazing courage and initiative when approach their new lives and careers in Ottawa in the ICT industry.

They have been open to the learning, anxious to adopt new ways of doing things and many of them have only been in the country for a few weeks.  They are looking for new ways to stand out and connect to their industries.  Understanding the latest tools has been an eye opener for them and has made us all realize that tools like LinkedIn do remove the distance between places and also provide new places to like minded people to converge.

Photo – from left to right, front to back

Thanks to Sahara Jadidi, Kris Anthony Viceral, Kee Chuan Chen, Rashmi Malhotra, Shervin Mousavi, Anthony Ma, Christopher Jarrin, Ashraf Tadrous.  Missing from the picture is Ruel Gubatina.

I’m getting ready to speak at the CALL conference this week.  As I was putting my thoughts together last week, I was invigorated by the idea of sharing my thoughts and experience on career marketing with a group of educators.  I’m usually speaking to students on the subject.  The focus of this session will be on looking at the process for personal branding and the use of social tools. However, we will first focus on the importance of  focusing on a clear message.

To get to your message you have to first ‘Dig Deep’ which is the first ‘D’ in the 4 D’s of personal branding, part of the WhyHire.me training process.  We will spend some time in our session this week asking ourselves questions, looking at our values, assessing our personalities and much more.  You can’t jump into sending a message out into the digital work until you are clear what you want to send out there.  Awareness is the first step and strategy is close behind.

It’s a pleasure to be invited to speak at the Conference.  I will be able to connect with English educators from across the province.  New perspectives and insights are always welcome.

Here is the link to the Profile Expectations using Jing and a screencast link – http://www.screencast.com/users/WHM_Support/folders/Jing/media/d16526d5-a85b-41d1-876f-9ba3cbeb0260

Another test – http://www.screencast.com/users/pattichurch/folders/Jing/media/ed8e2ae8-e1c5-482f-9d57-9c68bb0d6a37

I would really appreciate it if you could all load up a photo of yourselves to go along with your profiles.  Eventually, I will be looking for a ‘professional’ image that reflects your brand but for now a headshot of some sort so I can continue putting names to faces, would be just fine.

I was so impressed with the mind mapping exercise in CST8300 that I’m sharing them with the coordinator.  Many of you put in significant effort and thought into the exercise.  The effort produced lots of great information about the make-up and motivation of this class.  We have been looking at the concept of scanning for trends and change.  The School of Advanced Technology needs to do the same and these assignments give them a good source of information about demographic and social trends.

Not all the assignments are in so I don’t want to share findings just yet.  I really appreciate the hard work!

This panel session is intended to provide students with some insight into different  career opportunities available. The panelist range from independent consultant to the Federal Government employee. This is a candid hands on perspective from the people that work at these different careers. There will be an opportunity for questions from the audience.

Attendance is limited and tickets will be given to the captains of each team of 4-5 students.  When you have chosen you captain you can register here – http://cst8300.eventbrite.com/.

Panelists

David Megginson - Independent Consultant – Megginson Technologies

Anthony Rizk - Start-up CTO  - Zeebu Mobile

Sylvain St-Germain – Director of Process Improvement and IT  - Macadamian

Jon Alperin – Director, Developer Relations, Avaya, Inc.

Mark – Federal Government

Agenda

6:00 – 6:30 Networking

6:30 – 6:40 Introductios (Tell us about yourself) 2 minutes each

6:45 – 7:00 Employers elevator Pitch (Tell us about your company) 3 minute each

7:00 – 7:15 Preset Questions (3 questions) 1 minute per panelist per answer

7:15 – 7:30 LiVE Q&A from Audience

7:30 – 8:00 Networking with Panelists

Panelist Bios

David Megginson  - Independent Consultant

David Megginson, principal of Megginson Technologies, has been active within the SGML and, later, XML communities since 1991. He led the original initiative that created SAX, the Simple API for XML, which is now the most widely used streaming API for XML and has been implemented in products by IBM, Oracle, Apache, and Sun, along with many others.

David’s work includes consulting and development for many companies and organizations, a large number of Open Source software packages, and two books:Structuring XML Documents (1998) and Imperfect XML (2004).

David formerly chaired the XML Information Set Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and served as a member of the W3C’s XML Working Group and XML Co ordination Group. More recently, he served as chair of the international XML 2006and XML 2007 conferences in Boston, MA, the main industry gatherings.

In Spring 2000, David was proud to receive the Java Technology Achievement Award For Outstanding Individual Contribution to the Java Community from Sun Microsystems and JavaPro magazine.

Outside of information technology, David is an instrument-rated private pilot and a volunteer with Hope Air, and developed and maintains the OurAirports community web site for air travelers and pilots.

Anthony Rizk – Start-up CTO at Zeebu Mobile

Zeebu Mobile is a leading developer and marketer of innovative, smartphone-based educational applications and related proprietary content. Zeebu Mobile is 100% focused on developing mobile applications that entertain, engage and provide an effective learning experience for 0-9 year olds, while giving parents some time to themselves. We put the children first – a philosophy that differentiates us and drives the entire company.

As CTO, Anthony is responsible for the technical vision and direction of Zeebu Mobile, but is just as visionary when it comes to the creative aspects as well. Anthony, whose daughter was responsible for planting the original seed for Zeebu Mobile, is always thinking about how to improve mobile technologies and make them more user-friendly.

Prior to co-founding Zeebu Mobile, Anthony was a successful BlackBerry consultant, founding employee at Rove Mobile and is the author of Beginning BlackBerry Development (Apress 2009).

Sylvain St-Germain – Director of Process Improvement and IT  at Macadamian,

Macadamian,  a software studio that helps companies create winning products. When you have an expert UX design team and a crack software engineering team working in harmony under the same roof, magic happens. Industry leaders like HP, Cisco, Juniper, Ariba, and Adobe turn to Macadamian to develop product strategies, design compelling user experiences, and build quality software. We transform ideas into market-ready products that your customers will love.

Sylvain joined Macadamian in 1998 and is responsible for Macadamian’s process improvement initiatives and IT strategy.  He is also currently involved in sales engineering and various lead generation activities.

Prior to his current, Sylvain led a wide range of projects, including Macadamian’s development of Cognos Corporation’s next generation Business Intelligence software involving Web and XML technologies. He also managed the Living Dictionary project (www.livingdictionary.com), a Web application that won the Technology in Government Week Distinction Gold Medal and the 2001 SCOAP award for Best IT Initiative Resulting in Positive Social or Community Advancement.

Before joining Macadamian, Sylvain was a project leader at Nortel, leading a development team that built installation tools for Unix-based voice recognition software.

When Sylvain’s not building applications on his computer, he’s making music on his guitar or clarinet. He is the only Macadamian who knows how to build an igloo and he can also knit a hammock. Sylvain has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Université de Sherbrooke, Québec.

Jon Alperin, Director, Developer Relations, Avaya, Inc.

Jon Alperin is currently Director of Developer Relations for Avaya Inc. (www.avaya.com), a global leader in Enterprise Communications solutions.  After 23 years in high-tech and communications industries, Jon has held roles ranging from application developer to product manager, corporate strategy to alliance development.  In his current role, he oversees developer education, support, testing and marketing programs for over 45,000 members of the Avaya DevConnect program, representing 11,000 customer and partner companies.

Prior to joining Avaya, Jon focused on partnership development activities for Compaq’s iPAQ handheld division, and led product management and marketing teams at Telcordia, DSC Communications and Intervoice.  He has also spent time as an independent consultant based in Europe, working with pan-European cable TV, ISP and telecom start-ups.

Jon is a founding member of Avaya’s social media marketing team, and can be found on Avaya’s blog (www.avaya.com/blogs) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/devconnect) talking about developer and partner technology issues.  He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology, and has several U.S. and international patents pending.

Mark – Federal Government

Mark joined the federal public service in 2002 after working at IBM and as an independent consultant.

With experience in a variety of roles and at multiple departments, Mark has lead teams in application development, service delivery, support, and engineering. Mark is currently managing a team responsible for the network security of a mid-size department.

Mark has over 15 years of experience in IT, is a CISSP, and is pursuing a Masters degree in digital forensics. Mark is an active member of the IEEE’s Computational Intelligence Society and the ACM’s SIGGRAPH.

He can be reached online at http://markn.ca or on Twitter @marknca.