All Atwitter

I joined Twitter last April after learning about it in PR class.  Since then, the Twittersphere has exploded and Twitter is now a household name.  You know Twitter has gone mainstream when people who barely use email Tweet.

Personally, I like Twitter.  I mostly use it to follow other people, to learn about new things and to keep up with what's going on in different industries I'm interested in.  Books, Entertainment, Arts, Culture and Communications.

I'm nearing 100 followers on Twitter.  Most people are strangers, but many are associated with my interests.  The best moment of my personal Twitter experience: having my tweet about Folk Fest picked up by the festival and reprinted in their e-newsletter.  That was fun!

If you haven't jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, it can be a great tool for getting the word out about a whole bunch of things.  Events you're having or attending.  Interesting blog posts you want your "followers" to read. Random commentary on random subjects...

Sure there are nay-sayers.  Do you really need to know what so and so had for breakfast?  Probably not, but think of it this way- our lives are made up of many mundane moments, sharing those moments with others is a way to reach out and connect with other people. You like Froot Loops?  Me to!  (Actually, I hate Froot Loops)  The internet no longer isolates people, it brings people together.  Where else can you talk to someone in Japan and realize that you both have an obsession with Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

When I told a friend of mine I'd joined Twitter, she mocked me.  But she also sent me this video, which is hilarious, no matter what side of the Twitter debate you happen to be on.

Real Life Twitter - College Humor Original @ Yahoo! Video

Prayer, Politics and Palin

I'm not a huge fan of Sarah Palin or her politics, but I was intrigued about her recent interview on Oprah.  This clip is regarding her interview with Katie Couric.



She definitely seems more comfortable with Oprah than she did with Couric. Possibly because with Oprah she only had her own agenda to worry about.  Some hilarious Palin-izms as well.  "The perky one"  Tee hee.

I open up the floor to you dear reader.  What are your thoughts?

Something like a Pandemic

I'm suffering from H1N1 fatigue. It seems like we've been talking about nothing but since the first wave hit. Now, I know that it's a serious disease and that some people have gotten quite sick and died from it. I get that it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to disease prevention. But man, haven't we heard about it enough already?

I think that part of the problem has been in the communication and the messaging around this whole pandemic thing. I'm not actually sure that we can even call it a pandemic at this point. To me it seems like so far, the number of people sick with H1N1 has to be similar to the number of people who usually get sick from the seasonal flu. Is that a pandemic? Maybe, maybe not –I'm not a scientist. But if it's not a true pandemic, why call it a pandemic and just freak everyone out. Why call it SWINE flu? There has been so much misinformation out there. So much fear and paranoia. Way too many communicators making conflicting statements. H1N1 is in your face all the time. The information is overwhelming and it's confusing.


Granted, this hasn't been easy. The situation continues to change almost moment to moment with this thing. While I think the people in charge of health in this country have messed up when it comes to the pandemic plan and their H1N1 communication, I get that this is pretty much a nightmare for a PR person. Yet, I'm not even really sure there have been PR people involved. Maybe if there had, this whole thing would have gone a lot more smoothly.

There is no simple answer, but I really think that we would have benefitted from one person being appointed on a federal level to head a pandemic communication committee. That person would be the source of all the official messaging and would pass that message on to a representative in each province. Each province should have had the same priority list and the same vaccination rules. Maybe this kind of set up would be impossible given how governments tend to be set up, but a little bit of organization when it comes to communication would have been beneficial. Because isn't the point in a situation like this to keep people calm? The best way to keep people calm is to keep them informed.

One silver lining of this whole thing: many medical professionals are saying this pandemic is not going to be as bad as originally thought. Part of that may be that many high risk individuals have been vaccinated, which is great.  Hopefully, at the end of the day, most people don't get seriously ill and this circus becomes a valuable test run. Hopefully everyone involved learns from the mistakes they made this time around, and applies that knowledge to a plan for a future pandemic that might be far more serious.

As a side note: I do have to credit our nurses, who have been volunteering and working long hours at these vaccine clinics. When I got the shot a few weeks ago before the shortages hit, I was impressed with the organization and the speed at which they moved people through. So to those on the front lines: kudos for a difficult job well done.

Update:  Here's a great article out of the UK that delves into the "is it a pandemic" issue.

Women in Music

As someone who hosts a music show on UMFM called Venus Envy that focuses exclusively on music by female artists, I want to share two items of interest with you.  The first is a list of 50 essential women in music albums.  I personally think there are albums missing, but it's a pretty great list of must- hear albums.  Check it out here.  

Another item of interest is a radio documentary produced by CBC journalism intern Amanda Ash.  It inspired a special podcast on Women in indie music for CBC Radio 3.  Check it out here on Amanda Ash's personal blog.

METRIC System

I have a crush on the band Metric. I saw them in concert again a couple of weeks ago, and that was probably the fifth or sixth time I've seen them, if not more. As usual, they were fabulous. Emily Haines inhabits the stage like a Mexican jumping bean. How she manages to have so much energy, show after show, is beyond me. Just watching her dance and jump and strut across the stage is exhausting. Metric is definitely a band that entertains.

Their most recent album Fantasies came out last April and was promptly nominated for the Polaris Music Prize, an award presented for a full-length album from a Canadian artist based on artistic merit rather than album sales. They didn't win, but they made the short list, and they continue to do well for themselves. I dare you to turn on a show like Grey's Anatomy and not hear their music.
One of my favourite videos to come out of this album is for Gimme Sympathy. It's one continuous shot, which is quite a feat. The band is playing in a theatre in Toronto and while they all start in their usual positions, they rotate throughout the video. It seems to happen almost magically and I'm sure it was choreographed like crazy to do the whole song in ONE shot. The band has posted a behind the scenes video, split screened with the original video. It allows you to see how they did it. Mostly, a lot of running around and changing costumes quickly off camera. I've posted both the original video and the behind the scenes shoot below for your viewing pleasure.  Enjoy!