Is the year almost over? Just yesterday I waited with anticipation for the 2010 Olympics, anxious to begin volunteering at the short track venue.
Since that memorable, hectic, time, I’ve said a sad goodbye to East Vancouver and Commercial Drive, one of the great little neighbourhoods in Canada. I met phenomenal people there, friends and neighbours with whom I shared ideas and initiated collaborations.
Pondering how to turn an economic downturn into a personal upturn, I moved back to the Sunshine Coast. I applied for and was accepted into the Aspire Program, which will help me shape my experiences with web design, marketing, art direction and photography into my own business.
There is trepidation, as the path chosen comes with a steep learning curve; but no one ever promised it would be easy. I’m comforted by the security of living at home as well as this program’s 15 years of proven success. Knowing the number of graduates still operating their businesses, and learning of the program’s reputation among coastal residents, I know I’ve made the right choice, and I’ll be launching my business come this late November.
When I was in high school I wanted to go into the media and during a class at the old Coast Cable 11 Studio’s in Gibsons BC. We sat in the classroom and watched BCTV.
Tony Parsons and Mike McCardell were the text-book of what good journalism was. As I grew older my views of the media had changed, I was hardened by years in the news, and this hardening had led me to leave the media. but watch Tony and Mike, they, they were still the tried and true source they were when I grew up.
While Mike is still on the air, at least for now. Both were from the old school of journalism. The type that isn’t taught anymore. The type that really can’t be taught in the confines of a school.
I have stopped watch Global as it is now called, it’s a different station on the same channel. Chris Gailus although a Canadian spent many years at a FOX affiliate in New York, USA and is more of the sensational type and doesn’t have that same calm cool voice Tony has. But I watched tonight, just to say goodbye.
I have moved on to CTV and another veteran of the old school journalism, Bill Good, who use to work at BCTV. In hopes I can find a newscast that if it has to deliver bad news it will do it in a calm cool and collected way.
Update #1: Tony Parsons can now be found on CBC Evening News. Update #2: Mike McCardell can now be found on CTV News at 6.
I arrived with only minutes before the opening of the Apple Store Vancouver to see what I expected to see. Hordes of people (some already wearing Mac t-shirts) to enter into the opening of the new Apple Store. It is small in comparison to the new Boston Store but is similar in size to the Palo Alto Store I had seen years ago.
Apple Store Opening in Vancouver is met with great fan fairThe Apple Store before the rushYes this is the line up for the free T-shirtYup the line goes out the door and around the corner
Over all I was impressed with the Apple Store and welcome it to Vancouver. It is sorely needed.
I have always been an Apple fanatic, but see, it’s not my fault. I was thrust into the computer age at the very young age of five, I think.
My father is a school teacher and he purchased an Apple two-plus for the house. The next couple years were a vast experience of syntax errors and catalog commands. I had to learn simple programming terms if I wanted to play any videogames.
As I grew, I found a different company and another cult following of something even better: The Amiga 500. It was my only brush with another computer system and not a bright one, although it’s word processor and printer got me through college. It has some great games and awesome graphics, but my overall use for the power of this computer of that time was far lacking.
As I sought a career in photography and journalism I realized that I needed to get back to Mac, and through college I was introduced to the iMac.
I graduated college and moved to Yellowknife. It was their I picked up my first Mac from a friend for $500. It was a great steal and allowed me to work from home and connect to the Internet, it was also nice to see Steve Jobs back on board.
My Amiga 500
And while I did occasionally use a windows machine, I still loved my Mac and how it was so simple to use. I was blown away when a friend of mine had upgraded to OSX but I knew my iMac couldn’t handle it. So I had to wait for the new OS.
Go East and find thy Jaguar
I left the North with my iMac and moved to the Prairies of Manitoba where my new job had me on a G4. Although it had the processing power it was still classic. This was all the power anyone could ever need, right?
I noticed more friends were ditching their spyware riddled window machines for the new, sleek and cool iMac and something called the iPod. While I decided to leave full-time employment and freelance my new laptop went on a safari and found a Jaguar (OSX v10.2).
I decided to move back to Vancouver and it seemed that everyone had an iPod. My laptop was showing its age and the 10-gig hard drive was barely enough to process files of today’s digital life.
As I reached the 30-something and ventured into a new career as a web designer, I found that the Mac is not perfect for everything and Mac still had a lot of work to convince the masses. But the tide was turning, the stable Intel chip was part of the process.
While my need grew from a 12-inch iBook to a 17-inch MacBook Pro, I also love the new chip and new power. I am left with a few questions for my fellow Mac cult members.
My 17" Macbook Pro
I have always loved my Apple for being the little quite guy in the corner who knew all the answers, just very few paid attention or cared. But now that people are flocking to the Mac and Apple is also the undisputed king of digital music, will they still be that friendly little (well not so little) company who make great products, have great customer service and a loyal cult following?
If we don’t remember History are we doomed to repeat it?
I remember a coffee shop that used to have great customer service and a loyal cult following. Unfortunately, it thought it could monopolize the market and lower quality and no one would care. Well I’d say you take a look at the Starbucks share price and tell me different.
Also, what is the difference between Howard Schultz telling me how I like my coffee to Steve Jobs telling me how I want to use my computer? Well essentially, there isn’t. And how are computers and coffee related? They are both related to the Customer Experience.
While Apple is riding the wave of great usability and Apple stores are opening up world wide to huge crowds and fan fair, can Apple really keep its loyal fan base while appealing to the mass-market consumer? Starbucks is having to close stores, retrain staff and look to save its reputation with the customers it still has left.
Author Leander Kahney speaks about how Steve Jobs can rarely, if ever, give interviews. He never tells people when products are released, and released hardware and software locks down in propriety software and then people are told to sign a multi-year contract with one company or another. Yet Apple still wins over thousands of customers, which says something about how this one company is still doing everything right.
But if Shultz walked up and told me what coffee to buy or how to buy it and, oh yeah, sign this multi-year contract if you want to drink our coffee, I’d tell him to shove it.
So I will line up with the other members of this cult as that little company from Cupertino opens its latest Apple Store in Downtown Vancouver (Pacific Centre Mall, 701 West Georgia Street, Saturday May 21, 10:00am). I am still its biggest fan and avid user. But I only worry that if all the hype of a store opening and all the pomp and circumstance of a MacWorld will ever succeed the value of what is really important: the quality of the product.
During my internship at Creative Spirit Communications I was invited to the Bill Reid Gallery. I jumped at the chance to visit the new gallery and saw the progress of Mystic Messengers being elevated and hung on the wall. It was an amazing morning to witness such achievements and to be so close to such great art. I met Haida artist Jim Hart who was carving a totem pole for the opening of the gallery.
Although I never made it back to check out the progress of the the totem pole that was being carved, I was excited to attend the official opening on Thursday, May 8.
Location Location Location
The Bill Reid Gallery Opens up to the Public on Saturday, May 10 and is located at 639 Hornby Street.
This is one of the largest collections of work in such a cozy and welcoming space. It is nice to see a permanent home to one of our greatest residents.
Mythic Messengers
Martine Reid at the opening of the Bill Reid Gallery
A number of months ago I was given a domain and server space to experiment with and I built the entire new robertdall.com website using this domain. So what to do when everything moved over to the actual robertdall.com ?
I though I would throw up some cool Graffiti I found around the city. So why not expand this? But how? Through some investigation I found a content management system called Pixel Post, I loved the big photos after downloading the lastest version I had it up and running in about 2 hours. Not bad for a Easter Sunday evening if I do say so.
But here is the deal, this isn’t my web domain so much like graffiti this photo blog could be around for a day, a week, a month, or a year. I don’t really know. But while the google bots find and rank my new content on my new site others won’t get lost along the way.
It’s been a long road since my first website over six years ago. This site incorporates my previous life as a news photographer along with my new life as a web designer in interactive web environments.
My year of schooling is almost complete and the new robertdall.com incorporates a number of new features which all center around the human body. I hired professional dancer Caitlin Griffin and revisited a studio for the first time in three years.
Visual by Design
Web design has been a big passion of mine since I started to learn it. It is hard to think I barely knew what an FTP was six years ago. In this new web era it is all about what your message is and how you can manage your own content and life online, just in case you don’t want Facebook to do it for you.
Am I blogging?
Yes, I have started a blog. Well, not one, but two, and with some help from the folks at WordPress, I have been able to update my content without having to code that all that server mobojumbo myself. On a whim I started a coffee blog for a class project, and a year later, and having had some 8,000 actual vistors, it is still going strong. I have also have started a flickr blog which shows excepts of my photographic life in Vancouver.
I found that when a client wants to make an impact with their brand you have to include all forms of communication which includes print. I also have an iPhone full of contacts in that can push your brand forward.
Yes, I have started a blog. Well, not one, but two, and with some help from the folks at 