Every once in a while you read about a story that just overwhelms the heart and soul. I’d like to tell you one such story about an organization and a remarkable young lady, Kate Maslen.

Kate manages the Children’s Bridge Foundation in Canada, and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since the foundation was incorporated in 2003, helping orphans around the world.

Travelling to Vietnam and China, the Children’s Bridge Foundation helps orphanages in some of the poorest areas of these countries through donations to help purchase supplies, clothes, improve schools, and the like.

On a recent trip to Hanoi, one little boy stood out. His name is Son Pham. Son Pham was born with a tumour (hemangioma) on the left side of his face. Now 10 years old, (living in an orphanage of over 800 children), the tumor has grown to the extent that it is now almost covering his mouth. Without surgery, (that cannot be performed in Vietnam because of a lack of medical personnel who can perform the operation), Son Pham will not survive.

Through an unbelievable show of support from the global community, Kate has raised enough money to bring Son Pham to Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital, along with his support worker, to get this life saving surgery.

And Kate isn’t stopping at helping children in China and Vietnam! She recently traveled to Ethiopia to start helping orphans in that country as well.

The video below, “If Everyone Cared” by the Canadian rock band Nickelback, shows how an individual can make a huge difference in the lives of others. As Margaret Meed was once stated,

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.

Certainly Kate’s efforts prove this point.

You can read more about this incredible story in the Globe and Mail as well as the Ottawa Citizen.

You can also listen to an interview on CBC Radio with Kate talking about her efforts to bring Son Pham to Canada for this life saving surgery.

Have a safe journey, Son Pham!

Librarians will love this challenge! Imagine trying to catalogue all of the earth’s 1.8 million species then put all the content including: text, video, audio, photographs, onto a website that anyone in the world can access and learn from. That’s the challenge the world’s scientists have agreed to take on.

The entire project is estimated to take 10 years to complete. That amazes me. Think about this challenge – not only in the architecture but particularly in the ability to communicate across languages, cultures, and professions at a global level. Talk about community in action!

Late last week I got hit with a flu bug that knocked me over and am just recovering from the virus. I was supposed to present at the Podcasters Across Borders workshop in Kingston this past weekend.

My sincere apologies to the organizers of the event Mark and Bob for not being able to present on “Podcasting and Mentoring” as promised – but I literally couldn’t sit up let alone make the drive from Ottawa to Kingston.

I’m feeling better today – though I’m really disappointed that I couldn’t attend what I’m sure was an incredibly successful conference.

I hope that if Mark and Bob put on PAB again next year I’ll be able to present and attend.

I hadn’t read George Orwell’s Animal Farm in years. I decided to pick up a copy for the train ride to the Mesh Conference the other weekend. I’m glad I did. It reminded me how important story telling can be in communicating ideas with others. The symbolism of the animals organizing themselves to take on the humans and recapture their freedom is so reminiscent of office politics and the way humans interact with one another. The struggle for control of self and ones’ own destiny all wrapped up into a unique, though sometimes violent, story.

I was trying to remember the story that Animal Farm reminded me of; and then while working away on a totally unrelated project, it came to me. With a background in Cognitive Psychology I took several courses on Neurpsychology. There was a chapter dedicated to learning disabilities in the book, The Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology, that started off with the tale below, that in many ways symbolize the main problem with our educational system in North America – the “drive” to be average.

I’ve put forward the idea many times that kids in high school should be able to pursue a curriculum similar to majoring in University. If they are able to follow their passion and are encouraged to work hard towards a career they will love – wouldn’t that make schools a better place? Would attendance not rise and behaviors fall? Imagine an educational system that followed a User-Centered approach? A system that tailored its’ programs to the strengths of their students!

There are obviously many changes that have to happen in our educational system. I think a good place to start is to focus on delivering education in a way that celebrates the strength of every student rather than forcing them to be OK with mediocrity.

I think this story illustrates my point:

“Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world.” So they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying.

To make it easier to administer the curriculum all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This was kept up until his web feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was quite acceptable, so nobody worried about that – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of his class in running, but had a nervous break down because of so much make-up work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing but he developed frustrations in flying class because his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He developed “charlie horses” from overexertion and he got a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was s problem child and was severely disciplined. In climbing classes he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb, and fly a little, had the highest marks and was class valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their child to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a free school.”

One of our most popular Podcasts was with IBM’s Mike Moran. I’m pleased to announce that Mike’s latest publication, “Doing it Wrong Quickly – How the Web Changes Old Marketing Rules” is now available for pre-order.

Mike illustrates how the web has changed the way in which organizations approach marketing strategies. It used to be that getting a TV commercial wrong would spell the end of that marketers’ career. Unlike past strategic choices in marketing, the web has allowed for a wave of changes to happen instantly, and at little cost to the company or the career of the individual. Today it’s more important to put the marketing ideas online and then listen carefully to your audience to ensure the medium and message are on target.

Do It Wrong Quickly is full of practical advice and stories from leading marketers on how to change the way your company does its marketing.

I also wanted to let my readers and listeners know about a contest Mike has started that ties in with this new publication:

“I’m looking for stories—tell me about your boss (or your colleagues or anyone else) who just doesn’t get it. They won’t experiment. They’re stuck. They won’t try things. They’re blocking your progress and everyone else’s. They really need my book.

So here’s the prize. I’ll pick the top three stories sent to me—the most egregiously ugly situations caused by indecision, inaction, or just plain stupidity over how marketing must work today—and I will send that boss a copy of my book.

I will also send the submitters of those top three entries a copy of my book, too. And for the submitter (not the boss) of the winning story, I’ll provide a free ticket to the Internet Strategy Forum’s Executive Summit in Portland on July 19th and 20th worth $300.

I’ll be speaking at that conference along with Yahoo!’s CMO, Cammie Dunaway with other excellent speakers on the agenda. (Thanks to ISF’s Steve Gehlen for making this excellent prize available.)”

Mike and I will be doing another Podcast in September discussing his new book. If you have questions about this publication or approaches to SEM and SEO in general, please forward them to me so I can include them in the September Podcast.

I’m getting so tired of the debates that go back and forth about IA and UX – how to define it – which is a better philosophy / discipline. Enough already! How about we engage in conversations that focus on creating the best solutions to the largest design and information management challenges.

I came across this video around the same time I was reading yet another long email string from the IA Institute and Taxonomy Community of Practice over a few people yelling at each other over who was smarter. Let’s at least start at this point – we’re all on the same planet, and we have more in common than not – including in our professions and our approaches to projects and ideas.

So to my fellow monkeys – keep dancing – but let’s stay focused on how we can create better solutions to our biggest challenges rather than getting caught up in semantics that do nothing but hurt the profession – regardless of what you call yourself: Information Architect, User Experience Professional, Usability Expert, Designer, etc.

I attended the Mesh Conference in Toronto Ontario last week. In the process, I rounded up a few of the speakers and attendees to participate in a discussion around User Experience and Community. There was no set agenda for the discussion other than to talk about some of the main themes from the conference – connect, share, and inspire.

A huge thank you to the organizers of mesh, and to everyone who took the time to share their ideas and projects at the conference. You can read more about my experiences on my Blog about Mesh

Be sure to check out the incredible line-up of speakers at the upcoming UK conference – dConstruct – Designing the User Experience taking place on September 7th this year.

Stuart MacDonald has posted the video of him welcoming everyone to Mesh and introducing Richard Edelman . Other videos from the Mesh Conference can be found on mDialogue’s website.

I mentioned the CapCHI Workshop with Peter Merholz. You can find the Podcast of the panel discussion as well as other CHI Podcasts from this year, at the CapCHI Blog.

Again, my apologies for the sound quality on this show. If you can work your way past the feedback issues that I couldn’t resolve I think the heart of the discussion is very worth while.

The following were a few people and companies I had the pleasure of speaking with while at Mesh – see you next year!

Bryce Johnson Navantis
David Crow User Experience Blog
Amy Ray Ziplocal.
Albert Lai Bubbleshare
Kyle Browness iStudio
Eduardo Wang Lavalife
Simon Chen Ramius
Sonny Juan Ramius
Melany Gallant Ramius
Jay Goldman Radiant Core
Michael Baynger The User Advocate Group
Kevin Talbot RBC Venture Technologies
Erik Harborg Real Decoy
Mark Stephenson Real Decoy
Daniel Rose Bell Canada
Sonya Willsher Liquid
Kristen Thesberg Liquid

I attended Mesh 2007 this past week in Toronto. I had a wonderful experience and learned a great deal from not only the speakers, but also the attendees.

Mesh was put together by Mark Evans who is the VP of Operations for b5 Media; Matthew Ingram, journalist for The Globe and Mail newspaper; Mike McDerment who runs Freshbooks; Toronto Technology Lawyer Rob Hyndman; and Stuart MacDonald who started Expedia.ca.

The keynotes were all very good, though my favorite was with Craiglist CEO Jim Buckmaster. Jim was engaging and hilarious; mind you I love dry humor. I don’t think Jim ever cracked a smile during his discussion with Mark Evans.

What I love about Craigslist is the simplicity of the site. Anyone visiting can see quickly what the site is about and how to interact with it.

This is a lesson that we as leaders in the field of technology should all take to heart. Remind yourself everyday you are not the end user. Those using the tools won’t take the time to figure out complex text or functionality. Keep all solutions simple. Start pulling out everything non-essential and get to the point.

Being relatively new to blogging I thought it would be a good idea to attend Jeremy Wright’s session entitled, “Blogging 101″. Jeremy is the President and CEO of b5 Media.

I give high marks to Jeremy for the way he ran this session. He didn’t come in with any agenda or presentation. Instead he let the audience decide what was to be talked about and then put it to a vote. As the conversation moved from platforms to specific tools, I made the point that one needs to define the purpose of the Blog to answer these questions. This point was made again in the session with David Crow and his experience in using and implementing Wikis for organizations.

I think what has gotten lost in the midst of all the hype around technology in the past ten to fifteen years is this: technology is a tool to help an individual or organization work more effectively. It is not the “end all/be all” solution to every problem. The example I use with clients is to say, “Would you use the claw of a hammer to dig the foundation of a house? Of course not! It’s the wrong tool for the job.”

I mean sure AJAX is cool, but will it provide the best solution to improving your web services? Maybe. Maybe not. With no specific purpose, one can only guess…and that’s one expensive roll of the dice if you’re wrong!

I also had the privilege to record a Podcast with several attendees at Mesh including David Crow; Bryce Johnson; Erik Harborg and Mark Stevenson; Michael Baynger; Simon Chen and Mellany Gallant; Jay Goldman; and Daniel Rose to name a few. I will make every effort to put that show together by the end of this week.

A big thank you to Rob Hyndman for providing me with some audio for the show – very kind Rob! I look forward to seeing everyone at next year’s event.