Maramushi Newsmap

Serious case of <3 going on here. Srsly.

[caption id="attachment_579" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="What's going on in the world today?"][/caption]

Maramushi's Newsmap takes news feeds from Google News and creates a visualisation based on the popularity of stories. It updates on the fly as news breaks with the tiles linking to the unabridged stories. Great for a snap-shot of what is going on in the world, even better for those far from home who want a quick over view of what is happening...about as much as ever it would appear.

Do you see what I see?

[caption id="attachment_573" align="alignright" width="259" caption="Like I said...perspective..."][/caption]

As I walked through snow to Union Station yesterday, counting the number of beaches I used to live near that I’m not currently spending time on, it occurred to me that marketing is so often just a matter of perspective. We say and do things in order to alter someone else’s perspective. To manipulate, maybe, but there’s a point of view people attempt to get across; the more successfully you alter someone’s perspective, the more compelling your message is going to be.

My friend Michael has a fun twist on this, he calls it CVS2BVS – Current View of the Situation to a Better View of the Situation. CVSBVS (everybody now…), CVS2BVS. Once you move to from the current view of the situation to the better view of the situation, the improved position becomes the current one, and you’re free to figure out what the even better vantage point to be in is.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote “Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Once he has achieved the BVS, he can never go back to the previous CVS. Once perspective is altered, it is permanent.

I was thinking about all of this as I walked through the snow, aware of how warm I actually found it. And I smiled as I realised that less than a month ago I could not conceive of hearing it was -5 degrees, and be glad it had actually warmed up.

It is, after all, simply a matter of perspective.

Postcards from the edge

I think this is what they call coming up for air.

So it's a little less than -10 outside, though the sky is blue and I am warm as I sit banging away on the keyboard from Cafe Latte, a cute little coffee shop run by an old Italian couple who emigrated a long time ago to teach sociology (him) and engineering (her) at a university in Edmonton. Funny how things work out.

In the rush to get off the island, I missed a few things which I need to rectify. I wanted to thank Julian Cole for a great time in Sydney, and for being the fine human being that he is. Scott Drummond who is one of my best friends and biggest sources of inspiration, because of rather than inspite of his incredible fro. Also the man who is primarily responsible for this little site of mine, Simon Chen, someone who was endlessly encouraging of my meager efforts in the space and who taught me a valuable lesson; that it was almost impossible to be too opinionated.

As I move from the Australian marketing community and start to ingratiate myself with the Canadian one, I'm noticing a few things as I walk around town:

• Western culture is western culture.


• It's remarkable how different things aren't.


• It's not the thinking that is lagging in Australia, it is the clients (who are slowly but surely catching up anyway)


• The world over the problems are the same, we just pronounce the words differently.

I'm enjoying having the time to breathe right now, it's something I didn't do enough last year, though it's possible I was just waiting on the right air to breathe in. In the words of the great philosopher F. Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Happy new year everyone.

Break's over.