Start the new year off with a 365 photo challenge

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The new year kicks off in less than two days and it’s the perfect time to take on a new challenge: snapping a photograph every day to create a visual calendar. Apple carries a variety of apps that can make it quick and easy to compile your calendar.

Image of Photo 365 calendar for January 2013I’m beginning my challenge on January 1, 2013 using Photo 365 App. It costs $1.99 but there are plenty of free and paid options including:

Each app offers different options such as daily reminders to shoot a photo, sharing options through Facebook, Twitter and email, adding captions, and organizing the images.

Are you up for joining me in the challenge? Let me know if you are willing to try it or if you have done a similar challenge by leaving a comment.

I hope you have a wonderful new year filled with love, laughter and happiness!

Getting married? There’s an app for that

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bride and groom on the wedding cake inside the Wedding Party appSocial media tools are making it easier for brides, grooms and wedding guests to share photos of the big day. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to test the new Wedding Party app while I was at a relative’s wedding.

Before the wedding day, the excited couple, Rebecca and Jovin, emailed their guests invitations to download the app on their iPhone or Android. The app was free for guests and simply needed the wedding party’s selected name to access the site.

On the wedding day, guests were able to upload images, send notes and view the other guests’ photos in real timeimage of guests, head table and centrepiece inside the Wedding Party app. The app allowed everyone with a smartphone to share photos quickly and easily for no charges.

Should wedding photos be shared on social media?

The wedding I attended was a stark contrast to the wedding where the couple requested that guests ask their permission before posting photos on the Internet.

written statement telling guests not to post photos on social media

Image text: “The Bride and Groom request their approval prior to posting any photos of their special day on Facebook or any other social media site. Thank you”

As an engaged social media advocate, I conducted a little research to find out why couples would not want to share photos of their day. Many brides on Weddingbee.com‘s boards are nervous that guests may post unflattering images before the couple can post their professional photographs.

Brides in the online forum had many questions, including: should they ask guests not to post photos before the wedding, should they tell guests to leave their cameras and smartphones at home, should they wait until images are posted and then ask them to be taken down? The responses from other brides varied. Each answer depends on the couple’s preferences, their relationships with their guests and if the wedding will be formal or informal. Requesting that guests leave their smartphones at home may ruffle some feathers, but brides can rest assured that images would not be shared.

The ironic twist in the situation, where the bride and groom wanted their guests to ask their permission prior to posting photos, is that this photo came from the popular Cheezburger site, Wedinator. If the couple had not written this request, pictures may have been shared on their guests’ Facebook and Twitter accounts, but now a picture from their wedding is making the rounds on the much more popular site created by the developers of LOLcats. Wedinator shares funny, interesting and amazing wedding photos with others and has the tag line is: “your special day is…hilarious.”

Check out the Wedding Party app. Or, if things in a marriage aren’t going well, you can always check out the New York Divorce Guide app.

Predictions from 1967: Smartphones will cause you to lose your legs

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Image of iphone

Caution: may cause loss of muscle tone due to excess leisure time

One day, our phones will do so much for us that we will lose the use of our legs. This is according to the tongue-in-cheek CBC radio broadcast from 1967 called, Future phones mean more leisure. Reporter Michael Maclear describes the predictions made at a telecommunications conference in London, England, and surprisingly, many of the predictions have come true.

McLear reports that by 1984, all phones will be connected to printers allowing us to print our airline tickets. Well, it took longer than 17 years before we were able to printed our own airline tickets, but we can do it. I guess it’s better late than never.

Once you get past the radio broadcast’s politically incorrect comments about “monitoring your wife” and calling from “the office or hen party,” you can see the humour in their predictions. For example, they predicted that our phones will be doing so many of our menial tasks that we will lose muscle tone in our legs and may no longer be able to walk. This is fortunately not true. Most of can still use our legs, even if it’s only to walk to the outlet to plug in our smartphone.

While many of their entertaining predictions have come true, their main prediction, that phones will cause us to have too much leisure time, has not happened yet. If anything, smartphone users have less time for leisure because we spend so much time checking our phones.

Listen to the broadcast here.

Greetings from the University of Alberta’s 13th Annual Communications and Technology Research Symposium

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Graduate students from the University of Alberta’s Masters in Communication and Technology program were on hand at Entreprise Square to present their research posters. Each year, the final-year students present their final project topics.

Hillary Burridge is presenting Creating Internal Ambassadors: A case study of a corporate video-generating campaign.

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Hillary Burridge’s Poster

Thank you for joining us!

Why the Occupy Wall Street was built on the shoulders of other movements

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Although the tents and campsites have left Wall Street and the chanting occupiers have gone home, the ideas behind the campaign have not dissipated. As author William Greider points out in a panel discussion from Democracy now, social movements often fail, but it`s the powerful democratic conversations that continue.

Talking heads in a bag on the ground

Occupy Toronto`s message to media and experts who are simply talking heads, image by Hillary Burridge

The reasons behind the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement have not disappeared. In my opinion, I believe that once North Americans experience a shocking abuse of power and greed again, the momentum will swell up again and the movement will become more influential.

Occupy Wall Street was able to build on the shoulders of other movements by incorporating tactics, symbols and strategies that have worked elsewhere. Using the human microphone, sign language instead of clapping and conducting peaceful resistance to authorities were ways that North American protesters experienced the tactics used in other regions of the world.

Occupy Wall Street showed many non-activists that they have power and can make an impact. The simple act of showing up and protesting inspires people to take  control of their situation.

I live in Toronto and every day, I would pass the Occupy Toronto camp in St. James Park. I watched the protest grow and shift as occupiers came and went. When I attended the Occupy Toronto site, I was impressed at the level of collaboration and community within the small park. I took photographs of the scenes, interesting signs, the impromptu library and the media tent. I ventured into the media tent and saw their boards explaining how to get the message out, including hashtags, Twitter profiles and Facebook pages. Engaged activists were on hand to speak to members of the media. It was more organized than most media events I have attended.

Sign reading `the evolution will be televised`

Occupy Toronto`s sign, image by Hillary Burridge