A. Simon Mielniczuk's Web Log

St. Francis Alumni Mass '08

2008-03-03T01:00:00Z

Yearbooks mark passages. They express hopes, dreams, best wishes. In front of the alter at this year's Memorial Mass for Alumni the display of yearbooks marked the graduation years of those whose names were read. There were the expected and the unexpected. Graduates of the 90's. One from last year. Mass was concelebrated by Fr. Anthony from the class of '35. One of St. Francis' oldest alumni praying for those who'd lived but a fraction of a lifetime. Father is blind and hard of hearing. To witness...(read more)

Advocacy 1-3-3

2007-07-25T14:02:00Z

Attention spans and windows are decreasing. The impact of that trend on social action and public policy is taking shape. This is one group that is riding the current. http://actnow.healthyrivers.org/front...(read more)

St. Francis Alumni Mass '07

2007-03-26T22:20:00Z

The view is great. Lake Erie stretching out to Canadian shores. When homesick, I would stare out the third floor window, unconsciously reconciling the tensions. On one side the friendships of fellow boarders. On the other family, friends and far deeper familiarity. The view now slightly altered by time and economy. Blazing smokestacks from Lackawanna's Bethlehem Steel replaced by the recently completed windmill farm. America re-invents itself. Still not fast enough for either itself or the shared...(read more)

Another view of the hood

2007-02-18T10:09:00Z

Occassionally I teach at Ryerson. In one of the courses, Information Architecture, we discuss language and audience within information spaces. I use the online Rap Dictionary, a wiki based compendium of hip-hop slang as a discussion reference. It is an example of the role of language enriching group communications and also creating exclusivity that requires special entry points.

During a recent review, several familiar places show up in the list of new terms. For reasons unknown to me, a significant number of neighbhourhoods are showing up in the Rap Dictionary. Toronto, in particular, has many references to neighbourhoods and housing projects. Canadian entries seem disproportionate to one describing US places. Quality and tone varies. Whatever you think about hip hop culture, there is no denying that it is creating new channels of self, group and community image making.

There are entries on Laval and the Plateau in Montreal where I grew up. Regent Park, where I spent several years and still visit, has an entry on Blevins Place, the home of the community association. After leaving there, I spent three years in the Woolner area of the old Borough of York. While working briefly as a CAS community worker, I worked with tenants in Tanridge. Six more years after that in Flemingdon Park. Until recently our family lived in the area of the Esplanade and Crombie Park.

My hope is that some of these neighbourhood chroniclers will grow into significant public voices and tomorrow's change leaders.

Community Name Tags?

2007-02-09T20:35:00Z

Everyone moving around more often. Looking to make a connection. Check the web; text; start a conversation in the checkout. Go to any organized meeting and almost certainly you'll leave with a name badge. Maybe a business card or two. The process is the same. Get into a space where others with shared interests.

For many of us the social space around work has displaced the one around where we live. In the Jamaica Plain neighbourhood of Boston, they are learning from meetings.

Want to get to know your neighbours? Wear your nametag! No bits. No typing. Just a friendly signal to say hello. Brilliance is the courage to explore the simple.

http://nametag.neighborsforneighbors.org/

Little Mosque on the Prairies

2007-01-04T19:44:00Z

Living downtown is noisy, crowded, and busy. The jadedness you encounter is often a survival mechanism. Too many stimuli.

Every once in a while something is impossible to ignore. The visual noise that is Yonge and Dundas couldn't compete with today's camels. Four of them promoting a new CBC show, Little Mosque on the Prairies. Add in the free Chicken Halal lunch and you have the essential Toronto experience. Sometimes you have to love the place.

Testing w.blogger

2006-12-13T23:03:48Z

Continuing exploration of blogging tools. The easier it is to post to a blog, the more likely one is to use it. This is another external blogging tool. Much like a word processor, it provides a full set of formatting, editing and spelling tools. Setting up a connection requires answering a few questions. Unlike the blogging by mail discussed earlier, it is easy to specify one or more category or tag. Reviewing and editing earlier posts is a snap. In summary, this is a very elegant tool for the regular blogger. Best of all, its free. Check out http://wbloggar.com/

Email your blog!

2006-12-12T18:37:00Z

The same people who code the Community Server platform supporting our Community Corner Package now offer a nice blogging assistance tool for email addicts.

Too much work to sign into Community Corner and post to your blog? BlogMailr is for you. Simply open an account on their system. Provide the details for logging into your blog. Then send an email to the special address BlogMailr provides.

Of course there are some tradeoffs. There may be a delay. You can't 'preview' your post or get the satisfaction of seeing it online immediately. Video and file attachments are out, as are the tags many love. If you want to do any of these, sign in later and edit your emailed blog post.

Check out www.blogmailr.com

Skins and sources

2006-10-24T19:12:00Z

This new look is courtesy of Jaxon Rice, a talented designer/developer in the growing world of 'community source' on the .Net platform. Sharing code and supporting fellow travellers building and tweaking applications is a time honoured practice made more visible by the success of the open source movement. Their behaviours and results have spawned new 'middle ground' business models where source files are available for modification and extension. Do what you will, but stay within licensing limits. Generally that means purchasing a license when deploying for public use. The original developer maintains strong quality control. A community of talented contributors enhances the application. No unfair restrictions on either exploration or use.

Easy blogging with LiveWriter

2006-10-04T22:25:00Z

Found a great little tool for easy blogging - LiveWriter. Still in beta, but a nice example of the new approach to applications. Light with a minimum of commands. Powerful in it's integration with other application.

After downloading it, followed the instructions at RJ Dudley's blog

After integrating it with Community Server, the platform of our Community Corner Package, putting an idea to blog is effortless.

We have several public and private blogs on our Community Corner. With LiveWriter, I can quickly note an idea and publish it now or later, directly to any one of the blogs on our site.

Strongly recommended for serious bloggers.