“Flying High”(collage art) and “Who is this DaveO Guy Anyhow?” (interview) in Rain Zine (Radical Art in Nature) Summer, 2010
See also: Let it Rain ~ “Flying High” boardgame-inspired art & interview in DIY Zine
“Let’s Get Lost – Exploring Vancouver’s Counter-Culture Landmarks,” Freed Weed feature column by Dave Olson in Megaphone Magazine, June 11, 2010
Project: Upon turning 50 years old on August 16, 2020, Dave Olson (me, hello) is posting a photo (or maybe photos) a day / per year – starting with 1970 with intent of chronicling existence through various primary evidence sourced from studio portraits, class photos, ID / passport photo occasionally other “casual/group/random” shots when the above don’t exist in my archive (note: not “artificial intelligence,” really me, pulled from shoeboxes, journals, wallets and whatnot – diligently scanned and dated via glasses and haircuts, lightly annotated).
“Letters from Russia” (excerpt and art) in Rain Zine (Radical Art in Nature) Spring, 2010
Cover art by Jer Crowle, also includes Kris Krug, Dan Mangan, Bex Apostoli , Dorian Taylor, Carla Bergman and Indigo
Just a journal snippet from SXSW 2010
Day two or three, depending on how you count ‘em, of my 3rd quest to South by Southwest in Austin Texas… And I gotta say, it’s shaping up just fine man. You know, I’m keeping up a solid effort and fully professional about spreading the love of my job, and that’s going really well. Also very important to maximize the party and good times, and that, too, is progressing suitably well.
Despite shaking off some nasty flu and general haggardness from excess travel and in general just haven’t taking very good care of myself, and then coupled with some disorganization and long stories about things that didn’t get printed and didn’t get delivered and stuff, yeah it’s rolling along just fine.
Recap: Last night down at the Gingerman, one of my favourite beer drinking places (which has moved around the corner to a location that might even be finer than its previous, though I’m really surprised that’s even possible because that old location was just fine).
Yesterday I rallied up after my slumber and scarfed down some nasty coffee and went down to the Hideout Coffee Shop. I met up with this nice Canadian lady that I met every time that I’m down here and as soon as I walked in the door she said, “You’re here from Canada” and I’m like, “Yes I am!”
It was packed and hectic. Just like last year, I was late for these migas breakfast burritos laden with a bunch of leftover odds n ends shit: egg, cornflakes, etc. Tasty. I really needed a good proper breakfast! Where should I go? She told me some directions to this place and I thought I was going off track but then it all came together and I got some wicked blueberry pancakes at the Counter Cafe with poached eggs just the way i like em.
If you’re not careful you end up living on appetizers, which is why today I’m on a quest for a proper breakfast, so again, I am in some dire need of sustenance – need to nourish the body to nourish the soul. At the Hideout I got a big giant smoothie. It was quite charming.
Then, at the convention centre, I stood in line and got my badge! You gotta have a badge. If you don’t have a lanyard, man, you don’t belong.
Then I rallied with some buddies and we sat on the lawn drinking Sobe green tea. I had some Japanese envelopes from my papery stash — back from 1983! I was fortunate to be able to augment my stash with some more packets from a Japanese dollar store in Tinseltown. So I sat with some buddies (John and Jason) and I filled these wee dossiers with stickers, tattoos, pins and sealed my card in. It was like a bundle of diplomatic goodness. Good time doing arts and crafts in the sunshine.
Then I found a little table to setup. I was curious about a press release I had put out so checked on that while thinking about issues about privacy, elitism, notions about early adoption, etc.
Then I headed off to Mellow Johnnies — it’s a bike shop, a complete beauty. It wasn’t super fancy but it felt really comfortable. They had smoothies and maps for local riding routes. I could see how you might like living here with all the distances to ride. There’s not really mountains — not by the B.C. definition but long roads to ramble.
Anyhow, this particular meetup event at Mellow Johnny’s had to do with my professional capacity. The people/hosts knew what I was doing with day-job and knew what we were up to and we had some intelligent discourse about this particular topic.
But, my highlight was sharing these envelopes with all these people. And explaining the love and care that went into those things and they opened them up with excitement and questions. Cheap and Cheerful marketing success.
This is an excerpt from the 2nd of several Vancouver 2010 Olympics photoessays created by Kris Krüg.
Vancouver is filled with energy now that 2010 Winter Olympic Games has officially started.
The last week has been filled with the excited fervor of the last month and anticipation of the upcoming weeks.
Here is a photographic look into the last week of adventure and celebrations, before the official opening of the Games in Vancouver.
Iain Black welcomed the public to the opening of the VX Forum in Vancouver, BC. Black is Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development in Canada and is pictured here with Nadia Nascimento and Dave Olson of Invoke Media which is the parent company to twitter-based application Hootsuite.
Source: PHOTO ESSAY: Canada Welcomes The World to The Vancouver 2010 Olympics | Vancouver Access 2010
[archived link]
By JEFF LEE 11-24-2008 COMMENTS(7) INSIDE THE 2010 OLYMPICS
Filed under: Olympics, Vancouver, Vanoc, Beijing, 2010, 2008, Winter Games, marketing, Olympic Games, media, China
I’m just learning about all the new ways to try and connect with readers and colleagues online – whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social and professional networking sites. I’m a bit of a babe in the woods compared to some of my journalism colleagues for whom this comes so easily.
But I get the whole idea behind the growing importance of online media. So do many of the journalists who cover the Olympics. A week ago today the International Olympic Committee’s press commission – which includes colleagues from major news agencies and publications – held a robust discussion in Vancouver after Associated Press chief executive Tom Curley opened debate by suggesting there needs to be a fundamental rethink about how the Games are covered.
So it was a bit surprising to discover that the Vancouver Organizing Committee seems reluctant to include some types of online reporters in its planning for the 2010 Games. On Thursday Vanoc was asked in an open letter from Dave Olson, an online writer with Raincity Studios, to allow some of his colleagues to attend the World Press Briefing.
They didn’t get an answer. But on Sunday, Renee Smith-Valade, a.spokeswoman for Vanoc, sent the following hopeful email to me.
[Note: numerous spelling /typographical errors corrected from original email from Renee Smith-Valade – see original]
“Undoubtedly online media and the Internet as a news source and forum for discourse continues to grow phenomenally. That’s why we have spent considerable resources to make our website our number one source of information and why we will continue to look for ways to make it a platform for discussion as well as information and purchasing. We welcome online media interest from all sources and were encouraged to see online media representatives registered for the recent World Press Briefing.
“The IOC is the ultimate arbiter on the representation on the Press Commission, and each country’s National Olympic Committee determines which media get accredited for the Games. As the Organizing Committee we can and will encourage both entities to recognize and facilitate the immense growth of online media, however ultimately decisions for press commission membership and Games accreditation lie with them. We have not yet responded to the open letter from the social media group but will do so in the coming days.
“Overall, we were extremely pleased with the World Press briefing. Tours of the sport venues, press facilities and accommodations were well received, our tourism partners really stepped up with warm hospitality and Mother Nature even helped show off Vancouver and Whistler at their finest in the sunshine. There was healthy discussion on a range of logistical issues and topics, none of which came as a surprise: accommodation rates, travel and how the major media centers will work, to name just three. We have more work to do to build on our solid progress to date to get ready for the arrival of the world press. They all seemed to leave satisfied with the work we’re doing to make sure they will be able to do their job to take the 2010 Games stories to the world.”
It will be interesting to see how willing Vanoc and the IOC will be to adopting new forms of journalism. One of those I’ve also interviewed for a story running today in The Vancouver Sun is former Los Angeles Times sports editor Dave Morgan, who is now chief executive of Yahoo Sports, and who told me that Yahoo’s solid presence in Beijing in August drew more than 32 million unique visitors to their micro Olympics site.
You can read the complete story on our Road to 2010 page.
Thanks for the excellent journalism Jeff – i think the social web media and “traditional” media have a lot to learn from each other.
Ultimately it comes down to providing more than “one size fits all” coverage and allowing a more diverse variety of viewpoints and delivery methods so interested readers can experience the stories of the Game that they care about personally.
No matter the delivery method, insightful writing and high-quality photography/audio/video always floats to the top regardless of the credentials of the creator.
Looking forward to hearing back from VANOC and continuing the conversation for the joint benefit of media makers, worldwide audiences and even the IOC and rights-holders.
November 24, 2008 3:57 PM
The decision to exclude the likes of the Raincity gang is quite puzzling, even without a social media strategy in place.
In Dave’s full letter, he highlights the history of the fan-based, non-intrusive coverage they’ve done at previous Olympic Games, and it’s clear that this kind of participation only benefits the host city, the Games and even the holders of exclusive broadcast rights.
I’m holding out hope that Vanoc (and our Canadian Olympic committee, apparently) will take great strides, not only to appear to appease social media creators, but instead fully embrace the concept and help to redefine citizen journalism’s role in Games coverage. With some creativity, they should be able to do so inside of the confines of the above-mentioned (archaic in these times, if you ask me) broadcast rights.
November 24, 2008 8:02 PM
Interesting article. I think VANOC is looking at this the wrong way. Promotion of your own website as the only source of information is counter-productive to embracing social media. Social media is about getting your message out to where people already are vs. fighting to bring them in to you. What would be productive is finding those champions who want to rally and bring all those sources together via social networks; like the team at Raincity, for instance.
November 25, 2008, 2:00 PM
Carol Sill
A social media strategy is essential to any major worldwide event in the 21st century. By the time the Olympics get here there will have been even more exponential growth in social media adoption and its hybridization with mainstream media. It’s a no-brainer for VANOC to now consider major Vancouver social media players as the press. Raincity, Miss604, et al are more than hyper-local citizen journalists. Their audience is world-wide, and I believe they have the experience and savvy to respectfully help solve any potential media rights issues. This IS the nature of journalism now.
November 25, 2008, 9:16 PM
Fantastic work by DaveO and Jeff in bringing this issue to light for many.
“No matter the delivery method, insightful writing and high-quality photography/audio/video always floats to the top regardless of the credentials of the creator.”
I know I’ll be covering it for my site regardless come 2010.
November 25, 2008, 9:58 PM
Great points, Dave, but I’d make one addition: “…the joint benefit of media makers, worldwide audiences and even the IOC and rights-holders.”
And athletes, of course.
November 26, 2008, 1:54 AM
Indeed Derek, there was been controversy about whether or not athletes can blog and what they can talk about. At the Opening ceremonies of recent Olympics, many athletes are taking photos, making video, live phone calls, etc.
What are they allowed to do with the footage they create? What happens if an athlete live-streams their experience from a camera phone (ask Roland how ;-))? Does it matter if they are streaming live to “just the folks back home”? Whose jurisdiction is this to enforce?
Remember many athletes performances’ never it make it to TV despite their best efforts, and many athletes’ families aren’t able to attend the Games and certainly want to feel part of the experience.
As Carol and Michelle point out, this “social” content is, by nature, made to be found by anyone, anywhere – and by an audience of enthusiasts who expect to interact with both the media and the makers.
When the Olympics call forth “the youth of the world to gather in four years …” in the closing ceremonies, they are also calling the youth as fans who aren’t reading newspapers nor be they want the plain ole’ TV coverage (which is geared to an older generation anyhow).
The youth expect a richer media choice and with diverse points of view. And they want coverage provided by people who they can relate to (like Rebecca ;-)), who are finding unique stories on the ground. Oh yeah, and they want it anytime they want.
NOTE: Original content removed/expired. Shared here in full for posterity and public good. Accessed from Archive.org Wayback machine.
2010 Olympics blowing too much smoke: athletes – Inside the 2010 Olympics (old link) By Jeff Lee
Inside The Olympics is Vancouver Sun reporter Jeff Lee’s following of the Olympic movement and the preparations for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
##
On the heels of its latest Sustainability report in which it outlined some of the reporting and tracking it is doing, the Vancouver Organizing Committee is getting a bit of a razz from Canadian athletes – including more than 70 top Olympic and national team athletes – who say it’s not doing enough.
On Thursday the athletes, through the David Suzuki Foundation, sent a letter to Vanoc CEO John Furlong saying the committee needs to stop studying and start acting on promises to make the 2010 Games totally carbon neutral.
What’s worth noting in this complicated story is that it turns out that for all its good efforts at being environmentally friendly, Vanoc is getting criticism for just how far it is willing – or actually not willing – to go.
The foundation did a report for Vanoc two years ago called “Meeting The Challenge” that showed the Games will produce 328,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and that the cost of offsetting that is in the range of $5 million. The tonnage includes all the gases produced from air travel generated by spectators, officials and media, the so-called “indirect” costs. That’s what being truly “carbon neutral” means, they say.
It turns out that Vanoc says it will offset the “direct” costs of the Games, including all the carbon diozide created by its travel, including sending executive team members to places like Europe and China. But it doesn’t intend to offset the indirect carbon generation created by spectators and the like.
It also says that its’ efforts go far beyond what other organizing committees have done in the past. Linda Coady, Vanoc’s vice-president of sustainability, said in an email last night that Vanoc is still working out a “carbon management program” and that details will be released at the World Conference on Sport and Environment in late March. That event is sponsored by the International Olympic Committee and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Coady says Vanoc put out an initial public forecast of indirect emissions but hasn’t begun formally reporting on them yet in their annual sustainability report. Here’s what Coady says in her email statement to me:
“The David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) has provided VANOC with advice on the carbon plan for the 2010 Games and their “Play it Cool” program and we value their input. We currently track and report our carbon footprint – both direct Games-based emissions and indirect emissions from air travel, based on advice provided by the DSF and other environmental organizations. VANOC’s commitment is to take responsibility for offsetting our direct emissions from the Games. We also agree that offsets used to neutralize the carbon footprint of the Games have to be highly credible. We plan to release further details on our carbon management program for the 2010 Games at the World Conference on Sport and Environment, March 29-31 in Vancouver. The IOC has convened this event in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).”
Regardless, that seems not to be adequate for athletes like snowboarder Justin Lamoureux, right,
who points out that if he and 500 NHL hockey players and soccer associations and others can offset their carbon footprints by buying gold-standard offsets at places like planetair.ca, so can Vanoc.
You can see Vanoc’s sustainability efforts here (and download the latest .pdf report here.)
The athletes’ letter is here. The David Suzuki Foundation’s Green Is The New Gold page is here.
The foundation has also linked a useful page on demystifying how to go carbon-neutral and just who in the sporting world is doing it. (And they’re clearly hoping to add Vanoc to that list, too.)
Independent Media Center and the year 2010 with Dave Olson
Dave talks about the early plans for an independent media center to support media makers from around the world. http://www.raincitystudios.com for more.
More videos from Jess socialsquared
Open Letter to VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations from Social Media Makers, by Dave Olson
Posted on 11 November 2008.
NOTE: Sent to VANOC {mediarelations@vancouver2010.com, pressoperations@vancouver2010.com} Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008.
Cross-posted at: urbanvancouver.com, 2010.dailyvancouver.com, nowpublic.com, etc.
Hello VANOC Media Relations and Press Operations,
I am writing today on behalf of Raincity Studios, a Vancouver-based social media company who owns and publishes a suite of media properties. We had hoped to talk about social media (blogs, podcasts, twitter, wikis etc.) at the World Press Briefing this week, however we did not receive any response from the applications we submitted to participate in the event. So, as per Mr. Furlong’s suggestion at the Vancouver Board of trade meeting last week, we are liaising with VANOC.
In brief, we’d like to have a conversation about how to allow fans and amateur media makers to document their Olympic experience while keeping out of the way of the IOC IP lawyers. As a company and as individuals, we’ve produced extensive, non-accredited coverage of Beijing 2008, Torino 2006, SLC 2002, and Nagano 1998. With the next games literally in our neighborhood, we’ll be hosting an independent, international media centre at our Gastown loft office. As part of this, we’ll organize events like photo walks and aggregate fan-made content for the enjoyment of a worldwide audience. We’d like to work with you to do this for mutual benefit.
As you likely know, Vancouver is a hub of innovative journalism with companies like ourselves, Now Public, and others plus renowned conferences like Northern Voice. Raincity Studios/Bryght is also an “official weblog service provider.” My colleagues Robert Scales and Kris Krug were published in the academic paper “Pathway: Critiques and Discourse In Olympic Research,” participated in the 9th International Symposium on Olympic Studies in Beijing and will be presenting about the experiences at the noted SXSW Interactive conference in 2009.
Among my colleagues and myself, we’ve posted thousands of photos, dozens of audio and video podcasts along with hundreds of blog posts, updates etc. from several Olympics. Additionally, we’ve cooperated with mainstream media and published Olympic-related coverage in the LA Times, BBC online, plus outlets in Poland, Brazil, Shanghai, and so on.
In Torino, Scales and Krug (and others) tested cutting edge equipment for Comvu and produced a cross-ocean symposium “Athletes and Social media” between Turin and Vancouver. In Beijing, they tested camera for Qik and contributed to many mainstream media outlets. Our own media properties include DailyVancouver.com, UrbanVancouver.com, Hockeynw.com, plus dozens of other presences, and we are allied with dozens of other media properties in BC and around the world.
Mr. Scales is China desk editor for Now Public and has presented to numerous international business groups about Olympics and business. Mr. Krug is ranked #4 on Vancouver Sun’s “Internet Most Visible in Vancouver” list, both Krug and Scales were included on Tech Vibes “Vancouver Digital Media People to Watch 2008″ list and appear on various other “best of” lists.
As for myself, I’ve produced extensive photo essays of event venues and published interviews with Canadian athletes like Duff Gibson, Ross Rebagliati and Crispin Lipscomb and written magazine articles about Olympians. I also appear on CBC Radio One discussing sports culture and new media as the producer/host of the Canucks Outsider podcast.
Bear in mind, aside form the occasional stipend, we do this work for no pay.
We are aware of your obligations to media rights holders and are seeking to provide an entirely different sort of coverage than the accredited media provide. We are not looking to cover events per se but are instead interested in covering the cultural stories, athletes’ families’ stories, and stories from fans who saved and traveled from around the world for this experience. In other words, we plan to encourage and aggregate fan coverage of the individual’s “on the street” experience of the Games. We are locals who have watched (and helped pay for) the development of the Games since before the Plebiscite – as a result, we are tuned in to the issues and excitement surrounding the Games.
To begin our liaison relationship, we would like to attend the media briefing portion of the Worldwide Press Briefing on Thursday. We would also schedule a follow-up conversation with the appropriate point of contact to discuss how we as a weblog vendor company, and as individuals, can be involved in providing amateur coverage of Vancouver/Whistler 2010.
With Best Regards,
daveo (and Robert Scales and Kris Krug)
–
Dave Olson
Community Evangelist
Raincitystudios.com
PS These links will provide a flavour of our point of view:
* Raincity Studios Olympics posts: http://raincitystudios.com/search/node/olympics
* Olympic overage at Daily Vancouver: http://2010.dailyvancouver.com
* Beijing kick off post: http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods/daveo/beijing-2008-social-media-backpack
* Krug’s Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/kk/tags/olympics
* Scales’ Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/raincitystudios/tags/olympics
* Olson’s Flickr Olympics photos: http://flickr.com/photos/uncleweed/tags/olympics
* You Tube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/robertscales
* Olympic Outsider podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/olympicoutsider
* Scales’ Olympic coverage on Now Public: http://my.nowpublic.com/user/6247/assignments
* SLC 2002 photo/video essay: http://olsonboys.org/galleries/olympic-gallery.html