My First Podcasting Attempt!

Just a quick note before I head out for a bit of short Christmas break--I have now posted my first podcasting bit over at the Podcamp Toronto blog (Episode #3). Sean McGaughey (ductapeguy) did the difficult bit, recording and editing. I did the show notes and posted it. Enjoy! Podcamp Toronto Podcast #3 - Introducing Connie Crosby: Unsuspect Podcaster Wannabe

Also, check out Mitch Joel's Six Pixels of Separation Episode #83 - The Yuletide Log Festivus Miracle Edition . I haven't listened to it yet, but looks like he picked up my comment from the streets of Toronto yesterday.

Cheers!

Best new cartoon from hugh macleod @ gapingvoid

Cool New Happenings in the Podcast World

I make note of some of the cool new happenings from the podcast world:

• It is the Canadian Podcast Buffet's 2nd anniversary! Not familiar with the Buffet? It is a regular update of the comings and goings of the Canadian podcaster community hosted by Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis. Congratulation, guys!!
• Speaking of which, the guys at the Buffet have started the shiny new Podcasting Wiki which is meant to help new podcasters learn how to podcast. The idea for the wiki came out of the recent Podcamp Ottawa. They are looking for input to the wiki from the podcaster community. Great job, folks!! I know *I'll* be using the new site.
• The second Podcamp Toronto has been set for February 23-24, 2008. I enjoyed it so much last time, I have signed up as an organizer! I know, call me crazy. But I really want to learn how these "camp" events are put together. If you have any questions about Podcamp, let me know. And hopefully I will see you there! At last year's Podcamp Toronto, Jim Milles and I did a presentation on "What to Podcast". The video of that talk is here and the PDF presentation is here.
• And speaking of Jim Milles, he and Kristina Lively have started my new favourite "couple cast" called The Shadow and James Show. They met in Second Life (where their names are James and Shadow respectively) and have now moved in together in real life. I love that, in their show, I get to hear about their day to day lives as well as adventures. They talk a lot about food, movies, music, and cats. Among other things! Congratulations on the new show Jim and Kristina. :-)
• And did you know that there is actually a talk show for librarians on the web? Greg Schwartz hosts Uncontrolled Vocabulary every Wednesday evening at 10 p.m. ET. People in the library community make note of articles or blog posts to discuss by tagging them with "unvocab" in the social bookmarking site del.icio.us . Greg then selects from the articles, using them as jumping-off points for discussion. The show is held in Talk Shoe and people dial in to talk "on the air". You can listen or participate in the call live, or listen to it later as it is recorded. This is a great way to keep up with issues generally surrounding the library industry. If you go back a few months ago you will even hear me in a past episode!
  
• If you don't want to dig around quite that much, you can also hear me on recent episode 78 of Six Pixels of Separation, the podcast from Montreal-based marketing agency Twist Image. I had called in with an audio comment, and host Mitch Joel aired it and also talked about me. Very exciting!
  

Well, my effort to infiltrate the podcasting community without actually doing any podcasting continues. LOL! To be honest, I have about 3 or 4 shows in my brain itching to come out. One of these days I will pick up the microphone, I promise. Then there will be no holding me back!

Namaste,
Connie

Daily Bread Food Bank - Law Firm Challenge

10000 maniacs:bread & circuses
Original photograph by visualpanic.
Some rights reserved under a Creative Commons licence.

Last year I reported on the 2006 Daily Bread Food Bank Law Firm Challenge, and a lot of people have been finding this blog in an effort to locate the page for the 2007 Challenge.

The Challenge is indeed running again, but I don't believe they have created a law firm-specific launch page for the event. Too bad, since seeing running totals for each firm really helped to drive the donation competition last year!

To find your firm and donate, go to the Holiday Challenge page and click on Click here to see if your group is registered .

I encourage you to give generously to this very worthy cause! Some details about the Daily Bread Food Bank and the Law Firm Challenge --

About the Daily Bread Food Bank
The Daily Bread Food Bank is Toronto's leader in the fight against hunger. Each month, they serve over 75,000 people in the GTA through their network of 160 member agencies and over 190 food relief programs. Member agencies run neighbourhood food banks where people come to access food hampers, as well as meal programs where people can access prepared meals such as soups or casseroles.

Law Firm Challenge
For the past several years, the articling students at Blakes have been coordinating the Law Firm Challenge in an effort to help raise money and food at this critical time of the year. The Challenge will be two-fold: a per capita competition, and an overall cumulative competition. Donations of food will be assigned a monetary value for the purposed of the challenge. MacLeod Dixon won in the donations per capita category last year, raising $208.10 per member of the firm, while McCarthy Tetrault won in the overall funds raised category, with a total of $28,610.60 in donations.

Update:
2009 Update
Slaw.ca - Holiday Law Firm Challenge: Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank (2009)

Canadian Law Blogs List by Steve Matthews

My buddy Steve Matthews has done it again! He is always coming up with very focussed, important ideas. He has taken the Canadian Law Blogs List which first saw light of day as a blog post a few years ago, and has given it a brand new home with its own domain. Brilliant!

You can now find it at http://www.lawblogs.ca .

And don't forget to visit his legal publisher new book titles feed site, http://www.legalpubs.ca .

I can't help but wonder what else he has up his sleeve....(if I hear of anything else I will let you know!)

Professional Learning Centre - New Social Networking Courses?

Hi folks! I regret not having more energy to blog these past several days. One distraction has been my course at the Professional Learning Centre at the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto -- Social Networking Tools: Hands on Learning It has been quite popular, to the point where I haven't even really had to promote it here on the blog.

The idea for the course came from Rebecca Jones who I ran into back in the spring en route to the Computers in Libraries conference. She envisioned a course wherein we play with a number of the "Web 2.0" tools in the morning, and then discuss the implications in the afternoon. You never know when opportunity will knock, my friends!

I took the ball and ran with it, creating a fun but intense survey course in which we set up a blog, wiki, feed aggregator account and social bookmarking account. We discuss uses of each and obstacles people would face in setting these up for use at their organizations. I also give a tour of some of the other tools including MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, LibraryThing and Second Life (I throw in some other tools depending upon the interests of the group).

We have run this class about 7 or 8 times since August, including a few times in Ottawa. I am just in the process of planning some additional dates for the spring. Thanks so much to everyone who has attended, for your enthusiasm, thoughfulness, and participation. Every class has been completely different, with a different mix of participant backgrounds and interests. You have kept me on my toes!!

The question is, where do we go from here? Eva Kupidura who coordinates the program has challenged me to add more courses to the roster. But what? Advanced questions in the class seem to centre around RSS feeds as well as wikis. Possibly a full course just on wikis would be a great next step. But what would be the issues we cover?

Please--what additional courses would you like to see me develop? What topics should they include? Would a full day in-person format work again, or something else?

Leave a comment here, or email me directly at conniecrosby at gmail.com . Thanks for your help!

Connie