“Mankind Is No Island” by Jason van Genderen

I was introduced to a short film recently that is original and unforgettable: “Mankind is No Island”, Directed by Jason van Genderen. My girlfriend had been shown it by a foreign student, who is learning English, and they both were brought to tears by its clear and universal message of empathy towards the homeless in our communities.

van Genderen uses images of words found on street signage throughout New York and Sydney, captured on a cell phone camera, to narrate his story. The films soundtrack consists of a haunting piano composition.

“Mankind is No Island” is a 3 ½ minute film that won the top prize at Tropfest NY 2008 this past September. Tropfest is the world’s largest short film festival and is held every spring in Sydney and fall in New York.

Tropfests’ mission is to “continue to develop the most exciting forum in the world for audiences to come together and celebrate premium short films; and to continue to offer young filmmakers a bigger and better platform from which to launch their professional careers.”

According to the official announcement of the winner for Tropfest NY 2008, the entire budget for “Mankind is No Island” was $57. Very impressive.

Listen to an interview of Jason van Genderen regarding his film.

The Trent Reznor Case Study by Michael Masnick

Here is a presentation given by Mike Masnick, President & CEO of Floor 64 and Editor of TechDirt, this past January at the 2009 midem Conference held in Palais des Festivals Cannes.

Masnick dissects and analyses the current business model being used by Trent Reznor of Nine In Nails and makes a case of how Reznor is creating the business model for the future of the music industry. Despite allowing free high quality downloads of his music and concert footage, encouraging fans to alter his work without fear of legal action, Reznor manages to make money. In essence, Reznor has created a business model that works.

Masnick sums up Reznors business model in a simple formula:

CwF + RtB = $$$

and he offers two explanations of this formula:

Connect with Fans = Compete with Free
Reason to Buy = Return to Business

“…rather than focusing on complaining about pirates and worrying about new technologies, (ed. Reznor is actually) focusing on how to put together a business model that works.”

The high level take away from this is that Reznor continues to connect with his fans no matter what the cost of his product and achieves this by always insuring value in his communication with them.

Learning a New Language

Recently I decided to try and learn a new language, Russian. After several failed attempts at Language CD’s & “for Dummies” books, the Cyrillic (кириллица) alphabet doesn’t translate well into print, I stumbled across an iphone application; Russian Alphabet by Andre Khromov.

One could say that this is just no more than a digital version of flash cards but I think this is pretty ground breaking for language education. Its functionality allows you listen to a voice pronounce the letter, lets you rate your answers and with the help of a progress tracking system, repeats the letters you are having trouble learning.

I can honestly say that I have learned more from this $1.99 application than the $70+ I invested in CD’s and books. Also, I can now say I’ve been introduced to the mystery which is the Russian letter “Й”, pronounced “ee kratkaya.”

Like I said, the Cyrillic alphabet doesn’t translate well into print.

To learn more about the iphone application Russian Alphabet by Andre Khromov, visit the itunes store.

Kids Help Phone :: Coordinator, National Marketing – Toronto

Title: Coordinator, National Marketing
Type: Full Time, one year contract
Location: National Office
Reports to: Director, Marketing
Application Deadline: March 16, 2009

Accountabilities:

Advertising and Creative (30%)

• Coordinates, with the Director, Marketing, the development of all national and regional advertising and creative to achieve organizational priorities
• Liaises with vendors, suppliers, developers and designers to ensure consistency with the Brand and Graphic Standards Guidelines
• Secures pro bono advertising space in appropriate mediums across Canada that is consistent with the overall marketing plan
• With Graphic Designer, responds to all last-minute donations of advertising space and supports regional requests for local advertising opportunities
• Coordinates the inventory, printing and delivery of Kids Help Phone collateral and marketing materials (tv, radio, print, outdoor, online, videos)
• Develops the donor thank and recognition program materials for the organization
• Ensures that all staff and volunteers are aware of the marketing tools available to them
• Keeps the Organization Website, Internal Staff Showroom and Document Library up to date with the latest advertising and creative for internal and external downloads or requests
• Develops and maintains the Annual DVD of all PSAs and Videos, including dubs and distribution
• Ensures all marketing is effectively adapted in French

Partner Program Management (30%)

• Support the Director, Marketing in the development of the annual partner action plans for various media, marketing, public education and celebrity partners
• Evaluates new potential supporters, proposals and opportunities and considers fund development potential
• Tracks all partner contacts and activity in Raiser’s Edge software, including Gift-in-Kind donations of advertising, services or product
• Maintains healthy relationships with assigned partnerships (media, marketing, celebrities, public education and/or government) while supporting all other partner relationships
• Ensures our partners receive appropriate recognition consistent with Kids Help Phone’s recognition program (orders donor thank and recognition program materials specific to partner objectives)
• Preparation of all partner meetings (agendas, proposals, booking meetings etc)
• Prepares content for the website, staff bulletins and/or newsletters on various partner activities
• Support Director, Marketing in providing marketing expertise to Annual Giving Programs to achieve acquisition and fund development goals

School Mailing Program (30%)

• Coordinates the mailing of our marketing materials to all schools across Canada
• Ensure the materials are delivered and distributed in a timely, cost effective manner
• Tracks the annual school mailing budget and expenses
• Conducts surveys and analysis of overall program
• Coordinates the ongoing detailed reporting and measurement of the activity (by region, by city, by language etc)
• Ensures the public ordering system (www.kidshelpphone.ca/materials )is current and relevant for teachers and educators
• Coordinates the printing of all school mailing components

Research and Measurement (5%)

• Support Director, Marketing to undertake formal and informal research to better understand our key target audiences
• Provide reports on all key marketing activities

Budget and Administration (5%)

• Provide administration support to other Marketing and Communications staff as needed
• Maintain spreadsheet of annual marketing expenses

Qualifications Required:

• Minimum 3 years of experience in advertising and media
• Experience in writing for the web
• Strong relationship management skills
• Experience with production processes
• Excellent MS Office skills (Powerpoint, Excel, Word) e-marketing and/or e-fundraising experience
• e-marketing and/or e-fundraising experience
• Degree in Marketing preferred
• Experience using Raiser’s Edge software preferred
• A demonstrated commitment to the volunteer sector or volunteerism preferred
• Experience in both the corporate and community sectors preferred
• Bilingual English and French preferred

Contact Information:  jobs@kidshelpphone.ca

Sapien Information Services :: Oracle Database Administrator / Developer

Title: Oracle Database Administrator / Developer
Department: IT Managed Services/Business Intelligence
Reports to: Director, IT Managed Services
Status: Full Time

Headquartered in Toronto, Sapien Information Services is a leading provider of hosted services and next generation applications for interactive marketing, business intelligence, customer data integration and communications. Our energetic team of senior strategic thinkers and technical consultants provides ground breaking analytical business and customer intelligence data solutions and communications tools for major high profile clients, in a variety of industries.

We have exciting growth plans for the business and are looking for dynamic professionals to help us make our plans a reality. If you are an energetic and self-motivated professional who is passionate about pushing the boundaries of your own knowledge and expertise, talk to us about growing yourself and your career.

We have a welcoming culture and a reputation for accountability and innovation. Our diverse projects, fun environment and passion for our customers will enable you to contribute your ideas, affect change and grow your personal sphere of influence. We are presently looking for a Oracle Database Administrator / Developer to join our team.

Position Mandate
This function is responsible for supporting large Oracle Databases in an efficient, timely and error-free manner. The resource will be responsible for the installation, configuration, administration, maintenance, and support of multiple databases in production, staging and development environments. Additionally, the individual will be responsible for data modeling, performance tuning and on-going monitoring, as well as for providing support to development teams and to develop new or maintain existing programs.

Key Responsibilities

• Work as primary DBA with production databases, ensuring their optimum performance, high availability and security.
• Perform Oracle installations, monitoring, tuning and capacity planning
• Develop procedures and processes to support common business objects within an N-Tiered architecture
• Work with individuals across the organization to build requirements and architect solutions to support business requirements
• Develop data models and lead SQL development for client projects
• Document code and design support documentation
• Participate in establishing project plans and estimating work
• Participate in the application functional design process

Specific Technology Skills

• Bachelors Degree required, preferably in Computer Science, or an equivalent combination of education and experience
• At least 5 years of previous/proven experience as Oracle DBA
• At least 5 years of previous/proven experience in Oracle PLSQL development
• At least 5 years of previous/proven experience in Database and Data Warehouse design and development including Data Mart structures and SQL coding
• Experience with CRM and marketing data warehouse implementations
• Experience providing support for disaster recovery exercises (or actual disaster recoveries)
• Experience with OLAP tools required. Knowledge of Oracle OLAP, Discovery and Reporting tools
• Must be efficient in Oracle PLSQL and TSQL programming
• Thorough working knowledge of Oracle Database Servers 9i, 10g and 11g, PLSQL, Oracle Application Server with Portal, Discoverer, Oracle Reports, MS SQL and MySQL databases
• Working knowledge of ETL tools and experience with Oracle Warehouse Builder
• Knowledge of statistics and data mining is a plus

Performance Skills

• This individual will be a team leader
• Strong customer service skills
• Demonstrated problem determination, analysis and resolution skills
• Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills
• Decision Making: Must be able to properly prioritize projects and problems according to established guidelines

Communication Skills

• Communicate with account team and internal customers to define/clarify business requirements.
• Communicate changing status of projects to production or project manager and internal customers on a timely basis.
• Communicate status and escalate problems as necessary according to defined guidelines.
• Work and communicate in a professional, team environment with other IT staff members. 

Qualified Candidates are asked to send their resumes to careers@dthree.com.
Please, no phone calls or faxes. Only those selected for interviews will be contacted.

VSA Partners Interview Sol Sender

Sol Sender, as principal of the design agency Sender LLC, led the team that developed the defining symbol of the Obama 2008 campaign.

In a 2 part interview on the VSA Partners web site, Sender tells the story of conception and birth of the Obama ’08 logo, including the strategy behind it, developmental concepts and finalist designs for the identity not chosen by
the campaign.

Click here & enjoy!

Design at Work Exhibit: December 15, 2008 – January 16, 2009

Design at Work Exhibit
Urban Space Gallery (beside SWIPE Books)
401 Richmond St W, Toronto

RGD Ontario presents the 2008 Design at Work Exhibit, a juried exhibit of professional graphic design demonstrating how design creates value for business.

For more information on Design at Work 2008, click here.

Mesh Conference: April 7th & 8th, 2009

Mesh Conference 2009 tickets have gone on sale.

Mesh promotes itself as Canada’s leading web conference. 2008’s conference featured Daniel Burka (the creative director of Digg), Kevin Hale (Wufoo) and Avi Bryant (Dabble DB) as speakers.

It will be held April 7th & 8th, 2009 at

MaRS Centre, South Tower
101 College Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5G 1L7

For more information: http://www.meshconference.com

To register: https://www.inviteright.com/main.php