You Can Locate Me at the Canadian Wireless Trade Show

I'm speaking this week at the Canadian Wireless Trade Show in Toronto. My presentation, called "Positioning the User in Mobile Locative Applications", is at 2:00 pm, October 29th. 

Here's what I'll be talking about:

The locative functionality of mobile devices is enabling more people to connect to the spaces in which we live, work, and do business. Based on my doctoral research, I will discuss how people are using location-based services to access geographically relevant content for commerce and pleasure. As this technology continues to evolve, this seminar will help attendees to consider the interplay of technology, people, and place and how this may apply to their organization.

The conference is held at the Toronto Congress Centre.

Even better, there is no admission fee. So track me down there and we can connect about our mutual love of mobile devices.


Update: Here's my slide deck of my presentation.

Returning to Toronto's Tech Centre for Mobile HCI Conference

I spent much of this week at a tech conference at the Hyatt hotel on Toronto's King Street near Toronto. I haven't been to this hotel for many years, since the height of the dot.com era. The hotel was a Holiday Inn back then. There wasn't much else of note in this area except parking lots and a few restaurants. Back then this former "fashion district" was increasingly populated by tech startups filling the old smallrise buildings left by banished furriers.

The first two jobs I had in the tech sector were within a few blocks of the hotel so we had all-staff meetings at the hotel a few times. Where TIFF is now was a parking lot that I shortcutted through to work.

A business association formed in this area, called SpadinaBus, to foster the nascent Internet sector companies and workers. Pre dot.bomb there were big events and great tech work being done within about 10 blocks of this area. SpadinaBus reached its last stop in the early 2000s along with the Internet crash. Since then Toronto's tech sector (and Canada even) has become decentralized (and less extravagant in their parties).

Now I'm back here for an international tech conference and it was both strange and nostalgic.

The conference was Mobile HCI, an ACM conference about front-end mobile innovation. I volunteered at the conference so I didn't get to attend many sessions, but there were some excellent work. It was the best organized (and cattered) academic conference I have ever attended (which made conference volunteering actually a pleasant experience for the first time).

As with many academic conferences, the presenters are not the most engaging (to put it mildly and politely). I would also have liked to see more of an emphasis on the human dimensions of innovations presented - i.e. more "H" of "HCI". I also think that there needs to be a better mix of methodology - more qualatative data would have helped demonstrated the value and dimensions of the innovations presented.

The conference papers are made available freely for a year. Here are the proceedings.

There was an insipring keynote, Collective Mobile Interaction in Urban Spaces,  by Amahl Hazelton of Moment Factory from Quebec, outlining his organization work of digital, multimedia art and entertainment installations.

Here are my favourite work presented at the conference (with a link to the paper).

• Identity, Identification & Identifiability: The Language of Self-presentation on a Location-based Mobile Dating App by Birnholtz, Fitzpatrick, Handel & Brubaker


• Understanding Localness of Knowledge Sharing: A Study of Naver KiN 'Here'
  by Park, Kim, Lee, & Ackerman


• Was It Worth the Hassle?: Ten Years of Mobile HCI Research Discussions on Lab and Field Evaluations by Kjeldskov & Skov


• ReviewCollage: A Mobile Interface for Direct Comparison Using Online Reviews by Jin, Sakai, & Yatani
• Polly: "Being There" Through the Parrot & a Guide by Kratz, Kimber, Su, Gordon, & Severns
• Narratives: Geolocative Cinema Application by Nagler, Hicks, Hackett, & Zachkarko

The highlight for me, however, was the workshop lead by Martha Ladly on locative mapping and geo-targetted storytelling - as I covered in my blog post, Putting Toronto on the Locative Map, earlier this week.

It was great to hear about some inspiring work happening in my field and returning to the site where my tech career began.

Digital Media Summit ReView

Yesterday was the second and final day of the Digital Media Summit conference in Toronto. I recapped my highlights from the first day of the conference on Webslinger and the Twitter feed has useful highlights as well.

Some speakers on the second day overlapped with material covered on the first day. But this helped drive home key themes raised in various sessions. Overall, however, it was an excellent conference. Here are my favourite take-aways:

1. Consider mobile first
2. Create social objects
3. Context is crucial 
4. Recruit your customers to work for you
5. Identity matters

1) Consider mobile first
With the exponential global adoption of smartphones, more people are accessing digital content predominantly through mobiles and this is expected to increase.  There will be a role for desktop computers (as one speaker noted "who has ever created, let alone used, a spreadsheet on their mobile?" - no one had). But more people are using their mobiles to access company's content - several properties represented at the conference are already receiving more traffic from mobiles than PCs.

Yet accessing content via mobiles is often difficult, messy, or impossible to access via mobiles. Several speakers advised that instead of trying to retrofit all web content to mobiles, which is what most companies do, consider building for mobiles first.

To do this effectively, Erik Qualman, pointed out the 80/20 rule applies to mobile - so 80% of a company's value will come from 20% of their online content, so "scale down your offerings to the essentials" to optimize the mobile experience (and likely the web too)/

2) Create brand awareness and engagement with social objects
Although no one used the term "social objects" the concept came up several times. Social objects are pieces of online content - videos, articles, photos, games - upon which people are drawn to, organically share and discuss. Think of the latest kitten video featured on YouTube's homepage and you got a social object.

Mark McKay presented Ford's Zombie Escape commercial, which is an excellent example of this. Of course zombie videos are going to go viral like well a zombie epidemic, but what I liked about this campaign is it actually tied into the product features it was promoting. As McKay urged it's important with such campaigns to be "relevant and differentiated" in addition to "shareable".

3) Context is crucial
As the ability to customize digital media continues to become easier and cheaper to produce, it's crucial to consider the context of your audience and deliver content and experiences relevant to their habits and motivations.

As Nicola Smith advises, "context should drive execution" and to demonstrate this Smith used the example of a German pet food company that placed poster dispensers by parks where people walked their dogs with instructions to check-in via Foursquare. They then got a free sample of a new pet food. I find this campaigns works on a few levels - obviously, it's a fun and memorable campaign. But more importantly, it delivers the brand engagement and sampling where and when it is most relevant to people.

Context is also important not only in content but in media form - whether tablet, PCs, mobile, etc. Katrina Klier urged that it is crucial to get "the right modality and the right time".

4) Recruit your customers to work for you
I'm not sure if blogger relations and "brand ambassadors" campaigns are the topic-du-jour for marketers but this came up a lot at the conference. This isn't something particularly relevant to my work, but I did find one tip on this particularly interesting.

For companies wanting to reach a global audience, tapping into people's social networks offers an opportunity.  Katrina Klier noted that most people have at least one of a few international friends on social networks sites, so whether people know it or not they have a global footprint.  She also mentioned that the average Facebook user has 359 friends - so tapping into this extends one's reach incredibly. (But is that statistic true? If so, I'm clearly a real loner.)

5) Identity matters - know your audience and help them know themselves
Although I only heard the issue of identity raised once, by Alfredo Tan of Facebook, I think it is a vital issue.

First, there's the aspect of knowing the true identities of your online audience. Tan raised the famous comic of the dog at a computer saying to another dog "on the Internet no one knows your a dog". Well, not true anymore says Tan due to Facebook - as they have the true identity of 1 billion people. This is a significant marketing opportunity.

Tan also talked about how social objects give people the opportunity to shape their identity around digital content. They like products/things to project an image of themselves to their friends. So learn about your customers and consider "why they care and why they share".

Final review
I mentioned yesterday how much I appreciated how well run the conference was and the choice of venue.  I forgot to mention that I really liked the staging of the conference.  The main conference room, which housed the keynotes, had the best stage and audio-visual set-up I have ever encountered.  The use of multi-screens allowed for the speakers and their slides to be displayed, which is great for big conference - but rarely done.

The set and lighting also looked great!  It's great to to not always have Toronto tech conferences seeming low rent - which I think projects poorly on the vitality and maturity of our industry.

View from the Digital Media Summit

I haven’t been to an industry conference in a long while, so it was refreshing to move from (generally stuffy) academic conferences to hear about the invigorating realm of digital media in the real world at today's Digital Media Summit in Toronto.

This is the second year of the conference, which runs in collaboration with Canadian Music Week. This was my first time attending the Digital Media Summit, which bills itself as "Canada's social media and iterative conference".  Well, Mesh has some claim to that title and over the years there are have been more such events here in Toronto.  But one day into the conference and it seems to me that the organizers of this event have arranged the best keynote speakers and implemented an effective format.

First off, the format of the conference is much more effective than most – very short speaker intros, short speeches, and a short time for Q&As. And no death by PowerPoint!

The facilities were great too. Too many conference organizers think this doesn't matte, but comfy chairs, enough seating for everyone, and free Wifi are vital to successful conference. The only thing missing was swag! Having been to a ton of conferences I also appreciate how well run things were as sessions started and ended mostly on time (no easy accomplishment).

The speakers were for the most part excellent. Yes, there were a few times when speakers would rehash old  and well-known platitudes and cases (e.g. I'm REALLY tired about hearing the "United Breaks Guitars" example). But there were many provocative, insightful, and invigorating  points made. I can't do justice to everything covered without writing a tome of a blog post that would have me writing it until tomorrow morning as when the conference resumes

So instead, I'll summarize the main points I found particularly interesting.

A Panorama of the Ten Best Views:

1. Amber Mac – ABCs of social media – Adapt Quickly, Be Responsive, and Create Value (here's her presentation).

2. Bryan Segal - Need to move away from Click Through Rate to “viewable impressions” which is reach X frequency that offers “opportunity to see”.

3. Erik Qualman - All companies should write a “Listening Report” that is 1-2 pages long that analyzes what is being said about companies and competition on social media. Can draw from automated metrics but must be hand-written to contextualize the stats.

4. Erik Qualman – organizations need to be aware of their Digital Legacy.  This is their Digital Footprints (what you post about yourself) plus your Digital Shadow (what others people post about you) – both live a long time (forever) online.

5. David Reis - when one of his clients had a image crisis situation, they issued their comments on this in one place, their Facebook page. Rather than respond everywhere on the web, they directed people to Facebook page and allowed people to comment there.  This gave some measure of control and allowed them after a few weeks as the hubbub calmed down to remove the content.

5. Sarah Dawley - the key to generating user-generated content for an organization is to find out what your customers/audience are already doing, and get them to do it on your behalf  - not in a controlling way, but offer amplification, shine your spotlight back on them.

6. Cindy Gallop - on noting that essentially people go online for "little pellets of love" - that is an indication of some sort of appreciation, admiration, acknowledgement, etc. But although I agree with this (and would add people go online for little pellets of self-love too) it seems that when companies try to offer this they are insincere so I asked her how companies can offer sincere, personal and scalable love pellets. She replied that the only way to do this is for organizations to become high-trust companies (most are low-trust) that work with employees and trust them to respond accordingly.

7. Lana Gay - You need to respond to issues that arise online but it is essential to "think twice, tweet once". She advises that although digital is real-time, it's a good idea often to wait maybe 20 minutes before posting something. Lana also commented on the biggest problems with recruiting brand ambassadors to blog about your company is what made them appealing in the first place - their topic focus, their style - get's lost as people begin to shill for dollars, Too many influencer campaigns result in bloggers saying "I love shoes" and then they switch to  "Now I love eggs"!  It's  insincere and ineffective.

8. Jennifer Dunn - her session on hyperlocal targetted advertising was my favourite - not only is her work up my alley, but her campaigns are among the few geo-targetted ad campaigns that I have had heard of that have been successful.  I believe her success lies in that Dunn learned that in geo-targetted marketing proximity is not the only, paramount, or possibly any consideration.  Location of the user does matter, but so do other factors such as environment, time, and demographics. People's wants and needs change throughout the day, based on their contexts, time, and place. Dunn presentation was loaded with so much novel, inspiring work that I plan to devote a full blog post to it at a later date (stay tuned).

9. Ryan Holiday - it's not a good idea to outsource social media interaction as delivering an organization's message to customers is the most important aspect of business. No agency will do a better job - or care as much - about this as you!

10. Ryan Holiday - too many English Canadian websites try to appeal to an American audience (no doubt to broaden their audience as our domestic audience is so comparatively small). Yet, from an advertiser's perspective they have not uniquely captured and segmented the Canadian market, which is what they want. There are a ton of competitors for the U.S. space, but if can't distinguish your Canadian audience then your site is actually worth less.

As lengthy as this post is, it is a small snapshot of the genuinely useful and novel information shared today.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow...

Tips for Conference Posters

This week I attended iConference 2012 and they had an impressive and extensive display of academic posters. Of all the conferences I've been to, I found this conference had the most effective posters. As the conference was for information schools (iSchools), it is not surprising that presenters would know how to effectively display information visually and succinctly.

While viewing the posters, I made mental notes of what was effective and what was not:

Poster Design

• Posters displayed as mini research papers (e.g. with sections for abstract, intro, lit review, method, findings, conclusions, references) were overwhelming too read and dull  - I think this format is best for the proceedings publication but the poster itself should consider the demands of the visual medium
• Standard graphic design principles apply (e.g. font, colour, spacing, whitespace, etc.)
• Consider the unique design needs for posters - e.g. large font size, easy to read, unique, etc.
• Colour is essential to make the poster appealing and attract attention - not too many though more than one colour is needed but probably not more than 3-4 (including shades)
• Limit content to 2-3 points
• Key message should be in a call-out and placed prominently - it's better when it's short and not a full abstract
• Images should not be eye candy, but reflect the content of the study
• Include your contact information - i.e. email address and website (I was surprised by how many people did not include this)
• References - lots of posters didn't have these and the ones that did it took up a lot of space that wasn't useful for attendees. If they can be omitted or referred to a website for them, I think the space can be much better used
• Moratorium needed on word clouds - I estimate that a third of posters included them. They seem trite now and aren't an effective way (e.g. legibility issues) to present main themes

Supporting Material
Take-aways for attendees are a great way to ensure that people will actually follow-up with you or read the work in more detail.  As posters are available for display outside of the official presentation hours, it is a great idea to have them pinned near or on your poster (bring extra pins for these). Take-aways can include:

• Print-out of the poster (full colour is better)
• Business cards
• Postcards of the project

Presentation

• One of the main points of posters is to provide a means to connect with others interested in your work, so it's important to actually be present during the designated poster presentations (surprisingly at an iConference's poster session some presenters were not there for the entire two hours)
• Show up early, I went half an hour before the designated time and there were a fair number of people who were also there early - this is a great time to stand out and talk to people before the hoard  arrives

Miscellany

•  Consider adding interactivity or multimedia to your poster as a way to standout and offer supporting content - this is particularly effective outside of the official session presentation as people have more time (and quiet) to spend on the posters.  Two techniques I found effective at iConference, were push-button audio clips of interview excerpts and tablets running a demo of the project software.

The University of Leichester has a really good, in-depth tutorial on posters and Colorado State University has a useful poster guide

I'm hoping to present a poster in the next year, so I'd love to hear other people's tips here!

I, Conference iConference

Today was the last day of iConference 2012. The conference, geared to topics of interest to iSchools (i.e. Information studies), was hosted by my school, University of Toronto, Faculty of Information. When I wasn't volunteering, I was able to attend several sessions. This post captures my ramblings as I make sense of my first foray into iConferences and immersion in the iSchool movement.

Conference vibe
Having not been to any other iConferences, I'm not sure what is typical of their nature or this particular instance. As a smallish conference for a defined body, it had a collegial feel. This was a welcome relief from more vast and impersonal conferences. The organizers did a great job encouraging the collegial feel from such touches as name tags that presented one's name as most important and a welcome reception complete with ice-breaker games and signature cocktails.

Venue
Recaps of conferences often fail to account for the venue. In my mind and body, venue is as important as the content. I'm hoping that in my small way I can convince (or shame) conference organizers and venues to care about this. The conference facilities at Toronto's downtown Marriott was overall quite good. The conference rooms were comfortable and they had a nice central area, dubbed the Living Room, with comfy seats, food, ample (free) coffee, and art installations. It was a great spot to hang out - surprisingly, most venues I've been to lack such space. I also like how the Marriott is centrally-located (even if I hard time finding the passage from the Eaton Centre and spent awkward amount of time walking around Sears' lingerie section until I found it). Even for in-town attendees, let alone for foreign visitors, it is important to be near amenities instead of at a desolate, entrapping conference centre. My only complaints were that the rooms were a little airless (typical) and even though there was free wi-fi, there were difficulties connecting to it and cell networks.

Sessions
Between my volunteering duties and childcare limits, I missed a lot of sessions that I would have liked to have attended. And some sessions were not up my alley. But I greatly appreciated that the conference had a variety of session types - paper sessions, workshops, panels, posters, jams, world cafe and fishbowl discussions. I wish more conferences would mix things up like this.

I would also like to emphatically state at this time how hugely inappropriate it is for people to "present" by reading (often in a monotone) their paper in its entirety. Reading aloud at a conference is as out of place as going to a restaurant to sleep on a table. It is disdainful of the audience and pointless (other than to add it to one's c.v.) and I am peeved at how tolerated (encouraged?) it is in academia.

Rather than recount every session, I'll briefly highlight the main concepts and take-aways:

Positive design - Mary Beth Rosson raised this as a fruitful approach to design that builds upon what a medium enables rather than dwelling on overcoming its constraints. For example, online conversation may not have all the visual clues of face-to-face, but it is easily archivable and searchable. So it helps to consider under what circumstances these benefits are desired and plan around that.

User-defined success - an interesting way to think about the "success" of behaviour observed online or elsewhere is to use the metrics reflective of people's goals. I've seen program evaluation that has this component, but I don't believe this concept is as widespread as it should be in academia or industry. For more on this, read the paper presented by Christopher Mascaro Not Just a Wink and Smile: An Analysis of User-Defined Success in Online Dating (co-authors Rachel Magee & Sean Goggins)

Visual research - there was an interesting panel that examined different methods to solicit research on a concept (see Jenna Hartel's What is Information). I believe that methods that rely on people to textually account for their thoughts and behaviour are limited, as are reductionist surveys and experiments. It's interesting to consider other ways of soliciting participants' ideas - in this case Hartel used drawings, but I think photography, collage, clay, performance, or cultural probes would generate invaluable insight.

Commenting on news websites - Mary Cavanagh studied user comments on news sites.
Among her findings, she found comments used by people for: informing, contesting, criticising, elaborating, questioning, asserting, ampliyfing, mocking, learning, and re-framing. I asked her whether she observed a "community" among these sites' users and although she noted elements of "we-ness", inter-poster conversation and familiarity, she's reluctant to consider it cohesive and reoccurring enough to be a community.

Information browsing versus information seeking - as Jenna Hartel and panellists pointed out, there tends to be a focus on information seeking as rational and expedient, neglecting the role of pleasure and play. The term information browsing helps to capture the elements of affect, embodiment, and serendipity in information use.

Map-based search
Microsoft Research was a sponsor of iConference 2012, so they were there promoting their new products. I was really impressed with their Academic Map search tool. By selecting an academic area and a location on the map, one can easily see clusters of research and click on an individual researcher. They are currently limited to 14 very broad areas (e.g. "Social Sciences") but in talking to the rep. there are plans to refine these categories, which would make it much more useful.

Benefits of locative media
Topics directly related to my research interests were unfortunately limited to one poster, Does the Use of Place Affect Learner Engagement? The Case of GeoStoryteller on the Streets of New York, but it was excellent. The project used locative media, with an optional augmented reality component, to deliver information about the history of Germans in NYC. What I found particularly encouraging is that the researchers, Anthony Cocciolo and Debbie Rabina, found that such applications effectively used place and technology to improve learning engagement. As they note: "This engagement is the result of discovering new information about familiar surroundings using standard mobile user interfaces (lists, maps, videos), and not from more novel user interfaces (augmented reality)".

I would have liked to have seen sessions along this line at iConference, but it offers a panoramic snapshot of work going on in iSchools. It will be interesting to see if mobile user experience, geoinformatics, location-based services or locative media feature more prominently at the next iConference in Fort Worth, Texas.

Locative Media Innovation Day

Bill Buxton opened a half-day conference on locative media this past Friday at Toronto International Film Festival's (TIFF) new building, by noting that it is not just realtors anymore asserting the importance of location, location, location.

Considering the importance of location and my propensity to begin conference recaps by discussing the event location, I would like to say that TIFF is the best conference venue in Toronto. It was my first time attending an event at TIFF's headquarters in downtown Toronto (although I did attend their Tim Burton exhibition and blogged about their use of QR codes). Their building, the Bell Lightbox, is located on the spot I used as a shortcut to my first ever Internet job. Formerly a lacklustre parking lot, it is now a centre of cinematic and new media culture.

Unlike other conference venues, TIFF's seats are comfortable and the leg room is fine. I find it hard (and boring) to sit still and silently for hours and listen to people talk at me, but it's even more difficult when the seats cause excruciating pain. The event was filled to capacity, which made it a bit stuffy and hot - but it was worth it to see so many people interested in locative media. 

The conference is a joint event between TIFF Nexus series on new media and Toronto's Digifest, a week long conference and celebration of digital innovation. Considering this broad mandate, there were a few speakers that strayed from the locative media focus, but the innovations presented were incredible so I didn't mind. Attendees represented a good mix of developers, artists, producers, educators, students, researchers, and vendors. This mix is so much more rewarding than most other conferences attempt to assemble.

Bill Buxton a principal researcher at Microsoft opened the event by noting that intelligence of technology lies not so much in the innovation itself but in its context. "I don't care about technology" he stated, "it a utilitarian thing that can be easily discarded". The important consideration is the fundamental human behaviour or need that technology enables. He cited an automatic door opener as being a prime example of intelligent technology - not because it is technically sophisticated (it isn't) but because of its "embedded intelligence". Its intelligence comes from where it is and how well it fits into the ecology of the physical system. As such, locative media creators should not get wrapped up on new abilities of a technology, but rather consider the different dimensions of human behaviour. For one, closeless is not necessarily physical proximity, Buxton noted. There are different types of closelessness such as proximity but also emotional, cultural, and relational bonds, as well as intermediaries or physical impediments that all affects closeness. So assuming that physical proximity is the lead or only factor for locative media may lead to technology that doesn't serve the needs of users.

The next speaker, Richard Lachman of Ryerson University, offerred some foundational concepts of locative media. As the term locative media is used rather nebulously, Lachman offers a definition that locative media is "annotating physical space with digital content". To Lachman, technology such as augmented reality, location based services, and QR codes are examples of locative media. I can see the importance of having consistency in terminology, but I wonder if the content being digital is a fundamental criteria. As I have blogged about before, there are many types of technology or media that annotate physical space, from plaques and posters to graffiti and flags. There are commonalities between these older media and digital media. I don't like to extend a term to the point of meaningless and Lachman's digital focus is consistent with contemporary usage, but I think this exclusive digital focus makes it easy for creators to forget the lessons learned from earlier efforts and to not adequately consider how a new technology is offering something new or improved.

Lachman continued to explain other fundamental qualities of locative media by offering examples of current innovations. Proximity can be personally useful in some imaginative ways, he demonstrated by showcasing iNap, an application to wake up sleepy commuters when they pass a predesignated zone so they won't miss their stop. Discovery Channel's SharkRunner is particularly interesting in how it combines game play with the real-world by having users interact with real GPS-tagged sharks. Citing the case of Nicaragua invading Costa Rica based on faulty Google Maps data, Lachman also cautioned about the need for applications to preserve our trust. Accuracy is not the only element of trust that is essential, as privacy concerns of locative media can also be disconcerting as the new technology is in wide use "before we had time to adapt our social practices or norms". Lachman described how locative media can not only offer push content (content that pops out at you based on your location) or pull content (geolocated data that one selects to receive) but can be an interface to our world. To do this we need to consider awareness, expectations, user experience, values, and design.

The creator of murmur, one of the world's first digital locative media projects, Shawn Micallef spoke next about why he feels locative media has something special to offer.  Upon moving to a new city (in his case Toronto), he realized that  his "mental map of the city had a lot of dark spots". He wanted to uncover these "mental hinterlands" and found that exploring the city as earlier psychogeographers had done enabled him to form relations to his new spaces. He also began tweeting while he explored the city and received tweets back within moments that offered personal experiences or histories of his location that enriched Micallef's understanding of the place. His project murmur is now in 25-30 cities and will be soon relaunching with GPS ability. Micallef cautions that current locative media applications such as Foursquare really need to examine the value of place. To Micallef, Foursquare is mostly spam as he doesn't care where someone is but it is people's more thoughtful and unique relations to place that are interesting.

After speaking, Micallef introduced a series of locative media creators describing their projects. Incredible projects were presented such as Ghostbusters, a location-based game; Sauga 2030, a futuristic tour of Mississauga, Ontario; Sousveiller, participatory surveillance identification; This Dark Encounter, a marketing effort using real world, bookstore interaction to promote a new book; and Rocket Radar, proximal public transit schedule updates.

Adam Schwabe of Rocket Radar effectively summed up the role locative media projects must play to offer the "right information, at the right time, in the right way". Schwabe, however, doesn't believe in users setting up preferences or customization, he believes that is a lazy solution for developers. Instead, he believe it is paramount to build a system that should know about the user and get it right the first time.

I mentioned earlier that I loved the location of this conference, the other great thing about TIFF is they computer labs on site so they were able to offer a round of hands-on workshops. I also mentioned that I find it boring to sit and be spoken to for hours on end, so these workshops were a welcome technique.

I attended a session allowing me to create my own augmented reality work through SnapDragonAR. The software was created by York University's Future Cinema Labs and now spun off as a private company, Future Stories. I was blown away with the software as within moments I was able to make a really cool augmented reality application that responded both visually and aurally to a user's location in space. Fisher describes her reasoning behind developing the software as she's not concerned with "what technology makes possible, but what it makes easy". The software is a great tool for prototyping and experimenting with augmented reality. But Fisher envisions it being extended to further facilitate it integrating with location-aware technologies to offer geotargetted augmented reality. She did caution that this technology needs to improve as users are not necessarily interested in holding a device up to a precise spot or going out into traffic to get content. Fisher encourages people to focus on "spatial storytelling" and to do this effectively she suggests creator think about: structure, grammar, poetics, interactivity, interface, narrative, immersion, presence, and proprioception.

The following sessions of the conference introduced developers in TIFF Nexus Peripherals Initiative creative jam project that provided funding for game developers to experiment with game play and the physical world. Although all the presented games were amazing, they mostly focused on new types of physical controls and as such weren't up my alley.

As one who studies locative media, I was excited to see my hometown clueing in to this growing area and displaying some impressive local thought and innovation. Shawn Micallef, the grandparent of locative media via his murmur project, summed up this remarkable change with his conference tweet: "When we started [murmur] in 2003, I don't believe the word 'Locative Media' existed -- now there are #TIFFNexus conferences on it. Fun."

Discovering Discovery 2011

Silicon Valley like its metallic namesake is shiny and alluring to those in the tech and digital media sector. In comparisson, Ontario often seems dull and staid. Although Canada has had its share of tech and Net success stories over the years, the news and blogs are saturated with coverage of the happenings in the Valley. Often Canadian tech companies are only covered in mainstream media when they sell out or move down south.

I have felt that Canada, and Ontario in particular, needs to do more to chronicle, honour, and foster our own companies and entrepreneurs. In my small way, I've attempted to help by compiling a list of Canadian Internet luminaries and success stories. I was thus happy to learn about Discovery 2011 conference and tradeshow this week in Toronto.

The conference in its sixth year is organized by Ontario Centres of Excellence. OCE's mandate is to foster innovation in Ontario and help commercialize local research. I'm glad I went to this conference as it was a refreshingly interesting and useful. Most of the tech and Internet conferences I've been to in Toronto generally suffer from being too focused on marketing and miss other crucial components. This conference had an excellent blend of presentations and demonstrations on new innovations, policy discussions, and social and business condiserations.

Due to scheduling conflicts I wasn't able to make it to all the events I would have liked (such as Bill Buxton's keynote). The conference and tradeshow represented a huge cross-section of topics from infastructure, sustainable development, healthcare, and media. It also attracted a wide range of attendees from inventors, investors, students, professors, business execs, start-up founders and representatives of government & NGO programs. I find this a good mix and led to much more interesting conversations than I usually encounter at conferences.
As a side note, it was interesting to hear from academics who have left academia for corporate research or to start their own companies. I don't have entrepreunerial drive, but it was encouraging to talk to people who were able to put their PhDs to good use outside the ivory tower. I received a lot of encouragement to build an app for my dissertation, with BumpTop frequently provided to me as an example of a fellow UofT grad student who very successfully commericialized his thesis.

The mix of topics and attendees (2600 of them) did result that in some presentations not necessarily appealing directly to the interests of all attendees. As such, there were keynotes that weren't up my alley. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty briefly mentioned Canada's history of innovation "from Imax to pablum and insulin to goalie masks" but his talk was largely on the importance of water (the conference was held in conjunction with H20: Ontario Global Water Leadership Summit). Similarly, David G. Thomson's keynote on how to take one's company to billion dollar revenue sadly wasn't particularly applicable to me.

The Future is 3D and it's here (in Ontario)
The event also hosted the subconference Ontario Projection: Advances in 3D. I initially figured that this would also be an area not relevant to my research on mobile media, but I attended sessions nonetheless as I cannot resist the allure of 3D. But the first panel asserted that the largest growth area for 3D content will be on mobile devices (ahead of film, tv, and gaming). One panelist predicts that mobile devices will offer ubiquitous 3D functionality before televisions. Having mostly encountered 3D through the animated feature films or amusement attarctions I attended with my young daughter, I admit I hadn't taken 3D media particularly seriously nor had I considered the possible implications for my research.

What I particularly liked about the presentations at the 3D conference is the points were backed by screenings. One such example was given by contrasting a Lexus commercial in 2D and then again in 3D. I found the first version boring and nondescript. It was also visually unappealing as it largely monochromatic, i.e. a white car against a white backdrop. I am not into gimmicks (or cars for that matter) but the 3D version was a completely different experience. The shots of car interiour were really immersive - I felt I was in the driver seat (and one much higher-end than I usually drive). When the presenter, James Stewart, polled the audience on their preference, it was unamimous that the 3D vesion was superior. Steward added that this finding has been backed up by audience studies.

The defining moment for me came when Stewart screened a clip Werner Herzog's new 3D film Cave of Forgotten Dreams about France's ancient cave drawings. Stewart asked "Who wants to look at a wall in 2D?" and the clip was so remarkably rich and detailed that the answer was conclusive - we all will.

Although I do think 3D has the potential to be more immersive, realistic, and engaging than 2D, I though that much of the effect was due to the novelty of the experience. As Stewart replied however that this was also the case for HD television. Initially, we were wowed by HD nature shows and sportcasts but now we appreciate in much broader genres. This is certainly my experience from being blown away by HD coverage of Vancouver's Winter Olympics to now wanting even my sitcoms to be in HD. The conference raised a lot of the obstacles that need to be overcome before we see widespread 3D, such as removing the need for glasses, avoiding headaches and blurring for those with vision problems, and the need for artistic maturity. I am glad to see Ontario taking a leading role, including my alma mater York University's 3D FLIC project.

Mobiles - Where's the new gold rush?
The conference offered a mobile website. A mobile app or site could be a tremendous aid to getting speaker and session info, wayfinding, and networking, but in this instance the execution was rather basic and buggy. But mobile technology was well addressed by a panel on the "App Revolution" moderated by Kunal Gupta (Polar Media) with Amar Varma (Extreme Ventures), Anand Agarawala (Google, formerly BumpTop), Krista Napier (IDC), and Michele Perras (MEIC & Transcontinental). To provide proof of the recent tech revolution, Gupta presented a selection of old versus new contrasts: Mubarak vs. #egypt, Blockbuster vs. Netflix, Ken Jennings vs. Watson.

The market for mobile media is anticipated to increase as more smartphones will be shipped this year in Canada than traditional cellphones. But as Perras acknowledged the fragmentation of devices remains the biggest challenge for content developers. This point was also raised in another session where one panelist advised using a mobile website to counter this. But as a speaker stated that the market access and promotion opportunities of app stores is essential for businesses. Agarawala also credits part of his sucess on the app store model as it is a crucial way for people to learn about apps, read reviews, and facilitate downloads.

Another dimension of market access for apps was raised by Napier, highlighting research that shows that bulk of consumers do not download any apps. She thus believes that it is essential for more apps to be preinstalled on devices in order for users to gain familiarity and comfort with using apps, necessary before we see more widespread adoption of the technology. Perras also cautions that consumers are not yet sufficiently savy for "the scope of our ideas to to fit the market uptake". Although the pace of innovation is rapid, it is also "very hard to differentiate between vapourwarde and long-term products", which Perras notes makes it difficult to engage in partnerships.

As for the market opportunities in Ontario for mobile app developers - there was consensus that Toronto has been a hotbead of recent innovation in this sector, but that not enough is being done by government, citizens, or investors to foster growth here. Investors here are too traditional and short-term focused to embrace cutting edge development. Governments offer helpful capital but the process of aquiring funding is too drawn out and time-consuming. Ontarian consumers and businesses are reluctant to try out very new technology and start-ups need market proof and case studies to be able to expand. Silicon Valley, on the other hand, has much more of an experimental culture that creates this necessary testbed - as well as a more fertile investment climate.

Ontario's economic growth
In a sentiment I agree with, Varma said he cringed when the Ontario and Canadian governments bailed out the auto industry. "Our economy would be way better if the investment was in our knowledge economy" Varma commented. He believes that this is essential to our economy rather than manufacturing or resource extraction. The problem with goverment support of the new economy was addressed by a keynote by Glen Murray, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation. He identifies the perceptual barrier among voters with government funding new economy enterprises as it is not as conventional or visible to a community as old industry smokestacks. But Murray does believe that we are not in a "typical recession so we won't have a typical recovery... the recovery will be in high-value and high knowledge".

The Ontario government, however, has been trying to foster the new economy through new grants, agencies (including the OCE), and the recently-announced Social Innovation Wiki. Ontario, Murray lauded, is the first government to open up public input to policy through such online means. Such innovation, he added, is an example of what governments should be doing to exemplify and involve citizens in the new economy and it "didn't cost us anything". With innovation replacing production as the leading soruce of wealth in Ontario, Murray emhasized the critical importance of this area.

DemoCamp
Discovery 2011 concluded for me through a DemoCamp session. DemoCamps are unconference events where start-ups have a few minutes to pitch their new product or service. The companies participating were all from Ontario with web-based services. The five pitches came from:

• Epic - task management
• 500 Pixels - photography portfolios
• Maintenance Assistance - asset management
• My Legal Briefcase - personal litigation help
• Wave - accounting for small biz

I was glad to have the opportunity to hear more about cool local projects, but the presentations, with the exception of My Legal Briefcase, were lacklustre. Two of the five companies had techical problems in delivering their demo. I've had similar problems and learned the hard way to have mutliple back-ups and failsafes, and to set-up before the audience arrives. At times, I found it difficult to discern the unique value proposition were for some of the companies even though they were clearly impressive products.

Agarawala who successful lead his software company BumpTop to an aquistion by Google offered tips: "Don't be a derivative start-up. Be interesting and not another check-in or social media app." He echoed other comments heard at the conference that many sectors such as healthcare and B2B direly need more innovation and offer opportunities to create new markets rather than flood existing ones. Agarawala offered the tweet test as a way to stand out. "Give people something to talk about" with your product or at least attach your project to a story or trend.

The collective tips and demos from Discovery 11 are inspiring me to consider developing an app for my dissertation research. Either way, as a citizen of Ontario, I was inspired to see so much tech innovation happening here. Considering the large tradeshow, cross-section of attendees, hot topics, and good speakers I feel that Discovery is easily Toronto's best tech conference.

User-Generated Map & Meaning Making via foursquare

I recently presented at the conference Boundaries, Frontiers & Gatekeepers on some of my Foursquare research.

I've embedded this as a Slideshare presentation. It doesn't offer an elegant way to display the speaker notes so I had to include them as comments (if anyone knows a better way, please let me know). To view my notes, you'll need to click to Slideshare's website.

My research on location-based services, georeferencing, and mobile applications is still in the very early stages, but this presentation gives a sense of the area of my exploration.

User-Generated Map and Meaning Making via Foursquare from Glen Farrelly

Staying Home for an Online Conference

It was chilly today so I didn't feel like getting out of bed to attend the conference I registered for. So I didn't. I just turned on my computer and laid back in cozy warmness. Yes, the Internet has truly allowed me to not only stay in my pajamas while working, but now to not even get out of bed. Most enjoyable conference experience ever.

I attended the Handheld Librarian Online Conference today. As someone noted on Twitter, the title sounds like a diminutive librarian that we can hold in our hand. Sounds like the plot for an educational show with a bun-haired, straight-laced reference librarian magically appearing on kids’ hands when they need to find important information. Well, with current mobile and Internet technology there may not be such a need for real life experts, Lilliputian or otherwise.

This is the second librarian conference I've attended this month and ever (see my post on the Ontario Library Association conference). It's also my first ever online conference. I've attended webinars and webconferencing discussions before, but nothing that billed itself as a virtual conference. Aside from not having to leave one's house on a cold Canadian morning or occurring horrific travel costs and jet lag, I was curious if online conferences had other benefits.

Rather than cover the key take-away messages from the conference, which one can get from the Twitter feed, I'm more interested in the structure and issues of an online conference.

Adobe Connect
The webconferencing system used was Adobe Connect. I've been investigating Adobe Connect recently for an online training session I'm hosting. It is web-based software that allows live and canned:

• presentation and screen sharing
• text-based Q&A
• text-based chats
• interactive polls
• audio or video integration

The presenters at the Handheld Librarian conference generally made good use of all these features. Someone told me that playing a video via Adobe Connect can crash the system, but this didn't happen. The polls used were a fun way to solicit audience feedback, but weren't used to shape the direction of a presentation which would be preferable (if daunting for presenters).

Obstacles
There are always technical challenges and other obstacles with real-life (RL) conferences (like presentations that won’t load, microphones that don’t work, overcrowded rooms, horrid caterers, etc.). So glitches are to be expected. Registration didn’t work seamlessly for me and others – but I got access at the last minute. The conferencing system worked quite well. There were occasional audio quality issues – blips and cut-outs – but for two days of conferences it worked most of the time.

I wasn't fond of how the conference organizers structured the accompanying text chats. Adobe Connect allows a text chat window for Q&A and one for general chat. Often the amount of chat for an event like this can be onerous so distinguishing genuine questions from commentary or banter is difficult for the audience let alone presenters. Separating these by window would help.
As would using Adobe Connect's features to distinguish the type of comment and to direct messages – but these features weren't consistently enabled.

I was mystified by Adobe Connect’s various “status options” (i.e. emoticons) feature. It seemed perpetually set at “Raise Hand” and even when I clicked on “Laughter”, “Applause,” or “Agree” (they also have options for speed, volume, etc.) nothing seemed to happen.

In addition to the live web conference each session had an associated discussion area. Only two comments were posted, however. For some reasons none of the keynotes had a discussion board – this is odd as they naturally attract more attention and interest. Discussions might also have been fostered more if they were seeded with 1-2 topics arising from the session. Or the presenters could be asked to answer questions posted there for a set time afterwards. These discussion boards are a great idea though as they are unique to the Web medium and a great way to encourage and extend further and deeper discussion (in theory).

Benefits
The reduced costs for hosting an online event were reflected in the very reasonable conference fee. Normally the multiple hundred dollars registration fees of most RL conferences are a huge barrier. Travel costs and time constraints of international conferences also prevent me from attending many that I would like to. The online format allowed me to afford attending and balance personal obligations. I'm looking forward to the sessions that I had to miss being archived and posted.

The online conference format also allowed me to multitask. The benefit of a constant access to a computer and Internet connection (something lacking more often than not) meant that I was able to follow up on leads mentioned by presenters. I was able to instantly investigate if an online tool mentioned was suitable or to google unfamiliar terms and concepts (I hadn’t heard of JPEG 2000 until today). I also got non-conference related work done too (dishes done during the lunch break, for example).

Perhaps because I was on my computer for the entire time, I was able to use Twitter much more effectively than at RL conferences. The conference was very supportive of the backchannel conversations both during the sessions (via the accompanying chat windows) and promoting the Twitter hashtag. (The Twitter feed was integrated on the homepage, but I believe it had to be removed as the volume crashed the site). The backchannel conversations can be the most valuable part of a conference, so it was good to be able to fully benefit from them.

It seems standard nowadays for every conference, particularly ones relating to the Internet or digital media, to promote and integrate the event with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. The Handheld Librarian conference didn’t do this as I would have liked, but they did offer a discussion area for participant introductions. This page has a lot of posts so I think it demonstrates the value of online conference networking. Considering that an online conference lacks some of the ways to meet and get to know fellow participants of RL, these techniques are more important. The conference did offer two online “Happy Hour” sessions. I wasn’t able to attend, but it sounds like a cool way to facilitate discussion and networking.

Overall, it was an excellent conference experience. The speakers were really good and the topics interesting. The online format has distinct advantages, as mentioned. With a few glitches resolved and more support for fostering online discussion, I would be happy to attend all future conferences this way.

What a Non-Librarian Learned from a Librarian Conference

The Ontario Library Association (OLA) conference wrapped up today. As I mentioned in my prior post, it was somewhat odd to find myself at this conference. My interests do not pertain strictly to libraries so much as information in whatever form or repository it may take. There is overlap, with my interests and the conference program. but, as I learned, the conference is decidedly for professional librarians with a constant focus on how to implement best practices and innovation into public and school libraries (I heard no mention of corporate libraries, BTW). Still, I did get a lot out of attending.

Inspiring keynotes
As a large conference they could afford stellar keynote speakers. Atom Egoyan, Jian Ghomeshi, and Michael Wesch were insightful and inspirational. There weren't a lot of take-aways points from their addresses, but they did powerfully highlight the importance for our schools, libraries, media, governments, and culture of collaboration, access, diversity, and an egalitarian treatment of new and popular culture.

Conference gripes
If an army marches on its stomach, then conference delegates survive on their coffees. Yet not only was there no coffee provided there wasn't even attainable access to coffee! There was only a sole Timothy's with untenable lines. The lunch breaks were way too long (2 hours) yet the session breaks were only 10-15 minutes. Not long enough to get a coffee let alone visit the bathroom. I did have the an advantage of being a male in a crowd where women outnumber men about 1 to 20 and women's bathroom lines were long and winding. These gripes seem trivial but they greatly affect attendees experience and they are puzzling and perturbing when they occur at large and established events.

I wanted to live blog this conference but the organizers cheaped out on providing wifi. I've heard that the Metro Toronto Convention Centre charges exorbitant rates for delegates to have wifi. Still what does it say about the OLA and libraries in general when they apparently do not think Internet access is important?

It's not just the lack of wifi that was rather luddite of the OLA, but their conference website and online offerings were paltry. It would have been great to have some social networking and/or attendee profiles posted pre-conference (and not just a link to a Facebook page that was used as another channel to post messages). I only encountered one speaker who mentioned they would be posting their presentation online. The location for this was never specified and it doesn't seem like there is one yet. It is so simple and free to post links to presentations to sites such as SlideShare. There was mention of a companion "virtual conference" with live and archived webcasting, but details on this, such as a URL, are still lacking.

Sessions
If the technical sophistication of the conference itself was lacking, it was not reflected in the speakers - as I found the speakers to be among the most insightful, topical, and understandable of any conference I have been to.

Unfortunately, my own tech savy was lacking. I signed out a netbook from my school to test drive it (and the plan was to live blog, as mentioned). I still haven't decided whether I want to buy a tablet or a netbook, so this was a good chance to put it to a field trial. BTW, I talked to a major academic publisher on their plans for smartphones and tablets and they indicated that they officially have zero intention of supporting BlackBerry - just Apple and Android. So I won't wait for RIM PlayBook to come to Canada after all. I took copious notes of the presentations (as it didn't seem like they were going to be shared afterward, also as mentioned). When transferring my files from the netbook to a USB stick (as I couldn't upload or email them due to the lack of wifi) most of my notes mysteriously disappeared.

Luckily, I was able to gather the key points of a couple sessions from the conference tweets. It was painful going through all the crap tagged as relevant to the conference (why do so many people pollute a collective feed with their narcissist posts or insane retweets of someone else's narcissist posts?). But I gathered the salient points. One speaker who was particularly incredible and whose session notes I lost is Fiacre O'Duinn. I hope to get his presentation somehow as it merits a post of its own.

Great Web 2.0 Face-off
This was a fun and action-packed panel panel where speakers went through an amazing amount of new web technology and how it can be used in education and libraries. Luckily, they posted a website with their list so I was able to get some - yes some - of their recommendations. Here is my simplified description of my favs (all appear to be free):

• Bitstrips - online comic creation
• Diigo - online bookmarking & annotating, collaborating info sharing
• Evernote - annotation & notes service
• FreeRealms- kid-friendly virtual world
• Glogster - seems like MySpace but have education version
• Google Apps - rough equivalent of MS Office
  
• Google Apps Marketplace - free or cheap biz software integrated with Google
• Kaywa - QR Code generator
• MyStoryMaker - online picture book creator
• Piclets - image poetry facilitator
• Popplet - social, information visualization
• Quora - collaborative Q&A
• SpringNote - wiki-based notebook
• Voicethread - collaborative multimedia presentations & commenting
• Voki - speaking & embeddable avatar creation
• Wallwisher - public or private webpages with commenting
• Worldlet - word cloud generator
• Zotero - reference & citation manager

I have never seen so much stuff covered so quickly and - for the most part - quite clearly. They really should get an award for this.

Top Tech Trends
The speakers at this panel were also incredible and delved into more detailed consideration of the issues resulting from new and emerging technology. There was significant discussion on the familiar topics of the digital divide, net neutrality, and privacy - which I won't recap.

There was an interesting debate on the need for libraries to experiment and innovate. Dorothea Salo advised that through experiments is how we innovate even if projects are a failure, but Roger Nevin cautioned on the problems of failed technology decreasing partner buy-in.

Salo raised the growing role of personal data management and preservation. She cited Yahoo's announced closure of Delicious (something that has worried me greatly) and how would people react if they similarly shut down Flickr? As she alerted "We are now investing our digital content into the cloud, but... where's the backup for the cloud?"

Aaron Schmidt noted that in general "library interfaces are too hard to use. Why does this matter? Because easy trumps free". People will pay for applications that make it easy to fulfill their needs rather than invest in the learning curve of free, library apps. He suggested that library interfaces should be optimized for the demands of a mobile device as this will help us strip out extraneous features that can also be removed on the main web interfaces to improve usability. Schmidt noted libraries need more user testing to discover and rectify these problems.

In considering the new tech services libraries could provide, Schmidt cautioned that too often libraries try to provide the same offerings as commercial organizations (such as Amazon) or become a "book mausoleum". Libraries, he added, should facilitate experiences and help people to gather around content. Building upon this Salo noted that libraries could solicit and record local information, so that a library can become a commuty's "ambassador to the world".

This later points is acutely relevant to my research interests and an area that I hope is ripe for future discussion and exploration.

Finding My Way at a Library Conference

From grade 5 to grade 9 I was a "student librarian" (in grade 5 and 6 the term was "Bookie Monster"). In grade 7 and 8, I even won the award for top student librarian. This is particularly odd as I never really liked reading anything other than comic books and Choose Your Own Adventures. I guess I was drawn to allure of systemic organization. But as I became involved in the school newspaper, drama club, and the debate team (don't say anything), I became enamored of communications and media and left behind my librarianship.

So finding myself first at a program to train librarians last year and now at the Ontario Library Association Conference, is perhaps not such a strange life twist as a culmination.

I decided to attend the OLA "Super" conference as there were sessions covering areas related to my research interests, specifically how people can use mobile devices to access information and the social creation of information (particular info related to place). The conference earns its super moniker in that it is huge. It has occupied most of the north building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the Intercontinental Hotel's conference rooms. With up twelve concurrent sessions and a trade expo occupying all of the exhibition space of the Centre, it is likely the largest librarian conference in Canada (hence the national scope of topics, speakers and participants). It is not super, however, in its hospitality: no wifi, no snacks, no swag, no lunch, and no COFFEE!

This conference is decidedly for practitioners. It focuses on applied presentations of novel and significant issues, more so than fine-tuned examinations of topics or underlying theoretical findings. Judging from the first day and program, the conference offers case studies and best practices track sessions combined with motivational plenaries. I also found that to accommodate the range of background knowledge of attendees, speakers spend a lot of time covering the basics. In addition, speakers focus on the program implementation, change management, and funding issues.

My first session was on geoauthentication, that is facilitating access to secure sites through automatic detection of a visitor's geographic location through their IP address. This process eliminates the hassle and memory burden of having to remember logins and passwords. Knowledge Ontario is using geoauthentication to open their databases of copyrighted content to anyone in or from Ontario. The speaker noted that using IP identification, automatic authentication could also be done at a city or carrier level. If one is outside the region, authentication must then be done through more traditional means (i.e. a user enters their login id and password.) It is possible that people could hack access via a proxy server, but the speaker advises that it is possible to block this.

The final session of the day dealt with an project to aid Ontario communities to digitize and publish online historical objects and documents. There were a few points I found particularly interesting. For one, a process of determining what objects are a priority to add to the online collection. The project team developed a checklist of criteria for this that also allows them to catalogue lower priority items. I was also interested in a feature they built that allows people to comment on digitized, online objects by adding comments. I think this becomes a fascinating way to capture collective memory and encourage discussion.

In between these two track sessions was a plenary by Michael Wesch. I encountered him from his YouTube videos, including the popular A Vision of Students Today. His speech was a call to arms for librarians and educators to redefine what learning is and how we facilitate this. He notes that currently schools and library are structured under the assumptions that information is scare, to learn is to acquire information, information comes from an authority figure, trust authority figures, and follow along - they are not structured to facilitate collaborative learning. He argues that we can help learners to use social media to make a better world. Although he did acknowledge that digital media can and has been used for nefarious purposes. It is those with a passion who figure out how to use tools effectively (such as social media) to propagate their message. Thus by helping students harness their passion, it can lead to positive social change. To demonstrate his message, he shared examples of how others have used social and/or mobile effectively and walked attendees through creating a video mashup in a few minutes to show how "ridiculously easy" to use these tools. I found Wesch's assertion that we can move from focusing on discussions of information literacy and technological familiarity to fostering digital citizenship. This seems like a lofty goal for the librarian profession and researchers alike.

Canada and the Role of Location - Mobile Media World Conference

Day Two of the Mobile Media World Conference in Toronto focused on mobile marketing, yet one of the early speakers declared "Nobody wants advertising". His continuing remarks highlight the overall theme of how to be effective in mobile marketing, "Nobody wants advertising, but they do want content. And the difference is relevance."

The day's sessions covered a lot of ground, but I believe the most important issue discussed is how mobile can greatly improve the relevance of content.

It is, however, important to first point out, as a speaker did, that mobile media is not monolithic. Mobiles actually comprise several channels, such as:

• audio (voice and music)
• video
• photography
• mobile Websites
• mobile apps
• text messaging
  
• text documents
• email
• geographic positioning.

There are lots of different mobile mediums, but a presenter cautioned that each has its place - and geography.

The data that can be provided by a mobile user or their device about their context can help make content, whether marketing material or otherwise, useful to a person's immediate situation.

The implicit privacy concerns were raised but as one presenter declared he was careful about what data he releases and notes that "if I give up my privacy I want them [mobile applications] to learn about me and give me useful recommendations". Most presenters were agreement that Canada hasn't seen a lot of great examples of this due to our small market and the data limitations imposed by carriers. (The presenters today weren't carriers and there was a much more open blaming of uncessary data caps for limiting mobile development and adoption in Canada.)

There were a couple good Canadian examples raised. Well, Metro News' links with the mobile app Foursquare (the first newspaper in the world to do so) was touted as exemplary. Having been "friends" with Metro News for months now on Foursquare and having not once encountered any of their content, their success to me appears to be overrated.

Another success story came from RIM and their usage of their text messaging service (BBM) to capture and hold the youth market. They used the medium at cultural events and festivals to build a relationship with their new and current users. Another example was an ad program that used geographic positioning for microtargeting. By determining the location of people within an 8-block radius of Toronto's Pride Festival, targetted, relevant advertising was delivered on specific mobile websites.

Bad examples were also raised. Despite the hype that Starbucks earned for being one of the first big companies to embrace Foursquare, a presenter noted that the ubiquity and popularity of Starbucks in major urban areas rendered their campaign more annoying than successful. She noted that no matter where you go in Toronto you are near a Starbucks, so whenever one checks into Foursquare a Starbucks promo will also pop up as a nearby deal. As the deal was only limited to one extremely frequent customer (the"mayor") this offering was not relevant to almost everyone.

Foursquare has been the subject of my research focus for the last few months. There was a lot of excitement at the conference at the potential of Foursquare. Few felt it was currently delivering on its potential anywhere, and even more so in Canada.

Overall, the conference did offer vision for the future of mobile marketing. One presenter noted that advertising needs to move away from preconceived stereotypes based on demographics, and instead use the data provided by mobile users and their devices to tailor individual messages to people. Achieving this successfully has a good potential return on investment as people are present and motivated.

Canada's Role in a Mobile Media World

By now, you’ve no doubt heard 2010 proclaimed as the year of mobile. Auguring the profound impact of mobile media, a speaker at this year’s Mobile Media World conference believes 2010 is instead the year you do mobile or you’re dead!

Mobile Media World 2010 is a two-day conference in Toronto that is part of Mobile Innovation Week. The week offers series of events, tradeshows, thinktanks, and conferences dedicated to the many business, development, and social facets of mobile telecommunications.

The conference nicely balanced futurist predictions and industry hyperbole to foster excitement on the impact and potential of the medium with present-day practical advice that businesses could implement. Over twenty speakers presented, mostly business leaders from domestic and international companies, with the exception of OCAD University (continuing their leadership role in this space amongst Canadian academia).

The conference was also the platform for some significant announcements. Bell Canada, fresh off its purchase of CTV, announced the Business News Network would be available on their mobile television service. Also, ComScore announced the extension of their mobile market data to the Canadian scene.

Rather than recount a chronology of speakers’ points – I’ll identify the main themes raised today:

1. Mobile eclipses PC-based Internet access
As popular as Internet access is via home and work-based personal computers, mobile access greatly surpasses it. With the increasing uptake of mobiles in developing world this trend will only increase.

2. Mobile does not mean smartphone
Smartphones generate more hype than traditional cellphones or feature phones, but even despite the continued adoption of smartphones, older types of phones will continue to occupy a large share. Add to this the increasing adoption of other networked devices, such as tablets, netbooks, and e-Readers, and the mobile space is indeed quite diverse.

3. Don’t forget SMS
Sexy multimedia can distract one from the dull but phenomenally popular usage of text messaging.

4. O.S. war rages on
Don’t expect an end to the mobile operating system war any time soon. The market is still too young and there are too many major players (Apple, BlackBerry, Android, Symbian, etc. – and Windows soon to be coming on strong) for this battle to be over in the next two to three years. To further make development difficult, there are also various O.S. iterations that remain – making unified development or universal access unlikely.

5. Mobile Web or mobile app? Answer: both
Usage of both downloadable mobile applications and mobile browser-based content are both too strong to ignore either. Speakers suggested that if developers have to choose, then a mobile website is easier and more affordable to build and maintain.

6. Emerging form
As with any new technology, it takes time for standardization. Speakers noted that mobile usage tends to be broad but not deep. Those developing mobile content must consider the implications of the new – if developing – form to be effective.

7. mCommerce builds momentum
More people are expected to bank via their mobile than via their PCs, but it may still be a couple years before Canadians are able to pay for purchases via their mobile device.

8. Bandwidth catch-up race
More mobile customers and increasing consumer demand for more mobile content and services will strain networks even as the providers continue to improve their networks.

9. Enabling technology for mobile revolution is here
The network infrastructure, security mechanisms, physical devices, etc. are all already here to allow for mobile media to integrate into and improve more realms of lives.

10. The grass is greener on the other side
Canadians need to stop navel-gazing and consider global markets. The Canadian market is smaller and less mobile-frenzied than other markets (such as Japan & South Korea). As one speaker noted,“Why sit and wait for this market to develop? Why not go to a mature market?”

Mobiles are clearly a technology impossible to ignore. Acknowledging this role, Ontario premiere Dalton McGuinty recently sparked debate by supporting mobiles in classrooms. The conference organizer opened the session today by encouraging participants to keep their mobiles on and beep away freely. No such invitation was necessary to glue attendees to their devices, but a telling moment arose when one of the speakers momentarily delayed beginning his presentation while he checked his mobile.

Making Connections at Mesh Conference

Today is the fifth anniversary of Mesh, Canada’s web conference. After four years attending, I can spot perennial patterns. The location is the same – Mars, a centre for innovation in downtown Toronto. As I hoped, Red Bull is there again providing ample fuel for making it through the hours of listening. Rightsleeve had a new batch of fun and offbeat swag. Many of the attendees' faces are the same – as one of the conference speakers stated Mesh was integral to helping form the digital media and tech community in Toronto and clearly this community is loyal to Mesh. I have, however, also met more people this time from across Canada, which is great. The structure of sessions is the same with internationally-prominent keynote speakers in the mornings and panel discussions or workshops in the afternoon. The speakers represent a good cross-section of local and American or British people working in or studying the area.

The first session of the day was at the untenable hour of nine (insane for this type of conference). I did make it to the subsequent keynote by Joseph Menn. A great storyteller, Menn managed to shake me out of my complacency towards online security. According to Menn, over half of our computers are comprised by hackers (largely organized by the Russian mob). He advises not to ever bank online and to only shop at a few of the biggest online stores. He attributes this dire situation to foreign governments unwilling to crack down on cyber-crime, public apathy, and insufficient government and private-sector action. In his dystopian future, he predicts a return to the much-maligned walled garden approach of AOL as the only way to ensure security online. His prophecy particularly frightened me as my computer inexplicably started acting weird (really slow) a few weeks ago and I fear I have already joined the evil bot army.

The afternoon sessions presented a more hopeful vision of the positive role the Internet and mobile devices can play in media, culture, and society.

Well, maybe not that hopeful as the first panel session I attended on Government 2.0 revealed the potential that the Internet has and how other countries are achieving this already, but not Canada (see my prior post). There was a representative from the federal government who mentioned that the feds are using new media innovatively for internal projects. But when it comes to external projects they are more risk-averse and resistant to change. The developer of OpenParliament.ca, Michael Mulley, (a website highlighting and aggregating the statements and votes of Canadian members of parliament) acknowledged that in some ways it is easier for citizens such as himself to build these types of projects. Citizens don't have the same red-tape, policy handcuffs, or official scrutiny. However, in Mulley's experience the government was making it much harder than it needed to through their legendary bureaucracy and inertia. The session focused on open government, that is the sharing of data both to aid innovation and to increase transparency. I would have liked some discussion on how e-government can improve direct democracy, but they were enough hurdles to address to improve the sharing of information, let alone the co-creation.

The second panel session I attended was “The Effect of Real-Time on Content”. It focused on how Twitter and mobile devices are changing the role and our conceptions of journalism. With breaking news events, it is these media that are the first to publish and transmit the details. Now anyone in the midst of a news event – or frankly with an opinion – can become a prominent source for information, as happened with citizens covering events such as the Haiti earthquake or protests in Iran. A problem with this, identified by journalism professor Jay Rosen, is that we don’t have a reputation system that accompanies such citizen real-time coverage. So discerning the authenticity of the source and the credibility of the information becomes difficult. Jennifer Preston, a NY Times editor, noted that news organizations need to learn from technology companies and embrace the idea of iteration: post, add, revise…. A reporter, Joanna Smith, shared how she uses Twitter with and the real-time feedback from followers to guide her coverage of a story. In covering H1N1 a follower tweeted her an important consideration for a vulnerable group that Smith then fielded to a health official in her subsequent interview. This type of citizen-reporter collaboration represents to me the paragon of digital media - it uniquely combines the strengths of both the expanded perspective of citizens with the expertise of journalists to deliver better news.

My final session on “The Effect of Real-Time on Content” began as a commercial for an iPad (it worked, I’m dying to get one!) but then broadened to discuss the influence e-readers, tablets, and mobile devices will have upon news, books, and creative writing. Media consultant Jason Fry had insights into how user experience is still a limitation for online publishing. The problem with reading online compared to print magazines, he stated, is that magazines are not only more attractive and tactile, but they are finite - “With the Web you never actually finish, you just run out of time”. So he felt these new technologies might excel by offering finite writing forms. Fry also noted that the reason why iPhone applications were so much more popular than mobile-optimized webpages is due iPhone's dismal browser experience (which I can attest is also completely true of BlackBerry). This comment reminded me of a discussion I recently had on how some people are claiming these technologies are going to kill the print book and how if Dickens was alive he wouldn’t write a book, he’d build an app. Cynthia Good an academic with Humber’s Creative Book Publishing Program did suggest that these technologies might augur a return to old forms of storytelling such as the serial – or it might result in entirely new forms such as interactive, geospatially-responsive stories delivered via mobiles.

I keep going to Mesh as it is consistently delivers. My only disappointment of the day was with my BlackBerry. I was looking forward to conference backchannel conversations via Twitter. Last year tweeting during the conference was as much fun as passing notes in highschool was – and it offered extra insight and a way to actively participate. I couldn’t connect to either my cell network (Bell – no coverage in the basement rooms of Mars!) or Mars’ free Wi-Fi. I spent half an hour reading my BB manual trying to get it to even detect the Wi-Fi network to no avail. But the lack of tweeting did help me pay better attention, so I was better able to recall the many pearls of wisdom to recount here in such extended detail!

Conference Presentation on Web Accessibility Challenges

I recently presented for my first time at an academic conference. The conference, Information Access: Commons, Control & Controversy, was held at my home faculty, iSchool at University of Toronto.

I presented on my research findings from my masters thesis. I thought it distilled my findings in a manageable way, so I thought I'd share it here.

Barriers to Adoption and Implementation of Web Accessibility
I'm Glen Farrelly, a first-year PhD student here at iSchool. My background and interests are in designing and understanding online user experience. My utopian dreams of the democratizing potential of the Internet have not been completely quelled by the realities of the ongoing digital divide. From this perspective, I'm concerned with how to create online experiences that strives to enable everyone to participate.

Web accessibility refers to users being able to perceive and operate publically available websites regardless of their abilities. Users can be blocked by design or code barriers based on: vision, hearing, cognitive ability, and mobility or motor control.

In line with the social model of disability, I believe that it is artificial barriers that create disability that may not otherwise exist. These barriers can apply not only to permanently disabled people but for those temporarily or situationally disabled as well.

Internet enables and disables
Many people use the Internet and find it helpful for various facets of their life from work to entertainment. The Internet has the potential to aid disabled people to overcome some barriers. For example, online shopping for people with mobility impairments helped reduced their self-reported rates of disability (Spillman, 2004). Also deaf people have been avid adopters of text and instant messaging as a preferred method of communication. It is for reasons such as these that lead to 54% of respondents to a UK survey (2002) listing Internet access as essential, compared to only 6% of the general population.

Despite this potential, accessibility rates in Canada and globally remain very low. The UN commissioned a review of popular websites in 2006 of 20 countries and only 7% passed the most basic accessibility measures. Inaccessibility of online content was attributed to result in less than half as many disabled people using the Internet compared to the nondisabled, in an US Study (Dobransky & Hargittai, 2006). This issue also affects more Canadians than most people realize, as 14 per cent of, or 4.4 million, identified themselves as disabled (Statistics Canada, 2007).

Web inaccessibility
Here’s an example U.of T. students and faculty may have encountered. The low contrast of the text on the navigational menus is hard to read probably for most users, but for those users with vision impairment this can be a complete block. Another problem with this webpage is the fan out menu at times requires very precise mouse movement or it closes. This is a block for those with motor impairments, such as those with Parkinson's disease. Personally, I can attest it's extremely difficult to use on a laptop.

Considering the diversity of human ability, it is unlikely that anyone can build a website that everyone can use. The goal then is to make content as accessible as possible.

The solution?
There are three approaches to making online content more accessible:

1. Adaptive technology can allow for multimodal outputs or alternative inputs. For example, screen reader software can read the contents of a webpage to a blind person. But even though tech continues to get more sophisticated there are still problems, for example screen readers cannot compensate for images that don't have alternative text to describe it.
2. Automated conversion can be done various ways. This month YouTube opened up its free software to automatically caption user videos. Solutions like this may address the challenge of making the extreme long tail of online content more accessible but they still present barriers. For example, I'm dubious that autocaptioning software will be able to compensate for poor audio levels, overlapping speech, slang, etc.
3. Human development is probably the best way to make the content more accessible. That is, the content creators build the content in ways that extend its functionality and flexibility. For example, describing the meaning of an image is best done by its creator.

Guidelines
To aid practitioners in the nebulous goal of making their content accessible, the W3C, in collaboration with academic, industrial, and disability organizations worldwide published the Web Content Authoring Guidelines (WCAG) in 1999. WCAG is the world’s predominant guidelines and informs other guidelines such as Canada’s CLF and the US’ Section 508. There are 3 degrees of voluntary compliance. The W3C has focused their efforts on further refining the guidelines, I'd say more so than on education and outreach.

In Canada, at least, no organization or government office is leading the charge to deliver educational resources, training, or awareness campaigns. As accessibility is not expressly required in any jurisdiction I am aware of and as disability issues can be ignored by corporate power, web accessibility has tended to fall on individual practitioners.

The way to make more accessible websites is there, but practitioners have to find out about it themselves, figure out how to do it themselves, implement it themselves, and often make a convincing business case to do so. Numerous studies have shown however that most websites in a variety of sectors are not even following the most basic guidelines. To help make the web more accessible, I felt it is important to understand what are the stumbling blocks to adoption. To do this, one needs to understand those our society has charged with implementing this issue: web practitioners.

Web accessibility adoption challenges have largely been ignored both in academic and trade literature. In addition, research actually consulting web practitioners is even more rare as it appears that there are only three such studies.

My research
I conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with a variety of web practitioners across Canada. I asked practitioners not only how they encountered the issue of accessibility and disability, but also how they implemented in on their day-to-day job. They offered both their obstacles and solutions.

Web Accessibility Diffusion & Implementation Model
Out of the interviews various diffusion and implementation factors were identified, which lead me to develop this model.

Diffusion refers to how a practitioner hears about an issue, learns the specifics, and formulates attitudes. The diffusion of accessibility is also affected by knowledge and perceptions about disability in general. Implementation refers to the factors that impact a practitioner's ability to produce accessible online content.

Web practitioners
The first challenge in this issue is that practitioners are not a homogenous group, but represent various responsibilities, backgrounds, and skills.Web practitioners include:

• programmers
• designers
• developers
• webmasters
• producers
• writers and editors
• animators
• assistants
• managers
• bloggers
• podcasters

These roles can be performed by professionals, volunteers, hobbyists, and those with multiple non-web responsibilities. With web 2.0, now almost anyone can author web content. There are challenges with web accessibility with professionals, let alone the additional challenges with amateurs due to the differing levels of skill and commitment. My study focused on professionals and avid amateurs, but the larger scope is clearly a considerable obstacle.

Diffusion
Innovations are less apt to diffuse if they are difficult to understand or use, require significant resources, or are incompatible with existing norms and values. Web accessibility meets all these criteria.

The guidelines are highly technical and yet like much of disability issues, education and media were found to not adequately cover the topic. Most participants recalled that they had not encountered this issue suitably - or at all - in their career training, in the media or trade events.

While many accessibility measures can be implemented with no additional costs, some measures do require more effort and scale and competitive environment can be a factor. One participant who managed a large site with thousands of technical reports had to remove the bulk of them as it was taking days to convert a single report. There appears to be no specific tax breaks or financial incentives to help mitigate this cost.

As far as I'm aware, there are no laws expressly requiring websites to be accessible – although there are prohibitions on discrimination. Federal and provincial governments have passed policies requiring their own websites to be accessible. But Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada pursuing requiring web accessibility for all business and organizations that operate in the province. Even legally requiring accessibility is not guaranteed to increase compliance as a Brazilian study found. It also introduces a new problem of policing.

Implementation
In interviewing practitioners who had tried to or did implement accessibility, they were frustrated with the inadequate support. Most criticism was directed at W3C and WCAG. Two participants described using it: "If I can’t navigate it, who the hell can?" and "It just gets into tech-babble. It must be completely overwhelming for those less experienced." The guidelines are not particularly accessible – they are a quagmire and are written at a level that even veteran professionals found too difficult to interpret. There are reasons for this, but W3C has not done a sufficient job at making their guidelines usable, offering help, code libraries, and tools. Instructional material is out there but not in a prominent, central location. It can be hard to find, dated, time-consuming, and dubious.

Popular commercial authoring tools such as Dreamweaver are improving their support for accessibility. With content management systems and web-based software becoming increasingly popular, however, there is a continuous need to improve functionality and transparency of features.

Similarly, testing software to automatically check for accessibility is insufficient and often unknown by participants. Although testing software is improving, certain items must be tested with disabled users. In general there is a lack of any user testing, so the need for human testing is problematic.

Considering how difficult this is some practitioners have turned to hiring experts. As there are no organizations in Canada offering free guidance – even CNIB charges for accessibility services - web accessibility is being commercialized. Alarmingly, three participants hired so-called accessibility experts that amounted to charlatans and failed to deliver on some basic accessibility measures.

Conclusion
No matter the societal changes, software sophistication, or increased support, the onus will still fall on practitioners to make the line by line and graphic by graphic changes on a daily basis to make web accessibility a reality. To do this, practitioners needs to be aware of their important role in the disability divide. As one participant put it:

Web developers can be proactive, so they need to let companies know it’s an issue and that including it is just part of our standard services. No companies would say no to this. Or you can just do it.

Finally, research is needed to study how web practitioners work, how they use the guidelines, support tools, and software. This research can then be used to make the implementation tools and resources more usable and transparent.