Tips to Get a SSHRC Graduate Grant

Checking the stats of this blog, I discovered that my posts on tips to get Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) graduate grants were the most popular. So I thought I'd update my tips. This post is a distillation of advice I gathered from professors, university awards officers, and fellow students and determined what worked for me. I won a SSHRC grant at the masters and doctoral level - but there is no one recipe, so get advice from other sources and disregard whatever does not makes sense to you.

Before beginning, visit SSHRC's website and find out the eligibility basics, such as does your research fall under the domain of SSHRC (social science and humanities), NSERC (science and engineering), or CIHR (health). Unofficially, I heard that NSERC and CIHR grants are easier to get than SSHRC grants (but I'm not sure if there are less applicants or more money to give out) so if your research can apply within their mandate you may want to consider applying there.

SSHRC publishes some application tips, which are good, but general. The first and most important tip I have is don't consider any instructions or tips from SSHRC as optional; they are commandments. Don't deviate from their instructions - no matter what. If you think you have a compelling exception, change it so it follows SSHRC rules.

SSHRC also states, rather vaguely, how they evaluate applicants:

• past academic results, as demonstrated by transcripts, awards and distinctions;
• the program of study and its potential contribution to the advancement of knowledge;
• relevant professional and academic experience, including research training, as demonstrated by conference presentations and scholarly publications;
• two written evaluations from referees; and
• the departmental appraisal (for those registered at Canadian universities).

They don't give specifics or offer a weighting for doctoral applicants. They do offer the weighting for masters students. Academic excellence is weighted at 60%, research potential is 30%, and communication skills is 10%.

I've heard speculation from various sources that there is a SSHRC bias for certain regions, universities, faculties, etc. SSHRC releases their applicant data and I went over it. There does appear to be carefully balancing to ensure that the awards to match Canada's regional population distribution and by university. There does not appear to be a significant bias by the year of doctoral study, as I had heard. Considerably less people apply in year four of doctoral students, yet the award rate is still roughly the same as other years - so one's odds are definitely better in this year.

Below are my tips for grades, application form, publication record, program of study, and references.

Your department and university

A lot of applicants don't adequately consider that it isn't just the feds approving your application, as your department and university (in most cases) must approve and forward your application first (most major Canadian universities have a quota of how many applications they are allowed to submit) . Many applications die at one's department level. So make sure you address this internal audience too. Make sure your program of study fits into your department and program. It doesn't hurt to mention the strengths of the department and university either and include a name or two of key faculty. This is not just buttering up, as it should be a sincere statement as this is what drew you to the program in the first place.

Grades

Everyone agrees that grades are a prime importance. If your grades suck, then there is no use applying. For doctoral students, anything lower than an A- average in your master's degree would probably be too low. For masters, I'm not sure but it is likely at least a B or B+ during one's bachelor's degree. I don't know how far back they look though - my first couple years of my bachelor's degree I didn't do that well, but managed to pull my grades up for the final couple years (even then they weren't that great - it was only once I became an old student that I really started to care about my grades). There's not much you can do to improve your grades - but I included my transcripts from two college certificate programs I did. I got great grades in that - so perhaps that outweighed my bachelor's.

My suspicion is that since all candidates that get forwarded by their university will represent the best and brightest, I am not convinced that one's grades and academic awards alone are that influential. It opens the door, but your program of study, publication record, and letters of reference are what closes the deal.

Application form

The application itself is rather onerous. The application is filled out online - you can save and edit it right up to submission. The application asks general, expected questions and questions about your research and background.

My thought was I don't like to leave sections blank or almost blank. I don't advocate square pegging anything into inappropriate holes, but think outside the box. For example, I included professional awards in the awards section and a volunteer position in my work experience.

I heard a great tip about the keywords that the form asks.  First of all, don't leave these blank and be sure to choose these wisely. SSHRC publishes an online database of prior funded research. Use their search engine to find work similar to yours and identify the keywords they used and then, as appropriate, consider those.

Publications

They ask for your publications twice - in the application form and as an attachment. I think that doctoral applicants really need to have at least one peer-reviewed article. I also included my writings from non-academic sources. I'm not so sure that self-published sources (e.g. your own blog) is necessarily great - but if you blog is picked up by another source or syndicated (as mine is) then that would help. The publications should ideally be relevant to one's program of study or at least academically related. Still, I think some publications regardless of the topic are better than nothing.

Program of study

I think this is often underestimated by applicants. I think applicants need a kickass, flawless, unique proposal to stand out from the crowd. Also be clear on what you plan to do, how exactly, and why.

Obvious rules for any proper academic work apply. Avoid jargon or concepts only understandable by one's own field as the reviewers are from a broad range of departments. Be sure to define key terms. Consider the visual appeal of the application by judicious use of whitespace, headings, and bolding.

I frequently hear that "telling a story" is vital with grant proposals. I think it is true as reviewers do have a stack of papers to go through so a lively, concrete, compelling narrative can convince the reviewer of the interest and importance of your work. Have a clearly articulated research question and everything should center and flow from this. The last paragraph should end the work on a strong note, reestablishing the "so what" of the work. 

Include how you (your interests, academic and professional background) fit into this story. Demonstrate how your professional and academic path has lead you to this point you are in as linear a form as possible.  It's not a c.v. so you don't need to mention every career detail - I highlighted the parts of my history that were relevant and disregarded those that weren't. It's not an autobiography, either, so only share your life history that is relevant. It's rather boring to begin or end your paper with a paragraph about yourself unless your experience is vital to the proposed research.

You should also demonstrate that you have experience and ability to execute your study, so explain relevant coursework, access issues, necessary skills and how you have or will attain them. SSHRC also insists that the "scholarship is tenable only in degree programs that include significant research training" so briefly mention how your program provides this training.Don't include a course list with all your professors names and course numbers - remember all content has to be meaningful to external reviewers.

I believe that it is helpful if your topic  has contemporary social value and is not just esoteric academic navel gazing. SSHRC has a mandate to promote research that is "connecting with society" so check out their information on this aspect. However, don't go too far and get the Miss America syndrome, in which researchers naively promise that their research will save the world.  It's not a dream study either, so ground it in some reality of what one can feasibly accomplish.

Your method section should have the specific steps of your plan, but you don't need to go overboard and specify minute details such as your transcription strategy.  In general, you should touch upon your approach to sampling, recruitment and/or access, data gathering, data analysis, and presentation of results and dissemination.  Show you know your method. For example, don't say you plan to do interviews, for example, but rather specify structured, unstructured, semi-structured. A citation or two to show why your methodology is appropriate is definitely helpful. I prepared a research proposal checklist. It goes into more details than may be necessary for a SSHRC application, but it is useful to look over to make sure you haven't missed any major areas.

If you plan to study humans (or animals), be sure to briefly mention your ethical review process. If you're using deception or planning any research that will harm or will greatly upset participants, you'd probably should reconsider. This kind of research is sensitive and needs to be handled carefully.  If you really need to do this, then you should probably have at least 2-4 sentences on what this is the only possible approach and how you are going to mitigate harm.

Demonstrate your knowledge of your subject area. At a master's level this should include at least a couple citations to canonical sources and probably at least a couple to more recent (within the last 2-3 years) research published in journals.  Identify your camp and pitch your tent - that is figure out what discipline you are in and show how you fit into this area. If you are deliberately trying to shake things up (and a SSHRC graduate grant application is probably not the place to do this) then mention that you are aware of your unorthodox approach and state why it's a good idea and how you will make it work.

Make sure you have ample, but not wanton citations. Initially, I only included works I referenced, but I believe there may be a limit of up to 5 pages of bibliography. Someone advised me to show my knowledge of the relevant literature in this space, so I did. I still only used 2.5 pages as I really doubt any reviewer will ever read 5 pages of bibliography. I believe it is better to have 2-3 pages of great references than 5 (or more) pages of filler - at that point it seems like shameless padding.

References

As with any time you need a reference, make sure they will give you a great one. After that, choose your references wisely - not just who likes you and who you like, but also consider your referee's position and credentials. For example, I was told that letters from adjunct faculty (ie. non-tenure track) don't count very highly. Can one infer that a letter from a dean would then be more impressive?

I was told that at least one reference should come from the university that you'll be studying at and one reference should be your current advisor. It makes sense that you should get an internal reference as in most cases applications must be vetted by one's department, so if you don't have someone there officially vouching for you it certainly doesn't help.

I heard a good tip to help get referee's to return their letters quickly is to open a courier account and provide your reviewer with the account details, so they can easily express return it without having to worry about the cost.

Your references should definitely be familiar with your program of study - ideally even incorporating it into their reference letter. So be sure to give them a copy of your program of study and your c.v. - even if they don't ask for it.

General tips

The reviewers have huge stacks of applications to review, so they are looking for ways to weed out so be very careful in following all the rules. Have someone proof every word in your entire application. Actually, have two or three people proof it.

The best thing that helped me get the grant was listen to the advice of professors, university staff, and colleagues. Most universities, I suspect, hold seminars on how to apply for grants - don't miss them. Just the process of following all the steps is daunting, so it's best to get help. It also helps to get to know the contact person at one's university (e.g. an awards officer, registrar, etc.) as they are an invaluable source of information on the process. Another source of help and comfort in numbers is GradCafe.com. It has a forum thread where grad students get advice, fret, and lament with fellow stressed-out applicants.

It is painful to even apply for these things, but it does represent a decent amount of money and prestige so it is worth the effort.

In the end, the odds of winning a SSHRC are not great. Only a handful of candidates get selected by a given university to be forwarded to SSHRC and of those less than half this year got an award. One can do all the "right" things, have a great academic record and still not get it. So it does almost seem like winning a lottery.

If you do not get it, it is definitely worthwhile to apply again, particularly if you improved your grades, added peer-reviewed publications, or wrote a better program of study.

Explorations of Place and Media - An Interview with Shawn Micallef

While researchin locative media and Toronto history and urban planning, I have frequently come across the work of Shawn Micallef. I first encountered his work through his locative media installation, [murmur] co-created with James Roussel and Gabe Sawhney. Murmur was one of the first locative media efforts. It began in Toronto and subsequently spread globally. The project placed plaques around the city which instructed people to dial a number to hear oral histories of that specific location.

I later encountered Shawn's work in his various writing about Toronto from the magazine Spacing to his book Stroll. His approach to discovering the city involves psychogeographic techniques pioneered by French theorist Guy Debord.

More recently, while waiting for a subway, I noticed Shawn's latest locative media project, Stroll City. Shawn and Toronto Transit encouraged people to tweet about places across the city, which were then broadcast across the TTC's digital signs.

I've read and cited Shawn work, but I've never had the opportunity to meet him. At a McLuhan seminar last month (which I blogged about), I finally had the opportunity to meet him. Shawn agreed to field some of my questions about his work and its intersection with my research.

Glen: How do you believe digital media has, or can, affect our sense of place?

Shawn: I think it's made place multi-layered now. Wherever we are we can expect to use a smartphone to access digital media left there by other people. When we started [murmur] there wasn't much of that, just some experimental art projects and the like. Now, it's widely accepted and as mainstream, nearly, as turning on the TV. From Instagraming a photo and linking to that spot and seeing other photos from that spot (so you see it at other times and, perhaps more importantly, you see the other people who have passed through that place) to other geolocative things whose spammy-value I'm not sure about (like Foursquare).

So, through digital media you get a sense of time in place now, as well as other humans. That's great. Or, you can turn everything off and experience it the old fashioned way.

Glen: How have people responded to your media projects such as [murmur], Spacing, and Stroll City on the TTC? Particularly, what feedback have you got on how it affects their experience of place?

Shawn: There was a learning curve for each (or acceptance curve, in the case of Spacing). When [murmur] began, there were few projects that used mobile phones as entertainment and culture delivery devices -- they were for work or talking only -- so to get people to think of them a little wider was a slow process. We just did the project, and hoped people called in to listen, and slowly they did. Feedback is probably similar to that of other oral history projects -- lots of relating to the story -- but here there's the added connection of being in the place where it happened, so it evokes another kind of connection. The hope is that for a brief few moments, the story will take you back in time in that spot, as well as to wherever else the story takes you. [murmur] really only capitalizes on the age-old power of story telling, just distributing it differently.

Spacing in a way created an umbrella for disparate areas and projects to be collected under one term "public space" -- now, 10 years later, public space is talked about at all levels of media and there are many local online efforts covering what we and a few others alone would chatter about. So that's given us the opportunity to pull back and think wider and talk more about the big picture of Canadian and global city issues.

Stroll City has been lots of fun - the first time we did it people needed a lot of encouragement to share their Toronto observations (it was also November) but the last two times, both in June, the Toronto stuff has been coming a lot more freely, and people observing the city in their own ways, not just doing it how I do it, which has been great. The continued growth of smart phones and Twitter account has probably helped a lot too.

Glen: You launched one of the first locative media projects, [murmur], but have subsequently focused more recent efforts on writing about place in print and online and have mentioned that you don't geocode. Why the switch and any plans for future locative media projects?

Shawn: Financial, somewhat -- doing [murmur] and other such project, outside of the Academy or a research institution, is difficult. But also I see writing as my main gig, and wanted to focus on it more, (but which is related to a lot of other stuff that I've done or will do -- [murmur] research, story gathering, contributed a great deal to my first book Stroll, so it all overlaps) The writing I do is often place-based in a very old-school way (talking about place) but indeed I'm thinking and talking with some people about projects that might connect words with places in easy, geocoded ways. Not so much secret right now as still in infant form, so more on this later.

Glen: What do you feel is the potential or future of locative media or
location-based media?

Shawn: More integration into our daily life and travels -- receiving media about place without even thinking that we're receiving media. With tech-advances it's hard to gauge where this might go, as content will follow tech, but I wonder if a language may develop around place and locative media in how stories and narratives are communicated. That will be fun to watch for.

Notable Canadians in Digital Media & Technology

In honour of Canada's birthday, I'm updating my list of Canadian individuals and companies who contributed to digital culture or technology.

My goal is to document an aspect of Canadian history and culture that is overlooked. I'm loose in my definition of what constitutes a person as Canadian. Some people or companies got their start in Canada, but were acquired or lured to the United States. Some innovations were done by Canadians while abroad.

The point is not to debate citizenship, but rather to document innovations and their Canadian connections to demonstrate that Canada has made and continues to make a significant contribution to digital media and technology.

People

• Parham Aarabi, professor and inventor of imaging and internet advertising software
• Lorne Abony, e-Business (Petopia), gaming (FUN), and digital music business leader (Mood Media)
• Melody Adhami, co-founder of Plastic Mobile and leader in mobile app development
• Chris Albinson, venture capitalist, co-founder of C100, expat Canadian tech network
• Ronald Baecker, computer scientist and HCI researcher
• Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research In Motion
• Michel Beaudet, creator of online humour videos Têtes à claques
• Gilles Brassard, co-inventor of the first quantum cryptography protocol, BB84
• Alexander Graham Bell, original telecom inventor
• Tim Bray, father of XML co-founder of Open Text
• Rhiannon Bury, academic, studies women and online fandom
• Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, pioneer in use of tagging
• Bill Buxton, principal researcher for Microsoft, pioneer in human computer interaction
• Garrett Camp, co-founder and CEO of StumbleUpon
• Dave Carroll, creator of "United Breaks Guitars" video meme
• Ann Cavoukian, privacy czar, promotes greater privacy in social network sites and privacy by design
• David Cheriton, computer scientist, mentor and initial investor of Google - now billionaire
• Vincent Cheung, creator of image software Shape Collage
• Geof Collis, accessibility advocate and publisher of accessibility news
• Michael Cowpland, founder of Corel tech eccentric
• William Craig, founder of iCraveTV, first company to stream television over Net
• Cassie Creighton, 5-year old co-creator with dad, Ryan Creigton, of a popular online game
• David Crow, organizer of tech events, DemoCamp and StartUpNorth
• Douglas Coupland, author of tech-themed novels Generation X, Microserfs, JPod, etc.
• Ronald Deibert, researcher and campaigner against Internet censorship and cyber-espionage
• Peter Deutsch, leader of the team that invented Archie, the first Internet search engine
• John Demco, creator and first registrar of the .ca domain
• Hossein Derakhshan, influential Iranian blogger
• Sara Diamond, academic leader founding Banff's New Media Institute and Mobile Experience Innovation Centre
• Cory Doctorow, tech blogger and co-editor of Boing Boing
• Timo Ewalds, creator of social networking website Nexopia
• Caitlin Fisher, digital artist and augmented reality innovator
• Markus Frind, founder of popular dating site Plenty of Fish
• Ganz Sam and Howard, founders of children's virtual world, WebKinz, pioneered toy with virtual counterpart concept
• Michael Geist, prominent Internet law scholar
• William Gibson, author and visionary of cyberculture, coined term "cyberspace"
• Murray Goldberg, developer of WebCT one of the earliest and most popular e-learning platforms
• James Gosling, inventor of Java programming language
• Calvin Gotlieb, "father of computing in Canada"
• Kunal Gupta, founder of mobile app. agency, Polar Media
• Jeremy Gutsche, futurist and founder of TrendHunter
• Kevin Ham, world leading domainer
• Caroline Haythornthwaite, researcher on social networking, online collaboration communities
• Graham Hill, founder of environmental blog site, TreeHugger
• Geoffrey Hinton, computer scientist in area of artificial intelligence
• Cory Horner, early DIY programmer, leader in government transparency, launched How'dTheyVote.ca in 2005
• Tara Hunt, online marketing and communities expert
• Glenda Hyatt, accessibility advocate and blogger
• Mathew Ingram, tech journalist and co-founder of mesh conference
• Donna Jodhan, campaigner for web accessibility, launched the first federal court case demanding greater accessibility of government websites
• Mitch Joel, digital marketing expert
• Brian Kernighan, computer scientist, creator of "Hello, world" program, popular for training programmers (the first code I wrote)
• Asif Khan, founder of Location Based Marketing Association, blogger on locative technology and marketing
• Deidre LaCarte, creator of Hampster Dance, believed to be first Internet meme
• Lake Minnewanka Squirrel, Internet meme of scene-stealing rodent
• Mike Lazaridis, founder of Research in Motion
• Rasmus Lerdorf, creator of PHP and open source advocate
• Pierre Lévy, academic, developed notions of collective intelligence
• Bruce Livingstone, founder of leading stock photo service, iStockPhotos
• David Lyon, researcher on technological surveillance
• mafiaboy, prominent website hacker
• Amber MacArthur, tech journalist and podcaster
• Steve Mann, inventor and researcher, pioneered fields of wearable computing, mobile blogging, and sousveillance (reverse surveillance)
• Don Mattrick, founder of Distinctive Software (predecessor of EA Canada) at 17, now Microsoft's President of the Interactive Entertainment Business
• Marshall McLuhan, communications theorist and tech visionary
• Mike McDerment, co-founder of invoicing web-service FreshBooks and co-founder of Mesh conference
• Sid Meier, game developer of the Civilization series, second inductee into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame
• Lane Merrifield, co-founder of Club Penguin and developer of children's virtual worlds
• Michael Mulley, DIY developer of government transparency website, openparliament.ca
• Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, co-founders of role-playing gaming company BioWare
• Ryan North, writer and creator of online comic Dinosaur Comics
• David Ossip, founder of Workbrain, efficiency software
• Emma Payne, author and founder of Wired Women
• Rob Pike, co-creator of UTF-8, a unicode standard
• Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, pioneers in transmedia storytelling, incl. Interactive Alice
• Simon Pulsifer, prominent and prolific Wikipedia contributor
• Jade Raymond, gaming executive for Ubisoft
• Andrew Rivkin and Mark Rivkin, founders of online gambling tech company, Cryptologic
• Rafal Rohozinski, cyber security expert
• Mark Rzepka, pioneer of online pharmacies
• Robert J. Sawyer, scifi author, including his recent WWW trilogy
• Gerri Sinclair, founder of Canada's first multimedia research centre
• Jay Steele, founder of Viigo, a news aggregator app
• Jeffrey Skoll, co-founder of eBay
• Star Wars Kid, another Internet meme star
• Jennifer Stoddart, Canada's privacy commissioner, investigates practices by social media companies and mobile users' practices
• Don Tapscott, tech culture visionary and author of Wikinomics
• Clive Thompson, journalist has written for Shift and Wired
• Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of tech incubator and innovation centre, MaRS
• Jutta Treviranus, researcher on web accessibility, lead author of authoring tool accessibility guidelines
• Barry Wellman, academic, pioneer in studies of online communities social networking
• Beatrice Helen Worsley, computer pioneer - possibly the first woman to earn a PhD in computers and her dissertation was first on modern computers
• Tim Wu - Internet governance and policy scholar, coined term "network neutrality"
• Michel Vulpe, inventor and founder of i4i, successfully sued Microsoft for patent infringement
• Bob Young, founder of micropublisher, Lulu and former CEO of Red Hat

Companies or Projects

• AbeBooks - once the largest used books e-tailer
• Archie - first Internet search engine
• b5media - blog aggregator
• BiblioCommons - online library catalog enhancements
• BioWare - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Black Box Games - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Bump Technologies - 3D desktop visualization (acquired by Google)
• Cambrian House - crowdsourcing
• Canarie - research infrastructure network
• Concept Share - collaboration software for design professionals
• CGI - multinational IT consultancy
• Chilly Beach - online cartoons
• Club Penguin - children's virtual world (acquired by Disney)
• Corel - office and imaging software
• CryptoLogic - gambling software
• Desire2Learn - learning based software
• Discover Anywhere Mobile - location based services software
• Distinctive Software - gaming (acquired by EA)
• Digital Cement - marketing agency (acquired)
• ePresence - webcasting software (acquired)
• Extreme Venture Partners - venture capital for tech start-ups
• 500 pixels - online photo portfolio
• Flickr - photo sharing website (acquired by Yahoo)
• Fresh Books - online personal accounting software
• eHarlequin - online storytelling and community
• Geotoko - mobile marketing
• GigPark
• gShift Labs - search engine optimization
• gsmprjct technologie - interactive technologies
• Guardly - mobile personal security app
• Guestlist - event management
• HootSuite - social media monitoring
• Ice.com - early e-tailer
• Idée - visual search engine
• InGamer Sports - live event social gaming
• iStockPhoto - stock photos
• J2Play - developed world’s first mobile multiplayer game (acquired by EA)
• Justwhiteshirts - early e-tailer
• Kik Interactive - texting software
• Iceberg Radio - Internet radio
• Lavalife - online dating
• LiveHive Systems
• Long Pen - event software and robotics
• Mamma.com - one of the first meta search engines
• MaRS - tech incubator
• MegaDox - online legal forms and document templates
• mTrip - mobile travel guides
• MyVoice - communication aid
• Naked News - online porn
• Netsweeper - content filtering software
• Nexopia - social networking website
• Nortel - telecom tech
• NowPublic - citizen journalism
• Octopz - online collaboration
• OpenFile - user-generated online newspaper
• Open Text - early web directory, content management software
• Plastic Mobile - mobile app agency
• PlentyofFish - online dating
• Polar Mobile - mobile apps agency
• PostRank - social engagement and influence ratings, incl. Aide RSS (acquired by Google)
• Pretzil - check-in aggregator
• Quillsoft - literacy and speech recognition software
• Radian6 - social media monitoring
• Reseach In Motion - mobile devices
• Social Graph Studios - Facebook app development company
• Shopify - e-commerce solutions
• Simply Audio Books - leading audio book e-tailer
• Syncapse - social media management
• Sysomos - social media monitoring
• StumbleUpon - website social discovery
• Swim Guide - mobile app to locate nearby beaches with safety status
• TakingITGlobal - organizer of IT volunteers
• Task Avenue - location-based task reminders
• Tech Vibes - tech news
• Torstar Digital - media company, producing various Canadian websites and mobile apps, incl. Shopcatch
• A Thinking Ape - mobile agency
• 20-20 Technologies - interior design software
• Tucows - ISP and application
• UFile - tax-filing software
• Viafoura - online user engagement
• WebCT - early e-learning platform (acquired by Blackboard)
• WebKinz - children's virtual world by Ganz
• Weblo - virtual world
• Wild Apricot - software for non-profits
• Workbrain - business efficency software (acquired)
• Xtreme Labs - mobile agency
• Zeitag - mobile app displaying geolocated historical photographs
• Zerofootprint - environment software

This list is not exhaustive - but has been exhausting to put together. Please help me out by letting me know of any additions.

IPTV - My Experience with Bell Fibe

Over a year ago, we signed up for Bell's Internet TV service (IPTV), Bell Fibe.  Judging from my blog stats the post I wrote on it last year was rather popular. Bell has certainly been marketing the service more lately.

Since last year, there's been improvements to the service and my experience with customer service has changed, so I thought I'd update the post.

First, Bell promised me two years of free PVR and two TV receivers, but then after one year renegged on this after one year. Of course, Bell doesn't put anything in writing, but I have notes from my conversations. After endless calls to Bell's customer service which is extremely painful in how unhelpful they are (this comic describes the pain of dealing with Bell's customer service perfectly), they offerred me a pretty good deal going forward, but refused to rebate me the fees I feel they fraudulently charged me.  Rather incurring more pain in dealing with them, I accepted their offer.  But, once my various contracts are up, I'm switching providers based entirely on this treatment.

Fall 2012 Update:  I had more problems with Bell's customer's service when we moved and tried to get Bell Fibe at our new place.  Without exaggeration, Bell's customer service is the worst I have ever dealt with.  Please see my updated blog post on Bell's bad customer service before considering Bell.

Signal Quality
Since we signed up there has been occasional buggy or down reception. I would say that this is happening less frequently over the past few months. It is rare that the service is down for more than an hour and very rare for it to be down a few hours, but it has happened at least a couple times in the last year. I have never got a rebate or any sort of proactive notice from Bell when the interruptions are more lengthy outages.

Search & Guide 
Users can search by program or actor up to two weeks in advance. At first, I thought this was great, but it doesn't take long to get to know when and which network a fav show is on. It was more useful when we had a free trial with a gazillion channels as I could quickly find Xena playing somewhere at any given moment. A serious flaw, however, is that the actor info for shows only lists up to four actors. And the actors listed may not necessarily be the leads or stars. Frankly stars are the only ones who anyone would search for, so this often negates the value of this feature.

Their tv guide feature seems standard to all tv services now. Listings include title, plot synopsis, date of production, rating, and cast. Similar to the search feature the few actors listed are not necessarily the stars and could unknowns playing bit roles. They have a genre search (e.g. news channels, family, movies, sports, etc.) which makes it easier to browse similar channel offerings, which is nice but is probably more useful for new customers or house guests.

The guide allows one to add and then browse by favourites. A feature they don't have that I have seen and like is colour coding of channels based on channels one gets and doesn't. We have to manually remove the channels we don't get up from our guide, but this means they don't show up at all so we don't know when a channel is offering a free preview.

Split-screens 
I like the ability to have the main screen stay open and have another mini-screen appear on the bottom. Also, one can browse the guide and see a mini-screen of a channel without actually having to go to that channel. I'm not sure if these features are standard on other services but they are definitely great for channel surfers such as myself.

Family friendly
I'm not sure if satellite or cable offer this feature, but I really like Bell Fibe's parental controls. I can quickly set the tv to block my kid from seeing inappropriate stuff while we channel surf. The blocking is based on ratings, however, so they are not foolproof. We can easily unlock by show or for a block of hours by entering our four digit passcode. It also blocks the pay-per-view and video-on-demand service, which is great as my 7-year-old already knows how to pull these up and is enthralled by them.

At Christmas for the past couple years, Bell  special channel with games, music, countdown, and links to holiday programs. We loved this, but they haven't had anything else like it subsequently.

Price
Bell Fibe's pricing structures does not appear to be significantly different than other services. One cannot completely custom order channels despite Bell's claims of this. One has to get a certain high and expensive tiered service before being able to order a-la-carte. Their channel packages, as with other services, are ridiculously expensive and bundle a ton of crap with a few good channels. Video-on-demand is also  expensive at $8-7 for new releases and $5 for really old movies. Their VOD offerings, and preview functionality, works great.

On Demand TV
They have a lot of TV shows available to view on demand. Great for when we forgot to PVR them.

Special applications
Since we have had the service, Bell has been rolling out more Internet-enabled features. One can program their PVR via the Internet or mobile device - great in theory, but I can't imagine a urgent need to suddenly and unexpectedly need to record something.

I like their web apps. Facebook and Twitter apps are a fun way to share what you're watching and provide commentary. As I post my photos to Facebook, I really like using this app to provide a quick and easy slideshow. The Weather Network app is also handy, as it quickly pulls up a full local forecast as well other weather info.

PVR
As an introductory offer, I'm getting a PVR for free for 3 years. The PVR has been amazing - and has been the real game-changer for how we experience television. Bell Fibe's service integrates really well with the PVR and all the tvs in the house. As Bell states "set, playback, manage your recordings and pause and rewind live TV from any TV in your home" - this is easy and well-used in our house.


I don't have extensive experience with cable or satellite options, so overall to me the determining factor on whether or not I'd renew my service is price. But as Bell continues to roll out more apps and web-enabled features this may prove a determining factor for me in the future. I'll keep you posted.

Prince Edward Island Gets Social Media

Yesterday, I participated in a Facebook event that was so effective and enjoyable that I thought I should share the details, as I think more organizations can benefit from hosting these types of events.

It was a 3-hour group chat, via Facebook's comments feature, with Prince Edward Island (PEI) representatives and tourists. I've participated in chats with organizations before, but this one was different as it offered a range of expert opinions and had a real conversational and personal style.

The organization organizing the event was PEI Tourism, but there were other host organizations from across PEI, such as tour operators, hotels, a heritage association, as well as locals in-the-know.

What I particularly liked about it was that it was a great big conversation about PEI with a bunch of different voices and perspectives. Many of the people writing had a genuine appreciation of PEI and an individual style that came through in their responses.

There is a ton of travel info available nowadays. I still love guidebooks and online resources are equally useful. If anything, there is often too much travel info available - but it's often generic in advice and bland in style. So attempting to get specific or non-mainstream information can be difficult.

This chat offered a chance to get the info I needed. I posted two questions and quickly got great answers. The responses included my name in their replies. This not only alerted me of the reply, but populated my Facebook feed with this.

It would be great if companies, regularly offered Q&A services. I understand this can be expensive to offer, so most companies don't even attempt this and instead rely on FAQ pages or a user base to field questions. These methods sometimes work, but I've seen lots of instances of questions posted that receive no replies, spam, flaming, or useless info. I noticed Tourism PEI always offers the ability to get answers online from a real staff member - but this is really rare nowadays.

But getting answers to my questions wasn't the only reason I thought the PEI Facebook chat was so effective. I also benefited from others' questions and answers and I enjoyed reading other people's fond memories of past PEI visits. This serendipitous discovery of info not only helped me learn more about my future travel destination but also get a sense of the personality and history of the island.

I also liked how the PEI hosts included links to further info or pictures. For example, PEI Museum and Heritage shared a link to their Flickr collection of scanned PEI postcards and asked if we ever received any. As a deltiologist I love looking at retro and kitsch postcards, and I went and checked my collection (some great old ones but so far no matches).

Finally, another useful element was the format of the chat. As it was online, I (or others) can read the chat and investigate further at any time (unlike other "chat" formats such as conferences or some Internet Relay Chats).

From a business perspective, there are numerous benefits to hosting this type of event.

First in terms of finances, such events can directly increase sales. For example, I received recommendations for restaurants that I will definitely be going to (instead of just cooking in our cottage rental). Indirectly, it helps foster a pleasant attitude to the brand, that will likely have future financial benefits.

In terms of promotion, by using Facebook the event uses Facebook's existing user base and social features that easily, and often automatically, extends the reach of such an event.

The conversational quality and earnest responses of this event were essential to this event not coming across as one big shill. This in turn makes the recommendations received more credible and (at least for me) more actionable.

I was really impressed with this event, not only for the serving my needs so well but for representing the ideal of what social media can achieve.

List of Location-Based Services

Update: This list was updated in a new post in April 2013, check out my new list.

Every couple weeks there are major changes to location-based service. Big players are out, new exciting apps come in, such as YWCA's Safety Siren and Swim Guide.

This month, it's the launch of Google+ Local (replacing Google Places). Lately, Banjo is also getting a heap of buzz. And it wasn't that long ago that Facebook bought Glancee.

Trying to keep track of these apps is rather futile under such conditions. But this list demonstrates the interesting ways location-based services (LBS) can be used and highlights their cool features, so I find it useful to keep updating it.

LBS are mobile device apps are able to able to determine users' physical location and then deliver content or experiences relevant to that location. The list below is categorized based on the application's leading purpose. However, many applications offer overlapping functionality.

The descriptions in quotation marks are taken from that application's website.

Coordination, Communication, and Safety

• Crowdmap - open-source hosted solution to present location-specific crowdsourced info whether for activism, crises, or community projects
• Glympse - share your location with your contacts and specify the duration of visit
• Groundcrew - "coordinates on-the-ground action with your people. Use location, availability, and skills to mobilize in realtime."
• Guardly - "When an emergency occurs, your personal safety network will always know where you're located....we can pin-point your exact GPS location and provide you with valuable information about what's located around you, and how it can aid your situation."
• Moby - family member tracking and coordination
• Swim Guide - find nearby beaches, their safety status, and historical info
• YWCA Safety Siren - sends geolocation to emergency contacts, maps and directions to women's health clinics & resources, etc.

Commerce and Marketing

• MapDing- hyperlocal classifieds
• Placecast - service provider for brands to create geolocative mobile apps
• Priority Moments - proximity-based promotions & deals (only in London, UK)
• Realtor.ca - allows a user to search and receive info and pix on properties for sale in their vicinity or across Canada. Also offers proximity-based new listings and open houses (Rightmove has this for London, UK)
• Shopkick - "gives you rewards and offers simply for walking into stores, for scanning products, and for signing up friends"
• Shopcatch - location-based deals (Canadian company)
• Sociallight - service provider of geolocative apps
• Where - proximity-based promotions and deals
• YellowPages - detects your location or enter one to retrieve nearby businesses or people

Geoannotation

• Flickr - upload & search for georeferenced photos (also the ZoneTag tool from Yahoo appears to facilitate this)
• Geoloqi - "securely shar[e] location data, with features such as Geonotes, proximal notification, and sharing real-time GPS maps with friends."
• Historypin - enables users to add old photographs and text narratives to locations
• Instagram - popular photo-sharing app that allows georeferencing & sharing with foursquare
• Murmur - recorded oral histories of place, uses old cellphone tech as users see plaque and call specific number to hear targetted message
• Tagwhat - a "mobile encyclopedia of where you are... learn all about the world around you through interactive stories, videos, and photos"
• urbantag - tag and share lists of places with friends

Geosocial Networking

• Banjo - geosocial discovery - helps you find friends and people with similar interests near you
• BuzzE - proxmity friend finding and networking
• CheckIn+ - "all-in-one check-in app with augmented reality"
• Citysense - "real-time nightlife discovery and social navigation"
• Find My Friends - Apple-based friend finder
• Glassmap - friend tracking
• Google Latitude - "see where your friends are right now"
• Grindr and Blendr gay and straight friend and dating finder
• GyPsii - claims to be the world's largest geosocial network
• Highlight - "if your friends are nearby, it will notify you. If someone interesting crosses your path, it will tell you more about them"
• Hurricane Party - "helps friends find, share, and create spontaneous parties"
• Locle - geo-based friend finder
• Plazes - proxmity friend finding
• Skout -"find interesting singles close-by, strike up a conversation, maybe grab a drink or share a cup of coffee"

Local Discovery and Hyperlocal Information

• Around Me - find business near your location by biz type (similar for gas is GasBuddy)
• EveryTrail - "find and follow trips from other travelers"
• Geopedia - geotargetted Wikipedia entries - as also offered by WikiMe
• Google+ Local - combines Google's old Places listings with Zagat content and their Google+ social network features
• Junaio - AR-based vicinity info search, including business and attractions
• Layar - augmented reality browser
• Local Books by Library Thing "It shows you local bookstores, libraries and bookish events wherever you are or plan to be."
• Nearest Wiki - "AR view, with a synopsis against points of interest near you. Tapping on the place you wish to learn more about will give you more in-depth information on the location with images" content from Wikipedia
• Poynt - local search with proximity based reviews and mapping
• Star Chart- not exactly local, but uses your position and AR view to offer info on the heavens (Google offers similar functionality with their Google Sky Map service)
• Trover - "log remarkable places and things by snapping a photo and adding a quick note. When your friends and others pass by in the future they, too, can experience your discovery. Track the paths of friends and other interesting folks using our "follow" mode"
• Twitter Places - search for tweets within a specified area or tag places in your tweets
• Zeitag - historical photographs

Location-based Games

• Booyah - variety of games, including MyTown and Nightclub City
• My Town - "built around your local shops, restaurants, and hangouts. Level-up, unlock items, and earn cash to buy your favorite real-life locations."
• SCVNGR - "share where you are & what you're up to with your friends. Do challenges to earn points and unlock badges & real-world rewards."
• TapCity - "play with friends as you build and defend your very own city made up of your favorite places in the real world."

Navigation and Transportation

• BlackBerry Traffic by RIM uses GPS and customized maps to "establish your estimated time of arrival, find out if a road is closed, or decide to take a faster, alternate route"
• MyCar Park - "capture your parking location on a map, add a photo, and comments... Then built in maps direct you to your car from your current location."
• Nearest Subway - locates nearest subway station for New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid, etc.
• Red Rocket - Toronto transit maps, routes, schedules, and nearest stop
• SitOrSquat - find nearby bathrooms with user reviews of their cleanliness by Charmin (genius marketing effort and I must say the most useful LBS to come along in ages!)
• Waze - "free, community-based traffic & navigation app"

Personal Efficiency and Organization

• Siri's Location Services - directions, recommendations, and personal efficiency services based on your location
• Task Ave - "location-aware reminders. Magically get alerts when you're nearby a task."
• Voxora - "voicemail for places", integrates with foursquare
Social Recommendation and Navigation


• DeHood - tap into neighbourhood buzz to find local businesses
• DontEat.at - foursquare-based and only in NYC it sends "a text message when you check into a NYC restaurant that is at risk of being closed for health code violations"
• Goby - suggests "fun things to do" based on your location or category (US only)
• Localmind - get answers about a specific place & real-time events by people who are there
• Urbanspoon - location and shaking based restaurant recommendations
• Urbantag - customize a list of favourite places and share with friends
• Wikitude - offers A.R., map, or list view of various types of proximal content (reviews, deals, and Wikipedia entries)
• Yelp and Citysearch - user-generated local reviews combined with local search engine

Travel and Place Guides

• Ask a Nomad - answered on your travel questions from fellow travellers
• Compass by Lonely Planet - "plot itineraries on dynamic, GPS-enabled map. Grab practical information and useful tips using our augmented reality camera view"
• Gogobot - travel tips from friends & other users
• MobilyTrip - social networking travel diary app
• mTrip - "automatically customizes your trip itinerary...guides you to each tourist attraction with directions, uses augmented reality to display tourist attractions in your area, and allows you to share your trip with personalized e-postcards"
• Ski & Snow Report - detailed ski info snow amounts, traffic volume, weather, lift times, etc)
• Ski Tracks - a GPS-enabled ski log of your routes, velocity, etc. with ability to geotag your pix
• TimeOut - travel guide apps for various tourist hot-spots
• TripAdvisor - get TripAdvisor's content on your mobile with proximity search option
• Tripbirds - travel tips from friends
• Trippy - get trip advice from your social network

Early and/or Deceased LBS:

• Brightkite, Centrl, Loopt, Rally Up, and Gowalla - pioneers in place check-ins(Facebook Places also tried this market and then soon closed)
• Dodgeball - SMS, pre-cursor to foursquare bought by Google and eventually shut down (see CNET eulogy)
• Dopplr - social travel planning (bought by Nokia and withered)
• Flook - offered user-generated geolocated information
• Glancee - friend finder based on proximity and social and personal commonalities (started in 2010, bought by Facebookand shut down)
• GeoSpot - started in 2005 and offered location-based information and search products
• Hidden Park - "iPhone adventure game created especially for young families...lead(s) children into a fantasy world of trolls, fairies and tree genies - right in their local park"
• Fire Eagle and Friends on Fire - location sharing platform and API, by Yahoo
• Magitti - local recommendation, from PARC (see ReadWriteWeb article)
• Mscape - location-based gaming platform by HP
• Whrrl - users joined interest and brand based groups to get recommendations, tips, and deals

Please let me know of any corrections or ones you recommend be added to this list.

Media & Place - Notes from a McLuhan Event

One of the things that drew me to iSchool at the University of Toronto was the McLuhan Program in Culture & Technology. For reasons that have taken me years to partially glean, the program has existed more in name than anything else in recent years.

Over the years, the program has hosted a series of Monday night seminars, as Marshall McLuhan was famous for. At last night's seminar, the program heads announced a stream in culture and technology starting next year as part of the iSchool master's degree and McLuhan's lacklustre building, the Coach House will get a substantial reno. These are all part of the plans to make the Coach House and UofT a centre (again) for thought and discussion on new media and society.
Despite this promising news, last night's discussion on "Making Sense of Place" was disappointing. An unfortunate habit of academics, particularly those tenured, is to abandon the seminar topic and talk about whatever they want. Only one of speakers, Shawn Micallef, addressed the topic. The questions by the audience were also generally off-topic, basic (e.g. "What is Twitter?), or curmudgeonly ("These young people today, there's no hope..." ) so I was only able to gather a few useful morsels from the seminar.

The first speaker Joshua Meyrowitz was a major influential figure in examining the role of media in relation (projecting or negating) to place. Although his talk was mostly about the campaigns of indigenous people to protect their land, he briefly touched upon how current digital media is being used by groups to both chart their own spaces and to use media to bring attention to their cause - to bring outsiders into their place. As one commenter noted, these types of media efforts enable "the co-occupation of imaginary space, leading to empathy, and then hopefully leading to community".

In response, Meyrowitz offered an analogy comparing our relationship to place as a marriage. Where in earlier times, our marriage to place was an arranged marriage in which one didn't have a lot of choice about what places they were attached to. Now we have more choice in our place engagements and more overt expressions of place love, similar to declarations of romantic love. But we also have more divorces, as people are now not as bonded to place and will move or make new engagements as they see fit.

Micallef has an impressive history of place-related media work, including launching one of the first locative media projects [murmur], launching a magazine on Canadian urban landscapes, and his current Twitter and TTC electronic sign project, Stroll City. Micallef discussed his use of digital media both as a creator and audience. He hates Foursquare ("it's geo-spam, as it just says where [people] are") but loves Twitter for the layers of information not otherwise possible. He describes his morning ritual of reading his Twitter feed (1200, including about 800 Torontonians) as gets to "hear the pulse of the city" and get a glimpse into a diverse range of people lives from various parts of the city.

He also found that Twitter has helped him appreciate the places he encounters either through checking out tweets refined by a geographic area or from feedback he gets from others on the places he mentions.

Micallef's work attempts to counter the notion that Toronto is ahistoric, boring, or placeless. His Stroll City efforts have attempted to address this by encouraging people to think and talk about place - to "merge the corporeal and the digital".

I'm looking forward to hearing more from Micallef and the new culture and technology iSchool program.