The Internet is amazing for the places it can take you and the things it can show you. For example, when I saw a video for “World’s Most Dangerous Ride” posted on MetaFilter, I thought it was pretty cool…
But that thread led to more clips that were *way* scarier.
On a bike…
No safety harness…
This one is the worst…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68fJP35FxyQ
So MeiliMondays have replaced Music Monday for the last couple months which is cool and fine but makes me want to just post a really awesome song now and again.
This little clip, a song I’m sure I’ve posted before but can’t find because I cleverly post song lyrics instead of song titles for those Music Monday posts, is both musical and political.
Perfect.
Plus, if asked to pick, Spirit of the West, is probably one of the bands that defined my college years as much as any other in terms of unadulterated good times. To this day, I can’t go to a friend’s weddding without hearing “Home For A Rest” – although that’s not the song I’m posting here. Instead, I give you a house concert version of “Political”…
Today, Ryan Meili’s campaign announced a very unique fundraiser aimed at getting 50 people to donate $50 (or more!) for a copy of his book, “A Healthy Society” in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Medicare.
For a $50 donation, people are able to get a signed copy of a book written by the person who could eventually become the next Premier of Saskatchewan (a pretty good deal if you ask me, especially as we head into the holiday season – the biggest book buying period of the year by far!)
Beyond being a useful fundraising tool, there are huge advantages to Ryan being the sole published [edit for clarity: book] author in this leadership contest:
Others have weighed in with their thoughts on the first All-Candidates Forum (and one thing that is clear from the varied commentary I’ve seen online and heard directly from others) is that no one really “won” the debate and instead, by the end of the night, the (relatively) equal footing of the various candidates so far was re-confirmed.
I may add some additional observations at some point but for now, I want to hone in on one specific thought that kept occurring to me as I watched the four candidates last Saturday and heard them drawing on their previous and current experience to answer the various questions.
Obviously, the reality is that there can only be one ultimate winner at the end of this contest. But even knowing that, when the NDP gets back in power, I’d say they’re poised to have a blockbuster of a cabinet.
Really, with one minor exception, all candidates would immediately slot into high-profile portfolios given their education and work backgrounds…
Ryan Meili – Health
Erin Weir – Finance
Trent Wotherspoon – Education
The only candidate who doesn’t seem to have had a professional career before entering politics that would naturally connect them to an existing portfolio is Cam Broten whose biography on his web site lists tree planting, teaching assistant at a University, government facilitator and policy analyst as his previous jobs.
That’s not a slam on Cam as I’m sure there are lots of portfolios that don’t obviously tie in to a person’s previous experience (as a silly example, I suspect most Highways Ministers don’t have much more experience with Highways beyond driving on them prior to assuming that vital role!)
And since becoming an MLA five years ago, he served as opposition critic for Advanced Education & Youth previously and now as Critic for Health, Seniors, Advanced Education, Employment, and Immigration (which also shows how stretched current MLA’s are after the disastrous 2011 election – Cam went for responsibility for two areas to five!)
But as I said, it jumped out to me at the debate that Cam’s the only one who doesn’t have a natural spot to be slotted in a future cabinet based on his education and work background – although I’m sure he’d excel in whichever role the future leader were to assign him.
I have written
this blog
that began in
the oughties
and which
has gone on now for
2500
near-daily posts
The Tesla company which produces electric cars and which Mitt Romney infamously labelled a “loser” after Barack Obama’s government invested in it, recently won MotorTrend’s “Car of the Year” award by unanimous vote which was also the first win by an electric car in the 64-year history of the award. (Now who’s laughing, Mitt?)
Now I just have to get to Toronto!
Here’s me teaching a new Assistive Technology program we got at the library how to pronounce Regina…
A pretty heart-warming video, even if I’ve been trained to be cynical enough about videos like this that at the end I thought it was probably a viral video for Coke! (Turns out it’s a charitable foundation called Love Everybody).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0fAnwX76aI
(via LyinRPL)
Just before the Sask NDP leadership campaign started, I compared a variety of social media metrics for each of the potential candidates.
Now that we’re a couple months into things, I thought I’d revisit this idea but with a twist.
Instead of looking up all of the numbers (and how they’ve changed) for each candidate across Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc. etc. etc., I thought I’d use one simple measure that, in the age of “Gangnam Style” getting 600 million views is as much a measure of viral reach as Facebook, Twitter or any other traditional social networks.
I thought I’d look at the most recent YouTube video released by each campaign, when it was released and how many views it has to see what kind of viral reach the campaigns are having online.
As always, this isn’t a perfect measure – three of the four candidates released very campaign-oriented videos recently but Trent Wotherspoon’s latest clip on his Trent4Leader YouTube channel is of him speaking about Remembrance Day in the Legislature. That one only has 41 views as I type this compared to his last campaign-related one where he announced his Education Policy which only has 17 views even though it was released three weeks ago.
So maybe it’s better to use the more recent one on this list anyhow even though it wasn’t really campaign specific?
On second thought, the lack of views for Trent’s last couple videos may be an accident of timing as much as anything. So I’m going to bend my rule and focus on the last “major” video Trent released just to make things a bit more equal.
So how do each of their most recent (and/or most campaign focused recent videos) videos stack up?
Cam Broten -“The Go-To Guy I Trust More Than Anybody” – 185 views (3 weeks ago)
Ryan Meili – “Better Together: Ryan Meili for Sask NDP Leader” – 314 views (2 days ago)
Erin Weir – “The Sask Party Can’t Stop Talking About Erin Weir” – 179 views (6 days ago)
Trent Wotherspoon – “Trent Wotherspoon, Forward Together – Join Team Trent” – 623 views (1 month ago)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqp_gu4b9m8&feature=plcp
So what, if anything, do these numbers tell us?
Well, for one thing, I think it reinforces what we already knew – the Meili & Weir camps are both running campaigns which have much more of a social media component than the Broten & Wotherspoon campaigns. (Slight aside – maybe its because they’re both sitting MLA’s but I keep wanting to think that Cam and Trent are the two oldest candidates in the race and attribute findings like this to that. Except that’s not true at all – Weir is indeed the youngest but I think Meili is actually the oldest candidate in the race.)
My post on Monday opened up a bit of a hornet’s nest but I’ll double-down on the points I made by saying the lack of focus on social media from Wotherspoon and Broten reinforces my argument that those two, more than the others, are most representative of the status quo rather than embracing change and doing things in a new way.
Very interesting story about how Nickelback has gone from Hanna, AB to one of the biggest and most successful bands on earth.
