Category Archives: Uncategorized

MAGAZINE REVIEW: Wired – June 2016 issue (in progress)

Posted on by
Reply

Wired Magazine
A publication of Conde Naste
Twitter: @WIRED
June 2016 issue

Last updated: SUN May 22 2016 6:57 PM
By: Glenda MacDonald

My husband informed me today that he received his email from WIRED saying that the June issue is now available in digital format.

I’m quite happy to wait a few days until the hard copy arrives in the mail. I worked eight years in magazine as an ad sales rep and copywriter. I still love the physical experience of flipping through the book from cover to cover, leisurely. In my early magazine days I had to schlep printouts of ad proofs to local clients to approve in person. Then we got a fax machine and we didn’t have to leave the office to get ads approved.. as long as the advertiser also had a fax machine… Then I bought an iBook laptop and started emailing people ad proofs, but our publisher was giving me a lot of push-back and wanting me to get out of the office and see the clients in person. I left that job to manage an eCommerce research centre at a university where I fully-embraced the digital world.

So maybe it’s a bit of nostalgia that leads me to read this techy mag ‘the old way’. But I have brought my own hybrid twist to the process of reviewing. I live-blog as I read it, stopping to search online for the links to the articles to share with my followers on Twitter. I tweet my observations and relevant links and then I update my blog by embedding the tweets which continually reply to each other creating a long story string which is the basis for my entire review.

So patience my Twitter friends. If you’re are already enjoying the digital version of June don’t feel bad for me. I actually could read the digital copy if I wanted to as I have a multil-magazine subscription app that gives me access. But I prefer to wait, anxiously checking the mailbox, and when the June is here I’ll be on my back deck, sipping coffee, and tweeting the highlights for you!

Email Success Summit Day 2: March 15 2016 Live-Tweeted Reviews

Posted on by
Reply

Last Updated: TUES March 29 2016 8:10 PM
By: Glenda MacDonald

Event Name: Email Success Summit Virtual Educational Event (now an online course)

DAY TWO: List Growth (Original Air Date: TUES March 15 2016)

Day2Spkr1:
Speaker: Joanna Wiebe
Topic: Battle of the buttons: Negative consequences and ethical bribes

Day2Spkr2:  Erik Harbison 
Topic: Email capture best practices to engage raving fans 

Email Success Summit Day 1: March 14 2016 Live-Tweeted Reviews

Posted on by
Reply

Last Updated: TUES March 29 2016 8:17 PM
By: Glenda MacDonald

Event Name: Email Success Summit Virtual Educational Event (now an online course)

DAY ONE: Traffic and Lead Magnets (Original Date: MON March 14 2016)

Day1Spkr1:
Michael Leander, Founder of Markedu; international speaker, marketing trainer & consultant focusing on CRM, customer strategy, customer loyalty, marketing automation, and social media.
Topic: The life-time perspective: the importance of a long-term plan and commitment in email marketing

Day1Sprk2:
Speaker: Ana Hoffman, Founder at Traffic Generation Cafe
Topic: How to generate traffic to attract high quality subscribers

Day1Spkr3: 
Speaker: Martin Shervington
Topic: Converting your adwords and paid traffic into quality leads

Day1Spkr4:
Speaker: Kristi Hines
Topic: Create a killer lead magnet to get response

Day1Sprk5:
Speaker: Bob Jenkins
Topic: Double your email list with lead magnets that convert

Day1Spkr6:
Speaker: James Tuckerman
Topic: Unlocking the list you already have

 

EVENT REVIEW: Coming Home: The Moth in Toronto

Posted on by
Reply

The Moth gently flitted in to a glowing reception at Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Thursday night. This is not surprising as tickets to the event were sold out within minutes of it being announced. I recall hearing on CBC Radio quite a while back that the acclaimed not-for-profit organization dedicated to live storytelling was coming to Toronto. I was one of the fast-fingered fortunates who immediately logged into their Bloor Hot Docs Cinema account and purchased a ticket to the event sponsored by The Globe and Mail

The excitement in the VIP cocktail lounge was palpable. As the hors d’ouevres were being served and the patrons enjoyed the open bar I chatted with others who like me had come knowing a little bit about the concept, curious and sensing that something very special was about to happen. There is a strong storytelling community in Toronto. One of the world’s top urban storytelling celebrations Toronto Storytelling Festival will run March 19 to 29  will welcome storytellers from around the world.

The excellent comedic host was Ophira Eisenberg, who according to her website is “smart, friendly, slightly self-deprecating, and one heck of a writer.”, to which I would have to agree on all counts.  A Canadian now living in New York she entertained the audience with her observations of coming back to Toronto where she once lived and noticing how much and how little things have changed in her old neighbourhood. It is this focus on the minutiae of daily existence, things which  might otherwise be overlooked, that is the foundation for oral storytelling. Ophira is a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.

The theme for this event was Coming Home. Ophira had asked each of the storytellers to talk about the most unusual place they’d felt like they were coming home.

Musical entertainment was provided by fiddle player Ali Raney who is part of the country duo The Lovelocks . Her fiddle told it’s own story as it settled and roused the audience in her expert hands.

Each of the storytellers brilliantly shone their lights and we in the audience were moths to their flames. Samuel James, a musician and the creator of a video series Kitty Critic, told a poignant story of his experiences as a young boy finding kindness from a gentle new friend and her family when the foster system and his own relatives were failing him. As Samuel expressed his thoughts and moved his arms his metal watch cast a tiny white reflection on the black backdrop and it oddly looked like a little moth circling behind him.  Falen Johnson talked about how as a woman with Native heritage she sometimes feels invisible due to the lightness of her skin. She regaled us with a fascinating and amusing tale of giving a walking tour in Toronto for a motley crew of pamphlet-holders as she tried to address the issue of the “invisible” people who populate the rough neighbourhood, only to find that two seemingly threatening interlopers were the ones who inadvertently provided the most insightful contributions. Comedy writer and storyteller Sam Mullins (who by the way has an awesome blog with tips for would-be storytellers) connected with many in the audience who related to some of his issues of social anxiety. He adeptly pulled us into his world from childhood to adulthood with all the dreams, disappointments, rebellions, and the letting go and showed how the last place he wanted to be was where he found his centre. I think I laughed the hardest at Steve Zimmer‘s deadpan delivery of his grade five fascination with the ancient city of Rome and his attempts to conscript his friend and his brother to help him recreate the Coliseum from snow and ice on his front yard only to find the fall of his own small mutinous civilization yet the smugly eloquent art that emerged from the melting ruins.
Bookending the evening was another serious story, after the humorous inbetweeners. The grand finale was by musician Martha Wainwright of the famous musical family, daughter of the late Kate McGarrigle. In her soft, measured voice she told the story of becoming a new mother with a premature infant just as her own mother was “growing wings” and dying of cancer many miles away and the excruciating challenges due to medical restrictions on travel that kept separating them when the last moments were so precious. She talked of love and sadness, the movement of the generations. She shared some dark humour by bringing us inside a private moment when she and her brother Rufus were readying their mother for her “final appearance”. As much as I had laughed out loud at Steve’s previous story I was bawling inside listening to Martha.
This is why we tell stories. They herd a dark room of 700 people onto a country porch under the stars to share life’s moments as they watch the moths circle the light.
Glenda MacDonald
Last updated: March 13, 2015

Alive Inside – awakening Alzheimer’s and dementia patients

Posted on by
Reply

Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease rob individuals of the essence of their personalities, with devastating consequences for the stricken individuals and for all who love them. But does it have to?

The second-to-last time I saw Granny she was in a wheelchair still, in the apartment wing of the “rest home”, on a waiting list for a spot in the nursing wing. My mom, a nurse, ministered to all her physical needs. Granny didn’t know her anymore and seemed to be ‘gone’. But those blue eyes… as I looked into them I wondered with my undergrad degree in psychology, what if she is not gone. She locked eyes on me. I’m not sure why but I threw a “Nerf” ball at her, and damn –  she could have been at first base the way that arm flew up and caught it. Reflex? I believed that she was ‘still in there”.  But I lived far away and wouldn’t be able to test my theory.

The final time I saw her, so frail and tiny in her hospital bed, chin sharp in the absence of dentures, nose pointy, hair white and gray, I thought, what if there is more in there?  As I sat by her side, holding her hand, as she lay in a fetal position, we locked eyes for a final time, my blue eyes a reflection of hers.  I said “Granny, I will always remember you for the wonderful beautiful woman that you are.” A tear rolled down her cheek. I believe she heard me. I never saw her again.

Tonight I attended the first Canadian performance of Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory, a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary by social worker Dan Cohen captured on film and directed by Michael Rossato-Bennett. The first of three showings at 6:30 p.m. this evening was sold out. It covers a three year period where Dan and Michael documented the incredible effect of putting iPods and headphones with personalized music selections based on individual histories into the hands of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.  The results were astounding as patient after patient came alive, swaying to the music, singing, crying, laughing, some dancing.  And the joy in those who witnessed it was viral. You can’t watch this movie and not want to go out and deliver this experience to every person that might benefit from it. While the music was delivered through headphones it did not preclude engagement with others, in fact  the intensity of the private music connection seemed to facilitate communication with others.

Music seems to access a part of the neural networks that is the first to develop and the last to be lost,  not so much affected by the diseases of aging.  And there were stories too of families discovering the value of music and how it might delay some of the symptoms, allowing them to keep their loved ones at home, engaging, loving, being a valuable part of the family and the community. If I had only known, maybe an old Finnish folk tune would have helped Granny.

AliveInsideHotDocsApr 2 2014 first show GMacDonaldFilmaker and producer Michael Rossato-Bennett and Mr. Hardy (whose wife Nell has lived at home for ten years on a steady diet of music, avoiding going to a nursing home)

This film has only played at Sundance, and tonight and tomorrow at Hot Docs / Doc Soup in Toronto. I’m sure the other two performances will be sold out too.

Mr. Rossato-Bennet and Mr. Hardy, as well as many fans and supporters need to raise $200k for the Canadian distribution of the film beginning in July.

Let’s bring the film to Canadian audiences. This is not just a film it is a social movement. For more info see aliveinsidemovie.com 

and click here to make your donation to the project now.

Glenda MacDonald

Tweet

View Glenda MacDonald's LinkedIn profile View Glenda MacDonald’s profile


Last updated April 4, 2014 8:23 p.m.