The BlackBerry Movie -- and the audience booed

About 400 RIM colleagues gathered on May 25th and refreshed our friendships and reminded ourselves of the countless remarkable achievements we shared at Research In Motion. Word spread quickly about the gathering and within five days all the tickets were sold for the three opening day screenings of the BlackBerry movie at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo. The local CTV coverage shows the street was filled with conversation an hour before the movie began and colleagues were still talking past midnight. 

In many ways it is a very entertaining movie. But the best commentary about the movie is made by past-CFO Dennis Kavelman in the National Post.  I echo his concerns that most people are unable to separate the many comedic fictional characterizations from the genuine behaviour of the company leaders. The poster of the movie shows a light bulb over the head of the Mike Lazaridis character which is entirely appropriate. But the devil horns above the head of the Jim Balsillie character I find insulting -- given how Jim is characterized in the movie, I think they could have gone with #!* 

If you have seen any movie that begins with "based on real events" then you hopefully already understand that movie markers, especially ones who are attempting to mix comedy and drama, will twist facts and invent situations to suit their entertainment goal. As one simple example, Jim and Mike knew each other long before Jim joined the company in 1992, but the movie timeline has that introduction happening in 1996. If you watch this movie, please don't think you are learning the sequence of events or gaining any understanding of the behaviour or the history of any character. And remember that the company still employees a lot of people (one movie attendee has been with the company 29 years) and the company had revenue of U$718M last year (more than the FY2004 revenue, but a long way down from the high of $19.9 billion in 2011).

The RIM-only audience laughed several times and cheered for the Waterloo location shots. But they booed loudly when the movie makes a harsh slap in the face of Canadian engineers. That brief scene has no place in this movie, especially from Canadian film makers, and Mike would NEVER think nor say such a thing. With that scene, the movie instantly flips away from funny for the RIM audience. To further make my point about Mike, he was masterful in front of customers. I was with Mike in Europe in August 1993 when Mike said to me, "there is no reason we cannot be as big as Motorola". At that point there were at most twenty employees at the company and Motorola did $17B in revenue. Mike and Jim worked in lock-step for years. Mike had a vision for where RIM was going and the two of them seemed like they could finish each other's sentences. 

After the movie, I spoke with the Director while he signed posters on the street. I asked if he can make any adjustments before the CBC television showing which he said is planned for November. He quickly and enthusiastically confirmed that he could (without saying that he would). The movie ends with the Jim character drinking a beer in a little fishing boat. A more appropriate ending image would have been from 2009 when Stephen Hawking made his first visit to the Perimeter Institute founded in 2000 by Mike.  Rather than the three existing short sentences about Doug, Jim and Mike, the Director could attempt to tally the hundreds of millions of dollars these three business and community leaders (and many other RIM employees such as Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum) have contributed to not-for-profit causes across Waterloo Region and far more broadly across Canada. Matt Johnson, please do the right thing and bring some balance to the force of this movie. Sorry, did you see Star Wars? (funniest line in the movie). 

Brentwood Ontario Reunion 1937

 Brentwood Ontario is not a big place, an intersection west of Angus Ontario. But back in 1937 over two hundred people gathered for some kind of reunion in High Park in Toronto which at the time would have been a nontrivial distance away probably requiring a train ride from Barrie and Barrie itself would not have been a short distance. My mother is one of the children seated on the ground in front of her parents and brother.

Do Not Look Back

I had the pleasure of visiting Haida Gwaii last week. For anyone who enjoys walking under the shade of a tall tree there will be few more remarkable destinations. The photo below shows how a Haida mortuary pole that would have stood for more than a century is now wrapped by a more recent spruce.

At Kuna

The Haida were pushed to the brink of cultural oblivion by government policies that criminalized their unique language and culture. Fortunately, those last 500 Haida must have been exceptionally resilient individuals.

Along the trail to the Golden Spruce -- I am nature and a lesson of the Haida Culture. Look after each other and be generous. Never take more than you need. Enjoy, share and respect the lands and waters that sustain you. Everything I have has a purpose. Look after me, and I in turn will look after you. Do not look back, there is much more to see, feel and love.

Nothing lasts forever

Whether you like canoes or you like wood working or neither, I hope you will enjoy this video. In an interview he explains more about his reasons for building and then destroying the boat. In short, it was a symbolic gesture to leave behind a time in his life. I haven't personally seen a Buddhist sand mandala, but it is a work of art that is ceremonially dismantled after it is completed to recognize impermanence.

All is well

I found a small stack of photocopies in my mother's things. It seemed as if she had prepared them with some future eventuality in mind, but she never discussed it with me. Assuming that her intent was for those words to be shared with those who knew her throughout her life, I will also share it with you. It is attributed to Harry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral

Death is nothing at all.  I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Pray, smile, think of me, pray of me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. 

We kill them

I recommend everyone read the Globe & Mail article written by Jim Balsillie which begins with his account of a U.S. business leader describing a tactic for dealing with successful Canadian businesses: "... We wait until they get big enough, then we go after them. And we kill them.”  In case it wasn't obvious that business is a full contact sport, the article points out several gaps in how Canadian institutions -- legislative and education especially -- are failing to fortify our national economic interests. Since Jim is a well noted hockey fan, he could have used a hockey metaphor – you must skate with your head up or someone is going to flatten you!

Bighead River

Last weekend we paddled the Bighead River into Meaford. We put-in at the 11th Line bridge and spent two pleasant hours paddling a few class 1 sections to the 7th Line bridge before lunch. But the next 45 minutes to the take-out at Beautiful Joe Park (Edwin Street) was fantastic – essentially continuous fun, shore to shore, genuine class-2, river. In hindsight, we would have just paddled the last section twice because the car shuttle is so quick. A solo paddler could use a bicycle or probably even a local taxi.

There aren't any complex ledges; there are plenty of mid-river boulders for catching eddies, especially in a kayak; and as you will see in the video, lots of fun maneuvering for a tandem canoe. Higher water might push the take-out about 100m down to the other end of the park and if the water level dropped another foot it might have a couple fun sections but it would also be rather shallow. The first five seconds of this video clip show me doing a little ender.  The water office graph shows a 16 discharge and 11.45m water level.

Back on the Mag

In June we paddled the Magnetawan River from my house to Britt. I didn't do much in the way of video or photos this year -- just one clip of Kevan & Tom running a typical drop we encountered. The water level was at least two feet higher this year -- compare some of the shots in Jean's video to the video I made last year. There are more photos on the canoe club site.

First time on the barrens

In 2005 I paddled with Alex Hall of Canoe Arctic Adventures on my first trip on the Barrens. The video below was my first effort editing video and Youtube have an excellent new feature that stabilized some of my unsteady video which has fixed a couple scenes, such as the wolf and muskox clips. It may be easier to watch on the Youtube site.

Land Value Taxation

This video briefly explains an alternative concept for taxation. Setting the relative values of land would of course be a complex detail of such an idea, but no more complex than the underpinnings of our existing tax labyrinth. It would be a very big software model to test before delivering the news! Nonetheless, the central notion is very interesting and more details are available at the Earthsharing site.

Crowd-sourced copywriting

Last year I met a student named Asad Khan during a University of Toronto class where I volunteer.  Asad has graduated and started an interesting business that will operate a marketplace to match crowd-sourced copywriters with companies seeking creative ideas. If you think you are can compose the type of catchy phrase that can win an online competition (or you simply want to pretend you are on Mad Men) then you might want to sign-up to be notified when the service goes live. Naturally, Asad is seeking initial funding through a crowd-sourced funding site -- indiegogo.

MOOC discussion at Rensselaer

Below is an email I sent today to a few Rensselaer faculty and staff. If you are one of my RPI friends, please consider pushing a few buttons on campus as well and please cut and paste from my diatribe if you like. The first MOOC I used was at Cal Berkeley as I was preparing to go back to RPI in late 2006.  It is astonishing that RPI was a national leader in distance education in the 80's and they are now so far behind.

To: president@rpi.edi; edop@poly.rpi.edu;

Subject: Don't forget alumni in the MOOC discussion

For many, Rensselaer's April 10th Colloquium on Teaching & Learning will be about the pedagogy of MOOCs. But for everyone associated with RPI, it should first be about Rensselaer's brand -- our reputation. Understanding why this topic has far-reaching strategic value to Rensselaer is more important than tactical implementation considerations. At the heart of that strategic value is understanding how to leverage Institute resources to engage the imaginations of alumni who can uniquely influence RPI's reputation.

Before we arrived on campus as students, faculty or staff, we chose to invest our skills and our time at RPI because of some positive association or affinity we each had previously developed for this great Institute. With some reflection, I bet each one of us could identify that positive influence. Perhaps it was a friend or relative that spoke highly of the schools educational rigor. Perhaps you highly regarded a distinguished researcher. Perhaps a trusted professional colleague had graduated from the school or was an employee. That feeling and influence is the foundation of RPI's brand. Upon that foundation, faculty, staff and alumni frame their professional lives.

Unlike most faculty, tens of thousands of RPI alumni will only have one university affiliation. When asked in a professional or personal context where we chose to spend our formative undergrad years, we will proudly exclaim RPI !  Most alumni hope that everyone who has been associated with RPI will enthusiastically promote this school. But realistically we all know that some will not. Faculty and staff have their own alma mater and may advance their careers elsewhere. Some alumni secretly regret attending Rensselaer for various reasons.

Regardless of your passion or your loyalty to Rensselaer, if Rensselaer is on your resume then YOU NEED the school's reputation to be of the highest caliber. YOU BENEFIT when people within your professional life associate Rensselaer with greatness. You need that positive reputation to spread and grow. YOU GAIN when corporate executives, entrepreneurs, members of the press, academics, industry leaders, government bureaucrats and millions of casual professional colleagues understand the value -- respect the brand -- of Rensselaer.

Learning is the core business of any school and Rensselaer is no different. Research is learning. Getting a degree is learning. Advancing your professional life requires continuous learning. It is only in the most simplistic view that online course content could be viewed solely as a tool to help professors deliver content to students enrolled at RPI. A long pedagogical discussion about "residential students", "assessment", "asynchronous interactivity", etc etc fails to acknowledge reality. The Colloquium first needs to consider how to maintain relevant contact with 90,000 influential alumni.

Alumni represent the greatest collective power to influence the reputation of the school. We are the ones who can most effectively tell our friends, family and millions of professional associates about the great achievements being made at RPI and the value of an RPI affiliation. In the absence of RPI online content, RPI alumni will seek out content from other great schools such as those shaping Coursera and edX. Alumni can drive more prospective grants and dollars to the school or we can deliver those dollars elsewhere. It is a fiduciary responsibility of the Trustees to ensure that the Institute employees are sustaining and growing the reputation of Rensselaer. As a direct consequence, the Institute employees should be focused on delivering quality learning to both current students and alumni. Any business that disregards their existing customers will wither against competitive forces. Alumni are established customers. Without a proactively engaged alumni, RPI will wither.

If you are a distinguished or emerging academic at Rensselaer, I would imagine you want to attract industry funding and grants from governments and private foundations.  You probably want the most talented and creative grad-school candidates. Symmetrically, those same individuals and institutions want to work with the best possible researchers. Think of an online course as one of your tools for attracting unsolicited research projects and inspired students.

The Rensselaer faculty MUST begin this year to deliver openly available content or you force 90,000 graduates to look elsewhere for their intellectual curiosity and casual professional development. This is an issue of basic marketing -- maintain the loyalty of your existing customers so they become a source of future revenue. You will not find an easier group of people to attract to the RPI website. Many alumni are puzzled by the absence of content available from RPI. We look to innovative content projects such as edX and Coursera and feel disappointed and embarrassed that RPI is not represented. We search in vain on the RPI website for similar intellectually engaging content.

Please, do not ignore the influence of Rensselaer alumni.

Winter camping

Winter camping is one of those things that people seem to view from a very binary perspective. There are those who think winter should involve minimizing snow exposure and those who think sleeping outside in freezing weather sounds like fun. In March I spent a couple nights camped on Big Deer Lake north of my place on the Mag. The pulk sled I used in Killarney in 2010 is great for lake and open country travel, but I was expecting lots of bushwacking on this excursion so I used a backpack for all the gear. For the same reason, I used snowshoes rather than skis. Unfortunately the weather was a little too warm and the snow became soft, wet and sticky. On my return, every step plunged deep into the snow and heavy wet snow would fall onto the deck of the snowshoe. It was exhausting, but I really enjoy the winter -- it is the season when you get to see animal tracks and when you can reach places like the little river below that would be very difficult to reach in the other seasons.

Feb 14 = Generosity Day

Parker Mitchell has a good idea on his blog -- re-brand February 14th as Generosity Day. The idea seems to flow from Sasha Dicter and some of his friends.

Ernesto Sirolli

This is a really excellent commentary on international development. It includes one of the great phrases of business -- Shut up! And listen. Thanks to Margaret & Bob for the link.

Soupstock!

This sounds like fun.

----------
Sent from my BlackBerry

---

From: David Suzuki Foundation <subscribers@davidsuzuki.org>

Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 03:26:47 -0700

To: Don McMurtry<donmcmurtry@gmail.com>

ReplyTo: David Suzuki Foundation <subscribers@davidsuzuki.org>

Subject: Raise a bowl with us at Soupstock!

Celebrate with over 160 chefs on Sunday October 21st The Canadian Chefs' Congress and David Suzuki Foundation invite you to join us for Soupstock in Toronto's Woodbine Park on October 21st. Soupstock is a sequel to last year's Foodstock event, where dozens of chefs, farmers and musical acts attracted 28,000 supporters of local food and farms to a forest in Melancthon Township, adjacent to the proposed Highland Companies Mega-Quarry. This year the event is coming to the city, and it is going to be huge. There will be more than 160 chefs, dozens of local farmers and a great homegrown musical lineup. We hope you and your family will join us to celebrate local food and support protecting prized Ontario farmland and our precious headwaters. Admission is free, and three bowls of gourmet soup will cost only $10! Beat the lineup by purchasing your soup tickets in advance. Please spread the word. We'll see you at Soupstock! Truly, Dr. Faisal Moola, director, David Suzuki Foundation and Chef Michael Stadtlander, Canadian Chefs' Congress P.S. To make our event as sustainable as possible, please bring your own bowl, spoon and reusable napkin. Parking is limited, so come by foot, bike or transit. All funds raised will go toward stopping the controversial Mega-Quarry, and other environmental and food-related issues.

David Suzuki Foundation - 219 - 2211 4 Ave W - Vancouver BC V6K 4S2 Canada To review our Privacy Policy. The email address for you is donmcmurtry@gmail.com If you no longer wish to receive email communication from David Suzuki Foundation you may unsubscribe

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Double Aeroplan points today

If you donate some of your Aeroplan points today the donation will be matched by Aeroplan. I donated a little over 5% of my points to Engineers Without Borders. Because one of their major costs is getting people to Africa, you would be making a very high value contribution to the organization. EWB was one of the first non-profits involved with Aeroplan's donation matching program.

Ashuapmushuan

Last week we finished an excellent 175 km trip paddling down the Ashuapmushuan River that flows into Lac St. Jean in Quebec. Three canoes for nine days with lots of long rapids -- some were simple and over a kilometer long, some were more complex and required careful scouting before we ran them and some required portage or lining.

The river was running at about 200 cubic meters per second which is low for the Ash; Michel Lessard, the guy who lead the trip, has paddled it at 400 and 800. We were told that the river has been low for three summers now and at 200 we only had a couple spots where we were forced to get out and haul the canoes through short shallow sections.

With the river pushing us along quickly we made camp by noon several days and that gave us some time to play without a fully loaded canoe. Here is a video clip showing Jean and I attempting, unsuccessfully, to surf a little wave and another as we thread our way through some ledges.

More malware

While I would like RIM to ship some new products -- on time -- I am not willing to move to an Android device where I will have the constant worry about viruses and trojan horse software. Note that I wrote a similar post a few months ago.

Smartphone viruses & trojan horses

A friend spammed me yesterday because "his account was hacked". I doubt that someone spent a bunch of time manually guessing his password. If he is lucky it is an email-initiating virus, but I would not be surprised if his PC has a trojan horse quietly logging his keystrokes every time it detects an SSL connection being established. It bundles the information up and sends it somewhere to be automatically analyzed and then another computer attempts to access the site. If success happens, then someone starts to see what can be accessed. What else may he have lost and how long before the same folks find a way into his bank account?

Today I also read an LA Times article about smartphone hacking which makes me happy the problem would seem to be for Android and Apple users not my BlackBerry.