Lisa Hrabluk

Okay, I promised myself I’d keep the snark to a minimum but I’ve just got to get this off my chest and into cyberspace.

In our ongoing quest to lower our communications bill, Michael (that would be my husband Mike Hawkins, whose cooking talents are on display over at www.foodfunk.ca) figured out if we changed our Aliant business account into a residential account and then bundled that with our cell phones, we would save money.

Fabulous.

And then he called Aliant. A quite delightful person on the other end of the line then explained to him that in exchange for helping us – their valued customers – save some money, they would have to do the following:

1. Change our phone number.

Our old number that we have given out to God knows how many people over the past decade is registered for use as a business account. It would not be going with us in the move to residential services.

2. Not tell anyone that our number had changed.

Aliant business services and Aliant residential services do not talk to each other. They may smile occasionally as they pass each other in the hall, but these two branches of my communications provider do not and will not communicate with each other.

As the nice voice in the call centre told me when I called back to clarify some things, Aliant would not put an automated message on our number to inform people our number had changed because we were switching from business services to residential services. Instead our number has just disappeared – poof – into the telecommunications ether. Anyone calling us at our old number will be told: “The number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.”

3. The change is immediate.

Well, at least Aliant delivers prompt service.

One small, final observation. I was connected to the residential services call centre to confirm the listing in the directory. Michael and I have different last names and I wanted it listed for both of us, so people could find either of us when they followed the above instruction and “checked the number.”

To add a second directory listing for the same phone number costs $1.49 or something to that effect – a month. Now, it’s a small fee – less than $20/year, but why do I have to pay a monthly fee to have my name and Michael’s listed in the directory? Is my name taking up that much space in Bell Canada’s digital archives? Am I eating up megabytes on www.canada411.com?

Considering the variety of living arrangements out there – married women who retain their family name, common law couples, blended families, gay and lesbian couples and platonic room mates – I’d expect a significant portion of Canadians with phone numbers have more than one last name using that number.

Why not waive the fee as a nice piece of customer service? Or at the very least, charge it once rather than add it to my monthly bill.

Not sure if the fault for all this lies with Aliant or with some antiquated CRTC regulation.

Either way, the Canadian communications dinosaur continues to lumber along…

Lots of stuff swirling around in my mind after a fantastic couple of days in St. Andrews at 21inc.’s Ideas Festival. Got home Friday afternoon and walked into a flurry of redecorating. We’ve been painting my home office – yea! – and so my office has temporarily been relocated to the kitchen table. Great for snack access, less so for thinking about stuff.

And of course, our office assistant has been deeply involved in this project, to mixed results.

We have been taxpayers for too long; it is time for us to become citizens again.

That was the lede in a column I wrote in February 2004 as I and John McLaughlin, president of the University of New Brunswick, went chasing after an idea; that to fix our broken public institutions – government, media and universities – we needed to empower the crowd.

Bottom up leadership rather than top down.

Our public institutions didn’t get it, but people did. They craved authenticity and failing to get it from their local governments, newspapers and radio and TV news, so went looking for it somewhere else.

It is a social and cultural movement and it is far more powerful and sustainable than anything happening right now in the political sphere.

Or at least that was true until last night.

Barack Obama is the new face from the crowd.

As Thomas Friedman wrote in his column today in the New York Times:

Obama’s campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again.

It is hardly surprising that people have used religious metaphors and imagery to describe him; faith and belief were the cornerstones of his campaign.

Faith in ourselves and belief in the greater good of our society.

Today I am envious that Americans have found what we in Canada are still searching for – a leader who can articulate the wisdom of the crowd.

Will we find leaders who inspire us, as Obama has inspired a generation of Americans?

Yes, I believe we can.

Newsweek has a great story about Michelle Obama’s impact on the presidential race and in particular the way she presents herself.

Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we’re all hot-tempered single mothers who can’t keep a man and, according to CNN’s “Black in America,” documentary, those of us who aren’t street-walking crack addicts are on the verge of dying from AIDS. As writer Rebecca Walker put it on her Facebook page: “CNN should call me next time they really want to show diversity and meet real black women that nobody seems to talk about.”

The win, when it comes, won’t be of biblical proportions.

The ideological sea that divides America isn’t going to part Tuesday night because, despite the fervency of his followers’ belief, Barack Obama is no saviour.

If we are to draw a Biblical analogy, he has more in common with John the Baptist, who wandered alone to prepare the path, and with St. Peter, the first apostle and upon whom a new church was built.

Barack Obama: part bricklayer, part prophesy-offering story-teller.

Ian Brown in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, wrote a lovely feature story about Obama’s appeal to people in Washington D.C. Near the end of the piece he interviews a 17-year-old named Tempestt Newton.

For her, Mr. Obama isn’t “The One;” he isn’t “That One,” as Mr. McCain called him during one debate; he is just one of what she hopes will be many.

That’s it. This sentence coalesced my thoughts about this fascinating U.S. election campaign. I want to see Obama win because I do believe he represents change, but not just a change of policy or even of style.

Obama gives me hope that there are others like him, who want to reach beyond the divisions we have in our communities, whether they are class, race, gender or ideology, and begin to build consensus among citizens.

I hope that an Obama presidency attracts people to public office who up until now have stayed away.

However, for that to happen, political parties must be willing to cede ground to other voices in their party, who may not be the first choice of the flacks and hacks.

The federal Liberal party doesn’t seem to understand that – yet. Neither Michael Ignatieff or Bob Rae are true Grits in the mould of great Liberal leaders. Both have been on the national stage for two years and have failed to ignite any sort of following outside of Liberal party ranks and I doubt either ever will. Perhaps they can reengage the base and maybe, in Canada, that will be enough to win.

Hardly an audacious strategy.

Thanks to all my lovely friends across the country who have emailed with their thoughts and suggestions on accessing information online – and for the freelance writing tips.

Here are a few sites I like to visit:

Activate – a weekly compendium of international news, put together by the people behind Flavorpill in NYC.

Bookninja – a fabulous blog out of St. John’s NL that covers all things literary and bookish. One of the most-read literary blogs in North America – proof that some great things are percolating on the fringe.

Everywhere – an online travel magazine with great user-generated content.

Unlimited – an Alberta-based magazine that is a mash-up of business and lifestyle. I picked it up at Indigo a couple of months ago and liked it. Hope it survives.

For those who are torn between online news and the look of a newspaper, with its column inches neatly defined, check out PressDisplay. It gives you access to just about every major and regional paper in the world, allowing you to read stories as they appear in the paper. I can almost smell the ink.

Last June I did a CBC Radio commentary about cancelling my cable and my newspaper subscription. The decision was an easy one, made moments after opening the $100-plus cable bill that forced us to receive a bunch of channels we didn’t want in order to get the ones we did. As soon as the hockey playoffs were over (how very Canadian, I know), we pulled the plug. Being on a bit of a roll, I cancelled my subscription to the Telegraph-Journal, my local paper and the source of my income for eight years.

As I said in the CBC commentary:

My own version of spring cleaning: out with the old media and in with the new.
I don’t need yesterday’s news on my doorstep, when I already read it yesterday on my desktop.

That’s me the consumer talking, but I’m also a writer, so I’m torn as to how any of us are supposed to earn a living in this digital age. All those unpaid bloggers over at Huffington Post can’t be the future, can they?

We are in the midst of a massive migration.
Not of people, but of content.
Information is on the move – away from traditional providers like newspapers, cable companies, music labels, movie theatres and yes, even radio stations, and onto the web, where it can find a much larger audience.
Finding profits, that’s a little more difficult.
In these early days of the digital information age, it is easier to earn a reputation than to earn a living online.

Now it is November and we’re still cable and local paper-free. Michael’s order GameCenter from nhl.com, I’m watching Mad Men off a live stream on ctv.ca and I’m reading way too many American election blogs – mainly because they are always a day or two ahead of conventional media.

Seriously, have my fellow journalists forgotten how to tell a freakin’ story? They’re between a blogger and the campaign plane – watching both so intensely they’re lost all hope of originality. Blah.

Barack Obama told a new story; journalists need to follow his lead. I can’t believe the future of journalism is gawker.com; that’s part of it, but I believe, more than ever, people want context. They want their world explained to them in a homespun kind of way. Rather than political and corporate spin.

I’m still here and I’m still watching, listening and reading.
I, and others like me, still crave the content.
The question is, who’s going to provide it.
I read an interesting study recently that offered a dash of common sense with its analysis: there is only so much information each of us can absorb each day and that going online doesn’t mean we’re getting more information – we’re just getting it from more sources.
That should offers a glimmer of hope for traditional media and entertainment companies – but only for those brave enough to let go of that old business model that has them choose the content and the delivery system for me.
The online world doesn’t work that way.
Old Marshall McLuhan was right – the medium is the message.
All the Internet did was change the delivery.
And that’s changed everything.

More than the pages there were once printed on, I hope.

Two interesting developments, one here in Canada and the other in the U.S., provide insight into the evolution of journalism and freelance writing.

Eye Weekly, a free arts and culture tab in Toronto, writes about Derek Finkle’s attempts to start a freelance writers agency, to represent the interests of Canada’s top freelance writers and demand higher fees from publications. Finkle, the former editor of the defunct men’s mag Toro!, decries the Canadian mag industry’s refusal to raise freelance rates.

“Why shouldn’t I be able to have a career trajectory? The problem is, the system doesn’t make any sense … What needs to happen can’t be done by individuals, but the idea of putting together an agency that represents 150 or 200 of the top freelance writers in the country, it could certainly impose a career arc on the industry.

“One of the consequences is that the talent pool starts to dry up. What happens is you’re in your early to mid-20s, you want to be a freelance writer, you go gung-ho, you work at it, you try to move up the ladder as it were, and write for bigger and more prominent publications. And then, if you happen to be one of the people who manage to get to the top of the ladder, and you stay there for a few years, you realize that it’s still a real struggle. What happens is, the good ones end up in New York.”

To find out more, check out www.canadianwritersgroup.com.

So while Canadian freelancers are fighting the good fight to raise rates for everyone – Go Finkle! Go! – The Christian Science Monitor announced that it was putting its print edition to bed for good. The ink-stained wretches of the print edition will henceforth be the tendonitis-afflicted hackers as the Monitor goes online in April 2009.

The method of delivery and format are secondary” and need to be adjusted, given Mrs. Eddy’s call to keep the Monitor “abreast of the times.”

As paper gives way to pixels, dare we dream that resources will be directed towards content, otherwise known as writers, photographers and editors?

Now that’s change I want to believe in.

I’m a bit late reading this piece on CBC’s website – Gay author speaks to residents, students after venue change.

Alex Sanchez, a popular Florida-based author who writes about gay teen issues, was booked to speak to two small high schools in southwestern New Brunswick, but then some parents complained – surprise, surprise – and so the principal backed down and the moved the venue to the United Church.
CBC paraphrases the principal as saying that allowing someone no one knew locally to speak to teens on such a sensitive topic would have been irresponsible.

Sadly typical response.

Isn’t a school supposed to expose students to people and ideas they might not be familiar with in their communities?

I’m off to the 11th annual New Brunswick Business Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Tuesday and I expect it will play out like past nights. Long lines at the bar, tight seating arrangements (they always oversell these fundraisers by a few tables) and three guys up on the stage.

As of this year, there will be 45 laureates in the NB Business Hall of Fame and only one of them is a woman. Her name is Ruth Cook Wilson and she was inducted, posthumously in 2000. Ms. Wilson was the driving force behind the creation of what became Medavie Blue Cross, serving as its first executive director in 1944.

Yea Ruth!

But seriously, one woman? Eleven years and 44 names later the people who nominate and select these laureates couldn’t think of any other women in the history of New Brunswick to pick out of the crowd and say; “Hey, you’ve accomplished something impressive.”

The easy retort, and I’ve heard it, is to suggest that there might not be any women deserving of being inducted into the hall. To that I say, why don’t we have a look first and then decide.

The province is 224 years old.

New Brunswick holds tight to an orthodox vision of its history, particularly in its business and political circles. It has singled out some people and given them great praise and a lot of credit for helping to develop the province. The Great Man way of telling history is very strong in New Brunswick. But how can we be sure that these few tales of greatness tell the whole story? A little research might reveal a far more colourful and nuanced history than the one oft-repeated.

For instance, David Adam Richard’s novel River of the Brokenhearted, was based on the life of his grandmother, who ran the local movie theatre in Miramichi. She certainly wasn’t the only woman to roll up her sleeves and get to work.

Journalist Sally Armstrong released a novel last year based on one of her ancestors entitled The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor: The First Woman Settler of the Miramichi.

The Hall of Fame includes a list of many celebrated New Brunswick business leaders. High time it opened up the party to a more diverse group of worthy people.