One of the things I'm committed to doing in 2008 is organizing more public events. Last year, I ran a number of private interactive and intellectual discussions, which nurtured a desire to develop a larger and more public configuration for them.

To use a software development metaphor, my first public event was an alpha test, in that it was a raw and open exploration of a few concepts I've been developing or have seen in the wild and wanted to try myself.

Recently, there has been considerable innovation when it comes to event organizing, with the emergence of the BarCamp phenomenon as well as the Open Space movement. I am inspired by both, but still see room to incorporate my own sensibilities and experiences.

I've spent the last few years working in television and really studying the direction that industry is going, while also absorbing everything I can about production, both behind the scenes and on-camera. My approach to organizing events has been deeply impacted by this exploration of the television aesthetic and, conversely, my approach to television is heavily influenced by my love of live, interactive events.

The context to all this is, of course, the Internet, where I spend most of my time, and I'm always thinking how to bring the culture and properties of the Internet to live events and broadcast television. Often it has been the focus and/or subject matter. However, in the future, my intention is to run events in which the Internet is so ubiquitous as to no longer require explicit attention.

That is why I chose politics as the focus of my first event. I hoped to capture the zeitgeist of our time (with Obama inspiring a new generation) and tackle a subject that everyone should be able to relate to, one that lends itself to debate and disagreement.

This past week I was overwhelmed with responses from a number of media stories. A couple of Blackberry business articles, a couple of Facebook expert articles, an article about a Hong Kong sex scandal, as well as some TV and radio appearances, first about the bust of a child porn ring, and then about the bust of a Quebec based Hacker cell.

In general my policy is to respond to anyone who takes the time to get in touch with me. Yet I've now had to revise this policy to only reply to people who show respect rather than outright hostility. Something about the audience that reads the National Post that brings all sorts of trolls out from under the bridge.

The CBC audience on the other hand is a pleasure to interact with. Even when they strongly disagree with me I find CBC viewers and listeners to be intelligent and engaging. One particularly pleasant email I received was from a "middle-aged mother" who will remain nameless, but I suspect represents a typical Canadian, from an average family. For the sake of argument, let's call her Louise.

In my public speaking I often like to spend time on the subject of the Global Village, the McLuhan metaphor that describes our inter-connected global society. I cite events such as the OJ Simpson trail, the death of Princess Diana, and 9/11 as a few examples among many that illustrate the times when millions of people come together and share their emotions simultaneously across the continent or even the planet.

This week there were two such events, and what I find fascinating is the difference between how the two were understood and experienced.

Now that I've updated my website, my plan is to round out my blog by writing more reviews and bring to your attention sites and resources that I find particularly interesting or valuable.

One site in particular is the Tea Makers, which is run by Alphonse Ouimet, a pseudonym inspired by a former Canadian Broadcasting Corpoation (CBC) President.

Ouimet's blog is largely concerned with the CBC, and all the many issues, incidents, intrigue, and general intelligence that surrounds its operation.

In any organization or society, gossip plays an important and powerful role, and Ouimet has semi-accidentally setup an intelligence network that provides the readers of the site with incredible insight into the company as a whole.

I'm happy to say that I've just canceled my subscription to the Globe and Mail Newspaper. This decision had been a long time coming, and really the last straw was the redesign that the paper introduced a month or so ago.

My friend Michael Anton Dila went to the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco and I decided to do a YouTube interview with him when he got home. We talked about the conference, the Web 2.0 phenomena, and what we believe it really is. With that in mind we also discussed the current climate of venture capital, and the startup community that is gathering around the name and metaphor of Web 2.0. So check out the interview:

I've started producing episodes of the Jesse Show, and this episode focuses on Bob Rae, a politician whom I believe will be the next Prime Minister of Canada. In the first part of the episode I have a brief interview with Bob, and in the second discuss his chances at electoral success and the general Canadian political environment with filmmaker Robin Benger.

I am not a member of the Liberal Party, however I do think that Bob is an honest man, which is quite rare for politics. That's why I've made this video to put forward the idea that perhaps Bob will be the next Canadian PM.

Jeff Goodes, host of CBC Radio's Fresh Air is one of my favourite radio personalities. I love doing interviews with him as he's so relaxing, and the two of us tend to get into a groove and just jam! This segment was about YouTube, and I was able to capture video of the segment with my super nifty Nokia e70 provided by my good friends at Harmony Mobile. Jeff and I received a lot of positive feedback about this segment, and I was rather impressed with how well the cell phone was able to work given that I was the one holding it! It's in two parts so be sure to watch both!

As many of you know I've been a Google Watcher for some time now. My main attraction to Google is that they are actualizing many of the theories I've developed over the past decade and a half. Similarly they are bringing the model of network-centric computing to the average consumer, which I feel can be quite empowering. Personally I've been using Google's Calendar for quite a while, and am now starting to use their Spreadsheet program. For professional reasons I've also learned quite a bit about their advertising programs, which are their core sources of revenue.

I was part of a great event today held at UofT and put on by KMDI and Habitat. It was about the NextWeb or Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call the emerging culture of genuine interactivity on the Net. I'm hoping there will be more events like this, certainly I was inspired to start thinking about organizing roundtable discussions similar to when I used to run the Monday Night McLuhan Seminars. Here's the write up from today's event: