Isn't Media Supposed to Be For the People?

I've been working with the media in one way shape or form for most of my life.  Whether it's been as a journalist or someone sending in the press releases and holding the press conferences.  I've worked for the new media (online) and the old media (paper) and never have I seen an organization move into a community with so much hostility.

Now before I get too far into this let me first say that I'm not one to hold a grudge and it doesn't take much to get my feathers ruffled but the actions of a new media source that moved into my community over the past year and change is really starting to get under my skin.

For those that don't know I make my home with my family in the Thousand Islands Region of Ontario.  The heart of this region is Brockville and we are lucky enough to have several great media companies covering the region.  The most senior, of course, is the Brockville Recorder and Times followed by the EMC St. Lawrence both of which are, for the most part, old media.  Just over 5 years ago now a new media source came to town in BNTV/Brocknews.  BNTV/Brocknews is a web-based newspaper and television news source. About a year ago SNAP Brockville came to town with it's paper and website that feature only the good news in the area, something that in a region struggling with unemployment and going through an identity crisis as it's manufacturing industry slowly shuts down, is a welcome change.  Around the same time another new comer came to town, KnowBrockville.  KB brought it's own magazine and website to the table which offered yet another point of view as well as some excellent columns and contests for it's readers.  

Now as someone who is very involved in the community and sits on numerous community groups I know that there is no such thing as too much media.  Each source has it's own following and each can bring it's own perks to the table when it comes to promoting community events etc...

I'm not going to name names but one of the above has decided that there is no room for the others and will stop at nothing to eliminate the competition.  Even to the point that they have started to block anyone from their Facebook page who has any ties to the others.  

Long before I moved to this area I took part in the weekly #followfriday ritual on Twitter, several months ago one of the local new media companies started their own Follow Friday on Facebook, giving their followers a chance to share their businesses etc...(on a side note this isn't a new practice, it's something that has been going on on Facebook in the social media circles for quite some time, giving page admins a chance to share their latest client's pages with others).  The Follow Friday idea, regardless of who thought of it, was brilliant.  Naturally the idea gained steam and others (including other media) quickly started to follow suit.  As the social media admin for the Athens District Chamber of Commerce I also started running the Follow Friday program to give our members a chance to showcase their Facebook pages.  To be honest I don't even know for certain which page had the Follow Friday first but honestly WHO CARES!!!  There is so much hostility everywhere else in this world is it really worth squabbling over who did the Follow Friday thing first?  

Interestingly enough is that I don't even know how I ended up as a casualty of this media war.  Sure one of the new media has published a blog or two of mine, but I'm not employed or even directly affiliated with them. My blog is also published in the Ottawa Citizen, I'm also not employed or affiliated with them.  The only reason the local group publishes my blog is because they asked me if they could. I'm assuming it's because of that affiliation that I'm now too blocked from their Facebook page.  To me this means I can't promote Facebook pages on the page not to mention that many are potential advertising clients to this organization.  The whole thing just doesn't make sense to me, I'm new to the area have been open to working with anybody or any organization that is interested in working with me.  I currently represent numerous local businesses and organizations that look to me for advice on where to spend their online advertising dollars.  How can I justly advise them to spend their money with an organization that has hostile intentions towards other businesses?  I simply can't.

So to the organization in question, if you are reading this I ask you to think about your actions.  You are a media source and would like to be reputable.  I can't speak for anyone but myself and I know that my actions have never warranted being blocked from your Facebook page.  Simply because I promote my clients on Friday's, something that you encourage others to do, or because I have a blog that is featured in another publication?  Seriously?  Are we in Kindergarten now?  Imagine how powerful the local media could be if you all worked together and stopped the hostility?  This region needs strong media to showcase the good bring people into the area. There are enough advertising dollars to go around.  Each of you has a place in Brockville or Leeds and Grenville.  As I mentioned earlier I will not mention any names, if you know who I'm talking about great feel free to discuss it with them but please keep the name to yourself, they know who they are.  If you are affiliated with this organization please feel free to drop me a line and we can discuss exactly what I have done to deserve this blacklisting.

Brockville's Not So Bad

It’s been a while since I wrote a personal blog post on a topic.  I suppose that’s because of my technical background and most of my interests are in that area.  But news came out today that has many in the community I call home up in arms and I think it’s worth discussing.

Today MoneySense magazine published a list of the bestplaces to live and ranked 190 communities across Canada.  Brockville, which is the area I call home (and gladly so) ranked 165 on the list.  Now this ranking takes several categories into consideration and then ranks the communities based on a percentageof points assigned to each category.   The numbers are less than flattering for Brockville but is there truth behind the numbers?  

If you aren’t familiar with Brockville it’s a scenic city located in the heart of the 1000 Islands Region of Ontario on the shores of the St. Lawrence Seaway.    No one would question that its tourist potential is huge.  So why does it rank so low on places to live?  Well again based on statistics alone one can’t argue that there aren’t many career opportunities.  True companies like Proctor and Gamble have factories in Brockville and they do hire from time to time but those opportunities are few and far between and generally are labour positions which don't suit an office junky like me.  

My family moved to the area just over two years ago and both my wife and I have to commute out of town to work.  As an IT (Information Technology) professional I have worked in both Ottawa and Kingston since coming to the area. Don't get me wrong it's not for lack of trying to find full-time work in Brockville but there just doesn't seem to be a demand for my line of work.  But is that a bad thing?  Sure it would be nice to have my workplace closer to my life but it's not the end of the world if it's not possible.  It's just a matter of perspective.

Take this perspective on it; the cost of living is cheaper than Kingston and much cheaper than Ottawa.  Brockville is located right on the 401 and just minutes from the 416 making it an ideal location for someone who doesn’t mind commuting to work.  Living in Brockville also means living in a community where a few hundred thousand dollars means a house with a large yard, where you know your neighbours (and since there is space between you and them, like them too) compared to the bigger cities like Kingston or Ottawa where a similar dollar amount means a tiny cramped townhouse. 

Brockville is roughly and hour commute from Kingston (3) and an hour commute from Ottawa (1) putting it in a great location to work in either city.   An added bonus is that many companies now allow their employees to spend some of their time telecommuting (aka working from home) in an attempt to lower their carbon footprint.  And besides if you put it all in perspective I know people that live in the big cities that spend more time in gridlock than I do commuting to and from work.

As for culture, I’m sure if you look exclusively at numbers you’ll find that Ottawa and Kingston may have more culture than Brockville but there are also more people in those communities and I’m willing to bet that it’s cheaper to see an artist perform (not to mention more intimate) at the Brockville Arts Centre than it would be to see the same artist perform at ScotiaBank Place or even the K-Rock Centre in Kingston.

I could go on and on but my problem with reports like the one from MoneySense is that they are so black and white.  Perhaps in the future when a report like this is released it should be titled “Canada’s Best Places to Statistically Live”.  Are the areas that Brockville can improve?  Sure but isn’t that something that can be said about every community?  The bottom line is that the people who live in Brockville, for the most part, love the city.  The people, who come to visit every year, also love the city.  So why should we care that the staff of MoneySense Magazine, who probably have never been to Brockville, don’t consider it a worthy place to live?

 If it’s any consolation, the community I grew up in, Temiskaming Shores, is ranked at 171 and I consider it one of my top 10 places to live along with the Brockville area, North Bay (62) and Petawawa ((81) / Pembroke (124).

More about me:

http://about.com/hendrikpape

My Ottawa Citizen blogs:

Tech Connection: http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/tag/tech-connection

HoeDown Blogger: http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/tag/hoedown-blogger

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I don’t think so Tim

With another provincial election in the books many people are waking up today asking “What happened?”  After 8 years of being lied to by a Liberal government how on earth did they get reelected.

The answer to that question is simpler than one might think.

When the campaign started, unofficially, back in the summer it looked like it would be a clear knock-out by Tim Hudak’s Ontario PC party.  The people of Ontario were tired of the lies and tired of their cost of living getting more and more expensive by the day.  Once the campaign ads started it was clear that the Ontario PC party wanted to remind people how badly the McGuinty Government treated them.  I’ve been following politics since I was very young, working on campaigns long before I could vote.  I don’t hold a degree in political science and nor am I an advisor for any major political party.  2 weeks into the campaign I wrote a blog saying that if the Hudak campaign doesn’t stop with the attack ads they will turn around and bite them.  Guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

See the people of Ontario are smarter than that and I think that many may have felt a bit belittled by the ads.  They knew how bad they had been treated and after two previous elections in the previous year they were tired of the politics of another election.  What Ontario needed was someone to stand up and show them an alternative.  Having done my homework I know that Tim Hudak is and was that alternative.  He’s a family man, well educated and represents positive change for the province of Ontario.  The problem is Ontarians were never presented with that Tim Hudak.  They only saw the finger pointing Tim Hudak and missed the ads that talked about the man himself, mainly because they got a fraction of the airtime than the others.

So let’s look at the campaign that was run by the Liberal party.  I saw many ads where it was just Dalton standing in front of a white screen talking about his achievements over the past 8 years.  No promises, no attacks.  He came across calm, poised and reassuring.  And as I had predicted slowly it helped his numbers rebound enough to give him a large minority government.

So what needs to happen now?

Well the Liberals have a minority.  If the Ontario PCs are smart they won’t force Tim Hudak to resign, he did manage to pull in 37 seats in his first attempt which is not a bad haul.  Forcing Tim to resign would mean a leadership convention in the New Year and then at least a year to groom a new leader before they could even attempt to take on Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in an election.  That election would almost certainly be lost unless the candidate that squares off against Dalton has a lot of political experience.

My advice, Tim Hudak needs to stay on as party leader.  I don’t think the loss should rest on Tim’s shoulders.  I believe that it was the pundits at the Ontario PC party that failed Tim.  They failed to read the mood of Ontario voters, had they paid attention to social media, rather than using it as a broadcast medium, they would have noticed that they need to change course and soften their stance. 

To the candidates that didn’t get elected, don’t disappear.  In this election the people made it about their local candidates and chose the candidate(s) they knew best to represent them, I don’t believe they intentionally voted for Dalton McGuinty as a leader.  If unsuccessful candidates would actually show an interest in their ridings after an unsuccessful election, rather than disappear into the night after the polls close, they might have a better chance in the next election because people would know them and people vote for people they trust and are familiar with.

So how long will it last?  It all depends on what card the Ontario PC party plays next.  If they keep Tim Hudak on board as leader then I figure within a year or two they could challenge Dalton again, I’d be trying to avoid another election in 4 years because then you’ll end up in the same boat as this year where Ontario will have a municipal election, a federal election and a provincial election all in the same 12 month period.   But right now image is most important for the PCs.  

After all Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals successfully turned him from a man with a target on his back into premier dad.