Goodbye 2011
Well quite a predictable post really I guess, but like most, I find myself on the last day of 2011, reflecting on what has been and what is to come. Although the marking of time as we know it, truly is a human construct, we cannot help as a species reflect at this time of year. Time itself does march on regardless of our wishes and intentions and our aging from birth to the grave is the yardstick we measure it by.
If I look at myself now at the end of 2011 I see someone who is older both physically and mentally, but also more experienced and wiser. I see someone with quite a bit of facial hair, which is showing a fair bit of grey these days. I see someone who has a lot to be thankful for, a lot to hope for and a lot to look forward to in 2012.
2011 saw all of us at Auckland Council in our first year in our new roles and organisation. It has been a ride along the way, with many ups and downs as we found our feet in the new world in which we worked. Yet, I do think we have come a long way in 2011 and feel a sense of optimism for 2012 on the work front. I am looking forward to a year which has less major change in it, which will be nice, considering the past two years have pretty much been built on change.
Being asked to join the INELI group as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global Library’s Initiative was a huge honour and I have felt so blessed and amazed to meet the fantastic individuals involved from around the world. To be given the opportunity to work with these people, get to know them, and to work towards opportunities for libraries globally is a pretty amazing thing. Where around the world we will meet in 2012 I do not know, but I cannot wait to meet up again with the people involved.
In 2011, I was lucky enough to be in the U.S.A twice, Australia once, and to travel to several places around the country. It was a year of much travel in ways and indeed, on my second visit to San Francisco in as many months and my third in total, I suddenly felt quite familiar with the place. It felt like a comfortable destination for me, which was actually pretty cool. On my third trip to Brisbane ever and second as an adult, I was impressed by the use of the South Bank river area. Although Brisbane is not my destination of choice in Australia, I was quite happy spending time there and loved the way the city as turned the South Bank into a destination for all. The artificial beach is pretty amazing.
When 2011 began, I had no idea we would be selling our house and buying another. Or that we would be spending some time living with my sister-in-law in between these two events, as we orchestrated a transfer of property and helped her find another place. It was rather neat to get some time living with Liam, who truly is a special little man and to get to see him grow from a 1 1/2 year old, into a 2 year old. I am lucky to have been given the opportunity I have.
The Christchurch Earthquake in Feb has left a mark on many of us and in different ways. I feel very lucky not to have lived through any of the quakes, but still feel a sense of loss around the historic city that I grew up around. It really has not totally sunk in yet and I think will not until I travel around some of the suburbs, and I am not sure I want to go back there any time soon and see that stuff.
Finally, I am so pleased with the outcome of my 52 laughs project. It really was a fantastic thing to do and I am so pleased I did it. With the book now available, I am turning my thoughts to what next and with less than 24 hours till 2012, I still have not worked that out yet.
Good luck with your journey into 2012 and I hope you have a great year.
52 Laughs | A year of laughter in photos – The book
Well here it is, the culmination of a years photography and 52 fantastic individuals who consented to be a part of my project.
The new project?
So with 52Laughs.com coming to an end this week, my mind has now turned to my project/s for 2012. I have been surprised and delighted with how well 52Laughs has gone and from what I have learnt from it. I started the year with no real idea of what it would take to complete the project or what it might be like. I knew I wanted to post 52 photos over the year and was keen to stretch myself slightly, but that really was it.
The year was quite a busy one for me, having started in a new role as part of the new Auckland Council and also, selling our house, buying a new one and staying with my sister-in-law in between. I had not anticipated how much of a drain on my time and energy these things would have and for a while I fell away on the project and got behind. Yet, there was some fantastic opportunities for me too and I surprised myself along the way. A trip to the U.S. in April meant I took two photos of complete strangers, including one of a woman I started talking to in Chinatown in San Francisco. I did not know if I had the gumption to do this, but apparently I do. The opportunity to spend some time with people from around the word, also gave me a wonderful opportunity to add some colour to my project, both in terms of skin and personality. The project has become in many ways a recording of my year and the rich tapestry of life I have met along the way and those who I hold dear and are around me on a daily basis.
And so to thoughts of what next? I have not settled on any firm plans, but I do have one idea which has been simmering in my mind for a few months now. It is not a one year project, in fact I do not know how many years it might take. It is the concept of putting together a website and book of every age from 0-100. I have a new person coming into my life in January and they would be the prime candidate for the first shot.
Other ideas include, pictures of amateur cooks and the food they like to make, a podcast show of cafe reviews, and an album of co-created original musical material. I need at least a photography project as I love the medium and it brings me great joy. If anyone has other ideas on the photography front, please leave a comment.
I am finishing off the book for 52laughs this week and posting the final photo, so if you haven’t already, please take the time to look at http://52laughs.com and look out for the link to the book which will be coming next week. It will be available as an e-book and in print.
Corin
Miracle on Jason Ave
Last night, something magical happened at our house. Christmas arrived in a completely unplanned and spontaneous way, with the joining together of good friends, wine, food and just the right mix of crazy. We had a group of friends around for a BBQ. Hannah, Wayne and their daughter Iris, Fiona and David, Paul and Greg, and our new friend Samantha. I don’t even remember how it happened, what spurred it or why, but after dinner our lounge became like a scene from one of those lovely Christmas movies. Hilarity ensued and there was a genuine magical element to the laughter and looks on people’s faces as the lounge was transformed. Ring master Greg had a heavy hand in the proceedings, but so many people played, laughed and created, it was truly a lovely affair. I was in truth not feeling at all Christmas like before last night, but now I am sitting here smiling and thinking about how good it was to be among friends yesterday. So thank you to my good friends, for coming in, taking over and bringing the festive season to our house. It has been a long year and I had forgotten how good the simple things can be.
In associated news, after several wines and two whiskey’s I challenged Hannah to run 100 kms before Feb. This means I need to run an average of 2.2kms a day till the end of Jan. That of course is totally doable, but I have not been running for a couple of months, so now I need to get off my chuff and so something. It seemed like a good idea then, but I am sure I will resent it/regret it later….
Are we brave enough?
Just a quick post as I go out the door to work, forming the thoughts of a blog post on Sunday. Many libraries create content. Some of us create lots of it. We also spend quite a bit of time talking about information freedom and democracy and often criticizing profit and ownership models taken by big publishers to content and how this restricts access to information.
So my question is this. Are we as libraries brave enough to take the step of liberating the content we create and own, making it available without restriction to others or through a creative commons licence with some restrictions on profit creation from it? Are we???? Why wouldn’t we?
Pressure pushing down on me….
So, I went to the doctor this week to have something looked at, which turned out to be fine. While I was there I decided to get my bloody pressure checked. It had only been 4 months since my last check and it was looking good, so I was feeling relaxed. Hmmm relaxed no more, when the reading came back as 150/80. The nurse looked concerned and sent a message to the doctor via the computer system (this new fangled technology) and the answer came back quickly, check in 1 month. So now I am on notice and if I don’t manage to get it down, I will be on some form of medication before long.
To give some context here, both my parent’s died of heart disease and my mother had high blood pressure the entire time I knew her. My father also had diabetes, so I know if anything is going to kill me early, it is going to be my heart. I have been very successful over the past years in controlling my vital stats and indeed have managed to get a good drop in my cholesterol, blood sugars and blood pressure over the past 6 years. In fact, my BP was 150/80 6 years ago and I sorted it out. Of course, 6 years ago I was 34 and I am now about to turn 41, so I am not as young as I once was.
There is nothing like a doctors visit to spur you into action. Link that with my knowledge of my father’s final years, where his heart, over weightness and diabetes meant that he was very restricted in what he could do, and I have plenty of incentive to turn this around again. So, I guess it is time to do a few things.
a) I need to start running again. I was running 3.5 kms 3-4 times a week until 2 months ago
b) I need to start eating a bit better. With the move and purchase of the new house, I have been slack at cooking and a few too many takeaways have crept into my diet
c) I need to drink a little less coffee, I am sure. My consumption has crept up a little of late. I know this is not great.
So there you have it, 41 and it is time to take stock once again of my lifestyle and what I do to my body, so I can ensure that I can enjoy life for a very long time to come and not just cave into my genetic destiny. On the bright side, my sugar consumption is much lower than it once was. A year ago I had just cut down from 2 tsp in everything, to nothing in coffee and 1/2 in tea. So I am already ahead of where I would have been, had I done nothing.
I work well on challenges, so I am seeing some sort of health challenge for 2012. Anyone keen to join me?
Information and data – Libraries as somewhere on the journey
I am using this blog post as a way of collecting my thoughts around data, linked data, the semantic web and where libraries sit in all this.
Traditionally libraries have been very much a one stop shop. Whether this has been a search the catalogue, find the book and get it out approach, or the search the database, find the article, read it or download it experience, libraries have tended to be the start and the finish of a search inquiry. We of course have been very happy about this too, as it has built on the foundation of the value of libraries being in the storage of information.
However the world is changing and libraries are already examining how they stay relevant in this new world and find their place. I am an exponent of part of the value of public libraries lying in the relationships they build with their communities and starting to provide the facilities for them to tell their own stories how and when they like. To move away from the more traditional curated approach of storage and retrieval and become a powerhouse of community creativity by fostering it and encouraging it in the way they capture and store their realities of being alive.
However, this is not the only place that libraries can improve their value proposition. Of course there are many possible places this can be done. One opportunity that I have been discussing with colleagues recently, is the idea of libraries as not the beginning or end of a search, but much more just a cog in a global information and data storage network of linked data.
Libraries have data, lots of data. What has begun to restrict us and indeed lesson our perceived value, is that lots of other people have information too and often it is easier to find. It might not be as trustworthy or as vetted, but as we are seeing, this does not matter when people can be easily presented with multiple sources, multiple reference points, and it is all so easy. We can thank Google for this, and whether we like it or not, they have done their job very well and people like going there to find information.
So what if libraries redesigned themselves, to share their records and enable this information to be harvested? If we started to view ourselves not as the physical place people came to find something, or the website that people visited to find information. Rather, what if we viewed ourselves as a global contributor to knowledge, to search and to helping people find what they need. To help them go where they need to go online to find information. What if we started designing our storage with this in mind and designed our search to start trawling the semantic web. Our results to bring back not only information we held, but information held by others around the world, and not just in databases we subscribe to. Our information to be available to all who want it, as they look for what they need.
This approach would take not just a quantum shift in thought by many libraries, but by their funders too. Public libraries are in general funded by their local communities and as such they tend to take a very limited approach to the value they create by looking locally. Indeed, it would be very hard in most cases to argue to your local funder that there was value in creating content for the global community, rather than the local. Yet, I believe it is worth trying to have these discussions and create this sort of thought shift. Surely if enough of us took this view, then the global benefit would flow all directions and it would be an argument that held good weight both in benefit to the community and the global good.
Also, of course, much of this approach would require a shift in thought by library management system vendors and by the publishers of content the libraries currently buy or subscribe to. The concept of wide sharing of data and information runs counter to the profit model for these businesses (especially publishing) and yet, for the continued survival of libraries and therefore the purchase of their resources, this model might need to change.
To come full circle, not all data libraries have is purchased. Imagine, a world, where libraries enabled their communities to tell their stories. Enabled them to store them, create them, and entertain with them. Imagine a world, where these stories where shared not only locally, but globally. Where you could search from one place and travel the world, reading about people, communities, experiences and what it means to be part of humanity. Isn’t that a dream worth holding and trying to make a reality? Might that not be a world, where libraries were valued and an integral part of the wealth, spirit and soul of both their hometowns and the world in general?
This is a blog about elections – Democracy
So I have been reading some stuff. Tweets, Facebook posts and browsing the Elections.Org.NZ site and have been prompted to write a quick extra blog this morning. There are a lot of emotions going on, on both sides of the political spectrum this morning. From despair to gloating, it is all there. What interests me about that is that in 3 or 6 years, the shoe will be on the other foot. The gloaters will be crying doom and gloom, the weepers will be dancing a jig on the graves of those who were victorious last night. That really is the nature of politics and I guess human nature. In any election, I think the wise are humble no matter what their ultimate result.
What I think what we should all remember, is that yesterday anyone over the age of 18, who was a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident, had the opportunity to celebrate the fact that they live in a democracy and can vote freely and without fear. Regardless of result this is something we should acknowledge, and we should take time to think of those who are not able to do this. I am sure there are plenty of people living in New Zealand, who have not always had this basic human right and appreciate this more strongly than those of us who were born in this wonderful country.
If I feel truly sorry this morning, it is not for the result (which I will acknowledge is not to my tastes or what I would have preferred) but rather for the 26% of enrolled voters who chose not to exercise this right. That they feel disenfranchised enough or do not care enough to vote, makes me both sad and slightly angry. That elsewhere in the world people have died and still continue to die for the right to vote and influence their countries future and someone in New Zealand cannot make it to a voting booth or cast a special vote seems to me to be pretty appalling.
The question I am left asking, is what can be done to increase the voter turn out on a regular basis and how different would the result have been if even half these people had chosen to vote? If I was in parliament right now, and I truly cared about democracy, this would be on my mind this morning and I would be thinking about ways I could work on this issue. Lastly, if you are one of this 26 %, I hope you are happy with the result and what happens over the next three years, because really, you have NO right to complain…..
This is not a blog about the election
The predictable blog this morning would be about the election outcome. To say it was exactly what we all thought would happen in general, with maybe the surprise about the lilly livered voters of Epsom who elected John Banks back into Parliament as the sole MP for ACT. To then go on to crow about the fact that ACT have been decimated to a party of one MP and that I look forward to the leaving of Don Brash from the political stage. It might then go on to celebrate the once again powerful support the nation has given to Greens, even if they once again find themselves on the outer with regards to the general flavour of the government. Has anyone noticed that while ACT and New Zealand First have fluctuated wildly in the polls over the years, Greens have dropped or picked up a few MP’s but generally stayed solid? Lastly, were this post about the election, it would go on to talk about how I hope the Labour party sort their “shit” out and build a solid, credible leadership. Phil Goff might be a nice guy and an experienced politician, but he is not the man to lead Labour into power. Labour have some serious soul searching to do. Who is their John Key? Who can emerge from a party that looks unable to sort itself out and build a credible and cohesive government. However, this is not an election blog, so I won’t go on about that….
Instead I will talk about the fact that we had a great housewarming last night, with many fine family and friends dropping by over 10 hours. Lots of fun, meeting new neighbours and seeing some people who we had not seen for a long while. People were positive about the new house in general, which is always nice. I know that people are hardly likely to tell you that they hate it, but you can sort of tell when people are being genuine 
I roasted a lamb leg and a chicken on the BBQ which both turned out well. The lamb in particular was pretty sensational, even though I only got two small bites. I think the secret was the heat of the BBQ searing the meat and sealing it.
My exciting news of the week is the arrival of my iPhone 4S on Friday. I thought I still had a week to wait. It is lovely and I do like the quality of the screen. The camera does not seem too bad so far (my friend Jayson was not so convinced so I am trialling it a bit) Siri is interesting, and I can see will need to build a relationship with her to get the most out of it. I say a relationship, but in reality I have already asked her to marry me, but she turned me down.
Onwards and upwards. I am so happy I did not blog about the election.
Knowledge, assumptions, facts and fallacy Pt 1 – Robert Muldoon
So I thought I would start 2012 with a few blogs about memories from my childhood and some thinking of how they have influenced me as an adult. I was pondering yesterday how things we learn and see as we grow up influence us so heavily in our adult life. Some of these make perfect sense, and some really don’t make much sense at all.
I can still remember clear as day the first time I became really conscious of politics in New Zealand or I guess politics in general. It was the night of the general election in 1978, I was 7 years old. The reason this sticks so firmly in my mind, is my mum, dad, brother Patrick and I had gone to the movies to see Grease. At the end of the movie, the provisional election result was shown on the screen as an act of public information. This in itself is remarkable to me now, because I suspect it was right at the end of the era when news was shown on movie theatre screens. I can never imagine that happening now. I must have been aware enough that the election was going on, because I wasn’t confused by the concept but I can still remember my dad going, bugger out loud and muttering something rather insulting about Robert Muldoon.
I knew then that this Muldoon fella and the party he stood for (National) were not OUR friends. That he was the enemy and I remember thinking a bad thing had happened. I don’t at all remember the election of 1981, but I certainly remember the election 1984 and the happiness I felt when the impossible (to me at least) occurred and Labour won the election. In my conscious time I had never lived in a Labour led New Zealand and a spirit of hope did seem to prevail, at least for a short time (we wont talk too much about Rogernomics here….) I should note, now, some 33 years later, I have never voted National once.
So this set me thinking. What do I know about Robert Muldoon? Was he really that bad? So let me start with what I knew about Muldoon that formed my construct. Muldoon was a heavily combatant figure who was quick on attack and did not tolerate dissension. He instituted the wage and price freeze in New Zealand and was the master of the “Think Big” schemes in New Zealand which were designed to generate wealth but in reality delivered little and what they did deliver they delivered too late. I remember carless days. I know that the cost of these things left New Zealand heavily in debt with an overvalued dollar when the Labour party took power in 1984. I also know, that he was drunk we he declared the famous “schnapps election” of that year. To me and my mind the National party under Muldoon represented a New Zealand that was heavily protectionist towards the farming sector. Finally, Muldoon supported and made possible the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand which heavily divided the country.
What surprised me when I was reading, was the side of Muldoon that I did not know about. When reading through some resources including Wikipedia, New Zealand History Online and the Archives New Zealand Official Biography I was interested to read that Muldoon was raised in part by a socialist aunt and although he did not subscribe to her political flavour, he did carry with him throughout his career a concern for the worker and believed in the Welfare State. This, last point, on reflection, should not be a surprise to me considering how prevalent the welfare “attitude” was in New Zealand in the 1970′s and early 80′s and how shows like Gliding On reflected the public sector in New Zealand. I was also interested to read that Robert Muldoon was New Zealand’s first fully qualified cost accountant and that he crossed the floor in 1961 to support the opposition in removing Capital Punishment.
So there was a side to Robert Muldoon which I did not know or indeed appreciate and which made him far closer politically to my leanings than I realised. Also, I will acknowledge, that the National Party of the Bolger years and forward which actually owe far more to Rogernomics than they do to Muldoon era National, are what I have tended to view Muldoon through.
Now before I start sounding like I am “loved up” with Muldoon, I am not. What is also apparent from reading and from my own memory, is that Robert Muldoon was a deeply flawed individual who was so singular in his vision that in many ways he did more damage than good. His combative style of politics led to an environment where people were afraid to challenge him and new ideas were not encouraged. He was actually far too conservative in his views of how New Zealand should be run and what was best for it economically on the global stage. Think Big, no matter how honourable the intentions, was an economic disaster for New Zealand, which made the major reforms of the 80′s and 90′s necessary and led to a generation feeling cheated out of the retirement they had saved for through their taxes.
So, on reflection, Sir Robert Muldoon is a slightly different character than I had always thought and I do feel slightly happier knowing that. However, his personal style is one that did not and never would sit well with me. In 1984 as a 13 year old, I think in many ways I represented the urge for change and desire for a more liberal New Zealand. I wanted a New Zealand where people could be who they wanted to be and would not be held back because they did not go to the right school, born in the wrong suburb or their parents did not earn enough. I was delighted when Labour was elected (again forgetting the downside to Rogernomics for a moment) and today as an adult this is still where my heart lies. We cannot change the past and New Zealand will always have his legacy in its history, but for my money, my dad was right in his reaction about Robert Muldoon in the 1978 election.
Tags: memories, Muldoon, politics, self