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May 11

30

Quiet Canadian Patriotism

Posted by admin on May 30, 2011
Posted in The Journey  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Originally posted August 31 2010

Why Does Canada, Alone, Have a Highway Of Heroes?

This is a very interesting and fascinating question, which could probably fill an entire Ph.D. Thesis and still not be fully answered. One would need to delve into history, psychology, sociology and cultural anthropology to even begin to understand this phenomena that has morphed into a sense of unbridled national pride .. something that Canadians rarely demonstrated in the past.

Patrol In Khandahar Province

Patrol In Khandahar Province

 

I am going to attempt to keep the answer to this question short and simple, if only because a blog post needs to be kept below or not much over 2,000 words. Any more than that and eyes start to glaze over and readers click off in search of some other means of instant gratification. So, right off the bat, let’s give some possible answers to this question – Why does Canada, and NO other country, have a Highway Of Heroes?

  1. Click on this link and scroll down to the picture of the fellow wearing the baseball cap. Read the writing on the back of the cap. Now scroll down and read the comments.
  2. Know that, while most Canadians do not support the war in Afghanistan, they do support their Armed Forces, completely and unequivocally.
  3. Know also that there is no disconnect between the Forces and the public in Canada, there is no “them” and “us”. They are representatives of ourselves. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our aunts and uncles, our cousins. They are our blood.
  4. The Soldiers did not decide to enter the war in Afghanistan, the politicians did. The politicians issue the orders. The Soldiers must obey, and pay the price.

Does that answer the question for you, in short form? I am going to continue on with this article and expand a bit on the history and cultural influences that drive this phenomenon. If you would prefer to learn more through audio-video, rather than reading, just follow this link to the YouTube search listing for Canada Highway Of Heroes. There are scores of videos to watch.

What Is The Highway Of Heroes?

The Highway Of Heroes is a 172 kilometer [107 mile] stretch of the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway, more commonly known as Highway 401, located in Ontario, Canada. It begins at Glen Miller Road in Trenton and ends at the intersection of the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 404 in Toronto. You can view the Google Map here.

Why Is It Called The Highway Of Heroes?

After Canada’s participation in the Korean War ended in 1953, we became a nation of Peacekeepers. In fact, Canada became known as “Peacekeepers To The World”. For many generations, Canadians have only known their military to be peacekeepers. So it was a shock for the nation when Fallen Soldiers, killed in battle, began arriving back on Canadian soil in 2002. This was the first time ever that Fallen Soldiers had been repatriated to Canada. In World War I, World War II and the Korean War, the casualties had been buried in-country. But now they were “coming home”. The government was not prepared. The military was not prepared. Canadians were not prepared.

All returning Fallen Soldiers are flown into Canadian Forces Base Trenton, where grieving families, military personnel and government dignitaries receive them. From there, a funeral procession leaves the base and heads to Toronto, arriving at the Chief Coroners Office at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in downtown Toronto. They get there by driving down the 401.

The first four Soldiers were killed April 18 2002, all from the 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. They arrived at CFB Trenton a few days after and were received by family and friends. Because these were the first Fallen Soldiers brought back to Canada, the media were all over it. Some people in Trenton were watching the coverage, and on a whim, decided to go to the highway overpass at Trenton. There were about 30 people on the overpass that first day, including two police officers. Word of this occurrence spread, and when subsequent Fallen Soldiers arrived for the journey to Toronto, more and more people began lining the highway or standing on the 50 overpasses along Hwy 401 to show their respect and thanks. And they continue to spontaneously come out by the thousands to this day, in burning heat, freezing cold, rain, sleet and snow.

The origin of the name can be traced to a June 23, 2007 article in the Toronto Sun by columnist Joe Warmington, in which he interviewed Northumberland photographer Pete Fisher. Warmington described the gathering of crowds on overpasses to welcome Fallen Soldiers as a “highway of heroes phenomena.” This led a Crahame Township volunteer firefighter to contact Fisher on July 10 about starting a petition, leading Fisher to publish an article which was posted to the Northumberland Today website. The online article eventually caught the attention of London resident Jay Forbes. Forbes began a petition, which received over 20,000 signatures before being brought to the Minister of Transportation on August 22. Following the announcement on August 24, the provincial government and MTO set out to design new signs. The signs were erected and unveiled on September 7, 2007 and include a smaller reassurance marker (shield), as well as a larger billboard versions. [Wikipedia]

No other country has anything like the Highway Of Heroes. In fact, countries such as the United States of America and Great Britain go to great pains to hide away the return of their Fallen Soldiers to home soil. This is further explained in this article in the National Post:

Part of the difference surely lies in the psychological distinction between living on the old imperial periphery and being at its centre. Canadians do not have the same lingering bad conscience about sending troops abroad to fight for humanitarian values that comes with being an Englishman — or, perhaps, with having entered the more hotly contested war in Iraq. British and American soldiers have remained relatively much busier with combat responsibilities than ours since the Korean War, perhaps inducing a form of great-power fatigue in the public. And in the United States, images of coffins returning from the front became a highly contested political symbol during the Vietnam War; that genie cannot now be easily restored to its bottle.

Personally, I feel that Canadians should stand proud for the way we receive our Fallen Soldiers.

History Of Canada At War

World War I was the catalyst that first brought Canadians together as a nation. Official Confederation was in 1867, but we were still very much a Dominion of Britain. In fact, you can narrow this catalyst down to the Battle Of Vimy Ridge. That battle was a stalemate. The British, French and amalgamated armies had not been able to break the German lines. Then, the idea was hatched to bring all four Canadian divisions together into one corps under Canadian command, then send them against the German trenches. The battle began on April 9 1917. After fierce, almost inhuman fighting the Canadians were in complete control of the Ridge by nightfall, April 12 1917. The Canadians also fought bravely at the Second Battle of Passchendaele and the Battle of the Somme. Canada’s total casualties during WWI stand at 67,000 killed and 173,000 wounded. These battles became a Canadian nationalistic symbol of achievement and sacrifice, which continues today.

World War II saw Canada enter as an independent nation, with its’ own army, air force and navy. We were instrumental in establishing supply routes to Britain on the sea and in the air that literally, quite literally, saved their nation. By the end of the war, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world, and the 4th largest air force, having trained over 48,000 pilots from various countries in Canada. Canadians were fully involved with the invasion of Sicily, and stayed on to fight up through the mountains of Italy. We sent 5,000 troops, along with 1,000 British, into the disastrous landing at Dieppe. It was a lesson well learned, though, for our later participation in D-Day at Juno Beach. On June 6 1944, we landed at Juno Beach and penetrated farther inland than any other landing sector. Our soldiers then fought viciously against the best German divisions in France before veering north and liberating Holland. There is an ongoing tale that the Germans were terrified of the Canadians, perhaps harkening back to the battles of WWI. Canadian losses in the war were over 45,000 killed and 58,000 wounded. Our participation in WWII solidified our status as an independent nation.

Korea, 1950 – 1953. We tend to forget about the Korean War, but Canadian Forces acquitted themselves quite well in that confrontation. Especially of note is the role of the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI) at the Battle of Kapyong. I’m not going to repeat the whole story [read it here], but suffice to say that the Canadians fought with unheard of valour and distinction, refusing to give up, stopping the Communist attack and in effect saving Seoul from being overrun. This led to 2PPCLI being awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for their bravery under fire, a badge that every 2nd Patricia (including our son) still wears on their uniform every day.

As earlier mentioned, after Korea was a long period of Peacekeeping. Things didn’t always work out well in that role, though. There was the unfortunate incident in Somalia (who in their right minds would send Special Forces troops in to act as jail guards?!?) and there was the heartbreak of Rwanda, where our soldiers were ordered to stand aside and watch genocide be perpetrated against a people. I think that’s probably why, in Bosnia, they refused to stand aside and fought the Battle of Medak Pocket, again involving the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. You’ve never heard of Medak Pocket? Not many have. It was kept pretty much under wraps. You can read the full official version here, or view an excellent, chilling, two-part video documentary here. You will shiver.

Canadian Soldier On Patrol

Canadian Soldier On Patrol

I think that battle was the end of the peacekeeping ideal for the Canadian Forces. We are not suited to it. We are fighters. And thus we come to Afghanistan. The Americans were pulling out after the initial invasion, having set their eyes on Iraq, and Canada arrived as part of the ISAF international force, along with many other countries. The ISAF forces were divided up throughout the country, and guess what part of Afghanistan that Canada was assigned to? Kandahar Province, homeland and heartland of the Taliban, right on the borders of Pakistan and Iran. It was a huge task, but we were up to it, though ill equipped at the time. We are much better equipped now. The Taliban learned soon enough not to engage our Soldiers in direct battle, because they got their asses handed to them every time they did. So they resorted to suicide bombers, roadside bombs and IEDs, which is how the vast majority of Canadian Soldiers have been killed.

Ask any senior American officer who has commanded Canadian troops in Afghanistan and they will tell you that any regular Canadian soldier is the equivalent of the best US Marine. That’s a plain honest fact. We have the finest fighting Soldiers in the world. And I would venture that you can extend that to all the other branches of the Canadian Armed Forces as well.

So that brings us full circle, back to the original question … Why does Canada, and no other country, have a Highway Of Heroes? If you have read, watched and listened to everything I have presented here, then you know the answer to that question.

Summing Up

It has taken me many hours to write this, because every time I review the Highway Of Heroes videos or read the online articles I get emotional and it clouds me up, as our oldest son has just returned from a tour in Afghanistan. He was assigned to the Force Protection unit of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team.

On the late afternoon of December 30 2009 my wife and I were in our van driving down the main street in our town. The radio news came on with a report that four Canadian Soldiers and a Canadian journalist had been killed by a roadside bomb while driving through Kandahar in a LAV. The report went on to say that the Soldiers where from the Force Protection unit of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team. My wife and I looked at each other, not daring to breathe. I swear our hearts stopped. Then I remembered the Notification Protocol for Canadian Soldier deaths and I said to her “If it was him, we’d already know.” They always notify immediate kin before anything is made public. But those are several seconds I never want to re-live.

Canadian Soldiers

Canadian Soldiers Standing By

That LAV was from our sons’ Platoon. He and his crew were at Base, loitering around their LAV, idly cleaning their weapons, listening to the comm when the report came in … One LAV hit, five VSM, [location]. They immediately got their stuff together, jumped in their LAV and raced to the scene. It had been a huge explosion. All they could do was stake perimeter protection and start picking up the pieces of the LAV that didn’t need a crane to move. (VSM means vital signs missing)

So when I saw the media coverage of the motorcade driving up the Highway Of Heroes, carrying the grieving relatives of the four Soldiers killed in that blast, and all the people standing on the overpasses honouring them, all I could think of was “There but for the grace of God go I”. It was the pure chance of scheduling that kept my sons’ LAV at Base that day. It could have been him, so easily. So for me, it’s personal. There should be, and needs to be, a Highway Of Heroes.

You can view a listing of the Canadian Fallen Soldiers here.

Bibliography

YouTube Videos

Online Articles

R

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May 11

30

Vancouver Island North Business

Posted by admin on May 30, 2011
Posted in Business • Marketing  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

 Originally posted August 25 2010

Small Business Management Consultant

I had been preparing the foundation for my launch into the Small Business Management Consulting world. Most individuals who put themselves forward as a Management Consultant seem to be portrayed as wearing power suits, driving new expensive cars, holding educational degrees out the wazoo and being former CEOs of large companies. Myself, I wear slacks and a golf shirt while scooting around in my 2006 Dodge mini-van. Does that make me less valuable to any enterprise striving to become better at what they do? I don’t think so. It some ways, it would have made me more valuable, certainly from a practical standpoint.

Vancouver Island North

The geographical area that I will be presenting here is locally known as Vancouver Island North, or, perversely, North Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is located off the west coast of mainland British Columbia, Canada, in the Pacific Ocean. Vancouver Island North is that part of the Island ranging from the Comox Valley up to Port Hardy, and includes the population gatherings of Comox Valley, Campbell River, Gold River, Sayward, Port McNeill, Port Alice and Port Hardy, plus many other tiny communities.

The Comox Valley itself can be broken down into Fanny Bay, Buckley Bay, Union Bay, Royston, Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, Mount Washington, Merville, Black Creek and Oyster River, plus many other tiny communities. You can look all this up on Google Maps.

Courtenay is the center of the universe within the Comox Valley (much to the chagrin of the other communities) and that is where I am based. However, I had leaned towards focusing my attentions on the communities up-island, predominately Gold River, Port McNeill and Port Hardy. I believe they have tremendous potential, especially in the high-end tourism segment and small-scale manufacturing of up-market unique products that can be sold online and easily shipped worldwide. I hadn’t fleshed out the manufacturing idea in my mind yet, but the high-end tourism segment is something that I have been pondering for a couple of years now. First, let’s get a quick snapshot of each community (or group of communities) on the North Island so we can get a sense of what they are all about.

The Communities

Comox Valley

The Comox Valley is the regional centre of Vancouver Island North, being the seat of the largest Regional Government in the center Island and the location of the main hospital, the Air Force Base, an International Airport (YQQ), BC Ferry from the mainland (Powell River) and the regional retail/service center. Its’ economy is largely driven by government input (Hospital, Forces Base, Airport, Municipal/Regional Government), tourism, agriculture, retail/services, construction, the arts, forestry and fishing. Forestry and fishing used to be much higher on the economic scale, but have fallen dramatically over the decades. Rising stars are agriculture and the arts.

Campbell River

Campbell River has a much greater “industrial” tone to it than the rest of the North Island, being the home of the Elk Falls Paper Mill, the Quinsam Coal Mine and Myra Falls Mine, and having a largely forestry and mining economy. However, with the recent permanent closing of the Paper Mill and the general decline in the forestry industry, Campbell River is having tough times and is trying to reinvent itself. Tourism is becoming much more important .. billing itself as “The Salmon Fishing Capital Of The World” .. and it does have a fishing fleet, a harbour capable of handling medium size cruise ships and whale-watching excursions. The small airport is currently being expanded to allow the landing of jets, and with that expansion it is going to concentrate on becoming the air freight hub for the north Island.

Gold River

Following Highway 28 out of Campbell River to its’ end, you arrive in Gold River. This is a town that was purposely built during the 1960′s to provide housing and services for the people who would work at the Pulp Mill and the accompanying forestry industry. It was good while it lasted. However, the Pulp Mill closed forever and Gold River fell on hard times. It is currently trying to establish an energy-from-waste plant on the site of the former mill, with 93% of the people in Gold River supporting the initiative. Unfortunately, I would guess that 93% of the rest of the Island population is against such an endeavor, so it’s going to be an uphill fight for little Gold River. Having said that, Gold River has amazing potential on the tourism side. It is the gateway to the incredibly beautiful Nootka Sound and the rest of the coast on the west side of the Island. It has fishing (ocean, lake, river), boating/kayaking, caving (spelunking), hiking, biking, wildlife viewing, camping and just an overabundance of nature.

Port McNeill

One can’t mention Port McNeill without also including Robson Bight, Telegraph Cove, Alert Bay, Sointula and the Broughton Archipelago. It’s quite obvious that the main economic driver is tourism, led by sport fishing and wildlife expeditions by boat. However, forestry and retail/service play an important part to the local economy as well. Ultimately though, it is a boaters’ paradise and a fishermans’ dream .. those are the main draws.

Port Hardy

The end of the road on the top end of the Island. Gateway to the wild ‘n woolly Cape Scott Provincial Park, Cape Scott Trail, Queen Charlotte Sound and the BC Ferry ship for the 15 hour voyage up the coast to Prince Rupert. As in other places, logging and mining have declined, and Port Hardy is looking to tourism to fill the gap. There are a lot of attractions, including camping, fishing, diving, whale-watching, hiking, backpacking, boating, kayaking or just sitting on the seashore contemplating life.

Final Thoughts

All the communities on North Vancouver Island have key attributes that should be drawing tourists by the plane-load from all over the world. The natural beauty, the wide variety of activities, the very freshness of everything, would be enjoyed immensely by almost every visitor who steps foot on the Island. There should be large charter jets landing daily at the Comox Valley International Airport (which is fully capable of handing them), disgorging passengers from around the world, transporting them to the many hotels, resorts and camps throughout the north Island, and watching them stare in awe, mouths agape, at the incredible natural beauty of North Vancouver Island. Instead of standing around wondering why this isn’t happening now, let’s follow the empowering lead of the Captains of the Starship Enterprise and say … “Make it so!”

R

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May 11

28

Rise And Fall Of A YouTube Channel

Posted by admin on May 28, 2011
Posted in Business • Marketing • Social Media  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

NOTE: Originally posted August 16 2010

A Business Case Study

There is a normal life-cycle for everything, be it flora, fauna, ideas, business, government, countries, planets, stars, matter, anti-matter, whatever. Birth and death, construction and destruction, rise and fall – the inevitable cycle reigns true for everything.

What I would like to do here – and I don’t know if it will be successful or unsuccessful (another natural cycle of life) – is perform a study of a YouTube Channel as a business case. I had this idea quite some time ago. I typed the idea out on a Notepad page way last year and saved it, but never found anything that fit my criteria. And then recently I was cruising the YouTube music category, doing my playlist thing, searching for one of my favourite songs – Ballroom Blitz, by Sweet. I never accept the first search listing that comes up for any particular song on YouTube. I always scroll down the list and try out different videos until I find the one I want to save. So I was doing that for Ballroom Blitz, and this is what I came across:

Kindergoth

Ballroom Blitz Mania

I considered how many views the video had received, so I thought it might be worth checking out. I was immediately hooked into the video. If you have already figured out that you can click on the image above to see the video, then you know what I’m talking about. If not, do it now, then come back .. I’ll wait.

What you see is a lovely teenage girl, very talented, with huge big eyes and a very flexible jaw that allows her to use her face to express every emotion known to man. What is really important to notice is how she uses this talent to interpret the emotions of the music so accurately. It adds so much to the enjoyment of the song itself. And remember, this was her very first YouTube video, her very first kick at the can, and it was nominally successful. Nothing like the vids that go crazy viral, but very respectable
nonetheless.

So I thought, OK, here is a person that is intelligent, imaginative and talented, not just a pretty face. I went to her channel and discovered that she had more than 100 videos uploaded over 4 years and was getting lots of views to them. This was the critical mass of video/viewership I had been looking for.

When you go to the upload list of a channel, there are links at the top which allow you to see the list under different criteria - Date Added | Most Viewed | Top Rated. When I clicked on Most Viewed, I noticed that the highest on the list were older videos, and the least viewed were newer videos. You may say, “Well DUH .. of course the newer videos would have the least views, they haven’t been up as long as the older ones”. Normally true, but that isn’t the way YouTube works. The people who have a successful channel build up viewership – subscribers – over time, so a video on a popular channel can get a few hundred thousand views in a day, easy. So why has the viewership of the videos on
this channel gone down over time?

That’s what I want to answer in this business case study. The YouTube channel which is the subject of this study is Kindergoth, who is also known as Kaitlin Moore of British Columbia, Canada, now 20 years old and attending university. I’m not giving away her private information. If you watch all the videos, this information trickles out and does, at that point, become public information. And if you do the math, yes, she was 16 when she hit the airwaves with “Ballroom Blitz Mania!”.

The Channel Name

In 2006, when she opened her YouTube account, she chose the channel name, Kindergoth. Here is a definition of that term from The Urban Dictionary :

Though generally female, not always the case. Kindergoths are anyone, usually younger than 16, who listen to music which isn’t gothic, when asked don’t really know much about gothic subculture, and are pretty much unaware of the post modern gothic movement or the romantic gothic movement as a whole.
Yet a kindergoth will *always* claim to be “gothic” or “goth”. This is really the biggest difference between what gothic elitists may see as a kindergoth, and what the rest of us non-übergoths see as a kindergoth. A kindergoth to most people is simply someone who calls themselves gothic, but doesn’t know anything about the subculture, in particular nothing about the
music.

Kaitlin was trying to project a Goth image, but she really wasn’t Goth. I believe that she knew full well what a “kindergoth” was when she adopted that name for her channel, even though she perhaps didn’t realize it in March 2006. There is a very telling moment in her video “Sunny Days” [May 24 2007] where she admits that she isn’t really Goth. You can view the clip here: SunnyDays6Clip

The problem is she never did, nor ever will, own the term “Kindergoth“. Even though she has been using it for 4 years with some success on her YouTube channel, she doesn’t get any love from the search engines. When I searched Google (who else?) for the term, her channel listing only appeared 3 times out of the first 100. That is because “Kindergoth” is owned, in every sense of the word, by Bloodfire Studios, or more directly by Mr. Lee Kohse, who created the comic character “Kindergoth” in 1996. Kaitlin never stood a chance of getting good traffic from search engines to her YouTube channel.

The lesson here is – when you want to establish an identity, a presence on the Web, you must thoroughly research the identity you want to develop before you launch it into cyberspace. I had that very problem myself when I wanted to establish my online identity for my Consulting business. For 59 years I have been known as “Randy Hawes”. However, where I live now (British Columbia), “Randy Hawes” is the Secretary Of State For Mining in the Provincial Government. That’s not me. So I had to become Randall D Hawes across
all platforms, which meant I had to abandon all my online sites and start new ones. It isn’t easy being me. 

The History

 However, we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Lets go back to the beginning and follow the trail through the entire 4 years. The first thing I want to do is present a graph – views over time – which will demonstrate what has happened with this channel. This is a thumbnail – please click on it to get full-size image:

Number of views for 100 videos over 4 years

Please note that 5 videos have been left out of this graph - the videos of Voice Coach interviews, and Kindergoth’s two ‘megahits’ (“Vampire song” and “ZOH-MY-GOD What did I do…?”). I will address them separately later.

Looking at the graph, draw a trend line from the #1 to #100. What’s the direction of the trend line? Down. However, going through the heart of the order, from video #24 to video #76, the median trend line would be fairly flat. It was consistent.  But then, from video #77 to #101, the viewership really drops off from historical levels. Something fundamentally changed beginning in February 2009.

Lets remember one thing, though – in effect, this is a teenage girl operating this channel, with little understanding of what to do to properly promote the enterprise. Life got in the way of her efforts on a couple of occasions, and she found it difficult to bounce back. This happens to all of us. It is a constant danger to anyone running a small enterprise, so you must be prepared – mentally, physically and materially – to meet any challenge that comes out of left field unexpectedly.  

The Megahits

Kaitlin (Kindergoth) did have two “megahits”, relative to the norm for her channel. The first, “Vampire song” [October 22 2006] drew a large number of views because of the subject matter (vampires) and because of the sheer genius of the production and presentation, which I am sure caused it to go semi-viral. The second, “ZOH-MY-GOD What did I do…?” [May 26 2007], grabbed almost the same number of views because of a home run with the title and the tags. This is one of the few times that the title and tags were used well in a Kindergoth channel video, leading to a spike in viewership. The title created suspense … you read the title, and you just have to look. Like driving past a car accident, you’re drawn to look. The tags would have been well received by the internal YouTube search and the outside search engines, thus getting the eyeballs to the title and then to the video.

Let’s go back to “Vampire song”. If you look at the upload dates, “Vampire song” came just four short months after Kaitlin uploaded her very first video to YouTube. She went from the girl just having fun with “Ballroom Blitz Mania!” (though for sure, very talented fun), to envisioning, costuming, set-design, makeup, directing, staging, acting, editing and producing what could only be described as a masterpiece – vis-a-vis given her age of only 16 – with “Vampire song”. This is the point where the true breadth of her talent was revealed. And sadly, never repeated.

Kaitlin did go on to direct and produce several “skit” videos with her friends and several more lip-synching videos, as well as ‘talking head’ vids where she covers a subject of interest or just talks about her life. But none of them ever matched “Vampire song” for power & presence, and she never realized her dream of having the viral hits that would propel her to the level of YouTube Star.

Relation of Views to Rating

Let’s look at the relationship between number of views and the ratings that viewers give to each video to see if the most viewed videos are in fact the highest rated videos, or not:

Views Top 10  

  1. Vampire song
  2. ZOH-MY-GOD What did i do…?
  3. Ballroom Blitz Mania!
  4. Royal Canadian Kilted Yakesmen
  5. It’s Oh So Quiet
  6. Onigiri (Rice Balls)
  7. Date Gone Bad
  8. Ghost In The Closet
  9. YAY! WOOOT! EXCELLENT! PISS MY
  10. Mahna Mahna

Rating Top 10  

  1. Bohemian Rhabsody’s lovable
  2. You Know You Missed it
  3. WHY MUST IT BE SO HAPPY!?!?!?
  4. I think Someone Loves me…
  5. Date Gone Bad
  6. RE: !! U R FCUKING GAY !!
  7. Mahna Mahna
  8. Vampire song
  9. Onigiri (Rice Balls)
  10. Ballroom Blitz Mania!

 The short answer appears to be NOT. The top rated video, Bohemian Rhabsody’s lovable, doesn’t even appear in the top 10 views category. And neither do the next five. The four top viewed videos that do appear on the top rated list are in fact the bottom four rated. So, what’s going on here? Why isn’t the highest rated video not on the Views Top 10 list? I gave a few ideas why not. 

We will use the top rated video, Bohemian Rhabsody’s lovable, as a lone test case:

  • Firstly, the name of the song is misspelled. This is a ‘Kaitlin’ thing, but perhaps it was done on purpose to throw off the YouTube censors. The misspelling would certainly cut down on the number of returns for people searching by the correct spelling.
  • Second, the title itself doesn’t make sense and is very unlikely to be a search term and probably didn’t garner any new traffic.
  • Third, the description doesn’t include any of the key words from the title or the tags, or describe what is taking place on the video.
  • Fourth, too many spelling mistakes. Sometimes misspelling can draw extra search results, but it must be done purposefully.
  • Fifth, the tags are too general – Bohemian Rhabsody queen music- again, providing nothing specific about what’s going on in the video, and you would get a million returns using any combination of these search terms, with the Kindergoth video nowhere to be seen.

Again, let’s remember that Kaitlin was only 16 when she produced this and there should be no expectation that she would know any of these “SEO rules”. I am pointing these errors out as an instructional lesson only, without assigning any ‘blame’ to her at all. Her natural talent shines through in the video, which is why viewers gave it such a high rating. But the small things – the title, description, tags – were not done properly, which resulted in fewer viewers, which in turn results in less chance of the video going viral. Everything is connected. This was repeated on most of the videos she uploaded to the channel.

Another thing that needs to be pointed out is the fact that Kaitlin did not promote her
Kindergoth channel in any way other than to mention it to her friends. When you understand that fact, it is remarkable, and a testament to her talent, that her videos have reached the level of popularity that they have.

Recommendations

My first and most important recommendation is that Kaitlin Moore should abandon the
Kindergoth channel as a vehicle to further her career and/or craft. There would not be any redeeming qualities in trying to carry on with building this brand. The Kindergoth channel on YouTube has had its’ day in the sun and it is now drawing into the night.

I would suggest that Kaitlin re-brand herself, starting fresh with a new identity that accurately reflects what her goals are, and construct a promotional matrix involving
several platforms from which she can launch her chosen career. I have offered my assistance to her, if she so chooses, free of charge in payment of her letting me tear her channel apart.

In my role as a Small Business Management Consultant, I have boiled “business” down to three points, as a golden rule I live by:

  1. Who are your customers?
  2. What do they want?
  3. How can you profitably supply it to them?

Answer these three questions correctly and you are assured of a successful business. Every aspect of a business, any business, can be boiled down to these three questions. The other golden rule that I live by is K I S S. No, not Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons et al
(though Gene has got it down pat). I mean Keep It Simple Simon (you may insert ‘stupid’ if you wish). All you need for a successful venture is to follow these two golden rules. Everything else is superfluous. What is the definition of superfluous, you ask?

  • superfluous – “doesn’t matter a rat’s ass”

The End

With that, I will close this session with a listing of Kaitlin Moores’ ”talent” sites and a personal interview video. Please take the time to check them out. Thank you very much for reading. Comments are welcome.

I present to you, Ms Kaitlin Moore -

   *Voice Actor * Theatrical Actor * Videographer * Director * Producer*
 
Kaitlin Moore

Kaitlin Moore

 ** YouTube ** Facebook ** Twitter **
 
 
 

 R

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May 11

28

Kismet

Posted by admin on May 28, 2011
Posted in Social Media  | Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

NOTE: Originally published March 23 2010

If you are a Blogger, or want to become a Blogger, you can seek out tips and advice from various other Bloggers. I have flitted around these blogs and one consistent tip I have seen is: write your title first, before you begin – helps you to stay on topic. Well, I’m writing this post and I have no idea what the title is going to be! Wonder how this will turn out ……

A few months ago, Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger ran a contest (a random draw) for some books about Blogging. I was fortunate enough to win one of the draws, and I want to thank Darren for going above and beyond the call of duty getting the book to me. :) The first copy he sent me got “lost” in the Post (hope you’re enjoying the book, whoever you are! weasel), so he sent out another copy, Express.

The book is called Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg (c 2009). Scott is the co-founder of Salon.com, author of two books (the other being Dreaming In Code) and has his own Blog, Wordyard.

The first first paragraph on the jacket liner sums up the book nicely:

“Blogs are everywhere. They have exposed truths and spread rumors. Made and lost fortunes. Brought couples together and torn them apart. Toppled cabinet ministers and started grassroots movements. Immediate, intimate, and influential, they put the power of personal publishing into everyone’s hands. Regularly dismissed as trivial and ephemeral, they have proved that they are here to stay.”

If you are a Blogger, you will find the book fascinating. There certainly are some who will argue about some of the points in the book, but I found it interesting to follow the exponential growth of what is now called Blogging. From the (reportedly) very first “weblog” page ever posted for all to read – by Justin Hall on January 22 1994 – to the (reportedly) 250,000,000 “blogs” that are on the Net today, it has only taken 16 years. From the A-Lister blogs right on down to this little ol’ blog right here, people are posting what they have to say, and nobody can stop them.

I had just finished reading Say Everything when the wife randomly brought home a bag full of books. I picked through them and equally randomly chose Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver (c 2009). I choose books entirely based on their cover … I either like the colours, I like the picture, I like the fonts, or all those superficial things. Pretty scientific, eh? LOL

I started reading it late on Friday evening, finished reading it Sunday evening. 397 pages! Couldn’t put it down. It was a murder mystery entirely set around an A-Lister Blogger, fictional of course! They (author, editor, publisher, whomever) also set up a “fake” website on the Net, placing URLs throughout the book that really do appear on the Net, showing the blog posts and the comments to the posts (all fake of course). It tells you in the book to go to the website and read the posts/comments and maybe pick up clues to who the killer is. It was fun! I thought I had the identity of the killer pegged about three-quarters through the book. Boy was I wrong. LOL

In the fictional book, Roadside Crosses, they mentioned a lot of the real people that were featured in Say Everything. It was really neat! It was totally kismet that I would win the draw at ProBloggers, have the first book go missing, receive the replacement book when I did, read it, then a day later randomly come into possession of Roadside Crosses. Sometimes life just works out that way.

And now I have the title for this post. :)

As a humorous aside, I ran across a ReTweet (thanks to @gogogooding - if you don’t follow her, you should). I think this was set up outside an establishment at the recently concluded SxSW festival/conference. Hugely funny, and humbling for any Blogger! As the old saying goes – click here!

R

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May 11

28

In Remembrance Of Hank

Posted by admin on May 28, 2011
Posted in The Journey  | Tagged With: , , , , | No Comments yet, please leave one

NOTE: Originally posted March 18 2010

I have been thinking about writing this post since February 4th, but haven’t been able to do it until now because it is very hard. Here goes …

Leonard Griffith Hawes was born October 28 1928 at Bueno Vista Lodge in Cumberland Beach, Ontario, Canada, just north of Orillia. Don’t know why he was born at Bueno Vista Lodge when there was a perfectly good hospital in Orillia, but that’s where it happened. And I don’t know why a tourist lodge in central Canadian cottage country would have a Spanish Cuban name either. But there it is.

Throughout his life, he was a son, a husband to Mary, a father of four, a father-in-law, grandfather and great-grandfather. He was my Dad. A hard working man, he wore many hats: salesman, taxi driver, coin machine serviceman, construction worker, heavy equipment operator, transport driver, courier. He loved sports. He loved music. He loved to laugh and have a good time. He loved aeroplanes. He loved to fly. He went by the name Len.

**You:“So why are we remembering ‘Hank’??”**

Well, let me tell the story.

Somewhere around 1980 or so, Dad (Len) was at my sister Sherry’s house helping with construction of a new room in the basement. They were all working away and ran into a bit of a glitch. While discussing various strategies, Dad went off on a tangent … “Well, maybe if we do this …. No, no …. Well, maybe if we moved this …. But then we would have to move this …. Well no, maybe we wouldn’t …. If we did this …. Well, no …. If we put this here
…. No, no …. Let’s do it this way …. No, that won’t work … ”

Meanwhile, my sister had wandered over to the stairs and sat down. Finally she blurted out: ”Ok Hank … let us know when you’re finished!”. Well, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone thought he was going to get angry and yell at her. But he burst out laughing, and everyone else did too, because they knew what my sister meant with her outburst. She was comparing Dad to the character Hank Kimball from the TV show Green Acres. If you’ve never seen that show, and don’t know that character, watch this video on YouTube. So, forever more, certainly within the family, Leonard Griffith Hawes became affectionally known as Hank.

Moving forward to the near present, late in 2005, my brother Dan (an amazing guitarist/musician) put together a Pink Floyd tribute band called All In All It’s Just (another brick in the wall .. get it?). Dad was the biggest fan (though the youngest child, Julie, will say she is) and was thrilled that Dan was going to live his dream. Somewhat
earlier, it had been discovered that Dad had cancer. He remained upbeat and jovial, and fought the cancer hard, all the while supporting Dan in every way he could.

In mid-2006, I came aboard with Dan as the band manager, arranging single performance dates and multiple-date tours for the band. You can see the tour history of the band inside their website that I linked above. On February 3 2007, the band travelled to Powell River BC to perform at the Evergreen Theatre to a packed house. The band regularly performs a Pink Floyd song called Learning To Fly. Remember that I mentioned that Dad loved aeroplanes, he loved to fly? On this night, Dan dedicated their performance of this song to Dad.

He introduced the song to the audience like this: “We are going to dedicate this next song to my father, who has fought a very long battle with cancer, and uhhh, he is in his last days. He loved aeroplanes, he loved to fly. This song is for him.”

I don’t know how Dan got through the whole song, but being the consumate professional that he is, he did. The rest of us who were there were in tears. After the performance, I asked him why he did what he did at the spur of the moment. He said he didn’t know, something just grabbed him and said “Do it”.

Here is a video clip from that night, the last half of the song. Please pardon the sound – it is terrible because the camera was on-stage. You can follow links from the website to see/hear what they really sounded like.

LEARNING TO FLY

into the distance, a ribbon of black
stretched to the point of no turning back
a flight of fancy on a wind swept field
standing alone my senses reeled
a fatal attraction holding me fast,
how can I escape this irresistible grasp?
can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky
tongue-tied & twisted just an earthbound misfit, I

ice is forming on the tips of my wings
unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
no navigator to guide my way home
unladened, empty and turned to stone

a soul in tension that’s learning to fly
condition grounded but determined to try
can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies
tongue-tied & twisted just an earthbound misfit, I

above the planet on a wing and a prayer
my grubby halo, a vapour trail in the empty air
across the clouds I see my shadow fly
out of the corner of my watering eye
a dream unthreatened bythe morning light
could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

there’s no sensation to compare with this
suspended animation, a state of bliss
can’t keep my mind from thecircling sky
tongue-tied & twisted just an earthbound misfit, I

- David Gilmour, Anthony Moore

Sunset Over Comox

Sunset Over Comox Harbour

 

Leonard Griffith Hawes, Dad, Hank, passed away in the early morning hours of February 4 2007, mere hours after Dan dedicated the song to him. We miss him dearly.

 

Len Hawes
Leonard Griffith Hawes

R

 

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