G20: Canada's lost soul(s)
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| The eternal flame of hope boarded up and extinguished for the G20 Summit in Toronto. (Michael Chrisman/Torontoist) |
Destruction caught on tape (2 mins)
Here we are 10 years on from the famous Battle in Seattle and police systems have evolved for handling these types of large scale protests which often turn into riots. It's time for a new kind of protest, an organized counter culture summit alongside the other summit, everyone gathers there anyway. A summit about hope and people getting together to actual get things done on a global level collaboratively. The media would actually have something worthwhile to report on at a G20 summit. A chance for voices to be heard, for people to come together and for violent protesters to clash with police independently of the larger counter culture movement.
Protesters signing O Canada outside the Detention Centre are charged by riot police (30 secs)
Systems put in place to protect citizens went awry and pitted citizens against citizens. Police are citizens doing their job. The government dictates what the authorities are to do in order to continue archaic systems of control and bureaucracy that don't totally suck, seriously they are what has developed over all of human history to this point. The government is controlled by inadequate democratic systems which are not true democracy only representative democracy. People feel disenfranchised by old systems in this modern and technological age. That is shown during the G20 every year since London when Twitter streams are the best source.
Kettling at the Toronto G20 Protests (8 min)
What really disappointed me about the majority of what I read from the media - traditional, alternative and otherwise - was the obsession with the riot and the spectacle alone. I didn't read about anyone's causes or what they wanted to change about the world. I didn't read from reporters about the larger protest movement all I read about was the movements of the protest as it turned into a riot. It was disappointing but understandable; "if it bleeds it leads." That may be part of the problem and part of what encourages rioters to cause damage as they feel nothing else works.
Disturbing footage from inside the Toronto Queen and Spadina "Kettle" (10 mins)
The only way to get out of it is to be arrested. In Toronto according to various reports this tactic was used for a few hours robbing people of their freedom in a most grotesque way.
In London during the 2009 G20 summit protesters peaceful or otherwise were apparently 'kettled' for 7 hours without necessary food, water or facilities. The story of the man above is amazing and astonishing. He was detained for over three hours and at one point it began to rain. That's where the story picks up with the coverage below. This is what injustice looked like for the citizens of Toronto for one weekend a few weeks back and for a different city in the coming months and others in the coming years.
The sadness continues at G20 Toronto (10.5 mins)
When reporting refers to "protesters destroying property" it should really read "rioters destroying protest and property". These entire spectacle muddies the waters of protesters, rioters, police and criminals. In the mainstream media and elsewhere there is no difference drawn between these groups with the exception of the police who from the endless video do not seem very different when they are attacking citizens who are sitting peacefully in protest as seen above when protesters sang O' Canada. The actions of those dressed in black - on both sides - are part of Canada's and the world's lost soul.
A looter is tackled to the ground by a citizen and told "Don't steal" (30 secs)
During the G20 protests in Toronto a protester was much different from a rioter, but the police and main stream media did not see or write about the difference. Gawkers, reporters and citizens are very different from rioters. Rioters are unaccountable mobs infused with a mob mentality. Rioters prey on the valid causes of protestors and de-legitimize important voices. They stand inside groups of protestors and hurl rocks at police, bricks at windows and ancient untargeted protest chants at no one.
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| On Sunday a few people come to protest the destruction of rioters. (Emily Shepard/Torontoist) |
A citizen not involved in the protests is denied access to Toronto's Eaton Centre (2.5 mins)
I am frustrated by mindless destruction of property and human rights.
Rules for posting comments on CBC.ca
Photo By: slimmer_jimmer. Remixed under Creative Commons License.
I love reading comments and these days there is no end to the ridiculous comments people make on online forums. These thoughts do not reflect my personal opinions, but did make me laugh. I found this hilarious list of "Rules for posting to CBC Forums" on a CBC forum:
1. Be partisan - ignore what is actually going on and base all comments on who's doing it. Anything Tories or cops do is automatically Bad; if Harper gives $10B for renewable energy, it's obviously part of his secret agenda to make Canada a theocracy.
2a. Everything is a plot. Every news event has been orchestrated to divert attention from something else. Ignore the fact that none of these ‘diversions’ ever work.
2b. The govt can suborn every civil servant, judge, cop and reporter to their ends. Every day. Twice on Sunday.
3. Forum posters have more education, expertise and knowledge than a 747 full of Nobel Laureates. No matter what the topic, experts are *always* wrong. (And generally working for The New World Order.)
4a. Facts are passé. Being able to produce real evidence is far less important than impassioned rhetoric and flaming accusations.
4b. If you simply must produce evidence, quotes from sites that themselves give no proof are ideal. They avoid being labeled as a ‘tool of the MSM’. Or something.
5. Personal attacks show your intelligence. Terms like ‘Harpo’, ‘sheeple’ and ‘Lieberals’ are clever, not stale or juvenile. Accusing Ignatieff of stupidity is fair and contributes a lot to the forum.
6. CBC is biased against both left and the right at the same time.
7. Everybody knows that there are hundreds of govt spies skewing voting results. Complain a lot about that.
8. All evil stems from Harper, USA, Israel and Business. All of it, including hangnails. Proof is unnecessary.
9. Spelling and grammar are stuffy affections. Semi-literate rants are far better, especially if ALL IN CAPITALS and with multiple exclamation marks!!!!
10. Logic is for sissies.
11. If somebody disagrees with you, they're clearly rednecks
Freelancing, Speaking and Why Facebook is Better
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| From: ToothpasteforDinner.com |
Kemp Edmonds
"I am no longer taking on unpaid speaking gigs. I apologize for that. I would accept an invitation to speak if a Charitable donation ($50+) was made to the charity of your groups choice. I am sorry that I am unable to come as a free speaker."
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What are your thoughts on this idea?
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The minimum donation is $50 for a 30-45 minute talk. For groups with little to no funding what do you think of this format? The idea isn't to help the speaker but to ensure that the audience understands that these things aren't free.
Matt has a point, but if you go that route, tracking is everything. See what groups give you the highest ROI and stick to that demographic. Otherwise, it's your time down the drain - which is the last place it should be.
Jeremy, that video is hilarious. I love the part how he compares the high end restaurant to the taco shack. Beef is beef? ha!
As for the video, if I ever teach a freelance course, that's the first thing I'm showing my students.
If you feel strong enough about your product, charge it up. 50$ is not a lot of money especially if a bunch of people are going.
And it really depends on the event too - for example if they just want Jeremy to photograph a random party and he'd "get exposure to potential clients", then it's not so great, but if the event is actually about how to take good photos, then that could actually turn into some great results after everyone there realizes how much better it would be to just have Jeremy do it for them in the end. That's worked well for me with talking about how people can make their own web videos.
I see too many people speaking for little or no money at events where participants pay $500+ to get in. That's a serious problem. It's one thing if you have a vested interest in the event or if you're selling something at the event or your talk will boost sales, but if you're speaking for free and someone else is raking in dough on your talents you are doing yourself and every other speaker out there a disservice ('you' being anyone, not Kemp Edmonds Esq.).
A $50 charitable fee for open talks at non-paid events should be fine and will weed away the less serious people. But for big events it's not enough.
@MattsMedia I don't want it to seem like I am there to pitch anything or drive them into a funnel. Although I will provide information about courses afterwards: one info slide + handout.
@JeremyLim Great advice and thanks for the laughs.
@ Corey I think we had this conversation about your work about 2 years ago or so. I learned alot then too. This is a small group of entrepreneurs and not a money making machine requesting I come and speak.
@JLate Layers is my currency of choice as well!
@JoshRimer I agree with you. Sometimes it challenging when others are profiting off of something that you contribute for free when it costs you heaps of time.
@Mor10 Thanks for the advice and support for my position. For big events I agree it's not enough.
The value of a speaking engagement or opportunity should never be determined by the compensation one gets. There should be better more relevant markers for determining whether one should accept the free speaking engagement.
I do agree that if the event is charging people to come to the event, then speakers should be compensated, that does not have to be money.
There's much more to be said on this topic, I would error on the side of caution when using money as the deciding factor to speak for free.
I drove to Seattle a few months ago just to see and meet this guy, his talk is 3 hours long and as @MattsMedia and @JoshRimer mentioned you have to have other strategies...
Quote from @MattsMedia "I'd say get as many speaking gigs as possible and pitch them on your class at the end."
During this guy's presentation he promotes his books, his seminars and his coaching services. His name is Brad Sugars and he is the founder of Action Coach.
Not once did I hear a sale pitch though and he only gave real life examples and then got the audience to say "mmmm isn't that interesting" we must have said that line 20X.
All that being said this guy is doing his own show, but he started out somewhere, most likely talking to as many gigs as he could. (I will ask him)
Would I talk if someone was trying to scoop me...nope
@KempEdmonds I love your idea of charging a nominal fee ($5) at the door with 100% of proceeds going to a charitable organization. If 100 show that is $500...awesome, I might even implement it for my July meetup.
Sorry i missed your meetup last night @JoshRimer I look forward to seeing pics and hearing about it.
You can ration these out over the year so you always have one available for those low-budget, high exposure opportunities that make sense.
The fact is that a lot of big money gigs come about as a result of someone having seen you speak for free. Also, if there's no real budget for a speaker, there can be lots of other benefits you can negotiate such as book sales, donation to Kiva, camera crew, promotional exposure, video testimonials recorded at the event, live webcast, referrals etc. etc.
It will always make sense to do "free" on occasion, and you can judge each situation as it comes. Your instinct to "always get something" for your services is bang-on though.
PS. I was in a speaker line-up a while ago where the $10K keynote was doing a freebie to help out an old schoolmate. Cheers..
Also, search out organizations like the Vancouver Board of Trade etc. that have people in the audience that can actually pay you for your services. I do stuff with them and other associations at a reduced rate because there's 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars of spin off.
Too many organizations want free seminars and their audience is full of people who can't hire you or expect more stuff for free.
Have done some work for charitable donation as well which helps out in spades later. :)