Tanya McGinnity

japanese white rabbit or donkey ears ?, originally uploaded by colodio.

In Buddhism, there is mention of people who are able to manifest ‘the authentic self’.

When you meet these people, you instantly feel connected. You feel like they are truly listening to you and that there is some kind of energy about them that breathes a bit more into your encounter with them. Not to get all mystical on you dear blog reader - but I had this kind of flash today when I was listening to a podcast. I felt like I was as much of the podcaster’s story as the energy behind the tales had me completely riveted.

I’m thankful that in this day and age, more that ever, we have the ability to be exposed for more ideas and more authentic selves.

Canadian songstress Sarah Slean has decided to do something pretty interesting for her current tour.

Dubbed ‘The Recession-ista Tour’, Sarah is doing a quasi-Etsy trunk show as she is going to work with local designers to create gowns from recycled, second hand clothing. She’s looking to wear a different piece for each stop and at the end of her tour, each gown will be auctioned off on ebay with the proceeds to be donated to the David Suzuki Foundation.

The first designer featured on Sarah’s site to provide clothing for part of the tour is Norma W whose technicolor bags are sooo cute. You can check out Norma W’s etsy shop via this link.

Walk the Talk Show: Titans of Tech Forum from Alex King & Mito Media on Vimeo.

The ever-fab Gwen Bell recently was on the Titans of Tech Forum as part of Elephant Journal’s “Walk the Talk Show”. This engaging clip demonstrates the power of bringing 2 communities together to work for good and positivity. It also features an interesting bit of commentary by Jeffrey Kalmikoff , artner / chief creative officer at Threadless speaking to what his company is doing to become more eco-friendly, Micah Baldwin, serial startup-er and founder of Lijit and investor/intrepreneur Brad Feld also loaned their voices expressing how they see the tech community and eco communities being able to collaborate.

Mention of passion came up during this talk as was the need for inclusiveness and encouragement. This talk wayyy inspired me. Hope you enjoy it as well.

Recently in A List Apart, Derek Powazek (one of my heroes) published a post on the topic of “The Wisdom of Community” which postulates that James Surowiecki’s thesis in “The Wisdom of Crowds” might be served best in groups that enable them with the proper tools to truly allow this wisdom to manifest.

In this post, Powazek advocates that for online crowds to be wise, they need the following elements: simplicity, clear interfaces, aggregation, participation, selfishness (yes, selfishness!), scores, leaderboards,  explicit vs. implicit feedback and savvy voting systems.

It’s well worth investigating this post in detail as it does take Surowiecki’s initial thesis and offers up suggestions on how to empower the energy of community with tools to allow it to become effective and truly - wise.

Photo of some wise people at a Montreal Tech Entrepreneur’s Breakfast by Montreal Tech Watch

The kind folks who produce the super podcast Le Show recently did a feature with me on the Montreal Girl Geek Dinners group. Le Show is a cool little Montreal-based podcast which I’d encourage you to check out as it is funny and informative as all get out!

Thanks to the talented and giggily Anile Prakash for her non-BabaWawa interview style and her skills with the beautiful and omni-directional Snowball microphone.