Old School Hockey Sweater Challenge - Olson vs Fergusson!

Since interviewing Michael Fergusson of Kinzin for Raincity Radio a few months back, and hearing his compelling discourse on participatory marketing using the ubiquitous Facebook, I've worked hard to soften my cynicism about the pervasive community aggregator.

I am (shockingly) a bit serious about how i spend leisure time and tend to think of Facebook applications as obnoxious (albeit well-meaning) hugs, squirts, pokes, trivial nonsense which requires an "ignore" to avoid participation.

The other day at Moose Camp, I caught up with Megan Cole - a Canadian classic, she's a social marketeer and my predecessor at RCS who convened a session (symposium) about Social Media marketing.

After i told her about my nutty holidays past when i invited all my brothers and families to my place in North Van, and mass photo hysteria which ensued, she told me about the new Kinzin Facebook app which has got me thinking ....

Richard Patton asked about Creative Commons in relation to the Attribution License I used for Bryght's screencasts. What it is and why and how should you use it? Check out the definitive info over at the Creative Commons web site and this explanatory Creative Commons cartoon for a nice illustration of the licenses, but here's my take on it.

Imagine a world where everything you create and others create was locked down so you couldn't remix it and riff on it without paying licensing fees.

That's not a world I want to live in.

Fortunately we can do something about it.

We can put the stuff we create out there with a license that allows others to re-use and remix it. We can create the commons ourselves by putting it in the public domain or by putting a Creative Commons license on the stuff (e.g. text, audio, video, blogposts, photos, etc. Software licenses are different for reasons which I won't cover here; Drupal is licensed using the GPL).