Simple clashes of personality, mis-communication, or a difference of opinion on ethical matters can create great friction. When groups are involved, even more so. Those with influence can turn the tables and create traction without significant effort, and the end result is a game that turns into a nightmare.

Empire Avenue was billed as a place where you could take stock of your social media wealth by assigning value to it. You could buy and sell stock in your friends, with the ultimate goal of conglomerating content, and ranking players (social media users) with a stock price, and wealth.

The system was used as we anticipated in early beta cycles. Players used the system in it’s gaming context, seeking wealth and a place on the leader-boards because that’s the best way to get exposure to your feeds, blogs, twitter-stream, and messages.

That gaming, in an unregulated (or lightly-regulated) system permitted users who saw the opportunity for exposure to exploit the system (is it a game?) to get visibility. That irked a number of folks, some justified, some unjustified.

Formations of user groups akin to guilds placed power players in visible groups. That was and is unnerving for some users. Some exploitative plays may have been made by small groups of two or three, but a spotlight was cast on anyone associating with these power players.

Insinuations of wrongdoing – with some basis in fact, though without a breach of terms created cause for a witch-hunt. While there may have been initial transgressions either real or perceived, the weaknesses in the buy-sell system permitted abuse (and by abuse I mean permitted, but frowned upon) and the ability to unduly impact share price and stock value. If of course the system is about social media networking and influence, and not a game.

For a system with it’s sights set on displaying social value within a game context, the game controls behaviour – not social media ‘value’. What was billed as buying and selling your friends became buying and selling faceless and nameless accounts for profit.

This ‘game’ aspect coupled with the influx of thousands of new users brought a large group of players to the table with little value in a social media context, but great smarts with respect to making the system bend to their desire. For most this was a short trip to the top of the leader-boards.

After 3 months, I’m a 40$ stock. For a large number of ‘players’ 3 days can produce 60$ stocks with no content, and limited social engagement. How? Many of these are hollow buy-sell accounts with hundreds of investors, and no content. These are the real manipulators of the market.

Now take those real people, content drivers, sharers and social media users with a bent for gaming – who have used the system given to them to get to the leader-boards or for some – the top. Anyone who felt done-wrong had blogs and supposition to place blame on a dark-hat group of 11. Nearly all of the 11 are real people, with real blogs, real businesses, and real reputations.

Because of (pick any one or more) ego, greed, jealousy, wit, mirth, analysis, game strategy, a bad stomach, or any of a hundred other reasons, many of the users saw one group as the instigator. The nexus of all that was evil on the Avenue. Every time their stock was liquidated, it was the 11. Every time their price fell, it must have been the 11. But the system didn’t discriminate – a sell is a sell – and they are not reported by name.

Unless someone had timed screen shots of buys, and timed shots of sells to validate ‘shareholders then’ against ‘shareholders now’ there would be no guarantee of identification.

Worse – even if the share sell was legitimately one of the 11 (we have some wealth and therefore own a lot of shares) without direct questions and answers subjective thinking came up with the reason for a sell.

Couple the frustrating drops to a persons stock value (ego) with a scapegoat and you’ve got a recipe for out-of-game mudslinging. But is it out of game?

As a social media aggregator, on Empire Avenue the users blogs, twitter, facebook and other feeds propagate the system. An angry remark on twitter is posted to the Avenue. Is it in game, or out of game?

Once twitter became a venue for discord – the game became real. Allegations of cheating, ‘cartel’ behaviour and ethics left the arena of game, and entered the tools that we use on a daily basis to work, network, and earn.

A frustrating day on the Avenue became a public humiliation in a twitter stream, or blog. More frustrating in that social media followers who are unfamiliar with Empire Avenue could misconstrue statements relating to the game as relating to real business or persona. What started as a frustration in ‘game’ play suddenly has the ability to directly impact our work and daily life. For many casual social media users, their investment online is limited for others though it is as important as the office we walk into every day.

Many of us who started on the Avenue as a means to tie social streams together, find now that anonymity is the only way to play the game, giving up the social value. Those who may have started on the Avenue with a desire to be anonymous have through an attempt to play the game exposed themselves. In a rare but notable segment players have created completely ‘Empire Avenue’ personas – including their personality, blogs, and twitter streams. The nature of social media is that to gain any personal value beyond ego by sharing yourself you must choose to share genuinely. To play a game like empire avenue, we must accept that some players will not stomach the frustration and ‘hurt’ from in-game activity and will allow it to spill out into the streets of real life.

So – what are the implications to use of social media? When you don’t have a game in the way, social media is a powerful tool. Like face to face relationships, we don’t all agree on things but we rarely shout obscenities at each other. Differences of opinion become speaking points and discussions arise. In rare cases, those differences may require severance of these connections, but for the most part – we’re civil. Unless of course we aren’t genuine. When you combine a game where status is a figurehead of the ecosystem, and success requires a social and psychological investment, prepare to get slammed publicly if you step on a few people while climbing to the top.

From the beginning, I’ve played the game of Empire Avenue as myself. I’ve not done anything out of character, nor jumped on a bandwagon to take anyone out of the game. I’ve played with integrity. I can say that and feel good about it. I know full well that many will take issue with that. They will claim that I was belligerent, cruel, and vicious, and that due to my associations I was mean, targeted for profit, sold out of spite, attempted to trigger crashes, and so on and so on and so on.

I can say with conviction, even when I had been blocked, lumped into mystical groups of hated elite and called rude and ignorant – I still didn’t sell to harm, or organize such things despite the insistence of others that I must have been doing so.

I’ve had fun at others expense, yes. I’ve been defensive when I believe that someone is being unreasonable, or has been unnecessarily harsh in game, or in the real world. I have always acted with an eye to the potential impact to their lives. I’ve never insulted someone’s skills, claimed that they were unprofessional, that they weren’t trustworthy or otherwise sought to belittle ones character (“elitist douchebag”?), though I have done so at their caricatures. I’ve poked fun at mythical creatures, sought out canned meat products made from them, and used them to express humour. Some of that has been taken in stride, some has been taken as a personal attack. Sadly, some have invested so much in their virtual persona, that attacks on the persona are considered personal.

When it comes to social media, even those who produce content online behind a veil of anonymity may have value, but does their caricature have the same responsibility to the truth? To integrity? I would suggest no. When the face of a person in the social sphere exists only in the context of the game, who’s existence is fundamentally a construction of the game or the internet in general – are they real?

When you can google a players name find their employer, see pictures of their children and see who they interact with on a daily basis, are they different from a construction? From the ‘fake’ game players whose online persona has no ties to real life? For these constructs, no matter the investment made to create them, they have no risks associated with starting battles. They merely take a few bruises to their digital ego. Those they attack however, take it in their credibility, career associations, and the value of their very name.

can you people just drop it? Use the site to enjoy networking with others and finding new content

@EvolveTom via Twitter (EA PR Guy)

We’d love to Tom, but we’re so buried in buy and sell notices, stock price alterations, leaderboards, buy-me messages and ‘game’ statistics, that content doesn’t exist – not when you are required to jockey for position just to be seen.

Some say that to withdraw from a game when being bullied is giving up and that it equates to lying down and accepting the assertions. I disagree. When pushed to the point where every word, every plea for sanity, every request to just think about what accusations, assertions and inventions are being spread results in venom and personal attacks in the real world, rather than the ‘game’ world – then I’d rather part company, because the very attempt to bring sanity to a discussion is met with the face of an anonymous player who isn’t accountable to anyone but their online persona.

I’ve tried to defend myself, my actions and my associations. I’ve not tried to make excuses for others. But I also tire of trying to teach people to think for themselves before placing blame. To do their own investigations, and make their own decisions before acting.

Social media and ego are tough enough to manage. When you mix that combination with a leader-board and significant time investment in a game – accountability and integrity blur into transactions. On a scale, from complete constructs of game to heavily invested social media users there is a wide range of accountability. At any point on that scale there is a level of willingness to accept risk and integrity.

For many of us, it’s apparent that we are in an environment where our competitors (this is a game isn’t it – or is it?) do not share our definitions of tolerable interaction. As a result we must either reduce our interaction or create distance from our real life social media investments to protect ourselves. Hardly the environment that Empire Avenue was supposed to foster.

Now – to suggest it’s been a rosy relationship would be silly. Why just last christmas, we had an outage of a few days, which required a call for support. During that call, we found out that we were paying 45$ a month for service they were selling for 14$. After a retro credit, new hardware and a few support issues, we got back online and the world was good.

A few weeks ago, we looked at our satellite bills, phone / internet etc. and decided now was the time to combine. I’ve been unhappy with Shaw Direct satellite for some time, particularly with respect to their programming changes on paid premium stuff. No more. We dumped it because Telus had an offer for us to add TV to our communications package and save us a few bucks (30+) a month, and get us a multi-tv PVR. Great thing if you have kids… seriously.

We called Monday, but it was going to take 4 days to get someone in. Ok… fair enough. Thursday AM they’d call with an ETA.

It was a rough ETA. Sometime between 8am and 4pm. At 3:30 after waiting around ALL day, the Mrs. called Telus. Unimpressed, she threatened to cancel, as the installer called. He arrived at 20 after 4. She grilled him hard. He only got the work order at 2pm though – so hardly his fault, but he wasn’t impressed with a 2pm callout for a 3-5 hour install.

We muddled through, got things installed, and he was out by 6:30.

Now the service, picture, etc. is pretty par for the course. Everything was installed, PVR working, recording – doing what we paid for.

At 8pm – the screen of all of our TV’s went black. Still had the program guide, but no picture. Couldn’t even play back PVR’d stuff – local to the box! What the hell… Browser refresh… nope. No internet.

Ok. I’ve been through this, downstairs, reboot modem. Nada.

Hello Telus support.

For 55 minutes, I worked with “Andy” to switch on / switch off, read back lights, refresh browser pages, dance in voodoo circles, talk to NOC techs, and generally praise Gaia. Nothing. (It was during this period that cycling the power on our ‘new’ modem caused our Alarm system to freak out and go into trouble mode with a failed telco-connection.)

We can get a tech to you on the 23rd he says.

Whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaat?

I’ve had the service for 2 hours, and you’re telling me I can now not have TV/Network/Web for the weekend?

Do YOU have a 4 year old ‘Andy’?

I escalated, and there was no manager on duty to assist. I was offered an escalation call next day…. that would be tomorrow. So I’m now screwed for at LEAST a day because I upgraded from the competition? Doesn’t that rub ya the wrong way? Sure did me.

Ok. I can live a NIGHT without web (yikes!) but it can be done.

After an hour I hung up the phone pissed off.

At this point, I called @lancetay to tell him what happened. Livid doesn’t even begin to describe my mood…

Still chatting with Lance, and telling him to send a few pointed tweets on my behalf, I refreshed the page on my browser again. I got an error dialog regarding gmail ssl certificates. I’m like – huh? The browser is getting a router screen screaming about bypass due to lack of internet, but I’m getting an SSL dialog?

OK, Cancel, OK, Cancel…. and out of the blue, a page loads on my screen. Power off and power on the PVR again… guess what. Yep. It worked.

So I ask this question: If you sell a product like Telus TV – wouldn’t it make sense to A) Admit to network issues when they exist. and
B) Have processes to test up and downstream instead of a 30 minute ‘which lights are blinking?’ assessment.

Lastly, If I find out that the SSL dialog actually HAD something to do with this – I’m gonna get some black hat boys to hammer telus a new one….

Sadly, takes no skill or experience with a product to sell it. To support it is a whole other story. No matter what you are selling, make sure your customers have an out if there is a problem. THAT will keep them coming back.

Busy week ahead, but we’ll manage.

This I don’t mind, though there are some interesting effects of this change.

Our ward is losing the residential and industrial sectors to the west of 50th and north of 23rd ave, in addition to the industrial sectors north of the Whitemud. This places us in an interesting position (my own home in particular being the northernmost residents of the ward backing onto the ‘mud). Our ward is changing to a completely residential ward. With the exception of some retail areas, there is virtually no industrial area remaining. It will be interesting to see what priorities are identified in our ward and how they might differ from the past.

Signs have been springing up in our ward already. The new ward system doesn’t come into play until election day October 18, almost 3 months from now, but signs (one sign, many copies) have been up for over a month already.

Vikram Bagga – a local Jeweller has by all appearances thrown his hat into the ring for mayor. Nomination papers are due on September 20, 2010 so to date, assuming our incumbent we have 2 ‘confirmed’ candidates in our ‘neck of the woods’ – Amarjeet Sohi and Mr. Bagga.

One thing is clear. Ward 12 is a very multicultural district with notable Sikh, Hindu, and Islamic populations (as well as Christian, other theist and atheist residents of all colours) and I am concerned that citizens are going to be sending people to city hall based on race and birthplace, not platform.

Let me make this clear so that any potential mudslinging is nipped right up front. My concern is most certainly related to cultural relevance, but is certainly not prejudicial. I proudly put my support behind Mr. Sohi in the last election based on his platform – and I personally see no relevance in race, religion or skin tone as they relate to the issues of a ward in this city. [ED Note: This isn't completely true where crime and education are impacted by cultural makeup. Rather - my point is that to me - any candidate would recognize the cultural needs of their citizens, regardless of skin colour.]

What is my concern? My concern is the number of people supporting Mr. Bagga, when not a single alternative has been announced. These cannot all be associates or family members of Mr. Bagga so if not culturally motivated I wonder where his support is generated.

Regardless of the cultural support Mr. Bagga may be receiving, I do not fault him. He is running for office, and that means getting your support from wherever it stems. I have not met Mr. Bagga formally, though he spends some time with a friend of his that lives a few doors from me. He has knocked on my door asking for my families support this election – but sadly I wasn’t able to speak with him directly to get his position on things that are important to me and my family (because I was tending to the smelly bottom of one of them).

Youth crime, community policing, infrastructure funding, taxation, personal privacy, accessible technology, green space – these are things that matter to me. They also tend to be balance points between candidates. It is hard for me to accept that I’m being asked to support someone who has not yet put forth his concerns, plans and platform against as yet unknown candidates… but more than a few have.

So I ask this question. To those individuals and families currently supporting and promoting Mr. Bagga as an alternative: Why?

I don’t suggest that Mr. Bagga is not capable of the job. Indeed – he’s been in harrier situations than most of us, and has a unique perspective on small business – but just what is it? Because of his experience is he going to focus on small business issues? Policing issues? Where will his time be spent – and will it represent the real issues of you and your family? I only ask because I still don’t know the answer.

Regardless – I do wish Mr. Bagga well. I believe that it is a noble and respectable desire to stand for your community in government to make changes that will positively impact your constituents. But rather than trying to rally votes with signage – why not meet with your community and talk about issues and platform, and how you plan to represent their concerns?

I don’t know what it is about this city, but we’ve got some weather fanatics on-board.

Since Twitter began, Edmontonians have been on the bandwagon, and as Mack Male has noted many times though in not-so-many-words, we’re a pretty tight, connected, and vocal bunch.

Our storms have made the news on Twitter several times, and a quick scan for #yegweather at search.twitter.com will usually highlight the system currently beating us down, or roasting us alive. Come winter, you’ll see first hand how much snow is coming down, or what road conditions will be like first thing tomorrow.

Why are we so hot for weather? Because Edmontonians don’t chase storms, they chase us. We are in a great spot for severe storms, and we can see them coming for hours. We’re like – Kansas North. Add to that our city’s history with the July 31, 1987 storm that killed 27 and injured hundreds – we’re now keen to our skies. The ‘Black Friday’ storm was one of the worst in Canadian history (2nd overall in persons killed) and in just 2 years will qualify as the worst of the century. The Pine Lake storm, 13 years and just a few hundred kilometers away cemented our sick fascination with the sky.

Personal note – I was in the city for that storm, in the southeast. We were trapped on Sherwood Park Freeway less than 10 minutes after the storm rolled through the offices of a neighbor. The intensity and devastation that followed that F3/F4 tornado will be indelibly etched into my mind. Beautiful horror.

And now – back to Twitter. #yegweather has followed us for quite some time – but I’d like to change that. Particularly since #yegweather has been used in combination with ‘bot’ weather forecast reporting, we can no longer search back for more than 5 days to get historical entries. They are gone to time.

I’d like to see #yegwx take precedence. Used for weather observations, it will be real time, searchable, and shorter on the keys! We’ll get 5 extra letters back out of the restrictive 140 offered by Twitter.

Those 5 characters can say a lot.

HAIL!
RAIN!
WIND!
SHIT!
OHNOE
YIKES
UH-OH
TRN8O

I kid – I kid – but not really. In cases where there is real activity an extra 5 can have a palpable impact on language and reporting. #justsayin

So… what say you? Include #yegwx to chat…

Not familiar with Twitter? Hashtags?

Now that the hurrah of the last 3 weeks is fading and mom has been released from the care of our nurses – we’re rapidly returning to normal.

Kicking screaming fighting ‘no-saying’ backtalking 3 and a half year olds are trying to run the place, while the 5 week old trouble-maker is doing extra duty on the snooze button during the day and walking a mile after dark.

So – normal has returned. I am pleased with that. Mostly.

They may occasionally be up for sale on Craigslist, ebay, or via this blog, but I assure you, no matter how close you might come – you’ll never hit the reserve price.

Seriously – I’ve got to shoot more.

My camera(s) have been relegated to home duty for too long. I need to get out and shoot. I’ve had great opportunities on the trails, and on the hunt to shoot. Great opportunities to shoot my kids. (Don’t we all wish for that at some point?) But I haven’t gone out just to shoot.

I think next week when Alex is back, I’ll snag him for a night and just go take pictures of whatever we find. It would be a treat to shoot again – for the sake of shooting, with no schedule, and no direction.

Yes. It will be so.

A month has passed now since Max came home. I’m not sure where that time went mind you. Between the stresses of getting Mom healthy again, keeping a 3 year old on track, holding down a job, and trying to keep our house upright – the days turned to weeks, and now a month.

We’ve all got a finite amount of time in this world. Our children are our enduring legacy – they carry our names and our memory to the future. The last month however, has already escaped my memory as nothing more than a blur. Save for a few sweet moments captured in photographs, that time is passed and gone.

Is it really gone though? Like a good bottle of wine – only the important moments need to be savoured. It’s not the flavour, or the nose, but the moments that accompanied them. Like Ben climbing up on the hospital bed to give mom a kiss goodnight before we left the hospital. Max having his first bath, Ben finally understanding how helpless Max is, and coming to the top of the stairs from a dead sleep to call to the crying baby downstairs “It’s alright sweetie – don’t cry…”

The minutiae of day to day are unimportant – but those moments of bliss through the stress and heartache shine on and will stay with us forever.

Just a quick birthday greeting for the Nation I call home. Cheers Canada.

I know we’ve had our differences, but all in all, I’m pretty pleased to call you home. Now, if you could – can you do something about your caretakers? We’ve got some bonehead decisions being made in your name, and I’d hate for ya to look bad.