This comic strip applies to so many areas of my life right now, and I’m sure you will find the concept familiar to you as well. Navigating change well is all a matter of managing relationships.

The Other Coast ~ June 30 2009 - Click to read more from Comics.com

There’s so much more I could talk about, but a picture says a thousand words. What do you think?

Chung Family on Mother's Day

My thoughts on my wife’s thought:

• Lord, help us to see you in the centre of all the chaos.
• Readers, we’ll see you on the other side.

Invitation to Open Worship Night

One of the ways to keep God in the centre of our thoughts is to spend time in prayer, praise and worship. Our church is hosting an Open Worship Night on June 13. The link opens the event details on Facebook. Here’s a poster you can download.

Poster for Open Worship Night at Northside Church

Hope to see you there!

Today’s post is merely a pet peeve I have about the lack of concern people have about the copyright statement at the bottom of their sites and documents. I’ve been using the traditional publishing copyright statement format since my foray into comic book publishing and songwriting back in the 80s. Naturally, this becomes the default format I turn to when I write my copyright statements. It also makes me sound like a stickler about seemingly insignificant details.

However, I believe that using a traditional copyright statement is key to representing yourself professionally. It shows you’ve done your homework, and on a subliminal level, may impact whether or not you get the sale.

What is the purpose of Copyright?

With the advent of digital technology, copyright is becoming a moot issue, paving the way for free content sharing between interested parties in order to quickly and easily develop new works. It is difficult to control product distribution, so it is also difficult to enforce copyright legislation. One could arguably say that copyright serves no valid purpose anymore, and the terms of fair use need to expand to provide more creative options.

Copyright exists upon the creation of a tangible representation of an idea, and is owned by the creator until 50 years past the creator’s (or last co-creator’s) death. I think in the US this definition was expanded to 75 years. This means the creator has legal control over how their work is used during that time. The creator also has the right to decide how their work is to be distributed, whether for remuneration or willingly released so others can use it for free.

I’m not a legal expert, so I won’t go into detail about the legal issues around copyright and alternative licensing mechanisms, such as GNU open source, Copywrong and Creative Commons. This post is only about the statement itself. The definition of copyright provided above shows why some versions of the statement are inappropriate.

Copyright statement: the right way

While copyright exists upon the availability of a tangible representation of a work, a notification of copyright is helpful to provide information to others as to whom to request permission to reproduce. Legally, a copyright statement only needs to include the word and/or symbol Copyright (©), the earliest year of production, and the name of the copyright holder. I don’t believe there are any specific requirements as to the order of these elements. However, there is a standard format that is usually followed.

Copyright © 2009 Tony Chung Creative Communications.

Alternatives include the short form:

© 2009 Tony Chung Creative Communications.

That’s it.

Copyright statement: wrong ways

I’m shooting myself in the foot here, because as I mentioned above, there is no legally “wrong” way as long as all the elements are there. However, the above format follows a standard convention used by everyone else in the publishing industry, and this helps to identify the date of first publication of a work.

Jumbled elements

I’ve seen the gamut of copyright statements in use, and cringe every time. Even the STC Forum (of which I handle backend administration) uses a wrong format. Funny how I didn’t notice it before. I was going to change it, but it serves as a good example, so I may just keep it for posterity.

© Copyright 2009, Society for Technical Communication and named contributors.

As far as wrong goes, it falls on the low end of the scale. It’s only “slightly” wrong, because the symbol and the word Copyright are reversed. Other variants of this are:

© Copyright Tony Chung Creative Communications 2009.

© Tony Chung Creative Communications 2009.

Copyright Tony Chung Creative Communications © 2009.

You know the drill.

Parentheses instead of © symbol

This was brought to my attention when I contacted record companies years ago about song lyrics. They told me that the (c) is not the same as ©, and to learn to create the symbol.

On a PC, hold <alt> and press the keypad numbers 0169

On a Mac, hold <option> and press G

About.com demonstrates how to create even more extended characters.

Missing date information

Some believe that without mentioning the year, it provides more flexibility by not locking in a publication date. These are both technically wrong.

Copyright © Tony Chung Creative Communications.

© Tony Chung Creative Communications.

Extended dates

I’ve even seen the use of an extended copyright year:

© 1995 – 2009 Tony Chung Creative Communications.

But these variants make it more difficult to verify the first publish date for legal purposes. In theory it looks like it makes sense on a website because it demonstrates both longevity and currency. However, it doesn’t hold any legal weight, because the copyright date of each page is on its first representation in its current form.

Copyright is rarely wrong

Notwithstanding all the above, having a copyright statement is better than no copyright statement. It’s merely an indication that you care about your work, and that you invite others to contact you before using it for their own ends. With that in mind, then, a more standard copyright statement is better than one thrown together without appropriate research.

However, I have used the extended date format on websites, for purely longevity/currency reasons rather than legal protection. As the content expert, you need to decide the best option and be prepared to defend the decision.

What are your thoughts? I invite your comments about copyright and its variants.

Here is my list of 25 things that you need to know about me, with thanks to Pastor David Koop, who, over ten years ago, first introduced me to “Who I Am”, scripture-based affirmations of our true identity.

Special Note: The complete list is endless as to be eternal.

Who I am in Christ

Tony Chung worships God in spirit and in truth

1. I am a child of God
2. I am led by the Holy Spirit who lives inside me
3. I live by faith and not by sight
4. I worship God in spirit and in truth
5. I know my tongue is to my body like a rudder of a ship, and choose my words carefully to steer my life
6. I am quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry
7. I speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves
8. God gave me a spirit of power, love and self-discipline
9. I am a love letter from Christ, written with the Spirit of the living God on the tablet of my heart
10. I bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control
11. I make the most of every opportunity to know and do the Lord’s will
12. I wear the full armour of God at all times for protection from evil
13. I am a man who prays in the spirit on all occasions, unceasingly, without losing hope
14. The Lord builds my house, on the solid foundation which is His word
15. I love my wife as Christ loves the church and would give up my life for her
16. I discipline my sons in love, as even the Lord disciplines me
17. I know my God has great plans for me and my future
18. I use money wisely, and give generously and cheerfully, knowing God is faithful to supply all my needs according to His riches in glory
19. I resolve conflict before going to bed
20. I know my God is faithful to protect me from temptation, and He is equally faithful to forgive me for my imperfection when I confess my wrongful actions
21. I fix my thoughts on things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise.
22. I am prepared to answer, with gentleness and respect, for my hope in Jesus
23. I resist the devil and he flees from me
24. I draw near to God, and He draws near to me
25. By faith I see the Lord seated on the throne, never changing, and returning in glory

Bonus thought: (the free gift)

26. I have been made righteous by the free gift of God, which is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross

Finally, my brethren

There is a running joke that the apostle Paul often closed with the phrase, “Finally, my brethren,” then carried on for several chapters beyond. Not in the spirit of Paul, I offer only a few closing thoughts.

The Bible predates me, so I can’t claim any any copyright to this list. Feel free to share this list with anyone, print a copy to read daily, or post it on your own blog. Better still, compile your own list of affirmations based on what God shows you about you. In my introduction I said this list is endless—after all, it’s eternal! For example, here’s a version of Who I Am from Joyce Meyers’ website, with links to confessions, prayers, and additional scripture references “for a sound mind”.

I won’t bother to tag anyone with this post. I believe God has already tagged you and is waiting for you to respond.

If you like any of the songs in my player, remember to buy the CDs to support the artists.

Tonight, when I checked my email after my “sabbatical”, I was excited to see this little bit of SocMed sent to me by my in-laws. I leave it with you as a start to the new week. Enjoy!

Click image to view The Other Coast February 18, 2009

When I saw this comic strip in the paper this morning, I had to laugh. So much of today’s communications media: phone, text/SMS/MMS, email, TV, online publishing—are only available as long as there is enough storage to keep them. The Way-Back Machine on the Internet Archive helped me recover my Tablet PC Blogs posts in a jam, but if all the hard drives in the universe were full, what would have happened then?

In contrast to my post about what happens on the Internet living forever, I present the alternative view. My friend Wayne Radford, the self-proclaimed “King of Poco”, put this bug in my ear over lunch one rainy afternoon. The short version is that our online publishing efforts, though wide reaching, are only temporal.

Way back in the dawn of time the human race shared stories of their heritage through the spoken word. In each family or tribe was a storyteller who entertained, provoked thought, and presented their traditions and history to the current generation. Before that storyteller died, he passed the mantle to the next in line, to carry on the tradition.

In our electronics-crazed age, we are disconnected from one another. We listen to our personal stereos. We play portable one-person video games. We share a sense of community, but that largely occurs online. Which reminds me of another great cartoon I saw this week.

Click image to view Zits for February 15, 2009

The sad fact is that Social Media encourages online activity that makes us feel like we’re connecting with others. In reality we are still playing by ourselves in a large room with several others. When our kids were in preschool we arranged play dates so they could “get to know other kids”. It was an interesting phenomenon that even though they were in the same room, each of them enjoyed the experience of playing with a different set of toys—they rarely interacted, or played the same game together.

It soon became apparent that we arranged those play dates for other reasons besides our children’s social development; we arranged these dates for us to socialize with other parents. This became clear to me when I compared my wife’s impressions of the play dates where the parents of the children stayed to chat, with the ones where the parents dropped their kids off and left to run errands. My wife always felt a greater sense of connection when given the opportunity to socialize with other adults. Go figure.

Back to my original point. I wrote this blog entry and published it for the world at large to read. Well, actually, only the interested three or four of you will take the time to read this post. While my work makes me a published author for however long the post is kept on the server, when the lights go out, it’s over.

This is a different experience than that of a printed book, which has the opportunity to live for on centuries (or not!) on a library bookshelf. Even then, the written word is still temporary. What matters most are the real-life connections we make with each other, right now. It’s easy to hide behind a pseudonym or a web site façade, an instant messaging nick or an avatar. It’s far more difficult, and scary, to present ourselves as we really are.

I’ve had the great pleasure of joining various meetup groups, technology user groups, and other business/social networking groups that meet face to face. It’s fascinating to watch the dynamic within each group. There are those who use these occasions to promote their services, but still more who want to meet the real “you” behind the online “you”.

Which leads me to my next point: I’ve been invited to speak at Northern Voice on February 20, 2009 about “Putting Your Blog to Work”. I’ve been keeping this pretty quiet, as I’ve been too busy to even think about my presentation. Plus, it’s my first time ever going to this conference, and I am not sure quite what to make of the whole thing.

One thing is certain: Face-to-face connection is what is required to create true permanence in the hearts and minds of others. I intend to share the real “me” behind the online “me”, and meet and get to know the real “you” behind your online “you”.

I hope to see you at Northern Voice. Let’s put the “Social” into “Social Media”.

Grandma Rose Woo 1916 – 2009

Between new years day and Chinese new year, Rose Woo, my grandmother, and my children’s great-grandmother, passed away at the age of 92. She had been fighting what we thought was the flu and was confined to her bed during Christmas. We admitted her into the hospital on new years day because she had stopped eating. Over the following weeks, she appeared to recover well, but she still couldn’t manage enough strength to walk, nor even stand. She died peacefully in her sleep only one day before we would have celebrated Chinese New Year. We’re going to miss her.

At the “Celebration of Life” service we held in her memory, Rev. Terry Shea opened with a poem by Linda Ellis, to remind us that while our date of birth and date of death appear on our gravestones, it is more important to consider how we spend the years in “the dash” between those dates. I first heard “the dash” several years ago when Wayne Myers, an elderly missionary to Mexico, spoke as a guest at Coastal Church in Vancouver. The message within those 36 lines was appropriate for the occasion; I later spoke about my memories of life with Grandma Rose, packaged as “some things death teaches us about life”.

This is a recap of those thoughts, but not exactly as I presented them. I’m not sure why I chose not to use notes, but I am thankful that God answered my prayer that I would speak sensibly, and encourage those in attendance. Two of my relatives also shared their memories, and the sunny (albeit windy) weather cooperated, helping to turn a sad occasion into the homecoming send-off my grandma deserved.

Grandma lived quite the dash!

Ninety-two years… now that’s some dash! My grandma had seen so much change during her lifetime, from growing up on a farm on Vancouver Island to living with us. During that time she witnessed two major world wars, the great depression and subsequent recessions, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the space race, the arms race, conquered diseases, and several more triumphs and tragedies endured by the human race. My grandma had lived through them all and stayed the same person inside and out. She was always my grandma.

As a child I couldn’t relate to the stories I read where kids made a big deal about packing up their stuff to “go and visit the grandparents”. I lived in a house with one Grandma, and spent a lot of time at my other Grandma and Grandpa’s place. Of all the grandkids, I was fortunate to have my grandparents look after me while my parents worked. At lunch we feasted on bacon, eggs, Kraft dinner, and fruit salad, and watched soap operas and the news. Then I’d go back to school to finish the afternoon, play with my friends in the playground, and return to the apartment to do my homework. My parents joined us for dinner after work, socialized for a bit, then head home to rest so that we could repeat the process in the morning.

I started reflecting on some things that death teaches us about life when we took Grandma to the hospital. When I spoke this message, I didn’t label the sections, but as I write them down I feel the headings keep me organized.

Get to know what you’re good at

My grandma knew that she could do some things well, and focused her energy into those things. She didn’t know how to use a computer, didn’t own a VCR, and didn’t own any property. However, she always considered her appearance, and the appearance of her home, and in the home she excelled. I remember how she would spend the afternoons vacuuming the carpet, sweeping my food crumbs off the floor, cleaning the windows, cooking the meals, washing and hanging the laundry. She was everywhere at one time.

She spent a lot of time at home, and to that end she created a pleasant environment that made her happy. And she loved to entertain. My grandfather also was an amazing Chinese chef and the two of them worked in the kitchen to prepare dinner for family occasions.

Value relationships over possessions

My grandparents’ accommodations were well-kept, but very modest. Rather than buying the latest, greatest things, they chose to entertain people and build their friendships. My grandma had a few very close friends, most of whom have already gone on before her, and she would socialize with them on a daily basis. If we have but two really close friends who know us as well as her friends knew her, we’d be truly rich indeed.

When grandma moved into my parents’ home, she grew attached to my sons. I have photographs of her playing hockey in the kitchen with my eldest, and video of her singing Christmas carols and show tunes as she rocked my youngest. These memories bring me great joy.

She was always asking the whereabouts of the members of the family who were at school, work, meetings, or whatever. There were times I walked by her room and heard her speak the names of everyone in our family and social circle. She was thinking about them, and probably wondering how they were doing. I heard that she had some medical problems that required surgery that the doctors considered too much of a risk at her age. Instead of wallowing in pain and despair, she thought about those she cared about.

Be aware of the events around you

Being born of hearty stock, she was always up for a good discussion, bordering on debate. She listened to talk radio in between soap operas and the news. When she lived on her own, my wife and I often picked her up on the way to family gatherings. During the ride she would share what the radio personalities discussed, and struck both chords and nerves. It made the ride shorter, more vibrant, and exciting, all at the same time.

She listened to the radio until she had problems hearing. She read the paper until she could no longer see clearly. But she was always up to discussing things. I know she made her home care workers very happy by keeping them occupied.

Remember your roots

I am especially grateful that my grandma lived to experience the joy great-grandchildren can bring. We feel that living under the same roof with them is probably what kept her alive so long. While she was in the hospital, she kept asking, “Where’s the little one?”

It also helped that she lived an active life growing up on a farm. When I was a kid she often spoke of feeding the chickens, riding the horses, and walking to school 20 miles in the snow, uphill both ways.  She biked everywhere. She was strong. She beat up the boys who picked on her brothers and sisters. It was because of her I developed a fondness for spinach.

I overheard her more than a few times as she sat at the table after lunch, singing the entire song,  “Jesus Loves Me This I Know”. She must have learned this in her childhood; it’s not a song we sang very often.

Take care of what’s entrusted to you

We owe it to my grandma’s memory to consider the time we spend “in the dash”. My grandma was close to all her children, especially her own daughters, and daughters-in-law. I know she was grateful for my mom, who looked after her daily after my grandpa died almost twenty years ago. I know she was happy to live in the same home with us to be around our active life.

To maintain privacy, I have deliberately avoided mentioning any specific names. On behalf of my family, we thank you for your caring and compassion, and for checking in on my grandma so often during her life. You enriched her life by including her in yours. You also came through for us when she was hospitalized. In honour of my grandma’s memory, let’s make it a point to continue on this path, and nurture the relationships we encounter along this journey.

Rising of a new dawn

My son entered Grade One eating only peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch. Shortly into the school year, he was told he could no longer bring his favourite sandwiches, because a classmate was allergic to peanuts. To prove himself a good friend, he stopped bringing peanut butter and ate sandwiches with only the banana. Sometime before the end of that school year, we learned that the student who was “allergic” to peanuts just didn’t like the smell of peanut butter.

My son had already made the sacrifice, and eventually grew to love banana sandwiches. Buy why was that one student’s suspected allergy never verified, or even questioned?

Scent allergic people are militant. When I was back east in 1999 I caught a news story where a teenage political activist was allergic to “all scent”. She used beets for blush and baking soda for her pits. At lunch she set up a table to educate her school about scent allergies. She expected the world to bow to her sensitive sinuses. Since then, she hasn’t been the only one.

Nowadays, you can’t enter an office building, school, apartment, transit vehicle, etc., without signs declaring the location as “scent free”. I’d rather be honest and tell “hairy-chest haven’t washed” and “antique perfume saturated maven” that they upset my olfactories, and ask if they would mind washing more or splashing less.

Before anyone criticizes me for being insensitive, I must clarify that I grew up asthmatic and was (probably still am) allergic to everything but food. I was on scads of pills, inhalers, and went twice weekly for serum injections to deal with what I thought was my problem.

Who would have thought that I didn’t have to endure all that physical inconvenience? I could have just told the world to stop shedding, wafting, and spreading their allergens into my general direction, or even to the areas where I might travel.

One of my friends is deathly allergic to eggs, as we learned when we had to take him to emergency when my mom was baking muffins. One of my friends is allergic to shellfish, and yet another is allergic to the more extroverted seafood that don’t live inside shells.

I think it would suck to be diagnosed with a food allergy, because I like to eat, and would hate to limit my diet for such a lame reason that it would keep me alive.

Many thanks to my friend Emma Hamer for her Facebook post pointing out Joel’s article reprinted in the Vancouver Sun.

The Great Long Neck Migration DVD cover from IMDB

One of my sons’ favourite shows right now is a Land Before Time episode, “The Great Long Neck Migration“. They’ve watched the DVD several times since receiving it as a present during the year. The series follows a community of dinosaurs living in a mixed social environment, where the children of different species play as friends. It’s quite a far cry from the live action/computer generated imaging version in Prehistoric Park and Walking with Dinosaurs.

In the movie, the dinosaurs embark on a journey to find a new feeding ground, based on a sleep story (dream), or vision. Along the way, they meet other dinosaurs (voiced by James Garner, Bernadette Peters, and Kiefer Sutherland) also on the same pilgrimage. One of these long necks (apatosaurs) turns out to be the long-lost father of Little Foot, who has been living with his grandparents since his mother died.

After Little Foot meets his father, he bursts into a song, “Me and My Dad”. My youngest son is especially touched because the song is about how daddies are so great. He always wants me to watch this film with him, cuddled under a blanket. Oh for these days to last forever!

Recently Scientific American released a podcast that summarized how paleontologist believe that dinosaurs were dutiful dads.  They also provide another story of fossil support for dinosaur parenting that may provide ancestral patterning for the parenting style of crocodiles and birds.

The key word is “may”, but I have strong opinions of how the nurturning instinct is actually a planned part of intelligent design. I’ve stopped believing that anything is random in the universe. How about you?

Paul Boutin’s justification:

Scroll down Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs and you’ll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.

30 posts a day. Wow. I’d like to be able to generate enough ideas to write 30 posts a day. But if the only reason to do so is to drive content to my site in the hopes of increasing my ad revenue, then I  might as well quit now. I have a feeling that bloggers write for other purposes than making money. In fact, even a local dot-com mogul, John Chow, whose blog title says, “I Make Money Online by Telling People How Much Money I Make Online” wrote in his eBook that “People who blog only for money seldom succeed.”

From the beginning, blogs have always been about conversation and sharing. Yes, several have advertisements on them. Yes, several have hired pro writers (for instance, Duo Consulting hired me). And yes, many do read more like online magazines than personal observations from the field. But nobody’s forcing you to read them. You can select what you want to read.

I subscribe to a number of RSS feeds through Bloglines, recommended through my friend and fellow Duo blogger, Anne Gentle. While the sheer volume of posts can be difficult to manage, I don’t have to read all of them in one sitting, only the ones I want. And Bloglines links back to the original post so I can still offer comments to be part of the community.

John Chow continues:

Blogging is about forming relationships… between you and the readers… and other blogs in your niche. It is up to you to get to know them and form this relationship. Many readers have stated that when they’re reading my blog, it’s like a one-on-one [conversation]. That was not done by accident. It’s all part of relationship blogging.

Holly Harkness’s post supports this argument. As a TechCom niche blog, her readers include other Technical Writers like Anne, Tom Johnson, and myself. She reminds us that not all TechCom’s will approach the same subject matter the same way. She uses the example of writing about oysters as a subject:

In the blogosphere—even the narrow tech comm corner of the blogosphere—there is room for two, or even five or ten simultaneous oyster diatribes because we all have different audiences with some overlapping on the edges. If we are truly speaking in our own voice, we won’t be talking about oysters in exactly the same way. This may or may not be useful to our audience.

There is some truth in what Paul said. As the web expands, it incorporates more rich media, and text-only sites are losing popularity. Heck, my seven-year-old surfs YouTube, and my five-year-old mashes up Transformers videos, so I know what he’s talking about when he says:

Social multimedia sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook have since made publishing pics and video as easy as typing text. Easier, if you consider the time most bloggers spend fretting over their words.

From my perspective, rich media and microblogging applications complement, rather than replace, a well-written blog. That’s the subject of this post. A blog should be well-written, and well-managed. I wrote a post for Duo about how nobody wants to read a stupid blog. The concept is that your content should have meaning to you and to your audience, and put a personal face on an otherwise sterile business website.

Also, a self-hosted blog can be customized more easily than the well-used rich media sites. I may share the story of how I’ve hacked the theme to play with the meta tags and the Google search box. In addition to learning how to hack a WordPress theme, I want to improve your experience when reading my blog. I wasn’t able to customize my pages to this extent using blogger or wordpress.com.

Which reminds me: I’ve been hosting with Bluefur (formerly MonsterHosting) since 2002. If you’re in the market for web hosting, sign up using promo code: jake, to get a discount.