Alex Reid

Last week, I was shocked to learn that my dear friend Asher Webb had passed away. It was very unexpected, and most definitely accidental.

I first met Asher online in the late 1990s, as he was one of the few Winnipeggers whom had a web presence at the time. He had some quotes on his web page, espousing positivity, and I had messaged him to compliment him on that. We began to exchange emails more regularly and eventually we began hanging out at his Exchange District haunt.

Asher wasn’t just a dear friend of mine; he was a friend of the community.

He is best known as the executive director of the Osborne Village Business Improvement Zone (1996-2007) and organizer of the fabulous Canada Day festivals in the village during his run as the ED. He was responsible for co-ordinating Winnipeg’s first public conference on HIV & AIDS.

He was also involved as a board member of the Graffiti Gallery, the Gas Station Theatre and was one of the founders of Gio’s Club and Bar, an institution in the Winnipeg gay community. He was also instrumental in Glen Murray’s campaign to be Mayor in 1998 as one of Murray’s campaign leaders. In fact, it was Murray who was one of the first to know of his passing.

Asher was passionate about everything he did, and he wasn’t afraid to let you know if he disagreed with you. And if you had a bad day, he was the first to hold you and assure you that whatever was causing you stress would pass. Asher was a friend to many and his presence provided profound comfort for so many people.

Even though Asher has passed on, he will live forever in our hearts and I will do my best to honour his spirit in doing more of what he did; caring.

“Dreams are reality yet manifested…GO FOR IT!” ~ Asher Webb

There is no doubt the American Presidential election is the most historic since perhaps the Kennedy/Nixon race. It’s the election that will see America’s first black President or America’s first female Vice President. Both candidates are Senators and are neither are incumbent to the office they are running for.

It’s also historic because finally the Internet has evolved – including the public in the democratic process with creativity and interactivity – from the debates to the vote.

YouTube has been on top of the game by partnering with the cable networks to give the microphone to the public allowing them to ask questions to the Presidential candidates. Even now on election day they are highlighting videos from people as or after they vote looking for any problems voters experience.

The instantaneous Twitter was utilized by Current TV when they fused spontaneous Twitter reactions with the broadcast of the first US Presidential Debate. Here’s what it looked like:

(VIDEO REMOVED)

Twitter even produced a keyword graph tallying up the response language. CBC News used Twitter a couple weeks ago using PowerPoint (groan) the CBC reporter pointed out Twitter keywords as the election wore on. Not live reporting, just a gathering of the past on.. PowerPoint? It was truly sad to watch.

Even the email address to contact CBC was confusing (ormistononline@) as the CBC named the contact after the presenter Susan Ormiston. Why not keep it simple and consistent like elections@cbc.ca?

Witnessing the CBC’s use pale use of technology (and/or lack of creativity) got under my skin. What the Americans have done in the run-up to their federal election is what we should be doing for our civic, provincial and federal elections.

I love how Nine Inch Nails continues to give its fans a surreal experience before they even see the show.

I was impressed by last year’s marketing of the album release of Year Zero. It started with tour t-shirts highlighting certain letters to spell a website URL, and if you were geek enough, you’d find several related web sites within the same IP block. And if you were in select concert venues during their European tour, you may have found a flash drive with a high quality MP3 of some of their yet-to-be-released songs.

Of the flash drive method, NIN head Trent Reznor said:

The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It’s really painfully obvious what people want – DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it.

I’ve never liked CDs. However, CDs were printed and even that was a medium. The CDs were coated with a thermo-chrome heat sensitive face which is black when first opened and with the warmth of a CD player, the colour changes to white with black binary code printed on it which further leads you to another web site.

This year’s The Slip certainly gives the industry just that. It’s free. All of it. Free and ready for download on the NIN web site. It’s being released under a Creative Commons license, which allows listeners to remix the songs as they want, provided they do so for noncommercial purposes and credit NIN as the source.

For the Luddites however, a limited special print of 200,000 CDs (accompanied with DVDs) will be available on July 22, 2008.