I have quite an extended family in the UK which means we visited and stayed with different uncles and aunts while there. This didn't eliminate the need for hotels, but did lessen the number of nights we stayed in them.

We generally find our hotels online using services like Expedia or CheaperThanHotels to find places to stay. Great deals can be had at London Hotels, Edinburgh Hotels, and Glasgow Hotels, especially if you are willing to risk waiting until the last minute. We like to find places that are central, close to public transit, and (if possible) have a kitchen or kitchenette. Three of the four places we stayed in the UK for our vacation this month had those amenities. A kitchen reduces the amount of time you spend eating at restaurants, which are--in the UK--very expensive. This doesn't mean we don't end up eating out at all. We had a terrific meal, for example, at Ignite, a fabulous Indian Restaurant in Edinburgh.

We traveled by rail back to London yesterday. It was a very pleasant trip on one of the first class carriages. We traveled down the eastern coast and were privy to some terrific views of the ocean and the land close to the ocean. It was quite beautiful until we passed Newcastle after which it was pretty much a normal view of the UK--gentle rolling hills between each of the towns.

I took advantage of the trip to digitize all of our video so far and start the process of encoding it for REVVER. I even managed to use the train's wireless Internet connection to upload a few of them. The wireless was a really nice freebie touch to the first class experience, but the connection was somewhat flakey--for example uploading photos to Flickr was absolutely hopeless. I'll need to catch up when we get back to Colorado although I may try to upload a few later this evening.

As I've written before, one of the terrific things about Revver is your ability to syndicate other's content and for them to do the same.  It allows for sharing in the advertising dollars.
My videos aren't anything terribly special.  Some depict some pretty great countryside, others do have some good old time music, but most are simply moments I have captured and thought were worth preserving.
I was engaged in doing a little searching--I used my Revver username--and came across quite a few examples of my content being syndicated--as far away as Asia.

Taxonomy is the scientific practice of categorizing things.  For example, taxonomy is use to classify organisms.  The Dewey Decimal System was created in the 1800's and is a taxonomy.  The Library of Congress has a taxonomy.
When you get right down to it, a taxonomy is a preset tagging system.  In Dewey, if a book is on Technology it falls within "600".  In the Library of congress, the same volume would fall within "T".  These tags create:

• structure
• hierarchy
• standards

They also tend to be:

• specific to one use
• non-adaptive

Folk Taxonomy or Folxonomy allows users to create tags which means that you can have a virtually infinite set.  Systems that use folxonomy include Drupal, Joomla, Flickr, YouTube, Revver, and Google Video. 

REVVER is a video site similar to YouTube.  The company is quite a bit smaller than YouTube.  The number of videos on REVVER is much smaller than on YouTube.  While it is a little guy, REVVER is my preferred video site. 
Why? 
The small guy is more likely to try and work with content providers.  You can post messages to the forum on REVVER and get a response very quickly.  The REVVER staff are quite likely to email you directly if you have something you need/want to have resolved.
Posting to REVVER is very similar to posting to YouTube.

I AM THRILLED.  In the old version of REVVER you could look at the click throughs vs the views of your videos.  You could use this tool to identify if a video had been hijacked by a someone syndicating your content for nefarious click-through reasons.
When Classic was shut down, those tools were gone.  Today, REVVER released a new accounting system that shows the number of views, complete views, click throughs, revenues, and more.
I discovered today that the videos in my current account have generated about 30,200 views since September of last year.  That is 5033 views per month or 167 views per day.  I'm a little floored by that and really wish that this blog generated that kind of traffic!

Last night my daughter was baptized at the Wesley Foundation in Boulder. The Foundation is a United Methodist chapel that serves the student population mostly. What is the connection? My wife was the office manager there over a decade ago was baptized there. Eric Smith, in turn, married Paula and I in the Wesley Foundation in 1997.

Does this have anything to do with the Arts? One of the main challenges that the traditional arts seem to be having is engagement. How does an arts venue/product become relevant in a person's life? How does that art engage, nurture, and feed the consumer. How can you even get the consumer give your product a try?

Increasingly, the traditional arts, have lost audience. The institutions that serve and support arts organizations have become out of touch with today's consumer.

The arts community will complain that the general populace aren't engaging and how do we bring the audiences back to the theatre, opera, gallery, museum? How do bring value? Why aren't people engaged any longer? We can't reach them. Why don't they participate?

The nature of arts participation has changed so quickly in the last five years that many organizations/administrators don't recognize that participation is occurring.

• REVVER
• YouTube
• Flickr

These are three examples where participation in the arts runs deep.

Lessons from the Church

What I saw at Wesley, were deeply engaged young people who were playing musical instruments, singing, and using multimedia to strengthen the experience.

You'll notice that on the right of this picture there is a full band setup. On the left there is a screen--the screen had an LCD projector and an iBook being run by a young lady.

The Pastor was a young guy who rock climbs with his congregation. The service was made as accessible as it could be to anybody who was there.

• Listen to your audience
• Give them, at least a bit, of what they want
• When your audience looks at you, they should see themselves
• Alter your perceptions of what participation in the arts really means
• Find out where your targeted audience hangs out and what engages them--then seek them on that turf

Web 2.0 feeds into all of this. Young people hang out in MySpace, FaceBook, Revver, YouTube, SecondLife, and Flickr. They document large parts of their lives. They want to engage and be engaged. They want IN on the conversation, not be a passive viewer.

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My big brother is the CEO of a company called Iotum.  His product routes telephone calls based on the revelance of that call in the situation you are in.  They recently created a service called Talk-Now.

"Check out iotum Talk-Now, the revolutionary New Presence application that lets you see at a glance who is available to talk, be notified when the people you need to speak with become available, and share your availability to talk with others."

Alec chose to upload his video to multiple video channels and decided that REVVER provided the best quality video.  He wrote reviews of the different services on his Blog.

The business of grants is all about relationships.  Grantmaking networks are a variation on the social network.
Last week I was in Great Falls Montana and today I was in Salt Lake City.  In both cases I was intersecting with individuals who are interested in TourWest--WESTAF's grant program. 

This fellow was playing with a toy helicopter successfully disrupting the Drupal training I was attending in Vancouver last month. It turned into a conversation about Christmas presents.

Listen carefully and you will hear the fabulous Meg Cole and Kris Krug from Bryght.