Design. Charity. Life.Website and Blog of Daniel Francavilla

The City of Brampton, Ontario (one of Canada’s fastest growing cities) recognizes citizens in the community who have made achievements throughout the year. There is everything from the Sports Achievement Award and the Arts Acclaim Award to the Long Term Service Award – for people who have volunteered for over 25 years!

This May, I was honoured to receive the Humanitarian Award. Local lawyer Rob Filkin was awarded Brampton’s Citizen of the Year (read his news article here).

I suggest you get involved  in your city, in one way or another. In Brampton, a selection committee of City Officials, Clergy, Media, Arts Council, Seniors Council and Parks and Recreation staff review nominations every year. More info about the awards is available on the Brampton website’s Awards page.

Personally, I think there should be even more opportunities to award citizens. There are many everyday people, of all ages and backgrounds, that take the extra step that really counts. And with Brampton’s medium age being only around 33 years old, it is the youngest community in the GTA - which is perfect for more youth activism. The city does have a great Mayor who is very supportive of youth!

I have been thinking of  preparing youth awards through Speak Up for Change. Ones that could be awarded to everyday local citizens, making a difference. Yes, there are already plenty of scholarships and prestigious awards out there – but how accessible are they, really?

If you are interested in the idea of a Youth Activism Award, or something along these lines, please share. If you already know somebody who you’d nominate right away, then go ahead and tell!

Really this is not all about Brampton, and it’s not all about youth. It’s about being the change you wish to see in the world. Because if it’s not you, then who?

Shockwaves were sent around the online and entertainment world today as the death of Michael Jackson was being reported. Of course, this is big news.

First someone told me “Michael Jackson died” after getting a text on their phone, and I laughed it off as an obvious rumor. Hospitalized, sure. But dead? Then checking on my iPhone through Google News, and sources like CBC, NY Times, CNN, Reuters as the major, reputable media sources were reporting that very thing!

When something like this happens, a tragic or unexpected death, the media flourishes and fans come together. However when the most popular artist of all time, like actually in the whole world suddenly dies of a heart attack, it’s an even larger story. I noticed that every major media source has the story (of course), and will continue to do so for several days. It’s the same on Twitter, search it! I can guarantee that you’ll see new “tribute” videos, more documentary films, interviews with family, books written, and more (not to mention thousands of blog posts) – all triggered by this sudden death.

Let’s just say that, while the King of Pop is gone, many people are making a ton of money off of this!

Everyone is not only in shock, but even the ‘haters’ are sympathizing! The people that tried to destroy him all their lives, criticizing him (even just following stereotypes) are suddenly caring fans. (For the record, I was personally never a huge fan nor was I obsessed with Mr. Jackson at any point in my life, but I respect the music and success of course! I also did not put tons of pictures of Michael Jackson in this post because I know that many people did not find him particularly attractive especially in recent years).

Now, will people know exactly how big Michael Jackson was? I caught the very end of his career, the least successful and craziest part. So, what will those younger than me know? Rev. Al Sharpton said that he’s an icon, clearly, and agrees that it’ll be hard to pass on the info: “To say an ‘icon’ would only give these young people … a fraction of what he was. He was a historic figure that people will measure music and the industry by.”

Career-wise, it is hard to even compare any artist to Michael Jackson. After the band Jackson 5 in the late 70’s, he was at the top of the charts as a solo artist with songs from “Off the Wall” (“Rock With You”,  “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough). Later, his “Thriller” album from 1982 eventually produced seven hit singles!

However, into the 90’s the attention was on his private life more than his music career, and it all went down hill. A 1995 greatest hits CD didn’t do well, the 2001 album “Invincible” did even worse, and in 2005 he went to trial on child-molestation charges. And if you’re my age, the most you could remember about Jackson are his short marriages, his claim that the head of Sony Records Tommy Mottola was racist, his big interview with British journalist Martin Bashir done for documentary “Living With Michael Jackson” in 2003, his changing physical appearance and of course, the accusations that he sexually molested young boys at Neverland (Sources).

After three years out of the spotlight, Michael Jackson recently announced that he would be doing series of concerts in London, England as his “curtain call.” Apparently, he had 50 shows booked and sold already!

Then, we hear that he’s dead.

Just like that.

In his song sang “Don’t stop till you get enough”. Well, clearly, he got enough.

I included the video above because I like PhillyD’s videos and this one happens to talk about Michael Jackson, from a non-media perspective of course. If you can’t see it embedded above, here’s the link to the above video on YouTube.

Real news story with details and links: Michael Jackson confirmed dead at 50 (CNN)

Very interesting effect, already: Michael Jackson-related traffic doubled Twitter’s update frequency, tripled Facebook’s

A website told me that the top 5 words I’ve used on Twitter are actually twitter, rt, new, iphone, and blog. Kind of depressing that Twitter is what I tweet about most, right? I’m ok though, because there’s lost of us out there, including all those people claiming to be “social media experts” (really, we’re all users!).

If you’re still not on Twitter, you should check it out, and if you don’t want to tweet yourself, just follow people that interest you. You’ll find where some of my time dissipates to here: @francavilla. And of course, like many non-profits, why wouldn’t you find us at @accesscharity and @sufc too?

You can see the stats on TweetStats.com here, where you can also make your own.

On Mother’s Day, I posted an interesting experience my family had during lunch in Brampton. For Father’s Day, I decided to share this video and song that was on the YouTube homepage on Father’s Day 2009.

It’s a tribute to fathers, of course, and I thought the video creator’s work should be seen. (The typography’s also interesting, which I’ve been studying a lot lately). If you can’t see the video below, click here.

The Fathers of the Founding Fathers

You can find the singer’s CD “So Jokes” at www.dftba.com.

The new iPhone 3GS and iPhone OS 3.0 are causing a huge amount of hype among users and the media, giving a lot of attention to Apple for their great products. Yes, it’s very exciting when you’re part of such a reliable, innovative brand and technology movement.

I was one of the people constantly checking the Apple.com iPhone page for the link to be posted June 17, and was definitely following the chaos on Twitter (actually pretty entertaining): “expected at 3PM EST today!” or “release delayed till tomorrow” or “Australia launch in 4 min” – but really, these people had NO idea when the software update would be released (for me, it was ready by the time I got home in the afternoon, and then tried installing it a few times as Apple’s server became overloaded).

However when talking about these updates with friends online, many of them brought up the issue of their iPhone being “jailbroken” and having to decide if it’s worth it to do the upgrade. Let me say that, YES, the update is worth it, but also add, WHY would you even jailbrake your iPhone in the first place?!

Clearly, you should not alter your iPhone illegally because your iPhone is then removed from all of Apple’s content and security controls. Once you jailbreak it, nothing prevents you from installing malware on the phone. This malware is capable of doing a lot of damage (some say it can even make phone calls – as if you’re bill isn’t high enough already)!

There are points from both perspectives, of course. By jailbreaking your iPhone, you apparently have access to a wider variety of games, and other applications (as if the App Store’s awared-winning selection isn’t enough). Also, you can download apps that can allow you to customize your iPhone completely (great…).

The cons, however, are much more significant! If your iPhone becomes damaged, broken or defective in any way, you can’t exchange it for a new one because jailbreaking it voids the warranty! Another con is that all of these modifications can slow your iPhone down. If you haven’t done so yet but want to jailbreak it, note that you have to restore your entire iPhone and will therefore have to re-download all music, photos, etc to the phone!

Despite this, by doing a simple Google Search on “jailbreak iPhone”, you can see that almost all results are sites that say why you should jailbreak your iPhone! Clearly I’m not inline with these users and have been enjoying my iPhone 3G since I signed my life away to Fido last fall.

So, why pay so much for a beautiful, successful phone, and then increase the risk of being left with issues that could have easily been taken care of for free by Apple? While I understand from reading some of the blogs why some people would do this, I am still not convinced.