Today the Canadian Tourism Commission, a Federal government initiative to promote Canada worldwide, launched their new media website and a creative project we've completed for them was highlighted on the homepage and we're quite excited with the piece. It was a slideshow we created completely with three fabulous Canadian authors discussing their creative process during a wonderful trip to Tofino BC. It was a way to highlight both creative authors and a beautiful place in Canada simultaneously.

We're extremely proud of this latest project as it is a key part of getting the message out about genocide and the work that we can do to stop it world wide. This was a partnership with Biro Creative and the Genocide Intervention Network. The Genocide Intervention Network provides individuals and communities with the tools to stop and prevent genocide. The student-led division, STAND, specifically works to empower students worldwide. STAND has more than 1,000 active chapters in more than 25 countries working to end genocide.

Recent First Nations projects we are working on include the new website for the Native Education College and for the First Nations Employment Society. We're also excited to announce the new website for CBC Aboriginal at cbc.ca/aboriginal.

One great conference I regularly attend is the Social Change Institute. It's a 5-day conference at Hollyhock that gets into issues around social change but with the folks that are doing this work on the ground. About 120 people from all over North America come together to discuss what they are working on and what challenges and successes they've had. For me, it's a fantastic time to meet new people and be inspired. Nicholas from Biro Creative and I gave a workshop that was well attended, although in future years we intend to make it more sophisticated. People were well aware of many of the issues! Still, exciting to hear from people about their projects. Check out the photos we took.

Ecotrust Canada is live today and it truly is a showcase of Drupal in all of its glory. Ecotrust Canada is a nonprofit whose purpose is to build the conservation economy in coastal BC. They provide services for communities, First Nations and enterprises to green and grow their local economies.We're very pleased to have worked with Biro and Ecotrust in its development. Hats off to Eric Tamm as the client as he was truly amazing to work with.

We are very excited with the latest launch of CLEONET.CA a comprehensive public legal resource for Ontario. CLEONet.ca is the place to find up to date public legal information for all of Ontario. For us, it's been a really amazing journey from the initial project two years back to today's relaunch of a new look and some substantial new features.

I had the opportunity to be a part of a Broadband Symposium in Haida Gwaii this past Monday. It was organized by Art Lew of the Community Futures there. It was a great opportunity to hear from a large group of experts about the opportunities and challenges for communities that have high speed Internet. Haida Gwaii is just in the process of being hooked up, courtesy of TELUS, the BC Gov't and GwaiiTel, a local not-for-profit group that is working to connect the last mile.

Here are the presentations!

Seems incredible to think about this now, but indeed we are planning our holidays carefully! :-) The studio will close end of day Friday Dec 21st and reopen Monday the 7th of January. We will be periodically checking email and voicemail, but hopefully most issues will be able to wait!

Today, I'm very happy to announce a new CBC website property that will provide programming produced by the CBC which relates to Aboriginal life in Canada, creating a resource tool for schools, the larger community as a whole and Aboriginal communities in particular. It's still in its infancy, but we hope to have it grow to reflect the amount of things going on at CBC. Check it out at cbc.ca/aboriginal

We're assisting with Web Directions North Feb 6-10 in Vancouver. Web Directions is a conference for web designers and developers. Malcolm and I will be doing the podcasting for the conference and we're pretty excited to be doing so. Web Directions looks like an amazing conference. Personally, I'm so happy that Vancouver will get the kind of quality of presenters that are coming. Who knows, maybe some of them will stay!