Kessel 'Phils' void: Why he is worth it

Over a year ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs hired general manager Brian Burke to help revive a struggling franchise. Upon his arrival, Burke promised changes and he has kept true to his word.

Since his arrival in late November of last year, Burke has made a number of roster moves. The most controversial occurred this September with the acquisition of Phil Kessel for two first round draft picks and another second round pick. While there is no question that Kessel is a premier player, the move had fans wondering if the price was too high.

Here are three reasons why I believe trading for Kessel was the best move a Toronto GM has made in years.

3. Kessel is young.

- Kessel is 21 years old.

- Burke can re-acquire draft picks through a trade.

- In his young career, Kessel has already achieved a 36 goal season.

- The Leafs have a core group of prospects in their system to compensate for the lost draft picks.

2. Kessel is cheap (reasonably).

- While his 5.4 million dollar cap hit per season is the highest on the team, it is cheap compared to other superstars in the league.

- Kessel is signed with the Leafs for five years.

- Over 20 million dollars will be freed up in the off-season due to free agency.

1. Kessel makes us better.

- Since recovering from shoulder surgery, Kessel has 12 goals and 20 points in 21 games played.

- Kessel also sports an impressive plus-7 rating in a Leafs uniform.

- This season the Leafs are 1-7-4 without Kessel in the lineup.

- The Leafs have gone 11-7-3 since Kessel’s return.

This year, the Maple Leafs were off to their worst start in franchise history. Fans began to panic at the thought of losing the first overall pick in the Phil Kessel trade. However, since Kessel’s debut the Leafs have climbed back into the playoff race making this potentially one of the greatest moves in the Leafs recent history.

Movember hits Canada

What's cute, fuzzy and helps fight cancer. A moustache! Long gone are the days when the 'stache' is considered repulsive. Girls no longer shutter at the site of a glorious 'mo'. Men can once again sport their 'soup strainers' with pride! Best of all, we can now grow a 'cookie duster' and raise money for the fight against prostate cancer.

The origins of Movember are uncertain. It is believed that it began in 1999 when a group of young men in Adelaide Australia decided to grow moustaches for charity at a local pub. The "mo-vement" spread across the rest of Australia and leaked to New Zealand. In 2004, the Movember Foundation was created to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues. Since then, countries such as Canada, Spain, the United States and the Republic of Ireland have joined in on the month long event.

Movember is a perfect example of how one can fully take advantage of social media. For instance, the Movember homepage is full of awesome links that can engage anyone interested in the movement. These include news forums, donations pages, team pages and my personal favourite, the lab. In the lab, any reader can go in and find out the history of the moustache, the different styles and what they look like, pictures of famous people and moustaches, videos and more.

Movember also makes use of other types of social media such as Twitter. While they only have approximately 2,250 followers, they use the site to post updates such as this years Movember progress and links to sites and organizations that are taking part. Movember also has a Facebook group, not only for their main headquarters but for different factions across the world. These sites allow for people to engage with each other, sharing war stories and videos such as this one.

Movember has also reached out to millions through partnerships. One example of a partnership is with the Toronto Marlies. Through their website, the Marlies are supporting the cause and having the first annual Movember Night at Ricoh Coliseum. Finally, Movember has several Gala events for all the mo bros and sistas at the end of the month where those who participated can show of their mo and take part in several contests. Social media has also been used to promote future events and highlight the parties of the past. In 2008, Movember raised approximately $2.4 million, making it the largest charity event for men. On top of the money, this initiative has increased global awareness of male cancer.

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Personal Brand Plan

Yes, I have completed a Personal Brand Plan. Being new to this type of thing I would love feedback. Check out my slide show and let me know what you think.

Personal Brand Plan

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Most successful PR professional

Who is the most successful Canadian public relations professional? What makes you say this?

For me, the most successful Public Relations professional is Pat Park, Director of Media Relations for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I say this because this is my dream job. If I were to somehow attain this position in my lifetime I would consider my self a true success. He is also successful because of what he does for the organization. Despite having a losing team, the fans continue to show up and the team gets extreme media coverage.

Conversational patterns of PR

What kind of conversational patterns can you expect to encounter using social media as a PR professional? What will consumers of your content expect? How can you level these expectations?

The conversational patterns that we may encounter as PR professionals will vary depending on the size of the audience. As the audience grows in size it becomes more and more difficult for a writer to hold conversations with all of their readers. If we as PR professionals are to gain attention, we will be forced into a width-versus-depth trade-off. This means essentially the writer can either spend less time talking to everyone which gives the impression that the writer is shallow OR they can limit themselves to have deep conversations with less people giving the impression they are cliquish. As a PR professional I think we will encounter both types of conversations.

The consumer will generally expect us to have in depth conversations and dialogue with them. Unfortunately, if working for a large corporation this is not very likely. At any rate, PR professionals have to find balance when possible. One possible solution is to arrange the consumers into similar groups. This way the PR practitioner can give an in depth response to groups of consumers concerned with the same issues. Another solution may be to give in depth responses to those with the largest social networks and allow the information to flow through them.

Jamie Zawinski and software bloat

Who is Jamie Zawinski? How is the role he played & are design principals he helped spread important to you?


Jamie Zawinski was involved in the development of free software programs such as Mozilla Firefox. The major design principal he dealt with was ‘software bloat’. This was the idea that all successful applications tend to expand. For instance, Zawinski helped design Mozilla, but it was later redesigned to accommodate more users. He believed that applications would start off smaller and focus on more detailed tasks. At this stage the applications are more efficient. However, as these applications gain popularity they expand and start taking on new roles. He was under the belief that as these applications become larger, their functionality decreases.


A good example of this is Facebook. When it was first created, Facebook was primarily used for networking. As it grew in popularity, more and more applications were added to the site and as a result it has become less efficient. While it still has a lot of users, the initial purpose has been consumed by the newer additions. This is important because these applications essentially become difficult to use. With the loss of usability, sites become less relevant and we miss out on potential communication tools.

Writing history through social media

In Wikipedia: The Truth in Numbers the message seems to be: no longer do the victors write the history books, we do: you, me, and everyone else. How is social media (twitter, blogs) forwarding this idea? What gives someone authority to "write history" and why should we listen to them? Is there a hierarchy of authorities? ie. is what someone like Seth Godin says more important? What should be taken as canon?

Social media such as twitter forward the idea that we (you, me and everyone else) are writing the history books because anyone can post information on the internet. Anyone with the internet is given the authority to “write history” but not all of them are given the same level of attention. People will listen (or read) what others have to say for a number of reason. One of the major factors is the credentials that the poster has. For example, one is more likely to read an article on public relations if the author is a Public Relations professional. People are also more likely to listen to someone based on their following and their support network. If someone has a large following it gives the potential reader the feeling that the author may be saying something important.

To a certain degree there is a hierarchy of authorities. Once again this goes back to credibility. Someone like Seth Godin is more important because of the reputation that he has built. To gain this reputation one must start at the bottom and work their way up. They must gain the trust of users through honesty, consistency and authenticity. Without this type of ‘status’ or ‘reputation’ people are likely to take information as is. With all the information that is on the internet it can be difficult to decipher which information is legitimate. Users are likely to sift through information, pick their trusted sources and ignore those who are not yet established.

Four elements of McLuhan's medium model

McLuhan used a model with four elements surrounding the term MEDIUM. Touching on the four elements, describe how this model can help us in interpreting social media?

The four elements surrounding the term ‘Medium’ are retrieve, reverse, obsolete & enhance. In interpreting social media “retrieve” can be applied to ones ability to retrieve the individual voice. With social media, our personal opinions can be heard as we are able to add our own input, react to other peoples information and engage in conversations with these people. Reverse can be applied to the methods used in communication. With social media we can reverse traditional methods of communication and the flow of information. Social media has also made other more of communication obsolete. An example of this is ‘face-to-face” contact. Through social media we are able to communicate to others without ever having to meet with them in person. Finally, through social media we are able to enhance community and communication platforms. We can also enhance information outputs by allowing multiple venues to display, discuss and intake information.

PR and the advancement of technology

In Deirdre Breakenridge's article PR 2.0, Brian Cross discusses how changes in technology will change the function of PR practitioners. In what ways do you think public relations will change and what role will PR professional's play in these changes?

Public relations will change in a number of ways because of technology changes. The first major change is that companies or brands will be able to have conversations directly with the consumers. As technology advances, users are able to share an incredible amount of information. Consumer behaviour will also evolve as they are now able to decide what information they want to intake, allowing them to organize and share information to make better consumer choices. In turn, the consumer wants more from their brands as they desire direct communication to hear about new products and services while also being able to give feedback. PR professionals will play a huge role in this change as they will now be invited to participate in dialogue in places they were not invited before. It also allows companies to eliminate the ‘middle man’ and rely more so in internal pieces of the company to communicate with the consumer. The role of communicator then become more significant for those in PR as they are now expected to engage in the new wave of dialogue and information sharing while representing themselves and their brand(s). A final impact is on the way PR professionals must go about their business. PR was a lot about developing relationships and contacts more directly (face to face) where as now these relationships are much more accessible on the web and almost less personal than before.

He shoots he scores: Hockeybuzz.com brings social networking to hockey fans

It wasn't until I went to college that I realized how much of my life was involved with social networking. Just like most of you, I have a list of go-to websites I check every time I turn on the Internet. Only now do I realize that they are mostly social applications. Of all the social applications that I use, my favourite one is Hockeybuzz.com.


Hockeybuzz is a great way for fans of the sport to get together and argue over who supports the better team. With over 50 bloggers, it is one of the fastest ways to find out rumours around the league and discuss them with others. While there are many different sites that allow for fans to discuss current events in hockey, this site has a few extra features that make it so unique. One only needs to register to a free online account to have full access the site.

One of the perks of joining this site is that you gains access to the chat rooms. This allows hockey fans from all over the world to discuss issues with each other and the site's bloggers. There are also Hockeybuzz forums where fans are able to talk about more specific events around the league.

As mentioned before, there are well over 50 bloggers on the site. Some of these bloggers post live podcasts while others are linked through other applications such as Twitter. This makes it much easier to follow what they are doing and what is going on in the league.

One of the best aspects of this site is the fantasy hockey leagues. This is when you form into groups with other users and simulate creating competitive hockey teams. Over the course of the season you manage your team by picking up free agent players, or trading players with others in the league. The statistics are kept throughout the season and at the end the winners are given prizes.

The reason Hockeybuzz is such a great media application is because it is user friendly. For example, the toolbar on the homepage allows users to navigate through all the different applications with ease. When you first open the site, there are a number of boxes with the most recent league transactions and rumours, as well as a little video welcoming users to the page.



While it was difficult for me to find out exactly who started the site, it appears that it was founded by several bloggers. One of these bloggers goes by the name of Eklund. He is very involved in the site through various blogs, depth/rumour charts, podcasts and chat forums. While I have only been following the website for the past year, it seems to have been around since 2005.

As far as longevity goes, there isn't any reason why this site should falter. In all actuality, Hockeybuzz has the potential expand. With revenue coming in through ad space and the store, the site is likely to grow. One of its main advantages is that it relies heavily on its users. As long as there are hockey fans with something to say, this site will exist. This sense of community amongst the users of the site makes the site stronger, creating a loyalty that is hard to beat.

While this social application does not directly tie into PR, it can be useful for those in the sports industry. This site is an example of how one can set up a user friendly application so that everyone can join in on social networking.