Convert a local photo to ASCII

March 12, 2007

If you are looking to keep yourself amused for a few minutes on the web today give this a shot. AsciiConvert allows you to easily convert any image (online or from you PC) into an ASCII image. Below is a piece of theOwen.com header image. Not that exciting I know, and not really the best image to start with. Why not dig up a local photo on your computer and give it a shot. ascii logo of theOwen.com

And While you are poking around looking for photos you might consider picking one to contribute to the Homecoming Photomosaic Project

From the Homecoming site…

THE HOMECOMING 150 COMMITTEE is pleased to announce their PHOTOMOSAIC project.

As part of the Homecoming celebrations, the Photomosaic will be an exciting, fun and historical legacy of the Owen Sound community and its residents, both past and present. We are asking all Owen Sounders to be part of this AMAZING historical endeavour by submitting their family picture and BEING ON THE BUCK! (See attached poster for further info)

SCOTIABANK is a major sponsor of the Photomosaic and the image will be located on the Shopper’s Clothing Co. wall.

The Photomosaic will be completed by July 27th, 2007 – Opening of the Official Homecoming celebrations.

For further information, please contact Peggy Moulaison, DIA Executive Director, Heritage and Historical Publications Committee Chair at 519-376-9225, e-mail pmoulaison@city.owen-sound.on.ca, or download the registration form here.

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Homecoming, Participation, theOwen

You can play too - get tagging with theOwen

March 12, 2007

I have spent a great deal of time considering how to get as many people as possible contributing at theOwen with as little effort as possible. Well. here’s another one which harnesses the power of social media site del.icio.us. If you are not familiar with del.icio.us, it is more or less a bookmarking/favourites tool that will allow you to save and categorize (tag) sites of interest you find online. To a certain extent you can do this with the bookmarks/favourites functionality that is already built into your web browser.

For those who do not know, del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website where people can upload their favourites and share them with friends. More interestingly though, del.icio.us allows users to tag pages with keywords, allowing other users to use the meta-data for their queries.

If you are already using del.icio.us or you think it might be useful for you, here’s how you can use the service to contribute at theOwen.

Tag it with: theowen

If you find an article/web page/site… that might be of interest to members of the local community and readers for of theOwen simply save it to your del.icio.us account and give it the tag: theOwen. We can then aggregate in the sidebar of this site a list of articles/sites that other Owen readers/subscribers/taggers are reading, with data directly pulled from del.icio.us tags.

tagging

I use a firefox extension to manage my del.icio.us account, when I want to add a site I simply hit the tag button in the toolbar and I get this little tagging box.

How to play along

1. You should begin by registering a del.icio.us account (if you do not already have one).
2. Once completed, you might want to install the del.icio.us toolbar and begin tagging right from your browser.
3. Begin tagging articles you think theOwen readers might find interesting with the tag theowen.

Accessing the del.icio.us Feed

If you are simply interested in accessing the del.icio.us feed, and not adding to it, simply add this rss feed into your newsreader/aggregator, and you are set.

We will slowly begin integrating these del.icio.us tags into the site, so get tagging!

If you have any questions or thoughts add them as a comment below or contact us

flickr There is more tagging goodness on the way but we are going to introduce these things slowly. We don’t want to overwhelm you from the start. Coming soon… how to share your photos of Owen Sound with the community using tags and online photosharing services such as Flickr.

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Web Tools, Participation, Administrivia, theOwen

Job Opportunity - Owen Sound City Manager

March 11, 2007

As most of you are probably aware the City of Owen Sound has a rather significant employment opportunity up for grabs. With the departure of our present City Manger, Craig Curtis, the city is on the lookout for “the right person to lead this progressive City located on beautiful Georgian Bay”.

The position: (I grabbed this from Municipal World )

CITY MANAGER

Owen Sound, Ontario

We are looking for the right person to lead this progressive City located on beautiful Georgian Bay.
http://www.e-owensound.com

You have leadership skills and expertise in implementing strategy, directing policy development and inspiring a skilled and dedicated team of employees. You have a demonstrated track record of working effectively with elected municipal leaders, building positive collaborative relationships and advocating with other levels of government. A commitment to continuous learning is built upon your university degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline.

You will champion economic and cultural development opportunities and respect Owen Sound’s special physical environment and rich heritage. You will be dedicated to improve the community and its already high quality of life.

If you want to help build a wonderful future for the City of Owen Sound, please let us know by forwarding a letter and your résumé to The Search Committee at search@e-owensound.com. We will begin reviewing all submissions for this prominent position in this far from ordinary City on March 23, 2007. The closing date is April 15, 2007. However, we are accepting resumes until the position has been filled.

In accordance with the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, personal information is collected under the authority of the Municipal Act, and will only be used for candidate selection.

The City of Owen Sound is committed to employment equity.
Posted: 2007-02-27

You can also read a little more about the position on the City web site or in the official job description(.pdf) or the job posting(.pdf)

I really encourage everyone to take an opportunity to review the job description and consider the significance of finding the right person to fill it.

It was this thought that lead me to thinking a bunch about how this position will be filled. Who is responsible for this hire, what does the interview process look like and maybe more importantly what is the city looking for?

The last one should be a bit of a thinker. Beyond skill sets and degrees (which are laid out clearly in the job description) I am interested as much, if not more, in the persona and attitude of the individual chosen to help lead this city (sorry… have resolved that one yet? do we have a keen sight on where the community is heading?, if you have thoughts on this add them below)

I am fairly confident that there will be no shortage of experienced and highly capable applicants to this position. Owen Sound is a great community to live in with fabulous people to live with. So with assumable a good number of applicants to choose from how do we find the right candidate? The city has no doubt posted the position in all the usual places, such as the Municipal World reference above. Beyond that, how does one find out about this position and apply? Or where else should the posting be made prevalent?

This has me thinking… the Internet is a very powerful tool for position relevant information in front of niche audiences big or small. If we have and idea of what we would like the future of the community to be, we can influence this to a certain degree by making sure the right people are aware of the opening. If for example there is local interest in the technological advancement in the city/region we might like to look for candidates with interest. Perhaps we would like to find some candidates with eye on the sustainable development of the community. Where do we find this candidate? This job posting is significant enough part of the future of this community that I think we might want to get more than a few more people involved in the search for the ideal candidate.

You can play too…1) get a discussion going around town. This will get more people involved in step two. 2) Start floating the idea/details around. Perhaps you have come by an ideal candidate in your business or social life. Pass the word on. 3) We might also want to ask the City to keep us in the loop as the selection process goes on. If we want this to happen I think more than a few of us are going to have to ask.

Here’s what I’d like to do… I would like to interview some potential candidates for the position of City Manager(and post them here of course). The trick here is that I won’t know how they are?(city are you going to tell us who they are?) So they’ll have to contact me directly. Further to that idea, I would like to interview the potential candidates with your questions. Sure, I have a few of my own, but not nearly as many interesting ones as we can come up with collectively.

So here we go…to keep this discussion alive is simple. You can add you thoughts and questions for our potential City Manger as a comment on this post. Feel free to post more than once and I encourage the act of riffing off (expanding on) questions already posted by others.

I am sure I will build more on this idea in the near future, in the meantime, here’s your chance.

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under The City, Community, theOwen

An Irish Kitchen Party in Owen Sound

March 4, 2007

Owen Sound Foodshare and Rhymes with Orange Present..

Irish Kitchen Party

An Irish Kitchen Party

Saturday, March 17
St. Mary’s Parish Centre, 15th Street East
7 -11 p.m.

A family-friendly co-operative St. Patrick’s Day party to warm up the grey days of March and to get a little support for
community food projects like community gardens, Good Food Box, “Buy Local”

Tickets only $10 in advance or at the door (family rates available for a song)

* Irish (in the broadest possible interpretation) food tastings from local food producers and cooks
* Soda Bread contest - open to all - see the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread - http://www.bookguy.com/cooking/Sodabread.htm
* Music and storytelling jam - bring your voices, instruments and blarney
* CD swap - bring your previously loved CDs; take home something new to you for any donation
* Crokinole ! Invented in Canada, nothing to do with Ireland as far as I know, but undeniably fun.

Note: for a bunch of reasons, this will be a dry event - just want folks to know in case that effects their
choice of St. Patrick’s activities. It will be over before last call though.

for more information or to join in this wonderful collaboration,
contact

Anne Finlay-Stewart
rhymeswithorange@sympatico.ca

(519) 371-3933 or 375-1231 (cell)

Share This

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Events, Community

« Previous Page — Next Page »