It was an epic moment at Hillside Festival 2009. Owen Pallet of Final Fantasy was playing at the main stage. He had begun his set as the dusk came, dark clouds gathered, and rain fell.

Several songs into his set, lightning started striking around the island and the rain came harder, but he kept playing.

Stage techs crouched at the edge of the stage ready to move in and protect the equipment and — more importantly — the player.

Rain blew sideways and more lightning struck and thunder boomed around us. “Let me finish the song,” Owen called in between singing as a big man from the stage crew stood beside him ready to shut things down.

Owen kept playing and he sang and danced as the storm blew around him.

The man beside him signaled to cut the show, but “One more minute,” Owen pleaded.

He finished and the crowd, soaked with water, cheered, whooped and clapped.

I tried to protect my camera from the water as I filmed, but it water flowed over my hand and dropped and dripped from it.

A few bands earlier Patrick Watson from Montreal had observed that the clouds thinned and the sun shone as they came out to play. As they finished their set the sunlight was hidden again.

With Owen, it was the opposite. He seemed to have brought the storm with him and the music he played was like the soundtrack for the tempest around him.

It was the kind of moment people will talk about in future years, like Arcade Fire jumping, with their instruments out into the crowd and, still playing, leading the crowd around the island with their song.

• Hillside 2009 day 1
• Blog scan before Hillside Festival on the island 24 Jul 2009

After a busy week of work, project, and school, Lenks, MB and I headed out to Guelph for Hillside Festival 2009 yesterday.

We drove to Guelph, stopped at Rob and Val’s, ,et up with Brandon, picked up Tanis, and we went north to the Guelph Lake Conservation area.

We had left Waterloo at a quarter to four and left Guelph now at about quarter after seven. It would still be a long wait to get in.

There was a long line up of cars following a path of side roads as people who drove queued to get into the festival. Some people would cut the engine and let some space accumulate before starting up again and rolling forward.

I had been used to just driving straight in the main entrance, but I guess I don’t normally come at that busy time.

After a while we got in, parked, and went to the ticket tent. In my lineup the woman in front of me wanted her volunteer wristband on her ankle, so it took longer while they decided whether it was okay.

Then we walked down the road, through the trees and fields, down to the island in the lake.

We crossed the causeway and can see the big Hillside letters facing us across the water. Sounds from Xavier Rudd on the main stage greet us as we near the island. We could see tents and activity as we joined the festival.

We watched Rudd play the didjeridoo and other instruments for a energizing show to greet us.

After that it was getting dark and we went to see Rock Plaza Central. They had a few guitars, a fiddle, two drummers, and others. One of them even pulled out a flugelhorn or something. I was tired so I borrowed Brandon’s folding park chair and sat low behind people dancing and watched the band play past people’s legs.

I also got a caramelized onion beef burger, which was good, but small. The beer line at the lake stage was huge, I will serve that line Saturday. I saw Chuck my volunteer boss and said hi.

Then we stopped back at main stage and saw Loreena McKinnet. Her soaring voice reminded me of one of her songs I listened to as a kid. Then she talked about the Celt’s and their love of trees to introduce the next song. After a few songs we decided to go to the island stage.

It took a while to get through the crowd and then we saw the long line. I saw Chris, a friend from high school — long ago and far away — we chatted a bit. Then we got ice cream from Mapleton’s and headed to the other stage to see Josh Gabriel.

Josh Gabriel had the Speakeasies as a back up band. He said that like Entourage, when you make it you need to bring your buddies with you. “And in Guelph, this is making it.” He had a longish beard and a flat cap and wore a vintage shirt and plaid polyester pants. Josh sang with a strong voice and played rocking folk songs.

Near the end of his set MB and I left to beat the rush. Loreena’s voice followed us off the island. We hiked through the grass of the green path in the muddy darkness back to the parking. I have to remember to park near the exit for Sunday.

• Blog scan before Hillside Festival on the island 24 Jul 2009

Hillside Festival begins today. I will be there volunteering and I plan to blog and tweet from there. This is my fourth (I think) year volunteering (and attending) and it has always been a great experience.

I searched around and here are a few blog posts by people anticipating the music on the island.

Hillside Festival is going to take over some of our lives this weekend, meaning if there are fewer posts around these parts over the next few days, you know why
– Hillside = slightly less YE-LID YE-LID

Green Go perform noon Saturday on the Lake Stage at Hillside Festival. Be there. Get funky. Get sweaty. Dance!
– Green Go commands you to dance! Sound Salvation Army

If you’re not going, Panic Manual has you covered, as Hillside was nice enough to give us a couple of media passes. I’ll have some writing and reviews from Guelph all three days, and I might even provide some Twitter updates from the grounds if anyone’s interested (I’m @brianjpike).
– Preview: Hillside Music Festival 2009 Panic Manual

Please make sure you bring your own reusable water containers, as they are doing their part to assist in the environmental footprint that this event has on the Conservation Area by offering everyone FREE drinking water.
– Hillside Festival 2009 At Guelph Lake Island Local Vibe

Saturday will be one heckuva full day of music at the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ontario.
[...]
Wow, these are going to be tough decisions - that, or a lot of running back and forth between stages - as I decide on who will shut down this epic day of performances for me.
– Countdown: In 5.. Vernacular

Marine is going the Hillside festival next weekend, and I can’t wait to see what she’s going to pull out of that. She has a photo pass, so expect some great pics!
– Rocking and a-rollin’, rocking and a-reelin’ X marks the spot

• Training for Hillside Festival volunteers 15 Jul 2009
• My Hillside wrapup summary 28 Jul 2008

I stumbled upon this study by a University of Toronto professor that used one of my websites in his research.

This involved a time-consuming process: We checked the virtual firm directories of the region and the cities’ business development offices, as well as several other websites (i.e. Canada411, Waterloo Tech Digest, uwRyan.com, Strategis – Government of Canada), and Google.
— Social Foundations of Regional Innovation and the Role of University Spin-offs 19 Jun 2008

It is unusual — unique in fact — that my work is referenced along with Google, the Government of Canada, and the phone book. Perhaps is it because I am a big deal.

I went to Guelph Monday 6 July for Hillside training. This will be my fourth year volunteering. In past years we had two separate sessions for conflict resolution and alcohol service, but this year they were combined.

For the first hour Robin took us through dealing with conflicts. A few times he made us stand up for exercises. He has us walk towards another person until the person feels uncomfortable to make us aware of personals space. Later he had half the people pretend to be drinking outside the licensed area and the other half had to approach and try to convince them to acquiesce, but they were instructed to ask questions, be resistant.

Normally the festival is pretty calm and there are also paid security, but it is good for people to experience a more extreme situation.

Then Chris, who is taking over as director of security this year, took us through checking id and dealing with alcohol service situations. I know Chris from his work at the university and from past festivals and other event security. He is a good choice for security head.

So in a week and a few days, I will be out on Guelph Lake peninsula “island” serving beer, maintaining security, and enjoying the music and community atmosphere.

If I can get my mobile equipment set up I will blog from the event.

• My Hillside wrapup summary 28 Jul 2008
• Alcohol training for Hillside 23 Jul 2008

Kristof has a column in the Times about motivations for giving aid.

One problem is that people are more willing to give when told of the plight of an individual person than when they are told how that same trouble afflicts many.

“The more who die, the less we care.” That’s the apt title of a forthcoming essay by Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon who has pioneered this field of research.

Yet it’s not just, as the saying goes, that one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. More depressing, appeals to our rationality actually seem to impede empathy.

For example, in one study, people donate generously to Rokia, a 7-year-old malnourished African girl. But when Rokia’s plight was explained as part of a larger context of hunger in Africa, people were much less willing to help.

Perhaps this is because, as some research suggests, people give in large part to feel good inside. That works best when you write a check and the problem is solved. If instead you’re reminded of larger problems that you can never solve, the feel-good rewards diminish.
— Would You Let This Girl Drown? 9 Jul 2009

It is a fascinating idea and important to realize the motives and needs of those who help. Also, it is interesting how this applies to how people view the challenges of protecting the environment.

• The business of charity and doing business for good 4 Jan 2009

A common question I ask at startup seminars (talks, camps, colloquia etc) is about how to evaluate potential team members.

The common process in hiring is to review resumes then meet and interview people. Certainly how those things are done vary, but most cases that process falls short.

I ridiculed mere interviewing in a column I wrote in university:

What kind of hiring process would you use for an job that involves taking interviews? The obvious answer is to interview candidates.

The question should, however, highlight the shortcomings of interviewing in hiring for all other jobs, because to effectively evaluate people one must either observe performance in a similar job or translate behaviour from one place to another.
— For better Feds, election coverage must improve uwRyan.com 9 Jan 2009

Obviously meeting and talking to people with whom you may work is important, but I think it is good to try to recreate real in-game work to see how people respond, rather than how they say they world respond.

I was interested, then, to read the interview with Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America in the New York Times. I know Kopp’s name from magazines like Inc. where people refer to her as a great entrepreneur — a term that used to be less associated with third sector innovators, but is now big time as people widely laud “social entrepreneurship.”

In her responses she touches on the issue of picking the right people to build a good team.

I used to hire people and then realize within two days whether someone was going to thrive or not. So I said, “Let’s actually find out what we’re going to know two days in, before someone starts.” We just send them a bunch of stuff that they would get otherwise on their first day and say, “Here are the challenges of the day.” And we ask them to write up their answers, and then actually engage with them deeply so that we understand whether they have the skills that a particular role is going to require.
— Charisma? To Her, It’s Overrated NYTimes.com 5 Jul 2009

I posted earlier about Tony’s article saying Toronto could learn from Waterloo, but I later learned that was just a sidebar.

In it Tony quotes Roger Martin saying the K-W has 2.50 patents per 10,000 emlployees compared to Toronto’s 1.09.

The tale of the Toronto-Waterloo difference, he said, can be told by its universities. “The University of Toronto’s biggest handicap is that it believes it’s the best. The result is pervasive complacency and flabbiness,” Dr. Homer-Dixon wrote. “UW has, in contrast, an ‘Avis complex’: it doesn’t believe it’s the best, so it’s constantly trying harder, and the results are visible every day.”
[...]
In the 1950s postwar boom, local industries needed engineers and technicians. Gerald Hagey, head of a Lutheran-affiliated college, rallied business leaders behind a new University of Waterloo, based on a maverick “co-operative program,” where students alternate between the classroom and paid work. UW’s co-op program, since copied elsewhere, is the world’s largest.
[...]
Toronto’s flash contrasted with Waterloo’s understated elegance is one difference that illuminates Waterloo’s place atop the smart-city consciousness, Mr. Gladwell suggested in a metaphor-laden e-mail reply to The Globe and Mail.

“Toronto is Trotsky, who spent a whole lot of time, let’s not forget, playing chess in Vienna’s café central,” he wrote. “Waterloo is Marx, who spent his days holed up in the British Museum writing a really, really long, really really serious book that almost no one has ever finished. I’m guessing Trotsky got the girls. But Marx? Definitely smarter.”
— Smaller town, bigger edge The Globe and Mail 3 Jul 2009

A more in depth read about the Toronto-Waterloo difference.

A few notes:He referred to Dr. Dave going to Canada 3.0 “this week,” but it was earlier than this week.
Also he says Watcom was UW’s first spin-off, but if you are going to talk about RIM as a spin-off you would look earlier to Volker-Craig founded in 1973.

• Reinhart tells Toronto to learn from Waterloo 4 Jul 2009

Tony Reinhart has a piece in today’s Globe how in terms of innovation and achievement Toronto could learn from Waterloo. He interviews Roger Martin and Thomas Homer-Dixon.

“Waterloo has two claims to fame, and they’re just hard to argue with,” said Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “One is that Microsoft hires more engineers from the University of Waterloo than any other university, and then RIM,” he said, referring to Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry the popular American President cannot live without.
[...]
UW, a smaller institution on a smaller campus in a smaller city, has only a handful of faculties with “less entrenched and immutable cultures,” whose leaders can collaborate more naturally. Those leaders “believe in a common vision for the institution as a pragmatic, problem-focused innovation generator,” said Dr. Homer-Dixon.
— Lessons for Toronto: What the Big Smoke could learn from Waterloo The Globe and Mail 3 Jul 2009

“Pretty funny to hear how people outside of UW admire how it works… I tend to agree on most things but we could do better,” jrodg commented back to me when I tweeted it.

I think Waterloo the city and the university are great, but I think both groups of people and institutions lack introspection, are too proud, and don’t face failings well enough. There are things to improve but people don’t acknowledge it.

I also like the article, but it is Gladwellian in its lack of depth. I’d like to learn more from the comparisons with U of T and Toronto.

Canada Day was overcast, but warm and dry in the morning when i stopped by Columbia fields at Waterloo. This week had scattered downpours and the rest of the day on Wednesday was no different.

I went back and did some work at the Dan Porter library for a while. Later in the afternoon, Melba and I met up on the field. We got a smoked pulled pork sandwich with “sweet and sassy” sauce. Then we went over to check out bubble tea. It was Jin-Hee’s Sweet Dreams Tea Company offering the tea.

As we were chatting, the sky opened up and rain drops came down. She invited us under their tent to wait out the rain.

So we ordered a mango milk tea with both tapioca and fruit jelly from under the tea tent.

But looking at the clock i noticed I would be later for work, so I had to brave back out into the pouring rain.

Bye, thanks for the tea.

We walked past a martial arts demonstration. They were still all out in the wet when others squeezed under tents for shelter.

Those who didn’t find shelter walked back to depart.

Looking back I took a few photos of the field before my camera stopped working.

Yikes, I got so wet.

Once I got to work it was clear and sunny.

• Canada Day in Canada (Waterloo) 4 Jul 2007
• Happy Canada! 3 Jul 2006