Smoky skies and getting started

The view across to Ahgykson and looking over towards Comox which is completely shrouded by smoke.

It is smoky here as we enjoy our last day of holiday on the Tla’Amin lands north of Powell River. A big wildfire at Mount Underwood is burning along the Alberni Inlet on Vancouver Island. It is feeding smoke into the south-easterly breeze and funnelling it up Vancouver Island and across the Strait of Georgia, smack into the northern Sunshine Coast. This fire is dangerous and fast growing and I’m worried for my friends at Huu-ay-aht and Tseshaht and in Port Alberni and Bamfield. So far there are no dangers to structures, but power is out, the smoke is terrible and local governments and First Nations in the area have declared states of emergency. We’re expecting a few days of rain starting this afternoon which may help a little. We’ve been relatively free of smoke this summer, unlike a lot of Canada. But here we are.

My friend Tenneson Woolf shares some of his go-to questions for getting started today:

• what is the simple story here?
• What is the simple intent here?
• what is the outrageous intent here?

Simple and easy ways to begin an engagement with a new client and to find the top of mind necessity and purpose for the work. It’s hard for me to know how other consultants work, but he and I share a love of asking questions and letting the other speak. The stuff I hear in first few minutes with a new client is key to understanding how they see their situation coming into a new engagement.

A while ago I wrote about social media sites as enclosures, and that brought to mind the idea that it is a kind of feudal structure. Doc Searls names that today and proposes a way out with the release of a new kind of privacy contract for users and large entities called “MyTerms.” From his post this quote stood out for me:

“Freedom of contract enables enterprisers to legislate by contract and, what is even more important, to legislate in a substantially authoritarian manner without using the appearance of authoritarian forms. Standard contracts in particular could thus become effective instruments in the hands of powerful industrial and commercial overlords enabling them to impose a new feudal order of their own making upon a vast host of vassals.”

That quote is from Freidrich Kessler, a contract law scholar who wrote it in 1943.

Tottenham bottled a 2-0 lead against Paris St. Germain last night in the European Super Cup. We looked really good against the best team in the world for most of the match, but conceded two late goals and lost on penalties. Had we won I would have declared Spurs as champions of the world. Because we lost it’s just a pre-season friendly. I’m unabashedly partisan in these matters.

At any rate, it was good to see the new look that Tottenham will be employing this season under new manager Thomas Franck. A focus on set pieces, including long thrown from Kevin Danso (I love a long throw), a more balanced shape in defence, with a low block of five defenders which made it frustratingly hard for PSG to score. There was excellent communication on the backline, with the full backs not being afraid to mark their men out wide because there was always someone to slide into the inside channel behind them. This frustrated crosses, a number of which drifted into the centre of the box and were headed away by Christian Romero who had only one job. Palinha also looked good.

Going forward Kudus offers some lovely creative play, but we are going to need another decent attacking midfielder as James Maddison recovers from ACL surgery. I love watching this team, and hope they continue to look renewed and confident as they climb back into the upper echelons of the Premier League and make good account for themselves with the Champions League spot they won last year.