Hi, and welcome to my weekly blog! The big news in the genealogy world at the moment relates to the news that the Chief Executive of The UK National Archives is leaving to take up a new position at the Financial Ombudsman.

The question on everyone's lips is what direction the institution will take under her successor? Given the upheavals witnessed recently, it is to be hoped that the emphasis on access to online collections is coupled with a return to core archival values, and a prioritization for cataloguing, specialist knowledge and onsite services.

I'm also involved in a campaign to retain public access to electoral lists, which is under threat from a government review. Hopefully I'll have more on this next week.

We're so incredibly excited about our innovative creation Life Cube that we want to shower you with HARD COLD CASH!

We're running a contest that is open until December 1st 2009 - the details are really easy and the rewards are high....

LIFE CUBE CONTEST REQUIREMENTS:

1. Build a Life Cube on arcalife.com or sign up through the Facebook Application.(It's free and easy to sign up.)

2. Share your Life Cube on Facebook OR Twitter.* (Don't forget to make your cube "public" in arcalife so anyone can view it.)

3. Most important step to officially enter: Share your Life Cube with us at arcalife by either including @arcalife in your tweet or post your Cube link to the arcalife Facebook Fan Page - this way, we'll definitely see your entry into the contest. You will receive notice you have officically entered at this time.

4. Get 5 of your friends or followers to either Comment on your Life Cube post on your Facebook Profile Wall OR Re-Tweet your Life Cube tweeted link on Twitter.*

THE WINNING LIFE CUBE WILL RECEIVE $500 CASH. And in true social networking fashion, the first FIVE people to comment on your Cube post on your Facebook wall or re-tweet your Life Cube tweet on Twitter will also receive a cash prize of $50 each. Everybody wins! (For those of you who link your posts Twitter-to-Facebook/Facebook-to-Twitter, not to worry - we have it sorted and can measure where you posted and your first five people to count for the win.)

* Rules Apply.

Judging and awarding the winning Life Cube is based on inspiration and creativity. Life Cube only takes a few minutes to sign up, upload and publish photos and videos.

Here are a few examples of published Life Cubes to get your creative juices flowin':

Don't forget to hit the "Animate" button for the full effect :)

Growing Up - Family - New Baby
Little League Hockey Team
Ancestry

Over the past few months we at arcalife have tried progressively harder to talk with VANOC over an obvious opportunity that will benefit all Canadians at little cost. We’d like the opportunity to provide a richer experience for Canadians and international visitors wanting to secure and share their memories from the Olympic Games in an online scrapbook or space for people to record those special moments.

VANOC says it already has something like this in place. Rumours are abound about the troubled CODE project, security and privacy issues and infighting with the Canadian Tourism Commission. There are significant concerns where people’s memories will reside after the Games are finished and the websites close down. Should this not be properly addressed by a site that is specifically designed to enhance legacy? Arcalife is a leader in this space, and hey, we’re a small business based out of Vancouver!

You might think that timing is an issue – if you weren’t around in 2006 when the contract deals were made. The problem is that lots of companies were around, and from the look of things, local web firm Raincity Studios and colleagues tried their damndest.

It seems that no matter how good the opportunity, the scope is set, the desks along with the resources at VANOC HQ are reducing by the day - they have gone mobile and good luck finding them in the nooks and crannies of Whistler. As for the idea of helping local businesses, it’s well off the radar. 

Talking with Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson a few weeks back at the California Market access bootcamp, his view was that “…unfortunately, VANOC is so focused on their objective that they aren’t able to look beyond it, to other opportunities...”. This is certainly our experience to date.

Does VANOC or any other Olympic body have an objective that encourages leaving a lasting imprint on local businesses and communities, or is this just global big business played out in a tightly defined locale? It leaves us with the impression that VANOC has already fallen short of the Olympic ideal, as a result of politics, BC bureaucracy and backroom business deals.

I believe that the Games will be successful, fantastic, exciting and competitive and that Vancouverites will extend the warmest of welcomes to all of our international visitors. I believe the Games will provide general prosperity for Canada and it’s corporate giants, but when it comes to smaller local businesses, the jury is out.  We certainly feel left out in the cold and I would like to hear from others who have had similar experiences, or better, yet, from VANOC.

To kick-start the launch of the Life Cube, arcalife is running a contest for the most innovative and inspiring Life Cube. The winner will collect $500 – CASH. The first 5 people who shared the winner’s Life Cube link through social networks Facebook or Twitter will also win $50 each – so everybody wins! It’s free to enter with a few simple steps to follow.

[ Contest Begins in September 2009 and will run for one month. ]

Life Cube Contest Details:

1. Build a Life Cube on arcalife.com or sign up through the Facebook Application. (It's free and easy to sign up.)

2. Share your Life Cube on Facebook OR Twitter.*

3. Get 5 of your friends or followers to either Comment on your Facebook Profile OR Re-Tweet your Life Cube link on Twitter.**

That's it!

The arcalife team will judge and award the winning Life Cube based on inspiration and creativity.

* / ** Rules, Regulations and Specifications will be posted to the arcalife wiki when the contest launches in September.

Check out this Michael Jackson Life Cube a fan created. (Don't forget to hit the animate button!)

Press Release August 20, 2009

VANCOUVER, BC (arcalife) August 20, 2009 -  Arcalife has launched their latest application: the patented Life Cube^TM. Life Cube^TM is a multimedia application, accessible on the arcalife site and as a Facebook application, that allows you to bring all of your best photo and video moments together in a fantastic animated 3D showcase. 

The Life Cube^TM is a perfect tool to highlight memories from weddings, graduations, birthdays, and even memorial events. The arcalife team also sees this tool as a great way for visual artists and musicians to show off their work, or for companies wanting to use it to easily display professional projects or products.  Being able to add music, videos, control the rotation speed of the cube and overlay text on each frame, means that you can create an extremely professional result that works in time with the music and is in keeping with the message you are trying to deliver in your promotion or showcase.  Best of all it can be done in a matter of minutes and shared publicly or with a specific, defined private audience.

VP of product and technology Daniel Dekkers says, “The great thing about the Life Cube^TM is that you can use it to play your life from beginning to end. Modern technology has made this kind of digital showcase accessible to the end user. In the past this would have cost you hundreds or even thousands to have this custom made. Now you can upload your photos and video to arcalife and literally create a unique view of your life in minutes.”

 Arcalife is a family centric social website where its members can securely and privately capture and share memories, stories and family history. CEO Paul Taylor says that the site is about “showcasing life experiences that we have every day and sharing them with family and close friends.”. As well as letting you research your family history, the site has a number of unique multimedia applications. 

A couple of months back I was talking with Peter Van Garderen about personal and public archiving projects. One of the things that came up is that there seems to be a gap in how private companies like our family history site arcalife and the public / not for profit organizations can work together.  Peter and I shared the view that some of this is as result of profit making companies targeting national and provincial resources. Some of the attempts to secure exclusive access to national assets are badly thought out and not in anyone’s interests.  Still the appeal is there; for local, provincial and national archives the opportunities are significant in terms of the preservation of records and the benefits for companies are obvious – Is there a model that works for everyone?
 
Mistrusted motives is only a part of the problem in my view. A few months ago we realized that we had been spending a large part of our time and resources building our membership on a global basis, and not much time in our own back yard. Once we figured this out we started to create a program to reach out to family history and genealogy organizations inside of Canada. Maybe naively, with us being a Canadian company, I expected a warm welcome. People have of course been friendly enough, but disappointingly a bit ambivalent in their dealings with us.  Despite major success in a global context, it seems that forging links and partnerships with Canadian organizations is an uphill struggle.
 
I think this is because some not for profit organizations have the view that it is unethical to work with profit making companies. This idea is an anathema to me as we are based around a free membership [no time limit] and our offering is founded in a strong personal motivation. This is to encourage all of us to secure our family history, memories and experiences for future generations, either in a personal digital estate or as part of a wider contribution to the Canadian cultural record. I would be very surprised to hear any not for profit organizations say that my motivations are not genuine and from the heart.
 
I think these kind of objectives are important enough for us to overlook the difference in our profit making structure and I will continue to reach out to Ontario Genealogical Society and New Brunswick Genealogical Society with the hope that they will talk with us one day. Over the coming days and weeks, we hope to make some friends at Manitoba Genealogical Society, Family History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta Genealogical Society, Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Genealogical Society, Québec Family History Society and the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society.
 
 And we look forward to working with you at the British Columbia Genealogical Society and the Alberta Family Histories Society.

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