Monday Morning Musings

Meet Calum Graham
As the reality of Monday morning settles in I offer you something completely different...but not in the Monty Python spirit.  Calum Graham is an Alberta artist that astounded me at TEDx Banff last week.  This 18 year old guitarist has a great talent and wonder touch and a warm engaging personality.

Don't watch this video now.  You have to get your day organized - its Monday morning and I know you are going to be busy right now.  Look at it later today, when you need some 5 minutes of solace and peace to get away from the din of the day.  Then come back to this blog post and find some repose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lNxlnuFHW0

Robert Genn's Letters
I was in Banff on the weekend and stopped in at a showing of new works by Robert Genn, one of my favourite Canadian artists.  The great surprise was the book of collected letters Robert has been writing every two weeks since July 1999.  I scanned some content and was hooked.  This guy can write as well as paint.  Had a nice chat with Robert and we agreed to follow each other on line.  I really recommend the book even though I have only rad a few letters so far.  They are the kind of writing that makes you think, reflect and reason about a wide range of issues, ideas and events.  Here is a link if you are interested in more info. http://www.painterskeys.com/ and want to subscribe to his letters.

Fil Fraser has a new book too!
My long time friend and author Fil Fraser is launching his new book "How the Blacks Created Canada."  The event is at Audrey's Books 10702 Jasper Avenue in Edmonton at 7:30 pm Tuesday April 27, 2010.  Fil is the lead on the monthly column we do (with others) on business ethics entitled "The Right Call" for Ruth Kelly's Alberta Venture magazine.

Learning Our Way to the Next Alberta
Cambridge Strategies Inc. is co-sponsoring a lecture series in Calgary (May 31) and Edmonton (June 1) with authors Gwynne Dyer ("Climate Wars"), David Peat ("Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century") and Scott Murray, a senior advisor in Human Resources in Science and Technology, Stats Canada.  Scott has just completed some amazing research on the literacy ;levels and essentail skills gap in various labour, industry and professional sectors in Alberta.  For tickets and more information go to http://www.learningourway.ca/ or email me at ken@cambridgestrategies.com

Moving On!
OK that is the good news for Monday morning.  Now into the serious stuff of being Albertan and how we can be better at it.  The first example will be the next post.  It will be about the Greening the Oilsands:  Canadian Science and Clean Tech Leads the Way symposium my business partner Satya Das and "Green Oil" author  is participating in at Ottawa on April 29th.  He is on a panel entitled "The Big Picture - Public Opinion, Politics, Policy." A very interesting event focused on federal government decision makers that is being organized by our friends at BlueSky Strategy Group Inc. with Canada 2020.