Somehow the first month of my work term with Calgary Arts Development has flown by without a blog post. Not a single one. As a public relations student at Mount Royal College, I understand the importance of communicating with the public, so I figured it was time for me to jump on the blog train with reckless abandon. And there's no better time to start than now.

The other evening I had the good fortune of attending the dress rehearsal of Alberta Ballet's Dangerous Liaisons. I was pleasantly surprised. Take everything you thought you knew about the ballet and throw it out the window. Dangerous Liaisons pushes the boundaries by having a play and a ballet going on simultaneously. The choreography was visually stunning as dancers held poses that at times were painfully beautiful to watch. This truly is a must see, even if you don't think you like the ballet. Go. I promise you won't be disappointed.  read more »

Like many people, I spend a lot of time browsing blogs to keep up on news, trends and cool stuff. I'm always grateful for the amazing learning journey that comes from reading through my Bloglines feeds (almost!) every day. It was a great discovery to find New PR this week. It's a reader-ranked source of news and resources on all things PR-related. All the work of sorting and filtering to see what's worth reading is done already, so what you get is a really useful collection of great articles that's been ranked and screened by a readership of PR professionals. The concept of quality content rising to the top is one of the guiding principles of Web 2.0** and I really appreciate when it happens in such a useful way.

I'm interested to learn more about resources like this that others find useful in helping them navigate through the world in an interesting and engaged way. What's rising to the top of your list?  read more »

DEMOS, a think tank out of the UK, self titled "the Think Tank for every day democracy" recently published a Green Paper and accompanying Podcast titled " So, What *Do* You Do?" which looks at how the creative industries work and how policy can support these industries.  read more »

Keen observers of this website will have noticed an increase in blogging over the past week. In case you're thinking "maybe they're bored..." I thought I'd provide a little meta-post (blogging about blogging) to shed some light on what's up.

In a previous incarnation I was a business professor (cue dramatic music). I specialized in Strategic Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Over the years I became generally fascinated with the ways humans organize to get things done. My studies took me all over the map, into anthropology, economics, psychology, sociology (social network theory mostly), and technology.  read more »

I've been reading the ArtsJournal series "Engaging Art" since last week. What a great conversation about how things happen between art and audiences. A few brief excerpts below, plus great reading on the blog, mp3s, and a future book, so dig in!

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The following article appeared on the blog Urban Scrawl, penned by the Calgary Herald's Paula Arab. It's not everyday that compliments like this are handed out!  read more »

Did you know there is a house behind the Connaught Safeway, that was home to the designer of the Canadian Flag? Or that The Partridge Family was modeled after the Cowsill's family band who lived in a house in Lower Mount Royal?

Today I had the pleasure meeting two volunteers from the Calgary Heritage Initiative (not to be confused with the Calgary Heritage Authority or the Heritage Planners with The City of Calgary who are all doing the important work of preserving Calgary’s Heritage sites). To quote CHI’s website, “The Calgary Heritage Initiative Society is dedicated to the preservation, productive use and interpretation of buildings and sites of historic and architectural interest in Calgary.” History buffs and architecture fans may want to check out what they are doing. They also conduct research and provide forums regarding sites with heritage designation or heritage potential.  read more »

Their website references a number of interesting sites such as the beautiful King Edward School in my neighborhood. There's an article in today's Calgary Herald today reporting the school has just been put up for sale. It would make an amazing cultural space, wouldn't it?

The latest installment in Yann Martel's whatisstephenharperreading.com project is Orwell's book Animal Farm. After reading this article from the Globe and Mail, it seems that the newest great thing about being prime minister is getting really good books hand-delivered to your door every two weeks along with an insightful letter about the book by one of the country's best writers.  read more »

As usual, the Artful Manager has brought attention to a great resource on youth engagement with arts organizations.

Titled Involving Youth in Non-profit Arts Organizations, this report goes beyond the traditional focus of just looking on youth as future audience members and delves into their role as volunteers, staff, and even board members.  read more »

Calgary Herald editorial writer Paula Arab has just launched a new blog called Urban Scrawl. Read her first post below and watch for more Urban Scrawl posts from Paula to come in the Creative Calgarians Journals.  read more »