More BlackBerry jam

In yesterday's entry on my latest BlackBerry/media adventure, I touched on the fact that our daughter was home sick from school. This added another layer of uniqueness to the day.

She's 9, so leaving her home alone while I zinged off to a television studio to be interviewed simply wasn't an option. Besides, our puppy hasn't taken the babysitting certification course yet. So, late in the morning, I sealed my nomination for the all-time parenting hall of fame by dragging her nauseous self out of the house and forcing her to sit quietly off to the side while I spoke into a camera.

OK, it wasn't that bad. By then she had had time to eat some toast, nap on the couch and play with the furball. She was looking a little more herself by the time we were ready to head to the studio.

Quick aside about the studio: It's a state-of-the-art facility that belongs to the journalism department at the University of Western Ontario. When it isn't being used to train the next generation of media wizards, it's used for remote feeds for BNN, CTV, and a bunch of American networks. It's the main remote site for pretty much anyone in London who's asked to do live television.

The usual routine when you get there is simple: you sit down in the chair, they hook you all up, test for sound levels and then, when the time comes, you speak into a disembodied camera to an anchor located hundreds of miles away. It truly is a fascinating experience.

My daughter sat quietly on the far wall, watching the producer/cameraman get her dad ready for his brief moment in the media spotlight. I kept looking back to her to ensure she was fine - thankfully, she was. My initial fears that she'd inadvertently share her breakfast with the floor faded as I saw the child's wonder in her eyes. She silently took it all in, blue eyes as wide as saucers.

As we got closer to go-live time, I continued to steal glances back at her, asking her whether or not I looked like a doofus, making sure she didn't want to do the interview instead of me. We gave each other a quick thumbs-up as the producer in faraway Toronto counted down in my ear.

In the end, our too-sick-to-go-to-school daughter had a unique experience hanging around with me, and I suspect she ended up with images that, like those from my childhood when the pleasantly unexpected happened and I got to spend bonus time with my parents, she'll carry forward with her. I hope she remembers the moment as happily as I do.

In related news: There's more media fallout from yesterday's frenzy. Major stuff...

USA Today - allow me to pause, calmly, as I contemplate its circulation of 2.6 million. There, I feel at peace now. Let us continue...

Michelle Kessler interviewed me and wrote this article: BlackBerry outage exposes RIM's 'soft underbelly'. The paper used my quote for the headline - how cool is that? This is my first time appearing in USA Today, and it's a significant milestone because of its sheer size and reach. Fingers crossed that I somehow make it onto their reporters' speed dials.

(Oh, one more thing: if you've got a copy of today's - April 19 - USA Today, would you mind holding onto it for me? I wasn't able to find it in London. Weird!)

The Los Angeles Times - I spoke with Times Staff Writer James Granelli for this piece: BlackBerry outage leaves users thumb-founded. The article also carries Alex Pham's byline. Here's what I said:

Some customers might well have "dodged the bullet," said Carmi Levy, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group in London, Canada.

The root cause of the outage, he said, was in the core network near Research in Motion's Waterloo headquarters in the province of Ontario. It caused a backup in e-mail that left the system unable to handle even the diminished traffic at that late hour.

"It raises questions about the robustness of the system," Levy said.

I spoke to David Friend from the Canadian Press for his followup piece, RIM keeps quiet as BlackBerry system appears to be returning to normal. I was a little on the judgmental side in this one:

Meanwhile, Internet message boards were buzzing with talk that some users still weren't receiving full service. Some were still reporting that old e-mails were trickling into the system because the outage was so large, according to Carmi Levy, senior research analyst at InfoTech Research Group.

"The company that provides proactive, real-time communications through its leading-edge smart phone devices seems to have dropped the ball," Levy said.

"This is the time you want to get in front of the media... to share your perspective with the world. They need to manage that messaging stream more effectively than they have."

This was also picked up by Newsday.

The Globe and Mail ran another story, RIM gets message from e-mail outage, in today's print edition (that's three separate hits in one paper, in case you're keeping score...happy dance time!) Catherine McLean got the byline, and what's cool about it is the graphic that accompanied it. I worked iteratively with Tara Perkins, and in the end she and her team on the business desk produced a unique illustration of how the service works. It's on the page that I've linked to above, and you can view it directly by clicking here. The full roundup from today's paper can be found here.

I think this covers most of the major hits. Over the next couple of days, I'll add links to any others in today's and yesterday's entries. If you're really curious, click here to see real-time search results on my name from Google News.

Your turn: A daughter's adventure with her dad. Please discuss why kids need to get a glimpse into their parents' work world every once in a while.