Open Government Framework

As Chris Moore, CIO for the City of Edmonton states, it’s time to “enlarge the circle.”  With that in mind, I’m calling for an Open Alberta.  The Government of Alberta (GOA) needs to begin to put in place an Open Government Framework.  I think that there are many within government who understand that the GOA doesn’t have a monopoly on creating “public value.”  Citizens also have an opportunity, and in my opinion, a responsibility for creating value that positively impacts the quality of life for Albertans and Canadians.

If we take a moment to think about this, Open Government initiatives are a tremendous opportunity to share openly.  To communicate that the government is willing to listen and collaborate with citizens rather than simply appear to placate, which is so often the criticism many in the provincial government hear from Albertans.

Is Open Government risky?

I believe Open Government is only risky to those individuals working (at all levels) within government who would rather see citizens not enter the discussion and thereby affect the way their job is performed.  Unfortunately, these people exist, I know because from time to time I’ve had conversations with them.  You may know an elected official or bureaucrat that believes in this philosophy, claiming this is the way an efficient government works, “we know best and citizens need to butt out,” they’ll say.  This can be the result, when people don’t vote and/or get involved in public debate.

What about privacy?

Open Government doesn’t mean that the Government of Canada should start sharing everyone’s Social Insurance Numbers or personal information on a wiki.  What it does mean, is that data which is already generally available should be properly organized into machine readable formats and offered for use by the private sector or citizens.

Election Issue!

I suggest that during this municipal election year people make the concept of Open Government an election issue.  True, many elected officials have been sitting on the sidelines regarding the use of social media and Web 2.0 technologies.  This is no longer tolerable. Further, if the candidate for your ward, or those going to the top job of mayor know nothing about Open Government, don’t vote for them.  Simple. The same goes for the next provincial election, if your MLA, party of choice has not exhibited the fact that they understand, or the government hasn’t initiated an Open Government Framework by that time, don’t vote for them either.  Open Government isn’t the future, it’s the present.  If you don’t know about it you’re living in the past.  This isn’t about being harsh but direct.

Is it really that important?  Not only is Open Government important, it’s critical.  Critical that our leaders get this concept and move quickly in this direction.  Many have yet to realize that this is the most transformative time in government in our lifetime.  Hold meetings and chat all you want about how your government isn’t performing.  More than talk, Open Government is where the rubber meets the road, it’s transparency, participation and collaboration in action.  Open Government represents citizens and government elbow to elbow working together for a better future.

Below is a 2-minute video of the City of Edmonton’s Chief Information Officer, Chris Moore speaking about Open Data in relation to tomorrow’s big event, as well as, continuing the vision forward.

As mentioned, the stage is set for the regional Open Data movement to continue to travel leaps and bounds.  The list of folks scheduled to be in the room or participating online is diverse and represents our region, province, country and international friends from many angles and that goes directly to how well the communications about what’s going on has penetrated and inspired folks to take action, all this since the first event on November 21, 2009.  Whether that be through the use of social or traditional media, the results are clear.

Just this week, Edmonton was recognized as a leader in the Open Data movement during a major announcement by San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom in the United States regarding their National Open 311 initiative.

Please see the video below and pay careful attention to the organizations listed in the background.

How can you participate?

Well first, if you have an opportunity please come out in person and participate directly in the “unconference.” Secondly, if you are unable to attend in person, then you are invited to watch the live video stream.  Further, anyone in the world may also “embed” the live video stream into their website, blog, etc…

Why would you want to do that?  Those who are considering an Open Data initiative in their region may want to communicate and educate certain local audiences that frequent their site.  You now have that opportunity, thanks to the City of Edmonton’s willingness to share with other communities, not only here in Alberta and in Canada, but also around the world.  I’ve had personal discussions with people from the US, Australia, even with Annemarie van Campen who is excited about the Dutch “fresh government” Open Data initiative.  I love the “fresh government” tagline, it’s brilliant.  We won’t be able to tell or communicate leading up the event as to everyone whom might be planning to carry the feed unless someone confirms that ahead of time, so please tell us here if you can.  Such as in the case of Nick Charney and his very popular Gov 2.0 cpsrenewal blog Nick is also going to be a panelist here in Edmonton.  I’d also like to mention once again how cool it is for the Edmonton Journal and GovLoop.com to be participating as mentioned in a previous post.

The team

I know one thing for sure, regardless of the really great discussion, ideas and thoughts shared tomorrow at the workshop.  You should be very proud of the City of Edmonton event planning team.  This takes a lot of effort to properly represent the fourth largest city in Canada on such an important subject.

Councillor Don Iveson, Chris Moore, Jacob Modayil, Scott Lundy, Jason Darrah, James Rugge- Price, Devin Serink, Raffaella Loro and Ashley Casovan who has been rock solid in terms of keeping everyone marching forward to ensure the event is terrific, that’s a tough gig regardless and she’s handled it very well so far I thought.  I’d also like to mention our project team, Evan Adnams, Kelly Lalonde and Genoa Adnams who have been working hard on this project to ensure our first ever (and I believe for the city as well) “bilingual” webcast goes without a hitch.

Due to everyone’s hard work, increased awareness and even recognition for this region and the Open Data work has already happened prior to the event itself taking place and that’s something to be proud of.  Of course, there is a lot of work still ahead and yet, clearly the momentum is building going into tomorrow and that I must say is highly cool.

Can you measure buzz and awareness?

Absolutely, several different ways in fact.  This is where the use of social media is a no-brainer as a starting place.  In the case of the City of Edmonton and the upcoming Open City Workshop (register here space left is limited) my opinion is that increased awareness is critical.  Sharing ideas, listening and educating new audiences as to what Open Data is will be one of many messages I expect to come out of Saturday.  Further, software developers local and non-local alike are no doubt excited to hear about upcoming announcements, the vision in general and how they may play a direct role.

Magnify the effect through sharing

One of the fundamentals of Government 2.0 is participation.  The social web, in particular the government 2.0 segment of the social web is already responding to what the City of Edmonton is doing.  By agreeing to share the live bilingual webcast feed (a first for the City and very progressive by anyone’s standards in government) with anyone who would like to embed the feed on their site, it’s already opened up new communications doors for the City of Edmonton brand.  Not the least of which is GovLoop.com out of Florida.  With over 25000 Gov 2.0 community members having the stream featured on the home page of this site is important for the purposes of building international credibility and awareness for the Open Data movement and the City of Edmonton.

Here is another example on Mashable.com of the buzz potential surrounding what’s happening here.  Evan from our team made sure to mention in the comments what we’re all up to, nicely done Evan.  One never knows who may choose to watch and participate in the online discussion as a result and where that will lead, only time will tell.

Further, the media is also getting into the act and so you can expect to find the feed on one or more major traditional media websites on Saturday too.  In fact, the Edmonton Journal has authorized me to let everyone know that they’re excited to be carrying the feed, it’s so great that they’re participating and helping to spread the word about Open Data.

The bounce

What can we expect short to mid-term out of this effort on behalf of the City’s IT and Communications collaborative efforts?  In politics and other circles it might be called the “bounce.”  I predict that Edmonton area companies, the Alberta and federal governments, more than one post-secondary institution, as well as, countless folks outside the region will definitely see all kinds of opportunity coming out of Saturday.

I also think City Council and administration in Edmonton (and others whom I know are watching closely) will be able to witness first hand just how much the City of Edmonton is quickly moving towards being a strong model for Open Government.  Saturday will prove yet again that working in real-time with citizens can be extremely beneficial and not something to be feared but embraced.  That sharing our plans with the world outside our region is progressive and it too will benefit the local economy and attract new people, business and brand awareness.  The Edmonton area (I’m in Sherwood Park) is a great place to live, work and play.

Live!

Here’s a special twist.  fusedlogic is proud to announce that we’ve been hired by the City of Edmonton to provide a live bilingual webcast of the event.  We’ve twisted the City’s arm (it didn’t take much) and asked if we could provide the live stream to others who may want to share it.  They said yes.

Hello embed code! If you’d like to generate traffic and attention to your Government 2.0 focused blog, website or community this is a terrific opportunity to provide content to your online community.  If you’re in the media and would like to have the stream on your site, let a thousand flowers bloom.

The City of Edmonton is listening to your Open Data ideas and they’re acting on it.

The spirit of this event is to share ideas and thoughts, learn and collaborate on the way forward.  It’s events like this that help to shape a city, everyone’s job is to come out and contribute directly or online.

Trust

One of the fundamental elements of an Open Government is trust.  The City of Edmonton said it would open its’ data, it has.  The City of Edmonton said it would expand this Open Data movement to the entire region so as to benefit all citizens, it is.  Citizens are often skeptical of government for many reasons not the least of which is they don’t feel their voice will be heard.  The City of Edmonton’s IT Branch is listening and led by Councillor Don Iveson, CIO Chris Moore, and the team in the IT Branch they’re acting on it.  Look out folks, this is only the beginning.

Special Guests: 3 impressive Open Government minds are flying in to Edmonton to participate on a Open Government panel.  David Eaves, Mark Kuznicki and Nicholas Charney I expect this to be great fun, and a tremendous learning experience.

See you on Saturday and follow along on Twitter using the Twitter hashtag – “yegdata”

Embed code will be provided for you on our site here:  http://fusedlogic.tv/events/yegdata/

More information on the event itself is on the City of Edmonton’s website

Register here to attend the FREE Open City Workshop

Yesterday I read “Is Social the new dirty word?” by John Moore out of Boston.  Moore’s post highlighted what I’ve been feeling for nearly a year or more but especially in the last 6-8 months.

I’m concerned with the dramatic “watering down” of the burgeoning industry that my team and I work in full-time.  So I thought I’d reference a point in time and then tell a bit of our story.

For example, I was walking to my truck while at nextMEDIA in Banff, Alberta last summer.  The timing was such that I happened to bump into Kris Krug (@kk) who was outside taking photographs of the beautiful scenery,(here we are).  We had an interesting chat, not only then but later on camera, as the fusedlogic team streamed live interviews from nextMEDIA and Kris was kind enough to stop by.  Kris is a unique character, a non-conformist, and I’ve learned a staunch evangelist for his community, his craft (photography) and the non-use of labels.  I know Kris well enough now from our online exchanges and phone calls to know that he reluctantly refers to himself as a “web strategist” but really, he’s a guy who likes to be a part of the social experience through is crazy skills as a photographer.  He’s also committed to and an integral part of the cool happenings around his community of Vancouver which often includes considerable charity work with the Union Gospel Mission and others.

Here’s the dilemma, not all of us can develop the nomadic persona or lifestyle of a Kris Krug, our clients wouldn’t understand it and it wouldn’t be authentic.  That’s in part, what makes Kris a unique human being and business person, he has real-world experience having started Bryght in 2004 and successfully selling the company in 2007 to Raincity Studios.  That aside, he’s just being himself.  I respect Kris for what he’s accomplished and I suspect countless others do as well.

Having said that, I’ve never asked him directly, but to Kris during that chance meeting at the Banff Springs Hotel I must have appeared to be that outsider guy, that “what gives you the right to be a social media strategist guy?”

Interestingly, Kris said something I’ll never forget after our interview was over.  I thanked him for taking the time to speak on camera and told him I really enjoyed the experience of meeting him.  Kris said, “no problem, you know, it’s interesting we’re all here to talk about social media and you guys are in the room doing it….that’s cool man.”

Here are the “yummy chunks…”

November 2004

This is the night my Web 2.0 journey began. I watched CNN as they pulled commentary off of political blogs for the broadcast.  I found this amazing and started researching the blogosphere.

Many haven’t heard the fusedlogic story so I’m going to go over the last year or so rather than go over every blog post starting in September 2005 from my blogspot blog or since our incorporation in March of 2000.  (Secretly, I’ve been doing some thinking about where fusedlogic has come from and where we’re going, since this coming March will be our 10th anniversary).

Interestingly, I blogged about Twitter in April of 2007 but didn’t join until 2008.

In 2008 we continued to deliver social media work for several small businesses including Edmontonians Magazine, also notable was our project with the Public Affairs Bureau – Government of Alberta.

Crossing into 2009, we worked for ATB Financial, MacEwan School of Business, EEDC, Fringe Theatre Adventures – Industry Canada’s Marquee Tourism Program and we broke all sorts of ground on that project, multiple projects for NorQuest College which are still in play and again a number of small businesses mingled in.  Including our first Pay-Per-View live streaming sporting event with Aggression MMA. (our second PPV event will be tomorrow and it’ll be even bigger). We’re proud to say that our footage from the last event (as with our work tomorrow) will be broadcast on the FIGHT network, as well as, HDNet.

Also in 2009, we took on the digital marketing for Pik’s Revenge, an ambitious indie iPhone game developed by Edmonton’s Fluik Entertainment Ltd. Starting with zero Google search results for “Piks Revenge,” we now have nearly 1500 results and it will continue to grow as we’re expecting a big review from a major US property later this month.  The game was featured on the Apple app store which is not an every day occurrence.  Also, we’re doing something different with Pik as we build out the character a bit in real-life, expect more fun and dare I say “cheesy by design” things on that front soon.

Further, I started writing my book on Government 2.0 in 2009 entitled Escape Velocity, which is due out this spring provided I live up to the expectations of my editor.

In January 2010, we finally launched our iPhone transit application Route 411 and in less than 2 weeks we’ll be posting an update that will dramatically change the user-experience in Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto.  All I’m willing to say at this moment is that we’ve integrated York transit data with Toronto and we hope folks out there will appreciate that integration because it wasn’t easy to pull off that’s for sure.

Also, we’re celebrating a big week as we’ve closed a few new deals including a project with Health Canada and Alberta’s Centre for Child, Family and Community Research.  There’s much more to say about February and March but I’ll leave it there for now.

My point with all of this is simple, credibility in this game (as with all business and life) is paramount.  If Kris had asked for background in Banff I would have at least been able to provide names and brands as above where we have taken projects from concept to metrics. Granted, the brands are not global brands like Coke or Virgin, but to us and our clients, they are successful examples of digital planning and deployment experiences and it’s a story we’re very proud of and not even close to finishing.

As I listened to the various speakers today, listed here. I found each one very interesting in their own way.  Jas Darrah from the City of Edmonton provided some key insights into how he helped the City get started with the “SMAC” or Social Media Advisory Council down the social path.  Jacob George from the City of Calgary, enlightened us about the overall digital footprint the city has and how quickly they respond to issues that arise.  Also, Jacob used prezi and we’re big prezi fans too, so extra points for that.

I found our break-out blitz session to be most interesting as that’s when the audience was given a chance to contribute by telling a social media story other than their own as I encouraged them to meet someone new.  Fear, still reigns supreme as the number one issue, time-management and capacity where also near the top of the list. However, trying to convince the “old guard” back at the office that this is the way to go is frustration that it seems everyone is feeling.  Should you work in government and for someone who is actually a proponent of open government, you don’t know how lucky you are.

Nathan Freed and Manon Abud did an excellent job of explaining the issues, processes and opportunities behind Inspiring Education.  A terrific Government of Alberta, Alberta Education initiative.  Kudos to Minister Dave Hancock for supporting such a project.  Now if we can just remove some more road blocks for Nathan, I bet we’d see even more from this project.

Other highlights include Troy Wason explaining to the crowd all about the ups and downs of being a assigned with getting the social media word out on behalf of the Alberta Government Caucus only to be shown the door as a result of doing his job “too well.”

And then ending the day on a pleasant note with Diane Begin from NAIT’s communications department who explained all the great things they’re doing over there involving the social web.  All and all a wonderful day.

I was just on Twitter and Nick Charney wrote the following. “Thinking of writing a blog post called Rethink, Retool or Retire, but I think it’s too edgy.”  To which I replied, “why not be a guest blogger on our site, I don’t think it’s too edgy.”  In fact, I think it’s bang on.  This sentiment also reminds me of a Lee Iacocca saying, “lead, follow or get out of the way.”  Ultimately, this is really what we’re exploring at this conference, you can actually see the wheels turn as participants look for ways to convince colleagues back home that “Web2 and Gov2 have happened and they need to be prepared and involved.”

Tomorrow is another action packed day and I’m just as excited to be a part of it with this wonderful group.  Especially since I’ve got a surprise or two cooked up for everyone…

Thanks to all the organizations who participated:

Service Canada
Alberta Agriculture & Rural Dev.
Alberta Environment
Alberta Energy/information Tech.
Town of High River, AB
Metrolinx Ulistic Inc.
Royal Alberta Museum
Alberta Education
Red Deer County, Alberta
City of Red Deer, Alberta
Alberta Geological Society
National Energy Board
Edmonton International Airport
APEGGA
Govt. of the Northwest Territories
Town of High River, AB
AB School Empl. Benefit Plan
Strathcona County, AB
Alberta Utilities Commission
Alberta Education
Government of Alberta Office of the Auditor General
City of Fort Saskatchewan
WMS Communications
City of Kelowna, BC

PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS: Monday, January 25, 2010

9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

MORNING PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP

Social Media 101: How To Connect With Your Citizens And Colleagues Using The Latest Technologies
The world is all a buzz with social media, however there are significant hurdles that many leaders today still face with getting online and creating a buzz. How can you connect with your citizens and colleagues using social media? The Internet is all about connecting both technically and socially. How are you overcoming this challenge of connecting with your citizens and colleagues? Many of us look at the Internet and see a confusing mess of computers, laptops, and mobile phones while some of us look at the Internet and see a mesh of connected people, resources, companies and individuals. How are you seeing your place in social media?
Social media and networking has primarily been used as a tool to keep in touch with those external to our organizations, however many leading corporations also incorporate these techniques internally across departments and throughout the enterprise. In this workshop, you will hear how you can start using these tools internally with your teams, across your organization and also as a mechanism to share important information in an expedient manner.
After attending this workshop, you will walk away with new knowledge in 5 main areas to help you better understand how to use social media internally and externally. Specifically, we will take a hands-on approach on how to:

• Integrate social media into your organization
• Leverage social media to keep in touch with employees, team members and clients
• Design a blog – with tips and tricks to share your thoughts with those around you
• Write your message clearly and concisely
• Apply delivery mechanisms and alerts to notify you when new items are posted
• Use social networking to connect with your organization and audience

You will also leave with a solid foundation of understanding what the basic social media tools are and how to use them.

WORKSHOP LEADERS: Stuart R. Crawford is Vice President Business Development at Bulletproof InfoTech. Stuart has shared this information across the globe with IT Professionals, Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs who crave to understand how they can leverage these tools to increase the awareness of their work, educate those around them and share information with their communities.
David West is the founding partner of Ulistic Inc., a progressive internet consultancy. His teams have developed hundreds of websites over the past dozen years. David began working with Internet technologies initially as a freelance website programmer. He later formed a full service website design and development company in Calgary, Alberta.

12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own.

1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
AFTERNOON PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP B

A Step-By-Step Process For Successfully Building And Implementing A Social Media Strategy

In this workshop, we will discover why it is so critical for your organization to have a strong social media strategy. Key insights that will accelerate your learning curve and help you avoid the mistakes others have made will be addressed. This live-fire exercise is best experienced when you come prepared with your mobile phones and laptops, ready to go online.
The workshop is broken into three segments. This interactive session will help you lay the foundation for your own social media strategy, and give you a step-by-step process for:

• Gathering social media intelligence
• Leveraging and building a social media strategy
• Implementing a social media strategy effectively

This fast-paced and entertaining session will give you some of the practical tools and ideas necessary to bring your organization up to speed in the world of social media.

WORKSHOP LEADER: Walter Schwabe is a seasoned presenter and speaker. He is proudly Métis and has been helping entrepreneurs generate and implement rare ideas for over 9 years now as the Chief Evolution Officer of his social media strategy firm, fusedlogic inc. In addition to working with numerous small and medium sized organizations, Walter has worked with such organizations as Apple, Dell, AMD, Capital Health, Government of Alberta, MacEwan School of Business, Nortel, North American Construction Group and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

AGENDA ~ Day One, Tuesday, January 26, 2010

8:00   Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30      Chairperson’s Welcome, Opening Remarks And Presentation:

Capitalizing On Social Media: How An Organization Of Any Size Can Use Social Media To Generate Engagement And Be Successful

Walter Schwabe, fusedlogic inc.

9:35   Break-Out Blitz!  Share Your Challenges And Begin To Brainstorm Solutions

10:05 Morning Refreshment, Networking Break & Exhibit Time

10:35     Moving Towards Government 2.0: Using Gradual And Deliberate Steps To Gain

Management Acceptance And Citizen Engagement

Jas Darrah, City of Edmonton, Alberta

11:25     Making Sense Of Social Media: 12 Things To Learn About How To Communicate With Your Audience – Your Friends, Fans And Followers

Jacob George, City of Calgary, Alberta

12:15 Lunch On Your Own – But Not Alone!

Join a small group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion facilitated

by one of our expert speakers.  Please sign up at the registration table.

1:45   Enriching Your Public Engagement Initiatives Through A Variety Of Social Media Tools

Nathan Freed, Alberta Education and Manon Abud, Ascentum, Inc.

2:35   Afternoon Refreshment, Networking Break & Exhibit Time

2:50   Cracking The Internal Culture:  How To Use Social Media As a Catalyst For Internal Change

Troy M. Wason, WMS Communications

(former Sr. Communications Officer–Social Media, Alberta Government Caucus)

3:40      How To Integrate Social Media With Traditional Media Relations To Maximize Communication Results

Diane Bégin, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT)

4:30   Close of Day One

4:45   Networking Reception – Please Join Us!

6:30      Dine Around – Sign up at the registration table for dinner with a group of your colleagues.

AGENDA ~ Day Two, Wednesday, January 27, 2010

8:00   Continental Breakfast, Networking & Exhibit Time

8:30   Chairperson’s Opening Of Day Two

Walter Schwabe, fusedlogic inc.

8:40   Using Social Media To Initiate Change In Government: It Starts With You

Kelly Rusk, MediaMiser

9:30   Morning Refreshment, Networking Break & Exhibit Time

10:00     How To Drive Higher Participation In Online Community Forums For More Effective Community Management

Dr. Crispin Butteriss, Bang the Table Pty. Ltd.

10:50     Monitoring Social Media: Knowing When And How To Take Action While Getting The Most Out Of Your Budget

Aaron Wrixon, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario

11:40 Lunch On Your Own – But Not Alone!

Join a small group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion facilitated by one of our expert speakers.  Please sign up at the registration table.

1:10   Group Exercise – Let’s Communicate and Collaborate!

1:50      The Social Media Toolbox: How To Choose The Right Tool For Your Communications Strategy And For Your Dollar

Mike Spear, Genome Alberta

2:40   Afternoon Refreshment, Networking Break & Exhibit Time

2:55   Using Social Media To Transform A Regional Economy

Glenn Taylor, Grande Alberta Economic Region & Town of Hinton, Alberta and K.J. (Ken) Chapman, Cambridge Strategies Inc.

3:45      Eight Ways To Engage Your Audience By Integrating Social Media Into Your Organization’s Website

Gisela Hippolt-Squair, Alberta Geological Survey, Energy Resources Conservation Board

4:35   Chairperson’s Recap:  Key Takeaways And What To Do When You Get Back To The Office

4:45       Close Of General Sessions

Thursday, January 28 (if applicable) in Mayfair:

– Continental Breakfast will be provided at 8:00 a.m. for the morning workshop attendees.

– Morning Post-Conference Workshop C, Managing Through The Power Shift Of This New Information Age And Convincing Your Senior Leaders Why Now Is The Time To Get Involved, begins at 8:30 a.m. & ends at 11:30 a.m.

– Afternoon Break/Lunch On Your Own from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

– Afternoon Post-Conference Workshop D, Practicing Social Media In The Real World: A Campaign In Action, begins at 12:30 p.m. & ends at 3:30 p.m.

Post Conference Workshops:

January 28, 2010 INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS

8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
MORNING POST-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP C

Managing Through The Power Shift Of This New Information Age And Convincing Your Senior Leaders Why Now Is The Time To Get Involved
Information is power and the power over information has shifted from those who control traditional media and professional message makers and manipulators to individuals who use social media.
Social media will continue to change the roles, relationships and even the responsibilities of bureaucracies, public policy advisors and how they advise policy makers in the political process of law making in our representative democratic models. How will this power shift affect your organization? What if your senior leaders don’t want to engage in using social media?
In this session, we will greater explore tools you can use to achieve social media buy-in within your organization:

• Social media literacy skills and tools that bureaucracies will have to learn and learn quickly
• How bureaucracies can keep up with social media to do their jobs effectively
• How you can manage through the information shift in your organization
• Strategies on how to approach and convince your senior leaders that now is the time to begin using social media

WORKSHOP LEADER: K.J. (Ken) Chapman Lawyer, Principal and Founder of Cambridge Strategies Inc. (www.cambridgestrategies.com) an Alberta based public policy design development and deployment consultancy. He has been an active Blogger (www.ken-chapman.blogspot.com) for three years and a political and public policy commentator and critic on mainstream media for decades and engaged in social media for many months.

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Afternoon break/lunch on your own.

12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
AFTERNOON POST-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP D

Practicing Social Media In The Real World: A Campaign In Action
Now that you have learned about all the social media tools and services that are at your disposal, it is finally time to put them into practice.
This workshop will guide you on how to:

• Set up a social media campaign from start to finish
• Pick the right social media tool for your campaign
• Track the conversation once you’ve gotten started
• Measure the ROI for your campaign
• Mitigate potential problems that can arise
• Prepare for a follow-up campaign

Additionally, we will also explore some real social media campaigns. What was done well? What could have been done better? You will leave with a better understanding of how to go from theory in the classroom to engaging citizens on the Internet.

WORKSHOP LEADER: Mack D. Male, President, CEO of Paramagnus Developments Inc., is a software developer, entrepreneur, and social media guy. Always up-to-date on the latest trends and technologies, Mack loves sharing what he learns with others. He’s particularly passionate about his hometown, Edmonton, and does his best to expose everything it has to offer, through his blog, Twitter account, and many other online tools and services. Mack was named one of Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2009 for his work in helping to build Edmonton’s online communities.

Tim O’Reilly describes “Gov 2.0″ as government operating as a platform. This is a terrific description of what is currently evolving within many a legislative ecosystem.   I’ve been a long-time, vocal advocate both on this blog and in public presentations for an open and engaging government.  In particular I’ve focused my thoughts on our provincial government here in Alberta.  Imagine the Government of Alberta as an open collaborative platform where citizens get to contribute directly in the outcomes that affect us all.  We live in the greatest province, jurisdiction and country in the world.  I believe all three tiers of our government structure need to be on that leading-edge as well.

Think Gov2

I wonder just how many within government are spending time contemplating what Gov2 is and how it will impact their work within government?  If you’re not doing this, you should be.

Whether you’re a rural town or urban city council, a provincial Cabinet Minister, MLA back-bencher or MP, you must spend time learning about this.  Stopping the rural brain drain takes more than a Facebook fan page and an events calendar.  Want to get inside the heads of the locals regarding a new policy?  Gov2 is where it’s at.  Traction is being gained all over the world in this area, and the amount of success being gained is substantial.  Are you so upset with your present government that you’ve started a new party?  Gov2 holds a lot of promise if you can integrate it quickly into your processes.  For a party that is gaining momentum, establishing social media channels is great but not nearly enough.  Your policy platform must include Gov2.  Opposition parties should be racing to understand the finer elements of Gov2 and how it impacts citizen engagement should they ever want to lead in their jurisdiction.  Want to get elected in your next election and have a spectacular campaign?  Well, you already know what the answer is…

Attend this conference

If you fit in any of the above scenarios, then you should look to attend the upcoming Advanced Learning Institute conference (ALI) in January, taking place in Edmonton, Alberta.  The line-up of speakers is great and I anticipate learning a tremendous amount from all the great stories and examples that will be presented during the four day conference.

Further, I’m really looking forward to this conference for a number of other reasons.  As Chair of the conference I’ll have more responsibilities than my normal role as a single presenter which I’m so excited about I’m shaking in my space boots.  I’m also excited at the prospect of getting to meet all the new presenters and conference goers coming into Edmonton to learn more about social media and Gov2.

I’ve heard from Kelly Flynn with ALI that the registrations are coming in very well for this conference which is terrific and it’s great for the Edmonton region to be hosting such an important conference.  Here’s the agenda that the folks who attend from all over Alberta, Canada and the US will enjoy.

Now I’m off to continue working on my presentation material for the conference, I have high expectations of myself as I know all the presenters do.  See you next year in less than 30 days, this conference will be an excellent way to kick 2010 off.

One of the things I’ve always taken exception to is the comment that social media is “free.”  You’ll see some content in the video below about Gary Vanyerchuk and “$0 dollars invested in Twitter to generate 1800 customers.”  Social media is not free, this is a gross generalization.  Vaynerchuk continues to state that social media is free throughout his book Crush It as well, and regardless of his success (which is substantial) he is sending the message that simply because the tool itself requires no registration fee to use, all social media is free and essentially has no value.  Wrong!

“There’s nothing stock about a stock car.” – Harry Hogg

He’s not coming straight out and saying social media has no value but to the untrained eye that could be how it is interpreted.  I certainly agree that on average the investment in social media marketing is considerably lower than traditional methods of marketing, but free and of little value?

Is the key to massive social media success simply just working 16 hour days on free software?  According to Vaynerchuk, yes and he explains the importance of what to spend those 16 hours on.  He advocates relentlessly building your personal brand, something I completely agree with. Ultimately, many social media tools may be free to use but the time invested and experience on how to apply them in a coordinated way is very valuable. In the case of Vaynerchuk and many others, it’s worth millions.

His main message is “listen” to the Internet and your customers, answer all your emails and comments and treat your customers like gold.  Sound advice AND it’s nothing new.  Having said that, many still do not do this because it’s too much work.  Vanyerchuk is proving that his simple, in your face style and showing up every day is and does work.  Is he passionate? Yes.  Is he relentless?  You bet.  Is it hard work? Absolutely!

As for his book Crush It, I found it a very easy read, entertaining in a few places and there are a few good tips.  Would I call it revolutionary or mind blowing? No.  Vaynerchuk’s mantra is simple, he considers much about the use of social media to be about showing up, sweating and being passionate as you do it.  With that I agree but in reality it’s not free.

As for the socialnomics video.

Eric Qualman has released a new social media centric video on Youtube, this man loves his stats and I think you’ll appreciate them as well.  I originally found the link to this video on Twitter via Mike Street (@streetforce1)

Mike’s link sent me to LitmanLive, a blog which provides a bit of a break-down of the stats within the video itself, it’s below for your viewing pleasure.

By the way, if you haven’t played this iPhone game called Pik’s Revenge yet, you’re missing out.  Speaking of “sweat,” we’re working with Edmonton’s Fluik Entertainment on this cool project, I thought I would throw this in too…

We are clearly defining our digital lives through our participation or in many cases lack thereof.  There is evidence to suggest that this trend is shifting.  For example, Premier Stelmach’s statement about using social media to communicate more directly with Albertans because of the perceived media slant to his government’s message.

I would suggest that it’s a rare government who would publicly state that they’re getting “fair and unbiased” representation within the mainstream media.  Let’s be honest folks, that simply doesn’t happen across the board, the door swings both ways on that point.

Pressure created by way of participation.

I believe the primary driving force behind the shift in communications approach by the Stelmach government is directly due to pressure created by every day Albertans outside of the media.  Pressure created by way of participation.  You’ve demonstrated that the social web is a communications tool and a place for dialogue on what the provincial government is doing.  You’ve demonstrated that in the absence of direct and personal government input, you will still discuss and hold them accountable publicly. This online debate demonstrates that you the citizen, own the government and ultimately control the message.  This pressure to change also exists internally from evangelists doing their part to influence from within, which to date has been a tough, frustrating job to be sure.  Citizens have proven their resilience and that cannot stop.

There is also evidence that more municipal governments and related organizations are embracing citizen participation via open data projects.  Actually they have been for sometime now as demonstrated by the following initiatives.  Washington DC in November of 2008, Toronto, Vancouver , Boston, even a non-profit in New Orleans is helping that city out.  Having said all that, one of the real visionary municipal leaders in the open data game in addition to San Francisco has clearly been the City of Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally

Chris J. Moore, the City of Edmonton’s CIO has been steadily learning from these examples.  He’s also been engaging outside of his own IT department with developers in Washington DC, as well as, the Edmonton I.T. community.  The latest example of this is the Leveraging Technical Expertise Locally pilot project.  Edmonton’s concept of a developer contest although narrowly focused on one solution is not entirely dissimilar to that of New York City’s NYCBigApps competition coinciding with the launch of the NYC Data Mine.

Citizen participation is driving open data projects in many cities and at all levels of government around the world.  Including of course the United States government, and here’s an interesting post by David Eaves comparing the US and Canada on the open data issue.  New Zealand should also be listed here for their work.

Through your participation you are influencing the future, pressuring bureaucrats to engage, holding politicians accountable publicly and driving innovation.

User participation creates:

1.  Participation creates a deeper connection between the organization and the audience.

2.  Participation creates opportunities to listen, learn and exchange ideas.  The futureedmonton.ca futurecalgary.ca sites are examples of this.

3.  Participation creates co-ownership of the brand, organization and/or message and that co-ownership results in influence.

How to influence a government or organization?

1. Start with one person who organizes an informal core group of evangelists.  Internally or externally, at first it doesn’t matter.

2. Be a source of statistics, information and opinion.

3. Formalize and self-organize, staying connected online, along with offline meetings.

4. Create a mandate for action.

5. Take focused and consistent action online as content publishers.

6. Internal evangelists should look for external like minded individuals to create discussion with.  External groups should look to identify internal supporters, steering committees or executives and invite them to participate.

7. All parties involved should capture the discussion digitally where ever possible.

8. Sharing the discussion with as many folks as possible through the use of social media channels will help build momentum.

Frankly, this is not a new concept.  Communicating ideas online has been happening for years in all sorts of ways.  What we’re suggesting is that this process can be chaotic and unorganized.  Our solution is to provide a very simple series of websites that empowers the everyday citizen.  There are so many citizens who may currently make limited use of the Internet in their lives.  We hope this very focused concept that’s easy to use will inspire them to contribute their great idea for their local city or town in just a click or two.

These sites will be providing the ability for local citizens to participate at their local level and potentially affect change on a macro-level.

Every time there is a new idea posted, the Twitter accounts for each site are updated. If you’d like to follow from Twitter, the usernames are @futureedmonton, @futurecalgary and @futurereddeer.

Here’s the twist:

We’re loosely tying these sites together to provide a macro perspective on the ideas of what Albertans are contemplating. Everything will be crowd-sourced, right down to “functionality requests” of the sites themselves and how they evolve. We believe the elegance of this concept is in it’s simplicity and we encourage you to participate by voting, commenting or submitting your own idea for your city.

We’re also launching a special offer for towns and cities in Alberta today so tune into Global Edmonton at 5pm.

Disclosure: fusedlogic was paid and I was asked to provide an opinion to Edmonton Economic Development Corporation - EEDC on a few items including the concept of Edmontonstories.ca before it launched.

Those who have not delivered complex solutions for large organizations within the social web think social media is “free,” it is not.

What should be stated clearly is that Edmontonstories.ca was NOT originally designed as a social media solution.

Despite having links to social media which were added just prior to public launch and much development post launch. Edmontonstories.ca is itself not about wide open two-way conversation and engagement with citizens.  Rather, the site is about broadcasting your stories after moderation or after having been written by internal staff.  That content is hand-picked and supported by other polished stories of “notable” Edmontonians.

Like all cities, there are many negative Edmonton stories too.

All of which will never see the light of day on Edmontonstories.ca.  The primary focus of this site has always been to have “you” communicate Edmonton’s quality of life to other jurisdictions for the purposes of relocation and tourism. “Your stories” are intended as “peer influence” to entice people around to world to come here. Yes Edmontonians are an audience type on the list but not the primary concern for this project.  Supporting that position in EEDC’s last quarterly report, Ron Gilbertson suggests emphasis on international reach when referencing the site’s performance.

$730,000 of the budget was mostly videographers shooting the 60 stories at launch. Standard rate is $1500 – $2500 per finished minute of video. The balance of the project budget broadly went to website development and project management which was extensive when you consider that the City of Edmonton and EEDC were involved on the administration side of this project along with other agencies.  This fact is partially reflected in the $1 million dollar maintenance request for next year and people who are charging rates higher than our own for things they don’t specialize in.

I agree that I was shocked to learn of the budget size but only when compared to what was originally delivered.  The website in my opinion is well designed by YellowPencil, ParCom and others for what it is.  The problem I have is that they were paid these amounts for a site that has been touted as a social media solution from the beginning.  Just adding a link or two on the home page just before launch doesn’t constitute a social media solution.  These companies are from what I understand reputable for standard marketing and web design solutions and have done work for the City of Edmonton before.  There is a common misconception in the marketplace today, slap a twitter link on a site and suddenly everyone’s social media savvy.  The overall budget is not the issue for me, rather the general execution, labelling and results to some degree which are not terrible, just not $1.4 million dollars spectacular in my opinion. There are many attached to the project regarding accountability on that point and I suspect this discussion isn’t going away.

It takes real guts!

The fact is this is an inevitable result, it takes real guts for municipalities and large organizations to mix it up within the social web along side average citizens who don’t play by the same rules and who criticize as often as many do.  Not every municipality is ready for this reality politically, culturally or even resource support wise for a real social media engagement solution.  Raising another point that clients such as these are not by nature always the easiest to work with simply because of culture and organizational structure and protocol.

That said, if you’re talking strictly “brand awareness” and compared purchasing traditional media in several outside jurisdictions similar to that of the Alberta Brand’s $25 million dollar project (not all cash there went to ads in foreign jurisdictions) you can see why Mayor Mandel would consider Edmontonstories.ca a bargain.

To some degree this is the end result of large city departments and organizations having one trusted opinion on a solution they originally didn’t understand while attempting to transition in their own bureaucratic and cultural way into our realm of social media while still playing it safe.

The City and EEDC have to be concerned with every single move they make, it makes government agencies skiddish, it naturally raises the cost of projects like this simply due to consultation and ultimately they reach for the safe solution.  A standard broadcast website that delivers moderated messages with some distribution reach through a few social media channels.  Edmontonstories.ca is actually quite forward thinking if you understand the politically charged environment from which it came from.

More with less budget.

Those folks who are claiming publicly online that they could have done more with less budget.  I first ask you to reflect on your personal experience in DELIVERING complex social media engagement solutions for large organizations.  Then leverage your experience specifically in this area to analyze all moving parts and elements that are not a Facebook profile, Twitter account, Youtube video or blog and then give your head a shake.

Is this project more expensive than it should be for what it is?  I’d say yes, to what degree I cannot say as I was not on the inside of the planning process and therefore do not know where I would have made changes.  Edmontonstories.ca was way outside the comfort zone for many and yet it was still launched.  Is it a detriment to the Edmonton community as is, no, ultimately I think it benefits the community and does communicate a “quality of life” message.  Could this project be managed more cost effectively?  Without having a look at the specific project plan but based on experience with only my agency on the inside to deliver services, I’d say yes.  Do many have high opinions on how magnificent their so-called social media knowledge is?  That much is clear.

The fact that anyone is participating at all on this project is a win.  Not because it is terrible idea, it’s not, but rather because the overwhelming majority of people online are observers not direct content generating participants.  To get people to tell personal stories in such an official way is an accomplishment.

Ultimately, I say God speed to the City of Edmonton and EEDC for being their brand of brave. Which is a story unto itself.

Sept 27th Update: I had a nice chat with our client Jenifer Christenson, Executive Director, External Relations at EEDC.  This was after she had read my blog post regarding EdmontonStories.  She asked me to clarify publicly my “disclosure”of our work together due to the possibility of misinterpretation.  I’ve read it again and agree it could be misinterpreted.  Despite this fact Jenifer said she liked the post and appreciated it.  Jenifer is a great client so why wouldn’t I oblige, especially since I agree.

fusedlogic was referred to EEDC and we were indeed paid to consult for EEDC. In particular, I was asked by Jenifer for my opinion on items surrounding the future of EEDC’s social media strategy.  That discussion covered many areas, issues and ideas.  As part of the foundation for our discussion, an existing project was discussed and EdmontonStories.ca came up.  Jenifer thought it important to bring up EdmontonStories to ensure that no new ideas would overlap this existing project already in production.  Having said that, it’s important to note that fusedlogic was brought in to talk about how the future might unfold in terms of EEDC’s social media strategy.  Our meeting did take place prior to the launch of EdmontonStories.ca but in no way was our meeting called to deal specifically and solely about EdmontonStories.ca.

As a blogger I have been asked to change my blog post or provide clarification in the past.  I rarely if ever do that when the motivation is that the person is unhappy with my perspective.  However, that’s not what’s happening here.  I’m simply working with my client to ensure that people who read it don’t try to twist my words to a negative effect due to the vagueness in my writing, which there clearly was in this case.  As my original blog post states, there are many moving parts in this project and clear communication is key.  I thank Jenifer Christenson for her input and just as EEDC is proud to work with the City of Edmonton, we’re proud to have worked with EEDC and look forward to the future.

Oprah seems to be doing her best to embrace the social web in her own celebrity way and yet many staunch online purists reject celebrities like Oprah because of their media power and international reach.  Oprah’s flash mob reportedly attracted 21000 plus people, that is impressive and yet I wonder.  Is that the largest amount possible for a flash mob?  Does it take a celebrity like Oprah to provide that kind of clout?  I’d say yes, in this world there are cynics, haters and the uninspired, as a result people are not as trusting.  Motivation to help others or freely join in has been tempered by a feeling of self-preservation and let the other guy do it, Oprah’s recognizable credibility is what makes the difference.

Frankly, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a “true” flash mob.  I’m not at all trying to take away from the fun energy that Oprah’s event produced, rather, just communicate that true flash mobs as I understand them are spontaneous micro-tribes generated by the people with little to no real preparation or plan.  This was inspired by a celebrity owned organization, choreographed, practiced and then deployed.  Certainly the effect was impressive but not exactly a raw groundswell.  Does anyone care?  I don’t think so.

My only reason for pointing this out is to demonstrate how mainstream celebrities are continuing to integrate these social media elements into their world and the evolution that comes along with it.  I believe this continued integration will raise the mass-adoption rate of social media to the next level.  Sure Robert Scoble, Leo Laporte and others have social web street cred and yet their reach into mainstream circles and overall house-hold name power is next to zero when compared to that of Oprah.

There is a convergence of the media savvy and Internet savvy, some are going kicking and screaming into this reality and others are embracing it.  Regardless of where you stand.  Oprah has entered social media and it seems she’s here to stay.

Now compare Oprah’s flash mob to that of the T-Mobile “Life is for sharing” advertising focused flash mob series and in most cases you’ll find a very different feel.  Sure, there are still elements that have clearly been choreographed and yet in several of these ads, T-Mobile has taken special care to leave the fringes of their effort untouched in the hopes that average unsuspecting citizens will spontaneously join in the fun.  In fact, I’ve found the reactions of the average citizens to be the most fun part of the experience.

T-Mobile – Liverpool Street Station.

Both approaches are highly successful and show slightly different approaches to mastering the concept of a flash mob.  I like them both for different reasons.  Now I sit and wonder when Edmonton will have it’s first serious flash mob?

Socializing Brand You!

• What is “brand you?”
• What is the value of engaging in social media?
• Required “brand you” skills.
• How Twitter is a “brand you” amplification machine.
• Understanding and leveraging “micro-tribes.”
• Integrating social media into business processes.

I look forward to meeting more MacEwan students and faculty at this event and will look to provide as much value in my presentation as I possibly can.  I’m expecting some great questions from the audience and as always I’ll be referring to live Internet case studies and examples.  Also, no seat is safe in the house, I’ll be inviting direct audience participation and could call on anyone at anytime…

See you all next week…

Social media should support business process, too often social media is an orphaned concept that gets little respect within the top decision-making ranks.  This fragmented environment means that social media activities have little chance of supporting the overall enterprise and established business processes.  This is a common and in my opinion, a large mistake.

Most often social media projects are set-up in the I.T. department and a marketing executive launches a single campaign once all the accounts are set-up.  The media buy gets the lion’s share of marketing funds and the social media campaign is at a disadvantage to begin with.  If the executive or executive team isn’t prepared to commit to a deeper process integration long-term, that organization’s social media efforts will be less effective as a result.

An effective deployment of social media means a weaving of skills and brand objectives within an evolving corporate culture.  However, companies such as Zappos are rare.  Like anything in business, social media can come with risks, with every tweet a brand can be put at risk if the organization is operating without a clearly defined mandate.  This risk can be too much to handle for many organizations.  A recent example is described in this Brian Solis post about the NFL’s recent ban on tweets before, during and after games.

This “culture of sharing” if properly embraced can produce measurable and sustainable impacts within a marketplace, especially if employee teams become “cross-functional” and empowered where social media skills are concerned.  The real elements behind that success reside with the ability of the corporation’s culture to evolve. Can the business integrate, adapt and evolve existing processes to include social media?  Is there a management willingness to do this?  The question I hear most often in this discussion is related to “value.”

Here are some examples of companies generating share-holder value from delivering customer value within the social web.  Dell suggests $3 million dollars in one Information Week report from this Twitter account. http://twitter.com/dellOutlet

Here’s a great post by Jeremiah Owyang on how HP integrates social media into business processes.

Regardless of where your organization is in the above discussion, typically it all starts with someone inside who is a champion for the idea of adopting social media.  If you are that champion, stay strong.  You’re about to be up against some very strong “don’t rock the boat, we don’t understand it, it’s too risky” type resistance.  Start with education, it’s the key to moving forward.

I’m also extremely grateful for my business life.  Many know that fusedlogic has grown over this past year and has had the opportunity to work with several really terrific clients, we’re a long way from the one person operation I started in 2000.  Beyond being grateful for the business, the people on the team are the true engine and I’m very grateful for their hard work and commitment.  Paul Ney, Evan Adnams, Genoa Adnams, Troy Wason, Debra Ward, work tirelessly to do their best for our clients and it shows in the social media work we do.

This week in particular, I’m grateful for all of the people who supported the Edmonton International Fringe Festival.

Notables were John Wilson (@SirThinks) who wrote a great blog post and along with several others, @cyclopsphoto, @pixelens, @livingsanctuary to name a few, took copious amounts of photographs these last 10 days to visually document our Fringe in their own way on flickr for the world to see.  By the way, thanks to them the Edmonton Fringe now has the largest Fringe related flickr group with over 1300 images all telling a story about Edmonton and the Fringe.  This is just one of the terrific things we were able to accomplish with the help of the community, not to mention the amazing ticket sales this year topping over 90,000.  The way these #yegphotographers provided their perspective was terrific and it was really cool to be a part of.  Also, I feel like I know these folks a lot better as a result of that experience which I’m grateful for. Thank-you for all of your support.

Earlier today I was reading Chris Brogan’s blog post Take 10 Minutes – Meet a Trust Agent.

I began to reflect on the various people and relationships out in the world that I have had an opportunity to cultivate and wondered what it took in my mind to be a Trust Agent?  Below are 10 in the Edmonton area that I’d like to mention.

Social media is about conversations and relationships.  Beyond that, the most important key to social media is a person’s ability to “build and maintain trust.”  Trust is critical in all areas of life, but especially online within chosen networks or micro-tribe(s).  The Edmonton region is a bustling micro-tribe and if you spend any amount of time online with Edmonton on your mind, you’ll no doubt recognize these people below identified by their Twitter handle below and in no particular order.  They all stand out as Trust Agents in my mind for one reason or another.

@ZoomJer, is a local Realtor.  Jerry is also a rock solid member of society.  He goes out of his way to create opportunities to help and support others.  In particular his #yegicecream events for @RLPShelterFdn are a big hit.  Jerry protects those he respects and holds accountable in his own way those who step out of line.  I first met Jerry when he attended one of my seminars well over a year ago and he and I maintain our conversation regularly.  Jerry is a “Zoom” family man first, strong digital citizen second, all of which makes his real estate business thrive as a result.  A true example of what Chris Brogan calls a “Trust Agent.”

@KenChapman46 is one of the most politically active digital citizens I know on the planet Earth.  Beyond politics and policy, Ken is a proponent for justice and equality.  You will always know where you stand with Ken as you’re measured based on your actions.  When it comes to politics, Ken understands how it affects our community and holds those accountable for their statements, actions or inaction as the case may be.  I have found Ken to be a loyal, trust-worthy person, who’s friendship I appreciate.  If you want to know what’s going on in politics days before it happens? Ken is your man.  That’s not to say he speaks out of turn, rather that his blog and predictions are typically accurate or not far off the mark.

@ChrisLabossiere is a local businessman, one of the founders of ProTraining.com he is an active digital citizen.  Chris was recently voted onto the board of one of our clients, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation and through that appointment he’s continually looking for ways to make Edmonton better.  My experience working with him on Change Camp and other ventures has taught me that Chris isn’t shy when it comes to sharing his opinion, and thank-goodness because he’s usually bang on in his assessment of the situation.  Sometimes he takes too many shots at himself, but Chris is a stand-up guy.  Frankly Chris, you should make a run for city council.

@Out_Inc is empowerment personified.  Shauna keeps herself very busy with her successful marketing company Out Enterprises Inc., and we almost had a chance to work together on a project.  I look forward to the day when a project comes along that makes sense for us to collaborate on.  Beyond her work life what makes Shauna a “trust agent” in my mind is her endless source positive energy and giving spirit.  Shauna is well known for coordinating with ZoomJer on charitable events and that sets her apart.  Not everyone steps up to organize and inspire others to give, Shauna does it often and she does it well.

@jdarrah is a digital gentleman among citizens, the fact that he believes strongly in building a enviable quality of life for others to enjoy in his community through his work at the City of Edmonton (#yeg) and privately is just one of the character traits that sets him apart.  I’ve come to know Jason better through our work on Change Camp and he’s top notch.  A smart and diplomatic voice in any room is in part what makes Jason a trust agent.

@bingofuel is one of Edmonton’s unique characters.  Always fun and unexpected, Adam blogs, helps run the very successful OilersNation and works with the Dub5 crew.  As if that wasn’t enough he recently started the unusual podcast, the Unknown Studio with @Scottybomb.  Mr. Fuel is pure digital citizen and a proponent of Edmonton through and through.  He’s searching for your pride Edmonton and he’s not going to stop until he finds it.

@livingsanctuary is a quiet, yet powerful voice for her micro-tribe via the community paper Boyle-McCauley News.  Paula readily lends her voice in support of issues, events and causes that need her help.  A proponent of equality, justice and humanity, Paula is a trusted source of positive energy.  I must admit that I have not spent time off line getting to know Paula and yet her activities online make her stand out in a positive way.  Thank-you Paula for your support.

@CaryWilliams is a key member of Edmonton’s NextGen group.  I first met Cary in person at Michael Janz’s IDEAfest, I called him “Astroboy” all day (ask him why) and our conversation continues to grow from there.  I interviewed Cary regarding NextGen and social media for my column in the Edmontonians Magazine, unfortunately it was replaced by a request from the publisher to cover another story.  Sorry Cary, maybe we can try that again in the future.  Cary is a “trust agent” because he believes in community roots, he believes in innovation and he believes in the empowerment of Gen Y.

@mastermaq is all about Edmonton, if there’s news to be had about the city, he’s all over it and likes to break the news first.  Due to his many media appearances, Mack is one of Edmonton’s most recognized digital citizens and he keeps everyone well informed about Edmonton via his blog.  He’s also not afraid to take a stand or offer his opinion, as we witnessed during the Edmonton City Centre Airport debate.  Another reason why you’ll recognize Mack is because it seems that he is at every social event happening around town, those he isn’t organizing himself that is.  Mack, you’re also someone who I think should run for city council.

@GriffMLA is about the truth, about being honorable and a voice for others.  Having had a few opportunities to meet with Doug and learn more about Doug and what it’s like to be an MLA, it’s clear to me that not only would I personally not want the job.  I also admire those who step-up, in the same way I admire goaltenders in hockey, they have to be just a little “off” to want to have players wire pucks at their head.  Doug is a very dedicated family man and digital Albertan, it’s clear he loves this province and offers a sound voice in the chaotic world of Alberta politics.

Edmonton’s online community has many folks who may be considered Trust Agents.

This is not a list made to the exclusion of others, you’re just as cool on this list as you are off it.  The true purpose was to take Chris Brogan’s lead and help identify certain meaningful traits in others that I have met online.  Too often people are given too much credit because they know something about the technology.  Chris Brogan along with Julien Smith’s work on Trust Agents is a game-changing look at how people and trust are the real power components behind social media.

Another personal motivation for this list was so that I express my gratitude and start a conversation by recognizing in a small way the good work that others in the community are doing and how that influences every day life for the rest of us.

Still think Social Media is a fad? WATCH THIS: http://bit.ly/4DLpNK #socialmedia #revolution

Now I certainly don’t think social media is a fad, however, curious I still clicked to read or in this case “watch” the content on the other end of the link.

Below is what I found and I loved it.  Love the information, pace, structure and delivery of the work by Erik Qualman of socialnomics fame…enjoy!  Qualman has put a lot of work into this video and I just felt compelled to share it with everyone.

Of course, the social media numbers in the video are in a constant state of flux.  However, this fast paced piece of work captures the key points that people and businesses who don’t believe social media is a serious opportunity should come to grips with.  One of the wonderful things about social media is the ability to share and Erik Qualman has put considerable effort into this video.  We all get to observe, learn and participate in the social web and this is evidence of that.  Any business that doesn’t see value here is crazy, plain and simple.  ”Keep learning my friends.”

Chris, I respect that you are “NOT a follower,” great blog post regarding Twitter!

Having said that, hopefully you are a “listener.” Frankly, that’s where the real benefits start within social media. There are rich trends that exist about the Edmonton community and throughout social media in general, Twitter as a source is certainly no exception.

I also respect the fact that you understand what is important for you in terms of sustaining your high-level of job performance and the associated expected level of audience engagement.  If the blog is the best tool for you to communicate with your audience based on research and experience, then stick with it.  Go with what works for you.  I strongly recommend that you don’t just engage in every new technology or in this case 3 yr old technology that comes along simply because others in your office have their own views.  Certainly you’ve communicated Twitter wouldn’t be sustainable given your schedule.  However, if that were your only issue I would offer that it’s perfectly fine to keep your tweet volume to just a few per day as long as they offer some value.  Yes, there are others with a tweet volume that suggests they are not accomplishing much else, possibly even within your own ranks.  I know personally my tweet volume fluctuates depending of what’s happening around me at that point-in-time and is also dependent on my objectives.

There is a larger issue here beyond your use of Twitter.

Frankly, this kind of situation happens frequently within organizations that don’t actually have a concise plan for operating within the social web.  I’m sure you’ll agree trial by error isn’t always the preferred way to go.  Unfortunately many organizations start down this path because one person convinces another internally to “join the conversation” and management is ill-equipped to handle the implications.  This often ends up with a public airing of this uncertainty online, just like iNews880 is doing via your blog post as we speak.   In this case, your audience is not only seeing an internal conflicting discussion regarding the “effective” use of social web tools such as Twitter being evident in your office, we also see the larger issue related to a lack of clarity from an organizational stand point. There doesn’t seem to be unification regarding how social media should support your business model.  Regardless of whether that’s true, the perception is a bit chaotic.

“We are what we share!” Twitter is like a cocktail party, standing in a corner and not talking to anyone would seem odd, possibly rude.

Back to your personal position on Twitter, if you’re not prepared to communicate with the folks throughout the day in 140 character bursts and your employer has no clear direction or internal policy on this activity, then best to avoid crawling into the birdhouse. You are 100% correct that there are elements on Twitter that are not about building rapport and relationships in real-time, one of the coolest things about the Twitter platform, but rather spam related exploitation in one form or another. I support your position that these “micro-tribes” within the Twitter and social media community-at-large are shall we say, less than desirable. Twitter is an acquired taste as far as social media options go and it is a game-changer, not a fad.   Much of our connected society is extremely impatient. Twitter is a real-time “statusphere,” that allows those with narcissistic tendencies to communicate at will about anything and attempt to be first doing it – breaking news!  I admit I operate within that environment too.  Follow me here.  In some cases, those who didn’t have a voice at work suddenly do on Twitter and they can express it “quickly and often.”  That element you seem to grasp well, that’s also why the “statusphere” concept like Twitter and the recently acquired $50 million dollar friendfeed are not “fads” that will go away anytime soon.

Sleep well knowing that at least with respect to Twitter you’ve stopped to look at the business implications (albeit your own) of using the tool first rather than simply trying to look like the one of the cool kids.  Stay strong Chris, good on ya mate!

This Edmonton social media project is designed to generate awareness.

Awareness for Edmonton and our Fringe festival in other parts of the world.  We’re doing a number of things to accomplish this goal, one such activity is the live streaming video.  Tonight we finished broadcasting our 3rd Fringe related show.  First was the Edmonton Fringe VIP reception, second was last night’s live webcast of a show out of Seoul, South Korea – Choon-Hyang: True Love.  Tonight the excitement continued as we worked with actor Eric Davis from New York City who plays the entertaining and engaging Red Bastard, once again watch for these clips to be uploaded.

Broadcasting a live theatre act is a unique experience for all sorts of reasons.

You’re not really sure of the challenges associated with the venue until you get there and assess the situation, which in this case, has to be done in-between productions and with next to no time before going live.  Tonight we were really packed into Venue #3 or ACACIA Hall for example.  Heat was a problem and caused a brief shut down right at the beginning of our live broadcast, fortunately not much longer than a 5 minute outage was experienced as we switched computers.  Not something that’s ever happened to us before but once again going live on-location means anything can happen.  Thankfully we have an experienced crew.

Other things that we have to address on the fly are the nuances with the show itself, doing one off broadcasts means we rarely have any prep time.  So for example, we have little to no idea where to position the camera in anticipation of the next shot, that unpredictability can be troublesome, dark venues, no space, lighting apparatus in the way, you name it.  In order to do this well the fusedlogic team just needs to be really good at their craft.

With that in mind, I’m proud of our team, they’ve done a tremendous job of dealing with these little details and I believe with the exception of the one unexpected heat related shut-down which could have been far worse, everyone and everything has performed really well.  Certainly, this social media work has been great for Edmonton’s Fringe festival, giving it the recognition it deserves as a leader in many ways and no I’m not just saying that because they’re our client or because I live in the region.  If you like the fact that Edmonton is known for great festivals and you attend the Fringe, then this benefits you.  If you’ve participated directly in these social media efforts in some way then it has hopefully enriched your Fringe experience this year.  If not, I’d like to hear about it so that we can make it better.  Post a comment, send us an email or a DM, let the Fringe know directly if that’s better.  We are constantly looking to learn and gain experience, we never stop looking to innovate.

By the way, I simply cannot bear it any longer, I’ve got to let the cat peak its head out of the bag.  Just for fun and because we have absolutely nothing else to do (dripping with sarcasm), we’re going to be launching an iPhone application “very” soon, as well as, a Twitter app.  This will be under our custom application division fusedlogic Labs.  Just thought I’d throw that out there…

Also, for those staying in touch on Facebook regarding Edmonton Fringe shows, food, street performers and reviews.  You should be aware of the main Fringe related Facebook group.

We are excited to have performers and Fringers blogging about their experiences at Edmonton’s Fringe Festival.  Much of the daily action regarding social media and specifically blogging activity is happening on ShowYouOurBlog.com.

Many on Twitter are following the Twitter account @EdmontonFringe which notifies everyone of a new blog post on the aforementioned blog, as well as, other interesting Edmonton Fringe tidbits that come along.

Many like watching video and we don’t disappoint.  Here is the ShowYouOurs Youtube channel.   You’ll also be interested to know that we’ll be live streaming a couple of shows from the Edmonton International Fringe Festival this year.  This first of which is tonight at 8:45pm from Venue #1 – Choon-Hyang: True Love The live feed will be broadcast from the ShowYouOurBlog site listed above and the archived content will be posted on this Youtube channel.  The Edmonton International Fringe Festival continues towards breaking new social media ground as this will be our 2nd of 3 live webcasts from the festival.

We have been working with the production staff from Seoul, South Korea and we expect a good turnout online from that Internet savvy country, despite the time zone difference being 16 hours ahead, which in this case works in our favor as it should be early Tuesday afternoon in Seoul.

Our communications goal is to educate folks about what Change Camp Edmonton is without putting so much information out there that it pre-determines outcomes on the day itself.  Regarding process, we have been continually looking to learn from other Change Camp events, using them as a reference point in this regard and modifying things given our priorities.

Learning from those who have gone before us is key to ensuring our event is a great one.  Here is a link to survey results and cool word clouds from a previous Change Camp.  There are very interesting findings including “why” others attended their Change Camp.

With that in mind, a key question posed tonight was focused on motivation.

What would motivate you to come out and participate in Change Camp Edmonton?

I personally answered this question tonight in the following way.  My inner belief is that this event model requires “participants” rather than “observers or audience members.”  Change Camp as a concept (again as I interpret it,) is about citizens from all walks of life “presenting ideas and taking action in the form of debate, brain-storming like discussion and it’s through this active participation in a unique process that solutions will be generated.  Despite the fact that the steering committee is still discussing the final details on the general process and structure of the day itself, you can be guaranteed that as a Change Camp Edmonton participant, expressing yourself on one or more issues close to your heart will not only be acceptable but embraced.  Assuming of course that you decide to offer up an opinion or two throughout the day-long event, it’s my belief and many on the steering committee that active participation is required to enrich the overall experience and results for everyone involved.

So in answer to the question and title of this blog post, Why should you participate in Change Camp Edmonton? Ultimately those who do will have their own reasons, regardless, it should be unique, a lot of fun and a rich experience for all.

Here are some sources for more information should you be interested:

Home to all Change Camp events including Edmonton.

Here is our work in progress, volunteers should sign-up on the Change Camp Edmonton Google Group.

Twitter users should monitor the #ChangeCamp #yeg hashtags for updates.

And finally, the committee has launched a central event site, look for more information coming soon.  We also intend on distributing an informational PDF document to help everyone understand Change Camp Edmonton and how one can participate.

If our challenge helps one more person, child, family eat- it was WELL WORTH the effort.

Many may have thought that we forgot about this charitable social media project, the Facebook group and flickr groups have seemingly been ignored and it’s all over before it really got started…WRONG!  Our work has been to inspire and organize and then inspire and organize some more. Starting with keeping Edmonton’s Food Bank in the loop, which has led to a discussion at the provincial level with the Alberta Food Bank Network Association, we hope to involve the national and international organizations shortly.

Achieving a “happy mind.”

The fragmented photo group approach wasn’t going to work.  So we found some great and very giving people for the construction of a centralized website to house all the photos.  This is being donated by Victor Rubba and his Crazed Coders of Edmonton.  Victor assures us that the site which is to be located at www.happymind.ca will be fully operational on August 15th, 2009.  We chose “happymind” by the way because it represents two things:  One, the state of mind after donating.  Two, D-DAY or donation day for this challenge will be in support of and coordination with the central message from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, who is scheduled to speak in Calgary, Alberta on October 1st, 2009.

We want to get his attention by scheduling this on September 30th, 2009.

SIDEBAR:  I was invited to meet with and speak to the University of Calgary steering committee on the topic of social media at one of their meetings this summer.  This great group of people responsible for inviting the Dalai Lama to speak inspired me to align this challenge with their efforts around actNOW and what we’re doing perfectly supports the message from the Dalai Lama of achieving a “happy mind.”

Trying to collect 1 million photographs representing 1 million donations from people around the world predominantly via social media is a daunting task and one I know we’re all up for.  There have been many social media initiatives for the purposes of charity that have done very well in the past.  Twestival comes to mind, I attended the Edmonton event and that model is brilliant and we’d love to inspire a similar effect in cities around the world.  The 12 for 12K gang continues to do great work each and every day as well.  The real challenge here is to get folks not only to donate food but then take a picture and upload it.  We hope you’ll agree, that in this day and age of uber connected citizens, donating a picture is not too much to ask in order to achieve a “happymind.”

Our plan remains simple.

Go out to the universe and ask for your help.  To support you, we’re working through Rotary International and still need to reach higher within that organization.  Anyone know John Kenny President of Rotary International?  By the way, Rotary has 1.2 million members and great communication channels within their organization, Rotarians are very special people and their help would be spectacular.  We’re also approaching other organizations with considerable size such as the Lutheran Church of Canada and Edmonton’s World Trade Centre organization.  We’ve had numerous discussions with Share Our Strength on their ability to help promote and support this initiative.  They have agreed to promote this to their 40 thousand newsletter subscribers and we are very grateful for that.  Wouldn’t it be fantastic if President Obama, Prime Minister Harper made a donation and posted a twitpic?  They both have twitter accounts, so does Premier Stelmach for that matter.  What about other world leaders?  How about the United Nations?  There are people out there with connections to get folks like this involved.  Please reach out and touch them…

Does anyone know somebody at Feeding America or having anything to do with the Pound for Pound Challenge?  Please contact me at walter[at]fusedlogic.com your help is greatly appreciated.

What about brands?  How can your corporation benefit?  Simple, own this event, put your brand behind it, your marketing message of inspiration.  We want to share this experience with you, it’s about feeding the hungry for us and we know we cannot do it alone.

How can you help?

1.) Donate, take a picture and upload it to www.happymind.ca once it goes live or the facebook, flickr groups already in place today.

2.) Inspire everyone in your personal network to donate food and a picture at work, home, friends and family and the world at large via all means possible on or before September 30th, 2009.

3.) Be creative, persistent and inspirational in your communications regarding this world changing challenge, we won’t stop after September 30th and we must surpass the 1 million photos.  Hold tweetup food drives in your city on September 30th and post the pictures.  Write a song, make a video to inspire others and post it on Youtube, (our channel).

4.) Be an Ambassador!  Get your local organizations like the food bank, Second Harvest, Rotary Club, chamber of commerce, church, mass media, politicians, schools etc involved.  Send them the link to this blog post or others that explain the goal and what to do.

5.) Use Social Media: On Twitter (@fusedlogic) please use the hashtag #happymind, on your blogs please consider posting a “happymind” badge.  Spread the word through Facebook, with well over 200 million people, we can do it folks, take minute to inspire others.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please tag your photo with “HAPPYMIND.”

As the Chair of Edmonton’s ChangeCamp, I can attest to the fact that the above question continues to be contemplated by the steering committee to some degree each time we meet.  As this innovative and smart group continues to wrap its collective group of heads around what ChangeCamp means to us as individuals and as a pseudo organization, new things are discovered each time.

For those of you in Edmonton and the surrounding area who are wondering about this event and if, why and how you might either volunteer or be a direct citizen participant, here is a short explanation of not only what ChangeCamp is but also how you can contribute.

The centralized question constructed by the original ChangeCamp group in Toronto is as follows:

“How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?”

Below is a PowerPoint deck generated by Mark Kuzniki, a ChangeCamp steward on the subject and provides great insight into the general philosophy behind ChangeCamp.

Picture courtesy Rakerman (via Flickr). Some rights reserved.

One of the primary messages I’m taking away from efforts thus far is that the social web enables conversations between citizens as everyone knows.  A group that arguably has been the least likely to engage openly in those conversations is government.  ChangeCamp events across Canada have certainly produced results, solutions and concepts outside of social media and for all levels of government which is a testament to the richness of the process.  I suppose given the fact that my company derives its revenue solely and directly from engaging in social media every single day, it’s safe to say that I’m a bit biased and yet I recognize there are all sorts of issues that we should and will tackle together.

What happens on ChangeCamp day?

ChangeCamp is a day-long event designed to provide the average citizen with an opportunity to communicate with others face-to-face for lively and meaningful discussion surrounding key issues.  Most, if not all, of those issues will be supplied the day of the event, on the fly, by the citizen participants and by all three tiers of government.  Have a pet-peeve, idea or solution that government should know about?  Come out the ChangeCamp.  Want to increase transparency, accountability and have a technological answer to offer on how to accomplish that?  Come out to ChangeCamp and let your voice be heard.  This is where we plan to take the conversation to the streets of Edmonton, Alberta and drum up support for citizens in action.  The Edmonton ChangeCamp braintrust is adamant that our event include folks outside of the immersive world of the social web.  Average Albertans, everyday Edmontonians, non-twitter, “off-line” members of society must be included in this experience for it to be effective and truly representative of our greater Edmonton community.  All are welcome, (although seating will be limited of course).

Picture courtesy Rakerman (via Flickr). Some rights reserved.

ChangeCamp day will not only provide you with an opportunity to voice an opinion but subsequently also be a part of the solution.  Working on the strongest ideas put forward, you will collaborate with other participants in working groups called “labs” to identify a clear path forward on a given issue.  This “lab” portion of the day and will involve putting your thoughts into practical, actionable advice, all of which will be recorded and organized by the ChangeCamp Edmonton facilitators and observers.

We then plan on having some time set aside for review of all of the concepts (time permitting) identified throughout the day.  Follow-up will consist of the ChangeCamp Edmonton community staying in touch online and at future events in order to sustain and hopefully even grow what was started this year.  All suggestions will be put forward to government by the steering committee in an appropriate manner, we’ll make sure they know about your work and hear your voice.

For more information please visit the Google group and join us as either a volunteer or participant.  The steering committee will be posting a new website within approximately seven days or so from now.  We’re looking to secure a location for a date in and around the last week of September.  As soon as that can be done, we’ll announce the date and location to everyone.  Also, this is a volunteer event and as such there will be some limited expenses, so if your organization would like to be a part of this from a sponsorship perspective

please contact me for more details.  walter[at]fusedlogic.com

Picture courtesy Rakerman (via Flickr). Some rights reserved.

Interesting links to check out:

ChangeCamp Canada

ChangeCamp Flickr Group (pictures)

ChangeCamp Organizers (videos)

ChangeCamp Edmonton Google Group

ChangeCamp Ottawa Google Group

ChangeCamp Toronto Website

ChangeCamp Vancouver Website

There was some online discussion about the city’s choice to release the information in .pdf form instead of the more accessible .csv format.  While .pdf is probably more than sufficient enough for most people, check out links to the .csv versions below.

The one thing that the .pdf versions lacked were any pretty graphs.  As an accountant, a pretty graph is about the only way I can express my deep-rooted love for spreadsheets, and as such, have included some for you to enjoy below.

First up, we have a breakdown of the percentage of population by age and by year.  Note that these numbers become significantly altered when we include those who did not report their age, as 2008 saw a disproportionate number of people choose to remain ageless.
That disclaimer aside, it’s interesting to see age groups shift through the demographic spectrum.

Next up is a breakdown of population by Ward.  As you can see, Ward 5 is the largest – tho not by much.

Here’s a look at the population in each Ward broken up by Gender.  As you can see, in all but two wards, the men outnumber the women! I wouldn’t have guessed.

Lastly, I thought it would be interesting to look at how each Ward is broken up between people who own their home and those who are renting.

Thanks for stopping by. And props to the great people at the City of Edmonton for putting this information together.  It’s amazing to see how our great city has grown.

.CSV files:

Ward1 Ward2 Ward3 Ward4 Ward5 Ward6

Map of the Wards in Edmonton

Regarding the redesign of fusedlogic.com, we’d love to hear your comments, suggestions and ideas to ensure we have a great site.

Think the logo should be relocated like was suggested by @ivansf   

@ivansf @eadnams grats. You should center the logo #fusedlogic 

Let us know.  That’s not a bad idea actually Ivan, thanks, have the entire logo centered would probably look better.  What about sections or content you think is missing?  Let us know.  This also includes the type of blog content that is important to you.  Essentially, we’d love to hear from you on all topics and please include your concerns as well.

Finally, you’ll notice that we’re working on changing how we describe ourselves too.  Soon gone will be the word “strategists” from our midst.  Why you ask? Simple, ultimately we’ve always been about “engagement” and we intend to continue to demonstrate that fact. We’re Alberta’s only 100% dedicated social media engagement firm.  Over the past 10 months of our 9 year total history, we’ve worked with the MacEwan School of Business, ATB Financial, Government of Alberta, Edmontonians Magazine and several small business owners to name a few. Further, we’re proud to announce Edmonton’s Fringe Theatre Adventures as a new client, more to follow on that announcement soon.   

Regardless, we’re excited about the short-term and very excited about the mid-term…Thank-you for your support and friendship, we look forward to the conversation including your comments ahead.

We also got to meet some interestesting people from Chrysalis – an Albertan society for citizens with disabilities – who let us join them at their table.  And finally, we were able to chat with one of my favourite local artists, Ben Sures, who is spending the week creating a brilliant piece of concept art.

We’ve included some pictures below, but if you get the chance, check out the festival for yourself!

Post by Paul Ney, Captions by Evan Adnams

Why would anyone put their brand at risk when the common perception by an outsider like Primeau is that the social web is a complete waste of time?  I wish I could say that the majority of people out there understand social media, with the clear exception of Edmonton talk show host Lesley Primeau.  However, if I was to say that I’d be in serious error, (not the first time).  The fact remains that Primeau and those like her are still the majority, although many continue to open their minds to the possibilities.

At the heart of many social media discussions I’ve had with business people is the issue of “self-preservation.”  With that in mind, an interesting example of this took place tonight.  Some of the local Edmonton Twitter community, myself included rallied around and defended our passion for the use of said micro-blogging platform and that of other social media.  Some of this rallying was in direct support of Edmonton’s social media community spokespeople @mastermaq and @britl and the fact that they were put on the defensive by Primeau.  ”Companies don’t pay people to forward their social agenda, you can’t tell me they’re actually working,” said Primeau during a flurry of generally negative opinions regarding the use of social media and Twitter.

It’s pretty clear from my tweets that I didn’t agree with everything Primeau said on the show. In one instance, I also mentioned that I would have preferred that Mack and Brittney respect and reward those who kindly responded to their pleas for online reaction by mentioning said people by Twitter handle.  Kind of a little thing but I just thought that would have been a cool touch.  That’s the great thing about Canada, everyone can have an opinion and social media enables me to express it.  Just a reminder to everyone, including myself – one should always remember that “we are what we share.”

Sharing information and thoughts within the social web can lead to simple cooperation, it can also lead to the organization of individuals into collectives, groups, tribes, communities.  Tonight Primeau united some of the Edmonton Twitter community into a micro-tribe as a direct result of her lack of social media understanding.  This effect can be a positive one and it can also be negative. People online can organize into “mobs” and attack.  I wouldn’t say that happened tonight, however, that certainly happened recently with MLA Doug Elniski.

In fact, some might say this blog post and my opinions expressed on Twitter this evening could be categorized as overtly negative.  Even my friend @gadgetgreg on one occasion calmly asked me to “be nice!” (Sorry Greg, Primeau just got me all riled up.)

My study of the social web over the last five years has taught me several things and one is that there’s almost always someone who’s going to be offended for some reason at some time about some thing.  Some appreciate @mastermaq for his claims that he doesn’t care about other’s opinions regarding what he says online, which tonight oddly enough opened the door to a Primeau comment regarding narcism that was a follow-up to a caller comment regarding the use of Twitter.  When asked by Primeau if he regretted anything he’s said online, he responded. “about the only thing would be spelling mistakes.”

I’ve always said you have to be brave to enter the social web and @mastermaq and @britl are certainly that.  Not only for representing the Edmonton social media community as spokespeople and experts to Primeau’s audience but also for defending the position of all of us who have immersed ourselves into various online communities and eco-systems for business or pleasure.  An activity that Primeau clearly sees little to no value in.

The folks that attended fusedlogic’s latest event digested something of the social media variety.

Held on Tuesday, June 2 at the World Trade Centre Edmonton in the wee morning hours, Twitter for Breakfast was a micro conference for business professionals looking to learn the basics of the popular social networking site, and specifically how to implement it into their marketing and communication plans.

And of course, thanks to our free wi-fi, Twitter was utilized during the event with live tweeting by the attendees, the fusedlogic team and special guests @carlapr and @difabs. Thanks for coming out, guys!

We were very pleased to have two of our clients in the room. Special thanks to ATB Financial and MacEwan School of Business for coming out.

We also had some other great companies in the room:

City of St. Albert

Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA)

Arrow Engineering Inc.

Pursuit Placement Group

Alberta Blue Cross

Heritage Collaborative

Thanks to everyone who was able to attend! And thanks to the WTC for being so accommodating at such an early hour.

What’s next on the event list? Twitter for Lunch?

Stay tuned! It’s going to be an exciting summer!

Friday April 3 was the culmination of a big project for fusedlogic: MacEwan BlogCamp. It was Edmonton’s and, as far as we know, Alberta’s first blog contest. It was a unique opportunity to combine business, social media and education in one cool package.

We’d like to congratulate the top three MacEwan bloggers:

1.  Carla Putnam
2. Patrick Finegan
3. Peter Jaffray

The prize for first place was an Apple MacBook. In addition to the contest winners, we’d like to congratulate everyone who participated. Blogging for nine hours is not easy under the best of circumstances and blogging for nine hours in a busy cafeteria would be even tougher.

But, our bloggers persevered and we had a lot of interesting posts. We gave them a variety of topics to blog about and we were impressed with the results.

Judging

The winners of the blogging contest were chosen based on a number of factors. We had a voting system in place that ranked posts based on the cumulative net difference between a thumbs up and a thumbs down rating given by blog post viewers. In addition, we also judged the blog posts based on originality and quality of content.

Sponsors

Our sponsors came through for MacEwan BlogCamp in a big way. We can’t say enough about how happy we are that they sponsored our contest and made a huge contribution to the success of BlogCamp.

The team

We would also like to thank Jana Clarke, Sarah Parker, Laura England, Joseph DiFabio and the rest of the Grant MacEwan College team for giving us the opportunity to help put on this event. It was a lot of work but it was a blast! Grant MacEwan College really put on a good show for everyone involved.

And to the fusedlogic team, thank you as well: Walter did a great job hosting BlogCamp and all the other tasks he had; without Evan and Paul we wouldn’t have had the website or the video running virtually glitch-free; Genoa did a great job keeping everyone organized; Doug kept everyone on track with his project management skills; Krysta did a great job with her video as well.

Ultimately I think we succeeded in our goal of helping to raise the profile of the MacEwan School of Business and we’re confident that will result in more inquiries about the School of Business. MacEwan School of Business really is a good choice for a business degree in Edmonton, Alberta and beyond. We’re looking forward to the next BlogCamp!

MacEwan BlogCamp photos

If you’re interested in having a look at some great photos of MacEwan BlogCamp, have a look at Bruce Clarke’s Flickr photos. He has 166 photos there to look at. Bruce made my job tough to decide on the best photos to post here because they were all good.

Alain Saffel

When I speak to a client and use the word “bravery” in part I’m referring to this trend as a barrier of entry into the consumer’s psyche. Emotional engagement can only happen if both parties are willing and accepting participants, some feel that to get there a spectacle is required and there is definitely truth to that.

Social contract or social investment?

Some refer to this engagement between brand and consumer as the beginning of a “social contract,” I’d like to make the case for the use of the word “investment.” I recently expressed my opinion on well-known Forrester researcher Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and referred to a portion of our recent work with MacEwan School of Business as the example.

Owyang’s post was a higher level discussion about how consumers information was given out via various social network platforms and the ability of an agency such as ours to scrape that data, turning it into meaningful intelligence as the basis for the “contract.”

My point of view is that reaching an emotional level of discussion with prospective clients, consumers or partners is a key event in the relationship and can only happen with certain conditions present. Many efforts within the social web and across many industries do not accomplish this at all, at any level. Others do reach that level but unfortunately the emotion is anger on behalf of the consumer.

So which brands are more likely to embrace the concept of emotional centric “social investment?” I believe those who’s cultures are built on a foundation of mutual respect, giving and caring. More specifically, I think brands with women involved in key leadership positions are more likely to take these sensitivity and psychological issues into consideration when building out their marketing campaigns. This habit should serve them well when engaging the rest of us within the social web.

My personal social media journey started in 2004 and I’ve been studying these types of aspects ever since as well as participating. Certainly, I’ve made mistakes in the past; sometimes I can be a bit forward and offer an opinion when silence should have been my course of action. Having said that, I think that my grasp of the social web, and more importantly people, is stronger for these interactions, good and bad. This I feel, translates into a stronger customer experience here at fusedlogic.

Out of curiosity, a quick tally of all projects past has the number of ones with women as the key stakeholder in the lead. Further, fusedlogic’s best client experience ever (from our perspective at least and I hope theirs too) on all accounts is MacEwan and it was led by Jana Clarke, Marketing Manager for the School of Business.

We’ve been fortunate to have many great clients and this project was a ton of fun, very productive and went off with little to no issues. The organization was phenomenal to work with, as was her team, the majority of them women. Please don’t read anything into this discussion that isn’t there, I’m simply stating statistics. fusedlogic doesn’t specifically target women entrepreneurs or executives; it just seems to have progressed that way. For example, we have recently been asked to supply 3 proposals and 2 of the three are to organizations led by women.

Am I being stereotypical throughout this discussion? Probably. The more important question should be whether I’m off base with what I’m saying. Is my assumption that men are more likely to gravitate towards the term “social contract” vs. “social investment” in terms of general approach correct?

What about the flip side and my belief that in the above context women are more likely to approach business as an emotional “investment,” which I believe then provides them with an advantage over men regarding their social media marketing efforts? Do you think men are more likely to laugh at this E-Trade commercial and even go around calling their friends “shank-a-potumus” afterwards? I know I have, I think it’s hilarious, if you have research to the contrary I’d love to see it.

Ultimately, my experience has shown that the social web is an “investment.” If I forget that fact I’m promptly given my hat and shown the door. What about you?

Written by Walter Schwabe, have a wonderful Easter long-weekend everyone.

It’s an application that you can run on an iPhone or an iPod Touch and it allows you to do mobile surveys. It’s certainly cooler than the old pen and paper method and it tallies all the data automatically.

I’m familiar with the application as fusedlogic used it in a recent Edmonton social media project. It was cool that we were able to post real time survey results to the site. Who knows, maybe you’ll get more people responding to surveys because you get to plunk your answers down on a cool gadget?

Cool sites you’d have never known about

One thing I like about the Social Web Meetup is hearing about all the different projects people are working on and the different, cool websites they run across.

We had an opportunity to share our own site or a cool site we’ve been on, and here are a few:

East West Connect – Tait Lawton does Chinese translation and Chinese online marketing.

Community Intelligence – Tamara Stecyk’s blog. Congratulations to Tamara in her new job at Edmonton’s Foodbank.

Wefollow.com – This site, started up by Digg’s Kevin Rose, and is a Twitter directory organized according to interests. So, if you’re into #socialmedia @mashable is at the top of that category. Of course you should be following @fusedlogic as well! One thing to keep in mind is that just because someone is at the top of the list it doesn’t mean they’re an expert. Not by a long shot! These days I’ve noticed a large number of Twitter users out there who have thousands of followers and are following thousands but have a small number of Tweets. Numbers do not equate to knowledge, as much as some of these instant “experts” might hope.

Utils.me – It’s kind of a fun way to describe your utils, or relative satisfaction. Just add the hashtag #utils 50 or #utils -50 (or whatever number you like). Then check on the utils site and see the graph of your relative happiness over time. Doesn’t really seem to serve any purpose, but I’m sure someone will come up with one!

There were definitely more sites shared than I’ve listed and I probably missed yours. Let me know and I’ll put it up on the list, or just leave a comment with your site URL and a blurb about it.

Off to Brewster’s

After the last few Social Web Meetups we’ve headed to Brewster’s at Oliver Square where we’d reserved 20 seats. We’ve had no problem filling them either! We’ve always got to pull in a few more chairs. I had to laugh after reserving the tables there because they somehow had the impression that we were some kind of online dating service! I assured them we were not. I don’t know if anyone’s ever had a date because of a Meetup or a Tweetup in Edmonton, but you never know. Got any stories?

One thing that I have always enjoyed about the Social Web Meetup is the diversity of the group members. The experience level ranges from novice to veteran. There are some really interesting people who attend and I really enjoy hearing their stories. It’s great to be able to chat more at the pub afterwards too, and last night it seemed like almost everyone from the Meetup made it out to the pub. It’s the day after the Meetup and I’m already looking forward to the meeting next month!

Alain Saffel

We’re in the Grant MacEwan City Centre campus cafeteria right now and the place is busy! We’ve got our bloggers up and running now.

We’ve also got a blogging contest for everyone else on the net too. We’re promoting it on Twitter, and here. So, if you are interested, you can win cash for a blog post. You just need to do one post! Easy as pie, isn’t it? Think you’re good. Give it a shot. You blog, post the link on the page and we draw the winner randomly. Later on in the day we’ll decide if we really like one post and throw some prizes at that person too.

Mike & Lenny videos

We’ve got parts one and two of the Mike & Lenny series up and running. Check them out and let us know what you think.

Mike & Lenny video, part 1

Mike & Lenny video, part 2

Just in case you haven’t heard of Blogcamp, it’s happening April 3, starting at noon at the City Centre Campus of Grant MacEwan in downtown Edmonton. It will run for nine hours, and MacEwan students will be blogging about a variety of business and personally chosen topics during that time.

Blogcamp bloggers will have the chance to win great prizes, with the top prize being a MacBook.

How does this affect you? Well, you’ll have the chance to determine who the winner is. At the bottom of each blog post we’ll have a thumbs up and thumbs down. You get one vote on each post and you can comment as well.

Let those bloggers know whether you agree or disagree with what they’ve got to say. You’re also more than welcome to go to the campus cafeteria. There will be lots happening!

We’ve also got the trailer for the Mike & Lenny video up on the MacEwan Blogcamp site. Check it out and let us know what you think. The full video will be rolled out April 3.

A few days ago I posed a question on Twitter regarding a new application called TweepMe, now widely known as a spammer haven. The answers I was looking for in response to the question focused on the “motivation” behind using TweepMe, and Twitter usage in general. From that I was hoping to draw conclusions as to how that reflected on us as users. The tweeted question is below.

What are your thoughts on “buying” followers? http://www.tweepme.com/

Here’s how the TweepMe site describes its service.

TweepMe is the fastest way to accumulate followers on Twitter. When a new member joins, every other member automatically follows the new member, and the new member follows them back. The process is gradual and happens over the course of weeks or months depending on the number of TweepMe members.

Personally, I’ve always struggled with the concept of “auto-follows and auto-direct-messaging.” Despite being efficient, the struggle for me boils down to “mass-followers but at what cost?” Several questions come to mind in terms of Twitter etiquette. If you follow me and I follow you back, is that enough? If I don’t have time to send a personal direct message “thank-you for following,” would people still prefer an automated pre-fabbed response instead of nothing at all? Not sure about you guys but I’ve never clicked on a link coming in from an automated direct message, not once.

This action says to me: “Hi sucka, thanks for the follow, now go check out my blog and buy my stuff.”

Systems like TweepMe are simply numbers focused and deliberately impersonal, this defeats the purpose and great social upside inherent within social media. In the case of TweepMe, you actually pay for the privilege of being impersonal. Some obviously see the allure to being the largest spam broadcaster on Twitter, I don’t. Clearly, this is a subjective discussion as to what constitutes “value” and how to deliver it to others. Moving forward, here are some of the tweeted responses to my TweepMe question.

• Sirthinks: @fusedlogic followers for the sake of followers. Seems to defeat the whole point SM. Social commentary of like, or intriguing ideas.
  4 days ago from twidroid · Reply · View Tweet · Show ConversationHide Conversation
• 
  Taite11: @fusedlogic Tweepme seems pretty worthless to me. Everybody on there will soley want to push out their tweets rather than read.
  4 days ago from TwitterFox · Reply · View Tweet · Show ConversationHide Conversation
• 
  enThrall: Feed your ego with thousands of followers? RT @fusedlogic What are your thoughts on “buying” followers? http://www.tweepme.com/
  4 days ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
• 
  enThrall: @fusedlogic re:tweepme – Depends on why you’re on here. Nice pkg of ppl to discover, lot of crap. Risks big mktg interest, less SM essence.
  4 days ago from web · Reply · View Tweet · Show ConversationHide Conversation
• 
  eadnams: @fusedlogic only good if you don’t get caught… better question is… what about selling accounts with lots of followers?
  4 days ago from twhirl · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation

Do I promote my company and team on Twitter? Absolutely, I’m proud of my company, we’re doing some awesome work within the social web (admittedly not all of it visible), our clients are very happy and we’re growing. Marketing is a part of the Twitter community, how one does it is the key difference.

I’ve been asked to supply some of my social media principles in the past and so this might be a good time to talk about those related to Twitter.

1. Be respectful of others.
2. Be human, even if you are a news feed. Example – @iNews880
3. Promote the work of others, re-tweet and use the (via @method ) whenever possible.
4. Follow others, don’t be a snob. (exclude spammers and profiles of little redeeming value)
5. Think – Would this tweet make my mom proud?
6. Observe, listen and learn.
7. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
8. Avoid “automated” actions that degrade rapport building whenever possible.

Ultimately, just be yourself – “Tweet YOU Edmonton!”

Now sure, that might mean that you’re a spammer like many on TweepMe or a self-serving one-way broadcasting Twitter snob wasting valuable Twitter server power. Regardless, if that’s who you are, then be proud and be aware of #unfollowfriday or worse yet…

In recent weeks the Edmonton twitter community has grown considerably. Why? Well, some members of the local media have decided to fire-up their Twitter accounts and publicize doing so. Even the City of Edmonton has gotten into the act. In fact, Albertans from many walks of life are joining Twitter, including those in political circles, but that’s another whole series of posts.

So, I’ve decided see where the Edmonton Twitter community feels it fits when compared to the generally accepted best practices described in the well-known social media standard Groundswell. You’ll notice that I’ve thrown in a bit of my own interpretation for good measure as well. Figure 3-2 on page 43 of Groundswell shows The Social Technographics ladder. Many members of the Edmonton Twitter community may fall into one or more of the following technographic groups.

Where are you in the Twitter universe?

Joiners - essentially, you’ve joined Twitter because you were encouraged by something you read, watched or a even more likely because you’ve been encouraged by another Albertan to join. You may also belong to at least one social network such as Facebook or Linkedin. In fact, to be considered a real Joiner you’re setting up profiles in several places.

Just for fun I’ve provided a short-list below of new members within the Edmonton Twitter community that may fit into this category based on current level of followers. These folks are at 100 or less followers (this number is a moving target so it’s not exact). There are many new users but these are a few that happened to use the #yeg hashtag at the time I was writing this post.

If you’d like to add your name to this list to increase follows just leave a comment with your twitter profile name and what category you feel you fit into best.

• http://twitter.com/JenCrosby
• http://twitter.com/michaelbridge
• http://twitter.com/jodinechase
• http://twitter.com/Carywill
• http://twitter.com/eglinski
• http://twitter.com/cfsmith
• http://twitter.com/DavidCronin

Spectators - After joining the community, a lot of observing Twitter and its culture takes place. This is of course a natural activity and, not to worry, everyone does this to some extent as this eco-system continues to evolve. We’re all learning…that’s one of my favorite things about social media in general. The opportunities to learn from others are immense and I consider myself to be a life-long learner. Having said that, as a Twitter user, your updates are very low as are your followers – you’re watching quietly.

Through observation and learning, confidence begins to increase and gradually this impacts activity type and volume. Conversations, exchanges of information, direct messages, link posting all increase. The newest members of the Edmonton Twitter community become more involved in terms of the types of Tweets and level of participation. Generally, an increase in tweet volume tends to happen and a need to “break the story” or “RT” (re-Tweet) interesting tweets also starts to take place. Possibly the courage to post links of their own blog posts or the first Twitpics start to appear – personality really starts to shine through.

Critics - As ones’ personality starts to shine more and more within their tweets. I believe a further diversion of grouping starts to happen. Commenting, taking positions on various subject matter that before may have been considered controversial like politics for example starts to happen. The person has much more confidence now and so rating, reviews and criticism tends to happen more. Further, if the person is sarcastic in nature, a skeptic or generally negative this also presents itself.

Collectors - Personality and confidence allows the newest members of Edmonton’s Twitter community who are remaining active to communicate things like hobbies. Music, photography are two top ways people start to demonstrate these traits. Links to other profiles on sites like flickr and Last.fm are used.

Creators - I’ve left this category towards the end because when it comes to Twitter I think that this group is really a catch all in a lot of ways. If you’ve created even one Tweet you could technically be considered a Creator. However, I define Creators in this case to be Twitter users who are active in almost all of the technographic categories in some way, have several profiles, share numerous types of content from video, audio, photos, links, opinions, etc. The most active of all the groups, Creators are separated by the reason they’re there: to build relationships, to build an army, to build credibility, to build intelligence and observe trends.

Autobots - (I’ve invented this last group.) Twitter naturally has this built in ego-meter that is your “followers” total. Some fall into the “I must have a million followers” mentality and I admit I watch my own numbers too. How can you not? Having said that, some go to great lengths to “monetize” their Twitter activity somehow. For example, let’s say you like to sell e-books, “not that there’s anything wrong with that.” However, an Autobot would then employ various automated software apps to auto-follow people and almost certainly auto-direct-message (DM) people with their affiliate e-book selling site link. Now just like with Viagra spam, if the 8% of people who got those spam emails didn’t buy Viagra via this method then the spam industry may not exist.

Be wary of those who are strictly focused on just creating a larger number. Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research tweeted this recently:

@jowyang bloggers are arguing about how much 100,000 twitter followers is worth http://tinyurl.com/c3z6nk I say earn trust, not buy it

Walter Schwabe

That was a lot of fun everyone, that said, I’m tired and now going radio silent.

Walter

Tonight was the first ever ChangeCamp Edmonton meeting where some like minded citizens came together to discuss government and citizen engagement under the umbrella of ChangeCamp.ca (Edmonton wiki is here and the Google Group is here.)

The group included the following folks on Twitter: @Imparo, @ChrisLaBossiere, @JillLaBossiere, @jdarrah, @davecournoyer, @mastermaq, @paulney, @eadnams, @dibegin and myself @fusedlogic

The Steering Committee adopted as a starting point – this question.

“How can we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?”

What was clear from tonight’s discussion in my mind is that there are definitely people out there who think that the gap between government and the average citizen is wide and consists of too many barriers for real substantive change, meaningful discussion and innovation.

There are pictures and more info to check out @mastermaq’s post on tonight’s meeting as well.

By the way, tomorrow I’m presenting at IDEAfest – 10:05am Room B, Tory Basement 95, University of Alberta Campus and will be giving away cash during my presentation entitled “How YOU can use social media to change the world.” This will be a live “social” experiment that I invite you to be a part of…

See you there,

Walter

It’s not ready for public consumption yet, and the iPhone app will be available through iTunes.

The program seems to be an internal social media tool and with project management elements. It will be interesting to see the final product. I think it’s something that could be quite useful for most companies.

Edmonton social media community expanding

We started out our discussion about social media in Edmonton by watching a CTV story about Twitter, with several Edmontonians featuring prominently in the story.

Media interest in Twitter has grown substantially in Alberta, particularly in Edmonton lately. Many media organizations have jumped on board and are now experimenting with the medium.

With this media interest there has been curiosity among its viewers and consumers, and according to Mack Male, the number of Twitter users in Edmonton has grown by 50 per cent over the last month. Nice!

Social media community changing?

Edmonton has a vibrant social media community and we’re quite friendly. There was a question whether this will change as time goes on and the community grows. One thought was that instead of meeting as one large group as often happens, people will begin to gather in smaller groups.

There were some comments about people joining Twitter and billing themselves as social media experts or social media gurus. Typical hype. Kind of hard to bill yourself as a social media expert when you’ve been on Twitter for a week, nobody’s following you and you’ve Tweeted a couple dozen times.

One person who could legitimately bill himself as a social media expert in Alberta is Walter Schwabe (@fusedlogic). There aren’t many in Alberta, but the number is growing across Canada. Mack Male’s another one here in Edmonton.

Mainstream media and social media

My favourite part of the discussion was also one of the more contentious ones. Recently mainstream media organizations have been going through a lot of difficulty due to the recession. There seems to be some glee in social media circles about their difficulties.

Mainstream media in Alberta is beginning to join the social media community, and Edmonton’s media especially. It’s obvious they’re quite new to the medium and are having a few growing pains. Who hasn’t though? I’m willing to give anyone new to Twitter the benefit of the doubt, except for spammers or the instant social media experts.

My only observation is that Alberta media organizations seem to have jumped into the game without much of a social media strategy. I could be wrong. I they think they could use an effective social media strategy to cut their learning curve and increase their social media impact.

Continuing the discussion about social media

We again made our way to Brewster’s Pub in Oliver Square for drinks and discussion. I had reserved for 15 people but we had many more people than that. Not bad for a Monday night!

We were lucky to have Alberta MLA Doug Griffiths join us at Brewster’s. He’s also on Twitter as @GriffMLA. The Alberta government has made a strong push to get involved with social media. It was good to hear Doug’s perspective on it. He said he’s had lots of good feedback on the Alberta government’s social media efforts. On a side note, I thought it was interesting that he was on the CBC show The Week the Women Went.

We were in NAIT’s new Nexen room that had two very large screens. They might give Imax a run for the money. SomethingTV was there chronicling the event and there were so many cameras there you’d think that it was a press conference.

Alberta government successfully implementing Web 2.0 & social media strategy

Our mystery guest was Troy Wason (@imparo on Twitter) and Troy gave us a great presentation about mypcmla.ca. Troy is the Senior Communications Officer – Social Media, for Government Caucus Communications.

That’s quite a mouthful, but boiling it down, Troy is helping the Alberta government with web 2.0. Yes, our government is successfully moving forward in engaging the public with modern new communications tools. That’s a good thing.

He said that there are some people who knock what he’s doing, but people would knock the party in power no matter what they did anyway. Regardless of your party affiliation, don’t you think that having your government open up a two-way dialogue online is a good thing? How can it be bad? As long as it’s a two-way dialogue, that’s a good start.

The site has only recently been rolled out and you should be seeing it change in the future. It’s worth checking out. If there’s something you’d like to see on the site, let them know.

Social media conversation at Brewster’s pub

@ivansf and @yuiIkari

We reserved a couple of large tables at Brewster’s pub in Oliver Square for a little socializing afterwards. At least half the people showed up there and we had a good time. Keeping on the theme of social media we had a good time talking about social media. I think it ended up being a popular choice, partly due to the 32 oz Schooner beers being on special.

Cameras were another popular topic, particularly Bruce Clarke’s new Canon 5D Mk II. I’m partial to Canon as well, having a Canon 30D on hand for the evening.

All in all it everyone seemed to have a really good time and it was nice to put faces to some of the names of people we might already be following on social media such as Twitter.

Next Social Web Meetup

Walter Schwabe of fusedlogic

Local realtor Jerry Aulenbach (@zoomjer on Twitter) sponsored the evening with refreshments. Thanks Jerry!

Our next Social Web Meetup is March 2 and will again be held at NAIT. Make sure you sign up on the site and RSVP whether or not you’ll be attending. Hope to see you there!

Alain Saffel

We are making progress towards that goal. Our Facebook food bank group has grown to 92 people. We have many new donation pictures on our Flickr food bank page too.

If you haven’t made a donation and taken a picture yet, please do so. It’s for a great cause. It can be as simple as getting someone to take a picture with your cell phone while you make a donation at a food bank box at the grocery store.

It’s not about the quantity you give. If you can give, that’s what counts. Canned and non-perishable food items really help out the food bank, as do cash donations. Your donations now will really help the food bank get through the next few months.

It must be a nerve wracking job for food bank workers to keep just ahead of the growing demand for their services. After checking out the food bank here in Edmonton, I was surprised just how large an operation it is. They send out more than 10,000 hampers per month!

We’re lucky in Alberta to be blessed with an abundance of resources and we thank everyone who takes the time to give, whether in goods, cash or time, to their favourite charities. It’s surprising the number of charities there are in this city that need help. I hear about them all the time when listening to local radio or reading the newspaper.

Let’s hope you and your family are not in need of the help of the many charities in Edmonton and that you’re able to help them out a little.

From everyone at fusedlogic, we wish all the best to you and your family and hope your holiday has been a great one so far.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I want to thank the folks from CPRS Edmonton from the bottom of my heart for not only inviting me to speak with them today but more importantly for supporting Edmonton’s Food Bank and the fusedlogic Food Bank Challenge in particular.

As many of you can tell from our blog and (even a bit of press, yeah baby!) or the section entitled “Food Bank” we’ve got something going on with Edmonton’s Food Bank.  As mentioned above it’s the fusedlogic Food Bank Challenge.

This really is exciting because outside of our daily client work we can focus on having some fun with our social pals, friends and acquaintances and explore our collective desire to give back.  Contrary to what others may think, I think it’s in our human nature to want to give.  This exercise will help prove my hypothesis.  1 million pictures of 1 million donations in 1 year.  WOW, talk about being able to measure results.  Regardless of where we end up (past our goal…) this will be a great learning experience for all concerned.  Human nature, social conversation and even the advantages and disadvantages of some of the technology…lot’s to observe and learn from.

Plus, for the gadget freaks we get to play with our digital cameras too.  Speaking of which I’ll ensure we get lot’s of photos of the donations made by the Edmonton’s PR society today and post them on our Facebook group

Oh and by the way, look out Calgary, Edmonton’s gunning for ya…I know that my pals in Calgary who are reading this right now are shakin in their space boots (it’s in their nature).  You better go take some pictures of your donation drives before we here in Edmonton get too much of a jump on you…and Flames fans this goes double for you.  Oilers fans will never stand for it…

Welcome to the new Battle of Alberta!

Walter Schwabe

Help us help food banks around the world. Post your picture of your food bank donation.

Edmonton has thrown down the gauntlet! fusedlogic has kicked-off the fusedlogic Food Bank Challenge.

The goal is 1 million pictures of 1 million food bank donations in 1 year. It’s a busy time of year for food banks and we met with Marjorie Bencz of Edmonton’s Food Bank to get started.

Christmas is such an important time for every food bank. I was surprised to learn that much of Edmonton’s Food Bank’s fundraising supports the food bank well into the new year. Cash and canned food donations are an important contribution.

Food bank needs don’t stop at Christmas. It seems obvious to say it, but people aren’t thinking about it much in the middle of the summer. At fusedlogic, we’re hoping that this joint effort with Edmonton’s Food Bank will get people thinking about helping people throughout the year.

Please join our groups on Facebook and Flickr. Take a picture of you, your family, your coworkers and your friends making a food bank donation. Our goal is to get one million pictures by the end of 2009, but with your help we think we can do it much sooner.

Walter was on SomethingTV yesterday talking about the food bank challenge.

Challenging other cities: Milwaukee. Anyone else?

The goal is to have one million pictures by the end of 2009.

“We” (Edmonton) believe that we can put up more pictures of individual donations to Edmonton’s Food Bank than Milwaukee can. Now certainly this challenge isn’t limited to Edmonton vs. Milwaukee, here in the Edmonton region, well over a million strong ourselves, we’re formidable people. We’ll take on anybody.

I’m sure Edmonton’s southern neighbour, Calgary, may be up to the challenge. Canada’s other major cities like Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Saskatoon and Winnipeg should be able to find a few people to add photos too. Sorry if we’ve missed your city, but you can join in as well!

Our press release on the food bank challenge went out this morning and the Edmonton Journal has already interviewed us. Now we’ll see if the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is also up to the challenge. I call upon Tannette Johnson Elie (despite being on holidays) to rise to the challenge and get the word out in Milwaukee about the fact that the great City of Milwaukee has been challenged, in a friendly Canadian manner of course.

Because this is almost entirely designed as a social media event, we anticipate that early on it will be the Edmonton tech community that will rise to the challenge. Organizations such as Techvibes may want to blog about it.

Anyone from Techvibes or TechCrunch want to take on the challenge? Alberta bloggers such as Ken Chapman, Dave Cournoyer, Mack Male, Chris LaBossiere, Brad Grier, Dean Owen and many others have also been a big help in talking about this and helping us promote such a great cause.

If you’re in a position to help, please do! No donation is too small. They are all important. Help set a great example for your family, friends and coworkers. We know it’s a busy time of year and it’s easy to forget that there are many who are much less fortunate than we are.

Thank you and Merry Christmas! : )

In case you missed it here’s the press release.

Randy described how he started Runningmap, a map site that allows you to plot your jogging routes. He delved into how the software worked and I think everyone was pretty impressed. I think a few people were surprised that he used Yahoo for his maps and not the seemingly ubiquitous Google.

Yahoo got nothing but praise from Randy for their approachability and willingness to work with him to make changes to their software, something that Google might not be so willing to do.

Looking at his software from a user perspective, I can see why people would like it. It allows you to easily draw up customized route maps and view the elevation and distances. I haven’t used the software (not being a jogger) but I plan to tinker with it. The social media element to the software is that you can share the routes and upload photos.

While I may not be a jogger, I don’t see why you couldn’t use this same software to plan walks, hikes, mountain climbing, cycling, automobile trips and more. Why limit it to jogging?

It sounds like there are some interesting plans afoot for this cool site. It is definitely worth checking out.

Smibs ringing the Doorbell

Peter Urban gave us a demo of his Doorbell software, explained what Smibs is all about and gave us all a copy of his “unbusiness plan.” Peter’s approach to everything seems a little unconventional which, when you’re trying to grow your business, can be a good thing.

It’s kind of a collaborative tool that is useful for keeping track of what you have to do every day. I like the idea of being able to keep track of projects in one spot. I’ve found it to be a bit of pain working on different projects simultaneously because everyone uses a different project management tool.

There’s a lot more to it, and I plan on exploring it. I’ve signed up and haven’t had a chance to really tinker with it. It’s in public beta, so check it out. I’m curious what you think of it, and I’m sure Peter would love to get your feedback too.

NAIT

I almost forgot to mention the great location for the Meetup. This time it was at NAIT’s HP Centre. It worked really nicely because it seems like it’s only a five minute drive for me. That’s not the only advantage. It was a good, central location, though the weather didn’t seem to be cooperating. Parking, my eternal frustration, was certainly not an issue at NAIT.

Not sure where the next Meetup is, but I’m looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to get out in January and try to avoid cabin fever.

Alain Saffel

Accepting a kind gift for speaking...

Walter is speaking about social media today the Edmonton Mayfield Rotary Club, and I’m (Mack) here to liveblog it! We’ve also got Krysta here recording some video that will be posted soon. Stay tuned to this post for updates!

What is social media? There’s a lot of buzz these days.

“This is not a fad, it’s quite serious.”

What’s the difference between today and a decade ago?

• Today we have a two-way broadcasting system, instead of a one-way.
• Individuals are just as powerful as organizations.

What are organizations doing today?

• They are stuck using old methodologies.
• Generally, they don’t work with the “creative class”, people who have been plugged for most of their lives.
• Most corporations want to control the message. It’s deep within their DNA.
• Companies need to learn to let go of some of that control. Not 100%, that would be reckless, but some change is required.
• Yes, once the company lets go of some control, some negativity will creep in. There’s fear. Companies are afraid they will put their brand at risk if they embrace social media – and that’s just not the case.

An example – Dell.

• Jeff Jarvis explained on his blog what a terrible customer experience he had with his Dell. He continued to blog about it over time, and called his situation “dell hell”.
• His message connected with others, who also blogged about it. Dell however, wasn’t listening.
• Eventually, Dell got the message and changed what they were doing.

Another example – Jeep treats social networking like another channel – example provided by Forrester Research.

• They woke up one morning and decided they had to be “cool”. So they started a Facebook group.
• The most popular Jeep group isn’t the official one, however, it’s a group created by a fan.
• Jeep missed an opportunity to built rapport with the existing community.

Where do you start with social media?

“Do you have the guts to encourage transparency within your organization? You need to be real, with customers and employees.”

Then you can get started.

1. Listen to the Internet, to find out what people are saying about your product or service. Don’t assume they aren’t talking about you.
2. Harness the collective intelligence of others out there on the web. Find out who the market leaders and influencers are.
3. Once identified, you can work with them on a word-of-mouth campaign.

Does this work? Just look at Barack Obama. By far the most successful campaign in the world.

What’s the trap?

• There’s a very low barrier to entry. A teenager in their basement has the same power to create something as good or better than you can!
• Don’t assume that large companies have the advantage!

Time for questions!

• Are non-profit organizations making use of social media? Absolutely. It’s becoming increasingly common, it can definitely work for them.
• Can social media be used for scams? Like anything else, there’s always the potential for negativity. Your guard always needs to be up, it’s not specific to social media.
• As a small business, it’s hard to find time to just be there listening. What can you do, can your firm help? Definitely, fusedlogic can help you, this is one of the main services offered. And it can be automated, so that you find out when someone mentions your product or service. The problem affects all sorts of organizations, not just small businesses.
• How do organizations decide which site to use? We have MySpace, Facebook, etc. Which should we use? The first question to answer is, what is your objective? For example, if you know which demographic to target, you can help decide which networks to focus on. And it’s important to know that there are networks out there for specific purposes, such as LinkedIn for business.
• Can you comment on Twitter and what we saw on TV with the presidential election? It’s a microblogging service. You get 140 characters to update. In the case of Obama, his campaign used Twitter to announce when they were at a rally or on the move. CNN used Twitter to highlight what people were talking about during the election. The news breaks on Twitter – a good example is the recent earthquake in Los Angeles. It’s a great tool to quickly ascertain the heart of the story.

And with that, we’re done. Great presentation Walter and lots of good questions from the audience.

Here’s the Tweet:fusedlogic #yeg Amber Alert Call 780-423-4567 . 7 yr girl, peach dress/flowers. 20-30 yr old balding blond male. Blue SUV AB license ending in 179 about 3 hours ago from TwitterFox

This information was passed along by others who follow me on Twitter such as @Zoomjer.  Also, @ChrisLaBossiere provided this information from the Calgary Sun while retweeting elements of the info above.

However, I believe the perpetrator heard the Amber Alert because he left the little girl in Evansburg, Alberta, a town 100km west of Edmonton.  Thank goodness she’ll be alright!  Now we all have to turn our attention to finding the scumbag who took the little girl.  In this case, the Amber Alert probably applied enough pressure on this coward, low-life, child molesting psychopath by providing everyone listening with a good vehicle and physical description.

Time and time again I’m living through instances where Twitter is used as a communications tool to reach people in a time of need.  If you passed on this information today while on Twitter, cheers to you and well done.