In the words of organizers: MediaCamp Edmonton is a conference aimed at getting journalists and other storytellers together with technology developers to learn new skills, understand more about each other’s worlds, and find ways to work together, and honestly, it did not disappoint.

With coffee in hand, 100 people settled in for what turned out to be an informative and very motivating day at the World Trade Centre.   

There were two options (Learn it! Or Discuss it!) for every session, kicking the day off with Mack Male-@mastermaq covering Intro to Data, and Brittney Le Blanc- @britl  and Jay Palter- @jaypalter speaking to Self Branding and Online Conversation not only imperative to the Edmonton Social Media scene, but most facets of our lives.  Putting ourselves out there is good, lands us jobs, stories and friends and any Google mentions add to your brand.  Jay shared this well received quote: Personal Brand is what people say about you when you leave the room ~Jeff Bezos.

Todd Babiak @babiak  presented What it Takes to get a Developer’s Story Out: filled with much insight, and resonating with the entire group.  Challenged to be professionally curious, he reminded us that we can only start the story once.

Curating the Story was a hands on lesson on Storify http://storify.com/ and included a Tamara Stecyk- @TamaraStecyk displaying her Storify on Walter Schwabe’s – @fusedlogic Social Media Breakfast #SMBYEG Prezi  and video http://storify.com/TamaraStecyk/edmonton-social-media-breakfast-january-27-2012

Almost as fascinating as the presenters, were the attendees, and networking opportunities were abundant.  Always great to put a face to the twitter handle AND find new tweeps to follow.  Meeting Maureen O’Reilly a Creative Catalyst of http://www.mordirections.com  was a personal highlight of the event.

Missed out on the popular session by Dana DiTomaso- @danaditomaso titled Make Google your Friend AKA Demystifying SEO & Analytics? Do not fear as she will be a guest speaker at BlogWest in March! http://blogwest.ca/

This only touches on what was learned at MediaCamp Edmonton, for a recap check out http://mediacampedmonton.ca/news/  Kudos to the organizers of this fine event!

Bobbi Cullum @RealTurkeyLady

I’m still formulating some thoughts on my presentation approach.  I’m leaning towards doing our own version of a “Tweetchat” as my actual presentation rather than go the standard presentation route.  Communicating key points about socialTV in the form of 10 questions in which the audience can participate directly by answering via Twitter.  There’s no wrong or right answer, everyone  on Twitter contributes to the overall conversation, as well as, in the room.

Example:

Using such hashtags as #smbyeg #socialtv we can encourage other social tv curious/enthusiasts to join in, probably from the East coast primarily…

I will post 10 questions, one at a time on the big screen for those in the audience who’d like to share on twitter, see the following.  

Q1: How would you describe SocialTV? #smbyeg #socialtv

A1: TV’s that talk nicely…:) #smbyeg #socialtv

Everyone can answer on their own if they choose, again using the hashtags for the tweetchat…

In between each question and answer I’ll fill in details, and my thoughts with images and other goodies to keep things interesting.  After all, more than just being the eye candy, I’ve got a job to do.

The audience members in the room who are not on Twitter still get to participate directly by being there, using the microphone if they choose when I open the floor up to comments.

Also, as everyone who’s ever been to a Social Media Breakfast in Edmonton knows, there are prizes offered up, and everyone in attendance get’s a chance to win one of 3 or 4 great prizes available.  In the past, this has usually been in the form a an on the fly quiz by the presenter.  This of course, falls to me this time around. 

I must honestly say at this moment I’m stuck, and could sure use some help on how to make the prize giveaways unique…I suppose we could have people guess the color of each other’s underwear…on second thought…any suggestions?

All in all, I’ve got a Prezi nearly ready to go if we decide not to go the Tweetchat route, but I like pushing things out of my comfort zone and that of the audience whenever possible and this relaxed, social media savvy crowd may just be the right formula…

What do you think?  Please vote here in the comments…Prezi or tweetchat, along with any thoughts you might have…  

Also, please don’t forget to give this a G+ hit and share it with others who might want to attend the event. 

Social Media Breakfast Edmonton #13 tickets here while they last. 

Interestingly, this issue touches on a few points I think you’ll find interesting.

1.) Many get excited about the technology first.  This isn’t really a “twitter” issue, despite being the primary social technology platform used for communication in this case.  Evidence within the sentiment of this online discussion state it’s a “moral” issue for many.  ”Do you like drunk driving?  Do you want drunks on the road?  No, then don’t tweet locations.”  Based on retweet evidence within the #yegtraffic and #checkstop hashtags on Twitter, this is the majority sentiment, punctuated by Lindsey Robin.

The response is ghost accounts created simply to tweet #checkstop locations, and snub those who speak out against the practice.  As with different issues in the past, this inevitable pattern persists. 

2.) Another popular but minority sentiment stated, is that since it appears to be acceptable to broadcast photo-radar locations (which are provided in advance to print media by policing services) that it should be acceptable to broadcast checkstop locations.   As always, what you tweet reflects on who you are, and what you stand for.     

Social media etiquette

With respect to protecting your brand and business here’s a tip.  Always remember to provide recognition for someone else’s work if you’re going to reference it or try to benefit from it.  

For example, if we were going to create a video in the hopes of generating awareness for our brand.  Say in this case, a video about this checkstop discussion.  First, we wouldn’t want the message to appear as if we had really been the first ones to recognize a pattern of behaviour, because in reality, it was CTV.  The professional thing to do is to give credit, and reference those who did the original heavy-lifting. 

Credit here is due to CTV Edmonton and Sean Amato for first identifying the discussion and doing a segment on it. (Disclaimer: a segment that I was in)  Anyone who positions themselves as being ahead of the curve on this issue, and doesn’t give CTV recognition for doing the ground work is suspect at best.  Common courtesy and etiquette should always come first.  Not providing credit or recognition says something negative about your brand.  If you see this tactic being used, my recommendation is to stay away.  

Once again, my sincerest thanks to all of those too many to count who retweeted me on the weekend for thanking CTV Edmonton about their efforts to raise awareness of this issue.  I believe this entire issue serves as an important reminder to be responsible in our decisions, whether that’s when consuming alcohol, tweeting or conducting business.      

This means that through this special COSSD video service as provided by fusedlogicTV, customers can now generate a unique looking video right from their office and desk using Skype with excellent production value.  This service immediately increases the effectiveness of businesses in the Alberta energy sector once they realize, and understand how rapidly they can create high production value videos in order to increase brand awareness online.

Alberta energy sector businesses can use this service for direct and immediate communications with investors, sales and marketing, employee recruitment and labour relations, crisis communications and a lot more.

We’re excited at what this new MOU and business relationship with JuneWarren-Nickle’s Energy Group represents in terms of new services.  JWN customers are going to enjoy having access to cutting-edge digital video production, and how it will help them communicate to their global customer base in new ways.  

Have a look at a couple of COSSD focused examples of this new video production service now available to all COSSD customers.

The first video demonstrates the possibilities with an interview style, on-camera host and virtual set.

In this next video, Rob Pentney, Director of Sales for JWN demonstrates how a customer using Skype at their desk can host their very own video segment.

Contact the team at JuneWarren-Nickle’s COSSD to book your video production project.

I’ve been thinking about this today as I listen and watch Jeff Pulver’s 140 Conference in New York or #140confNYC.  However, “humanization” has been on my mind for a while now.  

Do people really want to peer behind the curtains here at fusedlogic?  I know our competitors do, but what about clients?  I know they do too.  How about our audience on fusedlogicTV?  Yes, people love to go behind the scenes…  

Does exposing our corporate culture and soul help our brand?  I think it does but what’s more important is do you?  Why is this important to consider?  Well, because we ARE human.  We do business with other humans, our team is human, our friends, fans, followers….well you get the point.  

I’ve also learned that so many brands resist this openness because of a fear of losing credibility but maybe more importantly their perceived control.  I’ve seen our brand grow in general awareness from our work online and offline, our largest gains are when we show our true selves.    

Who is fusedlogic?

fusedlogic, loves to give back to the community.  We love to innovate.  We work very hard for our clients.  We’re honourable, loyal and love to laugh.  Although sometimes, we need to spend more time socializing than staying in the studio.  That’s probably my fault.  I’m introverted by nature.  You might find that odd seeing as I love to speak publicly.  I’ve probably been more introverted these past few months than at any other time in my life.  Now because the fusedlogic brand is so in tune with who I am as the owner that has had an effect.  

How would you describe us?  What has been your experience with us online or else where?  

Community

What does a “humanized brand” mean to you?  To your company, your customers, your friends?  The social web experience is so much more rich when people are genuine.  Community managers who are good at what they do are just every day people who care, and know how get customers or audience members what they need.  They operate in both the social web, and also offline at networking events and they’re often the most human element to your brand online.   They study human behaviour so that they can anticipate needs and be ready to respond.  

To understand this concept better I recommend this valuable post from Charlene Li of Altimeter Group on Socialgraphics. 

Discuss

We have meetings at work about who we are, and who we want to be, not every day but we do.  This is important in a culture where we’re innovating every day, trying to learn something new and experimenting constantly.  Our last major shift was the launch of fusedlogicTV almost a year ago now.  

What about your team?  Do you truly understand internally what you’re all about?  How do you approach this process?  Is it discussed openly or behind closed doors?  

The more human and real you are, the more return on your social media investment.  That’s been our experience anyway. 

Several including Ben Parr at Mashable, and Brian Solis have been quick to respond with blog posts today. That’s great, we love the idea too, which is why I’m blogging about it now.

Having said that, Google is receiving increasing heat today from many who consider this to be a restricted roll-out of the service to a few select brands.  Words like “unfair” are being used…not sure if Google’s Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering was looking for this kind of g+ love when he blogged about the new Branded Pages service on the Official Google Blog today.  The optics of this effort could have been better.  

Here are some of the comments that Ben Parr generated on Google Plus with his post about the Google + introduction today.  Starting with my favourite comment:

Michael F. Feeney  -  Agreed! Premature nerdgasm.

Scott Hilgendorff  -  I was a journalist before the Internet let everyone be a ‘journalist.’ This would be a bad day in the newsroom for making a mistake this big in announcing something that wasn’t actually true yet.

Nick Seabrook  -  What is funny is that you can’t use your business Google/Gmail account to make a G+ Profile [since you have to use a real name - not a business name] to then make a G+ Page for your business. Hope there is a way to use an “admin” account, so to speak!

Stephanie Cañarte  -  Well this is kind of yes we have the pages ready but not quite ready. How much longer can this take google??? Make brand pages available already!

I could have went on all day, the comments are flying.  The sentiment of 99% are negative related to the way Google released information about this service.  For a company filled with incredibly smart people who all had to guess the number of jelly beans in a bus before getting hired, this “introduction” feels like a “limited, exclusive” roll-out for a few premium brands.  That’s what people are saying.  

We all know (except Google it appears) that the innovator group (probably most of all) who first jumped on the Google + platform likes to have instant gratification.  Much of our behavioural patterns today exist simply because we want it our way, and want it now!   

Was this all just a large marketing tease effort by Google?   What’s your opinion?  Let me know on Google + profile or here. 

UPDATE:

As of this afternoon, Google opened up Branded Pages to everyone.  Not sure why the delay but we’ve created a fusedlogic Google Plus Branded Page today.

I, along with about 100 volunteers and members of  the City of Leduc’s Council including Mayor Krischke were very fortunate to have the opportunity to hear Ms. Crooks speak.  

I was really inspired by her talk about her life as an elite athlete, and how volunteers played an incredible role throughout her life in sport.  She credits volunteers, and the time they spent helping kids like her turn into a 5-time Olympian and Canadian silver medalist in track and field.

As part of her presentation she showed a video of Dr. Maya Angelou reciting the poem “Amazement Awaits” while we watched images from a number of Olympiads over the years.  After hearing Dr. Angelou speak, I can see why she has been given over 30 honorary degrees.  The word “inspirational” doesn’t do Dr. Angelou or Ms. Crooks justice.  

Watch the video of Dr. Angelou below. 

What a tough act to follow, however, I was fortunate to have a great crowd stick to take in my presentation on how volunteer organizations in Leduc can use social media.  

As is customary for me I like to take pictures of the audiences as part of my presentations and tonight at the Executive Royal Inn in Leduc was no exception.

Having volunteered as a hockey coach, I understand the nature of why people decide to give back to their community in this way.  Countless hours and a ton of work by so many people, I was honoured to speak about social media. 

This was a packed night of information because after my presentation Brent Collingwood from the UofA School of Business was to present on the roles and responsibilities of volunteer boards.  Thank-you Brent for allowing me to take 5 minutes of your time. 

Overall the evening was terrific, I met great people, had a great dinner, and was inspired by the great presenters.  I’d like to thank the City of Leduc for the invitation to speak at their special event.

What about your volunteer organization?  Does it use social media effectively?  If not, feel free to ask a question.  

The name of the Twitter chat was called #leadfromwithin which was first started by its originator, motivational speaker Lolly Daskal.  I was fascinated and not sure what to expect from this particular chat.  I wasn’t disappointed.  If you’re looking for a philosophical, motivational, inspirational and emotional out pouring of thought, then #leadfromwithin is something you should search on Twitter often and conversation you should join.

My experience was disruptive – in a good way.  So often in business and in life you get caught in the “grind”. This was an hour of group reflection and streaming consciousness.  Seriously!  It was. You may be reading this and think that’s ridiculous and be moving on.  That’s perfectly fine but you’d then be missing the best part.

RoR – in this case I define, not as Return on Relationship as many might think.  In the context of this chat, I only really knew one person, still a great return for sure.  Having said that, my definition in this case is Return on Reflection.  There were so many great tweets that I simply couldn’t include them all in this post.  However, one “really” resonated beyond all the others.

“You are not your circumstances”  - Dr. Steven Eisenberg

It’s been no secret that the last several months have been very difficult for me personally, none of which I’ll highlight here again.  However, the circumstances I have been in have been pretty overwhelming.  This one statement freed me from a ton of personal feelings that I know was holding me back from being myself.  Changing my thought patterns in this instance brought on by this one tweet, and overall twitter chat experience has brought prosperity in the form of new deals this week.  My return on investment of that one hour on twitter will go far beyond these new deals this week.  Far beyond…  

How can you measure the change within a human spirit?  

Thank-goodness I was open to suggestion, none of this would have happened had I’d been closed minded.  Thank-you to all of the contributors of the #leadfromwithin twitter chat tribe.  

Also, a very special thanks to my friend Josepf Haslam for doing what you do.  

Finally, a special heartfelt thank-you to a woman in New York, whom I’ve never met in person, and only to date have had minimal but meaningful exchanges on Twitter with- Lolly Daskal.  A human being with a boundless spirit of inspiration – thank-you.

I started my public speaking career primarily to challenge myself because it scared me.  I did my first business focused presentation approximately 13 years ago, and haven’t look back since.  I constantly look to improve my skills and relish the feedback from audience members.  Especially when I suck, I need to hear it so that I can improve.  That’s part of the business, one should always look to improve, although today’s presentation generally went well.  Despite hearing something negative from an audience member (which is thankfully rare), I love it!  I mean, really love it. 

Today’s presentation on Social TV was unique for three reasons.  One, it’s the first time I’ve presented this particular material on SocialTV, and second, because for the first time I had a public heckler.  Well, atleast my form of a heckler.  During questions, Robert Manolson from the crowd suggested that producing a 5 minute video for a small business owner wasn’t a good thing.  He said it was a “disservice” because we were just handing over the video without any marketing advice, and (essentially leaving the small business owner twisting in the wind) – my words.  

He of course, missed the beginning of the presentation that explained how we would always be willing to help out a business owner in need regarding social media strategies.  How I talked about an integrated approach – “baked in, not bolted on.”  Sure, the price would go up for that advice, depending on what the customer wanted, and that’s business.  The idea is that the customer can choose what level of service they’d like, and we “always” have our clients back!  

Robert rated my presentation on meet-up as not being relevant for the business owner audience in the room.  Well, I believe all businesses should consider social media, video production, and an integrated approach to marketing, while keeping up on new trends like socialTV.  Not sure how that’s not relevant.  You can’t please 100% of the people 100% of the time.  I missed the mark with Robert but it also seemed like he just wanted to banter, sometimes that happens.

I’ve included my presentation to give you a chance to review some of the material I presented and make up your own mind. Robert is certainly entitled to publicly state his opinion at the expense of mine, but I believe the presentation went well and it was relevant.  The feed back I received was very positive and supports my statement, there were several follow-up questions.  I also have a stack of business cards to follow-up on which is always positive and a great litmus test overall.  Thank-you everyone, we certainly look forward to doing business with you.  

Oh yeah, and here’s the third!  I soft launched a new price for fusedlogicTV video production services.  

$199.00 for 5 minutes of studio time.  (some restrictions may apply)  For more information contact us. 780-640-9339 or info@fusedlogic.com 

I’d like to thank everyone who attended my presentation, it was great to have a packed house of enthusiastic business owners.

Here’s the presentation in case you’d like to review it.  Enjoy and please let us know what you think…   

Evone points out a point of view that’s unfortunately all to prevalent among citizens and elected officials and administrations.  Rather than seek to understand the true impact of Open Government, large assumptions are made about losing control and the case is closed before it begins.

As is our style, we’re also opening up the show to questions from the online audience and are encouraging Albertans to post questions on our Facebook fanpage that we will look to include in the show and pose to Doug Horner.

This show is not an endorsement of Doug Horner or any one candidate that may appear, we’re simply providing Albertans with an opportunity to learn more about each candidate that appears, and an opportunity for you to ask a question or two…

What do you think about education, healthcare, energy, the environment or anything else that’s happening in Alberta.  Post a question…

Who is Minister Cadieux?

Stephanie Cadieux

Stephanie Cadieux serves as Minister of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government, having been appointed on March 14, 2011. She formerly served as the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. Stephanie was elected MLA for Surrey-Panorama in the 2009 general provincial election.

Stephanie resides as chair of the of the Cabinet Committee on Open Government and Engagement. Formerly, she servied on the Special Committee to Appoint an Information and Privacy Commissioner, and is also a member of Agenda and Priorities Committee, the Select Standing Committees on Health and on Children and Youth and the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Living with a spinal cord injury since a car crash at the age of 18, she became a strong community advocate for programs to assist people with physical disabilities to achieve their goals and regain independence. In 2007, Stephanie worked with 2010 Legacies Now to develop an Accessible Tourism Plan for BC.

Stephanie worked with the BC Paraplegic Association for eight years, most recently as director of marketing and development. She has been an active community volunteer and was the president of Realwheels Society, Ambassador for the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation, as well as a member of the advisory panel and a researcher with International Collaboration On Repair Discoveries (ICORD).

Stephanie was voted one of Business in Vancouver’s Top 40 under 40, in 2007.

Stephanie has lived Surrey for seven years with her husband and enjoys sailing and travel.

This will be an honour, and a great opportunity to learn more about where her portfolio and indeed the Government of British Columbia is in its effort to continue increasing transparency, collaboration and operating as a platform for British Columbians and Canadians.  For background, here is a press release from Premier Christy Clark and Minister Cadieux on Open Data and their new direction.  You can also review the BC government’s Open Data website and blog.

Who should watch Gov2TV?  Citizens concerned about government efficiency regardless of their country of origin.  Political leaders and administrators looking to learn about the latest news within the Open Government movement and mainstream media should also watch for story ideas.

Questions for the Minister?

Please add them here, or join our chat room at fusedlogic.tv/live this Thursday live and we’ll look to add them to the show.

If your government is doing something interesting in the Open Government area, please let us know so we can have a chance of featuring it on Gov2TV.

Many in business spend their days talking about social media.  Sure we talk about it too.  We also use it in a very targeted way to build business.  Many people spend all day being “social media rockstars,” building up their own account numbers.  We spend time tending to our relationships, when we can….but we’d never call ourselves “rockstars.”  Thankfully, a lot of the time we’re doing client work, and using the power of social media to drive new opportunities and revenue for them and us.

Using Linkedin, I reached out to some key people in the Alberta Oil and Gas sector.  The ensuing conversation via LinkedIn led to Skype calls and discussions of potential social media and live streaming projects for fusedlogicTV.  Which brings me to my quick trip to Calgary to meet with a few different firms at the Gas and Oil Expo and Conference on the Calgary Stampede grounds.

Steve Zurakowski from Dynamic Vision (shown above on the left) appeared on “A Brilliant Idea Every 60 Seconds” on fusedlogicTV a week ago.

Once again, social media has enabled me to reach out in ways I never could have in the past, it’s an absolutely critical business development tool for fusedlogic.  Building relationships in person is incredibly important, social media opens doors, and draws us closer in between face to face meetings across Alberta and beyond.  Today I met with people from Dubai, China, Calgary, Ft. McMurray and Halifax, all from a simple “inmail” within LinkedIn and within the next week or two we should be announcing a very exciting and major new global project.

After walking around the exhibition and meeting with a couple of clients, I ended up at the Xtreme Hot Oil and Pressure Service tent for a tasty beverage.  Frankly, they had the tunes cranked up after the Expo closed at 5pm.  I like these guy’s style and I was like a moth to a flame.

Due to the fact that this new business relationship isn’t quite signed off on yet, I won’t mention all the folks I met with today. However, in one case, we’ve agreed to announce a new powerful global relationship very soon.  Stay tuned and thank-you for your support…

The signs they are a changing.  Secretly, many Strathcona County employees have been chomping at the bit to start Facebook fan pages, YouTube channels, twitter accounts, LinkedIn profiles and blogs.

This is terrific and yes, it’s clearly early days for the County, and it’s exploration of social media.  However, this shows a small cultural shift internally towards what I hope is the foundation of a more digitally engaged Strathcona County community.

How do we get there?  Simple, we connect on and offline.  We hold events like this social media workshop in Council Chambers tonight that I’ve been invited to participate in by Councillor Roxanne Carr.  Thank-you Councillor Carr this is going to be fun.

Keys to building the Strathcona County community online.

1.) Train everyone! If people don’t understand why they should engage online, where the value is for doing so, they won’t.  Proper training will empower people.

2.) Self-organize. Don’t wait for Strathcona County employees to drive this initiative.  Come together offline at regular tweetups and meetups to connect with your community and then follow-up online.  The County employees should look to attend.

3.) Tell stories in your own way.  You may like photography like I do, so you may want to use Flickr as your photo-sharing hub.  Many simply use Facebook for this purpose.  Look at your world from these four primary content areas.

Text:
Micro-blogging http://www.twitter.com
Blogging http://www.wordpress.com
Presentations http://www.slideshare.net
Document collaboration http://docs.google.com/
Bookmarks http://delicious.com

Images:
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.facebook.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/

Video:
http://www.youtube.com
http://www.vimeo.com
http://www.viddler.com/
http://qik.com/

Audio:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com
http://www.podbean.com/

Social Media Sources:
Alltop http://social-media.alltop.com/
Mashable http://mashable.com/
Readwriteweb http://www.readwriteweb.com/
emarketer http://www.emarketer.com/
Techcrunch http://techcrunch.com/
gigaom http://gigaom.com/

And of course, http://www.fusedlogic.com and http://www.fusedlogic.tv

4.) Develop an Open Strathcona County Framework. Open Government is the next step, using social media doesn’t constitute an Open Government.  Collaborative discussions on this should begin right away.  I hate to say it because the word “camp” is so overused, however, “County Camp” should happen and we should invite folks from the Greater Edmonton area to participate. The purpose of such an “unconference” would be to discuss Open Data here in the County, as well as, a framework for process improvements within government based on case studies from here in Alberta and from around the world.

Here’s the prezi that I presented tonight at the Strathcona County tweetup so that everyone can review.  Thanks for all your questions tonight and contributions to the event.  Great job by Thelma Scammell and the entire Strathcona County Communications team, there’s lots of great things ahead.  It was terrific to meet everyone in person and I look forward to the next event.  Special thanks to CrowdMap.com for their great map on the wildfires in Slave Lake.   This prezi was built from this presentation on slideshare.net.

Pre-Game Warm-up

I went live earlier than expected as we pulled the show together and prepped, while I did this I took time to mention OpenGovWest in Portland, Oregon on May 13th.  Looks like it will be great fun.

OurSay.org and O’Reilly Media

We had Lihn Do, (@lmdo) one of the co-founders of OurSay.org out of Australia Skype in from the United Nations in New York City.  We also had a last minute addition of Alexander Howard, (@digiphile) Gov 2.0 Correspondent for O’Reilly Media out of Washington D.C.

This was a lot of fun, we discussed several things surrounding citizen engagement, showed several examples like OurSay.org, our own futureedmonton.ca, as well as, a post by Alex on a new Online Identity framework brought forward by the United States Federal Government.  We also inserted a video of Chris Moore, City of Edmonton CIO that we shot last year on the topic of Open Data.

We talked about building frameworks in general, and both Lihn and Alex held my feet to fire while clarifying a couple of things on different topics through the show which I appreciated.  I did mention that I would like to see more transparency from our provincial government in this area, but the point I was trying to make about old school methods and new methods got mixed up a bit, it wasn’t my best delivery I must say and I’ll work harder next time to get it right.

That said, I emphasized the need for an Open Government framework here in Alberta and wished we had a Minister of Open Government just like the Province of British Columbia.

All in all, I think it set the foundation for a great series moving forward.  The feedback has been very positive thus far, and I’m looking forward to next week when we’ll have even more great contributors on the show and lot more to discuss.

Oh and I almost forgot to tell you, our inaugural episode will be translated into Portuguese by a team led by Francisco Cavalcante, CIO for the municipality of Fortaleza, Brazil.

Here’s his tweet.

Despite the bad res on the above instagram and the expected long wait time to get the badge all went really smoothly.  Now this was in no small part due to meeting my new found Austin friends.  First up is @JoeyMcGirr, who I first shared a chat with on Twitter prior to heading south.  We agreed to touch base once I got on the ground and set-up a coffee meeting this morning before standing in line for our sxswi badges.  As there was no conference shuttle running today, I was on my own for transpo and Joey immediately volunteered to come pick me up.  Such a cool thing to do, so obviously I had to buy coffee at the very least.  The line-up was great I was able to meet @abbisiler from Arkansas and @laughlinjames from Austin.  Coincidently, James told me about his new start-up mycod.es which launched into public beta yesterday.  The company will allow QR code creators to “redirect” or repurpose existing codes instead of having to generate new ones all the time.

Just before leaving for the ATX Start-up Crawl

While sitting at the Chevy Volt power up centre, I introduced myself to Orian Marx, the head of a new start-up called Siftee out of NYC.  He asked me not to elaborate on what he was doing but did share a private beta experience with me and let me say, I love his Twitter related app.  After that fascinating chat it was time for some @srcasm or Jesse Middleton, another NYC native who’s a part of another supercool start-up called GetMinders.com. GetMinders will help everyone remember their meds and medical needs, this is really well positioned as our population grows older and more tech savvy.  He was actually down at sxswi as part of #hashable’s contingent.  I was quickly introduced to many hashable users including the CEO Mike Yavonditte.  This is what your profile looks like on hashable.  I would describe this as a person to person connection engine, and the top connector is the man in the hat speaking with Mike in the image above.  Josepf Haslam, a very friendly guy, who helped organize a group of us for the ATX Start-up Crawl.

First up was 3-D Porch and moodfish.com, stereowagon.com all working to carve their piece of the net up.

It was nice to also touch base with Michele Price, but you may know her as @prosperitygal on Twitter.  We had a nice chat but as I was checking out the first location on the crawl, she and some others stopped for a bite to eat, we’ve agreed to touch base again later this week.

While on the crawl shuttle, the girl to the left in the picture was taking a picture with her friend, and Amber Osborne (a.k.a. @missdestructo) photobombed these folks.  She’s also a game piece in a local meet-meme.com scanvenger hunt and the photobomb is listed as her superpower.  Indeed!  I’ve set a goal to try to photobomb her during the conference if the opportunity presents itself.  We’ll have to see, she’s a cagey veteran at this…

This is a very large bird’s nest meeting room at Smiley Media, an ad network in the Omni center here in Austin.  Great offices, notice all the smiley stress balls on the floor, they were everywhere.

I had a short stop at Mutual Mobile who are some custom app developers with Google, Audi and others as clients, and then it was off to Gowalla HQ.

I wasn’t able to speak with CEO Josh Williams about our missed chance to have him on my radio show as he was busy with other folks but it was fun to see the offices and meet some of the folks.

My thanks to all the companies who put on a great party during the ATX Start-up Crawl here at South by Southwest Interactive.  That was a terrific first day on the ground here in Austin.

The official day one of the conference and here’s my vantage point at the moment.

So far I’ve met 22 people on my quest to get as close to 200 as I can.  Sorry if I missed you in this post, but I’ll usually really good at following up after a conference.  So if you’re interested in having a conversation or meeting here at sxswi this is me – @fusedlogic. Reach out on twitter…have any great stories or blogs to share about your experience here, I’d love to seem them, leave a comment and a link…

Walter Schwabe speaks with Robert Scoble or Scobleizer as many refer to him as.  Walter asks Robert about LeWeb10, Mozilla, MySpace and many more including his top apps for 2010.  The Internutt talks about “social skills.”

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There were 21 blog posts created in 7 days, 15 of which were created on the day of the event. These posts generated 42 comments in total. It’s worth noting that the count would have been even higher had the blog not crashed on an account of overwhelming activity.

A user by the name of cfedoruk submitted a short post to the blog that suggests being open as a key ingredient to moving past adversarial exchange. It’s worth a read.

Another user, tklassen, wrote on David Eaves’ opening remarks. Janis Lacouvee simply submitted a post on what she brings to the #ogwbc table as a citizen.

We are really pleased with the diversity in the blogs posts and couldn’t be happier with its overall success.  This demonstrates that the community (who really in essence owns this blog) through each post has demonstrated a willingness to take action, share and communicate ideas.  This is such a terrific example of what is possible.

Something else caught our eye. The number of people on Twitter using the #ogwbc hashtag on the day of the event. There were 205 of them, in fact, and we’ve put a Twitter list together so you can follow all their brilliance.

Thank you to everyone who continues to participate on the blog…

Walter Schwabe talks about meetup.com and the concept of self-organization with local Edmonton meetup organizers Les Michaelson and Dave Yadlee.  Also, Walter discusses what happened during his shared keynote with Nick Charney at Open Gov West BC in Victoria, British Columbia.  The Internutt speaks about Facebook deactivations and Evan (the appman) Adnams reviews Instagr.am

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The State of Search is the topic and Walter Schwabe speaks with Sabrina Geremia, Head of Agency Relations for Google Canada about the inner workings of Google.  He asks a big question about “Google Me,” and includes questions from Twitter users @lonesomebilydad, @dandromarsky, @brendanC_86 @dheuman @DynamitePR @Zoomjer as well.  To learn more about search from an SEO industry expert, Walter also speaks with Rand Fishkin, CEO for SEOmoz about trends in the space.

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Walter Schwabe speaks with Shawna Randolph, spokesperson from the Edmonton Humane Society about how their nonprofit is using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate more effectively.

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The first method I mention is Google Alerts.  Staying in touch with a topic that’s important to you in this way can help you be better informed and positioned ahead of your competitors in business or just keep up with current trends.  Follow this link to set-up one or more alerts.

The second method I speak about with Jacqueline is about Twitter.  Many people would like to know more about Twitter but do not want to join the micro-blogging platform in order to learn.  Although there’s little to be afraid of, I provide a way for you to observe conversations on Twitter without an account.  If you head to search.twitter.com you can search just about anything, and then see what types of things are being said while at the same time identifying the sentiment of those comments as well.  I quickly referenced that Twitter uses something called a “hashtag” to organize conversations.  For example, #yeg represents the majority of conversation related to Edmonton on Twitter.  For more information on hashtags, the searchenginejournal has a pointed post about them.

Now if this segment has peaked your interest and you’d like to know about even more solutions, Mashable.com has a post that outlines “brand monitoring” and offers some more ideas or you can contact us directly and we’d be happy to help you out.

Thank-you very much for watching the segment on ShawTV.  Also mentioned in the interview was “Getting Social with Schwabe,” Canada’s only radio show dedicated to social media.  You can listen to past episodes here on our site, download them on iTunes and listen to upcoming shows airing Saturday mornings at 7am on The Team1260.

Walter Schwabe talks about measurement and the impact social media has on every day users.  This episode includes interviews with Stephanie Hayes and Ryan Hastman as a result of them responding to Walter on Twitter

A special thanks to Dorward and Company.

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Right To Know Week provides us with the backdrop for a discussion with Robert Giggey, Client Relationship Manager for the City of Ottawa about a recent announcement made by the city.  Walter Schwabe also talks about the Right To Know conference and the implications of Open Government and the releasing of data.

Your outsourced CFO is a click away at Dorward and Company.

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The municipal election extravaganza.  Walter Schwabe talks with 9 different candidates about their use of social media within their campaign for this 2010 election.  What they’re using, how they’re using it, and any impact social media may be having on their ability to generate votes.

Your outsourced CFO is a click away at Dorward and Company.

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Tim Hay, writer for Dow Jones VentureWire and producer of a blog for the Wall Street Journal talks with Walter Schwabe about the mobile space, and location-based apps and what he learned at AppNation.  The Internutt talks about the pros and cons of letting people know about your location and Evan Adnams walks us through such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Get Glue.

Visit your outsourced CFO at Dorward and Company Chartered Accountants.

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Government 2.0 evangelist Adriel Hampton is on the show to help everyone better understand how this is changing how government is using Web 2.0 technologies.

A continued special thanks to Dorward and Company Chartered Accountants for sponsoring the show.

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Women are influential, but in what ways?  Tamara Plant, Founder and Publisher of MOMMagazine.ca is on the show to speak about her unique brand of Mom focused digital publishing and community building.  The Internutt speaks about how men and women communicate online and Evan Adnams explains the impact of Google Analytics.

We would also like to thank our new show sponsor Dorward and Company Chartered Accountants for their support, they really are great people.  I’ve also learned that this team will act as your outsourced CFO, that’s a very unique service.

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“I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically.”

This got me thinking. Do we NEED paper books anymore. Certainly there is a nostalgia in walking into a room full of books, the smell of a library, or in the art that is publishing. However, as Seth asserts, is it all just a bit outdated now?

This story may seem like an old one; people have been predicting the end of traditional publishing for years now. What makes this different is that Seth Godin is more than just another blogger or pundit. He is a best selling author with more than 12 books to his name. He, if anyone is a person you would expect to be supporting the traditional print media industry. Instead he has come out and been soundly supporting a move towards a digital future for the publishing industry and for authors.

As Seth states:

“I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread. “

And I certainly can see his point, books are not easy.  They take a huge amount of time to publish, they are not something that one can do overnight or in a few hours. With the way the world is today, we need overnight. It is a side effect of the digital age, information can be updated and changed on a moments notice. Ideas and information a few hours old can already be out of date. This is exactly the reason that people like Seth are now signaling the demise of the traditional book.

New technology such as the Amazon Kindle and the Apple iPad among the other e-book readers, which have made great leaps in usability and content have only increased the pressure on traditional publishing. It is impossible for me to ignore the impact being made by these devices when I ask the same questions that Seth seems to be asking about the future of the paper book.

So the question to you is, are hardcopy books a thing of the past? Do you agree with Seth Godin that we are moving to a society without traditional publishers?  Are you already a part of the digital publishing revolution?

To hear more from Seth Godin including a review of his book – Tribes, tune into Getting Social with Schwabe for his interview with Walter Schwabe this Saturday at 7:00 am on TEAM 1260, or if you prefer to listen now, as a Podcast here on our site or on iTunes.

Walter Schwabe talks “Tribes” with Seth Godin, the Internutt explains his version of the “who’s who in social media” and Evan Adnams showcases wordpress as his recommended blogging platform.

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Retail is an incredibly competitive landscape, in this episode Walter Schwabe speaks with Jay Myers, Lead Web Development Engineer out of Best Buy headquarters in Richfield Minnesota about the Semantic technologies he and his team have embedded within BestBuy.com to improve your online shopping experience.  Retailers of all sorts and sizes won’t want to miss this interesting show about how the retail industry is changing as a result of the social web.

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Exploring how associations use social media, Walter Schwabe speaks with Maddie Grant from Social Fish, a social media consulting firm specializing in working with associations.  Also, interviewed is Lina Hoffbauer, Project Coordinator with Alberta Senior Citizens Housing Association.

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The inaugural show of Getting Social with Schwabe covers off some interesting points and includes great interviews with Chris Moore, Chief Information Officer for the City of Edmonton, and Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club in San Francisco.  There’s also My Big App with Evan Adnams who reviews a new indie game called “Funnergunner” by Fluik Entertainment, and the Internutt who provides his take on “fails.”

Our thanks to our sponsor Yardstick Software

Please provide us with show ideas and feedback by sending us an email: radio@fusedlogic.com

Thanks for listening.

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“Getting Social With Schwabe”, a radio program focused on social media debuts Saturday, August 7th, on The TEAM 1260 in Edmonton with host, Walter Schwabe, Chief Evolution Officer of fusedlogic

“We wanted to create a program about social media that everyone could relate to — a show that informs, educates and entertains”, says Walter Schwabe, the show’s host.  Guests on the debut show include Chris Moore, Chief Information Officer of the City of Edmonton, and Chris Heuer, founder of the Social Media Club out of San Francisco.  The show will also be archived and streamed from www.fusedlogic.com.

Yardstick Software, a leading provider of online training and testing systems in North America, stepped up to sponsor the first 6 shows, which will air through September. “ We liked the premise and thought that there was a nice fit for Yardstick in the program.  We’re very excited”, says Greg Kurelek, Yardstick’s VP of Sales and Marketing.

For inquiries, please contact Walter Schwabe at radio@fusedlogic.com 780-640-9339

Click Here to get access

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 12, 2010

Edmonton – Internationally acclaimed psychic, Chip Coffey, will be interacting online with fans on May 6, 2010 in an exclusive pay-per-view event, in partnership with Trixstar Productions and fusedlogic inc, Coffey will be answering audience questions via chat and Skype in an online live-streaming two-hour show.

In addition to his psychic abilities, Coffey is also a paranormal investigator, lecturer, and writer. He has been featured on numerous television programs, specifically Paranormal State and Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal, both on A&E Network.

“I’m really looking forward to interacting with my fans! This is the first time I’ve ever done a live webcast,” exclaimed Chip Coffey.

This one-time event will launch Coffey’s Canadian tour, which begins May 7 in Edmonton at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. This tour is part of the Edmonton-based Trixstar Production’s “Behind The Icon” series. Trixstar has previously worked with Coffey and fellow cast-mate from Paranormal State, Ryan Buell, for a different Behind the Icon event.

“It’s great to be working with Chip again. I’m excited to be able to give fans a unique online experience with Chip, thanks to fusedlogic,” said Mike Anderson, Executive Producer, of Trixstar Productions.

“Being chosen by Trixstar Productions to provide this unique live-streaming experience with Chip Coffey is extremely exciting. We anticipate that Chip’s fans, and those of A&E’s Paranormal State, are really going to enjoy this,” stated Walter Schwabe, Chief Evolution Officer, of fusedlogic inc.

Interview inquiries for Chip Coffey can be made through Mike Anderson at Trixstar Productions.

About Trixstar Productions

Trixstar Productions is a full spectrum event production company specializing in Celebrity Engagements.

Contact:

Mike Anderson, Executive Producer

Trixstar Productions

mike@trixstar.ca

http://www.trixstar.ca

780.478.1566

About fusedlogic inc.

fusedlogic is one of Canada’s leading social media engagement and Web 2.0 strategy firms, also specializing in high-quality live-streaming web events.

Contact:

Walter Schwabe, CEO

fusedlogic inc.

walter@fusedlogic.com

http://www.fusedlogic.com

780-640-9339

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.

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.”

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.

In the spirit of sharing some business news during Small Business Week (and condensing posts because I’m so busy lately,) here’s some interesting new information for you.  Some of you may remember a video I shot earlier this year with Peter Urban of Smibs (featured below.)  At the time, SmibsNet (a collaboration and networking software for businesses) wasn’t ready for public beta.   That all changed last Tuesday with the launch of the public beta and Peter asked me while on Twitter the other day if I’d blog about it.  Peter provided me with a personal invite to sign-up for the beta and fusedlogic is now listed on the site.  This software is very cool and helps to solve the business development collaboration issue that many companies have.  I suggest that you consider signing up and trying it out.

Sidenote: Peter did agree to call me so I could asked him some specific questions as prep for a more in- depth blog post but if you know Peter, he’s hard working and a beta takes a lot of effort.  I’m sure he wasn’t going out of his way to ignore me.   Besides we bump into each other all the time at events and around the neighborhood.  Maybe he’ll bring his SmibsTV crew down the Web 2.0 meetup and present SmibsNet there on Nov 6th.   Below is the video interview with Peter some months ago on Whyte Ave in Edmonton.

Also, Peter if you’re reading this and I know you are, Smibs needs to be a Sherwood Park Chamber member right away…expect me to be relentless on this point.

I wanted my next effort to have a key interview or two, providing you the audience with a nice change from my usual self-indulgent approach.  After some thought (environmentalists will be happy to know that no smoke appeared during my thought process), I wanted to reach out to some serious blogging enthusiasts.  One of those picked was Chris Pirillo, the self-proclaimed “geek” behind Gnomedex – a blogging conference to see if he’d be willing to answer a few questions for my article.  Chris replied, “What questions?”  I emailed six questions to him, and they must have offended him as I’m still waiting for a response.  Most likely, though, he’s just very busy.

Having said that, I’m under a deadline, and Barb the editor would have had my guts for garters if I didn’t get a move on.  So as I usually do in these situations, I picked more than one interviewee to touch base with for just such a time-crunch occasion.  So who’s the lucky duck?  None other than Tara “Miss Rogue” Hunt of Horsepigcow.com fame.  Given that she’s in Lisbon at the moment, we opted for an email exchange to save on the cell bill and Skype break-up.  Below is a short excerpt from our email chat.

W: Do you think micro-blogging, in this case, Twitter with it’s growing notoriety is reducing the overall relevancy of the personal blog?

TH: I don’t know if relevancy will be reduced, but, in my case anyway, frequency is reduced. I know a large number of bloggers who post less because they are able to share their ideas quickly and succinctly on Twitter. However, once I’ve had a rigorous conversation on Twitter and ideas come together more coherently, I put them into a blog post. I no longer meander around ideas on my blog. I meander around ideas on Twitter, then post more solid content to my blog. So, in the end, the relevancy is actually increased on my blog because every time I post, it’s been thought out more than it used to be.

W: What are you doing in Lisbon at the moment? Business, a conference?

TH: I’m speaking at SHiFT08: It’s awesome because now that I’ve been on the speaking circuit for 2.5 years, I know many of the other speakers. Brilliant folks. It’s amazing how our ideas start to flow together, too.

The rest of my interview with Miss Rogue will appear in next month’s Edmontonians Magazine edition. I’d like to thank Tara “Miss Rogue” Hunt for her time and responding so promptly from the road during an international event where she’s presenting. A true pro.

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.

Here’s a list of where you can find me in order of who asked first.

“The Art of Marketing without Marketing” – Propel Magazine, shipped today and hits the stands this month and I’ve been asked by David Cree (Publisher) to write for the next issue which is really great.

“Understanding Social Media” – Troy Media Corporation, a series that will deliver interviews with Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Chris Heuer, more here.

“Social Media 101” – Monthly column with the Edmontonians Magazine.

All of the above opportunities were a direct result of social media working in fusedlogic’s favor.  Whether it was the topic itself or through a series of events online that led back to myself and my company, social media came through and continues to do so everyday.  Another example of this is how Twitter has led to my being interviewed for a facebook centric article written by Tannette Johnson-Elie, (@telie on Twitter) a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the articles…are they interesting?  I was asked to provide some high-level perspectives and will definitely delve deeper in upcoming articles.

This is a busy week coming up which is leading into a very busy couple of months.  October is looking like the busiest of 2008 thus far including a trip to Seattle Washington and Winnipeg Manitoba potentially, with November not that far behind.  The first week of Nov, I’m scheduled to speak four times in seven days on social media.  That said, I’m really looking forward being able to speak and engage the diverse audiences…this is really going to be fun.

New team members as mentioned in a previous post are on-board and capacity is increasing substantially which is good because we need it.  More of my articles are scheduled to be published shortly in October including one where I was interviewed for an upcoming article coming out of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Pardon me if I’ve already mentioned this, it’s the cough syrup.  Have a great start to the week.

Also, please feel to comment on our new fusedlogic site.  What do you think?  How could we improve?