Archive for the 'Cool Stuff' Category
Will Vancouver 2010 be the year we put TV to bed?
My husband and I debated intensely over the period of several weeks prior to the Olympics, whether of not we should get a TV. I was dead against it and he only wanted it for a two week period. I reminded him that as a Brit, he might be annoyed by the “Canadian” focused coverage and thus won the argument.
Personally I was a bit blazé about this whole Olympic event. But once it got started, I found myself caught in the whirlwind of excitement. Walking through the city, the buzz just took control of me and I became an immediate fan. We invited ourselves to a few friends place and went to a pubs to watch the events on their TVs, but we couldn’t justified doing this everyday.
To my delight and more importantly my husbands’, we discovered that we could watch most events on the Internet. CTV streamed all of the events including the medal ceremonies. Using my dual monitor set up, I was also able to follow most of the events at work.
As Mhairi wrote a few weeks ago in a post discussing Social Media and the Olympics, this year was also the first “Twitter” Olympics. Using a series of hashtags such as #van2010 and #olympics following the events became quite fun. I was also able to get and share info about the different houses and free venues using Twitter. For example on day 2 of the Olympics, I found out that the queue for the zip line was already 2 hours long an hour before being opened and posted the info on Twitter. A follower thanked me and made different plans for the day. How great is that?
Prior to giving up TV I also stopped my subscription to the newspaper. The only time I ever looked at the sport section was during the Olympics, but now I no longer had that option. Flickr of course came to the rescue. Following the appropriate tags led me to discover fantastic photographers and photography blogs.
I’m not sure that Vancouver 2010 would have been as much fun without the Internet and I didn’t miss having a TV one bit.
Social Media works in mysterious ways
I’ve participated in a few “Ask The Experts” panels in the past few months and couldn’t help but notice that Social Media is quite the hot topic right now. People are very keen in learning how to use Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, etc… Most attendees are curious about how it works, why anyone would invest the time and energy, what’s the ROI and if it’s the right avenue for their business. These are all good questions and there are simply no easy answer. It really depends on who your audience is and where they are.
A funny thing happened to me last Friday which demonstrates how complicated and unpredictable it is to explain the power of Social Media.
I have a Twitter account and follow mostly designers and WordPress developers. This allows me to find out about latest tips, tutorials and website development news. Cameron Moll posted a tweet to a “mesmerizing” YouTube video which caught my attention. I clicked the link and watched a video taken at Kuroshio Sea which is the 2nd largest aquarium in the world.
The video is indeed breathtaking, but I was curious about the music. I watched and listened to the video a couple of times and wanted to find out who was singing. Using my iPhone, I Shazammed it and got the name of the song, band and album. A quick search on YouTube led me to a video of Barcelona singing live in San Diego. I watched a few more videos and decided to visit Barcelona’s page on MySpace. Listened to a few more clips and then I was off to iTunes and bought the album.
I’m not sure that a marketer could have predicted this, but I’m convinced that Social Media is worth investing in.
Open Web Vancouver opens with a Pirate Party and a look at Women in Open Source
I must confess, I wasn’t expecting much from the Open Web Vancouver conference. I read the schedule, and perhaps the strong emphasis on Drupal turned me off, but I didn’t find myself salivating like I do when I go to An Event Apart’s website. And as the saying goes, you pay for what you get; so how good can a $150 conference be? Today’s conference proved me wrong.
This morning’s session was opened by two keynote speakers and left me inspired and eager to learn more about the Open Source community.
The first keynote was given by Rick Falkvinge on one of Sweden’s political party, the Pirate Party, whose platform is to reform laws regarding copyrights and patents and other civil liberties issues. The Pirate Party succeeded in gaining popularity and attention simply by using the Internet and very little money. In fact their campaign budget during the last election consisted of only $50K. As a result of the communication tools and methods they’ve used, they are now the political party with the largest percentage of voters 30 years old and younger. This of course as alarmed other politicians who have never been able to reach out to this age group.
Now that the Pirate Party has secured a seat in the European Parliament, it will be interesting to see if other political parties start discussing issues such as privacy and file sharing. Just like Al Gore has put Global Warming on everyone’s mind, Rick Falvinge is spreading the word about what needs to be done to create a better online world for all of us and he deserved the standing ovation which followed his presentation.
Following this great keynote, came Angie Byron who spoke about Women in Open Source or rather lack of. I was a bit surprised that this topic was chosen and discussed. I’ve been working as a so called “geek” for a over a decade and never experienced any sexism at work or conference and Angie admitted herself that until she started researching the numbers, didn’t think there was a problem either. Turns out the percentage of women in Open Source is staggeringly low. The reasons and solutions that were discussed were obvious and applicable to all minorities, not just women. At least they felt obvious to me, but a few hours later, I read about the incident at Flashbelt’s conference just a few days ago. It seems like a lot of boys think that the saying boys will be boys still stands and should simply be accepted.
Angie provided great advice on how to create a safe and inviting community and how to stop tolerating bullshit. The gem, for me, were her views on contribution to Open Source. Having worked with Open Source during all of my coding years, I’ve realised that I’ve used the stuff, but never really contributed. Providing contribution whether it be marketing, documenting, designing and of course coding, is a great way to empower yourself and feel like you are part of the team.
I look forward to learn more during tomorrow’s event.
Upcoming Social Media Events
One of the many benefits of living in Vancouver is that we have a great community of Social Networking experts. In the next few weeks, there are numerous upcoming seminars and workshops which you may want to attend.
Social Media Marketing Training in Vancouver and Victoria
Capulet Communications are leaders when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Following a very successful workshop at UBC Continuing Education this past winter, they’ve now scheduled two new sessions. The first in Victoria will be on April 30 and Vancouver on May 28. Having heard both Julie and Darren speak on many occasions and having read their eBook Getting to First Base: A Social Media Marketing Playbook, I highly recommend this workshop to anyone interested in learning how to use their blog, twitter, facebook, etc… and raising their visibility online.
Full details on the workshops can be found on their website.
Mental Health Camp
Following a very popular session at this year’s Northern Voice Conference panel session called Coping Digitally, a few passionate bloggers have put together a full day event. The purpose of the event is to discuss the many ways social media and blogging can help remove the stigma of mental illness. Registration for this event is free and will be held on April 25. Full details and a list of speakers can be found on their website.
THIRD TUESDAY APRIL: Tris Hussey
Next Tuesday, April 21, Republic will host this month’s Third Tuesday event. Tris Hussey, Social Media Concierge and New Media Specialist will discuss the importance of getting your message out. He will look at the different ways to get your message out and which ones work best. Third Tuesday events are also free of charge and you can sign up by becoming a member of the meet up group.
Free Easter Bunny Icons at Icon Dock
Just in time for Easter, Icon Dock has released a set of 40 free icons which you can use on your marketing material, blog, etc…
Check out their website for other great icons.
My thoughts about Northern Voice 2009
This year’s Northern Voice was my fourth one and I truly enjoyed it. I’ve never been to Friday’s Moosecamp and missed it again this year, opting to catch up on a never-ending to-do list. I heard that Stewart Butterfield’s Keynote was very good. Luckily for me and all of you who couldn’t make it, the sessions were taped and the videos will be posted on the website once the organizing committee has had time to make their final touches.
The wonderful thing about Northern Voice is that it’s very informal. You won’t find any big wigs walking around with chips on their shoulder. Everyone is friendly and easy to talk to. While the subject of social media is not new to me and generally I’m hearing stuff that I already know, once in a while I find out about a few things that make me go “hmm, I didn’t know that”. For example, I didn’t know what a sock puppet was and even though I was told to check out Radio 3 on CBC years ago, I never did, and Steve Pratt reminded me why I should.
Attending conferences, takes a lot of time, costs money and can be exhausting, but I find the following benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
- I always leave each conference with new ideas and renewed energy.
- I love to see how great speakers behave in front of the audience. Brianna Tomkinson and David Eaves gave exceptional well articulated presentations.
- There’s always someone who makes me laugh and this year, Rob Cottingham’s keynote was hilarious yet insightful.
- I always meet new people who share the same interest.
- I don’t always, but often connect with old friends.
- I’m reminded of things that were on my to-do list and never got around to.
Seeing how people use social media in every day life to help a group of kids and hearing how traditional companies are daring to break the rules proved very inspiring and I hope to see more examples of these next year.
The folks behind Northern Voice have asked for feedback and all I can say is keep up the great work. Your conference is always exceptional and well worth making time for.
Vote for Cindy Willick for the Best Job in the World
As soon as Queensland launched their global search for candidates for the “Best Job in the World“, applications have been streaming in. With only 2 days left to apply for the job of “island caretaker”, it’s now time to vote.
My dear friend Cindy Willick submitted her video application and is asking for support. I’ve known Cindy for a very long time and can’t imagine a better person for the job. Have a look at her video and cast your vote.
WordPress TV is a great place for tutorials and demo
Earlier this year the folks at Automattic launched www.WordPress.tv, which is a new website to learn about all things WordPress. I just had a quick look and it looks like the list of videos is quite extensive (Click the how-to link for the list of videos. Personally I’m not sure this tab is appropriately labeled, but hey, I found the list.) The site also has a WordCampTV section where you can watch videos, slides and listen to audio clips.
This site is definitely worth bookmarking and investigating further.
Registration for Northern Voice 2009 is now open
This year’s Northern Voice organizers have kicked the doors open for registration. This will be my third year attending and I highly recommend it to anyone wishing to learn more about blogging and social media. If you are at all interested in attending, I would encourage you to register soon, as past conferences have sold out in a matter of days.
Hope to see you there.
Animator vs Animation
In the web world flash is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. Certain sites do benefit from animation while others just don’t. Regardless of what you may think, you have to admire the animators who create this stuff. The following video is a great example of the creativity that’s out there. …And if you’ve ever had to work with flash, you may relate to the experience.
Enjoy and happy holiday.
Disclaimer — There’s an übber cheesy commercial before the video… Who comes up with this crap?