I am currently in a ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel on West Hastings street to hear a talk from the Vancouver Board of Trade about “communicating via social media” in the non-profit sector in a series called Tough Talk for Tender Causes.
If it seems slightly foreign for an entity such as the Board of Trade to be holding such new media event, fear not – today’s panel consists of some familiar faces such as: Michael Allison, Steve Jagger, and John Starkey along with moderator Colleen Coplick.
Photo credit:
Tris on Flickr
Michael is up first, with “reasons why I believe you should be learning about social media.” I first met Michael through Twitter although he’s well versed in the realm of traditional PR. He addresses corporate messaging tactics and notes that blasting a news release to bloggers isn’t the way to go, “at best they may ignore you, at worst – they could call you out or flag you as spam.” His three talking points are, “the changing media landscape, reputation management, and culture.” He says that by using social media for these reasons you can become a leader in your field.
Photo credit:
Tris on Flickr
Steve is the second speaker and he’ll talk about how his companies use Twitter to, “create new business, find new clients, and keep in touch with existing clients.” He notes about how they are a “virual company” working out of coffee shops and holding their seminars at Ceilis Irish Pub. The challenges they face revolve around communication and this is where Twitter comes in.
With regards to non-profits he mentions a few times when someone mentioned the UGM in a negative way and how the Union Gospel Mission itself is on Twitter and was able to defend their position and also clarify some of the information being discussed.
Steve is actually explaining Twitter very well – probably the best description of the tool I’ve ever heard in terms of informing non-tech non-web people what it does. After each example he says, “send” just to get the point across about how these are short bursts, short messages.
Photo credit:
Tris on Flickr
The final speaker is John Starkey who, after looking at his bio, is also involved with DreamBank (something that I have used and promoted this past summer). He notes that social media tool are, “things that should be very considered very seriously,” when it comes to raising funds and awareness for your cause. “These tools do not replace traditional means but they’re a great way to enhance and compliment them.” John also states that you do not need a big budget for a lot of these tools. “Trust, credibility, and a relationship with those that interact with your content,” is paramount. Some of his tips include, “know when to moderate, get your staff involved, create tags, post contests, make things personal, give them a reason to participate.” In other words, be engaging when you’re using social media – that’s the point of it all, really. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
First things first, I was not paid by any company to write this post in any way, shape or form. I did however, attend an info-session with live demos of Toshiba products and have decided to share some thoughts based on my experience there.
Our current TV was generously donated to us by Gus when John first moved to Vancouver about 3 years ago and I have actually been curious about LCD and Plasma TV technology since I live blogged a debate with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte over at Future Shop last year.
At the Toshiba event last week, I was given demos of their XDE (eXtended Detail Enhancement) DVD players, which made regular DVDs look nearly High Definition. They had a scene of Iron Man paused and two televisions side-by-side (Toshiba REGZA HD TVs to be precise). With the XDE on a special setting you could tell Robert Downey Jr was wearing a pinstripe suit in the scene, whereas it just looked like a dark coloured suit on the other TV.
Yesterday afternoon I caught sight of a really pretty dress in a music video and I wanted to share the loveliness with Keira so I did a Google Image search for a still image. What I found out was that the artist wearing the dress had red streaks in her hair in that scene that I had never noticed before. I looked up (while the video was still playing) and I could just barely make out the highlights. It was at this point that I realized that maybe we are missing out on details with our old TV (and broken DVD player).
I was also given a demo of the REGZA settings live Gamer Mode and Native Mode that looked pretty impressive – delivering content and detail to the player seconds before other televisions. I don’t play games but I assume this type of feature would be a good thing.
When it comes to television, we actually don’t spend much time watching daily. Usually we’ll collect all of the shows we’re addicted to that season (be it, House, Rescue Me, Deadliest Catch, or our new favourite, Fringe) and we’ll have a big TV night once a week to get caught up on episodes. Combine that with heading into the rainy season (meaning we’ll be having many more movie nights just chilling at home) and I think an TV upgrade is a reasonable enough thought.
This week’s poll question:
[poll=17]
If you live in the Vancouver-Burrard or Vancouver-Fairview districts, you should be heading to the polls today (open 8:00am until 8:00pm) to elect your new representative in the Provincial government.
Candidates in Vancouver-Fairview:
Emery, Jodie – British Columbia Marijuana Party
Hanni, Wilf – BC Conservative Party
MacDiarmid, Margaret – BC Liberal Party
McGinn, Jenn – New Democratic Party of B.C.
Sterk, Jane – Green Party of BC
Candidates in Vancouver-Burrard:
Emery, Marc – British Columbia Marijuana Party
Griffiths, Arthur – BC Liberal Party
Herbert, Spencer – New Democratic Party of B.C.
McLeod, Ian – BC Conservative Party
Read, Drina Alicia – Green Party of BC
I conducted a few interviews with Vancouver-Burrard candidates, and although time was too tight to arrange meetings with all, it was very informative experience.
Update: The numbers are in (via News1130) and the NDP took both ridings:
Yesterday I was having a pretty bad afternoon; I felt really down and things didn’t seem to be going my way. John got home and while I was going into doting-wife-getting-ready-to-prepare-dinner-for-her-man mode he placed two items on the coffee table, which just so happened to be tickets for tonight’s game. Needless to say my mood changed almost instantly.
I was talking to my Oma (who is 87 years young) on the phone this morning and out of the blue she says in her broken English, “The Canucks – they’re going to lose tonight, huh.” I asked her why she thinks that and she replied, “well they’re playing Boston.”
I was a Bruins fan for quite a while – I actually liked them better than the Canucks when I was a little girl because their sweaters had a “B” for “Becky” on them. I lived in Boston during the Thornton heydays, and was pals with the sound guy at the Fleet Centre who was known to toss on a couple ‘Hip tunes during the games. As of 2003, I had been to more Bruins games than Canucks games since they were a) cheaper b) more accessible c) what else is a homesick Canuck going to do in her spare time?
I do admit, however, that I would spend evenings listening to the streaming Canucks broadcast from my HP Omnibook. Sitting on my bed in New England, peering out frosted windows and listening to John Shorthouse call the games on CKNW is how I spent the rest of my time.
Back to tonight’s game and my Oma’s prediction, good Vancouver kid Milan Lucic – who is a deserving fan-favourite in Beantown – is coming off of a hat trick in their game against Atlanta on Saturday. He’s one of the most exciting players in the league and his mom n’ pop will probably be at the game tonight as well. On the flip side, we have a lot of promise this season and guys like Burrows and Hansen are full of fire. The Bruins are third in the North East and we’re at the bottom of the North West but I’m sure we’ll have an exciting game tonight – and I can’t wait to cheer loudly for the Canucks (and super secretly for the Bruins too).
The puck drops on TSN (HD), on the TEAM 1040am, and on the live stream at 7:00pm PT.
Years ago I had Jenny write a guest post where in she reviewed a few pumpkin patches and endorsed Country Farms in Richmond. Now, two years (and another child) later she has graciously submitted an update post.
This year’s pumpkin patch of choice was Aldor Acres in Langley. We arrived at about 10 Saturday morning and paid $27 for the family admission (Mom, Dad and 4 kids). There is ample parking on a large field adjacent to the farm and to make things easier parking attendants direct traffic. The ladies at the booth were joking that many people want to pay for the family admission when it actually works out cheaper to pay individually (but they would let people know when they were overpaying). We took a quick walk around and then hopped on the hay ride to take us out to the field.
This wasn’t my first visit here as it is a popular destination for local elementary and preschool classes. The friendly gentleman driving the tractor told us that arriving early was wise as they expected long line ups later in the day. Sitting on bails of hay we were driven passed the barns and future Christmas trees out to one of the many pumpkin covered fields.
It’s a good idea to bring some bags along to carry the pumpkins back to the tractor if you have little ones who can’t manage for themselves. Luckily it hasn’t been too wet lately so few of the pumpkins were rotten and we managed easily to find 4 that the kids liked (2 small ones and 2 fairly large ones). I did however manage to get myself pretty muddy so be prepared, boots are fairly essential.
The cost of the pumpkins depends on the size and you need to pay (ours came to $21 all together)and you need to pay the driver so have cash on hand. We were driven back and stopped beside the parked cars so we were able to hop out and leave the pumpkins in the car and then continue back to enjoy the rest of the farm. There are a lot of animals to see (many of which are known from the PNE) and small gift shop area, concession stand, petting zoo, etc. Check out their website for further details.
