I was up at 5:30 today to prepare for a seminar I was to attend for my “day job”. The theme was “Social Media for Marketing” and was put on by SMEI (Sales and Marketing Executives International). There were many non-members in the room, including myself, and already being well versed in the social media realm I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I already know what a blog is and how it can help build a two way communication between clients, potential clients, and my company so I was hoping this would serve a good purpose and make my early morning worthwhile.
There were many interesting professionals sitting at my table and we talked a bit over a nice hot breakfast supplied by The Butler Did It Catering. Short side story – yesterday I wrote a Twitter about how much I love whiteboards and got reply from J Karen Parker about participating in a survey about whiteboard usage. Well at my table today was a women who works for an A/V company and they’ve just picked up these fancy new whiteboard that use infrared technology to transform your notes, tasks and scribbles into pdfs and documents.
Back to the seminar, the three panelists were James Wells from BCIT, Rob Duncan from BCIT, and Justin Kestelyn from Oracle. The presentation started out very slowly for me, with all the basics being covered including a glossary of terms, “what is RSS?”, although I can imagine it was very helpful (albeit foreign) to those in the room.
Justin Kestelyn – Oracle: Justin’s approach was about the social self-publishing aspects of these forms of new media. He noted that an example of Web 2.0 was such things as unconferences, where anyone and everyone has a voice. He moved on to speak about wikis as well, which I hope the audience can look into further on their own because I find they’re crucial tools for companies. Overall, I really liked the direction Justin was heading in his talk.
Robert Duncan – BCIT: I learned the most about LinkedIn with Robert’s presentation. He directed it very well at the attendees, saying it lacks the “silly” features of MySpace or Facebook but allows for controlled, trustworthy networking within a community that you can grow. Two things I did not know I could do with LinkedIn were Questions & Answers, and “I’m working on”.
You’ll find both of these components already exists with other social sites. With Facebook updates you have “Rebecca is….” and although the “is” has now been dropped, they are still instant ways of letting people know what you’re up to. With LinkedIn’s “I’m working on” you can publicize projects, products, or even that you’re looking for a new job. You can do the very same with microblogging tools like Twitter, Pownce or Jaiku stating: “I’m eating a sandwich” or “Where can I get a sandwich in the West End”, which is where LinkedIn’s Questions and Answers come in. You can ask the community (anyone else on the system) business-related question ie. where to find certain companies or products, or ask for assistance. I admit, I’ve really been neglecting my LinkedIn profile so I’m definitely more inclined now to clean it up and explore some of the new options.
James Wells – BCIT: I tend to get overprotective of my preferred forms of media when others are explaining them to those unfamiliar but James seemed to know his stuff (of course, which is why he was on the panel). He described “blog” and “RSS” the way I was thinking in my head and during his presentation he spoke about the power of professional online communities, using his own company as a case study.
A common thread was ‘trust’ and having a blog, podcast or making a company Facebook page does not take away from your business or its credibility. It creates an open forum to engage your clients and for them clients to become your spokespeople.
I also ran into Mhairi, who sat in on John’s Podcasting 101 session at Northern Voice. She has her own internet marketing firm, out-smarts, and asked some really great questions for the panel.
It was my first time attending an event like this as I’m used to the unconferences where there’s people in jeans with laptops and cameras, there’s beer afterwards, a conch worked in there somehow. The panelists reached some good topics, and it proved to be a rather productive morning.
A recent Twitter from John Biehler about how “FAIL” seems to be one of the most popular words at SXSW reminded me of the following.
When poking around the new Metroblogging Vancouver website, powered by the lovely and capable WordPress MU, I came across a “coming soon” page. Instead of a “whoops! page not found” note, it had an image of a dog with the caption, “FAIL”. Turns out it came from FailDogs, are these pups the new lolcatz?
From:
FailDogs – Original Source Credited on FailDogs
From:
FailDogs – Original Source Credited on FailDogs
From:
FailDogs – Original Source Credited on FailDogs
Sure, they don’t have snappy captions like the lolcatz (I mean geez it’s such an empire they even re-did the bible in lolcatz-speak), but FailDogs say it all with just one word. It’s puppies and silliness, and a great navel-gazer of a website that helps pass the time or put a smile on an otherwise frowny face. So now who’s coming up with the “FTW” site?
Checking in this evening on some local non-profits, I found out about the following event coming up this month that will help raise funds for the Surrey Food Bank:
Universal Cultural Society of Canada is hosting their second annual Holi Festival of Colours to Eliminate Racism. “Celebrating the colours of life for the elimination of racial discrimination”. Saturday, March 22, 2008 from 4pm – 10pm at the Pearl Banquet Hall, 201-13030 76 Avenue, Surrey.
Quick reminder that the Surrey Food Bank does not fall under the Greater Vancouver Food Bank realm so if you’d like to donate make sure to visit their headquarters or website.
However, speaking of the GVFB, Bruce Springsteen is known as an avid contributor to local food banks around the world and his stop in Vancouver will be no exception. The Greater Vancouver Food Bank has been given two prize packs to auction off for his upcoming concert, March 31st. If you’d like to place a bid you can call 604-876-3601 and ask for Cindy. The bidding ends March 26th.
One more non-Food Bank related event is the Surrey Museum’s Easter Fair, taking place Saturday March 22nd from 1:00pm to 4:00pm. Bonnet making, egg hunting and snuggles from all sorts of rescue animals will be taking place.
I sometimes find that my fingers go faster on he keyboard than my brain can spew out thoughts. I’m often auto-completing words that begin the same as a frequently typed word I’m thinking about, but in the end – they end up as typos. Example: Chick Flick becomes Chick Flickr, Dance becomes Duane. Such a thing could make for an amusing post, if left unaltered.
On a similar note, I sat down at my mother’s PC the other day and realized that over the last year my fingers had been completely retrained to use Macs. I would normally place them a certain way to open another tab in Firefox, however my left ring finger now had to extend a little further to press the CTRL button, with the “T” following it. If this isn’t the proper finger positioning per grade school keyboarding, I have no excuse aside from the fact that I taught myself to type expediently before such a class was taken.
Indulge my geekiness here while I share my top five basic/fave keyboard shortcuts that are conducive to speedy computing:
Command (open Apple) + T: Opens a new browsing tab in Firefox or Safari
Command + 2: Automatically inserts the “@” when replying to someone on Twitter, using Twitterific
Ctrl + A: When composing a blog post in WordPress it pops up the link box for easy pasting of a link (not working with F3B3)
Command + Shift + T: Re-opens a recently closed browser tab (thanks to Tod for showing me this at BarCamp)
Command + C or X or V: Copy, Cut or Paste. It may seem simple but man, it makes life easier
Command + Z: Undo. Need I say more about the importance of Undo?
Function + Delete: Backspace… in reverse
Okay, that was more than five, but feel free to share if you have any of your own – for Mac or PC.
Being one of the best new blogs around, Paul’s Civic Surrey has been capturing and detailing several new development and construction projects in the city. One post that recently caught my attention was the major overhaul and facelift for Guildford Town Centre:
The Mall is going to get a 414,100 sq. ft. retail expansion – 212,000 sq. ft. of which will be a new Wal-Mart Supercentre. There will be rooftop parking above the Wal-Mart, along with two new parkades featuring 5,870 parking stalls.
The other 212,000 sq. ft. of expansion will be in the south end of the mall, home to a new food court and high-end retail tenants (just like the Metrotown refurb!!). [CivicSurrey]
The Metrotown comparison seems pretty spot on, but toss in the outdoor eliments of Alderwood and you get the overall idea.
The mall has had the same hideous brown tiles and dark glass pyramid ceilings since before I was born. There really hasn’t been much change since the cascading waterfall that was removed to make room for a children’s play zone, and an Old Navy was introduced on the East wing. Wolco is now Wal-Mart (and it still has that flat, incline escalator) and Santa’s Castle is always right outside The Bay (which used to be Woodwards), except for that year the styrofoam in the castle caught fire overnight and they had to keep the mall closed for several hours.
The new plans include a “village”, a “terrace”, polished stone and bistro cafes, wowsa! Guildford is definitely in need of an overhaul and honestly, I’m pretty excited about the new plans. Also, from the looks of the sketches Paul’s posted one image in particular stands out:
Note the Apple iPod posted on the left. It could be a tease, but perhaps it’s a sign of the type of stores they expect to attract at the new mall.
High end retail, promenades and who knows maybe even a Cheesecake Factory or PF Chang’s China Bistro. Whatever it is, I’m glad they’re using their existing mall land/parking space and not taking over some salmon habitat as seems to be the norm with developments in Surrey these days.
