Two students are on their way to the Social Media for Government Conference in Ottawa this week. I asked students to tell my why they would like to attend and how the conference subject matter fits with their studies and their interests. Melissa Loomans and Femi Fasoyinu earned the free tickets through their comments on my post.

I’ve also offered them an opportunity to guest post about their experience here on ProPR.ca. They’ve both accepted the invitation. So watch for these posts later this week or early next week.

Both Melissa and Femi persuaded me not only that they are interested in the conference content, but that they will put to good use what they learn there. Here’s what they said in their submissions.

Melissa Loomans

I am currently completing my last semester as an undergrad in Public Relations at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto.

A final thesis is required for graduation and the topic I have chosen focuses on the need for the Government of Canada to implement social media as a communication tool for relaying messages to citizens. A creative aspect of this thesis is creating a social media marketing plan outlining how social media (internal government tool and external tools) can be implimented into elements of the Youth Employment Strategy to help with promotion, FSWEP recruitment and public service renewal. Attending this event would allow for an understanding of how social media is already being implemented and the challenges these departments had to overcome or are facing.

I have spent the last three years working for Service Canada (formerly the HRSDC) where I have worked as a team lead on youth programs and assisted in client affairs. I’m currently completing a co-op term working as a Media Liaison Officer. A major project I am undertaking is promoting the use of internal social media / web 2.0 tools to supervisors and coordinators.

I am incredibly passionate about the public service and am interested in having the opportunity to speak with other government communicators and to network with them in an effort to learn more about what other branches of the government are responsible for and what they have to offer.

Femi Fasoyinu

I am a second-year public relations student at Algonquin College. I am very interested to see how online conversation is changing how businesses communicate and how the government is looking to get involved in this conversation.

As a young person in the government, I want to be at the forefront of this conversation. I want to understand how it is going to affect the relationship government has to the Canadians they serve.

Currently, I work for Human Resources and Skills Development Canada in the Medical Expertise Division, CPP Appeals, and have done so for the last two years.

It has been a great experience working with doctors, adjudicators, lawyers, and other support staff in providing service to the thousands of Canadians whose disability has hindered them from the simple daily tasks we able bodied people take for granted.

The importance of social media in PR and communication is growing and will continue to grow. It allows us to touch different networks in speeds we haven’t thought possible before.

If I can bring the knowledge from this conference to my department, the communication processes for both the internal and external networks at Human Resources and Skills Development Canada has the potential to be improved and be a greater benefit to all who are involved.

Internally, communication between support staff, doctors, adjudicators, and lawyers has the opportunity to be improved and so there are better relations between this diverse group.

Externally, the Canadians we serve will be able to receive the information that will impact their lives in ways that will be more convenient to them and more efficient to us in our department.

Well done Melissa and Femi. I’m looking forward to meeting you at the Social Media for Government Conference.

I’d like to offer two students a chance to attend the Social Media for Government conference being organized by the Advanced Learning Institute (ALI) in Ottawa March 2-3.

What you’ll hear

The conference will feature a strong lineup of speakers presenting case studies of how government has used social media – both internally and externally. Sessions and presenting organizations will include:

• Engaging your employees before you engage the public, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada;
• Using social media to build relationships and reduce crime, Toronto Police Services;
• Developing a collaborative network in a hierarchical organization, Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre;
• Social Media And Government Communications: Using social media to communicate and engage the public while complying with government policies and laws, Government of Canada’s Community Communications Office;
• Making the business case for social media, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation;
• Social media strategy rules of engagement and evaluation metrics, Human Resources and Skills Development;
• Using social media to address the needs of a diverse audience, Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term Care;
• Using Facebook and Twitter to communicate in an ever-changing communications environment, Genome Alberta;
• Strategy before tactics, Public Safety Canada;
• Expanding your social media network while staying within your agency’s guidelines, standards and policies, Parks Canada;
• Using social media on both sides of the firewall, Canadian Tourism Commission;
• Social networking  to create a more agile and responsive organization, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency;
• New web analytics for a new wave of social media, City of Ottawa;
• Using social media to foster innovation and drive change in a large organization, Royal Bank of Canada (Yes, not a government organization. But a very large organization exploring the use of social media.)

I’ll be chairing the conference and presenting a workshop on the day before it opens.

How you can attend

As I was preparing, it occurred to me that this conference would be a wonderful learning experience for a student interested in social media, communications, political science or journalism. But the registration probably puts it out of reach of all but the wealthiest students.

So … I bought a couple tickets to the conference and I’d like to give them to two students who will benefit from the sessions.

Interested in attending? Here’s how you can get one of these tickets.

Leave a comment below or write a post on your own blog explaining how this learning experience would fit in with your academic studies.

I’ll read the comments and posts and offer the tickets to the two students who I think make the best case. Simple.

So, if you’re a post-secondary student and you’d like to attend, tell me why. Also, if you know a student who you think could benefit from this opportunity, please point out this post to them.

I’ll select the winning students at 5PM Feb. 25 and contact them that evening.

We have a special Third Tuesday Toronto on Feb. 23. It’s special because we’re holding it in conjunction with Personal Brand Camp – a project being undertaken by Michael Cayley for the Humber College social media students.

During the afternoon, the Humber students will meet with volunteer mentors to discuss the importance of their online personnas, the issues involved and how they can develop an online brand that will be consistent with the people they are.

Then, in the evening, Mitch Joel will be our featured speaker at Third Tuesday. Mitch has built a remarkable personal brand. He is well known and widely respected as a marketing thought leader. This year, he published Six Pixels of Separation, a handbook to digital marketing and social media.  He’s often referred to as “Canada’s Seth Godin.” That’s no small feat.

Mitch will offer us his perspective on the concept of personal brand. Does he build his brand consciously? Are there rules, implicit or explicit, that he applies in doing this? Is personal brand building something that we all should be engaged in? What advice would he offer to anyone concerned about the image they project online and in the real world.

Interested? Register online to attend Third Tuesday Toronto with Mitch Joel.

As always, I want to thank our Third Tuesday sponsors – CNW Group, Molson Coors Canada, Rogers Communications, Radian6 and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Their support make it possible to bring great speakers like Mitch, and others including Katie Paine, Julien Smith and Shel Israel not just to Toronto but also to Third Tuesdays in Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. (Speaking of Vancouver, stay tuned for the announcement of a Third Tuesday Vancouver with Mitch Joel.)

Thank you to our sponsors – and thank you to our speakers.

When we participate in social media – whether posting or commenting – we are leaving digital footprints. And as people follow those footprints, they assemble a picture in their minds of the person who left those footprints – what we are interested in, our thoughts and opinions, the way we communicate and interact with other people. These factors and many more can be assembled to paint a portrait of each of us. In effect, they amount to our personal brand.

Michael Cayley, who teaches Social Media at Humber College, is organizing a Personal Brand Camp in Toronto on Feb. 23. Through a series of rotating round tables, attendees will have the opportunity to talk about the issues surrounding the care and feeding of their online personal brands with Mentors drawn from Toronto’s social media community.

Michael is looking for 20 Mentors who will lead roundtable discussions with the participants. The best Mentor is someone who is active online and has developed an online presence that is positive and well-regarded. You may be young. You may be old. But whichever, you’ve created a positive halo around yourself.

If you’d be interested in volunteering to be a Mentor at Personal Brand Camp, please contact @michaelcayley on Twitter.

Jay Moonah closed the Managing Social Media conference with a presentation focusing on how non-profits and government organizations can make effective use of social media.

I’m capturing the highlights of the session from the Twitter stream using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.

Parker Mason is a long time blogger and Twitterer. He’s also Product Support Manager at CNW Group. So, he’s well positioned to be able to comment on integrating social media with traditional media relations. And that’s the topic of his session at the one of the Managing Social Media conference with a session focusing on how Ford has used social media.

I’m capturing the highlights of the session from the Twitter stream using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.

The greatest hurdles I’ve encountered to the use of social media in the enterprise have been legal and security concerns.

Kevin Lo and Stewart Wolfe covered the IT security issues in their session at the Managing Social Media conference.

I’m capturing the highlights of the session from the Twitter stream using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.

I’ve long grown accustomed to the principles behind Creative Commons copyright. Sharing is encouraged within boundaries defined by the creator. However, traditional “rights restricted” copyright law still governs most of the world.

Pina D’Agostino, Director of the Intellectual Property Law and Technology Program at the Osgoode Law School, provided an overview at the Managing Social Media conferenceof the key copyright issues for social media applications and the need for guidelines and policies to ensure that intellectual property rights are respected.

I’m capturing the highlights of the session from the Twitter stream using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.

Privacy is one of the key issues facing everyone of us as we navigate social media.

I readily share great swathes of what I care about, think and do through my postings on ProPR.ca, Twitter and other social media channels. On the other hand, there are parts of my life relating to friends and family that I don’t share. I believe that they must find their own level of comfort with the open book that is social media and define their own boundaries on what they will share and what they won’t.

A panel of three corporate lawyers,  Martin Kratz, Ariane Siegel and Mark Hayes,talked about the privacy issues relating to the use of social media in and by organizations.

I’m capturing the highlights of the Twitter stream during this session at the Managing Social Media conference using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.

It was easy to introduce social media into Thornley Fallis. After all, I’m not only a believer in the potential of social media to enhance information sharing and bring us closer to the communities that care about the company, I’m also the CEO. So, we had a well-placed social media champion from day one.

It’s not like that in most companies. And introducing social media into enterprises can be a complicated process requiring the active buy in of many players, including communications, marketing, legal, and human resources.

Nyree Embricos, Senior Counsel, TELUS Legal Services, and Peter Hartl, TELUS Manager Manager, Corporate Web Services, provided attendees at the Managing Social Media conference with insight into how social media had been introduced into TELUS.

I’m capturing the highlights of the session from the Twitter stream using the #CdnInst hashtag and posting them here using CoverItLive.

Click on the CoverItLive window below to see the Twitter discussion of this session.