Inside PR 2.08 – I'm up in the air + Social Media Trends

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I missed the recording of this week’s episode of Inside PR. Both Martin Waxman and I were en route to Regina, Saskatchewan for the Canadian Public Relations Society‘s national conference. However, my plane developed mechanical problems (thankfully, while it was still on the ground) and I was still up in the air at recording time. So, Martin and Gini Dietrich went ahead without me. That’s one of the real benefits of three co-hosts. We can still have a discussion if one of us misses a recording date.

Inside PR 2.08

Inside PR 2.08 [ 22:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Inside PR Show Notes

This week on Inside PR, Martin and Gini discuss trends in social media.

0:30 Martin opens the show.

2:10 Martin mentions that Joe was unable to join them this week, and that they are presenting at the CPRS Conference in Regina, Saskatchewan.

3:10 Martin addresses listener comments from last week, the first from Ed Lee, congratulating Martin on the merger.

4:08 The second listener comment comes from Rob Jeanveau about the jeans issue that Gini brought up last week.

7:01 Martin introduces this week’s topic: 5 social media trends. He kicks off the discussion with the first trend, video.

10:00 Martin introduces the next trend: search.

13:42 Martin and Gini discuss the next trend: location based applications.

16:30 The next trend discussed is mobile payment applications.

18:58 Gini discusses the importance of the last trend, social media policies.

22:00 Martin wraps up the show.

Thanks to our Producer, Yasmine Kashefi, for preparing these shownotes and the great work she does producing and publishing Inside PR.

Social Mediators 8 – What do you want from a conference?

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It’s conference season. And we’ve all gone to conferences that we loved – and conferences that we hated.

In this week’s episode of Social Mediators, Terry Fallis, Dave Fleet and I discuss what makes a good conference experience – and what can ruin a conference.

One good idea and I’m happy

I don’t just attend conferences because I love Las Vegas hotels (I don’t) or seaside resorts (I do.) I take time out of our schedules for much more practical and worthwhile reasons. I want to hear from leading edge thinkers and network with others who share common interests.

I’m happy if one simple need is met: I want at least one good new idea from each speaker. If I get that, the conference is worthwhile. If not, I’ll exercise the law of two feet and head out to do some work.

So, I’m easy to please. Give me great content and I’m a happy camper.

My personal hit list

Now to the other side. Things that detract from the conference experience. As a frequent conference attendee, there are some things that really bug me.

1) The conference within a conference. By invitation-only dinners and get aways for speakers and sponsors that are obvious to paying participants. We pay good money for a conference. We don’t want to feel like second class participants.

2) The conference with an unstated agenda. The worst of these are conferences that bring business together with government. You can get the feeling that you’re merely a prop in someone else’s GR campaign.

3) Panellists who think that they’ve given value merely by showing up. Conferences like SxSW which use a panel picker have seen a real slide in the quality of many panels, as a noticeable number of panelists seem to place their greatest effort into campaigning to be selected, not in preparing their presentations.

4) The biggest annoyance of all: Product pitches from sponsors who become speakers. When I speak, I rarely mention my company name. I’m there to educate, not to do a product pitch from the stage. And I don’t expect others to abuse their time on the stage.

And what about you?

What makes a conference a good experience for you?

What are the things that detract from the conference-going experience?

How the other 1% live – a look inside the Governor General Suite

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On Friday, I wrote about how Fairmont had given me a really special experience when they upgraded my room at the Fairmont Royal York from a standard room to the Governor General Suite.

If you’ve ever wondered how the other 1% live (the 1% that definitely does not include me under normal circumstances,) I recorded a brief video tour of the Governor General Suite to share with you.

Click on this video, lean back and experience what one of the G20 leaders will go “home” to after a hard day sorting out the global banking industry.

Fairmont Hotels takes a smart approach to customer relations

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This is a story about a company that understands the importance of going above and beyond what’s expected to show that it cares about good customers.

I stay at Fairmont Hotels a lot. I’m sure they consider me a good customer. And this week they showed that they understand they can still surprise and delight a customer by giving him more than he expected.

I had planned to stay at the Fairmont Royal York on June 24. However, the G20 Leaders Summit is being held in Toronto that weekend. The Fairmont Royal York is one of the hotels being used to house delegates – and it’s inside the exclusion zone. (Think big ugly fence that circles a multi-block area in the heart of Toronto.)

So, the people at Fairmont phoned me to let me know that they could not honour my reservation. They offered to place me at another hotel. I indicated that, given the expected transportation and business disruptions that will accompany the G20 Summit, I was going to cancel my trip to Toronto that week.

Fairmont could have left it at that. But they didn’t. They offered to upgrade my room on my next stay at the Royal York. A nice gesture.

So, I wasn’t really suprised when they told me at check-in this week that they’d upgraded my room. But I was surprised at what Fairmont upgraded me to – the Governor General’s Suite! 1,830 square feet of luxury. A fireplace. A separate parlour. A dining table. Wet bar. Views around three sides of the hotel.

Fairmont definitely didn’t have to do something this spectacular. But they did. And that’s one of the reasons why I stay at Fairmont. If they can make a regular customer feel special, they do it.

As a frequent customer of many other companies, I find that very few stand out like Fairmont by doing the special extra thing for customers. All too many seem to believe that they will deliver exactly what you paid for, nothing more, nothing less. While this does match my expectations, I think that those latter companies are missing a great opportunity to build loyalty. They should learn from Fairmont.

With the occasional gesture like this, Fairmont ensures that I’ll not only be a faithful customer, but that I’ll also tell my circle about my experience. And in the long run, they’ll no doubt get much more business than it cost them to let a customer use an expensive suite at the price of a single room.

That seems like simple good business sense to me. And Fairmont has it. Why don’t more businesses do this type of thing?

Inside PR 2.07 – Martin has Energi & Gini gets smashed

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Inside PR 2.07 [ 29:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Martin Waxman and Gini Dietrich again join me for today’s episode of Inside PR after my solo effort last week.

This week, we have a chance to ask Martin about the just-announced merger of his firm, Palette PR, with Communications MECA to form a new company Energi PR.

We also discuss the reaction to Gini’s recent blog post in which she suggested that conference speakers shouldn’t show up in jeans. Many people feel strongly about this and they express their views, not always in polite terms.

Here are the complete shownotes.

0:28 Martin opens the show.

0:42 Joe brings up the G20 Summit and Martin and Joe discuss how it’ll effect Toronto and Public Relations agencies in the Toronto financial district.

3:03 Joe explains that the G20 Summit will have a negative impact on the business community.

3:43 Joe asks Gini about her bicycle accident she had last week.

5:45 Martin tells us about Energi PR.

15:32 Martin tells us how Darryl Salnero helped with shaping Energi PR.

18:19 Joe asks Gini about a recent blog post that got a lot of feedback – both positive and negative.

28:14 Martin wraps up the show.

Thanks to Inside PR’s Producer, Yasmine Kashefi, for editing and producing the audio as well as the shownotes.

Eqentia – a new social media monitoring tool for enterprises

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Eqentia is a social media startup headquartered in Toronto Canada. In this week’s episode of Social Mediators, Eqentia’s CEO and Founder, William Mougayar, joins Dave Fleet and me for a discussion about Eqentia, what it does, who its aimed at and future plans for it.

Eqentia is positioning itself as a team-based knowledge dashboard that can be managed by one or two users, freeing others from the need to set up and refine searches. William hopes that managers will turn to it each day to answer the question, “What’s new that I need to know about?”

Eqentia’s text mining engine promises to deliver content to users in near realtime, providing them with an up to the minute picture of conversations and references to their brands and issues of interest.

William sees Eqentia becoming a productivity tool for medium and large enterprises. Initially, power users can curate the content to ensure that the highest relevance and most valuable content is featured, saving time and effort for the rest of the team. Once the principal user has set up the tool and refined the settings so that it focuses on the company’s specific interests, other team members will have access to the data without the need to manage the sources, relevancies and advanced filters and settings that make all of this possible.

Eqentia will be most attractive to teams that have both power users and executives who don’t care about how to use the tool, but just want to see its output. The power users can publish the information in user-friendly form for the end users – via email, Twitter, RSS feeds, or by giving end users access to individual topics.

Unlike many other social media tools that focus on providing users with the ability to build folksonomies by applying multiple tags, Eqentia incorporates predefined taxonomies to standardize searches and make it easy for end users to find the same data set with a simple search.

Still to come in Eqentia’s development – a comprehensive approach to social media metrics.

The company has some potential client deals in the works and hopes to be able to begin to announce these in the near future.

Eqentia has been seed funded by Extreme Venture Partners, who also funded Bump Top, which was recently acquired by Google. William says that he had the funding to carry on with the development of the product and to explore its marketing potential.

Have you tried Eqentia? What are your thoughts about it?

Canadian PR execs talk about why they merged their firms

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Are you interested in the business of PR? Then, you’ll want to listen to this week’s Inside PR podcast.

Late last night, the news broke on Twitter that two Canadian PR agencies, Montreal-based Communications MECA and Toronto-based Palette PR, have sealed a deal to merge in a new firm, EnergiPR.

I had the good luck to be at a breakfast meeting this morning with Esther Buchsbaum and Carol Levine, the principals of MECA. They agreed to step out of the room for an interview about the merger, their motivation in doing it and how they made it happen.

By coincidence, the next edition of the Inside PR podcast was due to be published today. And both of my co-hosts, Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman, were unable to participate in this week’s edition. So, I lucked out. At the last minute, I found the content for this week’s Inside PR – and I was able to offer the first interview with the principals in the new firm.

OK. Now, how’s this for burying the lead? The other principal in the newly merged firm is none other than the very Martin Waxman who co-hosts Inside PR.

Listen to today’s Inside PR podcast for the first news of the merger. And tune in again next week when Martin will be back behind the microphone and will add his perspective.

Why you should attend the Social Media for Government Conference in Ottawa

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For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of chairing the Social Media for Government Conference in Ottawa. And I’ll be chairing the next conference to be held in just one month, from June 21 to June 24.

A great learning experience

This conference is an opportunity to learn about how social media is being used by government and to discuss the challenges and opportunities it presents.

Speakers from all levels of government – federal, provincial and municipal – will be sharing their experience with social media and the insight they gained. Organizations presenting case studies include: Public Safety Canada, Alberta Environment, Army Public Affairs, the U.S. Department of State,  the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman, the Public Service Commission of Canada, the Ottawa Public Library,  the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, Norfolk County and the cities of London and Ottawa.

I’ll be speaking as well. On the day before the conference proper, I’ll be presenting a Social Media 101 Workshop and on the first morning of the conference, I’ll be co-presenting with Pierre Killeen about public engagement in the age of social media.

Save $400 off the registration fee for the Social Media for Government Conference

If you’ve read this far, it’s fair to say that you’re interested in learning about the adoption of social media by government. So, here’s a great offer.

People who registered for the conference before April 30 were eligible for an Early Bird Discount of $400. But April 30 has come and gone and that discount has expired. That’s the bad news.

Now the good news. Just mention my name when you register for the Social Media for Government Conference and you’ll receive a $400 discount off the registration fee. That’s the equivalent of the Early Bird Registration – and you can use my discount right up to conference day. It doesn’t expire.

Why I attend the Social Media for Government Conference

I chair and participate in this conference as a volunteer. I do it because it’s one of the best learning opportunities available to me in Ottawa.

Based on my experience over the past three years, I know you won’t regret attending this conference. You’ll learn a lot and meet some smart people. What more could you ask for?

Inside PR – Third Try Lucky

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Finally, on the third try, Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I managed to record an Inside PR episode with all three of us together live.

Try 1: Inside PR Episode 2.01: Gini discovered that she had erased the recording of her audio after we finished recording. Martin and Gini got together the next day to re-record the episode. I was unable to join them. So, our producer, Yasmine Kashefi, edited in my introduction and – 30 – segment.

Try 2: Inside PR Episode 2.02: I blew it in a spectacular way. I ran down the batteries in my Zoom H4 and then discovered that I didn’t really know how to operate it. Lesson here: Don’t use a recording device without reading the manual. (Something familiar here to the relationship of men and maps?) I was booked for meetings for the following two days. So Martin and Gini record the episode without me.

Try 3: Inside PR Episode 2.03: The gangs all here. Finally!

I’d welcome your comments on what we’ve discussed or your suggestions for future topics you’d like us to cover.

Consumer Recommendation: eBook Readers by Sony and Kobo

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Knowing that I’ve been using a Sony eBook Reader for the past six months, a friend asked me whether I’m happy with it and would I recommend an eReader for personal use and as a gift.

My answer: An unqualified YES. I’ve become totally enamored of my eBook reader.

For the past six months, I’ve been using the Sony Touch (PRS 600) Reader (on SonyStyle.com; on SonyStyle.ca).  It’s a touch sensitive reader that lets me turn the pages by swiping my finger on the screen. I can also highlight passages by double tapping and sweeping my finger across the text, write notes with a stylus or use the soft keyboard. And I can look up words in a built-in dictionary simply by double tapping on them. All fantastic. But also expensive at $300. And the screen treatment that makes it touch sensitive also dulls (slightly) the e-ink screen.

Oh, and one more thing. At only about 10 oz., the Sony eReader is light enough to hold comfortably for a long reading session. This is a real advantage over the Apple  iPad, which feels like a brick in comparison.

My wife just bought a Kobo eReader – and I’ve decided that this is even more ideal for most people. You download the books by hooking the reader up to a computer – either via USB or Bluetooth (neat). It’s as light as the Sony and, at $149, a great value.

I use the Kobo eBook store to purchase books and download them to both devices. It’s a great experience. Simple to purchase and download books. Kobo’s slogan is “eReading. Anytime. Any place.” And they seem determined to deliver on this promise. You never lose them! Once you’ve purchased the books, they’re always in your online Kobo Library. So, if you break or replace your hardware reader, you can simply download your books to a new reader.

Kobo also has released a reader App for the iPad, so you won’t be forced to use the Apple book app (if you have a dislike for walled gardens.)

One great thing about both the Sony and Kobo eReaders is that they let you magnify the size of the text on the screen. Thanks to Adobe’s ePub software, the words rearrange themselves in an uninterrupted flow on the screen, regardless of whether you use the smallest or the largest font size. I use this feature a lot late at night when my eyes are tired. And I can’t imagine going back to having to squint at small print on a physical book page.

So, Yes, I would wholeheartedly recommend an eReader – and I’d suggest that you take a look at both the Sony and Kobo eReaders. And once you have it, do take a look at the Kobo book store. I use it and I love it.