Springtime for Government 2.0 in Ottawa?

June 7, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • Canada, Gov20, Harper

Now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been re-elected with a majority government, Canadians can begin to expect him to pursue some longer term objectives.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to read these commitments in the Government’s first post-election Throne Speech:

Canadians rightly expect fairness and accountability in the full range of government institutions that serve them. … Our Government will also support the efforts of the Public Service to modernize the way it works so that it can continue to provide the highest standard of service to Canadians. …. Our Government will also ensure that citizens, the private sector and other partners have improved access to the workings of government through open data, open information and open dialogue.

This is a reaffirmation of the move toward Government 2.0 that was signalled with the launch in March of open.gc.ca and data.gc.ca. At that time, Open.gc.ca described three initiatives the Government of Canada was taking:

Open Data, which is about offering Government data in a more useful format to enable citizens, the private sector and non-government organizations to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways.

Open Information, which is about proactively releasing information, including on government activities, to Canadians on an ongoing basis. By proactively making government information available it will be easier to find and more accessible for Canadians.

Open Dialogue, which is about giving Canadians a stronger say in Government policies and priorities, and expanding engagement through Web 2.0 technologies

Open.gc.ca hasn’t been updated since it’s launch. The front page still features the March 18 initial release and statement from then-Minister Stockwell Day. However, in light of the Throne Speech reference and New Treasury Board President Tony Clement‘s recent interview endorsing the Open Data initiative, we should start to see updates and news of further initiatives.

I’m going to follow this closely and write about it more often. I hope that you’ll follow along with me and join the discussion.

And if you are interested in this area, you also should subscribe to two other bloggers who are reporting on Canada’s open government initiatives:

John F. Moore, Canada Commits to Open Government in “Speech from the Throne”

Richard Akerman, Open Data Statement in Canadian Digital Economy Strategy Update

Ontario Ombudsman André Marin to speak at Third Tuesday Toronto

June 6, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • AndreMarin, Gov20, OntarioGovernment, OpenGovernment, ThirdTuesday

Ontario Ombudsman André Marin

In my experience, a very few Canadian government officials have really succeeded in using digital media to increase public engagement. André Marin, the Ontario Ombudsman is at the top of that short list. Not only is he personally active on Twitter and Facebook, but he has integrated social media into his offices research and reporting.

The best example of this was his investigation into the conduct of the police during last year’s G 20 meeting in Toronto. When announcing that investigation, the Ombudsman invited Ontarians to submit evidence that had been gathered using social media. During the investigation, he provided updates on his progress via Twitter. In fact, his tweet that he had concluded the research stage was broadly reported by traditional media as if he had granted interviews or issued a news release. And when he released the final report, his press conference was posted on YouTube in a shareable format.

So I’m very pleased that Andre Marin has agreed to be the guest speaker at Third Tuesday Toronto on June 21. That’s the day he’s releasing his annual report, in which he will be announcing his newest focus – promoting open government.

I know the Third Tuesday community is savvy to the potential – and the challenges – of open government. So, I’m looking forward to an evening of intelligent, probing discussion of this initiative.

Register to attend Third Tuesday with André Marin

You can register online at the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup site to attend this event. A great chance to explore the important topic of open government in Ontario.

Acknowledging Third Tuesday’s sponsors

As always, I want to thank the sponsors of Third Tuesday: CNW Group, Rogers Communications, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, Radian6 and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. Thanks to these sponsors, we are able to program great speakers in cities across Canada, including Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa.

The IABC Toronto Awards: It was the best of nights

May 26, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • Allstate, Awards, IABCToronto, RBC, Rogers, ThornleyFallis

Last night, IABC Toronto held their Ovation Awards gala. It was a night to celebrate the best communications work of the past year and the people behind it.

It was one of those nights that I wish could come more often. I was incredibly proud of the people that I work with – and for – as Thornley Fallis participated in an armload of awards. Knowing that we were up for these awards, we brought two tables of the people from our company who worked on the nominated projects and the clients for whom we done the work. And I have to say that the sheer joy with which everyone greeted being recognized by their peers for outstanding work was truly special.

During the course of the evening, I saw smiles bloom on the faces around me and I got to see great practitioners and coworkers like Jennifer Gordon, Jennifer Fox, Sean Howard, Andrea Ong Pietkiewicz, Mike Edgell, and Jo Langham get their chance to walk across the stage and be recognized for the quality of their work.

It was also a great opportunity for us to enjoy an evening in the company of the great clients who allowed us to do this work with them. We consider ourselves fortunate to work for blue-chip clients like RBC, Allstate, and Rogers Communications. Thank you to Amy Woods and her colleagues at Allstate, Keith McArthur and his team at Rogers communications, and Jill Quinn, Michelle Savoie and Kate Yurincich from RBC. You gave us your confidence and we were able to give you our best work.

During the evening, the Thornley Fallis team was part of these award-winning projects:

Changing the way we live, work and play: Rogers Tablife
RBC’s fall student program goes digital
Allstate Canada’s action against distraction campaign
Next is now: video as a social object
Let’s talk: Rogers unwraps the RedBoard blog (we designed and developed the RedBoard blog for Rogers. To this day it’s still one of my favorite designs.)

You can follow the links above to see this work or case studies about it.

All in all, I night to remember, a night to celebrate. Thank you to the IABC Toronto chapter for sponsoring these awards. Thank you to the people I work with in the clients we work for for giving me a chance to be part of something great.

Insights: Another step forward for Radian6 and social media measurement

April 7, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • radian6

Radian6 followed up last week’s announcement of its acquisition by Salesforce with a big product announcement at the Social2011 conference today – the introduction of its Insights platform.

Yes, you read that right. Radian6 is fashioning its newest product as a platform. In doing so, it is eschewing the temptation to try to develop its own proprietary best solution. Instead, Radian6 Insights users will be able to integrate into Radian6 data from measurement apps that they judge are the best and are already using. This is a bold solution. One that I haven’t seen before in the social media measurement space.

In doing this, the folks at Radian6 are acknowledging that, as good as they are and as rapidly as they’ve grown, there are other smart people working on their own innovations. By partnering and integrating with these other innovative services, Radian6 can accelerate its own innovation and grow much more rapidly than it could if it tried to develop its own proprietary solution.

Initially, they are launching with partners that include Klout, OpenAmplify and OpenCalais. And they promise other partners soon.

One more reason I like this. Not only does it promise to add something totally new to the social media analytics mix, but it also signals that Marcel LeBrun and the Radian6 team aren’t folding up their tents and disappearing inside Salesforce. They’re keeping the company intact and continuing to innovate on what they’ve already built.

What’s next?

When he announced Radian6 Insights this morning, LeBrun also indicated that we should expect announcements about the integration of Radian6 with Salesforce at the Dreamforce conference in August. As I said in my post about the acquisition of Radian6 by Salesforce, I’m hoping for big things from that announcement.

Finally, a means of measuring the ROI of social media?

April 6, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • PostRank, radian6, ROI, Salesforce, Social2011, socialmediaROI, sysomos

It’s about more than valuation

The big news this past week was the announcement that Salesforce.com would pay $323 million to acquire social media analytics company Radian6. The size of the valuation makes this an acquisition to watch. But what’s even more interesting is the potential it holds to trigger a great leap forward in the evolution of social media monitoring and analysis services.

A fork in the road

As a longtime user of social media monitoring services (Thornley Fallis currently uses Radian6, Sysomos and PostRank), I watched as the companies appeared to take divergent paths.

Sysomos has pushed its analytic tools (including a great keyword mapping tool), appealing to the data miners in our company. At the same time, it used its blog to highlight the insights that could be surfaced through its database.

PostRank has followed a similar path, but with the addition of some nifty APIs that enable other organizations to link directly to its database and build its algorithms into their applications. Both Sysomos and PostRank have placed emphasis is on the data, the database and the analysis. And in doing this, they have gained a loyal user base among social media professionals and analysts.

Radian6 seemed to follow a different path. The first indication of this was the introduction of its Engagement Console about 18 months ago. At that time, Radian6 seemed to shift its focus away from the core analytics tools toward providing tools to enable large organizations to manage their social media interactions.

In this way, I think Radian6 targeted the enterprise. And that brings them into Salesforce’s sweet spot.

Corporations like Dell have pointed to the challenge of scaling social media that stops many enterprises from using it effectively. Radian6 – and most other social media monitoring solutions have focused on providing community managers with tools to identify and manage the most important conversations in social media.

Until now.

Now, the Salesforce – Radian6 deal offers the promise of something truly different – an effective means of measuring the ROI of social media. Through the merger of Radian6 and Salesforce, I think they have the essential building blocks of an end to end service that will enable us to track our social media outreach and connect it to the sales funnel. If it is integrated this way, marketing and sales departments finally will be able to identify which social media activities lead to revenue – and to measure the return on their investment in social media activities. If Salesforce and Radian6 can pull this off, it may well yield a handsome return on the $1/3 billion investment Salesforce just paid for Radian6.

I’m cheering for them to make this work. If they do, a new standard in social media monitoring and measurement will be established and we’ll all benefit from it.

This is bound to be discussed at Social2011

I’ll have a chance to explore this when I participate in a panel on Friday at Social2011, Radian6’s user conference. I’ll be on panel titled “Can you define the ROI of social media?” with some people who know measurement – Katie Paine, Marshall Sponder and Ken Burbary. I’ll be sure to ask them what they think the implications are of the Salesforce-Radian6 deal. And you can be sure I’ll tweet the discussion. (Follow the hashtag #social2011.)

Gini Dietrich and Martin Waxman have views about this too?

Gini Dietrich, Martin Waxman and I talk about the Salesforce-Radian6 dealon Inside PR episode 248.

Hear about the hits (and misses) from SXSW at Third Tuesday Toronto

March 18, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • davefleet, KeithMcArthur, SXSW, ThirdTuesdayToronto

Did you miss South by Southwest this year? Are you wondering what all the sound and fury actually amounted to?

Now you can hear about what really mattered at SXSW from three social media leaders who were there. Keith McArthur, Dave Fleet, and Karen Geier have just returned from SXSW. And they’ve come back with stories to tell. What were the most promising and intriguing ideas they heard? What were the biggest fails? Where is social media going? What are the top trends we we should be looking for over the next year? What’s hot? What’s not?

Keith, Dave and Karen will share what they heard and learned at SXSW at the next Third Tuesday Toronto on March 29.

Register online to attend

If you’re interested in participating, click over to the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup site and register online to attend.

Acknowledging Third Tuesday’s sponsors

Inside PR: The Web doesn't have a Forget button

March 17, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • GiniDietrich, InsidePR, MartinWaxman

Inside PR 2.45 [ 14:45 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Martin Waxman, Gini Dietrich and I are all here for this week’s Inside PR. We talk about a couple things this week – community-driven events and online sharing.

Are unconferences and community-driven events dying?

We look back one more time at our great experience at this year’s highly successful Podcamp Toronto. It takes a huge amount of effort to organize this type of event. And as professionally organized events have moved into the social media space, have they lessened our appetite and the pool of volunteers willing to organize unconferences? Do the professionally organized conferences cause us to have expectations of a conference that a community-based, volunteer driven conference can’t meet?

What’s happening in your community. Are there still vibrant unconferences or other community-driven events where you live? Are they becoming more frequent and more successful? Or rarer? Less well attended? We’d love to hear from you about this.

Sharing is Forever

We also talk about online sharing – or over-sharing. Martin starts the conversation by pointing to two sites that let you share your clickstream. Wow!

Would you want to share with others all the sites that you visit? Do you use the Web for work-related research? Is this an idea for a business that simply won’t work – at least if people appreciate the value of making conscious decisions about what we share.

Often, a choice to share is forgotten or poorly understood. We’ve already seen how Facebook’s frequent changes of their terms of service leads to people sharing information they hadn’t consciously realized they were sharing. Or think of Tumblr. How many people shared information on Tumblr, became bored with the platform and forgot that it is still spewing information about them. As Gini says, The Web doesn’t have a “Forget” button. Sharing is forever.

Are you a .ca? Show your pride

March 14, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • .ca, CIRA, ImpactAwards

Third Tuesday has a new sponsor – the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). CIRA is responsible for Canada’s top level web domain – .ca. CIRA’s sponsorship will enable third Tuesday to expand and do more programming. (I’ll write more about this in a future post).

I use a.ca domain for my blog, ProPR.ca. I want to speak with my community of interest wherever they are in the world. But I’m also proud of where I come from. Signalling that I’m Canadian provides people with a reference point. It anchors me in my home community.

We have a lot to be proud of in Canada. Now CIRA is giving us a chance to recognize and celebrate some of the best initiatives that use a .ca domain.

CIRA has launched the .ca Impact Awards. The awards will recognize people who are using their .ca websites to make a positive difference for their communities. Awards will be given out for each of four categories: e-learning, small business, not for profit, and web technology. The winners will receive a prize of $5000 and be recognized at an awards ceremony at this year’s Mesh Conference in Toronto on May 24, 2011.

The deadline for award submissions is March 25. So if you think that your .ca website has had a positive impact on your community, why not submit an entry to the first.ca Impact Awards? You’ve done something remarkable. Now be recognized for it.

Interested in more information? Take a look at this video.

(Disclosure: not only is CIRA a sponsor of Third Tuesday, but they also a client of Thornley Fallis and 76design. To paraphrase the old commercial, I liked using the domain so much, I went to work for the people who run it.)

Do pilots really not smoke in the cockpit? What does that mean for landings?

February 23, 2011 • Joseph Thornley • addiction

As I entered the airport this morning, I passed a couple of pilots who were standing outside in the cold, smoking. Judging from the desperate way they were dragging on those cigarettes, they were hooked, really hooked, on tobacco.

As Toronto is a departure point for several long range flights, it got me to thinking. Airplanes are all non-smoking now, right? And some flights can extend to 10 to 14 hours. Do the pilots really go that long without a cigarette? And if they do, what are their nerves like when it comes time to land at the end of a long flight?

I hope that all my flights are piloted by non-smokers. But how would I know?