Would you like to help organize Third Tuesday Toronto?

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Are you interested in helping to organize Third Tuesday Toronto?

We’re looking for people to help us with:

  • Managing logistics (arranging for the meeting location, sound system, lighting)
  • On-site registration (yes, we need people to greet and register people at the events)
  • Finding and booking speakers (Because we don’t pay appearance fees to speakers, we rely on the networks of our organizers to be able to reach out to top notch people they know and persuade them to appear at Third Tuesday.
  • Soliciting sponsors (to cover the cost of speaker travel, sound and lighting, hall rental)

If you have the time and are prepared to help us with these tasks and the other work that goes into organizing Third Tuesday, then please register to attend our upcoming Organizers Only gathering.

Social Mediators 6 – Living with the iPad; Living with less PR podcasting

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In this week’s episode of Social Mediators, Terry Fallis, Dave Fleet and I talk about some of the limitations of the iPad and changes to two of the longest running PR podcasts – Inside PR and For Immediate Release.

OK. OK. The iPad is selling like hotcakes. But I still think that Steve Jobs has made a mistake with the product by limiting its usefulness for content creation. Dave Fleet thinks that “Steve Jobs has always done  – what Steve Jobs wants to do.” Terry doesn’t see it as a mistake and expects that Apple will sell a “whack of them.” I think that the iPad takes us back to the era of creators and consumers. And I hope that competitors will push Apple to do better.

Also, after four years and 200 episodes of Inside PR, Terry Fallis and David Jones have given up podcasting. Martin Waxman will carry on with new co-hosts. Why did Terry quit? Partly fatigue. But also a sense that the show needs to be refreshed, that it will benefit from an infusion of new ideas.

We also talk about the changes to the longest running PR podcast – For Immediate Release – as Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson announced that they’ve cut back from two shows a week to a weekly podcast. FIR is a must listen for Terry, Dave and I and we’re glad that Shel and Neville are carrying on.

The Social Media Content Creation Gap. Does it matter to you?

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Is our view of the world distorted by the uneven distribution of content creators? And for those countries and groups who lag in creating content, do they risk invisibility and marginalization?

Social media has enabled anyone with access to the Internet to create and share content. And this makes it possible for us to see the world as we have never seen it before. Not through the eyes of elites, but through the eyes of ordinary people like you and me.

But there’s a problem. Some parts of the world are more visible than others. And some areas risk being marginalized.

There are significant variations in the rate at which people from different countries participate in the act of content creation. And the countries with the highest levels of participation may not be the ones you expect.

The Forrester Social Technographics country profiles vividly illustrate this issue. Forrester’s Social Technographics profiles demonstrate that people participate in social media in a range of ways and with varying degrees of engagement, from simply consuming through to actively creating content.

When you compare Technographics profiles on a national basis, a “content creation gap” can be seen between the most prolific content creators and the laggards. Most important is the proportion of the online population who self identify as Content Creators, the top rung of the Technographics ladder.

There’s a huge gap between the leaders and the laggards – ranging from over one third of people online creating content in South Korea, Metro China, Japan to less than one in five people creating content in countries like Canada, the UK, Spain and Sweden.  And barely one in ten people who use social media in France and Germany create content.

Add to this the impact of search engine algorithms. Search engines return results that reflect content that is most popular, most linked to, and most read.  That favours the most popular creators.  It also favours those countries and regions that are most populous, most connected, and most prolific.

What happens to those creators who come from smaller countries and who reflect a more distinct perspective?  Will they be found or will they be relegated to page 200 of the search results?  A place that guarantees invisibility.

Should countries like Canada or the UK be concerned that the number of active content creators isn’t higher?  Especially given that the means of content creation are accessible for free to anyone with a broadband connection?

Do we accept that 20% of people will create 80% of the content and that’s just the way things are?

Or by doing nothing, do we run the risk of losing sight of ourselves as other more prolific content creating countries generate ever more content?

Social Media Zeitgeist, April 13, 2010

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This week, I found my Social Media Zeitgeist in posts by John Battelle, Steve Rubel, Cory Doctorow, Jeff Jarvis, Michael Geist, Liz Gannes and David Armano.

Foursquare: Headed to bigger things – or a potential flame out?

Could Foursquare be the next shiny object that fails to live up to its initial glitter? John Battelle’s post, Foursquare, I wish it was better for me, highlights some hurdles that Foursquare must overcome before the service is likely to break into the mainstream. Whether it’s the feeling that it’s targeted at a specific demo (what the heck am I doing on it?), the lack of engagement beyond checking in, poor search or an unclear function in the social sphere, there’s a lot of work to do to ensure that Foursquare doesn’t flame out.

Living – or not – with the iPad

It’s the week after the excitement of the launch. Now, people are reporting their experience living with the iPad. And some could do without it.

Steve Rubel spends a week working with only the iPad. While he seems to love the device, he calls out Apple for undermining the Web as we know it: “Seemingly overnight the Information Superhighway (does anyone call it that anymore?) became littered with potholes. In the last week Apple sold nearly 500,000 iPads, none of which support key technologies that we have come to rely on, including Adobe Flash, Windows Media and others. (Adobe and Microsoft are Edelman clients.) …For the last week I have been using my iPad as my primary device. I enjoy the slate format and think it’s the next big thing for computing – one that will see lots of winners. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost. I don’t get to experience the web like I used to, but a version of it that only Apple approves of – one that’s peppered with potholes that turns it into the swiss cheese web.”

Writing on Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow called it this way: “The real issue isn’t the capabilities of the piece of plastic you unwrap today, but the technical and social infrastructure that accompanies it.

“If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad isn’t for you.

“If you want to live in the fair world where you get to keep (or give away) the stuff you buy, the iPad isn’t for you.

“If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you’re going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn’t for you.”

And Jeff Jarvis, saying he doesn’t see a good use for the iPad, put his money behind his convictions, paying a restocking fee to return his unit after less than a week.

Copyright no longer an esoteric subject in Canada

Michael Geist tallies up the Canadian Government’s consultation on its proposed copyright reform bill, C-61: “There were ultimately more than 8,300 submissions – more than any government consultation in recent memory – with the overwhelming majority rejecting Bill C-61 (6138 submissions against, 54 in support), while thousands called for flexible fair dealing and a link between copyright infringement and anti-circumvention rules.”

The power of letting yourself be known

In a post on GigaOm about the current troubles at Digg, Liz Gannes makes the case for why signed comments trump anonymous comments for credibility: “A place where you use a silly moniker as your user ID just doesn’t feel like true socializing in these days of Facebook, Google, OpenID and (to some extent) Twitter. There’s a value to anonymity, but true social interactions are the kind of powerful things that keep you coming back. Endorsing a piece of content with your own name in the context of your known interests for an established group of friends or readers is quite powerful.”

There’s something happening here

David Armano keeps thinking deeply about what’s really going on in social media. In his post, Media = The Ways We Engage in Context, he brings together the concepts of owned, earned and paid media with engagement and context.

What caught your eye this week?

Well, that’s my take on this week’s social media zeitgeist. If these interest you, please share the links on Twitter, delicious, Facebook or the social media platform of your choice.

And let me know what caught you eye this week. I want to expand my reading list too.

Social Media Zeitgeist

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Zeitgeist: the attitudes and ideas that are generally common in a particular place during a particular time. These ideas and attitudes show up especially in literature, popular culture, philosophy, and politics.

I’m starting a weekly series of Social Media Zeitgeist posts  in which I’ll point to of articles, podcasts, videos, or events from the previous week that I think capture the mood and concerns of the social media sphere.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that my interests encompass social media, communities of interest, the evolving relationships between people and institutions, communications, marketing and the impact of emerging technologies on all of these things. And I read many different sources on these subjects each week.

I share articles that I find noteworthy through shared items in Google Reader, my delicious tags, and also via links on Twitter. However, they’ve been absent from ProPR.ca. I’m about to rectify that.

So, if you share my interests, I hope you find the weekly Social Media Zeitgeist posts useful and worth reading.

After all, social media is all about sharing.

Right. I'm going to fall for this one.

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It’s tax season. And the scam artists are out in full force.

I received this in my email this morning:

Dear Taxpayer,

After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of : $112.00
Regarding this, please complete the Refund Form and mail it to one of the addresses from the second page.
>>You will find attached to this email : the English/French version of the form<<
Your *Refund Reference Number is: Ref/12209/2009.
*Refund Amount : 112.00 $.

*(You will need it to fill the form)

NOTE!
For security reasons, remove the form from your computer after printing.

Thank you,
Canada Revenue Agency

Yeah. For sure. Canada Revenue Agency is going to send an email with a generic heading to a “Taxpayer” asking me to complete and return a form. You can be sure I didn’t bother to open the attachments.

SPAM. The nuisance that just won’t go away.

Thornley Fallis is looking for a Leader for our Toronto office

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The recession is over. Hurrah. And our business is growing. Hurrah again.

Recessions are hard on everybody. But they can be especially tough on the leaders who have to make the decisions that affect others. It can be like carrying the burden of not only your own anxieties, but the anxieties of everyone you work with. Sometimes, you can just be so ground down by the stress and burden of carrying a team through the bad times that you feel that the only way you can get your energy back is with a complete change of scene.

That’s happened to us. The General Manager of our Toronto office was recruited away from us. We’re sorry to see her go. Not only was she very good at her job, but she was one of the nicest people you could ever want to work with and a friend. We’ll miss her.

Now we have an opening on our management team. And we need to move quickly to fill it.

We’re looking for a General Manager for our Toronto office.

Do you know this person? Or might it be you?

What does our general manager do?

Our General Manager will:

Lead a talented team of consultants whose expertise spans social media, traditional public relations, Web design and development, and advertising. You’ll ensure that they have what they need on a day by day basis to succeed and you’ll ensure that we’re delivering real results for our clients and pursuing opportunities to grow our business.

Set an example of excellence in your communications skills and personal conduct. Be a person who inspires by example.

Mentor and guide the team members. This includes developing an annual career plan with each employee and conducting progress reviews. We want our employees to grow with us. We count on our General Manager to make sure that everyone is thinking about what they want out of their professional careers and that they are working toward attaining that.

Work with our CFO to establish business targets and ensure that we achieve them. A business has to be successful in order to provide a bright future for its employees.

What kind of person are we looking for?

You have already achieved success in your career as a communicator. You have demonstrated your leadership skills through responsibility for a team and a business unit.

You are a successful consultant, having already demonstrated that you understand client needs and that you can organize a team to meet those needs and deliver creative solutions that deliver real results.

You have established relationships with senior executives who lead the communications and marketing functions in their companies. And those people want to work with you again. In fact, you’re confident that when they hear you’re working with Thornley Fallis, they’ll want to talk with you about you and your new team can help them.

You inspire loyalty. The people who work with you love working with you. They know that you care about them and that you’ll put the needs of the team ahead of your own needs.

Are you Thornley Fallis’ next Toronto General Manager?

Does it sound like a job you could excel at and that you’d be passionate about? If so, connect with me on LinkedIn or DM me on Twitter.

Social Mediators 5 – Jeremy Wright and SxSW

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It’s only episode 5 and already we’ve broken the Social Mediators mold. Neither Dave Fleet nor I could be part of this week’s session. So, Terry Fallis recruited Jeremy Wright to stand in for both of us.

In this week’s episode, Jeremy talks with Terry about the South by SouthWest Interactive conference (SxSW) in Austin and what has drawn Jeremy to attend 7 times in the past 10 years. And for Jeremy, it’s the open culture of the conference – the friendliness of people and the fact that the meetings and encounters in the hallways can be much better than what takes place in the formal sessions.

You’ll hear them talk about the fact that I too would be at SxSW. Well, it didn’t happen. The night before I was supposed to leave, I spilled a glass of wine on my computer and I had to head home to Ottawa to meet the “man from Dell.” He showed up in my office Friday with a new mother board, touchpad, screen and keyboard (yes, the Complete Care insurance was worth every penny I paid for it.) But if you’ve ever tried to get a last minute flight to Austin during SxSW, you’d know why I never made it there. Having missed my originally scheduled flight, I was out of luck.

One more thing. A big thank you to Mike Edgell for recording and editing this week’s episode. Although he’s on the road the entire week for a video shoot, Mike found the extra time to produce Social Mediators. Thanks Mike for service above and beyond.

Personal Brand, Personal Experience – Part 2 of 2

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Yesterday, I posted part 1 of my Personal Brand Camp keynote presentation, in which I talk about my pre-social media existence and my general approach to presenting myself online. Today, in part 2, I talk about what I have learned and offer some guidelines that I live by.

If you are thinking about the concept of your “personal brand” or simply how others see you online, I hope you find these simple rules to be helpful.

There’s only one me

Personal brand sounds like a marketing concept, something where can I separate myself from my brand and my brand is a contrivance.  That’s not possible.  Ultimately, my brand is about me.  And there’s only one me.

Be conscious of my decisions, but never contrived

I make  conscious decisions about what I will reveal (I protect my privacy by thinking through my boundaries in advance), what I want to say about things and how I want to interact with other people.  Authenticity will be seen.  Duplicitousness will be seen through.

I must be conscious of my decisions, which is good, but definitely not contrived, which would be artificial and bad.

Be introspective and self aware

Before going online, I ask myself, “Who do I want to see in the mirror?” Once online, I’m mindful of how others perceive me. I must acknowledge that what other people see in me is what I am.  And I understand that if others don’t see the same person who I see in the mirror, then I have failed in communicating who I really think I am.

Lies will be found out

There’s no point in trying to construct and project a “public persona” different from the private person. And the judgment that I exercise in my personal life will reflect upon the judgment that I may exercise in your public life.

I can’t hide deception. We’re all just too visible for that. And too many of our friends are online and connecting with one another. If they see deception, they’ll recognize it and they’ll call it out. So, I try always to  be honest and not live a lie.

It’s not just about the words.  Actions speak louder.

From time to time, I have been called to account through social media.  I may not like what people tell me. But I must listen to what they say and accept that some of it may be right.  And if it is, the true test of my character is whether I act upon it.  If I’m not prepared to change the way I am, I will be a lesser person.

Be human. Be vulnerable

Vulnerability is a basic human condition. If we aren’t willing to show our vulnerability, we won’t come across as authentic or trustworthy.

I’ve learned to admit when I have uncertainties. It’s hard to do. But it will lead to  much stronger and real relationships.

“Draft” is my friend

It never hurts to think twice about something we might want to say. If I’m in doubt, if I’m writing in the heat of the moment, I save it, sleep on it and don’t hit the “publish” button until I’ve had time for second thoughts. ‘Nuff said.

Sarcasm and sniping are the refuge of the unimaginative

Why hurt someone to demonstrate how smart and witty I am? It’s harder to be original in my thinking and to advance our understanding in a positive way. Why not be kind, honest and helpful to everyone? It won’t cost anything and I’ll feel a lot better about myself when I face that moment of truth before sleep puts an end to the day.

Don’t feed the trolls

I never respond to anonymous comments. Unless I recognize truth in what they say. (See “Actions speak louder” above)

Trust is the currency and I have to earn it

You’ve heard the mantra before: Transparency, authenticity, reliability, generosity. Absorb them. Live them.

I try not to keep a tally sheet of who received how much. Instead, I simply give as best I can and then celebrate when I receive something back.

Become the person I want to see in the mirror

Put all of this together and I will thrive in social media. At least this is what I believe and this is what I try to live by.

Personal Brand, Personal Experience – Part 1 of 2

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Do you think you have a “personal brand?” Do you consciously develop or manage it?

I’ve been online for several years and never really thought of myself as having a “personal brand.” But I had to give it some thought when Michael Cayley invited me to keynote Personal Brand Camp 2 in Toronto. What I came up with was probably the most personally revealing presentation I’ve ever been called upon to deliver. I’ve decided to share it here. I hope you find it helpful in sorting out your own perspective on your online “personal brand.”

I’ve broken the video into two parts so that I can upload it to YouTube.

In part 1, which I’m posting today, I talk about my pre-social media existence and my general approach to presenting myself online. In part 2, which I will post tomorrow, I’ll talk about what I have learned and offer some guidelines that I live by.

What do you really know about me?

What do you know about me? Chances are, you know what you find on Google – my involvement in social media, Third Tuesday, my support of others in social media or through my companies,  Thornley Fallis and 76design. Probably, you are unaware as the people in this video of my 35 year involvement with the Liberal Party of Canada, much of which time I spent in senior roles at the national level. In effect, my pre-social media life has been pushed to the background by how I have defined myself through social media. What doesn’t show up on the first page of search or in the flow of conversation seems almost not to exist.

Before social media, others defined me

In the pre-social media era, others defined me. What reporters and columnists said in traditional media was taken as gospel. However, I’d read the paper in the morning or watch the TV news and know that what I read and saw was not an accurate portrayal of who I really was or what I believed in. The problem with the news media, I realized, is that it’s one way. I was impotent to change what the media reported.

Others were defining who I was and I wasn’t very happy about that.

Through social media, we all own our own barrel of ink

Then I discovered social media. Through social media, I realized that I had my own barrel of ink. I could have a voice. I could be heard. I could take control of who I was. And the proof is in Google. Search for “Joseph Thornley” and you’ll see that I have been able to define who I am.

Not a marketing contrivance. Just me

But do I think of what I have done as creating a personal brand? Not really. I think instead that everyday I’m online is a chance for me to look in the mirror, to see what kind of person I really am. It’s not a marketing contrivance. That’s fake. It’s just me.

And I’m happy with where I am.

Tomorrow: What have I learned?