Make Toronto's Mesh Conference08 the best ever

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Mesh Toronto 2006The organizers of Toronto’s Mesh Conference are asking for input on the sessions you would like to attend and the speakers you’d like to hear from.

I’ve offered a few suggestions:

Social media metrics and measurement

I think that THE pressing issue is metrics and measurement for social media. We cannot duck the ROI questions any longer. Corporations and other organizations have dived into social media with vigour. Now, we must find ways to assess the results of the social media programs. Do we measure results by conversions? By engagement? By something else? And what algorithms can we agree on?

Advertising and PR: Will they converge or fight to the death in social media?

When I attend events like CaseCamp (advertiser driven), I hear people talking about programs that assemble databases and drive conversions. When I attend events like Third Tuesday (PR driven), I hear people talking about longterm relationships, trust and community.

I think that advertising and PR start out from very different perspectives. Will they converge in the social media space? Can we agree that participation is marketing?

Introducing the Social Media Culture into the Corporation

The culture clash between social media and organizations. Social media is about peer creation and sharing. Organizations are about hierarchy and control. How can organizations manage the tension between these different mindsets in order to realize the benefits of social media while maintaining the discipline and focus necessary to be effective?

These are my suggestions. What do you think? What sessions would you like to see at Mesh 2008?

RichardAtDell is at Third Tuesday

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Richard BinhammerRichard Binhammer, RichardatDell, will be speaking at the Third Tuesday Ottawa and Third Tuesday Toronto social media gatherings on December 3 and 4.

Hear from one of Dell’s key social media architects

Dell is a prime case study of a company that took its lumps through social media. In the summer of 2006, the company was hit by two social media crises: Jeff Jarvis’ Dell Hell meme over his unhappiness with the company’s support service followed by exploding batteries on YouTube

Dell also is a prime example of a company that adopted social media as part of the response to its problems. The company launched Direct to Dell, a blog where real employees talk about Dell’s products and services and answer questions and issues raised by people in comments or in posts on their own blogs. It has buttressed that with a program of blogger relations, reaching out to bloggers to get to know them and become part of their community. It also has launched Dell IdeaStorm, a site that allows consumers to make suggestions to Dell and then enables the community to vote for or against these suggestions.

Richard Binhammer has been at the centre of Dell’s social media efforts from the outset. A key member of the Dell blogger outreach program, his comments, signed as RichardAtDell, appear across a broad range of blogs dealing with computing and social media. Recently, he stepped out front, launching his own blog, where he writes about corporate communications and social media relations.

Richard will be on hand at both Third Tuesday Ottawa and Third Tuesday Toronto to share the personal perspective he gained as one of the key players behind Dell’s drive to learn about and adopt social media best practices.

A Personal Connection

I’m especially looking forward to these event because I have a personal connection to Richard. I’m one of the bloggers that RichardAtDell reached out to as part of Dell’s blogger relations program.

Richard first made contact with me when I posted about a presentation that Robert Scoble made at a conference in September 2006. Within a couple hours of my post, I received a comment from RichardAtDell. That was the first of many comments, posts, shared links and emails that Richard exchanged with me about social media.

Third TuesdayLast winter, I invited Richard and his colleague, Lionel Menchaca, the principal force behind Direct to Dell, to visit Canada to speak to Third Tuesday. Lionel made it to Toronto for Third Tuesday and the Mesh Conference. However, the first game of the Senators first Stanley Cup Playoff appearance was scheduled for the same night as his planned Ottawa appearance. Anyone who knows Canada knows that you don’t compete with Stanley Cup fever in a hockey town. So, we had to cancel the Ottawa session.

However, when we cancelled the Third Tuesday Ottawa event, Richard was generous enough to indicate that he’d still make the trip at another date. Next week, he’s making good on this promise – appearing not only at Third Tuesday Ottawa, but also Third Tuesday Toronto and the Canadian Institute’s Conference on Social Media. On top of that, he’ll speak to a combined CPRS/IABC Ottawa luncheon while he’s here. That’s a lot of work for one person over just three days. But that’s also the way that Richard has approached social media. An all-in commitment.

So, if you’re near Ottawa or Toronto Monday and Tuesday, don’t miss this chance to meet and talk with RichardAtDell. Sign up to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa or to attend Third Tuesday Toronto.

Disclosure

My company, Thornley Fallis, has been using Dell computers since the company was founded in 1995. Today, we have Dell desktops, notebooks, servers, printers, and LCD projectors. I even bought a Dell LCD television for my family at Christmas last year. Dell’s 24 hour support lines have has always been there for me when I needed help. So, when Dell offered Thornley Fallis a chance to compete for an assignment with Dell Canada this past summer, we jumped at it. And I’m happy to say that we won the competition. So, now I work for Dell. That’s why I haven’t mentioned Dell in any posts for several months. But with Richard’s trip to Canada, I needed to post about his appearance at Third Tuesday. So, I thought I’d provide some of the background along with this disclosure. I hope that this meets an acceptable standard of transparency.

CNW GroupThanks to our sponsors

And thank you again CNW Group for sponsoring these events. Your support lets us focus on programming great events without an admission fee.

Related Posts:

Jeremiah Owyang and Geoff Livingston chronicle Dell’s social media saga

Jeff Jarvis updates the Dell story for Business Week. See also his original draft of the story.

Third Tuesday group on Facebook

 

The First Podcamp Ottawa

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Mark Blevis, co-founder of Podcasters Across Borders and Canadian Podcast Buffet is organizing the first Podcamp Ottawa this Sunday.

Podcamp is an Unconference. So, people who feel they have some knowledge or expertise they’d like to share with other participants can slot themselves into the schedule on the Podcamp Wiki. Speakers who’ve already indicated that they will lead sessions include Charles Hodgson, Tommy Vallier, Bob Goyetche and Mark.

Mark and I bumped into one another on Parliament Hill where he took a few minutes to discuss his plans to make Podcamp Ottawa a special experience for participants. Toward the end, he also provided a preview of this year’s Podcasters Across Borders.

You can watch Mark’s discussion with me by clicking on the image below.

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If you can make it to Ottawa this Sunday, sign up to attend PodCamp Ottawa.

 

Third Tuesday Toronto postponed to December 4

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CaseCamp Toronto6 has been scheduled on November 20, the same night as this month’s Third Tuesday Toronto.

Third TuesdayWe love CaseCamp as much as we love Third Tuesday. And we don’t want people to have to choose which event to attend.

So, we’ve decided to postpone Third Tuesday Toronto to December 4 so that people don’t have to choose.

And in December, we’ll have a great speaker Richard Binhammer – RichardatDell. We’ll also be moving to a larger venue so that we won’t have to turn anyone away.

I’ll post more info about the December 4 event in the next few days. In the meantime,  mark it in your calendars. You won’t want to miss Richard’s session.

Colin McKay looks behind the curtain of government blogging

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Third Tuesday Ottawa has a speaker this month who’s been there, done that, and is finding ever better ways to do it.

CanuckflackColin McKay has been one of Canada’s blogging pioneers since he started posting to Canuckflack in 2003. Since then, he has built a loyal following of readers who count on Colin’s eclectic interests to take them on a voyage of discovery through the profound, the whimsical and the offbeat. His inventive posts have driven Canuckflack to #65 on the AdAge Power 150 – the highest rated Canadian blog authored by a single person.

Earlier this year, Colin set up a new blog, SoSaidTheOrganization, to provide him with a space where he could post primarily about “how government organizations communicate and integrate social media.”

With all this experience, it’s not surprising that Colin is the moving force behind what is currently the state of the art Canadian government blog for the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Colin has demonstrated that a government blog can deal with issues of real consequence and stimulate broader debate in mainstream media as well as the blogosphere in a way that enhances trust in the blogging government institution.

Third TuesdayIf this isn’t enough to make this event a must-attend for you, I’ll give the final word about Colin to Colin himself. The About section of Canuckflack leads off with the following:

Supremely disappointed that he was neither raised by beavers nor moose, Colin McKay never heard his name being called during the closing “mirror” segment of Romper Room. An owner of Generation “X” in first run hardcover, he feels uncomfortable saying things like “for shizzle” and “peeps.” He’s old enough to remember when advertisers only wanted your cold hard cash, and had no aspirations to move in, become friends with your cat and get invited to Thanksgiving dinner.

How can you resist spending an evening with the author of that passage?

If you’re in Ottawa on November 19, plan to attend Third Tuesday. You’ll meet some smart people and have a chance to talk about the latest developments in social media in Canada. Guaranteed.

Third Tuesday Toronto has a nightcap with Giovanni Rodriguez

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Giovanni RodriguezGiovanni Rodriguez, one of the pioneers of social media and public relations, is coming to Toronto and we’ve scheduled a special Third Tuesday Nightcap with him.

Giovanni is a a leading pr blogger, a principal in The Conversation Group social media consultancy and a Research Fellow and Advisory Board member of the Society for New Communications Research. He also is co-author of a thought-provoking paper, Relating to the Public: The Evolving Role of Public Relations in the Age of Social Media, published this past summer by the Council of Public Relations Firms.

Giovanni will be speaking earlier in the evening at a CPRS Toronto Workshop. But because he’s committed to sharing his insight into social media and to help build our community, he’s offered to join us for a special “Third Tuesday Nightcap” after the CPRS Workshop concludes.

So, if you’re interested in meeting a real thought leader in public relations and social media, let us know that you plan to attend the Third Tuesday Nightcap with Giovanni Rodriguez. And, if you’re planning to join us, try to attend the CPRS workshop earlier in the evening to hear Giovanni’s full presentation. It should be a great evening of learning and sharing in Toronto!
UPDATE: I want to extend special thanks to Martin Waxman and his firm Palette PR, who are bringing Giovanni to Toronto. Thank you Martin for making this possible.

Kami Huyse shares the lessons she learned from organizing the PRSA Conference blog

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This year’s PRSA International Conference in Philadelphia was jam packed with sessions on social media topics led by the likes of Phil Gomes, Katie Paine, Josh Hallett, Peter Himler, Rick Murray, and John Bell.

But the social media action wasn’t just in the sessions. It was everywhere in the conference. A special conference blog was set up to host posts on the conference sessions. Eric Schwartzman roamed the halls interviewing speakers and participants for special conference editions of his podcast. The air was thick with Twitter traffic as participants posted their impressions of several simultaneous sessions. And of course there was the requisite bloggers dinner on the first evening of the conference which brought together over two dozen bloggers and podcasters.

The person behind this blogging bonanza was Kami Huyse from San Antonio, Texas. I had a chance to talk with Kami at the end of the conference about the lessons she’d learned from this process (you can never have too many bloggers; integrate Twitter into the blogging feed) and advice she’d offer others who are considering organizing conference blogging efforts (start with Josh Hallett’s conference blogging tips.)

The interview runs just over three minutes and you can watch it here.

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Darren Barefoot, David Jones, Danielle Donders and Joseph Thornley – your Third Tuesday October lineup

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What do Darren Barefoot, David Jones, Danielle Donders and I have in common?

Third TuesdayWe’re speaking at the Third Tuesday social media meetups this week.

If you’re interested in social media and its impact on communication, marketing, community building and society and you’d like to get together with others who share this interest, register to attend Third Tuesday in Toronto, Ottawa or Vancouver. And while you’re at it, why not join the Third Tuesday Facebook group to participate in the discussion before and after the sessions.

Third Tuesdays are community driven free events organized by volunteers with support from CNW Group, who underwrite the cost of presentation equipment and venue fees, and Society for New Communications Research. Thank you to both our sponsors. Your help to make these events is greatly appreciated.

Want to learn more about this month’s Third Tuesdays? Follow these links:

Third Tuesday Ottawa gets Postcards from the Mothership

Darren Barefoot launches Third Tuesday Toronto season

Third Tuesday in bigger and better in Vancouver

CNW Group and SNCR sign on to support Third Tuesdays

Talk is Cheap – a social media conference for communicators

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Talk is CheapGary Shlee, the social media-savvy coordinator of the postgraduate Corporate Communications and Public Relations program at Toronto’s Centennial College has just pulled the wraps off Talk is Cheap – a social media unconference that Centennial will be hosting on November 15.

Visit Gary’s blog post for more info and then hop over to the conference Wiki to sign up as a participant or propose a session.

Congratulations on the initiative Gary. A great opportunity for experienced PR practitioners to share with PR students and the practitioners of tomorrow.

I'm speaking Thursday night at an IABC Toronto AIP Seminar

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IABC TorontoIf you’re in Toronto on Thursday evening, let’s talk about social media and blogger relations. That’s the topic that IABC Toronto’s Independent Practitioners group have asked me to address at their “Old Media vs. New Media” seminar.

When you visit the event page, you won’t see my name. But don’t worry, I’ll be there. I’m the “panel members (TBC)” 🙂

If you read my blog, I’d love to see you there and to hear what you think about blogger relations and whether they matter when compared with traditional media relations.