Mathew Ingram's coming to Third Tuesday Ottawa

March 17, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • globeandmail, mathewingram, ThirdTuesdayOttawa

Third Tuesday Ottawa When I announced Mathew Ingram‘s Third Tuesday Toronto presentation on How the Globe and Mail is using social media to connect with its readers, the session sold out in less than an hour.

Clearly, there’s a lot of interest in what Mathew and his colleagues at the Globe are up to. And there should be even more interest in Ottawa, where the government, politicians, and interest groups live and die by the Globe’s coverage.

mathewi So, I’m really excited to be able to tell you that we’ve snagged Mathew for Third Tuesday Ottawa on March 30.

If you’re planning to be in Ottawa on March 30, you can register online to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa with Mathew Ingram.

Thanks to our national sponsor, CNW Group, this Third Tuesday will again be free to the community. CNW Group covers the cost of our sound system, which is our biggest single cost. So, thanks to CNW for supporting Canada’s social media community.

Mathew Ingram on the Globe and Mail's digital future (present)

March 16, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • mathewingram, ThirdTuesdayToronto

ThirdTuesdayToronto Social media has turned the news gathering and distribution world upside down. No longer must we sit mute as we read our newspaper or watch the television news, knowing that they’ve got it wrong but unable to voice our views. Now, we can easily post our views on a blog, Facebook, Twitter or any other social media publishing platform we choose to use. Others who share our interests will find us and, if they think we’ve said something worth reading, they can redistribute our content with a simple gesture on the platform of their choice.

Not only can we talk about the news we receive, we can report it first hand. We’ve already seen citizen generated news sites like NowPublic spring up to take advantage of the fact that there are many, many more citizens who are originating eyewitness reports on events where the news media have yet to touch down.

Mainstream media is rapidly being undercut as audiences move to online social media and advertisers realize that what worked yesterday may not be working today.

On the other hand, let’s be honest that we all get a thrill if our content crosses over into traditional mainstream media and gets referenced there. That’s a simple acknowledgment that while most of us write for niche audiences who share our interests, an appearance in traditional mainstream media gives us access to a much larger audience. And, in most cases, mainstream media still carries with it a greater degree of authority in its newsgathering and reporting.

So, what’s a newspaper guy going to do? Stick his head in the sand and hope that the user trends don’t make him a casualty before retirement?

mathewingram1 If you’re Mathew Ingram, you’re taking a different path. You’re embracing the new online social media tools and exploiting your incumbent advantages of authority and reach to try to build a new relationship with your audience in the new medium. And you’re helping (pushing) your employer, Canada’s newspaper of record, the Globe and Mail, to embrace new media and explore their potential.

And, if you’re Mathew Ingram, you’re going to share your knowledge, experience and vision with Third Tuesday Toronto on March 24.

The Globe recently appointed Mathew as their “communities manager.” He is well qualified for this position, having established himself as (one of) Canada’s most respected and widely followed technology bloggers and reporters.

Since he took over as community manager, the Globe has engaged in high profile social media experiments – most notably using CoverItLive for live coverage of a subway shooting in Toronto, the Canadian budget and the visit to Ottawa of President Obama; the establishment of a public policy Wiki; and encouraging other Globe reporters to make it personal by using Twitter.

This will be Mathew’s second appearance at Third Tuesday. He helped us establish Third Tuesday when he agreed to be the speaker at our third event. Then, he was talking about the use of social media by reporters. And he was a great hit.

I’m sure he’ll be an equally great hit this time – and a sellout. If you’d like to attend, you can register online at the Third Tuesday Toronto Website.

Things that keep me awake … at Third Tuesday Calgary

February 23, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • ThirdTuesdayCalgary

I’m getting a chance to visit old friends in Calgary early in March. And they’ve been nice enough to ask me to be the speaker at Third Tuesday Calgary.

I’ll be arriving the previous afternoon from Sydney, Australia and also will have spoken to another group at lunch. So, I’ve kept the promise and, hopefully, the expectations of my performance modest with a session description that I hope will spark some good discussion among participants once I’ve kicked it off. Here’s the description from the Third Tuesday Calgary meetup site:

Things that keep Joseph Thornley awake at night…

Joseph Thornley will lead a different type of Third Tuesday Calgary discussion. What are the issues relating to social media that you keep coming back to? What are the ones that just haven’t been put to bed yet?

He’ll prime the discussion by sharing with us the things that keep him awake at night:

Twitterquette: How much honesty is too much? Can you make a critical point in 140 bursts? Or is better not to?

Social Media’s relationship with Mainstream Media: (Yes, that again.) MSM takes pride in the editorial function. But is that still a factor when both the CBC and the Globe and Mail use CoverItLive to provide real time coverage of events like the Federal Budget and President Obama’s visit to Ottawa?

Measurement: Are we what we measure? If that’s the case, what is social media?

Fragmentation: It’s not about blogging anymore. Social media tools have proliferated. And as they have, our presence has fragmented into shards spread around the social media scape. How do I stay in control of my own social media presence in this fragmented environment?

The social media creation gap: Canadians lag behind Americans in creation of social media content. According to Forrester’s Social Technographic profiles, the number of online Canadians who are creators, critics or collectors is only half that of Americans who do the same things. Will we continue to be able to see ourselves in social media if this trend persists?

If you’re in Calgary on March 4, I hope you’ll come out to Third Tuesday Calgary and participate in the discussion. You can register online to attend.

Thank you to @andrewmcintyre for organizing this event. And as always, thanks to all the good people at CNW Group, who continue to support Third Tuesday as our national sponsor.

AideRSS CEO Carol Leaman to speak at Third Tuesday Toronto

January 29, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • AideRSS, CarolLeaman, ThirdTuesdayToronto

How does a social media startup not just survive, but continue to grow in the current economic conditions? Carol Leaman, the CEO of AideRSS, the company behind PostRank, will tell us how when she appears at Third Tuesday Toronto on February 17.

AideRSS is an interesting company, both for its innovative PostRank approach to measuring engagement with social media and for the fact that it continues an aggressive growth strategy at a time when others are hoping merely to survive. And with its recent second round financing announcement, it appears to have adequate runway to achieve its objectives.

AideRSS recently announced that it is expanding its PostRank service to offer feed analytics for online content publishers. That’s the all-important data that online publishers use to gain insight into how their RSS feeds are being received and used. The stuff that traditional Web Analytics can’t give you.

In doing this, PostRank is taking on Google, which recently acquired Feedburner, the dominant feed analytics provider. (disclosure: I use Feedburner for ProPR and all of the Thornley Fallis and 76design-produced blogs and RSS feeds.)

Taking on Google. That’s not something for the timid.

AideRSS’ development is being masterminded by CEO Carol Leaman and co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Ilya Grigorik. Last Autumn, Ilya, along with AideRSS’ VP Development Jim Murphy and Community Manager Melanie Baker, told Third Tuesday about how the company is developing its core PostRank technology and building a community around it.

On February 17, Carol will provide the business perspective on the PostRank story. What does it take for a startup to survive and thrive in this environment? What does it take to nail down a second round of funding when investors are running for the hills? How does a company build a business around social media and feed analytics?

So, if you’re interested in gaining some insight into how a company can find an opportunity in social media, develop a technology that meets a real need and and monetize it, this should be an interesting session.

You can register to attend on the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup site.

As always over the past two years, thanks are due to our national sponsor, CNWGroup, whose support keeps Third Tuesday a free community-based event.

Government of Canada's Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the next Third Tuesday Ottawa

January 21, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • GCPedia, governmentsocialmedia, JeffBraybrook, socialmedia, ThirdTuesday, ThirdTuesdayOttawa

Third Tuesday Ottawa In the autumn, the Government of Canada announced a new initiative to integrate social media into its operations: GCPedia, a government-wide Wiki.

GCPedia has been up and running for several months. However, because it lives behind the Government of Canada’s firewall, you and I can’t see it or track how the experiment is proceeding.

The curtain will be drawn back briefly for attendees at the February 2 Third Tuesday Ottawa. Jeff Braybrook, the Government of Canada’s Deputy Chief Technology Officer, will talk about GCPedia and some of the more promising social media for government pilot projects.

I believe that social media holds tremendous potential to bring government closer to citizens. And I’m looking forward to the discussion with Jeff.

If you’re in Ottawa on February 2, you can register online to attend Third Tuesday.

And thanks to our national sponsors, CNW Group, Third Tuesday continues to be a free event.

I hope to see you there.

A Third Tuesday Toronto dinner with David Alston

November 28, 2008 • Joseph Thornley • radian6, ThirdTuesdayToronto

David Alston, Vice President of Marketing from Radian6, will be in Toronto Monday evening prior to a speaking commitment at a Canadian Institute Conference on Social Media.

Based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Radian6 has broken through as one of the best, possibly THE best, social media monitoring and analysis solutions. It has been adopted by social media consultants and organizations like Dell Computer. It’s truly a great Canadian success story.

If you’re curious about how Radian6 has managed to conquer the social media measurement world from its base on the East Coast of Canada, then plan to attend this dinner with David Alston, one of the driving forces behind Radian6’s success.

We have only a limited number of seats for dinner. So, if you’re interested in spending an evening with David Alston and others who share an interest in social media monitoring and measurement, click over to the Third Tuesday Toronto Website to reserve a place.

Steve Rubel is coming to Third Tuesday Toronto

November 6, 2008 • Joseph Thornley • SteveRubel, ThirdTuesdayToronto

One of the real pioneers in social media, Steve Rubel, is coming to Third Tuesday Toronto on November 24. When I first started to explore blogging and social media, Steve was already there. From the outset, Steve Rubel had a clear focus of the potential of the new social digital media. Steve staked out his territory and his vision with his very first post on his blog, Micropersuasion, in April 2004:

The proliferation of Weblogs and RSS news feeds has changed the practice of public relations forever. Despite all of the hype about media consolidation, we are no longer living in a mass media world dominated by conglomerates.

Today we’re just as likely to be influenced by something we read on a blog like Scobleizer as we are by an article in the Wall Street Journal or a segment on Good Morning America.

This means that the role of the public relations counselor is changing…quickly. Clients are still looking to agencies to reach key audiences. This hasn’t changed. The difference, however, is now PR pros must not only secure “earned media coverage” but also know how to influence influential bloggers, many of whom are part of the audiences we covet.

The rules of engagement are different in this world of micro persuasion. PR pros now must: 1) continually study how news spreads online, 2) identify and qualify the most influential and vocal members of their audience, 3) know how to reach these influencers and 4) learn how to easily assimilate into the audiences they want to reach by launching and promoting their own weblogs.

Talk about prescient!

Today, Steve can be found not just on Micropersuasion, but on other platforms like Twitter and Friendfeed. Of if you want to know what Steve is reading, you can subscribe to Steve’s shared items on Google Reader. While he (like the many of us) has backed off the frequency of his posts, he is still looked to for his ability to identify and make sense of trends.

This past summer, I had a chance to hear him make a killer presentation at the IABC International Conference on the trends he’s watching. I’m hoping that he’ll talk about this at Third Tuesday. If he does, I know we’ll all leave with a lot to think about.

We know that lots of people will want to meet and hear Steve. So, we’re moving this month’s event to a larger venue, Pravda.

If you’d like to hear and meet one of social media’s true pioneers, RSVP at the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup site.

Thanks again to our national sponsor, CNW Group, for enabling us to keep Third Tuesday a free community-based event.

Third Tuesday Toronto dinner with Shel Holtz

November 3, 2008 • Joseph Thornley • ShelHoltz, ThirdTuesdayToronto

Shel Holtz of For Immediate Release and A Shel of My Former Self will be joining us for a Third Tuesday dinner tomorrow. We`re not planning any special presentation this week. Just a chance for people to meet and talk with Shel – and for us all to enjoy one another`s company.

Because of the dinner format, attendance will be limited to only 30 people. We`re instituting a $20 sign up fee to try to cut down on no shows. All people who register will be refunded their sign up fee by way of a credit on your dinner bill. So, in fact it won`t cost you any extra.

RSVP on the Third Tuesday Toronto meetup site to let us know whether you plan to attend.

More about PostRank and AideRSS: