Why a registration fee for Third Tuesday?

June 22, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Several people in both Toronto and Ottawa emailed me to ask why I’ve introduced a $10 registration fee for Third Tuesday Toronto and Third Tuesday Ottawa.

That’s a fair question. And I thought I’d answer it here for everyone to read instead of responding only to those who asked.

The reason is simple: We’re searching for a way to reduce the number of “no-shows,” people who say they will attend and then don’t show up on the night of the event.

The Third Tuesday community has grown substantially since Shel Israel appeared at the first Third Tuesday Toronto and Third Tuesday Ottawa in September 2006. In fact, the Third Tuesday Toronto membership now exceeds 2,000. On any given night between 150 and 250 people will come out to meet and hear the speakers, to talk about social media and to network with others who share their interests.

The problem is that, as the events have grown and become better known, the number of people who actually show up can vary substantially from the number who indicate on the Third Tuesday site that they intend to attend. Our no-show rate has on some nights exceeded 40% of the expected attendees. This makes it extremely hard to plan the events. We have to lock into a larger hall than we may need. The venue will overstaff, driving up their costs and making them more reluctant to have us return again.

No-shows have another even more serious impact. We’ve sold out several of the Third Tuesdays in Toronto and Ottawa this year. And when you have people on a wait list, every no-show deprives someone else of an opportunity to participate. That’s not good. And we have to find a way to reduce the no-shows.

We have experimented with charging for Third Tuesdays in the past when we scheduled them over dinner. In the case where we charged a $20 admission fee, the number of people who reserved a spot but didn’t show up dropped to virtually zero.

The simple fact is: If you charge people a small amount, they’ll place a higher value on their commitment to attend. So, by introducing a modest admission fee, I’m hoping to reduce the number of no-shows and make every seat in the house available to people who actually will come out and participate.

Ultimately, the quality of the event is determined by the participants. One of the ways that we’ve been able to attract such great speakers is that they know that Third Tuesday is a great community of people and they want to plug into that community and talk about their ideas with us.

I want to keep the Third Tuesday community vibrant. I hope that introducing an admission fee will help to do this.

The City of Ottawa gets into social media: Third Tuesday Ottawa

June 15, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • chriswightman, CityofOttawa, ThirdTuesday, ThirdTuesdayOttawa

cityofottawalogo-090615 Over the past year, Chris Wightman (@cwightman), the City of Ottawa‘s Manager of eMedia, and his team have explored how the city could use social media to improve information sharing among employees and to bring the city closer to citizens.

Chris will be talking at the next Third Tuesday Ottawa about his experience with social media at the city. Chris will describe the hightlights of the city’s exploration of social media, what has worked, what hasn’t worked yet and what comes next.

Third Tuesday Ottawa

I think you’ll find that this is a classic case with lessons that anyone in a public service environment can use. From making a business case for each tool being explored through to making the case for open source software, Chris and his team have been there. They’ve also tackled the challenge of educating their colleagues about social media and its potential to help them do their jobs. And they’ve faced the expected corporate concerns of IT system security, privacy, accessibility and, of course, resources.

If you’re in government or a large organization, and you’re looking for inspiration and examples you can use in introducing social media in your work environment, you’ll find Chris’ presentation to be chock full of useful information.

You can register online to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa with the City of Ottawa’s Chris Wightman.

And once again, thank you to our founding sponsor, CNW Group, who have been with us from the outset. Your support enables us to continue to organize better and better Third Tuesdays.

Disclosure: We're on the Zoompass team

June 15, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • disclosure, EnStream, Zoompass

Thornley Fallis has been engaged to help EnStream launch the Zoompass mobile payment service. (Zoompass users can request and transfer money between one another directly from their smartphones. They can also transfer money directly to a prepaid touchless MasterCard to make purchases.)

zoompasslogo During the launch phase, Kerri Birtch (@kerribirtch), Dave Fleet (@davefleet), and I (@thornley) will be monitoring the online discussions about Zoompass and participating in them through the Zoompass Twitter ID and through posts on the Zoompass blog. We’ll be supporting Zoompass’ Vice President, Aran Hamilton (@aranh) in this effort.

It’s our hope that, working as a team, we’ll be able to be present in the conversation from early in the morning to late at night seven days a week.

If we refer to Zoompass on our own Twitter accounts, we’ll insert “(client)” into the tweet to be sure that the reader, whether they know us or not, is alerted to the fact that we have a relationship with Zoompass.

I’m really excited about being part of the launch. I’ve been playing with Zoompass for a couple months prior to the launch and I think it will add a whole new function to my cellphone.

If you are curious about Zoompass and how you could use it, click over to the Zoompass Website to sign up to try it out. And once you start to use it, follow the Zoompass Twitter stream. If you ask a question or offer a comment there, you can be sure that we’ll respond to it.

Nora Young adds some Spark to Third Tuesday

June 9, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • CBC, NoraYoung, podcast, Spark, ThirdTuesdayToronto

Nora Young is fascinated by how people adopt and apply technology in their lives. And she share her passion every week on CBC Radio One’s Spark. In fact, the program has been so well received that the corporation recently announced that it will be lengthened to an hour in the autumn.

But Nora’s Spark isn’t just a radio program. It’s also a much listened-to podcast that can be listened to at any time. And it’s a blog which offers subscribers a chance to listen to complete undedited interviews that were shortened to fit into the broadcast program. Even more, it’s a blog where Nora and the Sparks production team solicit community input on story ideas that they are developing. And of course, it’s also a Twitter ID that Nora and her team use to tell people about what’s happening with Spark and to have conversations with them.

Nora is truly the new generation of broadcaster. As the traditional model tumbles down, as newspapers are closed, as television stations are closed and as radio budgets are cut, one thing is for sure. Nora Young will be using the media that her community has migrated to.

So, I’m really looking forward to Nora’s appearance at Third Tuesday Toronto on June 23. She’ll be sharing with us the lessons she’s learned from her journey into social media. What were the bumps? How did she overcome them? What has been most successful? Where does she see things going in the future?

If you’re interested in celebrating the potential of new media and talking with someone who is showing how to bridge traditional media and social media, I hope you’ll join us on June 23. You can register online to attend Third Tuesday with Nora Young.

As always, I’d like to give a shoutout to our sponsors: Our founding sponsor, CNW Group has been joined by the Berkeley Heritage Event Venue to help us make this event possible. Thank you to our sponsors. We couldn’t do Third Tuesday without you.

Vancouver Tweetup this Sunday

June 4, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • #CPRS09, tweetup

Vancouver Tweetup June 7

A Tweetup is being organized at Cardero’s in Vancouver at 4PM this Sunday.

I’m going to be speaking with @martinwaxman on a panel at the CPRS National Conference in Vancouver earlier that day. So, I’m definitely planning to attend the Tweetup.

If you’re in Vancouver on Sunday and you want to get together, why not join us at the Vancouver Tweetup. It’s not just for PR people. It’s for you and me.

Follow the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference

May 30, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • CounselorsAcademy, PRSA

ca2009 Every year in the spring, the members of the PRSA’s Counselors Academy gather in a beastly hot southern resort for the organization’s spring conference. Counselors Academy membership is restricted to principals of PR firms or senior practitioners (at least 10 years consulting experience). So, the conversation is unlike any other gathering I have found.

I’m heading to this year’s conference in Palm Springs (37 degrees today – feels blazing hot to my Canadian skin).

I’ll be tweeting the sessions, as will many other people. We’ll be using the hashtag #CA2009. So, if you’re interested in any of the presenters, search on Twitter for #CA2009.

Among the speakers who I’m looking forward to seeing and tweeting:

Archlight Pacific Theatres Cinerama Dome Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad, on how Geek Squad used reputation to build a strong brand;

Steve McKee, author of When Growth Stalls, talking about how to pull your business out of its recession-induced funk;

Suzanne Bates offering advice on how to motivate people within your organization (This has to be my top priority – how to motivate people when the recession is battering them.)

David Anderson and Jason Baer leading a discussion on launching digital marketing services to extend a PR practice;

Robert Merritt leading a roundtable on how to improve and measure your level of client satisfaction;

Tom Gable talking about how we can manage for results and profits in bad times as well as good times; suzannebates

Monty Hagler and Gary Towning providing their advice on shaping an integrated program in which PR does not get pushed to the side by advertising and marketing;

Janet Tyler leading a session on how to figure out what current clients value and think of your firm and the services you provide;

Michael Lasky talking about how to negotiate client-agency contracts that will work for both sides of the deal;

Brad Schwartzberg and Mark Eber offering their advice on how to grow through mergers and acquisitions.

So, if you’re interested in any of this, you can follow the coverage by searching for #CA2009 on Twitter.

Connect2Canada: Using social media to create a community of Canadians in the United States

May 21, 2009 • Joseph Thornley • connect2canada, ericportelance

Yesterday, I introduced Connect2Canada as a case study of government making effective use of social media. Today, I’m taking a deeper look at Connect2Canada, what’s going on and the results that are being achieved.

What is it?

Connect2Canada is a network of Canadians and Friends of Canada in the United States. Its goal is to reach out to these people and make them quasi-Ambassadors for Canada.

Conect2Canada was started as a Website on July 1, 2005. The Facebook page was added in late 2008. The Twitter stream, Flickr photos and YouTube videos were added at the time of the inauguration of President Obama (Canada’s Embassy has a primo location in Washington, a great place to take videos and pictures of the inaugural parade.)

What are they achieving?

Connect2Canada’s community is growing constantly in several dimensions:

New members are signing up for email newsletters on the Connect2Canada Website.

Today, members span the United States.

The Connect2Canada Facebook page continues to attract new fan.

Connect2Canada is attracting new followers every week.

Community and Engagement

Making the flow of information two-way is a high priority for Connect2Canada. They respond to Twitter comments and email. But they also work to enable conversations among members, linking to groups around the US and promoting real life events and other networks of Canadians in the U.S.

The Connect2Canada community is highly engaged with C2C. One indicator of this: An email to C2C members from Ambassador Wilson had an open rate in excess of 50%. That’s one out of every two people who received the email opened it. I think that’s a very high rate for a broadcast email.

Resources and Champions

Connect2Canada is run by one full time staffer in the Canadian Embassy in Washington supported by part-time contributions from a few others. They rely on the Canadian Consulates throughout the United States to provide local content.

Connect2Canada had senior level champions. The social media activities were approved and supported by both the Ambassador in Washington and the Assistant Deputy Minister (North America) in Ottawa.

The importance of relevant content

The biggest lesson learned by Connect2Canada? The importance of good content. Says Eric Portelance, the Advocacy Officer at the Canadian Embassy in Washington in charge of who works on Connect2Canada, “You can have the best ideals, but if the content isn’t interesting to your target audience, they won’t come back or they won’t come at all.”

Connect2Canada asks new members to indicate their interests when they register. The people behind Connect2Canada then use this information to tailor content to the interests of members, sending them only the streams of content that match those interests.

Source material

Eric Portelance recorded a video interview with me on May 12 when he spoke at the Advanced Learning Institute‘s Conference on Social Media for Government in Ottawa. I’ve also drawn on his presentation slides as well as my Twitter notes from the conference.

You can watch my video interview with Eric Portelance on YouTube or in the player embedded below.