Mark Evans will kick off the 2007 Third Tuesday social meetups

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Mark EvansWe have a great speaker – Mark Evans – to kick off Third Tuesday’s 2007 spring season.

Mark writes highly respected blogs on telecom and technology and web 2.0 in Canada. He also co-hosts a popular weekly podcast, Talking Tech with Kevin Restivo.

Mark’s day gig is Vice President of Operations at b5media. Before joining b5media, he was a newspaper reporter – most recently at the National Post where he wrote about the Internet and the telecom sector.

Mark also has earned his stripes as a technology entrepreneur. In 2001, Mark co-founded Blanketware Corp., which developed natural language navigation technology for online services.

Third TuesdayAt Third Tuesday Mark will draw on his experience as a journalist, tech entrepreneur and social media network executive to give us a unique perspective on social media and its evolving relationship with mainstream media, public relations and communities of interest.

If you are interested in being part of the discussion with Mark, we’d love to have you join us. Sign up for Third Tuesday on meetup.com and RSVP that you plan to attend. You’ll meet a great group of people who share a passion for social media.

Calling all Canadian corporate bloggers

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Dave FordeDave Forde is conducting a survey of Canadian corporate bloggers perceptions of blogging and how it fits into their communication and marketing strategies. He’ll be publishing the results on his blog.

The survey should take less than five minutes to complete. So, if you are a Canadian corporate blogger, please go to the survey link in Dave’s post and then watch his blog for the results.

From Naked Conversations to Global Neighborhoods

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Naked Conversations Copy 1Shel Israel reminded us yesterday that Naked Conversations left the printers one year ago.

This caused me to pull my well-used copy off my book shelf and scan it again. Yes, social media has evolved rapidly in the past year. I’m sure that if the book were written today, Shel and Robert would give substantial treatment to podcasting and video blogging. (Heck, Robert’s now living la vida vlogging!) However, the book has held up remarkably well and I’m keeping it on my “must read first” list for clients and friends who want to be introduced to social media.

Now Shel is on to his next project, Global Neighborhoods (or Neighbourhoods for those of us in Canada and the U.K.). And to recognize this new project, he’s rebranded the Naked Conversations blog as the Global Neighborhoods blog and a new domain name.

Shel has already begun the process of asking readers of the blog for comments on the new book’s publisher’s overview and table of contents. If you haven’t taken a look at this, have a read and offer Shel your comments. Naked Conversations incorporated a great deal of reader-generated content and I’m sure that Shel will incorporate reader comments and suggestions into his new book.

My Link Blog – Thornley's Shared Items

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Google ReaderSeveral months back I attended a blogger dinner in Chicago with Robert Scoble. During the discussion, Robert mentioned that he had just switched to a new blog aggregator, Google Reader. He talked about how it had helped him to manage and read the large volume of blogs to which he subscribed. He also mentioned a great feature that enables users to share items from blogs they’ve read so that others can also find these posts.

I’ve set up My Link Blog to share items through Google Reader that I find particularly interesting and think others might also find interesting. Please feel free to subscribe to it. I hope that you find useful information in the posts that I share.

Welcome two new members of Our Community

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Capital PRThe New Year is a fitting time to take the wraps off two new members of our social media community, Capital PR and The Talking Shop.

Capital PR has been started by the PR consultants in our Ottawa office. The Talking Shop is the personal blog of John Sobol of our 76design shop. I hope you’ll subscribe to both blogs and participate in their conversations.

On the other side of the ledger, we’ve also seen one of Our Community move into Our Alumni.

The Talking Shop

John Wiseman has decided to return to school in Halifax to complete his degree. John’s a smart guy and we benefited daily from his determination to explore the full potential of social media. We wanted to keep John with us. But it’s hard to argue with the long term benefit of completing university. So, we’ve moved John into our Alumnae. And the door’s always open. Maybe he’ll decide to rejoin us after he’s completed his degree.

So, here’s to 2007. Beginning with change. Sure to bring more.

When retaining an assignment can be a portent of eventual failure

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It’s the end of the year and our company is renewing our relationships with clients for the coming year. As we do this, I realize that one of the most worrisome things for me to hear from an account manager is, “Things are really great. The client has signed up for all the same programs in the coming year as they had last year.”

Lambs to the slaughterAt first blush, this may sound like success, like a strong and healthy client relationship that has been extended for another year. But, when I hear this, the question I ask myself is, “Why are we dong the same thing as we did last year? Can’t we improve on last year’s program? Did we learn from last year and increase our knowledge, skills and value?”

And that’s the problem. If we retain clients to repeat programs, that’s a warning that we may not be advancing our own skills and knowledge or bringing the most creative, effective approach to our client’s challenges. And if that’s the case, it’s just a matter of time until the client starts to feel that our relationship is growing stale and begins to contemplate looking for fresh advice.

How do you keep relationships fresh and build on your past successes to do new and innovative things? Do you have practices, disciplines or exercises that you use to help you do this?

The value of writing it down

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BlackBerry with notesPeople who have been in meetings with me will tell you that the first thing I do after I sit down at the table is to pull out my BlackBerry or open my notebook computer and start to take notes.

I use the MS Outlook notes function to take notes in meetings, telephone calls and to jot down random thoughts whenever they hit me. This forces me to review what I heard and thought when I “clean” up the notes by deleting or saving them.

Very often, I find myself stopping on a point that may have been quickly glossed over in a meeting or conversation. Sometime, the participants in a meeting do not give the points the time or attention they deserve as different individuals with greater rank, ego or just need push the discussion to suit their own purposes. Other times, a clear connection with something else I’ve been thinking about or working on will jump out at me during my review. Or I’ll simply find that quiet contemplation of the notes allows me to find meaning and significance that I had previously missed.

Management guru David Maister also adopts a similar approach.

How do you ensure that you remember and think about what is important in each day? Do you have other exercises and habits that work for you?

Tod Maffin shows you how to use Google Notebook

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Google NotebookDo you ever want to bookmark specific sections of Web pages for future reference? Google Notebook is a great way to save the exact sections that interest you along with links to where they originally appeared. You also can access them from any computer and share them with friends.

Tod Maffin discovered Google Notebook a while ago. And he’s posted a great how to video for anyone interested in seeing how Google video can be used for online research.

Thanks for sharing with the community, Tod. This is a great addition to your Secret Google Tips for Researchers series.