Fine Print

I have been thinking a bit more about last Friday’s post and the quick-thinking TV show referenced.

If I write a post on this blog, and someone comments on it, do we then both own the blog? Is it shared between us? Or is it GCI Canada’s blog that someone has contributed to as a guest writer? So, if you don’t want to set up your own blog, maybe all you have to do is comment on other people’s blogs and then become part-owners of their online properties?

Had to get that thought out there.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

It’s true. I’m cheap, let’s face it. Still using the free version of LinkedIn, Blogger for my personal blog, and Google AdSense to cover my hosting costs. All free and doing the jobs I need them for.

But yesterday I bought my way into a social network for $20, which is something I never thought I’d do. Not to be part of the “in crowd,” but for one simple reason: curiosity. After pre-ordering a copy of Tribes I got an invite code to Triiibes which apart from giving me an extra pair of i’s for my investment, enables me — as member #160 = 159 keener people than me — to join an exclusive social network, for a while, at least. My curiosity spurred me on to find out who else was in there. It’s an interesting move by Seth Godin, or a blatant money-making exercise. I will participate for a while and let you know what value it brings …

So, to balance things up, I also joined the specifically-numbered alpha 0.1a version of PitchEngine which launched yesterday. And is FREE. I did this for two reasons: (1) I am already a member of the PitchEngine social network which I think is pretty useful, and (2) creator Jason Kintzler has always been helpful, polite and prompt in his replies to my questions, and that goes a long way in my book. The site offers a social media release builder which I’ll test out, and also a (coming soon!) custom media newsroom which, as it’s an upgrade, suggests will carry a fee for using that.

Jim Tobin is predicting that social networks will become portable, so I hope that Godin and Kintzler have that aspect built in for the future. I can’t wait to send out social media press releases from a beach in Hawaii on my mobile device. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

And if you want to leave me a message on today’s post, give me a quick call on Slydial to guarantee that you won’t reach me.

On that note, it’s a long weekend here in Canada, so see you Tuesday; have a good one!

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

That’s not a real quote, by the way. It stems from something I heard someone say today — a killer quote — that I’d like to reproduce, but can’t because of confidentiality reasons. Still, openly discussed is the way that the larger companies still don’t understand how social media can improve their bottom line.

There’s countless megabytes of opinion on this out there, from social media guides (no one’s an “expert” on this stuff) to community managers who work hard to get Widget Inc. to open up, just a little. There ya go … here’s what the customers are saying about you online, here’s how you can interact with them and here’s how you can potentially make them a salesperson, spokesperson, influencer, advovate, fan, blogger, Tweeter, Plurker [insert next big thing here] of your brand.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I’ve used Gmail since it launched, a big fan. Not a fan of spam though. Who is?

I noticed something recently. If I clear my spam inbox, and then send a new e-mail, a new spam comes in immediately. And I mean instantly.

Tried it a few times to see if it’s a coincidence, but happens more often than it should. Anyone else get this? Does Gmail track when you send an e-mail (of course) and then sends a Gmail-generated spam to demonstrate how good its filters are? Am I reading too much into it? It seems some of the messages are Spam 101 subject lines.

If this theory is way off, then I admit, Gmail spam filters are VERY good at filtering them. (But not too good at suggesting a tasty salad.)

It amazed me (and others too) how much virtual ink Cuil got yesterday, just from a simple sentence, so I thought we’d try it with today’s blog post too. Even though we only re-launched the blog a month or so ago, we feel it is now the most popular blog on the Internet … and that’s not even beta.

And talking of pitches, I like the blog that Richard Laermer and Kevin Dugan produce.

Off topic: Seth Godin wants you to join his Tribe. I joined up and got an auto-response from the book’s publisher. Hope Godin has a hands-on approach to the network itself. Checking to see … and yes, he’s running it, just getting help signing people up. (Thanks for the quick clarification.)

Update: Nice analysis of the concept from David Griner, who calls it a “poor example that [Godin’s] setting for the rest of the marketing world,” but is also “scared that Tribe will do tremendously well.”

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Cuil launched today and is already taking a pummelling in the blogosphere, so its black and blue colour scheme seems apt at the moment. It claims to index “120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.” I’m not sure Google would agree with that, but I personally think it’s more important to boast about quality rather than quantity.

Cuil is the brainchild of former Googler Anna Patterson, her husband Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers: Russell Power and Louis Monier. It is backed by $33 million in venture capital, no small change.

I played around with it for a while this morning, but it took ages to return results, so I gave up. Seems like a lot of Tweeters did too. Ah well, it is Day One — maybe we’re being a bit harsh in proclaiming it a Google Killer so soon. Time will tell.

But, it’s a good idea to at least put your own brand at #1 in the search results:

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

[Dedicated to Randy Pausch. Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008]

I was looking for inspiration for today’s post, so thought I’d do the blogging equivalent of Whose Line Is It Anyway? … I’d write about the subject of the first updated post that popped up in my RSS reader after a set time. No pressure.

The winner was: http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2008/07/plurkshop-9-recap-downsides-of-social.html

Mack Collier’s post talks about Plurkshops — a way of having a conversation on Plurk around a set topic and at a set time. He says that “most average around 400 replies an hour.” This is more tightly defined than the recent Twebinars (although they do have pre-recorded video interviews on a set subject) as people can specifically choose what topic is to be discussed, and tune out what doesn’t interest them.

I haven’t actually attended a Plurkshop yet, but am still deciding if these “micro-conventions” are useful or not. On one hand, I do tune into webinars and conversations if the subject matter is relevant to my job, or personal interests. It’s a no-brainer to keep up with what’s going on, to impart some wisdom and to learn much more from smart people.

But, on the other hand, some of my greatest ”lightbulb over head moments” have come from conversations that have absolutely nothing to do with social media, Web 2.0, online issues and the like. So, if I had not joined a conversation about, say … cats … the TTC … or real estate (real examples) which forced my train of thought into a new direction, then I might have missed some really useful ideas and solutions. It’s like exercise for the brain.

And I won’t use the phrase, “OK people, let’s all think out of the box on this one!” Have you ever put yourself in a box in the first place? Hope not.

It’s good to test yourself sometimes. Here’s a task: think of five ways you could promote carrots using social media. (I picked that as I’m heading to a veggie restaurant tonight.) I will look around, make some observations, and see what I can come up with too.

Have a great weekend!

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

This is a shot of the AIR MILES Inspired Winter Wonderland event, which incorporated products from both the AIR MILES Rewards Portfolio and Airmilesshops.ca. The Inspired Winter Wonderland, complete with breakfast buffet, panel discussion and AIR MILES-logoed cookies, entertained over 30 media guests while educating them about AIR MILES’ offerings and the upcoming Christmas season.

I am an avid AIR MILES collector (I love both earning and redeeming!), but even I was shocked by the variety of Christmas gifts offered. With over 100 retailers to explore online, I found weird and wacky things, such as a Humanoid Robot (seriously), a Home-Oenology kit (hope my dad’s not reading this, cuz it is what he’s getting for Christmas) and a remote-controlled Dragonfly (hope my dad is reading this, cuz that’s what I want for Christmas).

Relationship building with the media, learning more about our client’s business and playing with futuristic toys … what a great event!

~ Larissa Marks, Account Coordinator, GCI Canada

Me too! They would be great for GCI Canada!

Having just listened to my second webinar of the week, a quick tip to anyone else out there planning to host one: it’s a good idea to make sure the connection is cut at the end before you start privately discussing how the webinar went, the technical glitches that shouldn’t have happened, audience questions and clients you wish you had.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Here’s an example of why you should check how your network is using your personal part of the Internet to talk about confidential stuff.

Facebook Has The Power To Ruin Lives

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Twebinar #2 had a bit of a shaky start, but once they gave the mice more grain and stuck ‘em back on the wheel, things got going briskly.

The theme of this one was “Who Really Owns Your Brand?” — a question I think the large corporations of the world largely ignored until Web 2.0 knocked on the door, strolled into the party unannounced, walked up to the bar and demanded, “Make sure you mix it just like I want!”

Twebinar attendees still had to jump around from Twitter to the webinar to Summize Twitter Search (gotta get used to that) to keep track of it all. I’m not a techie — is it hard to embed a live Twitter keyword search in a presentation? Would be cool to see a scrolling ticker tape along the bottom of the screen of real-time comments.

Having chatted to Richard Binhammer — aka RichardatDELL – a few days ago (Dell is a GCI client), it was cool to see him taking part in the Twebinar and chatting to host Chris Brogan about the company’s online strategy in joining the conversation. Timely quote: “We are increasingly entrepreneurial, but we aren’t a small company.”

He’s the one sporting the cowboy hat:

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

“The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently conducted one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media in corporations.”

Stats.

Thanks.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

For my own professional knowledge, and because I’m a Brit, I keep a close eye on the social media scene in the U.K. I want to know how their perception of marketing and networking differs to North America. From my own personal experience, I know that they tend to play catch-up — and lack of connectivity doesn’t help things at all.

A post on dot.life quotes a small business owner who lives in Herefordshire. That is not rural at all, but because he can’t get broadband by the normal ADSL route, he has to pay for satellite broadband. That costs him 70 UK pounds (around $140) a month, and only for a 512Kbps connection speed! So why would that guy spend hours of his valuable connection watching videos, live-streaming webinars, uploading photos to social networks and the whole shebang of social media engagement, when he really needs to run his business instead and make a living?

And, from further afield, I’ve been communicating with a “Chief Buzz Officer” (his words) in Australia who helps corporate and small business owners develop their personal brands.

From what I can gather, the small business market there is totally oblivious to social media and the benefits. I won’t quote any more, as I now plan to move to Sydney and set up my own social media consultancy, but having been to Australia for a while I think it’s because they are sociable in a face-to-face way, rather than online. There’s a lot of beach/BBQ/bar activities there, and maybe that’s where a lot of the interaction takes place? I dunno. I’m not an expert, but it’s very useful to connect with people from other countries who work in the same industry I do and pick their brains.

Talking of brains, JO has a pretty active one, so I highly recommend you read his insights on mommy bloggers and how brands can approach them. Having researched that demographic a month ago, this is a great “with hindsight” read that is bookmarked.

So, in a totally related segue to brands, my colleague Larissa Marks sent me this story in today’s Toronto Star about how bad customer service can get even worse once you piss off a customer.

And if that customer is influencer Jeff Jarvis, then you are really — drumroll please! — screwing the chihuahua.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Je crois qu’au Canada il est important d’offrir les services en français. Nous devons être capables d’engager et de communiquer avec les journalistes et les rédacteurs français pour offrir à nos clients le meilleur service possible et de soyer sûr qu’ils restent compétitifs dans leur marché. Les relations avec les medias sont indispensables pour la santé des relations publique. Si on ne parle pas les deux langues, on compromettre la santé de notre agence et les affaires de nos clients.

Au Canada, nous avons deux langues officielles et c’est important d’être respectueux envers les personnes qui parlent français. Sinon, on ne risque pas seulement nos affaires, mais notre patrimoine aussi.

~ Larissa Marks, Account Coordinator, GCI Canada

Twebinar #2 is on the way.

The team say they’ve listened to feedback from the first one, so this should be great. I’m in!

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I’ve been involved in three new business pitches this week, which is a time-consuming, but enjoyable, experience. Doing the background research on the potential clients’ area of expertise means I have to dive headfirst into Blogland and get some insight from people working in those industries. I can’t profess to becoming an instant expert, but it does open my eyes to whole new worlds and communities that play by their own rules, code of conduct and ethics.

The best part is meeting across a table, having some lunch and putting forward ideas that someone might never have considered. Then, preparing to answer that age-old question: “So, what would we get out of social media?”

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

OK, the above title was a stretch, but it sums up the randomness of today’s blog items.

1) I’ve been playing around with a new media monitoring service called Filtrbox (yes, missing an ”e” again, grrrr!) that has a really great user interface that’s easy to use. I am trying the free service at the moment, which only lets me filter five keywords or phrases; you can upgrade to more for $20/month (25 filters) or $100/month (100 filters).

The aspect that interests me is that you can use a sliding scale to — you guessed it — filter out the noise, and separate the vague stuff from the very specific. That’s a boon as I tend to read all my RSS feeds religiously in case I miss something. Now I can hone in on what matters in a short space of time.

Here’s a screenshot of my test feed:

2) The open secret was finally announced that Twitter has bought Summize. I am a big fan of the latter service; again, another quick way to get info I need fast.

More info: http://blog.twitter.com/2008/07/finding-perfect-match.html

3) And, if you’re a word of mouth marketer, you should take Buzz Canuck’s survey. The more stats the better, for all of us. Time to share.

http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/2008/07/the-11-deadly-s.html

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

GCI Canada has a lot of things on the go this week that need some extra preparation, so here’s a nice, long blog post to get your teeth into by Tamar Weinberg, who asked a slew of bloggers, consultants and marketers the title question. (As an aside, she writes for Mashable too, which is plus points in my book.)

http://www.techipedia.com/2008/social-media-marketers/

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I’ve been thinking a LOT about branding recently. It comes as second nature, working in PR. Brands are trying to get to grips with this new-fangled social media gizmo thingy, and spreading themselves where they think they should be. Some are there, some are trying to catch up.

Therefore, I relate to what Valeria Maltoni says in her post here: http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/07/personal-brand-equity-for-rent.html

“With many companies shifting into social media gear, there will be more of this kind of person on board — people and brand-savvy, tech-smart, and fiercely independent. These are the individuals who make up their on learning programs — they attend SXSW, become a member of the Social Media Club and the Blog Council, even program their own Facebook app and create/participate in a community on Ning or a Wiki about their personal passion. Chances are they are closely related to what they work on — work is personal.”

It certainly is. Work is very personal. This is my work, and GCI Canada is who I work for. This is the company’s official blog, and myself and my colleagues are contributing to it. Overall, this adds to the brand, so, we all know what we blog about also represents GCI Canada. It’s out there. We are part of the brand now.

And on the subject of personal branding … damnit, wish I’d thought of this!

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Among the many blogs I subscribe to, I have a fondness for The Drama 2.0 Show. It is an irreverent take on “spiking the Web 2.0 kool aid” and making sure we all keep things in perspective. Yesterday they posted about former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley, who left the tech blog to set up his own, called The Inquisitr. (BTW, why did we stop spelling things correctly in Web 2.0?)

Riley posted some screenshots of his inbox allegedly showing e-mails from TechCrunch writers asking for their stories to be “dugg” so they appeared on the front page of Digg. Riley says he’s “no longer loved” by TechCrunch, but they still asked him to vote for their stuff.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who cares? A lot of dirty laundry and tit for tat postings fly back and forth between the major bloggers, and today’s spat is tomorrow’s virtual fish and chip paper.

But, the one thing that surprised me is why does a successful, established site such as TechCrunch need to ask people to help them push their exposure on sites such as Digg? Is there some desperation there somewhere, or declining traffic/revenue?

[If you have an opinion then please post it in our comments section, as that helps our SEO rankings. Much appreciated. Owe ya one.]

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Further to yesterday’s post, Melanie Baker, the Community Manager of AideRSS, just e-mailed me that PostRank has been launched today as a service.

http://postrank.com/

Melanie’s thoughts here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

A few weeks ago, we hosted a planting day and BBQ to celebrate the completion of a community project between Lowe’s Canada and the City of Brampton. Working with the city, Lowe’s donated a $15,000 grant to build a community garden at a local seniors recreation centre.

Since so many seniors now live in condos and apartments, many no longer have a garden of their own. This project helped to fulfil this need by creating a space for them to be able to enjoy the pleasures of gardening. Being onsite for the opening of the garden and helping plant the first flowers alongside Lowe’s staff and seniors was a great experience. It made it even more worthwhile to hear directly from the seniors how much they appreciate the new garden.

One of the things that I love about working in public relations is the variety of work we get to do and this was one of those projects that was really rewarding to work on. I’m looking forward to the next one.

~ Ashley Curran, Consultant, GCI Canada

I’ve been checking out an RSS reader on steroids cool tool (see comments below) called AideRSS. It’s a useful way of keeping track of your favourite bloggers, but also ranking them by how they engage their audience.

This can be done by plugging in the URL of a blog, and then checking out a graph showing the top mentions in Digg, Twitter, del.icio.us, Google and blog comments. A PostRank is then generated that demonstrates how “successful” that particular post has been, in relation to how it was picked up elsewhere.

Here’s a blog post from the Canadian team that explains more than I can!

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

I’ve spent some time the last few days buzzing around a humid GTA scouting out nice locations for events. It’s good to have a list prepared in case a client phones up and wants to do a launch or press conference in a short space of time.

From King St. West to the Distillery District to the Annex, there’s a venue for every budget, taste and style. I have started to list the pros and cons of the places I checked out, and the old chestnut of location came to mind: are guests prepared to travel a little out of the way to meet very cool people, have fun/network and be part of something interesting? Or is time an issue and the spectre of a heavy workload is always there, hovering in the background — downtown or forget it!

Tips, thoughts, ideas, recommendations, experiences all welcome!

Ans, while we’re on the subject of events, might see you at FacebookCamp Toronto 4 tonight.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Lots of rumours and speculation about the latest Rogers/Apple spat today.

From TechCrunch: “Now it looks like Apple won’t sell the iPhone 3G at its Canadian retail stores, leaving Rogers (and Fido, its partner is crime) flapping in the wind.”

From iPhone Atlas: “Speculation regarding a conflict between Apple and Canadian iPhone 3G carrier Rogers appear to be overblown, if such a quarrel exists at all. … However, Apple never planned to sell the iPhone 3G at its retail locations in Canada.”

Whatever the final outcome of all this, it’s still a PR nightmare for Ted.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

It would take some time to explain the concept of Twitter to anyone who hasn’t used it, so luckily there is a video that takes care of it in a few minutes.

Twitter In Plain English

I don’t personally use Twitter to let people know I’m drinking a cup of coffee, but one thing the creators of the above video didn’t expand on was the usefulness of the service for keeping tabs on what the early adopters and influncers are themselves tracking. I tend to jump in a few times a day and see what the people I’m following are discussing.

I am very selective on who I follow, and tend to narrow it down to experts in social media, Web 2.0 and other subjects that I’m interested in, and that will help me in my job. I only have about two “real” friends on there; I prefer to keep touch with them via Facebook, e-mail or the good old-fashioned telephone call.

But, bear in mind, Twitter is only one part of a social networking arsenal. I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn and keep that open constantly to accept and request connections. It’s more professional, but has come in handy recently when I needed to research some bloggers in different industries for a PR outreach.

I’m an open networker, so look me up if you want to connect or need help that I may be able to provide.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

The latest in a slew of microblogging tools. (Was that less than 140?)

Kwippy.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Every two weeks at GCI Canada we have a Book Club, which is cool for three reasons: (1) We learn a lot by discussing certain relevant books, (2) It encourages me to actually read a book rather than get my fix of information from the Internet, and (3) I finally get to use the “Book Club” category tag that I thought was impossible.

So, the current one we are discussing is Good to Great by Jim Collins. It’s not the newest of books (published in 2001), and there’s not even a hint of social media in there (so far, we’re only on chapter 2) but the ideas that Collins puts across through his research are still relevant for today’s companies who are trying to make that leap to greatness.

One topic that came up is the fact that a very successful leader of a well-known billion-dollar tech company isn’t comfortable taking questions from an audience. They’d rather have a one-on-one with an interviewer, in front of an audience, instead. That got me thinking, and I thought it a bit strange.

I’m not the loudest guy in the room, but I know that if I was the founder of a successful company, I would relish the thought of taking random, on-the-fly questions. The reason being is that I would certainly have an idea of my game plan, and the path that myself and my team wanted to take the company would be clear. So, that would give me the confidence to be able to answer any question — it would be my opinion, and my thoughts on where the company should be in five years based on certain strategies.

Success or (hopefully not) failure would follow those decisions, but at least some strategy would be in place to try and achieve the former.

Anyone else out there prefer not to answer questions about their company? If not, why? If so, why?

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Announced yesterday:

Cohn & Wolfe and GCI Group Merge to Create “Top Ten” Agency for the New Era in Communications

WPP public relations agencies Cohn & Wolfe and GCI Group have merged to create a dynamic global agency singularly-suited to the transformed communications environment. The new firm, to be called Cohn & Wolfe, offers a powerful combination of breakthrough, brand-building creativity and pioneering digital and social media strategies. Cohn & Wolfe will be led by industry veterans Donna Imperato as Chief Executive Officer and Jeff Hunt as President.

“This is an exciting time in our industry where movements in social and digital media, corporate social responsibility and the power of the consumer are all changing the communication landscape,” said Imperato. “To succeed in this environment, clients need an agency with a great range of expertise and bold, original thinking. By combining our resources, Cohn & Wolfe instantly becomes one of the few agencies in the world with the breadth, depth and creativity to turn any communications challenge into a powerful idea.”

Full release here.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada

Twitter is sooo June 2008.

I found some news today about an interesting open source project — from Canada — to make a Twitter-type service. It’s classed as “microblogging” and could alleviate some of the server outages/downtime that Twitter seems to suffer from. (It took me about 10 tries to follow someone today using Twitter, very frustrating.)

Identi.ca

Spotted at StartupNorth, another great blog I regularly read.

~ John Carson, Senior Digital Media Specialist, GCI Canada