When I opened the email on Tuesday morning, I was paralyzed. My friend, mentor and fellow Toastmaster, Marcel Boudreau, had died in a car accident the day before. His forty-second birthday is in a few weeks. For most of the week I’ve found it difficult to breath and sleep knowing that I will never again [...]
Last year it was Quechup; now there is a new unscrupulous social networking site. PAGII is spamming the contact lists of new registrants as a way of attracting more new people and artificially building its strength. In the process, it’s upsetting a lot of people who feel duped by the lack of transparency in the [...]
Based on a few requests I’ve received and feedback from my last webcast, I will be hosting an online session on interview skills at 8:00pmET on Monday, June 9. The session will cover techniques to prepare for and lead an interview for an audio recording, video recording or live event. Space is limited so be [...]
Congratulations to Ian Graham. His vision of a collaborative, co-working space becomes a reality later today when he hosts an open house at The Code Factory, 246 Queen Street (Ottawa), second floor. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend the open house. Instead, I dropped by The Code Factory to congratulate Ian and Jocelyn Kartes [...]
From Stevie Z of The Sieve comes this great, monster-truck-rally-inspired promo for the 2008 edition of Podcasters Across Borders (PAB2008). As the promo says, don’t forget to P A Be there!
Thank you to everyone for commenting on my site, sending me emails and Twitter messages, and stopping me in the hallways at Mesh to talk about and support my coverage of the conference. I didn’t expect this kind of response. Despite all of that, I’ve learned my lesson. I will again never live-blog a conference!
Sociologist Sam Ladner was direct when she opened her session on reputation management and monitoring. “We won’t talking about reputation systems”, she said. “eBay reputations will not be part of our discussion. Read Bryce Glass’ blog if want to know more. He also has a Slideshare called Designing your Reputation System“. In fact, Dr. Ladner [...]
Given my involvement in reBookMe.com, I decided to hear the CEOs Julia Johnston (mEgo), Leah Culver (Pownce) and Ryan Carson (DropSend) tell their stories in a discussion led by Mike McDerment. Conversations that are based on stories are incredibly engaging. In that respect, this panel was strong. More importantly, they engaged with each other. They [...]
In case you hadn’t heard, GM announced in March that they are moving half of their $3 billion marketing budget, to third largest in the United States, to digital and one-to-one initiatives (GM Changes Game, Puts $1.5 Billion Online). That’s a full $1.5 billion dollars, a sizable portion of which will likely end up on [...]
Today’s second session was a conversation between Mesh organizer Michael McDerment and Garrett Camp. Garrett is a co-founder of StumbleUpon, a social sharing site bought by eBay in 2007 for $75-million. StumbleUpon’s origins are in Calgary which makes it one of many Canadian web 2.0 success stories; stories that include Flickr and Club Penguin, both [...]
First off, I want copies of the monologues by The Voice. Like day one, today opened with a great introduction which was both entertaining and shockingly realistic. The first ‘keynote’ featured a discussion between Mesh organizer Stuart MacDonald and Lane Merrifield, Executive Vice President Walt Disney Internet Group, Co-founder and General Manager Club Penguin. Club [...]
There was a lot of comparing which Mesh sessions resonated most with those in attendance, last evening. I was particularly impressed by the Metronauts session (Government 2.0: from community participation to co-creation) and found that there were some folks in the session that disagreed with me. Their argument was that it was a familiar story [...]
I’m a huge fan of case studies so I’ve been looking forward to this session by Mark Kuznicki and Sean Howard. This is one session with a specifically built-in audience largely of government employees, consultants to government and government relationship representatives of private sector companies (including what appeared to be a lobbyist-by-another-name). This was the [...]
Ahh… a workshop on creating content that people want to consume. This one was led by the MGImedia team (makers of CommandN.tv) including Amber MacArthur, Jeff MacArthur (yes, Amber’s brother) and Chris Dick. I’m going to start off with two counterpoints so I can get them out of the way. Why is it that so [...]
Mesh represents the first time I’ve truly ‘live blogged’ an event. I’ve learned a few very interesting things in the process. It’s a great way to take notes and kick off a conversation When you record your thoughts in a stream-of-conscious method, you can sometimes miscommunicate or forget to review some of your initial thoughts [...]
Amber MacArthur led a talk about the proliferation of video content on the web called Video is Everywhere. The panelists introduced themselves and their roles within their organizations as follows: Dina Kaplan (blip.tv): original episodic content on the web and matching of content with revenue opportunities Andre Gaulin (CTV): tasked with bringing online social media [...]
I’ve seen Michael Geist speak on several occasions and each time, despite the overlap of the content, each presentation is engaging and fresh. (defensive clarification: There is a common thread in Michael’s presentations, which is a good thing. This presentation was loaded with new examples on a theme I have heard Michael speak about) In [...]
Ethan Kaplan of Warner Bros. Music has clearly given a lot of thought to how the music industry is evolving and he offered some very interesting insights on some of the high profile activities in the music business over the last year. Ethan’s opened his sit-down chat with Matthew Ingram by suggesting that record companies [...]
Mesh opened a few minutes ago with a great monologue about social media by The Voice from CBC radio’s The Current. I would love to get a copy of that monologue! While I had been looking forward to the keynote by Matt Mason, a visa problem has kept him from making the trip from the [...]
Last night’s Third Tuesday Toronto had a more relaxed atmosphere than the events I’m familiar with in Ottawa. Perhaps that was because of the size of the crowd (standing room only in a room with a capacity of 160) or maybe because I was sitting with the wild kids at the back of the room [...]
The book business has changed dramatically over the last few years. Stores that specialize in selling books and actually have intimate knowledge of the books they sell — and can order — are a dying breed. The big box stores have redefined how people buy books. More significantly, they have changed the way books are [...]
My registration is in, travel arrangements complete and my accommodations booked. I’m going to Mesh for my first time and I’m looking forward to being part of the experience. I suppose part of the decision was the fact that I was asked twelve times over the course of three days if I was going. The [...]
I have attended many conferences in the last few years. Each offered fantastic opportunities to network, learn and make new friendships. At the end of each conference, we head in separate directions and our connections migrate to the online world using tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s a model that’s worked well in [...]
In this podcast, I continue my Ottawa Web Weekend interviews with team members: Chamika Chulaka Ailapperuma Rob Caza Music: Bigfoot from Elegant Chaos by Robert Farrell
Each team weighed in during the latest checkpoint meeting at Ottawa Web Weekend. It almost felt like a NASA pre-launch go/no-go exchange as marketing, business, design and then development sounded off on the remarkable progress each has made today. That’s no surprise really. Today’s discussions have been very focussed and energized, and there’s been long [...]
To keep the momentum going, I recap what the Ottawa Web Weekend team has achieved, what the next 12-hours hold for us and I share my thoughts on what makes the Ottawa Web Weekend a great experience. Music: Bigfoot from Elegant Chaos by Robert Farrell
We’re minutes away from wrapping up a 12-hour day of planning, designing and coding. Business plans, marketing strategies, web-interfaces, back-end databases are all underway and getting stronger as we go. I took a few minutes to speak with Bruce Nolan — who has taken on the role of Development Coordinator — about the status of [...]
Ottawa Web Weekend is taking place at the future home of The Code Factory, a collaborative, co-working space founded by Ian Graham. The facilities are still under construction, heading towards a launch on May 20. Ian was kind enough to give me a tour. My favourite part of this tour is when we walk into [...]
In this podcast, I continue my Ottawa Web Weekend interviews with team members: Danish Khan John Jardine Cory Taylor Will Harding Matt Tate Sam Bitar Steve Lecompte Marc-André Plouffe Music: Bigfoot from Elegant Chaos by Robert Farrell
In this podcast, I interview Ottawa Web Weekend team members: Kim von Arx Chamika Ailapperuma Arvind Ramaswamy Patrick Hankinson Jamie Ostler Frank Epton Mark Stephenson Natasha D’Souza Eric Lucier Music: Bigfoot from Elegant Chaos by Robert Farrell
In the first of a series of podcasts about the Ottawa Web Weekend, I explain the goals and structure and the weekend, my plans for the podcast series and I wrap up by buying a tea before heading to The Code Factory for a twelve hour day of design, development and marketing plans. Music: Bigfoot [...]
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Ottawa Web Weekend is that it takes the typical design and development cycle of say 6-12 months and compresses it into 28 hours — and with a group that has never worked together before. Everyone is focused, engaged and interested. This is a great case study of [...]
Most of us had never met before 6pm when the Ottawa Web Weekend kicked off. It was a fast paced introduction, though. By the time 10pm rolled around, we had introduced ourselves, shared ideas for web products, debated the ideas and finally picked one to work on as a team this weekend. If you’re unfamiliar [...]
Violation of the site’s terms of use notwithstanding, a Brandon, Manitoba teen is facing several criminal charges for impersonating one of his teachers in Facebook. The charges relate to impersonation with criminal intent. Let’s get a few things out of the way. I haven’t seen the Facebook profile in question, nor am I an expert [...]
I’ve registered to participate in the Ottawa Web Weekend taking place May 9-11 at TheCodeFactory (246 Queen Street, second floor). Twenty-three people have registered to participate (so far); specialists in programming/architecture/systems, design/integration, marketing/media/communications, business and law. The plan is that over a weekend of crazy long hours of collaboration, a new web product will emerge. [...]
Notwithstanding how much of a fan I am, it was definitely worth the extra $110 to see The Police for a second time on their ‘reunion tour’. I took in their July 25, 2007 show at the Bell Centre in Montreal (click here for that blog post), and last night’s opener of the third and [...]
In order to make some space available for some personal projects, I have decided to put Electric Sky on hiatus. The site (including a recent wave of new shows) and RSS feed will remain online and fully functional.
Whitney Hoffman and I spoke Sunday evening about the debate over the fee for the upcoming PodCamp Boston. It seems that many people are quite upset about the fee and have used the argument that communities shouldn’t charge its members to participate in events. That’s when we started to talk about physical communities and financial [...]
