The first Social Media Breakfast Ottawa took place at the offices of Ramius Corporation this morning. It was a great inaugural event and attendance exceeded expectations. There always seems to be new people to meet in the Ottawa social media community.

The guest speaker was Adrian Salamunovic of DNA11.com, a company that creates custom art based on their client’s DNA — fingerprints, lip-prints, DNA samples, etc… (”From life comes art“). That means that each piece or art they create is unique to the individual who orders it.

Adrian’s talk traced DNA11’s creative yet simplistic approach to marketing and promotion that harnessed the power of social media to make inroads into mainstream media including Wired and Playboy — something he referred to as turning a spark into an inferno. In his talk he gave examples of how the fire can burn with both positive and negative results.

Simon Chen asked that I do a podcast of the event and I couldn’t resist. I thought I’d do something a bit different this time and dovetailed voices of the community with excerpts of Adrian’s speech.

For good measure, I threw in Stevie Z’s promo for Podcasters Across Borders at the end of the show. Don’t forget to register!

 

 How they started the fire [18:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bryan Person started it all in Boston, now Simon Chen, Ryan Anderson and Rob Lane bring the franchise to Ottawa when Ramius hosts the first Social Media Breakfast Ottawa on Tuesday, June 10 beginning at 7:30am.

The event features guest speaker, Adrian Salamunovic, co-founder of DNA11, a company that pioneered the creation of personalized artwork from the DNA of its customers.  Adrian will tell the story of how buzz about DNA11 spread from blogs, to magazines, to TV and mainstream media.

At the time of this post, there are seven spaces left for the event.  You can register here.

See you on Tuesday.

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.

Registration is $21 and is open until May 9.

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 final leg of their tour and career as The Police, here in Ottawa.

Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland looked and sounded very refreshed following a two month break. They opened with a ‘controlled’ version of Bring on The Night with Sting on acoustic guitar and bass pedals which gave the song a presence that could be felt in your rib cage. It wasn’t the whip-the-audience-into-a-frenzy start you’d expect from this tour. It was an entrance full of finesse. They saved the frenzy for their second number, a ripping version of Demolition Man. It was a one-two combination of songs they didn’t include in Montreal and both are very welcome additions to the set.

Sting seemed to enjoy himself much more last night than he did in Montreal. He moved about the stage more naturally and worked the arena with good banter, all in English (Sting has a history of fumbling through his French during previous appearances in Ottawa). He conducted the room through a few ’sing-alongs’ that were more reminiscent of their heyday than last year’s performance in Montreal. Andy also seemed more in place last night and worked the arena on several occassions; a bonus. Stewart is always fun to watch.

At one point Sting recalled a 1979 performance in a theatre here in Ottawa. I remember an article in the Ottawa Citizen (many years ago) with the original Barrymore’s owner about his biggest regret being the cancellation of an appearance by The Police during their first Canadian tour. The cancellation was on the grounds that they were a punk band and he was having bad experiences with the punk scene in his bar. I hereby announce my intention to find out if they did actually play Ottawa.

While there were a couple of weak moments in the show (Invisible Sun didn’t carry enough umph and Don’t Stand So Close To Me remains a near show killer on this tour) the concert was filled with musical highlights like Driven To Tears, Voice Inside My Head/When The World Is Running Down, Synchronicity II, Message In A Bottle, Can’t Stand Losing You, So Lonely and a great if not slightly-slower-than-it-should-be version of Hole In My Life. Noticeably absent was their reworked version of Walking In Your Footsteps and thankfully absent was their watered down version of Truth Hits Everybody.

The concert ended on a high with an edgier-than-Montreal version of Next To You. It was their second encore and, by all accounts, the beginning of the home stretch of all Police collaboration. Too bad, really. The record industry would get a great lift if they produced a new studio album. Of course, this tour was never supposed to happen so we can always hang on to that hope.

Thanks for the Ottawa show, boys! It was great to be able to see you in my hometown. Good luck with the rest of the tour and thanks for the music.

With the nudge of Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation) being in town, Robin Browne (DaBizBlog) has organized Geek Dinner Ottawa to take place on Wednesday, April 23 at 6:30pm at the Blue Cactus Bar and Grill (2 Byward Market).

If you plan on going, please drop a comment here so that we can track numbers for the reservation.

(Note: I’ve withheld the URL for the Blue Cactus Bar and Grill because the site automatically plays annoying music when you connect)

It’s a technological barn raising; an innovative idea called Web Weekend, modeled after something called Startup Weekend.

The concept is simple. A group of people gather in one place for an entire weekend to conceive a web-based product. By the time everyone heads home on Sunday night, a new company will have been formed with shares allocated based on individual contributions. The first of these Startup Weekends took place in Boulder, Colorado in July of 2007. Since then there’s been similar events around the world including Toronto, Hamburg, San Francisco and London.

According the Ottawa Web Weekend website, Ottawa will be hosting its first Web Weekend, May 9-11, 2008 at theCodeFactory (246 Queen Street).

Today, I put together a podcast using a piece of audio received in mail and a voice over I recorded in a train station.  I edited the five minute show together on the train, uploaded it using a wi-fi service on the train and published it before the snack cart went by.  (Click here for the result)

By the way… ping me if you’re on VIA train 648 en route to Ottawa.

When The Police announced that they were reuniting for a reunion tour (almost exactly a year ago), I told my two daughters that if the band made it to Ottawa I’d dye my hair blonde. I forgot about that. My youngest daughter didn’t. So, when I told to her today that The Police have announced that they’re kicking off the third — and final — leg of their world tour in Ottawa on May 1, she started doing a dance, swinging a pointed finger at me and chanting “you’re dying your hair”.

So, as I contemplate the idea of spreading peroxide in my hair… I am also struck by the fact that Elvis Costello will be opening for The Police on their final stretch. Why is this interesting? Back in the day, Elvis Costello had some unflattering things to say about Sting and the boys.

A concert with two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bands is worth the outrageous ticket price I’m sure to pay.

This is my first time in London; although, I won’t get to see any of the city. I’m in Heathrow with time to spare before catching my connecting flight to Cologne. Like a true social media-ite, it’s hard to stay offline for any measure of time.

So far, my travels have been all about connections. While waiting for my flight in Ottawa, I ran into a daycare parent I haven’t seen in about two-and-a-half years — since our daughters graduated out of the pre-school rooms and into Kindergarteners. It was nice to catch up and look at photos. And it was therapeutic to discuss the shock of how quickly our children are growing. Oddly, I ran into Callum’s wife a few weeks ago. I guess I’m all caught up with them now.

As I collected all of my belongings after going through security in Heathrow, Adam introduced himself to me. He’s an Officer in Training in the US Military and off to Lithuania as part of an educational term. Adam has a particular interest in politics and we talked about the current US election. In particular, we talked about Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and John McCain. It was an engaging conversation that came to an abrupt end at the fork to terminals 2 and 3.

In a few hours I’ll be in Germany — another first for me. I’m looking forward to meeting some amazing people and exchanging more ideas… all with an international flavour.

When: Thursday, January 24, 7:00 PM

Where: The Arrow and Loon (indoor patio)
99 Fifth Avenue
Ottawa, ON K1S 5K4
613.237.0448

Guest speaker: Alan Neal, host of CBC’s Bandwidth

Presentation: Hosting your show

After years of hosting CBC’s Ontario lunchtime magazine show, Ontario Today, Alan moved to the pop culture section of the CBC dial, bringing a fresh and energetic flair to the music show, Bandwidth — the closest thing to being a podcast while not being a podcast on CBC.

Alan will talk about techniques for planning and hosting your podcast.

Click here to learn more information or to RSVP.