kevrichard blog

My Experience at Social Mastermind//Social Media for Social Change

A story not so often heard about social media is how it can be a tool used by those who don’t wish to make a profit but rather by those who want to make a change in today’s society. This past week I was lucky enough to get myself out to see how some great people are looking to use social media tools for the better good and was able to lend my albeit limited knowledge to help out one organization in effectively using social media tools to reach their goals.

What was this? It was Net Change week described on their website as a week to connect Toronto’s digital natives with the city’s social change organizations. Held at MaRs discovery district with the backing of both for and non profit organizations the week looked like it was a great success. Now where did I come in? I had the pleasure of volunteering my time as one of the social media ‘experts’ in a one day session with a charity to analyze their current operations and develop strategies to implement social media in their work.

I had the opportunity to work with a good friend of mine Dan Hocking a partner in a digital agency. We were paired with Pencils for Kids a small charity based out of Markham who’s goal is to see all children with the tools needed to have an education. Currently they have projects in a community in Niger where they have worked to help provide the school supplies and facilities needed for an education. Overall an organization that despite only having one full time (unpaid) staff person has been doing great things to create social change.

While Pencils for Kids is doing some great things offline, Dan and I felt that building a stronger social media presence would work well in expanding their fund-raising efforts. Here’s a bit of what we were able to discuss in our meeting:

Telling their story: The founder of this organization , Robin Mednic who is in the thick of things when it comes to this organization’s projects has an uncanny ability to just grab you into the cause. By telling her experience with the organization and the changes Pencils for Kids has made she almost immediately sold me on the charity. We felt this strong message needed to be found on their website as well. By better integrating the photos they already had on flickr and placing the content amassed in her travels on the site in either blog or in web page form we felt Pencils for Kids could represent themselves as the amazing change creating organization that they are.

Fund-raising: We also got into the development of a fund-raising campaign with a strong on line component. Focused around the idea of providing every child in the community they support with text books Pencils for Kids would actively engage supporters in this campaign . Relying heavily on visual imagery ( X amount of money = X% of a child’s text books) Pencils for kids through its offline work could drive on line donations to its site. Through this campaign they would be able to directly demonstrate the effect an individual ‘s donation would have to the cause and they would appeal to literacy groups, schools and the general public in reaching their goal.

Awareness: Pencils are a strong source of imagery for the organization and Pencils for Kids uses it as a initial topic for discussion about their organization. To build stronger feelings for this organization it was felt that Pencils for Kids could engage the public by encouraging them to create content around this key item. Some suggested mediums were photos, drawings, and videos and these would be posted on the Pencils for Kids website where viewers could vote and comment on these pieces of work potentially with prizing to follow for the most votes.

Overall this was a great experience and I was happy to have been brought aboard. I think I took away something from this experience as well. In the social media realm a lot of people with knowledge feel that organizations should be on all the major tools and they will then seem to have this major success. I’ve learned that certain tools aren’t for every organization. Really I think that goes back to basic marketing. What tools will meet the organizations needs and goals? We didn’t go very heavy on a social media tool set in our ideas during the session because we knew that the volunteers of Pencils for Kids would be overwhelmed or not put in the large amount of effort needed to see what would probably be limited success. Instead we stuck to basics and worked on Pencils for Kids strengths.

PS: Remember how I said I was sold on this organization, after the session Dan and I put our names down for working with Pencils for Kids in the future.

Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .

Della: A Missed Opportunity

As reported by Engadget Dell has decided to dramatically change its recently posted Della Micro site after only 10 days of being online. Designed as a site to communicate with women offering them user tips and product suggestions Dell looked to create an environment that was welcoming and knowledgeable to the computing needs of this customer segment.

Interesting thinking but instead the project almost immediately blew up in their face. The initial content such as the tips and tricks can be found here and here but to give a brief discussion it spoke about things such as finding recipes on the net, counting calories and as we know every woman’s favorite color PINK (LIKE OMG!) . Instead of attracting women they were feeling put off and they were letting their voices heard online:

From their facebook page:

“Um, some of us ladies were checking out Dells new Della computer section and we think it is condescending of you to make a different one for women as though we are not as smart as men when it comes to computers??” – Wynter Gentry Nash

“….if it wasn’t for the tech tips section of the site, I wouldn’t be offended, but all it seems to imply is that women don’t care for anything but cooking and gossiping and looking fashionable with their computer.” Caily Jones as well as on the

On Della site itself:

“..This is a load of fluff that only serves to provide insight into how Dell perceives my demographic. Essentially, we women will buy anything if it comes in pink and fits in our purse.” User UmmmWhat

Overall Dell took a huge grilling from this audience they wanted to pursue and very smartly made some changes to the site such as updating the tips section and changing the Della name to ” Dell Lifestyle”. In my opinion the site is still a bit fashiony/ultra feminine but its passable.

Now the question is ,isn’t segmenting your market important in marketing?? Absolutely, and if Dell executed the site right it could have been successful but here are a few things that it seems they did wrong:

Stereotyping/Over Segmentation: My initial impression of the Della website was that it targeted women concerned about fashion and things that are ‘cute’ ( I’m thinking Paris hilton types) it didn’t delve into anything technical and rather focused on the smaller netbooks and that you can have colors on your laptops. Mistake: The majority of women haven’t been locked away and want more from a laptop than just email and facebook.They use it day to day at their work and they blog, make movies etc. They want to know which machine is going to suit the reasons they use their computer.

There are many women who know computers,advertising a pink computer isn't going to work anymore- Photo Via Flickr from TheSeafarer

Created a Man/Woman separation: looking again at the sites lack of any technical topics it didn’t acknowledge that there are women in the high tech industries. This was definitely an opportunity missed! There are many smart women out there who do tech ( I personally know a few ) but very often anything dealing with computers and things technical like that is seen as an area for men. Highlighting the successes of women in computers could have not only welcomed women into buying a dell but it could also left viewers of the site with a feeling of empowerment and wanting to go out and do the same. This also could have been a great opportunity to expand into mentioning Dell’s other business of computer accessories and products.

I think it was very smart of Dell to have listened to the negative feedback and react as soon as they did, it will definitely cut any negative coverage or drop in sales they would have suffered if it were online any longer. Unfortunately I think they lost out on a great opportunity , and had they been more careful with the execution they could have had a site for audiences to talk about . A website that embraced the needs of women in computing and helped women be successful with laptops and computers. In the end of it all when it comes down to segmentation I think it comes down to doing the research but also importantly when you’re online acknowledging all of the audiences that will be viewing your website and not making anyone feel inferior.

Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .

Marketing — 2 comments
11
May 09

The High Cost of Product Giveaways

Recently two major American restaurant chains, Popeye’s and KFC ran large promotions of their product. Starting off with Popeye’s who in a nation wide promotion slashed the price of their regular 8 piece bucket in half from $9.99 to $4.99 for a single day and most recently KFC with their even larger new product promotion through Oprah giving viewers the opportunity to receive a 2 piece roasted chicken meal and biscuit for free. From a short term consumer stand point this sounds amazing, the idea that there’s a recession going on and these companies are giving a little to help people out. From a corporation point of view not only is this a flash pan promotion, but as witnessed on media outlets this promotion is actually becoming a frustration for customers.

While this promotion was made with the best intentions, it seems that they didn’t consider the larger consequences. In this post I’d like to play devils advocate demonstrating why mass free campaigns should not be on a companies radar for selling their product , after demonstrating a case that did the the idea of free samples right.

So what are some of the problems with these large campaigns? :

1. Large Costs: Both of these companies will be taking a major hit when it comes to their bottom line with this promotion. To start off, they face major promotional costs with a national campaign but there are also the significant costs of giving away product and reimbursing their franchisees. Also an unforeseen cost is the temporary loss of regular paying customers as a result of this promotion, with long lines filled with people looking to get their free product paying customers with limited time and attention levels are more likely to avoid these restaurants till the promotion ends.

2. Lack of Relationship Building: Everyone enjoys a free product, it doesn’t matter what it is , if its placed in front of them they will want it because there is no cost. The downside of this is that the consumer has little to no interest in anything else. In my personal experience volunteering with the Canadian Liver Foundation, during a promotion with the Women’s health convention the CLF gave away mesh shopping bags which were a big success, people completely crowded the booth wanted to have these bags.

THE PROBLEM: the booth’s informational materials went completely ignored, people just grabbed the bag and left. The giveaway defeated the purpose of being there which was informing the public on liver diseases and the resources available to those who have them. Much like the Liver foundation , KFC and Popeyes wanted to expand their company awareness. KFC wanted to position itself as a place of healthy eating and Popeye’s wanted to increase its market position. While both companies allowed people to sample their product it created little to no change in perceptions or connections overall with the company.

Giving something away for free doesn’t inform anyone or build long term loyalty to a firm, it may build some short term good will but the bigger problem is that people are more interested in the free and not on considering the company on a deeper level.

3. Service Failure: Last and probably the longest lasting negative factor in giving away your product for free experienced through these campaign is when the promotion fails to meet expectations. Within the examples of KFC and Popeye’s deal seekers became angry and upset when they didn’t receive the promised product (as shown in the following You tube clips):

Service failure like this not only builds negative feelings among coupon users, but negative word of mouth among those that they interact with as they describe their negative experience. A promotion like this also effects the relationship held with current customers and franchises who’s regular habits are disrupted resulting in a loss of good will towards the firms.

Giveaway’s done right! : In a previous post of mine I discussed the case of Whopper Sacrifice, a promotion where consumers could get a coupon for a free Whopper by defriending 10 people they knew on Facebook. Yes it gives away a free product but here is what I felt they did right:

1.The Consumer was active in the process: instead of mindlessly printing off a coupon participants had an opportunity cost in receiving the product which was making the decision of which 10 friends they should sacrifice. This was more than just getting a product, the person was actually forced to think and have a memorable experience.

2.It was limited: This campaign was not made open to everyone as it only ran for a short period and had a limited run of coupons. This decreased the costs and demand on Burger King’s restaurants meaning there was very little opportunity for service failure for all parties involved . Also by creating exclusivity this also created a topic for discussion creating word of mouth for the brand.

3.Involved others: this promotion involved more than just the participant , those who were defriended were sent a notification that they were taken off someones’ friend list with a branded notice creating further discussion ( I’m worth 1/10 of a whopper wtf?!) and expanding into a larger audience.

Many people equate free with being a good idea , but without a well managed campaign and a way to build stronger attachment to the firm what the campaign really works out to is taking on a large cost with little reward. While KFC and Popeyes got a lot of attention for these large campaigns they will probably fail to see any long lasting effect.

Have any questions/comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message .

Advertising / Communications / Marketing — 7 comments
04
May 09

New Products and Social Media: Nissan Hypercube

As I’ve learned through reading cases and witnessing first hand, word of mouth is HUGE when you’re looking to get a message across or a product sold. If you can get people talking positively about your company your message carries much further than any ad or commercial would. Interestingly enough, marketing agency Capital C has decided to do a full product launch using this idea but by primarily using social networks and social media tools.

The Campaign:

Coming in Spring of this year Nissan Canada is looking to release the Nissan Cube, an entry level vehicle positioned to compete with the likes of the Scion xB and the Kia Soul among others. These cars are targeted towards a younger audience but follow along the same shape,size and price so a large portion of how these cars will be competing is on personality and emotional connection with the car( personalization options, community etc).

Rather than go for the traditional route of placing advertisements which have little interaction and communication with the customer, Nissan through agency Capital C has opted to release the Cube differently and has decided to rely entirely on Social media to get its message out. The campaign called Hypercube which started in March relies on users of social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to get people talking about Nissan’s new product before it launches and build connection and strong interest among a potential customer base.

The Hypercube portal

How did they do this?

By setting up landing pages on Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace a competition was started where Canada’s creative population (considered influencers in this car’s segment) compete for the opportunity of owning one of 50 Nissan Cubes. Starting as a free for all ‘audition’ people would register through a main portal (hypercube.ca) where they are then whittled down through the use of audition profiles to 500 users who then must vie not only for the daily votes of their peers through whichever creative means possible, but impress a panel of judges who will in turn give away 50 of the little Cubes. Each of the 500 participants are provided with a ‘canvas’ where they may direct votes and be as creative as possible with. After the cars have been awarded winners are then obligated to post online about how they use and customize their newly won cars to demonstrate the usability and personality of this product.

Canvas of Hypercube contestan Michelle Savoie

Canvas of Hypercube contestant Michel Savoie

Outside of this contest Hypercube’s fans are not forgotten. People still interested in this contest/car still remain engaged in this campaign. Not only are the encouraged to check out each participants canvas and vote but through the social network Twitter they are interacted with and encouraged to build community. With posts in French and English @thehypercube interacts and gives mention to people who create content or ask questions about the Hypercube and the campaign, and more recently has even directly interacted with fans through the formation of Hypercube meetups.

Hypercubist Rannie Turingan :

Having consistently received Twitter messages, group requests and hearing about it in my interactions with him I figured by mentioning him in this blog post he might leave me alone! I kid! I feel he’s done a very good job in interacting with and building upon his social networks and with his success deserves the mention.

Using his Twitter nickname @photojunkie Rannie posses the question: ” Where should PhotoJunkie go in his Nissan Hyper Cube in Toronto?” Within his canvas Rannie uses his talents as a freelance photographer and takes panorama photographs at many known and unknown locales in Toronto demonstrating to people a new side of where they live ( many of his followers reside in Toronto).

Rannie's HyperCube Canvas

But I think this is only half of why he is currently at #18 of 500 participants. A very important part of his run for the car is the fact that he engages his network and makes them feel that they play a direct role in his success. Yes there is the constant posts and messages received by him asking “have you voted for me today” but its also like he’s bringing fans with him on these Panorama’s (in some cases actually doing so). Including a counter of photos’ distance traveled and total campaign stats he lets people know of his progress.

Roy Thompson Hall Panorama

Another important aspect of his Hypercube campaign is that he also directly involves his fans in the creation of these pictures, on a consistent basis he asks for suggestions of new photo locations as well as encourages people to tag along and be part of the locale itself. In this regard Rannie has harnessed what social media and word of mouth marketing aims to do and that is having people feel like they are part of the story and an active participant rather than having a message blasted in their face. By voting for him participants feel like they are part of his winning, almost like they are winning themselves.

Communications / General Business / Marketing / Personal — No comments
12
Apr 09

MeshU 2009

So I had an insanely busy past few weeks, and this last one was pretty much the end of it. Big highlight was taking in MeshU 2009 at the MaRs Discovery District this past Monday. After attending Refresh Events on March 23rd ( watch out for these events, they fill up insanely fast!) I won a ticket to attend MeshU (thanks!). The first convention I attended in 2009 , I walked away with some great learning and experience. Although there were 3 streams (Design,Programing, Management) as a marketer I’m more experienced in the organizational portions of business so I opted to stick with the management stream for the day. Here is a brief run down of all the sessions I attended and a few of the key learning points I gained:

1. Finding and Keeping Startup People, Daniel Debow (Rypple) :

For anyone not involved in HR the first knee jerk reaction to this is to zone out, but the key insight from this session is in a start up EVERYONE needs to be involved in getting great people on board. Looking at my notebook I have a lot of little points written down but the key things are that everyone should be actively seeking great people to bring into the organization ( the idea that great people bring more great people) and that firms should build a company culture where people will want to be ‘friends’ with the company. Through this they may take an active role in seeing how the company is progressing and eventually feel passionate about signing on with them if asked.

As well, getting great people doesn’t happen overnight. The process needs to be as transparent as possible clearly stating the risks of joining the company. In the end both you and the candidate are investing a lot into this relationship and it needs to be developed not smashed together.

2. Selling Agile Development , Dominic Bortulussi (The Working Group):

For someone who isn’t a web developer/programmer I had a bit of difficult time getting my head around this but by applying the topic in a more general business/client sense it became a lot more understandable. To think about a regular client/business relationship you have one side who has a task that needs to be done and specifies a price that they are willing to pay. Then on the other side there is a company who approaches the client and provides the service for them.Very simple. But thinking deeper its not.

Like all things in life not all projects go out with out experiencing problems or delays.There can also be the case where a client suddenly wants additional specifications added. Very often either the company or the client suffers having to take a loss on the project or not getting everything they wanted. That’s where the flexible project practice the “Target/Scope Model” comes in:

The client sits down with the company to determine a set price and key project needs. Additional optional features are discussed and priced out.
As the project continues the client removes and adds scope to the project depending on how ahead/behind progress the project is.
Any scope added/removed from the project is discounted at 50% of the price ( ex: a new feature is added because the project is running ahead of schedule, an optional feature is added for half its price)

There are some criticisms in terms of it being very meeting heavy (between 15%-30% of the project is spent in client/provider meetings) but especially in the consulting field the idea of flexible pricing and having a project be more realistic to the needs of both the client and producer is a really interesting idea.

For more info check out the powerpoint from the presentation

http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dn7623p_7pdc5b7cd

3.Lessons learned: How I founded, bootstrapped, grew and sold my web startup,Carl Mercier ( Defensio) :

Very often startups feel that they can’t survive without having venture capital funding. Attending this session I learned that you can go it on your own and perhaps be even more likely to walk away profitable. Rather than having an investor who will have first go at your profits you control the revenues and can sell at lower thresholds in comparison.

In part Carl Mercier spoke about having an effective marketing plan (Digg doesn’t work!) and a strong business strategy from the start(neither does an advertising revenue model!). Compared to a funded start up, a bootstrapped start up needs to be making money fast and must also do away with all of the niceties they could have had being funded (must have cheaper offices, used equipment, less flash). Important to all companies but especially to bootstrapped startups is the connection the firm has with their customers especially the early adopters. These are the people who will be selling your company to their friends,family and everyone else around them. Treat them right!

4.Segmentation, Positioning and Storytelling: How a Smart Market Strategy Can Drive Growth, April Dunford ( Rocket Launch Marketing)

As someone studying marketing I was really excited for this session, and I wasn’t disappointed. While there was a lot of no brainer marketing things (for me anyways) like segmenting your market (you can’t target everyone!) there were some good points made in terms of selling your company/product:

Creating a strong value proposition: Tell up front why your customer should buy your product and what makes you different from your competition ( customers don’t want to think!)
Create a personal story of your company to tell to customers, it builds a stronger connection and is more effective than listing off facts. They come in 3 forms: Customer Success ( how has the product/service positively affected a customers business) , Competitive Win ( how did you one up your competitor) and Company creation ( such as how Youtube was supposedly started in someones garage *Wrong*) .
Communications is VERY important. For whatever initiative you do be it a website, using social media , all the way down to your corporate culture , companies need to have a clear and targeted message. Don’t make it too formal or generic , every piece of messaging should be targeted towards the customer and leave an impression. Another key to this is to remain consistent, everyone should be on board saying the exact same thing even when it may seem repetitive as this is how your company is being portrayed to the public.

5. Boiling the frog: how to get everyone else as excited about your idea as you are, Jason Oke

( Juniper Park) :

I think this presentation complimented well with April Dunford’s presentation. This presentation furthered the idea of effectively communicating yourself to clients. Lets face it when faced with change most people try to resist it ( interesting enough I learned from this presentation that the ipod was at first rejected) but by being passionate and targeted with your presentations you can defeat objections and win over people.

Again the idea of telling a story was presented. People need to be sold on the process as well as the product. Often times we are too modest or self defeating of ourselves , we need to stop this as sometimes we can actually kill good ideas. While a strong business case is always important, demonstrating your passion to others and how this came about is important as well. Jason Oke presented the idea of going beyond the old powerpoint or boring report for the idea of being multimodal : present some of the tools or inspirations that your team worked off of, bring in a customer to use and demonstrate this product and tell your customer what they think, or go a completely different route and give them something like a book describing the story of your product. To get your customer on board you need to make them part of the process, allow them to give input and take an active part of your presentation so they feel a stronger connection with your company and what you’re trying to sell!

Have any Questions/Comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message.

Communications / Marketing — No comments
11
Apr 09

SURPRISE!!

One of the quickest but most intense emotions we can feel, it catches hold of us and puts us completely off guard. Doing something completely out of the ordinary is something we all know will get a reaction from people. So its interesting that companies and organizations don’t try to SURPRISE us more often, especially in a market place where the fight for mind share is becoming more and more intense.

I just finished reading POW! Right Between The Eyes! by Andy Nulman a book I had registered to recieve for free a few months back (and it was well worth the effort!). Having the time now to sit down and read the book I have to say I’m surprised I don’t think about the power of surprise more often but also notice that “DUH!” its so obvious some of the companies I’ve always been a fan of use surprise and IT WORKS!

As for the book itself, its not a stuffy business book presenting you with a lot of institutionalized information but its also not completely dumbed down. Andy Nulman builds a strong business case for the use of surprise tactics in organizations drawing from his own personal experience in the many companies he’s worked with( Just for Laughs, Airborne Entertainment etc) but also drawing from real world examples from something as small as exceptional service delivery to full marketing campaigns. Best of all he doesn’t leave it at that, he leaves the reader with thought processes and differerent tactics ( very tempted to try time bombing) that anyone with a bit of creativity can put into practice.

Overall very enjoyable book, worth every penny I spent ( ie: $0! Go and get the book anyways!) . After spending the last 3 months with my nose in very theoretical and cut and dry textbooks it was a great mental break that actually got my mind going and has me seeking out ideas. Thanks Mr.Nulman for sending me out a copy of your book , expect me to contact you sometime in the near future

Have any Questions/Comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message.

Communications / Marketing / Personal — 4 comments
12
Mar 09

Since I've been gone…..

Wow so its been almost a month since I last posted, slightly embarrassing but its been for good reason! Over the past 4 weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time with people in the Social media/technology fields and attending events to expand my overall knowledge, I’ll have an post coming up soon but I thought I’d lay down a summary of the events I’ve been to:

Podcamp Toronto : Ryerson needs to hold more of this type of event! I think the school really demonstrated what it was about and showed how they can excel above the rest. This ‘unconference’ while initially rooted in the realm of podcasting expanded into blogging, social media, and overall just business/interaction on the net. Some of the sessions I attended included :

-Building Relationships with Word of Mouth and PR Practitioners While Maintaining Credibility with Your Audience .Panel Discussion included : Anita Clarke,David Jones, Eden Spodek andMatthew Stradiotto, moderated by Keith McArthur.
-I Got the Job because of Social Media by Daniel Patricio
– Web Metrics Suck, (Or: How to Use Metrics to Get Sh*t Done) by Jeremy Wright of B5 Media

PodCamp Toronto

Overall A+ conference! Really enjoyed it! I haven’t had time to check things out yet but as a bonus all sessions were posted to the web : http://podcamptoronto.pbwiki.com/MediaArchive2009

Facebook Camp at MaRs: Held only for a night, and quite a different set up but still was a very useful and informative event! Just to share some interesting Facebook insights did you know that 70% of toronto residents are on Facebook? Or on average that Canadians use this site 29.6 minutes a day and 2.7 times! Canada is a major Facebook nation.

Some key highlights from this event included:

Facebook Connect: Looking at the Facebook platform that allows companies to connect Facebook profiles and import that information directly to their website allowing users to bring their friends and login with them. Not only does this create an easier process for the user but through interconnectiveness at facebook it can encourage users to add more content and drive more traffic to a person’s website.

Whopper Sacrifice: I’ve personally experienced the site when it was up and running but it was great to see the marketing statistics and effectiveness of this campaign. Done by Refresh Partners ( located in Toronto!) this campaign was amazing! A user of the site was given the ability to sacrifice 10 friends for a free whopper, where the friend would be sent up in a flame and burned to ash digitally. This program achieved amazing results!

-233,906 friends sacrificed
-high virolocity: for every one user of the site, they sent 2 more.
-After 10 days the coupons ran out and Burger king happy with the results shut down the site!

Democamp19: Another great event, but again very different from the other 2 I attended. In comparison this event was about web entreprenuers demonstrating their latest projects to the net community. So many great projects to discuss, rather than blather on I’ll post all of the sites:

-Akoha
-Backtype
-Dex
-foodea
-Imagespark
-Kontaigent
-Hackerspaces.org
-N8R text : text your location to N8R text at 416-662-3408 and get a haiku of the location
-Communitie

Something I found interesting at this event was the idea of Ignites presentations which means 20 slides at an auto setting of 15 seconds per slide. It forces the presenter to be on task, well practiced and succinct I think I’d like to try doing it in the near future.

US Now

Us Now Movie Screening: This was at Bloor Cinema, the movie was about the idea of a colabortive world using web tools and how government and organizations can use this to bi-pass barriers and have a more involved organization. Most of the people I were with were there to see Don Tapscott ( which I was too, his book “Grown Up Digital” is a must read!) but I was really excited by the ideas presented in the movie. One interesting segment included a British football team owned and run by the fans. By collaboration they decided which players to purchase, the starting positions of the players and other tasks that a regular owner would do and I was amazed that such a system was sustainable. Unfortunately Don Tapscott didn’t have much time to speak, but he did share some insights in the end and overall yet another good learning experience.

Premier of "Toronto in 6 Words" Care of MSovie via Flickr

GenYto/Canlit at CSI: Not a direct learning experience but still an interesting event to attend.Involving many of the people I’ve been speaking with over the last while I thought it was really interesting to see how this group is made up ( from marketers/ photographers/ PR People/Webdesigners and the list goes on….) despite everyone coming from different backgrounds/experience levels everyone was still able to come together have a good time and share experiences. Following the theme of all of the events it was about collaborating , sharing and bettering each other as a group. While this was more of a winding down and having fun event its not something one would normally see happening very often in my opinion.

Closer to end of the night at Canlit.... I think we're all entitled to a few bad pictures :S Care of Rannie Turingan Photography

Whats on tap for the weeks to come, well in the near term its going to be “Passion” on March 23rd by Refresh Events and then FAILcamp coming up in July….. but I sense there will be many more in between as well. Stay tuned!

Have any Questions/Comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message.

Communications / Personal — 1 comment
18
Feb 09

My First podcast!

Just a quick warning, as its my first podcast its far from perfect but after the amount of time it took me to learn to edit this thing on garage band ( because Apple software is so much more ‘user friendly’) I’m a little proud of it. Its a short look at my life as an army brat, the ups and downs of it and where things are headed in the future. Hope all of you enjoy! I’m hoping sometime in the near future to make this a regular thing, for now its just a class project.

http://kevrichard.podbean.com/

Communications / General Business — No comments
15
Feb 09

Why I'm Not Listening to Your Presentation!

This seems like a pretty back to basics post but I find too many people get this all wrong and loose the very people they are trying to persuade in the process. Creating a great presentation ( powerpoint or otherwise) is something that takes time and a lot of thinking to do right, but can also be easily completely screwed up. While I’m no expert on the subject as I’ve been a guilty party well ,I’ll use a bit of my experience from my communications background and from having to sit through countless presentations ( and many bad ones!):

Practice! : There are very few people who can ‘wing it’.You need to put time into knowing your presentation and what you plan to say or else you’re more likely to have many run on points and take way too long! As well practicing can’t be done in your head as it doesn’t account for the speed of your talking and any Ummm’s and Ahh’s that you’ll have trying to put decent words together. By doing it out loud you can hear how your presentation is going to sound and can change any wording that doesn’t flow right.

presentation1

Personalize: This comes in two parts, adding a personal aspect/experience to your presentation to build credibility ( can’t be done in all cases) and personalizing it for the audience. What I mean by personalizing it to the audience is if you’re speaking to for example a group of Computer programmers you’re not going to tell them the basics of a computer. So basically don’t regurgitate information that you’re audience already knows this is probably the easiest way to have people tune out, even if you have something relevant to them later on.

Learning to use less : Another very common mistake I’ve seen is people trying to cram as much information as possible onto slides. People aren’t there to read from a powerpoint, they’re there to hear you speak . So speak more than what you place on the powerpoint/blackboard etc. This will keep the attention on you and your audience won’t zone out after reading the slides before you’ve gotten to your points. There are so many general rules out there that I won’t go into in terms of how much you should place on slides , what I can say is to put on only as much that it will compliment what you’re saying and not dominate the presentation.

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Be Creative and Interactive: Unfortunately we all have very short attention spans and if we’re not engaged we start talking with the person beside us or do anything that doesn’t involve actively listening to you! Again if you’re using powerpoint it needs to be interesting to the eye and what you say needs to keep the audience listening . Moving beyond just telling the audience information is effective as well. It can be a demonstration, a short skit, a funny little game just something to break away from just constant speaking.

To add more to this, audiences tend to take away more when they are actively involved. This also can be the hardest thing to do as there will be a lot resistance. Through asking simple questions, having people do small activities or at least giving them a small laugh , not only will they be more likely to pay attention but they will also remember the key information that you’re presenting!

I hope this helps out a bit for the next time you’re doing a presentation in whatever setting that may be. The biggest take away I would like to express is to be audience oriented! Your audience is the whole reason you’re presenting, if you loose them you’ve pretty much failed at your goal.

Have any Questions/Comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message.

Communications / In the News / Marketing — No comments
07
Feb 09

Google Latitude: Stalker or Business tool?

So this week the all mighty Google *bows* released its new mobile application called Latitude. Interestingly it fits with Wired Mag’s recent article named “Inside the GS Revolution” which is of a similar theme. So what is this new possible killer app from Google? Through the use of a mobile browser ( only through certain OS’) a user can access this app and and through the use of invites basically tether themselves to thier friends or family through the use of GPS. Users can find out where and what their contacts are doing and have the option to contact them through phone or Google talk.

The general consensus I’ve been hearing in discussions of this new project is ” That’s a Stalker’s dream tool!” and truthfully if you think about it today with people handing out friend invites so easily if someone really wanted to they could follow someone else around town. But there is also the thought that you are also giving Google the ability to know where you are and more knowledge of your communications. This gets into some questionable discussion areas.

Thinking about this app in a business sense it could hit some interesting ground though. Looking at it on a firm by firm basis it could be used to track sales staff and know the location of employees who are often out on business trips. It could be used at conventions and large business to tell customers of the location of key employees for tours, discussions or service. But on the marketing side of things I think is where things can get really interesting.

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Looking back to my Wired Magazine reference, in the late 1990’s the company brought forward the idea of convergence and push media. This tool could be used in combination with an application such as Twitter where not only do we learn a friend/colleagues location but also have that added dimension of a micro blog post. Look at this program as well on a commercial level and a person could explore an area and be pushed coupons or promotions based on the proximity of the store or company. Allow for the micro blog postings of customers within a certain store and it could also be communicated outwards the quality of products, or the thoughts about certain aspects of a store( this would probably need to be tweeked…. a system like this could probably cause screen clutter really fast!).

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Looking at this application on a privacy sense it is a little scary but Google does work to ease fears a bit by allowing a hide feature . But how are you going to hide from Google?! With the increased usage of smart phones there are many opportunities coming up in the future for people and businesses to interact with one another adding an increased layer of choice and knowledge for the customer and another measurement tool for the firm. Lets see how widely accepted this program is in the months to come……

Have any Questions/Comments? Contact me at kevin.richard@ryerson.ca or send me a twitter message.

KevRichardTechnology and Digital Communications

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Google Latitude: Stalker or Business tool?

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