Jamie:
There are a number of projects (changecamp.ca, digitalgov.ca) in the nascent stages of development which seek to have a more transparent and accessible government with a particular focus on open source and social media technologies. How would you like to see the Canadian government invest in these concepts and technologies over the next 12 – 18 months?

Natasha:
Recent market research indicated that the place where people spend a lot of their time online are Microsoft, Google and Facebook. In order for any organization, government or otherwise, to get their message across to their audience, they have to participate in the discussions in these places.

In the next 12-18 months the Canadian government needs to think about what they want to do and then figure out the various social media tools that they could use to achieve these goals. They will have to make the shift form pushing the message out to participating in the discussion. So bottom line is not to block these sites at work but make them accessible to all employees.

Jamie:
I agree there is a positive value in having all levels of government (or an organization) having access to these tools. However, there is also a potential for lost productivity or negative exposure if individuals aren’t mindful of the impact their actions have on the larger community. Regardless of whether they ban access to these tools or not, they should recognize that they can no longer expect to control the flow of information as they have done in the past with traditional media.

It used to be a reasonable expectation for the bulk of communications to be delivered from a public relations / marketing department (read: in a consistent “on-message” manner). Today, with cell phone cameras everywhere and the potential for videos to go viral, everyone must remember that anything can be captured and distributed to everyone / everywhere almost instantaneously. What once might have been a candid remark by a politician to score points with a particular demographic, can now be captured and repurposed as an attack ad against every other demographic. Everyone should always remember that the second you hit send or publish, that content has been released onto the internet – forever.

A big thanks to Natasha for taking the time to contribute. If your organization is interested in learning more about how to tap the positive powers of social media, you should get in touch with her through Virtual Eye See.

Jamie:
What are some examples where companies have used social media effectively to promote a particular product or strengthen their relationship with customers?

Natasha:
Facebook is an excellent example. They recently changed their terms of service and a lot of their customers were very upset about it. They listened and reverted to their old policy and are now taking the feedback into account.

Jamie:
One of the first ways that corporations typically get exposed to the benefits of social media is to Google or scan a Facebook profile as part of diligence of evaluating potential employees. Unfortunately, that focuses on the negative aspects of peoples’ willingness to put “everything” online. How can someone looking to get hired by certain employers use social media to position themselves ahead of the pack?

Natasha:
The employee first has to figure out their target market so to speak. Then find the appropriate social media places that these target markets participate in. For example having a presence on LinkedIn with the relevant experience highlighted on their profile. Not just the past job they had but every career experience they have had that is relevant to the job they are pursuing. Participate in the conversations happening on LinkedIn regarding their industry.

Next would be to be up to date on industry Blogs and participate in the conversations happening there. If they have extra time they could also start their own Blog to establish themselves as a thought leader in the field. On Facebook for example, join various groups both professional, hobbies, charities etc. Again participate in these discussions or initiate some. Set up a You Tube Channel and broadcast a regular program on their industry, thoughts on the trends in that space, new developments etc..

The possibilities are endless.

Jamie:
They truly are. From a design / developer stand-point there are a lot of other activities that one can do to get themselves noticed or help build their personal brand recognition:

• Contribute to an open source project – either directly to the core or with most platforms offering extensible widget, plugin or theme concepts by distributing your own item.
• Building a stand alone tool / product that fulfills an area of need for yourself. Chances are there are others who would benefit from it and it helps you keep your skills sharp if you are unemployed.
• Build Internet recently highlighted the value of practical personal projects, “represent a way to try new things, but focused on something practical…Besides job hunting, you could also turn some of these into side profits if it fits the nature of the piece.”

There will be one more post in this series on Friday which looks towards how government can / should / needs to get on the social media bandwagon.

Natasha D'Souza - Founder of Virtual EyeSee

A few months ago, we found time to do a broad ranging interview on all things social media. The results of which will be split over 3 posts this week. What is social media and how will the economic slump affect it?

Jamie:
The term social media has seemingly become all-encompassing for anything and everything to do with “web 2.0″ which itself is an enigmatic title. What is social media and why should organizations of all sizes be interested in it?

Natasha:
Social media refers to sites on the internet or mobile devices that let people connect and share text, photos and videos. Other terms that are used that mean the same are social networks, web 2.0, social web and much more. The evolution of the internet into a more social form of interaction has lead to terms line on line identities, going viral, social bookmarks, tagging etc.

All this to say that it’s now easier than before to connect online with people globally based on childhood friends, family, colleagues, hobbies etc..In the past we had to rely on traditional media from TV, radio to print to disseminate this information. There was a significant delay from when an event occurred to when it was shared through these mediums. Web 2.0 has made it possible to communicate instantly with an audience and share your thoughts and emotions.

Given that there are millions of people on line it makes sense for companies to capitalize on this audience and start a dialogue with them. The challenge is to do it in a way that does not come across as spam. Virtual EyeSee helps it’s clients by working with them to align their corporate goals to a social media strategy and implement these solutions. We also provide services that help with maintaining the companies visual brand in this online space. We finally provide the necessary training needed in order to maintain these social media strategies.

Jamie:
With the declining economy, companies are going to be even more cost conscious about getting value for their dollar on advertising / marketing activities. How can you accurately measure the return on investment with social media?

Natasha:
Firstly people need to understand that it’s very hard to measure social media in the traditional sense. The use of social media is based on the goals of the organization and the social media tools that they use to accomplish these goals. For example If an organization uses social media to build a community one aspect that can be measured is the click through community directly to ecommerce. This is measurable. Most organizations don’t understand these forms of measurement therefore don’t add this to their process they are too busy as it is.

Wired Wednesday

Last night I was fortunate that my schedule, which has been beyond busy of late, opened up enough for me to attend the inaugural Wired Wednesday event. Much like Third Tuesdays being organized by Joseph Thornley, it is the quality of the attendees and presenters that make the the event so enjoyable. My hat goes off to the organizers (Karla Briones, Erin Bury / Red Wire) for getting 3 great Ottawa startups (Choicebot, Gazaro and DNA11) and the always engaging Joseph to kick this monthly event off.

I didn’t realize how busy that schedule was until I looked at my WordPress post calendar and saw that it has been almost 4 months since I made an update to this blog. While that would generally border on being unacceptable I’m willing to cut myself some slack because I have made a lot of great things happen over the last few months:

1. I was an active member in a large team that re-platformed and re-designed www.canadapost.ca. Not only am I jazzed to be able to say that I had a helping hand in re-launching one of the top 100 Canadian web properties, but the scope and complexity of the site continues to present new challenges to expand my skills. With the new platform in place more projects are in flight which you can look forward to making your postal life easier.
2. I designed and developed a new site for the non-for-profit Centre for Treatment of sexual abuse and childhood trauma. The staff wanted an easy way to update the content on their site by members that had a wide variety of technical skills – yet again WordPress proved to be capable of supporting these needs as well as integrating eCommerce and paypal donation options. The initial launch suffered a few hiccups due to hosting environment challenges, but all is good now.
3. Geeks, Beer and BBQ – What else do I really need to say? A few twitter conversations lead to me deciding to organize the 1st annual Ottawa Geek BBQ (#ottawageekbbq) for freelancers, social mediasts, developers, entrepreneurs and their families. Big thanks go out to @chrisjschmitt for hosting, @reconfigures for taking great photos of the event and most importantly The Code Factory, Labarge Weinsten and ExpertHost for donating / subsidizing the food, drinks and key infrastructure (porta-potty). This event managed to raise just over $400 for the Startup Ottawa future events fund. I look forward to someone self-organize the first annual fall Ottawa Geek BBQ.
   

   Jamie acting like a lion after a fresh kill. A true carnivore!

Looking forward I have a couple of great things lined up for new ambitions that I will announce in short order. I think part of the reason that I have been blogging less is that I’ve gotten more active in my use of Twitter. If you want to stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest in my world, you can follow me at www.twitter.com/idealien.

One item I will let out of the bag is that next week will feature 3 great blog posts with a social media slant that have been sitting in draft for far too long. I was holding them off in hopes of posting them as first fresh content in parallel with a re-design of the Idealien Studios site. However, that ‘too-busy-for-my-own-good’ schedule relegated personal projects to the bottom of the to do list. So starting Monday I will share the series which is based on a series of interviews I did with the knowledgeable and beautiful Natasha from Virtual Eye See.