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Posts from April 2008

Looking for Women Speakers? Give geekspeakr.com a try!

GeekspeakrSay you're looking for smart, savvy presenters for a tech-oriented conference AND you want to ensure diversity in your speaker roster, BUT, your own circle of contacts, for some reason, doesn't include women.  Well, good news: geekspeakr.com is on the scene.  From the website ...

Many organisers of technical conferences, meetups, and dinners want to have more gender-balance in their lineups, but they don't know where to find technical women speakers.

Enter geekspeakr.com, a simple directory and connections system to help technical women speakers and event organisers to find each other.

geekspeakr is in "very alpha" right now.  Their first order of business, get a critical mass of speakers registered.  So, if you're an expert in a tech-related topic, an informative speaker and happen to be a woman, sign up over at geekspeakr.com.

There is already a small contingent of Canadians women signed up, 50% of whom I was not previously familiar with which is excellent!  geekspeakr.com looks to not only be a source of speakers, but a good networking site as well.

h/t to melle.ca and Sandy Kemsley who both sent this to me within hours of each other.

18 April 2008 in Technology & the Internet | | Comments (0)

Vote for Canada's ChangeEverything.ca in the People's Voice Webby

20080409webbybadge140 One of my favourite social networks, ChangeEverything.ca, is up for a Webby this year.  Last year, they were an honoree - this year, they made the big time as a nominee and are up against some heavy hitters in the Social Network category: Bebo, Facebook, Flock and Ning.

One reason that I'd like to see them win is that they have demonstrated the real hyper-local power of social networks.  An example from ChangeEverything.ca that I use regularly in my presentations on social media is a story about a woman who wanted her local grocer to carry green (recycled) toilet paper.  His complaint was that it took up valuable shelf space in his small establishment and wouldn't be purchased by anyone.  She put the word out on Change Everything and rallied local troops who committed to buying from that grocer.  He saw that there was a market for the product and started carrying the requested brand.  An amazing win-win for everyone.

Alexandra Samuel and Rob Cottingham of Social Signal, who work with William Azaroff from Vancity  and Kate Dugas, Change Everything's tireless community manager, have shared their thoughts about why a vote for ChangeEverything.ca is a vote for the real power of social networking.

Change Everything's success points to a hunger out there for social networking with substance - online community that goes beyond racking up "friends" or sending "'sup?" messages. That's especially encouraging to those of us who believe in the power of social media as tools for meaningful social change.

If you haven't visited ChangeEverything.ca, I encourage you to do so.  And once you see the amazing conversations and actions that are happening, join me in voting for them in the Webby's People's Voice competition.

17 April 2008 in Canadian, Social Media, Take Action! | | Comments (0)

links for 2008-04-17

17 April 2008 | | Comments (0)

ITWorld Canada Names Top 10 Technology Bloggers in Canada

PagelogoShane Schick, editor of ComputerWorld Canada, has put together a list of the Top 10 Technology Bloggers in Canada:

I'm quite delighted and honoured to be on the list.  Not just because of the great company, but because of ITWorld Canada's rationale for putting this list together:

ComputerWorld Canada editor Shane Schick compiles a list of the online voices that could change the way IT managers do their jobs for the better.

Let’s make this absolutely clear: this list is subjective. But isn’t that what an IT manager would want — someone who’s already browsed around a lot to tell them where they should be adding an RSS feed or a favourite to their browser?

One of the reasons I keep blogging is that I do believe it gives back to the community and helps people, who are much less geeky and possibly more time starved, by doing (at least a first pass) at separating the wheat from the chaff.  It's gratifying to be acknowledged in this capacity. 

Also, while I may not code (much) anymore or admin unix servers (thank heavens), I believe that experience and background has made me a better marketer ... the evolution of marketing is technology driven.  Yes, marketing shouldn't be *about* the technology, but you can't deny it has been driven by technology.  My background has enabled me to bring appropriate new services and opportunities to clients ahead of what traditional agencies have been able to do. 

The challenge with lists, of course, is that people get left off (for example, I would have wanted/expected to see Sandy Kemsley on the list) and no one agrees with who is on them. 

BUT, ITWorld Canada is holding a contest to find the next great Canadian technology blogger - so you have the opportunity to get listed :)  ...

Every week, our editors will choose a topic for reader contestants to write about, which will be critiqued by our judges in the comments area of the blog. Readers will use the ratings feature to choose their favourites. We’ll be recognizing the top ratings winners as well as the Blog Idol who earns the most traffic overall. We will be offering $1,000 cash, a Nikon Coolpix digital camera and lots of other great prizes.

So, if you're a geek but haven't started blogging, or, are a lapsed geek blogger and want a kick in the pants, head over to blogidol.ca and sign-up!

Congrats to my fellow Top 10!  And thanks again to Shane and ITWorld Canada for the recognition.

CanadiantopUpdate: The cool kids over at aideRSS (another great Canadian startup!!) have created a merged feed of the Top 10 Canadian Tech Bloggers.  Thanks, aideRSS!

16 April 2008 in Blogs and Blogging, Canadian, Self-Referential, Technology & the Internet | | Comments (6)

Inbox Delight: Yooba, Triggit, Yieldy and Poynt

We get letters ... lots and lots of letters.

267403889_e74b4d7416_m There are so many new websites and applications launching every day - and I get media releases for a number of them.  I've been saving them up to blog about, so, apologies for the linkesque post, but I wanted to mention these:

Yooba ... the world of Internet marketing will never be the same.  I'm not 100% what this is.  Some kind of marketing service to make online rich-media campaigns easier.  Could be a hosted service; could be a boxed product.  Beta is launching sometime this Spring.  The teasers have some fantastic animation.  My fav is the second one - a weird mix of Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) and Galadriel (from LOTR).  They are located in the UK and their blog has some interesting UK and European internet usage data.

Triggit ... web monetization made simple.  Triggit is this cool little browser bit that lets you put in affiliate links, flickr pictures or YouTube videos just by dragging and dropping.  No backend coding required.  It's pretty wild.  There are some videos on the site that explain it.  It all seems to happen post-publishing and I'm not sure if feeds are impacted/supported (I'm guessing they aren't).  It's a bit of a change to the usual blog writing model if you're used to delivering to a feed-based audience, but great for serendipitous traffic from search, I think.  Nice tool to empower individuals running web-based affiliate businesses or the casual blogger.  I added a couple of links, photo and video to this post.  All the relevant code seems to be on their server.  It's cool and creepy at the same time :)

Yieldy ... A Simple Ad Network Allowing Any Site to Earn Revenue Immediately.  Super easy to use. Great for small publishers who, for some reason, don't want to use AdSense.  I wish you could pick the types of ads (content, not size) that appeared.   From the makers of Texty .. a content management tool.

Poynt ... local search via IM.  This is pretty cool.  Using MSN Messenger or AIM, you set your location and can search the yellow pages or movie listings.  The movie listings are really great.  It says you can watch trailers but I haven't figured that out yet - maybe because I'm on a Mac?  In any case, services like Poynt prove that hyperlocal is the direction for cool new toys to take.  If I had AIM or MSN on my mobile, presumably you could do a search from your mobile device.  Hmm .. wonder about GPS encoding - is Poynt smart enough to know where I am?     Also, what's the evolution/business model?  I'm assuming paid listings at some point (ha, ha .. POINT).  Oh, Poynt is Canadian - out of Calgary via Multiplied Media.

   

Photo Credit: zizzybaloobah

16 April 2008 in Technology & the Internet | | Comments (3)

Triggit Test Post

The following text was taken from a review I did a couple of years ago of Douglas Coupland's movie: Souvenir of Canada.  I wanted some sample text to play around with Triggit and what happens in the feed.

TIFF Film Review: Souvenir of Canada: A-

OK, this was a very North American film: it has *my* sense of humour, was in *my* language, features one of *my* favourite authors. It was not a stretch for me to *get* this film. Douglas Coupland is much funnier and genuine than I expected. See, I have this made-up construct of how jerky Coupland is in my head: he cancelled an appearance at the University of Waterloo back in 1992 or 1993. I had purchased a hard-cover first edition of Microserfs (a book I love dearly) for him to sign and skipped a class to see him. When I got to the bookstore, there was a big sign saying he'd cancelled. I've been bitter for 12 years. But after seeing Souvenir of Canada, I've been able to get over it.

This film is fun to watch. Though it's another one of those films that seems to end a couple of times. The whole film is an exploration of "what it means to be Canadian" mostly told through commentary on various Canadian pop-culture fads. At the end, there is a tacked on bit about how what it really means to be Canadian is our connection with the wilderness. The transition from pop-culture to wilderness was kinda weak and didn't really fit. But overall the film was snappy and funny and self-effacing and filled with those "inside" jokes Canadians love about themselves. Oh, and some really kickin' title design.

16 April 2008 in Testing, 1 2 3, Testing | | Comments (0)

links for 2008-04-13

13 April 2008 | | Comments (0)

links for 2008-04-11

11 April 2008 | | Comments (0)

links for 2008-04-09

09 April 2008 | | Comments (0)

links for 2008-04-08

08 April 2008 | | Comments (0)

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