In collaboration with Amazon, Godin is trying to change the way books (the content not the medium) are published, distributed and read.

Seth Godin’s latest book, Poke the Box is the first title in the Domino Project. Released just this past Tuesday, Poke the Box is all about encouraging people to just get started on something, to have initiative and “go for it”.

Today’s event is all about poking the box. Using a new platform to encourage his readers and fans to quite talking and start doing.

We’ve embedded the Twitter feed below and we hope that you’ll join us between 1 and 2 pm this afternoon. The conversation will be fast past and informative time that we’ll all learn something from.  Hopefully then we’ll all start Poking the Box

The keynote for the day was Avinash Kaushik. He is currently one of the greatest minds working around web site analytics, site measurement and optimizing online presence for maximum impact. He delivered an amazing lecture full of practical knowledge, tangible advice and actionable items. One of the greatest things about his presentation was that it was customized for London, Ontario. It’s very easy for a big name speaker like himself to use a prepared slidedeck. However, Avinash did his research and brought up examples of local business’ websites and highlighted issues and successes with their online strategy which made his whole lecture extremely relevant.

The remainder of the day extended from this perfect start. The breakout sessions I attended were incredibly informative and contained pieces of content that I’m looking forward to implementing with our clients. There was much more of a focus on mobile development; both native apps and mobile friendly websites as well as overall analytics and measurement techniques.

While I loved the conference itself, I have started to notice a disappointing trend with online marketers. For decades we have been trying to find a way to measure our tactics and determine the returns. Trying to determine whether the audience watching TV saw your ad, or if the full page spread in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail had any impact. When Social Media emerged with all its reporting tools and dashboards, everyone thought the Holy Grail of measurement had been discovered. Unfortunately, in thinking this many people have lost sight of the original intent of social media; building relationships through telling stories. This isn’t something that you can measure, and you can’t put a dollar figure on the connections you make with potential customers. In our rush to measure everything we’ve dumbed down relationships and made them another line on the budget sheet.

In closing, though; I’m very glad and encouraged to see how active the online marketing space in London and area is. If we can continue to bring in high profile speakers and put on conferences like eMarketing, I’m confident that we’ll continue to expand as a digital media centre that meaningfully contributes to Canada and the World.

In yesterday’s post about my recent trip to Vancouver I mentioned that I was able to sit down with David Eaves. Unfortunately our schedules only permitted us to have a short lunch; nevertheless, we were able to chat about a number of projects, the philosophy of Open Data, and the future direction in Government 2.0.

David Eaves is a leader in the Open Data initiative. He is an advocate of openness and transparency and spends a lot of time looking at how technology impacts government operations and their interactions with their constituents.

At rtraction we are big advocates of Open Data and have been pushing our local municipality, (London, Ontario), to adopt this philosophy. We’ve launched a number of products built using open data sets. We’ve had success with EatSure and played a role in helping LondonTrash become a reality. A number of our staff are also involved with OpenDataLondon; a citizen led Open Data advocacy group.

I met Dave at Canada 3.0 in Stratford, May of 2010. At the time we spent time chatting about that event; its strengths and weaknesses, as well as the future of digital media in Canada. We also shared emails back and forth about various initiatives including the http://www.opendataday.org/. Therefore, when Dave and I were able to get our schedules lined up, I was very excited to pick his brain and discuss how London could play a role in shaping Canada’s digital future through Open Data and Government 2.0

Vancouver is viewed as a leader in Open Data. They were one of the first cities in Canada with an active community that pushed the city to release data sets and had some of the first apps built with this information. Through discovering VanTrash we realized the potential for such a website in London, Ontario, and so in collaboration with Open Data London, UnLondon and many individuals we built LondonTrash.

During lunch Dave filled me in on the group in Vancouver that was getting ready to launch their own version of EatSure. In fact, just a couple days later the Vancouver site went live. We’re very pleased that a simple project we launched here in London has been successfully replicated in other cities. Hopefully this is just the first of many other regions who want to make restaurant inspection data available to the public in an intuitive manner. Feel free to drop us a line if you are interested.

There are a number of avenues that we are looking to explore with EatSure in the coming months. Dave suggested that we look at how we can integrate concepts of openness back into the project itself. For example, when looking to expand into other areas that may not have restaurant inspection data opened up, how can we provide a platform to those groups so they can make that information accessible? Following up with that; what is the most open way to share that newly rescued data? These are questions and projects we hope to explore in more detail in future releases.

Dave and I wrapped up our conversation chatting about how to encourage new governments (especially relevant with the recent municipal elections in Ontario) to get on board with Open Data and other open platforms. One of the points we established was the need to keep moving forward despite setbacks or lack of immediate adoption.

It’s an exciting time to be interested in politics and technology. Innovations are happening daily and it’s easy to become involved. If you’re interested in participating in this important dialogue I encourage you to reach out to one of the organizations linked above.

I started the week on Monday with a great lunch with David Eaves. We brainstormed a few further ideas around EatSure and some other projects with great potential for London so stay tuned on that front.

On Tuesday I stopped by BootUp Labs and chatted with Maura Rodgers, their Executive Director. I learned about the startup culture that’s very active in the city and what BootUp is doing to foster that. I was also very  pleased to hear about the level of collaboration that exists in Vancouver. There are a number of cool companies coming out of BootUp that I’m sure we’ll hear more about soon!

In the evening, I stopped by the Vancouver Hack Space (VHS) and watched as they rolled out some really interesting projects, including seeing their MakerBot in action!

Finally on Wednesday morning I was able to have a long chat with David Olson from HootSuite. It was very encouraging to hear about the successes they’ve had with their products and some of the plans for the future. One of their biggest challenges is that many people aren’t aware that they’re a Canadian company!

The team at HootSuite is one that truly “understands” the storytelling aspect of Social Media and are providing a tool that
makes that easier for businesses and organizations of all sizes to interact with their communities.

I left their office with a bag full of stickers and pins, so they next time you see me be sure to grab some for yourself!

Over the next week I’m going to talk more about these companies and individuals and what lessons I’m excited to bring home and implement here. There are many opportunities here in London and lots of  potential to add a bit of West Coast flavour to the Forest City.

By now I’m sure you’ve seen the widely successful Super Bowl Ad for Old Spice body wash. Old Spice recently followed this up with a second advertisement using the same unique and unusual creative stylings. However if you thought that a couple of funny and unique videos was all the company had up their sleeve, then what took place on the @OldSpice Twitter stream (combined with other social media activity) during the last few days must have you reconsidering that position.

A relative new-comer to the microblogging site, Isaiah Mustafa and the Old Spice team turned the Internet on its head when the started personally interacting with their fans online. It all started out with the relatively innocuous tweet:

“Today could be just like the other 364 days you log into twitter, or maybe the Old Spice man shows up.”
What we saw was one of the most original and innovate uses of the Internet and social media since Zuckerberg stole a series of yearbook pictures from the Harvard student body. (or a couple of rainbows appeared in the sky)

As fans interacted with Mustafa, he would respond to their messages via short YouTube clips. The responses were done in the same random, post-modern, uber-meta style as the rest of the Old Spice advertisements, which made them entertaining and addictive; it was impossible to just watch one clip.

And oh yeah… It was in real time, as in you could make a comment or ask a question and within minutes hopefully watch a response from Old Spice.

Target the Audience

The brand capitalized on influencers, like Kevin Rose and Alyssa Milano, and used them to spread the campaign beyond Twitter. Sending personalized videos to both “web” celebrities and media outlets promotes the brand and this advertising campaign to even broader communities.

You could easily write this off as a really cool idea, wish that you had thought of it or think that it’s only possible because of the enormous budgets multinational brands like Old Spice have available…

Or you could think about what the lessons are for your brand.

What Are You Doing?

Old Spice has effectively shown the internet what social media promoters have been telling brands for years: successful usage of social media requires you to honestly listen to and interact with your users and then provide them with relevant information and content to consume.

Should you run out and start recording a bunch of personalized video responses to questions and comments posed by your audience? Are you’re willing to take the risk needed for fast turn around times?  Do you have chutzpah to create entertaining videos that capture users attention? Video responses work for Old Spice because it’s the format viewers expected from the brand.  What medium and what type of conversation will your users expect from you?

Run with It

Even if you don’t think the format will work for you, there are tonnes of lessons your marketing department can learn from Old Spice:

• Its not enough to just respond when you feel like it – if you’re really listening, you need to respond when your audience is ready and with the information they’re expecting.
• You already have interesting and relevant information or marketing to share;  if you can share it in an engaging manner then people are going to spread it for you.
• Old Spice broke down our silo assumptions;  that Twitter is for Twitter responses, blogs for blog responses and YouTube for inane comment responses. Instead, they connected various platforms together in an incredibly effective way.
• We’re not done innovating yet, and it’s always possible to take simple ideas and combine them into a new and interesting way of presenting information.

If you want to read more about what’s going on behind the scenes of the the Old Spice shoot, there have been a few great interviews with the creative team of Wieden+Kennedy.

I’ve read with interest David Eaves‘ thoughts on the two day event and he summarized exactly how I was feeling after I left Stratford. I have some positive thoughts but unfortunately I’m disheartened by a lot of the rhetoric coming from traditional institutions and the lack of encouragement of the grassroots communities and poor attempts to include them in honest discussions.

My time at Canada 3.0 was largely in the Creating Stream, but I did attend a few sessions elsewhere. I won’t pretend to have a complete grasp on all the conversations that took place over the two days, but I’m sure my experience was much like many others. To put it bluntly the conference did not even remotely live up to what the organizers promised on the front page of the Canada 3.0 website;

“Your voice will be heard.

Whether you’re a Content Creator, Tool Maker, or Tool User, this is your chance to influence our national digital media action plan. Become part of the discussion to ensure Canada can not only compete, but also lead the world, in today’s new digital economy.”

Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Only lip-service was given to honest interaction and community involvement. Throughout the event  it was clear that the agenda had been set before the event, and the sole purpose of the conference was to get industry leaders together to pay homage and ratify a predetermined outcome.

The organizers also promised “camp-like discussions”. I have experience running and attending camp-like conferences, and there was nothing remotely like that at Canada 3.0. Nor was there even the opportunity to have any type of community driven session.

When it came time to wrap up on Tuesday, the chairs of each stream were invited to present ‘action items’. These were ideally to come from the participants and were supposedly to help build Canada’s digital strategy. None of the items that were presented from the Creating Stream reflected the comments that the attendees had made publicly.  Worse yet, they all came from the first session and seemed stilted, fake, contrived, and designed to appease the traditional mainstream communication channels.

Which leads to the single most major issue with Canada 3.0. The event had the potential to realign Canada’s digital future and to create and foster new and innovative ideas, models and platforms. Instead it focused on bolstering traditional positions and industries; like the big three telecoms, television networks like CTV and Global, and mainstream media outlets like newspapers and radio. Funding announcements designed to benefit tired business models, old-fashioned copyright reform that encourages conglomeration instead of independent and innovative creative works were championed, and traditional failing ideas were propped up, solely because they were Canadian.

Not all is lost though, there is a grassroots movement, full of content creators, small industry professionals, tool makers and developers, who are all working to create a digital environment in Canada that will take us as leaders into the 21st century; we can position ourselves as innovative and relevant, ready to do business in the digital media space on a global scale. However, we’re going to need to shake off the ball and chain that is the traditional broadcaster and we’ll need to be prepared to move forward without government assistance, but ultimately we will succeed.

However, there has been a major issue with determining what exactly it means to be “digital”. There is no consensus between the stakeholders across Canada about what we’re measuring. Therefore we’ll never really know if we’ve reached  our goal. Additionally there is a variety of disagreements about who should be leading this charge and how far do we need to go with public consultation by government instead of action. Finally, there seems to be a big push to work within existing models and platforms of broadcasters and “old media” and ignoring new systems and potentials.

Despite these challenges, the conference has been a great opportunity to connect with content creators, brilliant developers, industry leaders, and corporations.  As the second day continues we’re invigorated to keep these conversations alive and encouraged by the community that we’re seeing that already exists across Canada.

When we get back to London we’ll review our notes and our twitter streams and we’ll present much of what we’ve learned on this blog.

Until then, how well do you think we’re preparing for 2017 and what goals should we be looking to measure in the lead up to this date?

While it is still early and all the details have not been released there are a number of positives to look forward to:

• For new users the barrier of entry has been lowered; it will become easier to discover people and interests.
• Relationships are strengthened as users find more people and businesses to interact with.
• However there is a lower signal to noise ratio as you only connect with people relevant to your interests.
• Contextual data can be easily added to websites, applications and online services to facilitate these connections.

With this release Twitter is working to position the service as an information network where people can easily share content and learn from each other across a variety of different websites.

Recently events have illustrated Twitter’s ability to easily and safely bring people together; Iranian elections, the Chilean earthquake and conferences around the world. With today’s announcement they have extended this functionality to everyone and both users and businesses of all sizes will benefit.

The day started with the keynote presentation by Mitch Joel of Twist Image in Montreal. He delivered his Six Pixels presentation in which he reiterated the need to understand that we are facing a radical shift in the way we communicate. One of the great things I took away was that with social media, customers still have the same amount of control as they always have. However now there is a greater amplification of their voices. Its easy now for anyone to become a competitor of a traditional business and to succeed.

Mitch delivers a rich and engaging presentation and it was a great way to start the day because it got the attendees all riled up and excited. He provided the groundwork to the day that allowed many people to start on an equal footing.

Following the keynote there were a number of breakout sessions. I attended Brady Murphy of Vortex Mobile’s session on mobile marketing and was able to connect with him about a few interesting things I’d experienced in the space. Brady talked about many of the challenges that mobile developers face when dealing with multiple platforms and service providers. I’ve mentioned before that I believe mobile to be the future of social media and 2010 will be an important year towards that development. This session reiterated that belief, and introduced a lot of new people to the concept.

However, the highlight of the day was the release of PolicyTool. David Canton presented on the legal issues surrounding social media and at the end unveiled the free social media policy generator. David was also asked to present PolicyTool at the final wrap up, so all the attendees were introduced  to it. We’ve written about this already, including the resounding success that it has been.

I enjoyed my time at the conference and was glad to connect with lots of other people over the course of the day. Hopefully this is just the start to many more social media conferences in London.

We never would have gotten the traffic and the interest we did without the help of our social media friends. Mitch Joel sent several tweets out to his network and we are thankful for his interest in the tool and the role he’s played in promoting it. PolicyTool has also been mentioned at numerous conferences including the Great Ideas Conference and the NL Conference in Amsterdam.

From there hundreds of people have re-tweeted messages and shared the tool with their friends and coworkers. In fact as of today our PolicyTool was mentioned every 14 minutes on average. It also looks like people will be continuing to refer back to the site since hundreds of people bookmarked it on delicious.

But it wasn’t limited to Twitter. Lots of people have written blog posts reviewing the tool, sharing their policies, and discussing the overall need for a social media policy within any organization. Simon Fodden wrote a post for the legal blog Slaw.ca reviewing the policy generator.  Beth Kanter used PolicyTool as a springboard for discussion around Not-For-Profits and Aaron Robb for wrote about our incentive for releasing the Social Media policy tool for free.

A big thank-you to everyone who has taken the time to share their thoughts through various social media channels. We’ve heard your comments and are working to make the changes you’ve proposed.