Ottawa Web and Social Media Events May 2011
May 13, 2011
Ottawa’s marketing community continues to impress me with its increasingly rich offering of web and social media related events. I’m sure I’ve missed several, but the month is flying by me and I wanted to get these one published:
- “Better Leads. Richer Insights. Bridging the web analytics and CRM divide“, presented by Zone5ive, OCRI‘s Tech Marketing Forum on May 12th, 2011 at the Marshes Golf Course. Kudos to Alex Langhshur and Tyler Gibbs of PublicInsite who presented a valuable case study on exactly how they’ve helped Ottawa’s own Dragonwave Inc to convince their sales team of the worth of the web channel by integrating web analytics data into Dragonwave’s CRM
- “Content Strategy from A Global Perspective“, presented by Content Strategy Ottawa Meetup. Billed as an informal night of networking, the group meets at Blue Cactus Bar & Grill in the Market on May 13, 2011 at 6pm
- Now SOLD OUT – “People Before Pixels“, a one-day user experience workshop offered by Follow the UX Leader, on May 16, 2011 at the Courtyard Restaurant
- “Between the Lines of Privacy“, a breakfast with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart, presented by WXN. the Women’s Executive Network on May 17, 2011 at the Rideau Club
- “Results, not more Reports“, a free web analytics seminar offered by Unilytics also on May 17th, 2011 at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel
- “Designing for Humans“, a presentation by Martin Gomez of Sparkart from SMBOttawa (Social Media Breakfast Ottawa) at 7:30am on May 18, 2011 at the Great Canadian Theatre Company
- “Stop Searching. Start Finding.” a full day of information architecture training provided by Follow the UX Leader at the Courtyard Restaurant on May18, 2011
- “Creating Web Content that Clicks“, a one-day web writing course also from Follow the UX Leader on May 19, 2011, also at the Courtyard Restaurant
- Ryan Short from Teknision will be the speaker at the next Web Analytics Wednesday at the Heart & Crown ByWard Market, hosted by PublicInsite on May 25, 2011 at 6pm
- FUN for Tech Women event to be held at DiVino’s at 225 Preston Street on May 30th, 2011 from 6pm-8pm. To register, call DiVino’s at (613) 221-9760
- Canada’s Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, or SEMPO Canada, is holding its first SEMPO Ottawa Members Only Meetup on May 30th, 2011 at 6pm at Johnny Farina on Elgin Street
- “New Era Marketing Mosaika: A Spectacular Multimedia Creation” with Guy Laflamme from the National Capital Commission, presented by CMA Ottawa on May 31st, 2011 at 11:15am at the Hampton Inn and Conference Room
If I’ve missed any, comment away, and I’ll be sure to add it to the information.
Hope to see all of you at one or more of these events!
Ottawa’s jam-packed June
June 23, 2010
I’m not sure if it was intentional or not – trying to beat a pre-summer vacation frenzy? – but this past month, Ottawa has been jam-packed with with web-related events. Which is, of course, excellent news for our fair city. Our web-ian community grows!
A quick round up of those I was able to catch:
- GovCamp Ottawa, our local version of GovCamp Canada: “an open environment for conversation about the role of municipal, provincial and federal governments in cultivating the growth and prosperity of Canada’s vibrant communities…”. My first ‘un-conference’, and an intriguing experience. After hearing from a kick-off panel, the audience created the agenda on the spot. I joined a debate about how valuable (or not) subject matter experts are in an open government model, a discussion about inter-jurisdictional (federal, provincial and municipal) applications and a session about how to measure the impact of open government data using examples and success stories. Overall though, my favourite part was the live Twitter feed during the panel itself; highly amusing to be part of a top-trending topic on Twitter for a day…
- “Winning the War on Google” featuring Rebecca Lieb, presented by the nascent Ottawa Web Marketing Club.ca. Rebecca has an impressive search pedigree and covered a lot of the fundamentals of search. Unfortunately, the most interesting material – the future of search – came at the end with little time left. She touched on implications of universal search e.g. the blending of search results – organic, news, images, video, social, etc. to illustrate why it’s – truly – no longer about rankings. Also, intriguing stats from comScore: “In early 2008, 17 percent of searches contained some type of blended result. In late 2008, it was 31 percent of all search results.” Look out marketers!
- “Social Media Marketing Experts Reveal All” with panelists Scott Lake from SWIX, Erin Blaskie, Lifestreamer (my new favourite word – see BabyCenter’s research segmenting social moms) and Michele Bedford-Thistle from Microsoft, presented by OCRI‘s, Zone5ive technology marketing speaker series. Each panelist had an extremely different take on social and how they’ve incorporated it into their professional selves and businesses. Finally – concrete evidence about why organizations don’t need to panic about the ‘right’ way to ‘do’ social.
There were still other events I was not able to attend, including:
- “Wikibrands – Reinventing Your Business in A Customer Controlled Marketplace”, featuring Sean Moffit and presented by SMB Ottawa (Social Media Breakfast Ottawa). For reasons that I’m unclear about, there’s no reference to the event on the SMB Ottawa web page, but you can find the presentation on slideshare. Perhaps they are pure-Twitterists?
- MARCOM 2010 – “professional development and educational forum for public and not-for-profit marketers and communicators”
- Your Facebook Business Account – Turn “Fans” into Customers Session 3 of Using Social Media to Drive Business featuring Erin Blaskie, presented by the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce. Fortunately for me, Erin posted the presentation on slideshare.
If you were able to attend any of these, comment away – I’d be curious to hear what you learned at each.
And finally, although it not exactly an event, there is a deadline worth noting – CMA Ottawa is touting the fact that the entry deadline for the 2010 Canadian Marketing Associations Awards is June 24th, 2010.
Go Ottawa!
Is Your Search Marketing Missing In Action?
April 16, 2010
Many thanks to CMA Ottawa, the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Marketing Association, for inviting me to speak at their upcoming luncheon on April 27th, 2010.
I’m especially pleased about the about the topic I get to tackle – search engine marketing. Back in December 2008, I was fascinated to read a study describing how business owners find search campaigns more scary than filing taxes. Since then, I’ve concluded that this might indeed be the case – which is not a good thing.
Search marketing may be the great leveler and I don’t like the idea of business owners shying away from it. Instead, I’d be much happier if they at least understood enough about the tactic to decide if it should be included in their marketing mix or not.
My hope is to demystify search marketing and in particular, talk about:
- Measuring visibility instead of worrying about rankings
- Why it’s not really about your home page anymore
- How you can leverage your own subject matter expertise
I’ve just returned from eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Toronto and Canada’s Search Marketing Expo, SMX Toronto, and my head is brimming with search ideas and issues; I’m really going to have to rein myself in…
I hope to see you on April 27th!
Event details:
When: Tuesday April 27th, 2010, from 11:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Where: Hampton Inn and Conference Centre, 100 Coventry Rd, Ottawa
Cost: $40.00 for CMA members, $55.00 for non-members
Looming Deadline for SMX Session Pitches
December 14, 2009
Toronto’s April 2010 Search Marketing Expo (SMX Toronto) session pitch deadline is December 15th, 2009. For anyone new to this conference, SMX Toronto runs alongside eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.
If you or an organization you work with would like to talk about a search (search engine optimization, marketing, analytics and onsite search) project you’ve completed of late, the conference organizers would love to hear from you:
Stay in touch
