ottawa

All posts tagged ottawa

Announcing Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013

by Kelly Kubrick on January 29, 2013

And it’s official – Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 dates and location have been confirmed!

Join us on June 3-5, 2013 at the University of Ottawa to get an in-depth education into the key elements of building your organization’s digital strategy.

As with the Vancouver conference, prepare to be immersed into the world of digital strategy development. In addition to sessions in Defining Digital Strategy and Establishing Digital Maturity, you will be taught by industry experts in five different educational modules – think of them as your five key areas of learning:

Organizational and Operational Readiness;
Digging into Content Strategy;
Mobile to Multiscreen;
Social Strategy: Earned Media for Community Development; and
Making Sense of Advertising / Paid Media.

For answers to any questions you might have about the conference format and logistics please read the Ottawa conference Frequently Asked Questions.

For those of you with a great digital strategy story to tell, you might consider submitting a case study proposal – but hurry – the Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa Call for Speakers ends March 15th, 2013.

Most importantly – you should register soon as double early bird pricing ends Friday March 8th, 2013. See you in Ottawa in June!

Updated: Still hesitating? Have a quick look at this video from our inaugural Vancouver event!

An afternoon immersion in digital analytics

by Kelly Kubrick on January 28, 2013

Key Takeaways from eMetrics Tour Ottawa 2013

Our thanks to the 100+ hardy souls who turned up for an afternoon of digital measurement resolutions on the first day of Ottawa’s killer cold snap this month. It was a great turnout; we had folks from all sectors and across all industries having lots of great conversations. My thanks to Jim Sterne and my fellow sponsors for sharing their insight and information. In the hope that it might keep your own digital analytics discussions flowing back at your offices, here are my top takeaways:

Analytics definitions from Stephane Hamel of Cardinal Path

“How an organization arrives at an optimal and realistic decision informed by data”
“Analytics is context plus data plus creativity”
“Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic into small parts to gain an understanding of it

I agree with Stephane’s statements – that the digital analytics industry’s number one problem today is the lack of rigorous process. In my own experience, the only way to keep ahead of all tool and technology changes is to have a framework that articulates what to measure, based on your ‘why’ measure objectives, regardless of vendor. Stephane uploaded his presentation “10 years of hard learned analytics wisdom in 20 minutes” on SlideShare.

(Yours Truly) Kelly Kubrick from Online Authority

Hobbit-Bilbo-Baggins-in-Doorway I was pleased that folks seem to hear, based on tweets, some of my key messages:

To an analyst, reporting is practising scales is to a musician; it gets / keeps you limber so that you are more able to achieve more creativity in your analysis
For non-techies, know that deconstructing prose and poetry in literature gives you an edge when deconstructing blocks of data. You already know how to assess the “whole” based on your ability to isolate the parts
Annotate, annotate, annotate: they give you a contextual lens to better understand your data as it changes
Ideally, digital analysts have a belief in Second Breakfast in common with Hobbits (vs hairy feet).

Feel free to peruse my my list of recommended resources for digital analysts, or to download my full presentation Changing Habits: An Unexpected Analytics Journey” (PDF). Let me know if you have any questions about either.

Jim Cain of Napkyn

Jim tackled the question of data and design best practices for Executive Dashboards. His words of advice:

“Use dashboards to replace intuition with information”
“Create alignment ~ draw the line between the numbers to sales/leads etc for executives by anticipating the question: “I showed you this because…”
“Good data + great analysis = appreciative execs (+ better decisions)”
“Your dashboard should inform ‘data focus’ choices – don’t include ALL the numbers; pick the ones that tell the story
“The best way to look at the numbers is to compare current to historical and predictive (the plan)”

And my personal favourite: “Think of Excel as a design tool, not just a data tool. Start thinking of your reports as non-fiction stories”. As someone known for singing the praises of pivot tables, the analogy brought a smile to my face.

If you didn’t get the chance to see it prior to our gathering, here’s Napkyn’s earlier post on the event: eMetrics Ottawa – Awesome, Important, Free! (and Napkyn is in the house).

Jim Sterne of eMetrics and the Digital Analytics Association

“Big data” is that which no longer fits in an Excel spreadsheet – love that! Update: per Jim’s comment below, this should actually be credited to Stephane Hamel – and with that, thanks Stephane for coining it and Jim for introducing me to it!
Snippet answers from Jim’s question: What Makes a Great Analyst? One who “understands the raw material and the mechanics of extraction”, “the problem to be solved” and who is “mindful of built-in biases that prevent one from looking at one’s data honestly”
The low hanging fruit of analysis includes “errors, omissions, complaints, spikes and troughs, ‘that’s funny” moments and anomalies”
“Above all, have an opinion”

Although Jim had much more to say, for a great summary of Jim’s presentation, you can’t beat Practicing the Art of Analytics published by June Li and the crew clickinsight in Toronto.

For those of you who might be interested in attending an upcoming eMetrics Summit, but you’d like to know more about it, take a look at distilled learning from eMetrics Toronto 2012.

And, congratulations to the Canadian eMetrics Summit Tour winners!

Allan Wille of Klipfolio

Allan gave us his forecast on trends that are changing the weather for marketers:

“1) real-time feeds, 2) data democracy, and 3) using the Cloud”
“Real time” of automated self-serve dashboards can make a difference”; break loose from the chains of manually updating Excel spreadsheets!
Data democracy is about: “aligning the entire organization behind the data, getting everyone in the organization looking at the data and realizing that data needs to be shared no matter what”
Communicate goals, measure then communicate again to get everyone on the bus (idea from book From Good to Great by Jim Collins)
“The Cloud has helped to develop the maturity if analytics tools” – amen to that!

Learn more from Klipfolio by taking a look at their pre-event post: Let’s talk metrics! Klipfolio an official sponsor of the eMetrics Tour.

Also, to see how our colleagues at the Montreal stop fared, take a look at eMetrics Tour Montréal – Un résumé des conférences (in French).

And finally – thanks to all of you who tweeted up a storm; it was great to be able to ‘replay’ the event with your documentary effort! In particular, my thanks to @w_grimes, @jorrdanlouis, @nellleo and @LindsayMMcPhee. You captured a great deal of information, and I really appreciated it.

Your Digital Measurement Resolution for 2013

by Kelly Kubrick on January 9, 2013

May I offer you a New Year’s resolution that doesn’t involve depriving yourself? A resolution that actually gives you good things – and at no cost?

Thanks to everyone who came out! Check out Online Authority’s takeaways from an afternoon immersion in analytics.

No need to deprive yourself

Register now to catch Jim Sterne of eMetrics, Digital Analytics Association and authorial fame roll up his sleeves and answer the question “What Makes a Great Analyst?”

If you’ve got digital measurement on the horizon for 2013 – or are deep in it now – you need to be there. Contemplating measurement frameworks? Or how to structure an analytics team? Need ideas for job titles? Or digital analyst job descriptions? Then block off the afternoon…

Jim Sterne

Jim will be in Ottawa for a pre-eMetrics Tour on January 17th, 2013 at Empire Grill in the Byward Market from 1:15pm to 5:00pm. This is your chance to hear Jim help Ottawa’s #measure community contemplate what it takes to be a true artist in the field of digital analytics.

As someone who has had the pleasure of hearing Jim speak multiple times over several years, I can tell you he delivers. Not only does he deliver engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking material, he also believes firmly in the potential of the digital measurement community.

The only requirement? Limited seating: Register ASAP

Speaking of building our community, this event is a great way to do just that in a painless way. Not only do you get to hear Jim’s take on the state of our industry, but you also get to catch:

Stephane Hamel of Cardinal Path and creator of WASP (THANK YOU!!!) and of the Online Analytics Maturity Model (when’s the last time you assessed your organization’s analytics maturity? Never? Get on that, would you?)
Jim Cain of Napkyn Inc. forger of new analytics business models (with one of my favourite lines ever: “Where your web analyst works.”) And who will help you use analytics to pick winners and losers. And we’re not talking Charlie Sheen…
Allan Wille of Klipfolio Inc. who’s going to give us the scoop on trends-analytical and how things are looking up for marketers (and who you should ask about things dashboard-y); and
Myself, Kelly Kubrick: I’ll be talking about applied analytics while making references to Hobbits. Habits! I mean habits!

And in between all this great content, you will meet your fellow Ottawa #measure community. Folks like you from private and public sectors, from across industries and all from Ottawa. Digital analysts, web analysts, search analysts, recovering analysts, future analysts…Come out and meet the crew!

In fact, if you really feel like broadening your Canadian analytical horizons, you can also catch our sister eMetrics Tour in Montreal on January 16th, 2013.

For additional scoop on the tour, check out Let’s talk metrics! Klipfolio an official sponsor of the eMetrics Tour and eMetrics Ottawa – Awesome, Important, Free! (and Napkyn is in the house).

Finally – assuming you are negotiating budget to attend eMetrics Toronto 2013 at this very moment, this is your chance to marshal arguments and perfect your pitch. And, if you are not familiar with the eMetrics Summits, here’s my learning from eMetrics Toronto 2012.

The moment is here…go ahead – you know you want to…register now…Hope you can make it!

Deadliest Online Warrior: Marketing Tactics Battle for Budget

by Kelly Kubrick on September 21, 2011

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pulling together data and screen shots for a presentation to CMA Ottawa (the Canadian Marketing Association – Ottawa Chapter) on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at the Hampton Inn and Conference Centre.

I’m presenting “Deadliest Online Warrior: “Marketing Tactics in a Battle for Budget” to fellow marketers in the national capital region. My plan is to present online marketing campaign results in a case study format so that the audience can get a feel for how different tactics performed. Until then:

“Instead of a TV show that pits historic and modern warriors to battle to the death, how about a conversation that pits historic and modern online marketing tactics in a battle for budget?

As customers spend more time in social networks and less in their email boxes and traditional websites, how should organizations adjust their online acquisition strategies? Join Kelly Kubrick of Online Authority for insight into the effects of combining paid search and social advertising with the power of social media marketing. Kelly will take you through a head-to-head result comparison between tactical legends of the online battlefield:

•   Paid Keyword Search vs. Social Network Advertising’s Demographic / Psychographic Targeting?
•   Banners: Behavioural Targeting vs. Search Term Targeting?
•   Email Buy vs. Social Media Content Marketing?”

I’m very pleased to report that CMA Ottawa now has online registration available. Event details are:

When:    Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 from 11:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.
Where:    Hampton Inn and Conference Centre, 100 Coventry Road, Ottawa, K1K 4S3
Cost:        $ 40.00 for CMA members, $ 55.00 for non-members

As always, there’s plenty of free parking and the cost includes lunch, coffee, dessert, and a great opportunity to network with many other local marketing professionals.

For those of you who may not be familiar with CMA Ottawa, they “host monthly networking and educational luncheons and seminars throughout the year. CMA Ottawa is a place of dynamic exchange among direct, interactive and customer contact marketing users, creators, managers and suppliers.”

I hope to see you there!

Ottawa Web and Social Media Events

by Kelly Kubrick on 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!

Content Measurement: Looking Beyond Webtrends & Google Analytics

by Kelly Kubrick on April 19, 2011

Kristina Mausser of Content Strategy Ottawa (Meetup) / ContentStrategyYOW (Twitter) very kindly invited me to meet Ottawa’s content strategists on April 18th, 2011, to chat about “Content Measurement: Looking Beyond Webtrends & Google Analytics.” For a quick introduction to the whys and wherefores of the topic, view this brief video (1 minute, 10 seconds).

Thanks to everyone who joined us at the Exchange Pub; it was a pleasure meeting you all (I’m happy to report that my BlackBerry Torch survived it’s inadvertent Corona bath!) and I thoroughly enjoyed our discussions.

POST UPDATE: Kristina has now posted photos – have fun tagging!

As promised, below, please find my list of the resources I mentioned last night. Here goes:

1. Learn to love Excel’s “AutoFilter” feature (look under Data > Filter) for all of your analysis, regardless of data source. Ideally, export whatever web analytics report you’re interested in and then import it into Excel. Enable AutoFilter, roll up sleeves and begin analysis! To do that, insert a new column(s) and begin categorizing, or segmenting, the rows of data so that you start to look for patterns and anomalies. Once you’ve got things rolling on the categorization side, you can easily begin to group the segments in a way that allows you to dig around in the details per category and reach some conclusions (see – look at you doing analysis!). How?

2. Use your Excel “Pivot Table” feature. Instead of giving a tutorial here, the best way to get introduced is to search for videos that can help you learn how to use these. Examples include:

My examples about how a content strategist might use Pivot Tables included:

a) Export your Google Analytics Keywords report (under Traffic Sources) to categorize your entry phrases in any number of ways e.g. brand, service, geography, etc. in order to identify the phrases you are getting traffic from. Now, turn that idea on its head – which phrases would you have expected to get traffic on, but are not? Use that list to begin brainstorming potential content improvements, and keep track of them in your editorial calendar;

b) Export the results of your on site search engine e.g. Google Analytics Site Search or Webtrends On-Site Search Terms (Found and Not Found). As above, categorize them so that you can begin to analyze how your website’s search engine is being used – which phrases are looked for most often? How does that compare to your navigation labels? Are they comparable or is there a gap? If so, how could you address it in the content? Ideally, you can use the results of this analysis to accomplish two different things – identify the content you need to ‘merchandise’ (and yes, government folks, I expect you to merchandise content too!) by better surfacing it across your website – and identify the content you’re missing – e.g. what are people searching for for which you offer No Results?

c) Export the results of your keyword research tools e.g. Google AdWords Keyword Tool or Wordtracker, and exactly as above, categorize the phrases so that you can begin to identify topics that for which there is demand that you might consider writing content for (or encouraging your client to write content for).

3. Combine your exported Google Analytics Content reports or your Webtrends Pages (Site Design > Pages) reports with the chart function in Excel and create long neck / long tail graphics to explain the concentration of content demand to your client. Help them understand which content is getting consumed more / less across all of the content they offer. However, first understand the core differences between the two theories:

Chris Anderson‘s “The (Longer) Long Tail” (decreased distribution costs encourages niche markets) versus
Gerry McGovern‘s “The Stranger’s Long Neck” (cluttered websites created dead and useless content that decreases and potentially destroys value)

and how each applies to your analysis. Are you trying to understand if there’s value in keeping long tail content or in eliminating excess content from your website?

To learn more, here’s the link to Jeff Parks‘ podcast with Gerry McGovern. Enjoy!

4. I’m a big fan of the All in One SEO Pack plugin for the WordPress content management system (CMS) installations because it allows me to see my or my client’s <TITLE>, description and meta tags on one screen across multiple pages. In one quick glance I can see if I’m missing the opportunity to improve my content’s findability with clearer, more specific <TITLE> tags or improve usability with a more useful <description> tag. The plug-in allows me fix content problems on the fly.

5. If you or your client don’t use WordPress, fear not. The alternate way to improve your findability is with the Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) – It’s a Firefox Add-In, and although this sounds like a tool that only a web analyst could love, it’s actually a brilliant tool for content strategists. It automatically scans a website for you, extracting, among other things, your <TITLE>, Description and Keyword meta tags. Once the scan is complete, save this file as an Excel spreadsheet, turn on your beloved auto filters, add a new column for “Status” and populate each row as Current. Then, add new rows per URL and rewrite those tags to your heart’s content. Your client can now see the “before and after” and your tech folks have an easy way to either script / upload the new versions, or at least cut and paste cleanly per URL.

6. Qualitative “voice of customer” data from online surveys tools such as FluidSurveys, 4Q, and SurveyMonkey offer excellent insight into what visitors think of the content you’re providing on your website. However, like web analytics reports, the volume of data can appear overwhelming – especially if you’ve just been told that thousands of free form text comments have been captured this month. If no one knows what to do with it, follow along with me:

Again, your best approach is to analyze through segmentation, using your fabulous AutoFilter and Pivot Tables (I’m such a geek) features in Excel. To provide a specific, step-by-step approach – export all those comments from your survey tool and re-import them into Excel. Add your categories column and assume three choices – positive, neutral or negative. Turn on your auto filters and assign one category per comment; now filter those comments so that you are able to isolate only the negative ones. Begin your analysis: Do those categories need to be broken down into subcategories – e.g. topic, or product, or feature or time frame? If yes: Add a new column and get classifying! Rinse and repeat for your positive and neutral comments. Create a few Pivot Tables and see what patterns begin to emerge. Ask what actions could you take for the different subcategories and how you might group those action items. Perhaps by implementation complexity? By audience? By responsible party? By urgency?

Before you know it, you’ve analyzed the data and you have a plan that captures what you or your client will be doing about it.

7. I realize this last one might not be at the top of everyone’s list, but as a fan of cost per click (CPC) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising not only as an acquisition tactic but also as a form of market research, I hope some of you will consider this option. By default, Google AdWords shows you the performance of your “bid” phrases. However, you need to dig a little deeper for reports relating to the actual “search” term used which triggered your ad (look under your Keywords tab > See Search Terms > All) which might be very different from than what you assumed your audience was looking for. Perhaps they combined your keyword phrase with some other concept – a question or task, a local geographic reference, an adjective – in a way that you hadn’t thought of. Each combination might give you ideas for new landing pages that you could offer.

Finally, the third variation requires you to create a custom filter in your web analytics reports. Essentially, you’re asking your report system to show you even more detail relating to actual phrases used by searchers that triggered one of your ads (but that had no clicks in the last 30 days, which is the cut-off for the report mentioned above). For instructions on how your web analyst can create the filters for you, my thanks to all the great bloggers who’ve posted detailed instructions. Where would we all be without you? I’ve tried those listed below, and the data that does result certainly offers intriguing information:

Update to an Old Favorite – Detailed PPC Keyword Data in Google Analytics (November 2008)
Exact Keyword Tracking with ga.js (February 2008)
How to Get Detailed PPC Keyword Data from Google Analytics (November 2006)

So – there you have it; one web analyst’s recommendations for her fellow content strategists. As continued proof that I think we can indeed combine Shakespeare and analytics, see “To Measure or Not Measure, That Is the Question”. Now – tell me what you think. Did I miss any of your favourites? Comment away!

Mobile Marketing: Ten Ways to Make an Impact

by Kelly Kubrick on November 5, 2010

Zone5ive, OCRI‘s technology speaker series, has announced session details for the upcoming Wednesday November 10, 2010, event entitled:

10 Ways to Make an Impact with Mobile Marketing

Rob Woodbridge from Untether.tv will be speaking about using mobile marketing to help businesses grow. Right now.

Session details from the folks at Zone5ive:

“Whether your business is high tech, low tech, consulting or selling ice cream, your marketing plan should include mobile. Never has it been easier or cheaper to extend your brand and measure its impact through the most personal of all impersonal items, the thing we both covet and hate but won’t leave at home: the cell phone.

Do you want to know what is beyond Foursquare? Interested in learning about context-driven commerce? What about predictive analytics or the latest location-based marketing services? Come and discover tactical ways in which you can begin to embed mobile into your marketing execution.

What do you want to know about how to leverage mobile marketing in your industry? Submit your questions now to rwoodbridge@gmail.com or via Twitter using hashtag #zone5ive.”

Date: Wednesday November 10, 2010

Time: 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. for Registration/Networking/Light Lunch, 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. – Presentation

Location: Brookstreet Hotel, 2nd Level, 525 Legget Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K2K 2W2

Complimentary underground parking (3 hour limit)

Costs:

Early Registration (received by OCRI no later than 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday November 9, 2010)
$40.00 – OCRI members (plus 13% HST)
$65.00 – Non-members (plus 13% HST)
$15.00 – Students (plus 13% HST)
Students must register via fax or via email
Late / On-Site Registration
$50.00 – OCRI members (plus 13% HST)
$75.00 – Non-members (plus 13% HST)
$25.00 – Students (plus 13% HST)
Students must register via fax or via email

Call for Speakers – eMetrics Toronto April 2011

by Kelly Kubrick on November 4, 2010

Calling all Ottawa companies, organizations and associations – we need you! Toronto’s eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit is on the hunt for speakers for the April 26-29, 2011 summit to be held at the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel.

The speaker submission deadline is December 12th, 2010.

In particular, eMetrics is looking for stories that tell the ” how-to and how-much, about the challenges you overcame, the experiments that failed, how you won a budget increase for online marketing because your ROI rocks! And, how you are evangelizing online marketing analytics and experimentation in your organization.”

In other words, open your measurement kimono! Consider sharing the good, the bad and the ugly from your recent analytics learnings. Why would we ask such a thing? Simply because it works – eMetrics is about receiving golden nuggets of learning from fellows and friends in our burgeoning analytics industry. Having attended three eMetrics summits myself, I can tell you the best presentations were those where practitioners described the particular digital measurement problem they tried to solve and explained the results. No holds barred.

Memorable speakers for myself include Breanna Wigle, who proposed an “RFF Score” (Recency+Frequency+Number of Facebook Friends) as a methodology for social network analysis for Military.com. Then there was Alain Tremblay from Bell Interactive who walked us through identified points of failure in a shopping cart, and explained how qualitative data analysis pointed them towards solutions. Wonderfully concrete. Or the always charming Vicky Brock who delivered a great case study on understanding visitor behaviour when you don’t sell online. She described specific content improvement actions that could be taken based on her analysis of a university’s onsite search engine data. Great stuff.

I’m hoping that Ottawa folks will consider submitting a speaker proposal – whether it be for an analytics or a social marketing outreach campaign within a federal government department, or a search marketing program at a private sector company, or a social media membership recruitment effort from an association. I know you’re out there, fellow Ottawans – let’s make sure we let the rest of Canada know it!

Please contact me if you have any questions about the event or to discuss ideas or topics you are considering. To help you brainstorm, the 2011 eMetrics content focus includes the following topics:

Digital Management
Media Analytics: Cross Media, Cross Platform
Site Optimization and Usability
Campaigns and Acquisition Optimization
Social Mobile Marketing Metrics

Good luck!

Ottawa’s jam-packed June

by Kelly Kubrick on 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!