The always lovely Isabella Mori has invited me to be Assistant Organizer for Vancouver Bloggers Meetup. I have previously praised the concept of meetups in Vancouver as I had found that this city was frequently referred to as rather “aloof” or “toxic”.
Funny enough, my very first live-blog was that of a Vancouver Bloggers Meetup in January, the first one I attended, which took place at Our Town Cafe [SIDE NOTE – I *love* Our Town Cafe – I’ve been to a couple of events here, and the owners are really nice and very accomodating]. After re-reading my liveblog, I hate it.
I am currently a member of four meetups:
Vancouver Bloggers Meetup [which I am currently co-organizing with Isabella Mori]
Vancouver Podcasting Network which is co-organized by Marina.
Vancouver Net Tuesday which is organized by Joe Solomon.
Third Tuesday Vancouver which is co-organized by Tanya, Monica and I think Tod too.
We are also hoping to start a Vancouver WordPress meetup, something that Rastin, Jenn and I had already talked about after the tremendous success of Vancouver WordCamp 2008.
I have started contacting different venues to hold the meetup, although it looks like the month has been so crammed that it might be a little bit difficult. But will not be impossible, that’s for sure. With the glorious weather that we have been having lately, who knows – maybe the May meetup will be at English Bay! Hehehe (just half-kidding).
I lost my cell phone last year (November 2007) and spent a few months without one. I bought a Rogers Pay-As-You-Go cell phone in the hopes that I can better communicate with my friends and obviously also for business/work purposes. I did not want a plan because I know that the penalties are humongous, and given that my job search may take me anywhere in the world, or within Canada, I wanted to stay non-plan. That’s why I did pay-as-you-go.
I wanted to switch my plan as I have discovered that I don’t talk on the cell phone that often, so I phoned the *611 number. Two days in a row, the system has been down and “Melanie can’t help me at this time” (their automated voice system). After an hour struggle today, where I was unable to actually speak to a live person, I phoned the other line (for cell plans instead of Pay-As-You-Go) and found out several things.
1) The Pay-As-You-Go customer service representatives work from 9:00am to 6:00pm Eastern Standard Time. So, I am technically SOL for today.
2) Using standard voice requests (“agent”, “customer representative”) does not work.
3) Different customer service representative phone lines operate in a way that they don’t talk to each other. So the person for cell phone plans couldn’t help me get through to the pay-as-you-go people.
4) I hate all cell phone plans in Canada, period. The cell phone service here has been the WORST in each of the different countries where I have lived.
5) Even if the phone conversation is recorded, chances are that nobody is going to contact me to correct their absolutely horrendous customer service.
6) Even though I have MORE THAN ENOUGH credit on my cell phone, they still want me to pay $ 20 to make the switch (that’s the minimum top-up for the plan I want). So no easy plan switching.
7) They charged me incorrectly for downloading two ring tones that I did NOT download.
Just as an example, in Mexico, any incoming call (be it long distance or local) is FREE (the caller pays). That means that you can actually have a cell phone just for emergencies or receive calls. Obviously, this has a lot of international phone companies up in arms, because their customers have to bear the brunt of international phone calls to cell phones in Mexico.
Anyhow, I wish the customer service culture here was better. And on that note, Darren from Timing and Delivery has a blog especifically focused on customer service. I probably should go over there and rant. I am also hoping to harness the power of Web 2.0 to see if Rogers listens and changes some of their policies. Feel free to link, Tweet or just discuss on the web.
Taking a page from Meg Fowler’s categories, I will have to say that this post is really not a super crucial topic. I have a migraine and the headache is not going anywhere even with Tylenol, so I’m going to just take the morning and afternoon for myself and do the domestic chores I did not do during a very social week (see all my events’ recaps earlier in the week).
Yes, I know – the weather is glorious, the sun is shining and I should be out and about visiting the Apple store and hanging out with my friends at Eat Vancouver. But I can’t and will not socialize under these circumstances. My own assessment is that I will not be very good company as people around me will be worried that I still have a headache and I might be grumpy (a state in which nobody in the blogosphere has seen me yet). So, I’ve decided to just lay low this morning and fold laundry, watch TV, have another nap (I’ve had one already and the pain has somewhat subsided) and maybe do three or four restaurant reviews that are LONG overdue. Yes, I know – this was a waste of three minutes of your life… sorry 😀
This weekend promises to be interesting, fun, and hopefully relaxing. I started this weekend on a high note, as I had celebratory lunch and dinner on Friday. Lunch with Phaedra was simply outstanding (Boneta review forthcoming) and dinner with DA and his parents at The Wolf and Hound (review forthcoming).
I had the best time ever with Phaedra at Boneta, the food is simply excellent. I had never been and she had never been for lunch. The service was great, but the company was simply stellar. Photos are available on my Flickr account (she looks SO hot!)
Dinner with DA and his parents was also great, I had to switch my schedule around as they are only in town for a few days, but that worked out perfectly. Dessert at True Confections, it was simply a great evening.
Feeling slightly weird about the fact that I did not go to VIDFEST on Friday, but I really needed some time off. Plus, I happened to be downtown, so had a chance to hang out with Rebecca for a bit, and meet Mom604 (who is as sweet in person as I imagined her).
Geeky notes – Apple store opening in Vancouver’s Pacific Centre. I am pretty sure many of my friends are going to show up at the launch, including (but not limited to) John Biehler, Ianiv and Arieanna, and several others (you can @ or DM on Twitter to let me know if you’re going). I am not feeling 100% energetic, but I want to hang out with John, Arieanna and Ianiv… what to do?
With a special dedication to those of you (you know who you are) who feel like they need a break from blogging and social media.
This week has been absolutely exhausting. I’ve been to several social media events. While (as anybody who saw me at these events can attest) I have really enjoyed them, doing all this stuff, covering VIDFEST 2008 and Convergence 2008 as media, has left me really tired. Thus, I’m going to take a page of my blogging mentors and suggest that you blog/schmooze/socialize when/if/because you want to. Right now, I need to take a break and go from being the hummingbird to the polar bear. I am, as always, available if you need a friend, but for the time being, I think I’m going to just lay low for a bit.
May (don’t hold your breath on this) make a really, really brief appearance at VIDFEST but unlikely. I am on my way to lunch with a very good friend and tonight we’re celebrating another friend’s PhD defense AND afterwards, hanging out with other buddies. Tomorrow, Saturday morning will probably be a Raul morning (although Ianiv and Arieanna and I had talked about going to Eat Vancouver, but not sure right now – feeling really tired). Saturday night drinks with J, B, H and C. Sunday morning potential brunch with C, B and L and Sunday evening my traditional JT evening.
There will be content throughout the weekend, though – Hat tips and props to Rebecca for all her help AND blogging tips, but THIS one is particularly useful – write your posts and then queue them. Thank you “Publish on DATE / TIME” function on WordPress.
At Darren Barefoot’s recent talk on Third Tuesday, I brought up a point that I thought was worth developing in one of my posts: the concept of intermediaries. I wrote about this idea recently, as I was indicating that there was a need for translators of GeekSpeak: those people who can speak the language of geeks yet still speak traditional, non-jargon-laced English.
However, when I was making this comment to Darren, I was referring to what I am going to subsequently call “inter-mediators“. I define inter-mediator as a subject matter expert who can also speak social media (Web 2.0). Inter-mediators can also be social media experts who dabble on other subject matters. For example, in the field of sustainability, I could be considered an inter-mediator. I have PhD-level training in environmental studies, and I have a fairly decent understanding of social media by now. I am, by no one’s standards, an expert in social media. But I have a blog, which I love, and I have a fairly high number of Web 2.0 friends (note that I said friends, not acquaintances). And I have increasingly gained a better understanding of social media and Web 2.0.
Why is it important that we have inter-mediators? Well, simply because nobody can work alone anymore. Social connectedness and networked relationships are here to stay. You can’t do a campaign for a social change enterprise if you don’t have the subject matter experts. Your marketing campaign for a restaurant chain can greatly benefit from the in-depth knowledge of food critics who also have blogs.
One of the reasons I undertook my MBA training was to be able to speak business to engineers (I am a chemical engineer), and vice-versa. The relationship has to be bi-directional. You can’t just try to market a wastewater treatment process that appears miraculous without having at least some understanding of the technology, so that you can properly design a marketing campaign that really highlights the best features in the process. Along the same way, if you have no understanding of your target market, it doesn’t matter how great the technology is, since you don’t know who you are trying to sell it to.
While I still have a great degree of love for academia, I still love doing research and publishing papers, I can really see myself doing more and more of the role of inter-mediator. Of course, I can write a full-fledged post on the theory of ecolabelling and how OceanWise and SeaChoice as ecolabelling schemes are also environmental policy instruments. I can certainly tells you about the ins and outs of pollution control strategies. But that doesn’t really help you directly (unless you are a consulting firm, the government or one of my students!). However, creating an online strategy to reach out to the public, and help educate folks on the dangers of ignoring climate change is for example, one of the best strategies to use both of my talents (my enviro-geek expertise and my up-and-coming social media geek savvy).
I do know of some people who do this kind of work, like Jason Mogus from Communicopia, Rob Cottingham and Alexandra Samuel, quite obviously ChangeEverything and of course, my friend Jonathon Narvey, who is an excellent writer and has done some freelance work for David Suzuki Foundation if I recall correctly. Somehow, I *think* this is the direction where my career may head. Who knows, I may end up taking up an assistant professorship(*) at one of the local (new) universities, but one thing is sure: The future definitely looks bright for me.
(*) And even if I become a tenure-track professor, I still plan to continue blogging.
I have decided that since I’m still a newbie in the blogging world. I will kindly ask you that if you find that you are on one of my photos (or you know someone on my photos) and you notice that I do not have his/her nickname/preferred name/preferred brand, please tag the photo. For example, for Joh Biehler, I usually tag “retrocactus” and “johnbiehler”. For John Bollwitt I generally try to tag them “audihertz” and “johnbollwitt”. With Corinna and Adam Carlson I use “gusgreeper” and, depending if both are on the photo, “thecarlsons” or “corinnacarlson” or “adamcarlson”. So, please tag my photos the best way you prefer. And if you have me in yours, you can use “hummingbird604” or “raul” (or, preferably, both!). Thanks!
I consider myself a decent food critic by now, not that I do it for a living (please note the comma splice, Jenn!). However, besides trying to write lots of restaurant reviews for you my dear readers, I also consider myself a pretty sweet guy. So it always breaks my heart and makes me feel awful when other bloggers identify the places I’ve practically trashed as “awesome”. For example, a recent review by Jeffery Simpson for Vancouver MetBlogs indicated that his favorite restaurant in Vancouver was Toshi. Another review by Quentin on Beyond Robson claimed that “Toshi never let sushi lovers down”. Well, I hated the food. Not the place, not the owners, and not the staff. The food.
Toshi Sushi *might* have been on a bad night (they chose a really bad night to be off, because it was the night I was celebrating ML’s birthday so I was the one taking her there for dinner!). But with the recent review by Jeffery, I’m starting to think that *maybe*, only *maybe* I caught Toshi on a bad night. Given that I live only a few blocks away, I am willing to give it another try. Just to be on the safe side, I’m going to also schedule drinks at Public Eatery on Main Street, in case I catch Toshi on another bad night, I’ll just wash the sushi down with a few drinks. Anyone care to join?
I *never* win anything. I do get SWAG sometimes, particularly when I attend events as media, but this is a completely new experience to me (and a sweet one to boot!). So when I entered TechVibes’ Reachd.com-sponsored contest for a Flip video camera and training, I was somewhat doubtful that I would win. I mean, I never enter the 6/49 because I know I’ll never get my money’s worth back!
Nevertheless, it appears as though for the first time, I’ve won something! (well, truth be told I also scored tickets to People and Planes from Beyond Robson but that wasn’t that problematic – here, there many other participants and just one prize!). I just got an email from Steve Jagger indicating that I won the Flip video camera AND a free seat for the training session! WOW. I am most definitely very happy. The training session takes place on May 28th, so stay tuned for further video blogging (e.g. vlogging!). I shall upload videos soon as I learn how to use the camera (and get it, of course, hehehe). Thanks to TechVibes and Reachd.com!
I am going to attempt to liveblog Rebecca’s, Kate’s and Darren’s presentation. Check frequently for updates. I may also be live-tweeting.
2.14pm – I have Wi-Fi, have settled in the back and just said hi to Heather Watson (aka Hez) and have introduced myself to Kate Trgovac. Trying to set up for liveblog, I’m a little scattered. Too much socializing too little focus. Sorry if my Tweets are a bit uncoherent. Saw Jenn, Monica, Gus – such a pleasure to see you guys.
UPDATE 2:35pm – Panel is starting with a little bit of context on what a blog is and some stats on blogging. Apparently, female teens are starting blogs earlier than their male counterparts. The moderator is introducing each blogger.
UPDATE 2:40pm – What do you want
– How to manage blogs and relationships with bloggers?
– Relevance of blogs to older audiences?
– The use of micro-blogging and latest trends in blogging
– How bloggers become more recognized in an increasing noisy environment
– Leverage that bloggers can use to promote a new social movement
– How to monetize your blog
UPDATE – 2.41 pm – KATE BEGINS THE PANEL
KATE TRGOVAC
Kate keeps four different blogs (a lot of them, laptop blag reviews).
There is just A relationship – developing relationships with people that are excited about the product
There are 3 reasons why I blog
1. EGO – It is great for me, I blog because I like that people value my opinion. It is really interesting. A lot of bloggers are driven by ego. I did not start to be famous.
* Tip – Flattery works
2. COOL TOYS – My cool toy budget isn’t as big – I started blogging about this and I spend time now with the stuff. Printer, laptop bag. If you have a product, devote some of the media spend budget sending products to the
* Tip – Send the blogger stuff (SWAG)
3. BLOG ABOUT THE ONLINE COMMUNITY – I love blogging to reach out to the community. If you give me stuff that I can give away to my community, all the better!
* Tip – Benefit to my community
WHAT DOESN’T WORK ACCORDING TO KATE
* Target inappropriate – If your stuff is relevant to my blog, then I may actually do it, but if not, then NO.
* Excessive content – Keep it focused. Don’t give me a lot of details!
For most bloggers this is NOT their day job, so as someone who is pitching, you have to plan the campaign so that the bloggers can work and then fit your product into their schedule.
REBECCA BOLLWITT
I got a day job because of my blog.
These are my thoughts (Rebecca’s) – What do I look for when someone is pitching me.
Never do a Dear John kind of contact
Dear YourSite.com or Dear webmaster
Targeting who you’re pitching to.
I’m a married woman, if you send me a press release about a dating site, I may not look at your site or your stuff.
Expect honesty
Listen to your audience, whether the review is good OR bad.
Check your stats
Look for those who you haven’t even talked to yet.
Positive example – Just write a winery review (Osoyoos) and the next day, the winery owners offered wine bottles and offers to come visit and a guided tour.
DARREN BAREFOOT
This has recently been in the news (the issue of bloggers relations).
Chris Anderson – Editor WIRED Magazine – The Long Tail
Last year he wrote a blog post in which he posted a black list of more than 300 PR marketing people who had been spamming him.
Darren used a second example that I completely missed thanks to loss of WiFi
Third example – ELBOWS Music Blogger List
Authenticity and transparency. We are supposed to be more transparent (bloggers)
It’s not the best solution (blogs) but we’re trying.
It is a semi-public communication device.
The web loves vigilante justice. One of several risks.
If you do bloggers relations, if you do it right you’ll be doing well.
Appealing to bloggers’ self-interest.
Terrific book – “Made to Stick” – Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs.
QUESTIONS
How long did it take you to build the readership you have now?
Rebecca – Four years. Putting myself in there. Emphasis on the offline.
Does the mainstream media come to you?
More traffic – little traffic from the mainstream media comes.
Do you find Facebook attractive – as you’re a blogger – do you find that there is any interaction?
Kate – I get a little bit of traffic. Over the long.
Darren – Has done some research – kind of no, Facebook is this place that is somehow silent. Practically speaking – people don’t want to leave Facebook when they’re there.
Other sites do they direct you some traffic?
Darren – That traffic is not particularly sticky. Digg and StumbleUpon.
Kate – Tonnes of traffic through StumbleUpon.
Some sites do seem to work on Facebook
Darren – yeah, some places work, some others don’t
Do you need to post at a certain rate
Rebecca – Posting speeds variable.
On my company site – 3 times a month
On my personal – Up to 6-8 times a day
Weekend goes down – especially when it’s sunny. Then it comes back (the traffic)
Kate – Same phenomenon.
It’s bigger
Darren – Aim to twice a week
I used to blog more (two posts a day) – almost never post on the
Hez – Follow up question – Reblogging – microblogging – is there such a thing as “too much”
Darren – Twitter – define – wee little blogs with 140 characters limit
Kate – Tumblr – similar to Twitter and super simple – it’s life streams, where it aggregates Twitter – Flickr – live streaming into one
There *is* a real risk.
I post my Del.ici.ous bookmarks –
Kate – You can “cheat” and post links but you need to add some content, some find it valuable.
– Also networking capability – you get the feed – there is some amazing content of that.
Rebecca – Delicious – the great thing is that bookmarks are online.
Darren – two more things
a) What are the current and trendy things?
Microblogging is trend 1 and
Live streaming – FriendFeed – assemble all of your streams
FriendFeed can help you personalize.
What do you do with negative feedback and what can you do as a corporation – what does a blogger do with the negative feedback
Rebecca – As a corporation, you can’t ignore the negative stuff. Not everybody is going to like your product. But if you have a corporate blog and you have negative reviews, listen to this. Next blog post – “we listened to what you said and here’s what we suggest you do”
Darren – You got to dive in and not ignore it.
QUESTION – You were early adopter – how do you help the corporate bloggers get recognition
Kate – PetroCanada – they started a blog – gas prices and fuel efficiency
– The way they started out was reaching out to other people in the US
– Who is talking about fuel efficiency and gas prices
– Those blogs are going to be more popular for a while
– Do you need it to discuss the issue on your own terms.
It’s not an overnight thing at al.
Darren – Tenacity and original, valuable content – the blogosphere is a necrochamber – fascinating research every day.
If you are writing a corporate blog – depending on what your blog
MEC – Ethical sourcing blog – their goal is not to be the most popular, their goal is to answer questions – establish expertise around this topic – becoming the most popular.
In blogging, you make money as an exception, not as a rule.
Rebecca – linking back, leaving comments
Darren – this is hard – but voice matters – people want to know (and think they know the people behind the blog) – voice and writing ability can differentiate.
UPDATE 3.23 pm – The problem with trying to liveblog is that speakers talk WAY too fast AND people who are asking questions ask them in a very quiet voice. Speak *slowly* (speakers) and ask questions loudly (participants in the session). Ok thanks 🙂
You can be arrogant or funny, but you have to have your own voice.
How to find the best blogs, how to find the highest multiplier effect
Those who are of interest to your client, not so much the big guys.
You want to find the right ones – the ones that are relevant
Thinking about the phrase – building the relationship, then the content
The most popular blogs in the world have these demands to write stuff – you can try to find the blogs that are very, very specific to what YOU are working on
** I couldn’t capture the last comment that Kate made **
LAST QUESTION
Should each one of the experts have a blog or several blogs
Darren – Start with one blog with multiple authors. Some people want to do it because they like it, some see it as an obligation. The really important thing is to highlight INDIVIDUAL authors. Put a photo, put their photo. The readers will get to know them “oh, here is Janice”
Kate – PetroCanada – group blog but very personalized. Provide feeds. Provide an RSS feed for EACH author. So each person can subscribe to whomever.
MODERATOR
What would you guys say if any one of these people wanted to talk to a blog
Kate – Do it in a really small scale. Read their blog.
DaveO – The most awesome blogger in town – Question to Darren – you have creative ways of pitching – give us some ideas
We never pitch anonymously. Send enticing, fun, intriguing stuff. Be very creative.
Kate – the mail stuff (in printed mail form) – it’s not just mail, it is personalized, relevant and creative.
Would it be fair that people make a more substantial, authentic pitch for a blogger
Darren – Yes, read the bloggers’ blog at least for the duration of the campaign.
Mass marketing continues to die, apparently
Darren – be humble about this – work from the assumption that the influencers, the bloggers online DO NOT NEED YOU. If you work from a position of humility you will be more successful.
Rebecca – Mass marketing – company in Toronto – pitched me before – pitched me again – and then they said “we can’t send you the stuff b/c you participated 6 months ago” – well now Rebecca does NOT want to do it. It’s kind of silly, the strategy of Matchstick – I mean, you CAN’T participate in more than two campaigns a year? Give me a break.
END OF THE LIVEBLOG
Ok, I now need to check where I am headed!
Despite the fact that I’ve been blogging since April of 2006, I only got really serious after Rebecca gently nudged me towards participating in Blogathon 2007. Nevertheless, it has only been since January of 2008 that I have seriously started to socialize and mingle with the social media folks (that’s why some of you think that I’ve just appeared out of nowhere – but no, I’ve been here all along!). As someone said, “better late than never“, so now I am trying to show up to these events. Naturally, I had been waiting for Launch Party Vancouver 4 with baited breath.
I had heard rave reviews about these parties, particularly from our local blogging powerhouse Rebecca Bollwitt [and my Blogging Jedi Master] (Miss604) and knew that many of my friends would show up, so I couldn’t miss it. Besides, it is a rare occasion that I get to see many of my blogosphere folks two or three times in a row in the same week (I hope they don’t get tired of me by the time Saturday comes, as I was planning to organize a brunch this weekend!).
So what IS Launch Party Vancouver 4? Well, how about I let the organizers tell you?
Launch Party Vancouver is a lively mixer for the city’s brightest entrepreneurs, tech junkies, and bloggers, who are doing it, have done it or want to make their ideas happen here. The goal of the event is to connect BC’s growing community of Internet and new media leaders with investors and other trailblazers across Canada and abroad.
Founded by local entrepreneurs, LPV is not your typical networking event. There are no presentations or panels to be found. But what you will discover are the individuals responsible for making Vancouver one of the greatest start-up cities in Canada. Every event features local, early stage new media companies strutting their stuff and sharing their ideas with the community.
I had the pleasure of (FINALLY!) meeting Jordan Behan and Maura Rodgers, both with Strutta. Surprisingly, I don’t think I had a chance to chat with Danny Robinson, but there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future, I’m sure.
Last night was also the opportunity to meet other great gurus from the social media scene, people I had heard about a lot. Of course, my friends and usual suspects were also there, including Rastin, Ash, Gus, Rebecca, John, Duane, Karen, Colleen, Arieanna and Ianiv, Monica, Jonathon, Jenn, Nadia, Lisa, Phillip, David, Tod. I missed some of the folks who I am sure would have made it if they had been able to, including (but not limited to) Beth, Tanya, Trevor, Tyler and Jeremy.
I only briefly attended the StartUp Career Fair, sponsored by TechVibes, although by the looks of it (and the large number of demos being shown throughout LPV4), I would say it was great.
Had the pleasure of (FINALLY!) meeting Boris Mann, one of the pillars in the local tech community, and someone I had heard about so many times, but never got around meeting (which is kind of unusual as I have become more acquainted with the tech folks recently). Boris introduced me to a really neat application – basically, the general public can text a specific phone number and their message appears on a screen. Kind of Twitter for those who do not have a Twitter account. I find this application fascinating, as it would allow civilians (that’s how I call non-bloggers) to reach you (the blogger) or a large audience without having to Twitter. Oh, the possibilities are limitless!
Boris showing the demo.
Side note – Now I do know the reason why many people have just started to get to know me (and kudos to Rebecca and Karen, as it was through conversations with both of them that I have finally figured it out): I missed Northern Voice 2008 (because of too much work on the massive project!). Had I gone to NV ’08, my life would have been so much easier as I would’ve met a gazillion local bloggers/tech people in the same place. Totally my fault, nobody else’s.
Had a really awesome conversation with Rob Lewis from TechVibes and Steve Jagger from Reachd, basically ranging from tech startups to how I plan to meld my sustainability and environmental studies training with social media.
I had also been wanting to see Rochelle Grayson (Twemes), whom I hadn’t seen since the last Vancouver Tweetup. Always a pleasure, of course (and a privilege considering that this week I get to chat with these folks three times in a row!). Here is Rochelle with Darren Barefoot.
As I was leaving Republic, I was lucky enough to meet Kris Krug, another local blogosphere star and one of the best photographers I know. Kris (or kk+ as I’ve often seen him referred to) was really nice and most definitely would like to chat more in the near future with him, as I have loved his work for a long while. I had to leave the party relatively early because I was exhausted. It’s been a really long couple of days, and the week isn’t even over. I didn’t even make it to Green Drinks! Oh well, next time. LPV4 was a great experience, and look forward to the next one!
UPDATE – Rebecca has a fabulous photo recap post… and yours truly is in there with the blogging Jedi master! 🙂
There are a large number of things that just raise my spirits and make my soul feel happy. In particular, I love pretty pictures from talented photographers. Last Saturday, while we were having dinner, my friend Nomade Moderne mentioned that in a recent trip he had taken photos of … guess what… hummingbirds! 🙂 *melt*
Thus, in honor of my good friends Arjana and Nomade Moderne, I’m going to send you to their Flickr streams if your soul needs some nurturing. Of course, since I am pretty self-centric, I hereby present to you some of my good friend’s recent photographs. And photography is just one of his many talents. I would pay a hefty sum to have the brain he has 😉
Photo credit: Courtesy of Nomade Moderne.
Never in my life have I felt like I’m being pulled in three directions like this week. It *is* a very important week for social media. While I have talked at length about other upcoming events, including those happening today (LaunchParty IV at Republic – to which I *am* going – and Green Drinks Vancouver 30 Days of Sustainability Wrap Up Party – to which I *might* show up), there’s the launch party for VIDFEST 2008.
So you may ask yourselves “What is VIDFEST 2008 and why should I care?“. The first question is really easy to answer. The Vancouver International Digital Festival is
VIDFEST is eleven events over four days, including conferences, an awards gala, an international partnering forum, a pitch fest, and a recruiting fair. Book your calendar for this digital media extravaganza.[VIDFEST website]
You can check the schedule for the event and that may lead you to the answer to the second question (why should YOU care). Simply speaking, I can put it in code and I’m sure you’ll get it 😉
IF YourGeekinessQuotient > 0.05 THEN
Attend_VIDFEST
ENDIF
Two important events I really want to attend that are part of VIDFEST include Convergence 2008 (on Thursday 9am-5pm, Granville Island Hotel) and the PopVox Awards Gala (on Saturday evening). For Convergence’s schedule you can click here. By an absolute miracle of the scheduling Gods (and considering how booked I am this week), I *am* free on Thursday from 2.30pm to 5:30pm, so I am pretty sure I can make it to the panel where Darren Barefoot, Rebecca Bollwitt and Kate Trgovac will speak, on Blogger Relations: Influencing Online Influencers. I will bring up my own complaint with MatchStick up if I manage to sneak in to this particular session. Besides, I am looking forward to meeting Kate Trgovac, whom I’ve heard wonders about in the blogosphere for a long, long time.
As for the PopVox Awards,
PopVox (from vox populi – L. voice of the people) is the people’s choice awards for the Vancouver International Digital Festival. Submit your project today! The deadline for entries is April 30, 2008. It’s free to submit. Online voting will determine the winners. The PopVox awards recognizes and celebrates the creativity, talent, and achievements of the digital media industry. Prizes are awarded in eleven categories:[VIDFEST 2008 website]
Kudos to the VIDFEST organizers. If you are in media, you can check ALL THE STUFF they are providing YOU to make your job much easier. Since I am hoping to be able to attend and live-blog a couple of events, their clever thinking really allows me to just focus on the actual event rather than trying to dig information for my blog posts.
I am really hoping to be able to attend some of the VIDFEST events, since I am sure you my dear readers would greatly benefit, particularly if (like me) you are feeling pulled in all directions! However, given my transitional stage towards my new career path, I feel like I am able to make enough time in my social and work calendar to sneak in some of these events. If you are attending, drop me a comment, an email, send me a tweet or simply say “hi!“
I am awake at an absurdly early hour, so I might as well just arrange my calendar and try to see if I can squeeze all the events I am supposed to attend this week (and TODAY), along with doing some of my own work, interviewing Al Pasternak (aka Bokashiman) for my blog, attending a very close friend’s PhD defense AND still doing some of my usual socializing. Will I manage to remain sane? We’ll see. I attended two social media events last night: Third Tuesday AND Vancouver MetBlogs drinks at Library Square and I managed to survive, so let’s see if I don’t end up social-media’d out by Saturday night 🙂
So… in the interest of keeping myself sane, let’s see what I am up to today.
– Launch Party IV – Republic, 5:30 – 9:00 pm. Can’t wait to meet Maura and Jordan and all the other folks at Strutta.com. Besides, good chance for a beer with Duane, Ianiv and Arieanna, John and Rebecca, Jenn, Nadia, and I’m pretty sure there will be many other of my social media peeps there.
– Green Drinks – Steamworks – 5:45 – 10:00 pm. This is going to be a tough one. I *really* want to go, particularly since I committed myself to be a Green Greeter (one of those folks who will come to you with a name tag and if I see that you are too shy, I’ll come and introduce you to other people I myself may not even know, but still – create social circles on the spot). But, as you will see, I also have other events the same night. You snooze, you lose. I *may* make an appearance, particularly since I’m on the job market in the environmental field, I kind of have to ;).
– TechVibes Job Fair – Republic 3:00 – 5:00 pm. I also may show up to this, although this seems to be more directed towards web designers, software engineers, etc. But who knows, there might be something for me. And since I’ve already said that my next job will meld social media with sustainability and social change, this may be a good opportunity. More information on the Career Fair and the schedule of speakers is here.
– VIDFEST and VIGS Opening Reception – Vancouver Art Gallery – 6:00 – 8:00 pm. Well, not sure if I’m going to make it to this (I need to talk to the organizers of VIDFEST, on the one hand, and on the other – I am already double-booked). But it would be nice to make an appearance, particularly since Rochelle Grayson is covering VIGS and I’d love to see her.
Ok, after seeing my schedule, it looks as though the majority of my commitments are after 3pm, which gives me a solid morning to do actual work. That’s kind of awesome, come to think about it. Although I have NO clue where I’m going to sneak in a nap, because I mean, being awake at 6.00am after going to bed at 1.30am doesn’t really jive with me.
I said that I was possibly going to live-blog Darren Barefoot‘s talk, but truth be told, I did not get wi-fi in the area of the restaurant where I was, so I couldn’t do it. Innocently, I believed that even without wi-fi, WordPress.com was going to save my notes from Darren’s talk on “Getting the Attention of Influencers” on my hard drive. WRONG. I lost half of my notes thanks to not knowing that WordPress.com does not save the text, and instead posts it online to their main server. Therefore, I lost about half of my notes. That did not start the night on the right foot.
I did have a great time, and had a chance to do some socializing with a number of people, some of whom read my blog and some who follow me on Twitter. I was very clear on a previous post that, if you wanted to recognize me, all you needed to do was find me wearing a badge with my name and my blog’s URL (which I did wear). Very nicely, I got a chance to meet several Twitter friends (in person, for the first time), several Twitter followers and blog readers. I am glad you approached me, because (as you may have noticed) I pride myself in being approachable and easy to talk to.
I announced on Twitter that I was going to make a fashion statement and show up in jeans and tshirt and found out that a lot of other fellow bloggers and participants did the same. I love dressing up, don’t get me wrong, but today I wasn’t feeling all that 100% fashionable so I just went for the relaxed, “Raul’s pressure is off” kind of look. Ok, enough about me, let’s go back to Darren’s talk.
First, the overall summary. On the plus side, Darren has a LOT of insight into the world of Web 2.0, social media, pitching and marketing. On the minus side, Darren speaks way too fast, even for my 105 words per minute skills. He is an extremely articulate speaker, but I think that in trying to cram all the content into a short talk and THEN really engage with the public (which I have to say, was a phenomenal strategy and I have to give him about 250 brownie points for that), he said a LOT in a very short period of time and I might need him to read this recap and point me to my own errors while trying to capture all of his ideas.
Darren is able to accomplish something that not every speaker can do: he engages with the audience. He opens the floor to questions, tries to seek input, allows for commentary. All of these strategies make him a very solid, engaging speaker. He does not claim to be THE source of all knowledge on the blogosphere. On the contrary, he’s always open to hearing ideas and thoughts. That ought to score him, as I indicated, 250 brownie points.
Now, on to the summary. Rebecca provided an outstanding live-blog (even though we didn’t have wi-fi, but she somehow managed to upload it) AND she also gave out door prizes. WOWZA! I didn’t win but hey such is life. I suggest that you check my Flickr account for photos, as I don’t think I’ll post all of the photos on this Third Tuesday recap. Thanks again so much to Tanya and Monica for organizing and to Century for hosting us. We took over the whole restaurant and the staff were SIMPLY OUTSTANDING. As in, totally awesome. I have to come back to Century and say thanks again, simply because they were absolutely superb in my opinion.
These are my notes – sorry if they’re a tad disorganized. Wasn’t really able to capture all of Darren’s great talk, but some of it is reflected here
Darren talked about a project for a wiki-based internet solutions firm. They do not-so-exciting stuff.
Five Premises To Take Into Account When Thinking of Pitching Bloggers
1. Everyone is busy. The only exception is “email doesn’t work”
2. People respond to originality. If you save time to your target, they tend to value that.
3. Marketing means = thing you are marketing. How to conceive these campaigns. The closer your marketing campaign is in concept to the thing you’re marketing then the better fit you have.
EXAMPLE
One-page comic strips – the Brother printer campaign (check Rebecca’s liveblog for an example). Sending that was closer to the idea of printing things than just an email. Simple but incredibly useful.
4. We care most about ourselves. People are most interested in themselves. “Made to Stick” – marketing book – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Self-rationalization – self-interest.
5. Funny beats unfunny every time. This is really hard. Things that you think are funny other people may not think that way. Funny and humorous is a key aspect of the campaign.
HOW DO THEY ENGAGE IN THE PROJECT?
We do research, we come up with an idea, we use it, we follow up with them, then we measure the results, we set the objectives.
INDICATORS OF SUCCESS
More business through their website.
More people through their website.
* This strategy keeps us accountable – if the line is flat, we have clearly not done our job
1. RESEARCH
We spend a lot of time doing research. We have a created a database of influencers online. The research goes back into the big bucket of research. We would just pitch the 50 top bloggers who write about the topic. We also have to consider popularity. If you’re talking about vases, and the top 40 bloggers don’t write about this, then there’s definitely no buy-in.
The only podcast we ever done – targeted to quality assurance managers in software companies.
During our research – constant compromise between finding blogs with a big enough audience. We tend to compromise – some very on topic, some less on topic but more popular.
We enter these data into our spreadsheet
– Bloggers A, B, C. (tiered hierarchy of bloggers)
We may not have the resources to do a fancy thing for top 50 but we do for some of them. Our clients *really* love this.
COME UP WITH AN IDEA
REVIEW
Wikified intranet solutions – for the vast majority of people, kind of boring-ish. We need an original idea to engage with these people. This is always the problem. People are incredibly busy. Your trying to distract them and engage them in an original way – in this case, blog about your intranet software.
Darren and Julie did two unusual things.
* Following the “The thing you’re marketing should equal the thing you’re marketing” – made a “made up” company.
– The intranet was made of tubes. We made fun of this. WeMakeTubes.com
– We wrote a few funny stories about the company.
– The operations team moving to Chile.
– These were funny enough
– Labor intensive, valuable thing – profiles on the side – as if the bloggers who we were targeting were employees – they gave them really funny names “The Tube Janitor” Robert Scoble. 50 of these profiles, photos, RSS feed.
– To create content for each employee profile, we went to their blogs. Each blog (wiki) looked like an elementary interview. We built this little micro-site with content from each of these bloggers’ content.
EXAMPLE – Robert – we would ask him a fake question – this was VERY labor intensive, but we became really familiar with the bloggers we were trying to target.
– The name of the company – TubeTastic.com
We set a bunch of social media resources sites
– all the media they needed if a blogger wanted to write about the company,
– Flickr photostream
– Stream of videos
– Magnolia, de.liciou.s
– Blogroll – of all the bloggers
Elevate your pitch. One paragraph description of what they need. Then we put photos of the logo, screen shots of this TubeTastic internet site, some photos of badges on Flicker. Videos on Vimeo, we started using Twitter.
We like to get them as involved as we can (the bloggers and the company). They got to Twitter tips and engaged in the community. We created this whole set of resources around TubeTastic. The ideal scenario is
– We contact you – you log into the site, you make corrections to the profile. ‘cause all of the sudden you are ENGAGING with the product that you’re trying to market. Everyone is busy. What do we do? We mail things
– We send things to people in the mail (in the actual mail, physical!)
We made an organizational chart – they see where they are – we had them circled. – they see their peers
We are trading on
– mystery
– the joke in tubetastic – enticement of humans
– recognition that they are a group of exclusive peers who were pitched
Returning to the precepts – the assumption – they see themselves. They see a profile of their own excerpted content.
When a marketing campaign sends out sail mail – you are making contact in a format that is not traditional – Who bothers to go through the trouble anymore? This makes you unique
Other assumption – when you take a lot of time and demonstrate a lot of value, people respond.
WHAT WERE THE RISKS?
Nobody ever notices you
Safe is risky and risky is safe
When we have taken risks, we have sometimes succeeded, but sometimes we don’t
CREEPING PEOPLE UP
We may creep people up – if you come to this site, you may actually feel a bit creeped out. But the people we are contacting, as with most bloggers, are all public people, really public people.
It’s very possible that some people may be weirded out by this campaign.
SNAIL MAIL FAILURES
We had some snail mail failures and in some cases, we didn’t actually have the physical address. Use UPS or any other carrier. People in UK, US, Canada, Australia. The mail arrived at different
You should try to make all arrive at the same time.
A risk that is specific to this campaign – the wiki can go bad. People can put porn or anything. This didn’t happen, but this is a community-management risk, not a marketing management risk.
SO WHAT WERE THE RESULTS IN THIS CAMPAIGN
We spent a lot of time doing research, finding the influencers, creating the content to entice them, contacting them, following up, emailing me.
Two big scores – TechCrunch and (Raul’s note SECOND BLOG I missed). The client was really, really pleased.
Another risk – there is a risk (and this happened) ThoughtFarmers TubeTastic marketing campaign. This is like the lesser of two wins.
– Sometimes the results are going to be about the campaign than the actual product. This is kind of a reality (built-in nature of the beast).
– The lines go up – we doubled the traffic for ThoughtFarmer
– We got a bunch of other mentions.
There is a really interesting phenomenon. We had less success because a lot of that conversation has moved to Twitter. We got a lot more Tweets about the campaign as opposed to full-on blog posts. That was a little bit of a surprise. That seems to be the status of the technology right now.
IT is more the result of thinking about the value of each tweet.
We got a lot of traffic that moved on to Twitter. It’s part of the changing landscape design. That was almost entirely good because they can respond to criticisms.
IN SUMMARY
Do a bunch of research
Devise a clever idea
People are busy
Self-interested
Funny original
Innovative
Memorable
Deliver.
THAT’S KIND OF THE END OF DARREN’S TALK – THE FORMAL SECTION OF THE PRESENTATION
[At this point it is IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO LOVE Darren – “Let’s do talk or questions put to me or others who want to talk” – I mean, he *really engages* with the audience]
Monique – how do you track tweets?
The follow mechanism – you can just follow a term. Then TwitScan is one of the several twitter models. You use Twitter to follow up on questions – in some cases, we couldn’t find a specific mechanism.
What are the dangers of using – text vs picture –
Totally free use – using a picture – we chose appropriately licensed photos under Creative Commons.
There is some discussion on whether you can use non-commercial for this kind of thing – there is an inherent risk.
Raul (that is, ME) asked a question on “how do you find out who the top bloggers are?”
Tricky issue
– Technorati
– RSS feed subscribers
– Are they on Twitter?
– Do they have their own banner?
– Do they have lots of comments?
We write a blog post about the client and describing. We always link to all bloggers (people’s ego feeds) – oh I just got my package, it’s really cool. This was just last month. Some people (they’re pro bloggers) but some others are JUST blogging.
How much is there any negative reaction occurring?
One grumpy dude didn’t like it
I like to embrace the spam.
Unsolicited commercial email from people I don’t know.
We certainly personalize everything we send.
We follow up.
In the case of these folks, they have expectations. They’ve said repeatedly.
Single, non-hassle, personalized email.
Darren gets pitched all the time – (Raul’s note – I had the same problem with MatchStick)
The thing I say is – bloggers are a meat market. We need to find ways to entice, interest them in the things we are doing. Without them, marketing campaigns are kind of toast.
Good content – we try to build good content. Or a cool thing.
Raul (aka ME) suggested – use an intermediate blogger – someone who knows the subject matter
How does a company get your attention, Darren?
He wrote a post on his blog about this.
What would you have done differently?
Not sure, I haven’t thought about it
Final remarks
We love doing online contests!
Remember that the bloggers/influencers do NOT need you, so you need to actually engage in creative, innovative techniques to reach out to them and get their attention.
OVERALL ASSESSMENT
As I had said before, I really like Darren. Now that I’ve had a chance to actually talk to him more, I found that we can actually engage in good conversations (even if we don’t follow each other on Twitter). He has some outstanding ideas. I have to use a couple of my own suggestions to Darren to write posts (e.g. the use of an intermediary blogger AND techniques to assess who are the top bloggers).
OK, SLEEPY TIME… See you all tomorrow at Launch Party – TechVibes Job Fair – VIDFEST launch party.
UPDATES – Liveblogs and recaps: I will be updating as I find them on the internet.
* Colleen Coplick’s recap of the evening.
* Rebecca’s live blog is linked up at the beginning.
I was having a conversation with Beth Snow recently where I mentioned that I was planning to keep blogging like there was no tomorrow. She mentioned that I *already* blog like there’s no tomorrow (yes I admit it – I do post frequently!). I am happy and honored that I do have a fairly steady readership, and have countless times wondered what would happen to said readership were I to stop blogging (if not altogether, at least for a long period of time). I *have* tried (unsuccessfully) to have longer period of non-blogging but right now I’m enjoying it so much I find it hard to do.
Would my readership be badly hurt if I took a break for a while? Not that I want to, or that I care much about stats (which really I don’t – as Rebecca once said, “I am a student of the DaveO school of !@# stats, make art“). I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t feel precisely compelled to write often. I write content frequently because I love sharing what’s going on with my life and my own ideas. But I do sometimes wonder if the hummingbird needs a break. Just some thoughts. Don’t pay too much attention. Sometimes I just use my blog to ruminate ideas and think out loud. I sometimes come back to these “food for thought” posts and just recap what I posted. Of course, if you have suggestions, by all means, drop me a comment 🙂
Given that I’ve read Vancouver Metblogs for quite sometime, that they have some of my blogo-friends writing for them (including Rebecca, Ryan, Barbara and Stephen), and the fact that they did invite me to contribute last year (I sort-of declined, because at the time I was really focused both on trying to learn more about blogging AND I had a lot of day-job work), I thought that maybe I should attend the upcoming Vancouver MetBlogs Meetup at Library Square at 7.30pm on Tuesday May 21st, 2008. I am also attending Third Tuesday, so not sure how I’m going to balance both. I’ll see. Now that I do have a cell phone, maybe I can coordinate with Rebecca and/or other bloggers to sort of try and do both events at the same time. It will be challenging, but most certainly will be fun.
While I was freaking out the other day on Twitter about where to go out for dinner (I know – shame on me! I’m supposed to be the “go-to guy” for brunch/lunch/dinner/dessert reviews), I managed to somehow clue in the fact that Incendio West is on 6th Avenue and Burrard and that Cheesecake Etc. is on 6th and Granville and it would be a short walk. Thus, when C and B and L mentioned that I could choose the place and we agreed that Italian food would be good, we ended up going to Cheesecake, Etc.
Well, how to describe Cheesecake Etc.? It’s a tiny place, but apparently they have an overflow neighboring haunt. C, B, L and I sat down for about an hour or so, but I have to say that I probably felt uncomfortable in there. I would like a different decor, but maybe it’s just because I am used to True Confections (lots of windows) and Death By Chocolate (same thing, lots of windows). I felt slightly claustrophobic at Cheesecake Etc. However, we didn’t come to this place for the decor, we came here for the cheesecake…
Which was, by the way GLORIOUS!!! L and I shared a chocolate cheesecake with strawberry, and it was to-die-for! Honestly speaking, I doubt that there is a better cheesecake than the one at Cheesecake Etc. Although, truth be told, I don’t mind at all the one at True Confections either. I would seriously recommend to come to this place for some dessert, and their coffee is great too. My only qualm with it was that I was in the “somewhat secluded area”.
Kudos to the Cheesecake Etc. owners, as they have a really good sense of humor! Check for yourselves (since my blog is considered Safe for the Office, I’m going to send you and check my Flickr stream instead for this photo!).
Although I loved the cheesecake here, the best part was hanging out with C, B and L 🙂 Good times…
I just had the pleasure of chatting on GTalk with my friend Maktaaq, who writes one of the funniest blogs on this planet. She and her husband, Matt , are one of the cutest and smartest couples I’ve ever met. They both write really funny stuff, they’re geeky and they are also really good, kind-hearted people. Funny how things go, I started reading both their blogs a long while ago, then went away for a short while and then one night, Rebecca, John and Matt and Maktaaq went for dinner to Memphis Blues after a Vancouver Podcasters Meetup. The rest is history.
We’ve managed to spend some good times together, and I really enjoy their company. Throughout my conversation with her tonight, Maktaaq told me that it was their anniversary, so since I opened a bottle of really good Shiraz for my “Raul night” (I too need my “me time”) I decided to write this post as a homage of two good bloggers that I am honored to call friends of mine. Happy Anniversary, and many more to come!
Not sure if this is really WordPress.com’s fault, but I somehow manage to lose links on my blogroll. When I had just a few bloggers there, it didn’t matter as I would pick up the mistake quickly (as it happened when it made my Matt and Maktaaq’s links disappear). But right now I have a lot of blogs on my blogroll and therefore I can’t tell when they disappear. One of them has (I’m not telling which one, to avoid embarrassments). I am seriously thinking I’m going to migrate to WP.org… it would allow me to do CommentLuv and a few other awesome plugins, including the Flickr one. Actually it might have to happen.
You all know of the wonderful dinner at La Bodega that my friend Rebecca organized on Thursday where even my friends LM and MAG came and joined, so I’ll move on to Friday. Friday was an absolutely amazing day. JT and I went for brunch to Arms Reach Bistro in Deep Cove (North Vancouver), and then proceeded to run a few errands, including (yes, I did it!) buying a new cell phone. FINALLY.
My Friday evenings are generally reserved for C, B and L (they used to include J but now he is in a neighbor province so he’s not coming to our dinners for a while), so there wasn’t much negotiation to be had – everybody knows that I usually hang out with them on Fridays, so we just needed to settle on the actual location where to eat. C, B and L took me out to dinner to Incendio West, which is one of my favorite restaurants. Good times. And there was much rejoicing! It has been a really amazing weekend. The weather has cooperated, and I feel really privileged to be in the care of so many great people. Anyway, after dinner we scooted over to Cheesecake Etc.
I had heard about this place many a time, but being a fan of True Confections and Death by Chocolate, I almost never come here. Besides, as you all know, I HATE CHEESE. However, for some bizarre reason, I *love* cheesecake (contrast that to my good friend HZ who LOVES cheese but couldn’t care less for cheesecake… go figure).
To get to Cheesecake Etc., we walked along the train tracks (I am not 100% sure if they’re on 6th or 7th Avenue, they might be on 6th) and noticed some beautiful urban gardens. This is something that amazes me – how people can be so creative and make beauty out of … well, train tracks!
After dinner and cheesecake, L and I went over to Tanya’s for some RockBand and martinis.
Saturday morning, I took a “Raul morning” and simply puttered around my apartment. Early in the afternoon, I met up with Nancy and we went to Trout Lake for a walk, where we bumped into our friends Monica Hamburg and Chris. We were both hoping to meet with Al Pasternak (aka Bokashiman) as we figured he would be having a booth at the Farmers Market, but we didn’t find him (we later learned that he had was joining a bit later in the summer).
Saturday evening, my friends A, H, C and M took me out to dinner to the Red Sea Cafe. Of course, Ethiopian/Eritrean food. Why did I pick this restaurant? Many reasons. I love the food, it is some sort of tradition to bring my close friends here, eating Ethiopian food is very social as everybody just digs in, and the owners are outstandingly friendly.
Dinner was then followed by drinks and dessert at The Whip on Main and 6th. We shared about three pitchers of sangria (the virtuous sangrias hehehe – I think we had Justice, Prudence and I forget the third). I also had molten cake, which you should know – comes in a VERY HOT small container (yes I burned my fingertip – no I didn’t figure it was very hot!). Overall, an absolutely enjoyable evening. One thing I felt bad about was that by the time we hit 10pm, I was fading fast. I haven’t had my usual, 16 hour-days kind of energy, so I had to excuse myself (and my friends were super sweet in that they said “you’ve been working really hard so you seem to be fading – go home and rest“).
Sunday morning, I took yet another “Raul morning” and went for breakfast to The Nice Cafe all by my lonesome. Yes, the always social, super-friendly, networked hummingbird decided to take the morning for himself… how rare! I should note that I had tried to organize a brunch Tweetup, but I didn’t get enough responses so I simply canceled it and decided instead to take the morning for myself.
My Sunday evenings are reserved to hang out with JT, so we headed out to Burnaby’s Central Park and Westburn Park. Really low key evening I would say, and since I rarely venture to Burnaby, it was nice to just have a nice stroll in the park, order in for dinner and watch movies.
So, that’s what my weekend look like. It may look like a lot of activities, but well… this is the LIGHT version of my usual weekends (with two mornings all to myself, which is is rather unusual). Today I’m going for lunch with K, R, L and W to The Red Onion and then, the afternoon/evening most likely will be working away. You might ask yourselves – why are you working on a holiday? Well, have you seen the weather out there? No reason really to try and go suntan, right?
This is what my weekend looked like, so… in a very similar fashion to my good friend Tanya‘s question – what did YOU get up to this weekend?
The content of my blog has been primarily personal. It is an outlet for me, provides me numerous chances to bounce ideas back and forth, and has become a great source of entertainment and great new friends. The next little while, as I seek to transition into a somewhat different career, I want to explore options and educate myself. That is the overall theme of some of my new material and series of posts.
Amongst the different ideas I’ve wanted to test is a series of posts asking questions where people have A LOT MORE experience than I do. For example, many people have used Pownce, and I have had this discussion with lots of local bloggers on whether having a Pownce account is useful or not. So, the purpose of the series is to help me internalize the benefits and challenges, pros and cons of doing stuff that I’ve been debating on whether I should or not do. I am also hoping that in the process, these posts will help other people make informed decisions.
So the first post in the “Persuade Me” series is a question that I’ve asked numerous times in response to the shocked face I get all the time…”YOU ARE NOT ON FACEBOOK??? WHY?“. Well, to that question I ask (and I realize that some of you might have already answered this question partially in some of my previous posts) – why and how should I join Facebook? What are the best strategies to join it? Should I create (as Kulpreet suggested) three different identities?
If you enjoy debate, and have a particularly strong view on this matter, please leave a comment 🙂 And I hope this series helps start debate. I also welcome suggestions on other “Persuade Me” questions (maybe there’s something YOU need to be persuaded of, and need to hear all sides of the story). Drop me an email or follow me on Twitter (my information is on my About Me page).
I have repeatedly mentioned that social media is going to have to land me my next job. I want to work on something that will allow me to bridge two somewhat different worlds. Well, the only problem is that this coming week, events of both worlds overlap, and I feel somewhat conflicted (although I’m going to be honest and admit that I’ve made my choices already).
Tuesday May 20th
Environmental event
Living Car Free Cafe – Climate Cafes
Bean Around the World [Main and Broadway] @ 7pm
Tuesday May 20th
Social media event
Darren Barefoot’s talk – Third Tuesday
Century Restaurant [Seymour and Hastings] @ 7pm
I’ve decided to attend Darren’s talk. But if anyone goes to the Climate Cafe, could you please summarize and e-mail me? I’m more than happy to post it as a guest post.
Wednesday May 20th
Environmental event
Green Drinks Vancouver – Wrap up party for 30 days of sustainability
Steamworks @ 5.45pm
Wednesday May 20th
Social media event
LaunchParty IV
Republic [on Granville] @ 5.30pm
I’ve also made the decision to come by to Launch Party for about an hour, go to Green Drinks for another and then come back to Launch Party. It’s going to be a challenging evening but hey, that’s why I’m called hummingbird, right? 😉
I am hoping that in the future, I won’t have two days in a row with important events from both of the worlds I am trying to meld clashing. In the mean time, I hope you’re enjoying the sun!
I’ve been having a bloody awesome time these past few days. Lots of good times with my great friends.
However, with the exception of a dessert place that will be appearing in my blog in the next little while, I’ve almost always done repeats of places where I know FOR SURE I’m going to enjoy food and drinks. I never have any problem having a great time with my friends. Along with my family, my friends are my life, they keep me sane and provide me with plenty of opportunities for shared laughter and joy. But lately I have discovered that I don’t really feel much like exploring new avenues. Dinner, brunch, lunch and coffee have almost been at venues that are already very trusted.
That’s kind of problematic for someone whose blog is relatively popular for (amongst other things) having LOTS of restaurant/coffee shop/dessert places reviews. I don’t really know how to solve this. For example, this weekend alone – it’s Sunday morning and I’ve already been to La Bodega for dinner with some of the bloggers, Arms Reach Bistro for brunch with JT, Incendio West for dinner with C/B/L, The Red Sea Cafe for dinner and drinks at The Whip with H/C/A/M, and I’m planning to do burgers on Monday at The Red Onion with another group of friends (K/L/R/W). Notice a trend? All of these are places that have received glowing reviews from me!
I do feel terribly conflicted. On the one hand, I don’t want to have many more experiences like I had with India Bistro or Las Margaritas, but on the other hand, I won’t know if I like a place until I try it. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I feel a sense of attachment to the places where I know I’m going to have a good time. Heck, I even told Rebecca that next time we go for lunch in Yaletown, we are directly headed to Salsa and Agave! What to do? *sigh* Anyhow, sorry for wasting your time with this post, but honestly, it IS something I do consider. Suggestions, as always on my blog, very well accepted.
I am not usually a computer game guy, mostly because I really wasn’t crazy about PacMan growing up. Up until when JT got his Wii and I played Wii Tennis with him, I really didn’t care much for videogames or computer games. However, along came Tanya and Rock Band, and my view towards videogames changed completely. There are two intrinsic elements here that make playing Rock Band with Tanya and her friends so awesome. First, Tanya herself is an outstanding host, and a great friend. We have awesome conversations every time I come by and visit, and she makes sure everyone is having a great time. The second, all of Tanya’s friends are awesome, which makes it very easy for everyone to enjoy hanging out.
Anyhow, last Friday, after having been taken out to dinner and dessert by C, B and L (which I’ll summarize later in my blog), I asked Tanya if I could come by as she had a gathering with friends for martinis and playing Rock Band. I am horribly computer-game-challenged, but I try hard. The great advantage with Rock Band is that even though I’m not a great singer, the different songs that I have been singing along every time I’ve played RB at Tanya’s have given me a sense of confidence that I can do a fairly decent job if I’m on vocals (I am horribly bad at bass or guitar, and don’t even get me started on the drums).
Anyway, in honor of a great evening on Friday playing Rock Band with Vern, Tanya, LB, Jeremy and other friends of Tanya’s, here is the video of what I think is my best song (when I’m on vocals) while playing Rock Band: Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. The video shown is the Rock Band version on Expert. Of course, I never do vocals on Expert!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSaXwk32rdo&hl=en]
The second video is not a song that I’ve played along on Rock Band but if I had it my way, it would be the song that I would sing along to: You Look so Fine by Garbage. Warning: The video may not be Safe For The Office (SFO).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4joFMBW7KU&hl=en]
I’ve sang along to “I Think I’m Paranoid” on RB and yes, I can hold my own with this song, but really not my song. But this one… oh yeah, for sure. Although it’s not really rock-band-ish. Now, the question is on to you… if you had to play Rock Band, what song would YOU sing?
IMPORTANT EDIT – How could I forget that I *did* sing Creep by Radiohead and did not sound 100% horribly? Not sure but here is the song (not my rendition though!)
