Alberta Business Marketing

Not sure, ask Varvid’s Aaron Booker from Bellingham, Washington. This Pacific Northwest technical guru recently packed in his MSP business in Bellingham to purely focus on what he loves to do..shoot video and work with people…almost similar to my story. Aaron now focuses on his passion of helping IT consultants, computer vendors and others in the technology industry tell their story through the lense of his Varvid business.  Learn about Aaron’s Social Media Video product at http://www.varvid.com.  We can’t forget about Drew and Mike as well…critically parts of the team.

What I truly admire about Aaron is his passion for being a Go-Giver.  This guy has the energy of an ox with endless amounts of energy, drive, determination and a heart of pure gold.  He never sleeps and the smile on his face proves it.

Aaron was a founding member of HTG3 with me back in November 2006.  I still remember meeting him and the rest in Council Bluffs, Iowa when I snuck away from IT Matters for a couple of days (Tony and Rob had no idea) to get involved with an organization that would eventually change my life and the way I see the world.

Aaron caught up with me this week in Dallas and shot some footage about Ulistic.  It was like we never missed a beat.

PS..Aaron it was great to get lost in Dallas with you on Tuesday.

Tags: Aaron, Aaron Booker, Aaron Corp, Bellingham, Bo, Council Bluffs, dallas, Drew, energy, Entertainment/Culture, HTG3, I T MATTERS, Iowa, Mike, Rob, Social Media Video, technology industry, Tony, Uncategorized, Washington
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Now that the spring is upon us and we are just six months away, many wonks are turning their thoughts to the municipal election in October. With Bill 9 receiving royal assent last week, you can include the Alberta Legislature in that group.

After the Bill was given assent into law, I gave it a read hoping to provide readers of my blog some insight beyond what has been given in the main stream media. Sadly I can’t give you any. I still have no idea what it says.

It’s a complicated mess of ‘this part is cut’ and ‘this is what it’s replaced with’ and ‘this is something new’. I felt stupid just trying to figure out what is new, what is old, and what is gone, let alone what it all means. Why can’t legislation be written for normal people? Why can’t it show the whole law as it stands now, instead of just an summary of all the changes, which forces you to go find previous versions to do some kind of legal, time-travelling mash-up? No wonder so many people breaking laws say things like “I didn’t know it was illegal” if we make finding out what is legal and illegal so hard.

(My solution would be to just have a bill that shows the deleted parts as text with a strikethough and new text as bold. Or new in green and deleted in red. Whatever. There just has be a better way. But I digress, because this is not what this post is about.)

Apparently the legal minds at the City of Calgary are having the same sorts of difficulty as I am. Although obviously they got through Bill 9 in enough detail to realize there is a section which don’t make sense.

Yesterday the Mayor sent the following letter to the Minister in charge of municipalities:

2010 April 27

The Honourable Hector Goudreau
Minister of Municipal Affairs
Government of Alberta
Municipal Affairs
104, 10800-97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6

Dear Minister Goudreau:

Re: Bill 9 – Local Authorities Election Statutes Amendment Act, 2010

I am writing you in respect of the above noted statute, which received Royal Assent on April 22, 2010, and is now in effect.

I understand that Bill 9 was intended to clarify certain issues raised by the amendments to the Local Authorities Election Act (RSA 2000, c. L-21) resulting from the Local Authorities Election (Finance and Contribution Disclosure) Amendment Act, 2009 (SA 2009, c.10; formerly Bill 203).

In particular, section 147.6 of the Local Authorities Election Act requires that:

(1) candidates for municipal office must file a declaration outlining the total amount of campaign contributions held by the candidate, including any surplus money from previous campaigns; and

(2) if the total amounts held by a candidate exceed $500, the candidate must pay the excess to the municipality.

Both of these requirements must be met within 3 months following the coming into force of the Local Authorities Election (Finance and Contribution Disclosure) Amendment Act, 2009. That statute came into force on February 3, 2010; accordingly, the above requirements must be met by May 3, 2010.

However, the Bill 9 amendments to the Local Authorities Election Act included the addition of the following section:

147.92(1) Sections 147.5,147.6,147.7(2) and (3) and 147.91(b) apply to campaign funds on or after December 1, 2011.

(2) Subsection (1) is deemed to have come into force on February 3, 2010.

Can you clarify that it was the intention of the Legislature in adding section 147.92 to delay the operation of section 147.6 until after the upcoming municipal elections taking place in October of this year? In other words, was it intended that a candidate would not be required to file his or her declaration and pay any surplus campaign funds pursuant to section 147.6 until December 1, 2011?

Furthermore, if the above was in fact intended, how is this to be reconciled with section 147.4(1} of the Local Authorities Election Act, as amended by Bill 9, which is a similar disclosure provision and which requires that candidates for municipal office file disclosure statements and pay any campaign surplus in excess of $500 to the municipality by March 1,2011?

In short, kindly clarify on what date candidates for municipal office are to file declarations or disclosure statements and pay any campaign surplus to the municipality.

I appreciate your assistance with clarifying this issue.

Sincerely,

Dave Bronconnier
MAYOR

I barely understand the question being asked here, but after several readings it seems to me the Province has multiple pieces of legislation, which are either contradictory, or mandating required time travel on the part of candidates. Either way; I agree, clarification is needed.

And I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who is confused.

Tags: Calgary, calgary city council, Dave Bronconnier, Hector Goudreau, Politics, time travel
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

I was asked by a reporter today about Web 3.0.  What exactly is Web 3.0?  Pretty broad topic…but here is how I answered the questions.

The world is coming out of the Web 2.0 world, which was really about the tools and people figuring out how to communicate with each other. Many of the world has gotten the tools figured out and some are still working on crafting their own message. I believe we are fully into the Web 3.0 world and my view of Web 3.0 is not about technology or even communication. Web 3.0 is about monetization. How do companies and organizations leverage people, raving fans and cultivate these relationships to drive new opportunities to their business. This also includes damage control online.

I think we can all learn a lesson from Toyota and others who have successful leveraged the Internet to deliver their message to the world, combat negative press and turn a bad PR story into a good story grounded around core characteristics of integrity and doing the right thing.

Companies large and small must now turn to online services and listen. Sometimes saying nothing is just as powerful as broadcasting your message. Companies must understand that the world is talking about them, their competitors and even their industry. How can they listen and then respond rather than reacting to what is happening around them.

I hope this made sense.  Thanks to Jeremy Epstein for some of the insight into this post.

Tags: Computing, Human-computer interaction, Hypertext, Information Age, Jeremy Epstein, reporter, Science, Scientific revolution, Stuart's ramblings, Technology/Internet, TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION, World Wide Web
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Our industry is excited – about Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogs and a whole host of new and evolving social media tools. But it’s important to remember that they’re just that – tools. And in the end, as marketers, we still have to first clearly understand what we’re trying to accomplish and who we’re talking to before we can determine the best way to achieve the results we want --results that admittedly seem more and more challenging to attain.

Which brings me to my main subject. It’s been three years since I first immersed myself in word-of-mouth marketing. My goal was to learn everything I could about influencers. I started out with many assumptions about how and why people talk about the products they love or hate, but interestingly many were disproved through research and discussions with other industry experts.

Like how influencers pass along information to others. Despite how they get it (email, websites, newsletters, social media sites) influencers do most of their recommending face to face – almost 90% of the time they pass it along to friends or family in person or by phone.

And how influencers don’t talk about everything. They talk about a few categories – likely because of interest or perhaps because of where they are in life. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

Take diapers, for instance. If you’d talked to me a couple of years ago, you’d have walked away thinking I had a degree in baby undies – I could tell you which were more absorbent, which were softer, which were cuter and which were the best value. And if we were trapped in an elevator, you’d have no choice but to listen to Gillian’s 101 fun facts about diapers. A marketer could have gained a lot of free advertising from me at the time, but today my interest in diapers has – perhaps unsurprisingly – waned.

My husband, for his part, can talk your ear off about natural remedies and will do so at every opportunity and proactively, but, unlike a lot of other guys his age, will only discuss electronics when prompted.

Little nuggets like these – anecdotal as they may be – confirm a growing body of in-depth research that suggests targeting influencers to spread the word and drive traffic or
sales is more complex than choosing a few demographic or psychographic variables and sending out direct mail or an email – or a tweet for that matter. Understanding who these
brand advocates are, what motivates them and how they behave is an exercise that must be handled with care – especially when you consider that, while they’re a small group, influencers can have a dramatic effect on brand building and sales.

I have a lot more to come on this topic and I can’t wait to share it with you in coming posts. Hope you’ll join me.

In the meantime if you would like a copy of a paper we just prepared detailing much of our new research, email me – I’d be happy to send it along.

BTW, what has been your biggest eye opener in WOM marketing?

NEXT TIME: Do marketers have a clear roadmap for social media marketing or are they simply following the crowd?

Gillian MacPhersen

Tags: Research, social media
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Prior to this post:
Introduction
Part One

Defining Value #2
We Canadians value an attitude of acceptance and tolerance. Over the course of our history, Canadians have embraced a liberal, open attitude, extending goodwill and acceptance to others who might be different.

Because of this pervading attitude of acceptance and tolerance, Canada is not just multi-cultural, but multi-everything. Note the diversity of beliefs, lifestyles, opinions, worldviews. Some would go so far as to say that this diversity is our greatest strength. (Macleans Canada Day Poll Report, 2006)

Diversity and pluralism are celebrated in Canada. Multiculturalism, in particular, has been noted as one of the most distinctive features of our society. More Canadians cite multiculturalism as central to the national identity - more than bilingualism or hockey. Canada’s top source of national pride is Multiculturalism, second only to Democracy. (Michael Adams, Unlikely Utopia, 2007)

Adams asserts further: “Canadians aren’t unique in living in a diverse society. Rather, Canadians are distinctive in the way that they have incorporated Canada’s policy of accommodating diversity into their sense of national identity.”

(I tend to disagree with the first part of the statement – that Canadians aren’t unique in living a diverse society. Canadian diversity IS unique and more intense. Take the United States: First nations and British colonial roots, but no French. Same goes for Australia. Canada counts among its peoples a first nations group, not one but two colonial forebears, and substantial waves of immigration from all over in recent years.)

The rest of his statement, however, rings true. Canadians have imbibed a strong attitude of acceptance and tolerance, so much that it defines and binds us as a nation.

Where does this come from?

How did we get here?

History: Canada was never a unitary entity. Canadians have never been one people in one place; we’ve always been a diverse people – Aboriginals, colonial British, colonial French, European immigrants – spread across a vast territory.

Our religion – or lack of it?

Religion, by its very nature, prescribes a certain code of conduct and belief. One’s religion helps a person make sense of the world, and pass judgment on what’s acceptable or not.
Canada is a secular nation. Compared to the United States, there are twice as many Canadians who say they have no religious affiliation. Church attendance has been on a steady decline, with almost 2 in 5 Canadians saying they never/almost never attend church. With less religiosity, Canadians are less likely to adhere to hard-and-fast, black-and-white judgments on right or wrong. This, in turn, makes for a more laissez-faire stance towards difference in beliefs/lifestyles.

Points of Evidence
Canadians are a tolerant and accepting people, who value and celebrate diversity. Festivals such as Caribana, Taste of the Danforth, Pride are the most obvious (and colourful) expressions of such.

Other data points support this value:
• By 2017, 1 in 2 people in Toronto and Vancouver will be visible minorities.
• 57% of Canadians live side-by-side within the five largest cities. Canadians – of whatever colour or stripe – are able to live amicably in close proximity to one another. Contrast this with other modes of settlement where people who are “different” confine themselves to either ghettoes or gated enclaves.
• 78% of Canadians believe immigration is good for the country (vs 64% of Americans).
• Canada was the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide

A Marketing Reference
In one of the most iconic pieces of Canadian advertising, The Rant aka I Am Canadian from Molson’s, “Joe” actually lays out the policy, and the pervading belief of Canadians – I believe in diversity, not assimilation.

During the Olympics, Tim Horton’s aired a spot that drew directly from the immigrant narrative – the first things that newcomers to Canada experience are the cold, and Tim Hortons. The spot rose to the top as both “Most Memorable” and “Best Ad.” (Marketing Magazine, April 19, 2010)

Of late, Virgin and LCBO tipped their hat to the LGBT communities in their ads targeted to their mainstream audience, signaling that sexual orientation is a non-issue for these brands.

Lee Chapman, Strategic Planner, MacLaren

Tags: Research
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off