Alberta Business Marketing

As the world continues to struggle with a social media definition, anxiety is building at an alarming rate on how your small business can leverage social media.  Almost everyone I speak with during my travels right here in Calgary but across our entire client base is challenged with these same thoughts.

How can we really use social media and how can we profit from the use of social media?

These questions are fantastic and genuine.  We can measure some marketing and some companies are spending thousands of dollars on marketing that doesn’t work with no real measurement.  I would be better off sometimes driving down Deerfoot Trail here in Calgary and throwing my business cards out the window.  Oh yeah, and then trying to follow up with every one who picked one up off the side of the freeway.

Concern and the pursuit of figuring our social media, tough economic times and constant bombardment from gurus is causing more and more social anxiety to occur.  Leaving Small Business owners to feel like their heads are going to explode.  They won’t explode and you can always call me if it feel like it will.

It is no secret that communication strategies are evolving.  Some may see this as change while others see it is a natural evolution on how people communicate.  I believe most people are resistent to change as well.  They don’t like it, maybe they don’t accept it and it could be the alarming pace of change that may also lead to anxiety throughout Canadian business.

After all, we had telephones, fax machines, cell phones, email, cell phone with email and now social media platforms.  Change is all around us.

Is the rate of change that is fueling the anxiety or even adoption of social media in the workplace?

I am shocked every time I learn about a firm who block services like Facebook, Blogs, Twitter from their employees?  Why?  Are you position them to fail in one of most critical parts of your business.  Creating rapport and communicating with clients, customers, prospects and the community?

Recently, I learned of a friend who left his Calgary car sales job because his employer wouldn’t allow him to use these new social media tools to help build his following and use social media services to increase awareness about the cars the dealership was looking to sell into the Calgary market.  He was told that he had to do this work from home and the dealership wouldn’t allow it on their business network.  I am not sure if you are aware how car sales work?  The hours are long and you are exhausted at the end of the day. Plus it is very competitive.  Any leg up may just be the advantage they were looking for.

Did this lead to social anxiety?  You bet!  Someone who wants to take it to the next level and an organization that doesn’t back it.

Here is the way I see it.  Social Media is here to stay.  Each and every day social media services are weaving their way into the fabric of our communications.  Definitely at home and now moving into the workplace.  Don’t get hung up on the tools is something I coaching our Ulistic clients on.  The tools may change but the core philosophy doesn’t.  Look at your cell phone, it doesn’t matter if it is an iPhone, HTC, Blackberry – the core principles are in place.  Do you have anxiety over your mobile phone?  For most no, why?  It is part of the way we communicate today and so will social media…it will become part of the way we communicate.

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Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Canadian Small Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner David and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Tags: Anxiety disorders, Anxiety/Uncertainty Management, Calgary, car sales, car sales job, cell phones, cellular telephone, Facebook Inc, Health Tech Corporation Limited, Human behavior, iphone, Labor, media definition, media platforms, media services, Mobile phone, Phobias, Psychology, Social anxiety disorder, Social information processing, Social Issues, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, Social psychology, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc
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I love Calgary. I love the vibrancy, energy and the everlasting pace. I love all of the activity this city provides us. I also love how easy it is to get involved and help improve it.

I’ve been very blessed over the past few years to be part of some great projects, which do that very thing. I’m active in:

• the Winston Heights-Mountview Community Association,
• the Calgary Professional Arts Alliance,
• the Mayor’s Evening for Business and the Arts,
• the Bob Edwards Award Luncheon,
• PechaKucha Nights,
• CivicCamp,
• Reboot Alberta, and
• Leadership Calgary.

I’ve had the pleasure of helping re-brand and build two theatres, the most recent being Lunchbox Theatre after their move to the Calgary Tower. I’m also working hard to help create Nuit Blanche Calgary, and bring a Poet Laureate and open data to the City of Calgary. Not to mention the time I spend on my blog and CBC Radio column where I get to talk about all kinds of initiatives that inspire me.

Most of these projects have been civic-minded in some way. I have even called myself a “civic advocate” – which is to say I like doing the kinds of things that make my city better.

Over the past year, friends, colleagues, and even relative strangers have been asking me to do more. Because of my civic-development focus I have been repeatedly asked to run for Alderman.

A year and a half ago I half-laughed when people asked. “Me? Surely there must be someone better.” I would think. Then as time progressed I realized people were serious and they really wanted someone like me, who was real and not just another stereotypical politician who cared more about ideology than what they thought, to represent them. I was flattered but still didn’t take the idea too seriously.

But as time has passed, and more and more people have asked me privately and publicly to run, I’ve begun to feel like I would somehow be letting them down to not do it. There is a real thirst for something different and these people really do think I can provide it; and they cared enough about it to approach me and say it.

It’s important to note I’m just a Calgarian like anyone else out there. I don’t harbour a life long ambition to be a politician. I love my life AND I see how poorly we treat our elected officials. But I do have an intense sense of duty and of right and wrong. I see many areas in our municipal government that can use fixing and I feel responsible to help fix them, both as an individual citizen, and as a community leader.

My friends and colleagues have worn me down by showing me the good I could do.

My wife, Christine, and I have talked about this for some time and we have decided that we are willing to make the sacrifice to help improve the City we love so much.

However, unlike every other candidate for public office I’ve ever heard of, I’m instead announcing that I will let my name stand for Alderman if YOU really want me to do it. You will have to be the one to decide if I run; I won’t decide for you. If you want me to run, you will have to make a sacrifice too.

I can’t do it alone. It takes a small army of volunteers to do a campaign right. (The only way I’d be willing to do it.) If you want me to run, we’ll need to run as a team. This team will need everything from doorknockers to organizers to fundraisers. I also want to know what special skills you might have which you think might be able to help.

If you want me to run, and are willing to help even for just a couple hours, please add your name to the list here: http://bit.ly/IWillHelpDJ.

If you are willing to make a small commitment to me, I’m willing to stand up and run for you. And I promise if you make that commitment, you will see all of the energy I’ve split across each of the projects I’ve listed above come together into the singular goal running for Alderman on your behalf. If you ask me to do this, I will give it everything I’ve got until election day and beyond.

If you want me to represent you, you have a role to play. If you’re not committed to playing that role, I’ll happily continue working on all the great civic projects I’ve got on the go. But if you think I can provide something better than what you see right now at City Council and in the declared candidates then let’s work TOGETHER to make it happen.

In 2009 Avenue Magazine said this about me: “DJ Kelly appears to be giving our stateside leader a run for his money as a community organizer. Like Barack Obama — Kelly brings passion and commitment to his cause. And that cause is making Calgary a better place to live. DJ Kelly is committed to the big picture — a better Calgary — through a more vibrant arts community, a more accountable political system and more transparent communication. And he is involved hands-on in making change.”

How “hands-on in making change” I will be is up to you.

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Tags: Calgary, Politics
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As we reflect on the 30th anniversary of the death of scholar and philosopher Marshall McLuhan, we reflect on the role of media in our lives and marvel at his eerily accurate predictions.

Many of these predictions perfectly apply to our work at Transcontinental's Rastar in new media, photography and communications. McLuhan mused in the sixties that in the future we’d all be connected in real-time, with messages flowing back and forth, as if we sat side by side. Doesn’t this sound familiar to you, my tweeting, texting & IM’ing friends? This web of sharing, creativity and collaboration, spun thanks to digital media and the internet, is itself more interesting and important than any content created (a.k.a. ‘the medium IS the message’). When the medium is photography, McLuhan’s specific quotes on the subject were very pointed. He called the photography used in advertising and media during the sixties a ‘brothel without walls,’ which still rings true considering the transformative power in the hands of whoever wields a camera lens. Long before photoshopping, airbrushing and other virtual fibs, McLuhan noted photography’s ability to deceive: “To say that the camera cannot lie merely underlines the multiple deceits that are now practiced in its name.“

In 1994, fourteen years after the death of McLuhan, the first series of digital cameras took the consumer market by storm. Now that digital photography is sixteen years old, we can reflect on the impact of digital photography, the web and the prevalence of sharing images easily and instantaneously. This past October, the 4 billionth image was uploaded to Flickr, while the largest photo-sharing site in the world, Facebook, boats average monthly uploads of 2.5 billion photographs among its 400 million active users.

At Rastar, we recently witnessed how Canadians experienced their first Olympics through a digital photography lens. With over 50,000 pre-registrants within 4 days of the Olympics ‘Memories’ photo site launch, Canadians leapt at an opportunity to put a personal touch on memorabilia, with photo journals and posters emblazoned with users’ own snapshots. McLuhan would likely feel vindicated if he could witness the extreme speed and cyclical nature of new media, thanks to digitization and the internet. Today, Canadians aren’t just passively watching a sporting event on television or online, they’re texting, tweeting or blogging about the matches, and then taking their event photographs, often snapped from a mobile phone, and uploading them within seconds for their friends and family to enjoy.

Do you think that this new cycle of creating and sharing me-first media bring with it increasing narcissism, as many post-McLuhan cultural theorists have cautioned? Personally, I think that there will always be Canadians with a passion for photography, those who can capture the essence of their subject in a portrait or who have an eye to perfectly frame a landscape, regardless of how many glamour-shot profile pictures are uploaded to Facebook. For the sake of Canadian photography’s future and in honour of our media maven Marshall, let’s stay cautiously optimistic.

Melisa Jeffers is Senior Vice-President of Business and Corporate Development for Rastar, a Transcontinental Company, (www.rastar.com) which is a North American leader in print on demand solutions and social expression products. As a critical part of the Transcontinental Marketing Communications Sector, Rastar’s expertise result in robust solutions that help businesses provide their customers with highly personalized experiences.

Melisa Jeffers, Senior VP Business and Corporate Development, Rastar, a Transcontinental Company

Tags: Digital, social media
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