Alberta Business Marketing

I woke up this morning to a Google Alert from my friend Arlin Sorensen, the founder of Heartland Tech Groups (HTG).  Thanks Arlin for the wonderful compliments and sound vote of confidence in my pursuit to help Information Technology Professionals, Calgary business and small business worldwide understand how they can leverage Social Media to do great things online.

It is great for the potential opportunity to be the HTG Social Media dude.

Also good luck to North Battleford Computer Specialist, Brad Kowerchuk who will be taking my place on the HTG Advisory Council.

With Brad’s appointment, we bid farewell to Stuart Crawford who has served on the advisory council since its inception a few years ago. Stuart was part of HTG3 before moving to help us begin our first international group in Canada, where he facilitated HTG10 for a year and a half. Stuart has a passion to help people, and caught the Go Giver bug in ways that became contagious. He leaves us to pursue his passion around social media and the web. He is consulting for businesses in his hometown of Calgary and around the globe as he serves people and their desire to learn how to leverage the communication tools of the 21st century. Thank you Stuart for your hard work and contributions to helping HTG become what it is today.

Read all of Arlin’s post here.

Tags: arlin sorensen, Battleford Computer Specialist, Brad Kowerchuk, Business IT, Calgary, canada, communication tools, Google Inc., Haitian gourde, HTG Advisory Council, information technology, North Battleford Computer Specialist, Social Media Ventures Inc, stuart crawford, The Giver
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Hello from Phoenix, Arizona

This evening I managed to invest some time with HTG1 and the HTG Advisory Council here in the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, Arizona.  Tonight is a sad night for me.  It was my official last social engagement as a member of Heartland Tech Groups (HTG) and the HTG Advisory Council.  A great bunch of awesome guys, however with my new career direction in the Calgary Search Engine Optimization and Social Media world. it is unfortunate but I am no longer a fit for HTG, as a member at least.  There maybe something else we can figure out, hopefully.

Canada’s Social Media Landscape

Yesterday I mentioned the Social Landscape and what I feel are contributors to the overall landscape in our socially connected online world that we live in.  A critically important online world that can’t be overlooked any longer by business, families and anyone else who is stuck in a log cabin up north totally disconnect from all human interaction.

Many of us as professionals in social media, throw the words “social media” around pretty loosely.  But really what is social media?  Many of my peers including myself have different descriptions for social media and as a consultant serving the Calgary community I may just continue to use it, out of context in my mind, because that is what people know.

In my opinion, Social Media is simply the art of communicating, the art of delivering the message to a reader, the crafting of the message for people to view, and the reaction to the original message or posting.  Print media is the same thing, the newspaper you read is the tool for reading print media.  I can get the message in a magazine, paper or even a cocktail napkin.  In our online world, Facebook is just a tool for you to read social (online) media.  I hope this make sense to many of you.

Social media is the message, Facebook is the tool, and social networking is the art of creating mutual win-win online relationships and social currency is the “go giver” of the online world.  Like I said, I hope this makes sense to many of you.

Here is another example.  If you are a publicly traded firm in Canada and need to combat some negative press coverage in the print media world, you can turn to social media to help share your side of the story to reach your audience.  Different tools and perhaps the same message.  Twitter can be a service or tool for you to get your word out (the media).

Love to hear what you all think on the this topic.  This is my first leg of what I can the “Social Landscape”.

Tags: Arizona, Calgary, canada, collaboration, Consultant, Facebook, Facebook Inc, heartland tech groups, HTG Advisory Council, HTG1, important online world, member at least, mutual win-win online relationships, Online social networking, online world, Phoenix, print media, print media world, search engine, Social information processing, social media, Social Media Ventures Inc, Social network service, social networking, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc, World Wide Web
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off