Urban Vancouver

Oh, no.  Pantone® mugs.

And Pantone® espresso cups.

Currently only available in the UK. 

Sigh.

h/t Chip Chick.

• Go Big Always - How we use blogs internally Great, practical ideas for uses of blogs inside organizations. (tags: blog business internal corporate)
• How do you measure a blog’s success? « Online Journalism Blog Exploration of how different metrics across different services affect the ranking of blogs. Via bhodgson. (tags: blogs metrics blogging influence measurement)
• Top 10 Social Networking Sites for Women Heavy on Mom-related plus celebrity/glam/fashion related. No business-oriented sites. (tags: women socialnetworking web2.0 socialmedia socialnetworks)
• Web 2.0 Museum | The Walrus Blogs Snappy blog from Chantelle Oliver over at The Walrus (one of my fav magazines). (tags: blog community tech canadian Women web2.0)

• PSDTUTS - Photoshop Tutorials and Links - Create a Sleek, High-End Web Design from Scratch (tags: WebDesign photoshop tutorial design)
• TimeTube Choose keyword. Creates a timeline mashup of videos using that keyword. Imagine it's 500 years from now and you could do this. WHOA! Via dragoni. (tags: youtube Mashup video Timeline tools)
• Second Life Marketing: Still Strong Rumors of the death of virtual world marketing are greatly exaggerated, says Second Life expert and author Au. Here, several ideas to resuscitate revenue. Via SecondLifePros (tags: secondlife virtual+worlds marketing)
• Everything I Know About Presentations, I Learned in Theatre School Great piece by Darren Barefoot on giving a presentation - includes slide tips as well as speaking tips. (tags: presentations speaking tips communication)
• Google Page Rank Checker - FREE PageRank Calculator (tags: pagerank google tools)
• Brijit - The world in 100 words h/t Steve Nelson - Brijit aggregates the world's best long-form content and abstracts it in 100 words or less, providing busy, omnivorous, and increasingly mobile readers with rich, qualitative summaries as well as better guideposts for what to read, watc (tags: News aggregator magazine)

I've got a few speaking gigs coming up that I wanted to mention.  Not just because of me, but because, as usual, I'm privileged to be sharing either the stage or the agenda with some great folks.

Canadian Marketing Association's National Convention, May 12 - 14, Toronto
My talk is on Lessons Real-World Marketers can Learn from Virtual Fashion Designers.  As I've made no secret of here, I'm a big fan of virtual worlds - whether Second Life or any of the numerous others.  And there are opportunities for marketers to enter them appropriately, making sense for both them and the virtual residents of the world.  I also think there are some very smart marketers within virtual worlds who are using online marketing tactics, social media in particular, to reach their customers.

Convergence 2008, May 22, Vancouver
This is a new conference this year, sponsored by Cossette and part of Digital Week Vancouver.  I'm on a panel discussing Blogger Relations with Darren Barefoot and Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss604).  We'll be moderated by Darren Roberts of Optimum Public Relations.  I'm really looking forward to this one.  Darren Barefoot is the architect behind some of the most talked about blogger relations programs, most recently the much-lauded program for ThoughtFarmer.  Rebecca is one of  (if not THE) Vancouver's blogging and podcasting luminaries.  I saw her most recently at Northern Voice where she moderated a fantastic panel on Sports blogging and podcasting, using The Crazy Canucks podcast as the case study.  Great stuff!

From Mass to Grass (Canada's WOM Conference), June 12, Toronto
I'm super-excited about M2G.  I sat on the organizing committee (a real eye-opener) and am also moderating a panel: Not-for-Profit WOM - Building Buzz for Good with William Azaroff from Vancity's Webby-nominated ChangeEverything.ca and Deborah Kaplan from Zerofootprint.

The early-bird discount for M2G has passed, but, you still have an opportunity to win a free ticket to From Mass to Grass (a $745 value per ticket).

• Jott™ - Official Site Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments. Want to try this. Via @jstrocel. (tags: productivity phone mobile tools)
• Top 10 Social Media Guides Some other good ones also recommended in the comments (tags: resources socialmedia reference)

Like a lot of geek girls (and guys), I have a lot of media repositories in my home.  And between Rose and I, we also have a lot of digital content.  I've been looking for some way to share that content across devices.  Also, we're a mixed household: I'm on a Mac, she's on a PC plus we have another PC with some legacy content as well.

We also have a Playstation 3.  I got it mainly so I could play around in the new Sony HOME virtual world (ahem .. where is it, Sony?) and to have DVD player b/c our old one died.  It's wifi-enabled, so the ideal situation would be that it's part of the media network as well since it's the device that's actually hooked up to the TV.

Now, in theory, this should have been enough to have a functioning network. I was able to download a piece of software (EyeConnect) that SHOULD have let me stream content from my Mac via the PS3 to the TV.  And it worked fine for photos, mostly OK for music and not at all for movies.  Fail.

So my home network dream died as wedding, honeymoon and real-life took over.

But then, recently, I got a call from HP.  They were offering to let me try out their new HP MediaSmart Server - it was about to make it's debut into Canada.   I clapped my hands with glee - dreams of my home media empire network were revived!

OK.  So, the HP MediaSmart Server arrived!  I had cleared a space for it next to the new router (the dog knocked the old one off the shelf - bad dog).  The HP MediaSmart Server is super-cute, sleek and shiny with a relatively small footprint.  Tasty!  I unpacked it, plugged it in and followed the start-up directions.  Hmm, I didn't get the final set of lights that were supposed to flash. Hmm.  No matter, I thought, surely the software will fix the problem.  (Right.)

So I totally went ahead and installed the HP MediaSmart Server and the Windows Home Server software on Rose's machine (yes, it requires the MSFT Windows Home Server software).  After trying to install the software it hung a few times saying it couldn't "see the server on the network".  Sigh.  I don't like making support calls.

So, just for fun, I tried to look for it on my Mac.  And hey, my Mac saw it!  And could play music from it in iTunes.  And see photos and watch video (the person who had it before me didn't take all their content off - it is WEIRD flipping through someone else's pics; however, he had pretty good taste in music).  I also booted up the PS3.  It found the MediaSmart server and could pull pics and music, no problem.  But couldn't see video.

The PC couldn't see it at all.  But hey, this was my project (Rose just wanted her computer back), so I went along merrily for a few weeks with a partially realised dream.

After returning from a conference, I had about a week left of my time with the MediaSmart Server.  I was determined to get Rose's PC networked as well.  So I got on the horn with HP support (very nice helpful folks!) and essentially ended up wiping the server and doing a full reinstall of its software plus a reinstall of the HP and Windows Home software.  That took a lot of time (note - if you're trying to set up a home network; plan for about three times as much time as you think it will take).

So, we got that all worked out and I was able to access and configure the MediaSmart server via the PC - just like it was intended.  I set up user accounts, copied assets over.  The PC and the HP were getting along like gangbusters.

Then I tried to check in via my Mac.  No more server in my iTunes.  No more friendly access.  Sure, I could get to it as a network drive, but it wasn't as seamless as it was before the reinstall.  On the PS3, access was pretty much the same - but it still couldn't play movies (and before you ask, yes, I did check compatibility of formats on the PS3 and made sure the digital versions were in a format the PS3 can read).

After the big reinstall, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with the server, so this review is a bit incomplete.  The stuff I got to play with: different user accounts with protected levels of access and regular backups worked pretty well on the PC.  The interface to the software was pretty easy to use.  Some of the configuration options were a little fussy (particularly when I was setting up the backups).

When you get an HP MediaSmart Server, you also can get a personal URL (via TZO) which lets you have the server (protected) on the Internet available for sharing assets (for both upload and download).  I didn't get this working on mine, but I did use it on another HP MediaSmart Server and it worked fine.  This functionality is one of the main things that attracted me to the MediaSmart server - privately sharing photos (or other assets) with dispersed (extended) family members in one central location that isn't someone else's service.  Sure, there are a number of photo-sharing sites out there, but they are all under someone else's control.  By using something like the HP MediaSmart server, you retain the control of your pictures (with any of the digital assets you choose to share within your family network).

So, I had a pretty good experience with the HP MediaSmart Server, but I don't think it's the best solution for us.  I'm thinking I need to try a network device from the Apple side of things - to see if it works better with my Mac and then brings the PC and the PS3 along for the ride.  Is Apple TV what I need to be playing with next?  Any thoughts?

I would like to say thanks to HP and to the folks at their PR agency, H&K.  I had the opportunity to meet with reps from both organizations, received an excellent briefing and wonderful tech support.  I was really delighted with how they wanted to reach out to different bloggers and make their products available for trial - not just to traditional journalists, but to regular folks like me. 

And HP, if you EVER want someone to review your sexy MediaSmart HDTV (TV with WiFi built in, people!), call me!

A friend of mine is looking for a new job in the technology/marketing space (product marketing for a startup, digital marketing for a client, account person for a digital agency) and asked me for my favourite resources.  I came up with the following list:

• OneDegree Job Listings (of course) - mainly marketing, communications and social media positions.
• RedCanary Job Listings - Lots of tech jobs, particularly in the golden triangle, but have recently gotten a few in the US.
• TechVibes Blog Job Listings - Primarily West Coast; great resource.
• Digital Media Jobs Blog - This blog pulls the listings from Betaville. It has been mainly developer stuff, but every once in a while, something marketing-oriented comes across here.
• StandOut Jobs - it’s a Canadian startup itself, but they do a lot of career sites for Cdn startups.
• David Crow maintains a great list of job postings - a lot of UX positions as well as some at startups.
• Finally, the TorCamp group is one to monitor.

So, what others am I missing?  Not sites like Monster, but niche sites for jobs in this area.  Anything you'd like to share?

• New Breed of Business Gurus Rises - WSJ.com 20 business gurus - all men. (tags: business)

• New World Notes: Ophelia's Gaze: A Beginner's Guide to SL Fashion Beginner’s guide to Second Life’s fashion industry, with renowned brands like ETD, Fleur, and BareRose as examples, plus tips for real world designers interested in learning from metaverse fashionistas. (tags: secondlife virtual+worlds fashion)

• infinite Spaces - Virtual World Design Centre - Loyalist College (tags: secondlife virtual+worlds ontario canada)
• New World Notes: Future Canadian Border Guards Train In SL Another great business/training use of SL - border crossing simulations. (tags: canada virtual+worlds secondlife training)

• J.K. Rowling should lose her copyright lawsuit against the Harry Potter Lexicon. - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine Great piece on the difference between "adaptation" of a work (covered by copyright) and "discussion" of a work (not covered). Clear and thoughtful. (tags: copyright books law HarryPotter fandom internet literature rights)

I'm not really a search marketer.  It's something I'm familiar enough with to know when the experts should be called it.  However, it is something I am fascinated by, particularly when it's not in my native English.  So, I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Alicia Morga about the work she does in Search Engine Marketing, particularly for clients with Hispanic markets.  And while we may not have a large Hispanic population specifically in Canada, we are a bi-lingual country and most of our metropolitan areas have several non-English communities.

Just to set the context for our interview, I asked Alicia for some background information on the Hispanic market ...

Hispanics are now 15% of the U.S. population and the U.S. Hispanic online market is rapidly growing, especially Hispanic online search – 80% of the online Hispanic population searches online. As you can imagine, a large percentage of that group views the web in Spanish and gets information about products in Spanish (65% of U.S. Hispanics say they get more info about a product when it’s advertised in Spanish), so Spanish language search is definitively an area of interest for marketers.  As you can imagine, it’s even larger in Latin America and Spain where the numbers online are greater than the entire U.S. Hispanic market. (Further stats on the US Hispanic and Latin American Markets)

Spanish keywords, however,  are only one component of an effective overall SEM strategy.  English keywords, culturally relevant copy, country specific terminology, delivery, placement, and more all contribute to click-through rates and conversion.  The key lesson in marketing in a different language or to a different culture, is to not take for granted what a native knows and testing, measuring and optimizing matter.

Are there language specific search engines that marketers should be aware of?  How does a marketer find them and vet their quality?

The major search engines like Google and Yahoo! have Spanish language options but the real story here is how many people search in Spanish or their native language on the U.S. main sites for each.  That’s where we are seeing growth. 

What’s one of the most interesting insights you have had working with clients who work in two or more languages? Can you share an example or two?

We’ve found out that Spanish speakers use the web differently than English speakers, which presents unique opportunities to advertisers looking to reach the Hispanic market because the Hispanic market encompasses English dominant, Spanish dominant and bilingual individuals. This requires that we take into account both language, culture AND country in all of our campaigns, and all three have to be factored into the delivery of the message.  For example, with one of our advertisers, Best Buy, we found out that U.S. based Spanish text ads were better at prompting customers to purchase lower-cost items, such as MP3 players and videogames, whereas Spanish banner ads on U.S. Hispanic publishers were more successful in getting people to buy larger-ticket items, such as flat-panel TVs.

In addition, the Hispanic market as a whole interacts differently with the internet than the general market.  For example, Hispanics on average use two search engines, 71% of Hispanics online use social networking sites and 39% watch videos online. The general online population is much less likely to use social networking (65%) or watch videos (23%).

We’ve also seen many direct marketers do very literal translations into Spanish without respect for colloquial usage.  For example, if you translate “debt” into Spanish using Babelfish or a dictionary, you’ll get the term “deuda.”  But when Spanish-speakers are talking about debt in the terms of what to do about it, they actually use the word  “prestamos.”  We’ve seen people bid up the keyword “deuda” to crazy numbers, spend a lot of money on a keyword that doesn’t convert in the context in which they placed it and then conclude that Hispanics aren’t online.

How much of reaching out to international and non-English markets is about understanding a language and how much is about understanding a culture?

For marketers that want to reach non-English speaking demographics, understanding the language and culture of the target audience is helpful – but not the most important element in building successful campaigns.

The real “secret sauce” to being successful in multi-cultural and multi-lingual marketing is technology.  While Consorte (Alicia's company) does understand the nuances of many facets of the Hispanic culture and the Spanish language we’re able to take understanding this market a step further with robust targeting technology.  We use sophisticated testing, analysis and measurement technologies to test each and every campaign to see if it resonates with a particular target segment of the market – such as young Chicano men in Los Angeles who like music or Spanish-speaking homeowners in Texas, for example. And often, testing and analysis proves the opposite of what we originally thought would work. For example, by rigorously testing campaigns for our advertisers, we’ve found that English-language ads that make a cultural reference in some cases, on particular publishers, resonate more deeply with U.S. Hispanics than the same ad in Spanish.  And the same ad from the same advertiser will have to be wildly different in Argentina as opposed to the U.S. or even Mexico.

To bring multi-lingual marketing into the mainstream, the marketing community needs to bring measurability and accountability to the discipline, so that advertisers no longer create messages based on assumptions, but instead base their campaigns on real, measurable evidence of which messages work and which don’t.

Alicia Morga is CEO of Consorte Media, a provider of online marketing solutions for clients who want to reach the Hispanic market  Alicia will be speaking at Search Engines Strategies Toronto on June 17th as part of the "Search Around the World" panel. Prior to founding Consorte Media, Alicia was an investment professional focused on venture opportunities in the technology sector for The Carlyle Group's U.S. venture fund and also worked at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, where she focused on early-stage software investments.

• Facebook and Social Networking for Small Business Good tips for small biz. Written by Jennifer Evans (Sequentia) (tags: smallbusiness socialnetworking onedegree)
• Tories kill access to information database The federal Conservatives have quietly killed an access to information registry used by journalists, experts and the public that users say helped hold the government accountable. (tags: canada government)
• Study: Web Promotions to Triple by 2012 The interactive capability of the Internet is taking hold among advertisers and is about to eclipse traditional banner- and paid-search advertising, according to a new study from Borrell Advertising (tags: advertising online web marketing promotion)
• Association of Virtual Worlds The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds Is Now Available Free from the Association of Virtual Worlds (tags: virtualworlds Research resources directory)

• SEOmoz | The Beginner's Checklist for Small Business SEO Via speechpoet. Great how-to! (tags: SEO marketing checklist tips reference smallbusiness)
• 5 Things You Never Knew Your Cell Phone Could Do | burning the bacon with barrett Brilliant post by Phil! My fav is #2 - opening your locked car door via your cell phone. Cool! (tags: mobile tips tricks howto)
• White Paper: A Primer in Social Media (smashLAB) Good overview of Social Media (online and pdf forms) of social media. (tags: socialmedia onedegree resources)

• Pixelfumes Flash Blog: Creating an iTunes Wish List Easy solution, once you think about it, but not intuitive when in the app. Can't iTunes do something about that? Thank heavens for Google. (tags: itunes wishlist)
• 5 Items Your Blog Sidebar Must Have Via mhamburg (tags: blogging tips)
• 10 Articles All Bloggers Should Read (at least once) | Performancing.com Via mhamburg (tags: blogging tips writing)
• eCommerce - Top 20 must have features (part 1) List of the first 10 features any self respecting ecomm site must have. Focus on higher conversion rate and lower cart abandonment. (tags: ecommerce tips onedegree)
• TwitterSnooze! v0.13 "Hit the snooze button on your verbose Twitter friends". (tags: twitter tools web2.0)
• Skribit: Blog Topic Suggestion Application Skribit provides bloggers with the ability to receive real-time, user-generated suggestions directly from their readers via an east-to-install blog application. Not only does Skribit help bloggers understand their readers, but Skribit also helps facilitat (tags: blog widgets suggestion community)

• CommunityNorth CommunityNorth is a project to profile Canadian communities and the best examples of community marketing, social capital, building meaningful relationships and evangelism practices. (tags: canada community socialmediamarketing)

• SEOmoz | Widgetbait Gone Wild Wow. Amazing case study of link building gone badly awry. Kudos to Matthew for sharing this info. (tags: SEO linkbait google links linkbuilding seomoz widget)
• The Link Spiel: Usurp Wikipedia And Build Authority. Cool. Link Building and Link Training Blog by Debra Mastaler Discusses Encyclopedia Britannica's new widget program. (tags: widgets content encyclopedia+britannica)

• Popgadget: Let's celebrate women in tech Some good links to women tech writers. (tags: women technology)
• Trendpedia - What's hot online? | The Multitasker Trendpedia seeks out trends in the blogosphere. It’s basically a simple search engine which scans for trends in blog posts and then composes graphs, called Trendlines, giving you a clear visualization of what’s hot on the internet. (tags: trends search resource)
• How Blogs & Social Media Are Changing Crisis Communications « The Engaged Consumer In response to Am Airlines. Some of the best stuff is in the comments - as part of your social media plan, make sure you are monitoring what people are saying! Via bhodgson (tags: crisis+management socialmedia)
• Reuters/Second Life » Second Life Sketches: Drive My Car "I have always felt that there’s really only one way to properly see and understand the mainland. Drive." This is something I have never tried in SL. Will put it on the list! (tags: secondlife warrenellis metaverse)

• Crisis Planning seems to be big–but how do you know if they are any good? « Crisisblogger Article on evaluating crisis planning plans. Some good considerations esp wrt social media and ongoing communication. Via bhodgson. (tags: corporate crisis+management)
• Ten Ways To Clear Bad Press From Search Engines | IMAGEX MEDIA Some great ideas from Linda Bustos for trying to get good press to outweigh negative in the search engines. Via speechpoet. (tags: pr search)
• Privacy Disaster At Twitter: Direct Messages Exposed (Update: GroupTweet Is Likely Culprit) Two thoughts out of this: apps must get better at being clear about privacy AND we're going to have to educate on privacy & security literacy better. (tags: twitter privacy security socialmedia)
• How To Pitch Techvibes (or Anyone) Hear, hear! I get so many of these requests for MNIK and One Degree. I'm beyond flattery. Just give me the goods and the links. And make it easy! (tags: onedegree pitch pr blogs)

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em - it's that time again.  That's right - time for From Mass to Grass, CMA's Word of Mouth Marketing Conference.  This time, it's personal.  Because I was on the committee :)

So, here are the important bits:

When: Thursday, June 12, 2008, 8:30 - 4:30
Where: Atlantis Pavillion at Ontario Place
Who: Over 20 business and not-for-profit leaders in WOM, Social Media and Viral Marketing (including WestJet VP, Richard Bartrem; author, Douglas Rushkoff; TD Bank VP, Su McVey; Exec Director Zerofootprint, Deborah Kaplan; and Managing Partners at Mabel's Labels, Julie Cole and Tricia Mumby)

This year, the agenda includes more B2B, more metrics, more measurement, more not-for-profit and more ethics - all based on feedback from last year's attendees.

It's really a fantastic collection of folks - Canada's best and brightest from across the country.

And you know what's going to make it the best conference ever?  You!

So register for From Mass to Grass and spend the day with us.  But first, hop on over to Facebook and become a fan.  Because Fans get a $50 discount on the price of registration!  But only til May 1st.

And keep an eye out.  We have several buzz-generating activities scheduled for the next few weeks, including some video, some experience stuff and a contest where you can help your fav not-for-profit and small business win a complimentary ticket to Mass to Grass.

And on that personal note, this was the first CMA Conference Committee that I've served on, and it was a pretty good time.  Whether in person or on a conference call, it was great to spend time with this group of folks.  Kudos and thanks to:

Mirabel Palmer-Elliott, Rogers Publishing
Allison Daisley, Cake Beauty
Minnow Hamilton, Savvy Mom
Kiran Balladin, CMA
Cathy Landolt, CMA
Sean Moffitt, Agent Wildfire
Mitch Joel, Twist Image   
David Jones, Hill & Knowlton
Michael Seaton, Thornley & Fallis
Peter Coish, XY Media Ventures
Baron Mannett, Ariad Communications
Steve Osgoode, Harper Collins 
Jay Moonah , 58 Ninety 
and me, Kate Trgovac, LintBucket Media

Update:  Check out the great posts from my M2G Colleagues:

• Sean Moffitt - "From Mass to Grass" Marketing Conference Launches ... and an Early Bird Discount Sean has the low-down on every speaker and moderator.  How does he manage to write so much? That's why he is co-Chair of the conference and I'm just a lowly member.
• Dave Jones - Psst…$50 off CMA Word of Mouth conference…pass it on
• Mitch Joel - Gets the word out about M2G earlier this year on his podcast