Archive for category events

UVic Libdub II

Posted by Paul Holmes in events, internet, music, social media on September 2, 2010

Remember the UVic Lipdub video that went viral on YouTube last year?

Being from Victoria, I was initially impressed that UVic did such a great job … until I realized that this UVic was a place in Spain that was hitherto unknown by somebody from Victoria, Canada, who lives a stones throw from UVic.

So, kudos Spanish UVic … but the best may yet be to come!

A local organizer and UVician, Shawn Slavin, has done a bang up job organizing a Lipdub for a certain other UVic – OUR UVic.

How amazingly freaking awesome will that be?

Check out the project on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

It’s all going down on September 25th, bright and early! Everyone is invited. Bring a talent, dress appropriately and stuff – and watch this video. Real keen? Memorize the song, too!

And, if you haven’t heard about this before, watch this video, too …

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My Crappy E-Book – DELIVERED!

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, events, personal, social media on July 13, 2010

Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?! BUY MY E-BOOK!

Want to get 10,000 followers on Twitter!?!

No, I’m not going to charge $0.99 (or 2 for $1.97), as promised, and the first 1,000 people to retweet it will not get a free copy.

This advice is free – for everybody:

The number of followers you have on Twitter means absolutely nothing.

Remember the old analogy: it doesn’t matter how big it is, it matters how you use it.

If you engage with others in a spirit of community (you know, helping your neighbours…), you win and your followers win.

Twitter is an amazing channel for communication, but there are a few things that make it awkward, or even annoying and counter-intuitive. Add spammers to the mix, and the whole experience gets a bit hairy.

So, here’s how I got to 10,000 followers:

1. I stopped caring about the “Home” feed.

The home feed is an age old dilemma for serious Twitter users – once you start following more than a couple hundred people, your home feed becomes effectively useless.

The old answer was to start a “secret” account where you secretly follow the people you really want to? Today, this is much simpler – build a list of the people you truly want to follow.

I use many lists and searches to find who and what I’m looking for on Twitter.

The home feed is dead to me.

2. I discovered the best ways to alert people to your existence is to follow them or list them.

Most people start on Twitter by writing stuff. Intelligent, informative or witty tweets don’t mean anything if nobody is paying attention. Some people get bored and quit; others learn about tagging posts, searching, retweeting, following people, and replying.

I am most interested in connecting with people in my geographic region – Victoria, Vancouver Island, Vancouver, Seattle. This is both natural, and a business decision (my main business, IdeaZone.ca, serves clients primarily in Victoria, and I organize events to serve the region, like the upcoming Social Media Camp).

So I find people I want to connect with, I follow them, and I list them. What have I noticed? Many of them tend to follow-back, and often they send a message.

Many people don’t follow-back.

This is totally fine, and I will eventually unfollow these people. Does that mean I don’t like them anymore? No. It doesn’t matter to me? Remember, I don’t read my home feed, I keep them on my lists, and they still show up in my searches. Some of the best interactions I have are with people who don’t follow me.

I unfollow them simply because Twitter won’t let you follow more than 110% of your followers, so they are using up a notch in my ability to discover and connect with new people by alerting them with a follow.

3. As a policy, I follow people who follow me.

I do this for two reasons: (1) I don’t have time to filter through and find the good or bad accounts, and (2) people cannot send you a DM if you don’t follow them.

The latter is important (for me, not everybody). I’m in business, if I prevent somebody from sending me a DM, I might be preventing them from sending me business, or a referral. I don’t want to risk snubbing a potential client.

I’m fairly certain this policy means I’m “following” some pretty sketchy accounts as a result, but remember, I don’t read my home feed, so all the sketchy people in the world could follow me, and it means nothing to me.

And this, my friends, is how I got to 10,000 followers on Twitter, probably half of them are real people I want to connect with, and the other half are spammers. To the uninformed, it might look pretty to have 10,000 followers, but I can assure you it means nothing – but the several hundred or so folks I have had the privilege of connecting with on Twitter have made a huge difference in my business, and my life.

Thanks for connecting with me!

And thanks for reading My Crappy E-Book.

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Victoria British Columbia Officially Proclaims “Social Media Day”, June 30th

Posted by Paul Holmes in business, events, internet, social media on June 25, 2010

Victoria, British Columbia, the Capital city – for visitors, there are lots of great things to see and do. But did you also know it’s the capital city for technology and social media?

It was big news when the technology industry eclipsed tourism in 2007. But what about social media? Well, the industry here might not be colossal, but it’s growing, and there is plenty of expertise for a small city, not to mention the power users.

Here’s a sample of our accomplishments…

Here is the wording of the proclamation:

CITY OF VICTORIA

PROCLAMATION

“SOCIAL MEDIA DAY”

WHEREAS Social Media has made it easier for people to communicate, locally, regionally and globally, and

WHEREAS Social Media has offered people with critical illnesses and disabilities a tool to communicate more effectively, and

WHEREAS Social Media is an amazing communications technology, and technology is a critical and growing component of Victoria’s economy, and

WHEREAS June 30th is being celebrated in over 400 cities around the world as Social Media Day.

NOW, THEREFORE I do hereby proclaim the day of June 30, 2010 as “SOCIAL MEDIA DAY” in the CITY OF VICTORIA, CAPITAL CITY of the PROVINCE of BRITISH COLUMBIA.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereunto set my hand this 24th day of June, Two Thousand and Ten.

DEAN FORTIN
MAYOR
CITY OF VICTORIA
BRITISH COLUMBIA

I picked up the official City of Victoria proclamation today, and will bring it to the party on Social Media Day, June 30th.

The historic Fairmont Empress hotel, which uses social media regularly and effectively, was quick to pick up on the event, offering their luxurious Bengal Lounge for the party.

A special thanks goes out to the Victoria City Councilor Chris Coleman, and the City staff who worked on finalizing the proclamation. Mr. Coleman was very enthusiastic when I suggested the idea, and saw the process through to the end.

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My Turn!

Posted by Paul Holmes in events, music on May 26, 2010

Did I miss my calling as an ultra-hip modern rock DJ?

Yes.

Yes, I did.

Now my favourite local radio station, The Zone at 91.3 has offered me a chance to fulfill my dream, and be discovered by all those famous voice talent agents that roam the airwaves to find the next superstar of radio.

I’ll be doing My Turn on June 4th at 7pm. Please tune in, cheer me on, and tell all your friends (especially those talent search buddies of yours … you know who I mean).

They’ll see! I’ll show them that I truly have a face for radio!

Anyway, part of my job is to pick 15 songs to play. Given such a simple task, I have done what comes naturally – I have picked 32 songs.

So, let’s see if we can do a bit of crowd-sourcing here. Help me out by adding a comment with the songs I should definitely cut from my list. If you want to complicate my life even more, please suggest songs to add to my list, too.

Here’s the list (bold means it’s non-negotiable):

  1. Intergalactic – Beastie Boys
  2. Fix You – Coldplay
  3. Fallen Leaves – Billy Talent
  4. Ulysses – Franz Ferdinand
  5. Heads Will Roll – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  6. Angel of Harlem, God Part II, or maybe even Yellow – U2
  7. Little Bit Of Love – Jon and Roy
  8. Heading for Nowhere – Jets Overhead
  9. Renegades of Funk – Rage Against the Machine
  10. Help I’m Alive – Metric
  11. Santeria – Sublime
  12. Crazy Mary – Pearl Jam
  13. Uprising – Muse
  14. Camilo The Magician – Said The Whale
  15. I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab For Cutie
  16. Karma Police – Radiohead
  17. Read My Mind – The Killers
  18. She Sells Sanctuary – The Cult
  19. Run – Snow Patrol
  20. Connection – Elastica
  21. Loser – Beck
  22. Tainted Love – Soft Cell
  23. How To Save A Life – The Fray
  24. Pantera Fans In Love – Nerf Herder
  25. I’m Afraid of Britney Spears – Live on Release
  26. Punk Rock Girl – The Dead Milkmen
  27. You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring
  28. Island In The Sun – Weezer
  29. Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day
  30. Wonderful – Everclear
  31. 100 Years – Five For Fighting
  32. Kids – MGMT

New songs…

  1. Stand – R.E.M.
  2. I Ran – A Flock of Seagulls (this cannot possibly be on the playlist)
  3. Today – The Smashing Pumpkins
  4. Burning Down The House – Talking Heads

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Twestival Victoria

Posted by Paul Holmes in events, personal, social media on March 10, 2010

Don’t miss Twestival Victoria, a fantastic event organized by a great group of Twitter folks in Victoria. To participate, you don’t have to love Twitter (or Facebook, or social media). You need only love being a part of a global movement to help the less fortunate children in our world.

I’ll be there, and I hope you will be, too!

Last time around, Victoria raised the second highest amount of money of any city in Canada! This was due in large part to the heroic efforts of the organizers, but also because of people like you and me who took some time to attend a great event.

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Happy 5th Birthday Firefox!

Posted by Paul Holmes in events, internet, social media on November 11, 2009

The Mozilla Firefox browser is 5 years old! Now that Internet Explorer isn’t nearly as awful as it once was, and Google Chrome has started to raise some eyebrows, we often forget the effect Firefox had on the world.

They made a cool site, and a cool video.

And, of course, they published it on Twitter and Facebook.

Admittedly, I use Chrome most often these days. But Firefox is still an amazing product, and perhaps one of the best examples in the world of how a great open source community can contribute to a better world – literally.

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WordCamp Victoria 2009

Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, events, internet, social media on November 4, 2009

WordCampAfter attending WordCamp in Surrey recently, I decided it was time to organize one in Victoria.

And what a HUGE response there has been! We already have over 60 people signed up, have 7 sponsors, and 98 followers on Twitter at @yyjWordCamp. All this in a couple weeks …

If you use WordPress, or want to use WordPress, you should check it out!

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Social Media Club, Victoria, British Columbia

Posted by Paul Holmes in events, social media on September 24, 2009

Social Media ClubNot very long ago, as we were delving into the intricacies of the social media revolution unfolding before us, my long-time friend, and now colleague, Catherine Novak and I decided it was time to launch the Victoria chapter of Social Media Club.

If somebody had told us then what this would lead to today, we would not have believed it.

After only 7 monthly meetings, we now have over 145 signed up on Facebook, 93 on LinkedIn), and 218 followers on Twitter. Turnout at our last meeting broke all previous records, and it continues to grow each time.

Now, before SMC Victoria came on the scene, there were many Tweetups already happening. These are great events – usually small gatherings, and often, but not always, informal and social.

The idea with introducing SMC to the mix was to identify and build a much larger community of social media enthusiasts within Greater Victoria, and to draw together a great deal of talent and information sharing, both within the community, and from abroad.

While SMC Victoria has attracted some amazing speakers, it has done something else. It has become something of a “hub” of activity, a catalyst in organizing and promoting many other great ideas.

Earlier this month, Twestival Victoria raised nearly $5,000 for a local charity, Power To Be. Despite Greater Victoria having the 15th largest metropolitan area population in Canada, we raised more money for Twestival here than any other city in Canada, save Toronto (which, by the way, is the 1st largest). Much credit for this is due to the boundless energy of one Janis Lacouvee. This said, part of the inspiration for Janis was coming to, and being part of, the Social Media Club. SMC was also a great venue through which to promote the event, as well.

Now, Victoria is also getting it’s own WordCamp, in November, and there is talk about bringing other charitable and community-oriented events to Victoria.

I feel very honoured to have had a small part to play in all of this, and will continue to work hard to promote Social Media Club, here and elsewhere, as an educational and inspirational hub to the community.

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