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IABC Ottawa held a breakfast yesterday with speaker Greg Klassen, senior vice-president, marketing strategy and communications, from the Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC). He showcased how the CTC leverages its unique brand, ranked #1 in the world, to gain a competitive advantage for Canada’s tourism industry.
He told the crowd gathered about how the forces of complexity, technology, and globalization are accelerating change and increasing volatility in the tourism industry. He said that Canada’s tourism brand competes vigorously as an unique, exotic and off-the-beaten-track destination.  In fact, for the second year running, …

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I was lucky enough to attend Third Tuesday in Ottawa last week.  It took place on a Friday!  That’s because the very special guest speaker was Jeff Jarvis, noted journalist, author, professor and Dell Hellguy.
He was in Ottawa as part of his tour to launch his new book Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves How we Work and Live.  He gave a compelling talk to the sold-out crowd gathered at Maxwells on Elgin Street.  Joe Thornley tweeted that the crowed was ‘spellbound’, and I’d agree with that.
“Privacy …

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The Savation Army launched its Christmas appeal this week at the Hope in the City 2011 breakfast at Ottawa’s convention centre and hundreds of people attended to lend their support to the cause.
The keynote speaker was Lieutenant Romeo Dallaire.  He’s a true hero and an outspoken leader for the 21st century and the audience was spellbound.  “Are all humans human?” he asked. “Or are some humans more human than others?”
As a decorated Lieutenant General with the Canadian Armed Forces, an international champion of human rights and award winning author and …

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Jeff Jarvis is coming to Ottawa on Friday to launch his new book Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live.  Folks attending Third Tuesday will get a personally autographed copy the book!
Jeff is a recogised social media pioneer…he was the man behind Dell Hell, the defacto case study on brand social media engagement.  He’s a blogger at Buzz Machine and the author of What Would Google Do?  He’s also associate professor and director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the …

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The single most important thing that America can do to help Canada is get the American economy stronger so that the Canadian economy can benefit. This was the message from His Excellency David Jacobson, ambassador of the United States to Canada, who spoke at today’s Canadian Club of Ottawa luncheon held at the Chateau Laurier. 
I was lucky enough to be there to hear HE Jacobson explain how the US Canada relationship is the strongest, most productive relationship between two countries ever, in the history of civilisation.  He tackled three …

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The folks at the Ottawa’s eWomen Network have asked me to give a talk about Google+ on 19 October at the Arc Hotel. The event starts at 16.30 and runs until 19.30
A lot of women in business are discovering how to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks to help build their companies, but now there’s Google+ added to the fold.
My talk will cover why Google+ is important for business and I’ll give a brief history of Google’s history with social networks. We’ll discuss why you need another social …

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Social Capital, the social media learnathon held in Ottawa last week was an unqualified success.  The capacity crowd turned up at Ottawa University early on a Saturday morning and were served up a full day of interesting and varied sessions featuring speakers from right across the spectrum of Ottawa’s social media community.
The programme content had something for everyone.  Three main streams covered fundamentals, advanced and business aspects of social media engagement.  In addition, there were many breakout sessions where participants could delve more deeply into specific topics. I would have …

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Next Thursday, 28 July, there is a free online conference for people interested in learning about social media and online marketing from the folks at Vocus, the  marketing and PR software company.
The five-hour conference, entitled  Reach. Influence. Repeat, includes presentations from Adam Singer, Peter Shankman, Gini Dietrich, Lee Odden and Valeria Maltoni, and was recorded live at the Vocus Users Conference this June. All speakers will be on hand for live Q&A sessions.
The conference covers: content, networking, blogger outreach, social-powered search and influence marketing which are five of the most …

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On July 23, leaders in the social media community in Ottawa are getting together for a one-day conference and it promises to be a great day of learning, networking and making friends. 
Social Capital’s line up of speakers has something for everyone, whether you are a novice, an advanced social media user or if you engage online for business.
The cool thing about the day is that it’s a 100% Ottawa conference…you don’t see see events offering this level of local revelance very often.  And, it’s only $75 to attend …

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Sometimes people (and brands) get so busy tweeting and updating their Facebooks that they lose sight of what social media is really all about…connecting with people and building relationships. And while online contact makes great strides in achieving this, nothing can really replace actually meeting up in person.  That’s why I always enjoy attending tweetups and it’s why I dropped into Thursday Pints West, at D’Arcy McGees in Ottawa last night.
Don’t let the terminology put you off.  A tweetup is just a social occasion where Twitter users get together.  Thursday …