(Floating, well-bearded Ben Caplan FTW!)

Next Friday I’m taking part in TEDxHalifax at the NSCC Waterfront Campus. There will also be a TED event simultaneously taking place at Acadia University in Wolfville–TEDxNovaScotia. This is my first TED event, so I’m pretty excited.

Live speakers from across Nova Scotia and beyond will share exciting ideas, interspersed with TEDTalks videos, to spark discussion and connection amongst attendees from our communities, businesses, and academia. Each event will be organized around a single stage with a day-long agenda, including a closing celebration and the opportunity to meet and chat with speakers and attendees alike.

I’m pretty excited to hear Evan Jones‘ (Stitch Media) talk, the lovely Jenn Grant perform, and see Shakespeare by the Sea bring old-school theatre to life.

Also important (at least, for me):
- Your ticket gets you lunch.
- Your ticket gets you a few free drinks at the afterparty.

Sold. Right?

Lauren always aims for the head. Follow her on Twitter @laurenoostveen.

As promised here’s some of the footage Lauren and I took at Podcamp Halifax 2011. Since we don’t have a video camera at East Coast By Choice, we relied on the kindness of my colleague Jonathan (a.k.a. @jderouchie) who let us borrow an iPod Touch. The results were kind of mixed depending on the room we were in so, for the most part these are just clips.

Although we were able to get about half an hour of Giles Crouch’s fantastic session on the State of Social Media in Atlantic Canada, it’s too large a file to share on Vimeo or YouTube. If there are any video gurus out there who know how I might be able to compress the file, please drop me a line and I’ll share the video. Here’s the online version of the report from Media Badger.

Here’s Lauren getting some social media oatmeal from Chris Campbell’s session.

And, finally, one of the best attended sessions was Maria McGowan’s ROI of social media. Here’s the SlideShare.

Lauren & I had an awesome time at Podcamp Halifax 2011 this weekend.

The sessions, as always, were all over the place. We talked about augmented reality (3D dressing room anyone?), oatmeal, the state of social media in Atlantic Canada, and more!

Lauren recaps her day here:

I talk about my biggest takeaway here:

Later this week, we’ll post some videos we captured from the sessions we attended along with related events.

In the meantime, we leave you with this:

Lauren as @KanyeWest

I was recently asked to participate in a fun cross Canada contest using a new Fujifilm camera. The goal was to capture my region of Canada which is exactly what this blog is all about! Below you’ll see the images I’ve submitted to the competition but you can check out the other entries on the Cams Across Canada Flickr page.

A view from Citadel Hill overlooking Halifax Harbour where new and historic buildings meet in a thriving downtown core.

At Point Pleasant Park in Halifax these markings were left behind on the beach. We see human and canine prints and the mysterious snake line in the sand.

A landmark at Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, this anchor is a memorial to Canadian soldiers who died at sea during peacetime.

Wildlife abounds at Point Pleasant Park in Halifax whether it’s nuthatches who will feed from your hand, the seagulls who feast on mussels, or the squirrels who chirp for the photographer’s attention.

St. Margaret’s Bay, NS offers a wide range of scenic views that are perfect for a day trip even in the frigid winter season.

On a cool winter day in St. Margaret’s Bay, NS, the sun came out just long enough to warm this rock and allow the icy sheen to break away.

Nothing says East Coast more than the fishing vessels and tools of the trade that still today put food on the table for not just families here but also abroad in international trade.

The quaint fishing village is often overlooked for the main tourist attraction in the area.

No trip to Halifax is complete without making a visiting to this popular tourist destination.

The beautiful monument by William E. deGarthe depicts St. Elmo (the patron saint of sailors) and Peggy of the Cove overlooking 32 fishermen and their families.

In case you missed last week’s show, Shelagh Duffet (@AliceinParis) and Gail Lethbridge (@giftedtypist) were interviewed by CBC Information Morning’s Lisa Roberts. Listen to what they have to say about Halifax Chicks and the technology that brings them together.

Tech-savvy women put the social in social media

BookCamp Toronto. The reason why BookCamp Halifax came to be. Yes, I’m writing yet another entry about this unconference. My blog, my rules.

Photo credit: LexnGer from Flickr

I promise I’ll keep it short though. The great thing about the unconference model is that you get to hear from a wide range of people interested in a certain topic, not just from the speaker. The first session I got to was midway through Michael Tamblyn’s from Kobo. It was legendary. Not just because of his speaking style but because he was serving a variety of wine. At 10:30 in the morning..!

The next session was by far my favourite, but I co-facilitated two sessions in the afternoon so missed out on other sessions. In any case, Ashleigh Gardner rocked the conversation about geolocation and books. Participants discussed QR Codes and augmented reality. If you’ve never heard of QR Codes, check out this cool video ad for a publisher that put together a “living book.”

Some other interesting projects using geolocation:
Phantom City — a public art project that uses digital devices to transform cities into a living museum. There’s an iPhone app that allows users to learn about never-realized designs.
The Miraculous Bench — a venue on Foursquare where writers can contribute to flash fiction.
The Clock Without A Face — in conjunction with a printed book, 12 emerald-studded numbers have been buried in 12 holes across the United States and readers are charged with finding them.

Of course, I have to give props to the bloggers who shared the panel discussion on Canada Reads:
Jen Knoch of The Keepin’ It Real Book Club and Civilians Read
Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This and Canada Reads 2010: Independently
Steven Beattie of Quill & Quire and That Shakespearean Rag (he also sat on the panels for Canada Also Reads and Canada Reads 2010: Independently)

And to co-facilitators of the online communities session:
Tan Light of Random House
Meg Mathur of Indigo

Funniest moment personally: the audible reaction when, after being introduced by my real name, I added my online handle of @AliasGrace. It made me feel internet famous. In a good way.

Don’t forget to register for BookCamp Halifax, taking place on June 5. Let’s bring the great discussion about books in a digital age to the East Coast! Register here and tell your friends! The event is 100% free.

…you become a trending topic on Twitter. For all the wrong reasons. And you’re not aware of it.

I usually save my social media tips for other sites where I occasionally guest post but the smack-down that happened on Twitter throughout the course of the past day was simply so baffling to me, as someone with a degree in public relations, that I really had to share.

For those of you who don’t use Twitter or are unaware of what I’m talking about, here’s how things went down:

• A few Eastlink customers have been facing issues with Twitter connections timing out over the course of the past week.
• Some customers assume it’s their third party application, others figure it’s Twitter.com (no stranger to hacks and other issues in the past).
• A critical mass of fed-up customers breaks early yesterday. People start calling in their complaints.
• Customer service agents are downright rude. They even hung up on one customer.
• Just doing a quick search on Twitter last night there were over 20 pages of customers and potential customers tweeting about the fiasco.
• By mid-afternoon, there was no sign of anyone in communications even being aware of the problem.
• It wasn’t until hours later that the VP of Marketing showed up on the scene. Personally, I have to wonder if it was because he was mentioned in a tweet.

Whether the problem with connectivity is with Eastlink is completely moot by now. I’m not writing this post to rub salt in the wound. The point of this post is to illustrate a case study in what can go wrong. Social media is an increasingly important part of modern human activity. Cut them off at the source and they will turn that tool against your organization.

If you’re a business that cares about your reputation…go manage it. Your customers are going to complain in a variety of places, not just on your site. It’s your job to find out where. And if your communications team doesn’t understand how to set up even a basic Google Alert, maybe you should invest in training or people who know that social media tools aren’t just the realm of Farmville junkies.

And, for goodness sake, update your media contact page so it doesn’t come up as a 404 error!

1. 
   brightwhite currently on the phone with #Eastlink tech support. her to me “What’s the URL for Twitter?” me: “are you serious?” 19 Apr 2010 from Tweetie
2. 
   aprilmdesigns I don’t have time to call #Eastlink, but I’ll tweet about it. This has been happening to me for almost a week. I thought it was just me. 19 Apr 2010 from web
3. 
   huskermould hello #Eastlink . <—- see the hashtag. it means you’re trending. for the wrong reasons. fix this twitter thing. very annoying. 19 Apr 2010 from web

— this quote was brought to you by quoteurl

Podcamp Halifax: Alderney Gate Library, Dartmouth – January 24, 2010

This weekend, I attended the second annual PodCamp in Halifax. Last year, I had missed the event because I was sipping on pastis at some café in the south of France. I know, it’s a rough life.

For anyone who’s wondering, PodCamp is an “unconference” where social media and web enthusiasts from all across the province converged on Alderney Gate Library in Dartmouth to discuss, engage, learn and have fun. For a group of people who spend a good deal of their time immersed in the online world, the event was highly interactive and had a huge social component.

For the benefit of people new to this blog or who still wonder what it is that I do for a living, here’s a re-cap of my presentation. Even though this was my first PodCamp and unconference, I volunteered to lead a session on the “bunny slope” called Intro to Social Media (secretly I wanted to call it Social Media for Bunnies).

In any case, one of the points I was hoping to drive home is that this big, wide online world is about trying new things and being able to move with the current of change. What’s big this year could be replaced next year or simply be upgraded in some way. Regardless, social media is about being prepared for whatever comes next and being ready to embrace it.

For a group of new learners, I was really impressed by the fact that people weren’t afraid to ask questions. The truth is, it’s not rocket science and there’s no magic formula for success. All I could rightfully offer were guide posts and best practices to lead them in the right direction.

I take social media from the perspective of public relations in that it’s about building mutually beneficial relationships through two-way communications. Social media platforms are all about the dialogue and conversation, not simply broadcasting of messages. Web 2.0 allows for interactive information sharing and collaboration with a focus on user-centred design (e.g. social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs, video sharing). The goal is to allow users to interact with other users and change the content of a site.

Some of the points I made are ones that I’ve talked about on other sites. Check out my guest posts about building online communities through social media and Twitter 101 for more.

A key concern that emerged from the discussion was managing it all. This isn’t a concern just for new learners. There’s a lot of information and tools out there. It can be overwhelming. A good idea is to have a strategic communications plan in place that includes the flexibility to change and one that is updated regularly. For individuals, this translates into setting goals for yourself and re-evaluating those goals after certain short-term periods of time have elapsed. Like everything in life, practice allows you to use the tools more easily. Web developers are beginning to allow integration of social networking sites as well, making the use of multiple platforms somewhat easier to manage.

One of the most talked about points coming out of PodCamp this year (besides speculation about Apple’s iPad tablet) was that the largest growing demographic of Facebook users in Atlantic Canada is essentially the Baby Boomers. Interesting, considering whom this technology didn’t exist for them as children and young adults. This stat is a testament to how times are indeed changing and how the social sphere is moving online.

To anyone who attended the session, or anyone who’s interested in learning more, my offer stands to continue to answer questions about social media. Simply leave a comment here or join Twitter and ask me there by following @AliasGrace.

For anyone who’s wondered what it is exactly that I do for a living, here’s a guest post over at Lindsay Olson’s public relations staffing blog. I’ve been lucky enough to take my education in public relations and combine it with my geeky inclinations and love of books to work at a job that I love.

Anyone who’s ever been a member of a book club knows the pitfalls. And that’s usually finding the right fit. Some members are hardcore bookworms armed with English lit degrees, some join in order to simply have an adult conversation, while others are there just for the wine.

A book club means different things to different people. Read more of my view on how a book club makes for the perfect online community.

Photo credit: ~Ilse from Flickr

I realize I talk and write and live and breath Twitter. For anyone who’s reading this but not (yet) using the social media platform, I’ve written another guest post at Geek Girl Camp.

It’s pretty much a starter’s guide to owning and operating a Twitter account. So if you’re interested in getting started or if you’ve started but still need the 411, check out my post: Twitter 101.

Hope you find it helpful.