Communicating Social Responsibility in Vancouver.

IABC Communicating Social Responsibility ConferenceFor the past year and a half or so I’ve been fortunate enough to speak at several conferences across North America. Mostly these gigs have focused on either financial services or marketing, and sometimes both.

My topics have evolved, and now have quite a focus on corporate social responsibility. It was not totally intentional, but came out of explaining the context of who Vancity is to my audiences.

A few months back, when I was practising my Net.Finance presentation for my peers, a co-worker Tonya told me about the upcoming International Association of Business Communicators’ Communicating Social Responsibility Conference coming to Vancouver in October.

Long story short, after a brief conversation with the conference organizers, I was honoured to be invited to speak at this conference about triple bottom line marketing. I work at Vancity for very specific reasons, due to its ethical nature, and triple bottom line approach where it focuses on economic, environmental and social factors when determining its success.

My topic is called Corporate social responsibility as a key differentiator. I am excited to see some of the other sessions, including the one by my co-worker Tonya, which is called Does anyone care? Communicating out on Vancity’s accountability report. I am also interested in hearing from James Hoggan and see the session called A new International Standard for Social Responsibility: Global learnings for communicators.

One of the great side benefits of speaking at all of these conferences is getting to attend and having my mind opened by all these world-class presenters. This is one conference that I’m super-excited about.

My new guitar.

my new Seagull Guitar S6 OriginalI’ve been wanting to treat myself to something nice for a little while now, but couldn’t think of exactly what. I knew it had to be something special and lasting, not a piece of electronics or a little Apple gizmo, as much as I love them.

Recently, because of my 3 year son Ivan’s keen interest in music, I’ve been playing a lot more guitar. I’ve always said that I don’t really play the guitar, I play with a guitar. But it’s become clear that I’ve simply outgrown my nine year cheap cheap cheap Hohner.

So I started looking around for a suitable, and not terribly expensive upgrade.

I consulted my good friend Bil Repenning, who knows more about guitars than anyone else I know. He also knows what a terrible guitar player I am. His expert advice was invaluable.

So I looked at a few places down in Seattle when we were there on vacation last week, and at a few places back here in Vancouver. And then yesterday I went into my little local music shop, Bone Rattle. I felt so comfortable in there trying out guitars, asking dumb questions, getting advice. They just want to help people find the right guitar.

And that’s where I fell in love with Seagull Guitars. In addition to being a Canadian company that makes all its guitars by hand, they have some incredible reviews out there of their work.

So, I bought the Seagull Guitar S6 Original today. I am very excited. So nice to have a real guitar I can grow with, and the process of buying it – a Canadian product from a local music store a block and a half away from my house – simply added to the excitement and meaning.

And now I’m blogging about it instead of playing it so I won’t wake Ivan from his nap, but we’ll play it together as soon as he wakes up.

PS: Thanks Bil!