Tag Archives: social media

I’m asking for your vote (and showing you a funny video).

As most of you know, ChangeEverything.ca was nominated for a Webby Award in the Social Networking category. And now I have to ask for a favour. I need you to do two things:

  1. Register on the Webbys site and vote for ChangeEverything.ca in the Social Networking category
  2. Spread the word by sending this video (below) to everyone you know

For you Credit Union folk, spread the word among your staff, and help a CU get a Webby over Facebook. Voting ends May 1st, so time is of the essence!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Come on down to BarCampBank BC.

BarCampBank BCI’m excited to announce that on September 20, 2008 BarCampBank is coming to Vancouver.

Gene Blishen, Tim McAlpine and I are putting a stake in the ground, after talking about doing it for some time.

Now, some of you may be asking, what the hell is a BarCampBank. From the main BarCampBank page:

What if we changed banking and finance?
The aim of BarCampBank is to foster innovations and the creation of new business models in the world of banking and finance.

The first one in North America was in Seattle last July, and it was a truly transformative experience. For me, the ideas, relationships and bonds formed in those two days are invaluable, and the memories of it are strong and very good.

Lots of details to be worked out, like an exact location, but it will take place on September 20, 2008. The cost is always break-even (think $25 CAD), so its worth the travel expense for my East Coast readers.

Go to the wiki page to add your name to the list. It will not disappoint!

PS: Thanks to Morriss Partee, whom I credit for keeping BarCampBank alive and kicking in North America. Thanks Morriss, looking forward to seeing you here! Also, I believe it was his idea to create something with the acronym BCBBC. Who couldn’t love that!

NOTE: My original post accidentally said that this was on July 20th. It is, in fact on September 20th!

I’m off to Net.Finance.

Net.Finance 2008I leave today for Scottsdale, Arizona to attend and present at the Net.Finance conference. This will be my third year attending Net.Finance, and I always come back with some great new ideas to implement, lots of ideas to share with my peers, some new friends and colleagues from across North America and a nice time away in a sunny climate.

This year, it’s especially nice because this is an important first anniversary for me. It was a year ago when I presented at Net.Finance about ChangeEverything.ca, and my journey on the conference circuit began in full force. Presenting at conferences has become a real passion for me. I get to share knowledge, meet lots of fascinating people, attend conferences that Vancity simply doesn’t have the budget to send me to, and I get to perform in front of a crowd, which is something I truly enjoy.

This year I’m presenting on Corporate Social Responsibility As Key Differentiator, which is a fancy way of saying social marketing and social media. I’ll talk about how Vancity’s community focus takes an increasingly strong role in our advertising and marketing, how we can leverage that community work into successful use of social media, and how it positively impacts our triple bottom line.

I gave two practice sessions to my peers at Vancity on Friday, and feel ready to go on stage and present in Arizona.

And this year at Net.Finance marks another nice anniversary. It was a year ago, in April of 2007 that I changed my blog’s purpose and focus from a place to put humourous links for my friends (with a whopping subscriber base of 8 readers at the time [thanks Ruben]) to a place where I discuss social media, corporate social responsibility, online branding and banks and credit unions (and now have a subscriber base of 140 or so readers [thank you]).

It’s been profoundly rewarding, enlightening and social. I have met some great people through my blog, taken part in some amazing discussions, and have received some very useful feedback on my work. It’s something almost indescribably wonderful.

So now I head off to Arizona, with five more major conferences ahead of me this year, an excitement about my work, and some extremely exciting projects ahead.

So thanks for reading, let me know if you’ll be at Net.Finance, and I hope to break 500 connections on LinkedIn by the time I return.