Tag Archives: vancity

Changing Everything on ChangeEverything.ca

When we first launched ChangeEverything.ca, it was a hectic and amazing time. Not enough time to get everything done. One of the areas I felt we could do better was site usability and overall design. Kate and I always felt like we wanted to go back and make some improvements.

So this year, we blocked out some budget and started working on fixing some of those areas. Among the areas we focused on were:

  • improving the registration flow
  • improving the workflow for adding changes and blog posts
  • grouping social features together so people discover each other and interact easier
  • putting a sharper focus on the people, and not just on the text
  • making the site, well, just prettier

It was a complete pleasure working with Kirsten Hall, an extraordinary usability consultant here in Vancouver, the amazing Tim McAlpine and his team at Currency Marketing on the front end design, and Affinity Bridge a great Drupal development shop in town.

The process, like the original creation of the site, was charmed. Everyone worked together well, there were no real hiccups, and people had a lot of fun.

The upcoming design changes, including as mock-up of the new look and feel, were announced on ChangeEverything.ca today. We’re looking for Beta testers, so check it out and help out if you want.

Otherwise, I’ll let you know when everything launches in September!

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.

Seven questions with me on Buzz Canuck.

When I was in Toronto last month speaking on a panel at the CMA Word of Mouth Marketing Conference, I had a chance to reconnect with my friend and trusted advisor, Sean Moffitt.

Sean is simply one of the smartest guys I know when it comes to viral marketing, social media and word of mouth. He is the guru.

So I was very flattered when he asked to do seven questions with me for his blog. He published it today, iPhone Day here in Canada.

Take a read.