Government 2.0 Expo Debrief

I started to write this post in a cab as I was heading back from the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington D.C. last week. I remember my head was engulfed in new insights and ideas. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since but it was well worth the 3-day excursion.

As mentioned in my previous post, my goal for this event was to absorb and connect. This was the first social media/web 2.0 related event I attended in a while where I wasn’t speaking myself. This allowed me to open up some additional data absorption chambers in my head and relax instead of obsessively fine-tuning my own content right up until the last minute as is the usual case.

Kuala Lumpur & Singapore Social Media Workshop & Trip Debrief

Now that I’ve finally begun to adjust back to Ottawa time from the 13hr difference, I thought I’d share a few highlights from my recent trip to the other side of the planet. First of all, I’d like to start off by giving a big thanks to everyone at FIK International for inviting me down and being such gracious hosts. The venue, transportation, logistics, and of course the food, were all flawless.

Quick MARCOM 2009 Debrief

It has already been almost 3 weeks since MARCOM 2009 took place at the Pearson Convention Centre in Toronto. Surely enough, the last 3 weeks have been so busy that I never got a chance to share my experience with you. Here’s a quick summary.

What is MARCOM 2009?

Basically the only marketing conference that is dedicated solely to marketing professionals working in the public and/or non-profit sectors. It is run by a sister company of CEPSM (our organization) called CMG Canada.

Why did I attend?

Besides the fact that I was chosen to speak and thus had to attend, I really love how niche of a conference MARCOM is and how much subsequent value I always receive. Most importantly however, I love surrounding myself with people that are passionate towards their jobs. The vast majority of private sector marketing conferences are about marketing product/service “X” whereas MARCOM brings together people that use marketing to improve such initiatives as classroom literacy,  public transportation,  spousal abuse, foreign credential recognition, etc…

What did I think of the speakers?

This year the line-up of speakers was outstanding. I was able to attend the following:

Arlene Dickinson (Venture Communications/Dragon’s Den) –> How can not-for-profit and public sector marketing get the respect it deserves?

• Brilliant marketing mind
• Emphasized “strategy before tactics”, which is what I live by.

Michael Cleland (City of Mississauga) & Rupen Seonie (Environics Analytics) –> Moving beyond demographics to psychographic segmentation

• If you’re a marketer and you haven’t heard of PRISM C2 yet, get on it. It’s the most comprehensive segmentation of the Canadian population, period.
• If you have a database of your target audience (with postal codes), then you can overlay the PRISM C2 clusters and find out crucial psychographic info.

Wayne Carrigan (ThinData) & Jim Jeang (Canadian Blood Services) –> Email and social media: natural allies

• While I was skeptical at first as to what social media has to do with email, I did end up enjoying this presentation due to Wayne’s thorough knowledge of the email industry.
• Jim spoke to the “tactical” side of social media , focusing on the tools he used within CBS as opposed to more strategic elements I like to hear (i.e. determining the best ways to meet objectives and desired outcomes before jumping into tactics). That being said, it is always refreshing to hear about social media initiatives within government that have actually been implemented. I will be adding this to the Gov 2.0 Wiki for sure.
• Overall, both speakers were well prepared and placed a strong emphasis on measurement, which is always a good thing.
• Some interesting stats:
  • On average Canadians receive 130 pieces of SPAM per week
  • 2005–> mass email deployments
  • 2006–> email versions deployed to specific segments
  • 2008–> 1:1 dynamic deployment
  • Great CBS initiative: www.thankyourdonor.ca

Rahaf Harfoush (Obama New Media Team/World Economic Forum) –> Yes we did: Strategic insights from the campaign that changed history

• Rahaf gave a brilliant behind the scenes overview as to day to day life at Obama campaign headquarters and the many all-nighters that lead to such a tremendous victory.
• Be sure to check out the Barack Obama and White House websites.

Louise Clements (Facebook) –> Facing Facebook today: How to use Facebook to stay ahead of the game

• Louise has an extensive private-sector background in sales and has just been recruited by Facebook to lead the  Toronto office. She gave an excellent overview of the re-vamped Facebook social advertising platform (adverts), which to my surprise, few people even knew existed.

Brian Thwaits (Brainspeaker Inc.) –> Engage your brain!

• I highly recommend Brian’s new book, “The Big Learn” ,to anyone interested in the latest theories and studies surrounding left vs. right brain thinking. Great closing keynote!

Overall thoughts

Besides listening to speakers, I very much enjoyed presenting myself. I conducted a full-day “social media 101″ pre-conference workshop followed by a more advanced “social media research tools” presentation during the actual conference. For the latter, I paired up with Nick Charney from CPS Renewal who did a wonderful job tying everything in to a government work environment. I also had a chance to host two roundtable discussions, one on “government 3.0″ and one on “attaining senior management buy-in for social media engagement”. Both turned into rich discussions during which I learned quite a bit myself.

To sum up, I will definitely be coming back next year.