Online Reputation Management, Personal Branding, Digital Footprints and SMM

Once in a while I like to analyze various search trends taking place in my industry. I do this primarily to see which terms are sticking and to gauge demand for specific business offerings. I first predicted a drastic rise in interest  for “social media monitoring” information 4 years ago. Search for the term has been steadily growing year-by-year ever since, however you don’t have to be Nostradamus to know that with the obvious growth of  social media, a natural first step for organizations was going to be to “listen” and see what’s going on before jumping in.

Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0 in the Government of Canada

After years of hearing  ”it’ll be released next week” promises, I finally got to witness the official announcement this morning from Minister Tony Clement: The Treasury Board Secretariat’s Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0  is now public.

Here is an excerpt from Tony’s speech:

“Web 2.0 tools provide additional means of interactive communications between government institutions and Canadians. These tools are the modern-day equivalents of town halls. They can be used for various purposes including recruitment, emergency communications, and service delivery. They also help provide valuable information to the public, stakeholders, and act as tools for consultations.

City of Ottawa 3-1-1 #fail ?

You may have noticed that there is a question mark at the end of my blog post title. That’s because I didn’t want to make it sound like a statement, in case I’m missing something. Here’s what I experienced today and would love some of your feedback on:

I was driving north on Bank street this morning here in Ottawa and hit a massive patch of black ice right before a busy intersection. My ABS kicked in right away and I went into survival “summer tire” skidding mode for a few long seconds. Luckily my brakes were new and I had already started braking well before I hit the black ice in order to slow down for the upcoming intersection. My car came to diagonal stop right on the white line. The car behind me managed to almost do a 360, but somehow recovered and veered into the right turning lane as if that’s what the driver was trying to do all along. I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed a pile of cars approaching about 150 feet away.