Back from PodCamp Toronto…

This was my second Podcamp, and definitely not my last. For anyone involved in social media, I highly recommend this line of unconferences (held in various cities around the world). This year’s Podcamp Toronto featured a great line of speakers providing informative case studies and “best practices” workshops on a variety of social media topics. I attended the following:

• Facebook Marketing – Colin Smillie & Roy Pereira
• Social Media in a Disaster - Dave Fleet
• Introducing the Social Media Press Release -Collin Douma
• How the Alzheimer Society of Ontario fell in love with Social Media – WayneMaPhail
• Everything you need to know about Second Life – Jenny Bullough & Eden Spodek
• Podcasting on a budget – Russel Hale

The whole conference was streamed LIVE on the Internet so you can watch the sessions yourself if you were unable to attend. Videos and presentation slides will be available here (on the wiki) by the end of the week.

From a public sector marketing perspective, I found the “Alzheimer’s Society” and “Social Media in a Disaster” presentations fantastic. Be sure to watch these sessions as they become available. I spent quite a bit of time chatting with Robin Browne from Da Biz Blog who shares a similar passion in terms of helping non-profits use social media to better deliver their messages and improve their marketing efforts. I also had a great conversation with Collin Douma about the flawed compensation model that the advertising industry is based on and the rise of Social Media Press Releases (to complement traditional PR/Communications). Be sure to check out Collin’s Blog Radical Trust for some great insights and advice on PR in a world of Web 2.0.

Overall I was very impressed with the flawless collaborative organization of the conference and the friendliness of the social media community in general. I see more and more “regulars” as I attend these events but also a whole slew of newbies as the field of social media marketing and communications expands into the mainstream.

I will definitely be using some examples from this conference in my “Develop a Social Media Marketing Plan in One Day” workshop (catered specifically for the public and non-profit sectors), which our organization (CEPSM) will be conducting in partnership with CMG across Canada beginning April, 2008 (shameless plug!). We have a PDF brochure of our complete line of workshops available as well, in case you need a hard copy document with more info .

In all seriousness though, I’m quite excited at getting these best practices out there to hesitant communications and marketing professionals in the public sector that still need proof that the benefits of getting engaged in social media outweigh the risks. Success stories are popping up left right and centre, why re-invent the wheel when we can all learn from each others experiences!

My “ooVoo” social media video chat recap!

What the heck is ooVoo?

A free video-chat application that lets you connect with up to 6 users at once (see last week’s post). Over the last few days, participants from around the world logged on to try it out and chat with various social media experts as part of a promotion put on by the social media consulting firm crayon. I signed up for 4 sessions, all of which went flawlessly (aside from a few minor sound issues some people had). I had a great time meeting and chatting with both people that work in my field and others that work in completely different areas (film, music, writing, legal, medical, to name a few) but share a common passion for social media. Here are some screenshots:

The conversations were completely organic/spontaneous and didn’t follow any particular format, which is what made this experience so interesting. I found this to be a great tool to quickly put names to faces of various business contacts I’ve amassed either through email or by following their blogs and podcasts.

These last few days really got me thinking back to the origins of video chat and the choppy frame rates in the 90′s (remember “Internet Phone” anyone?). The reality is that those days are long gone for most people. Broadband is here to stay, and most modern mainstream computers have all the necessary processing power and video memory to handle real-time video efficiently, and then some! The technological barriers have been obliterated. You can chat with multiple people around the world, (often times with better sound quality then on a phone) and see them on your screen at 30 fps–>FOR FREE!

So why isn’t there widespread adoption of these tools? Why aren’t organizations using them for quick meetings? Why are they paying monstrous fees for proprietary software that’s often just as buggy? I don’t have an answer for you there. You may say that it’s lack of features and security, but I beg to differ since most people that I seen using WebEx, SVI, StreamLogics, and the likes often aren’t aware of 90% of their software’s potential.

Sure, ooVoo has certain limitations such as lack of a whiteboard and application sharing. However, at the moment that’s not its purpose. Communication simplicity is meant to be its prevalent theme. That being said, there are many competing applications popping up every day, and effective differentiation is going to make or break many of these start-ups. Let’s just hope ooVoo finds a solid business model for itself to ensure sustainability.

My verdict: I will be ready to support it even at a minor fee (which should be expected at one point or another unless affiliate advertising proves to be a sufficient source of income). In the meantime, try it out for yourselves while its free! You can add me by searching for “Mike Kujawski”.

Your chance to “Join the conversation!”

A fabulous little promotion is being put in place by the makers of the video chat software ooVoo. They are hosting a series of FREE 6-way video conferences with the “Who’s Who” of social marketing (Starting February 10th). Anyone is welcome to sign-up for these, however spots are filling up fast. This is a great opportunity for people to chat with the leading bloggers and authors in the field:

• Mitch Joel/Six Pixels of Separation – yep, that’s me
• Steve Hall/AdRants
• Bob Garfield/AdAge & On the Media
• Joseph Jaffe/JaffeJuice
• John Wall & Christopher Penn/Marketing Over Coffee
• iJustine
• Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb
• Irina Slutsky/GeekEntertainment.tv
• Connie Reece & Susan Reynolds Every Dot Connects / Boobs on Ice
• Chris Thilk/Movie Marketing Madness
• Erin Kotecki Vest/Queen of Spain
• Dave Delaney/Two Boobs and a Baby +
• Jack Myers & Friends/Media Village
• David Meerman Scott/The New Rules of Marketing & PR
• Geoff Livingston/Now Is Gone
• Allan Cox/Your Inner CEO
• George Parker/Madscam
• Scott Sigler
• Chris Brogan
• C.C. Chapman
• Susan Reynolds/Boobs on Ice
• Laura “Pistachio” Fitton

I’m already fascinated with this application (which I will be using for the first time). The registration was a breeze and the simplicity of the website was great. However, what really caught my eye was the main feature of this chat tool, which is the ability to video-chat with up to 6 people at once (not bad for a free product). The promotion of this event , which is called “My ooVoo Day” has in my opinion, been executed perfectly as well. I’m guessing each one of the bloggers reached out to their blog/podcast subscribers, Facebook group members, LinkedIn contacts, and traditional mailing lists (which in aggregate is well into the hundreds of thousands of targeted marketing folk). The rest is word-of-mouth and viral. The benefit to the experts? Authority building amongst a tight-knit community (permanently stored on the web) and potential leads. The benefit to ooVoo? Hands-on demonstration of their free web application in action. How does ooVoo make money? My guess is Affiliate advertising.