In a bid to help Canadian youth launch ideas into the world, Ryan Holmes and philanthropist, Meredith Powell, officially launched a new foundation, ‘The Next Big Thing’.
Here’s the video announcement:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsGkU2pzNqA&w=420&h=315]
Ever wanted to share a short video of the thing you just saw on TV? ConnecTV’s new app lets you do just than in a Vine-like fashion.
Google’s rumoured smartwatch, which makes use of Google Now, is reportedly entering the final stages of production.
As Twitter continues to prepare for their upcoming IPO we should expect announcements and program such as this one.
Starbucks has teamed up with Twitter for an initiative called @TweetACoffee. This program allows an individual to send a virtual Starbucks $5 eGift to anyone they want to. All the recipient has to do is print off the coupon or add the $5 to their Starbucks mobile card. Pretty simple and easy.
It will be interesting to watch how other retailers use Twitter to increase brand awareness, affinity and e-commerce sales.
As for Twitter, I’m sure more partnerships like this and even the earlier Comcast and NBCUniversal announcement will be forthcoming.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxPZj9x_Dsk&w=420&h=315]
This past weekend, Buffer suffered an unusual hacking incident that saw many people’s Facebook (and some Twitter) accounts post spam. You can read about the incident (and the updates including the solution) on the Buffer blog here.
There are many security and privacy lessons that can be learned from this incident.
However, the number 1 lesson that I hope every single brand that is active on social media gleans from this is: Be open, honest and transparent. That’s exactly what Buffer did. And guess what? No one is shitting on them this morning.
The screenshot above shows the top results for a search on “buffer weekend hack”. Most focus on the tactical response from Buffer rather than any security issues.
Throughout the weekend, Buffer updated their social media accounts, blog and even sent out email updates. their goal was to let their community of users know what had happened, what they were doing to resolve the issue and what steps their users could take in the meantime.
One of the things they were also not afraid of doing was apologizing. They actually said sorry: Which is something everyone needs to do a little bit more of because none of us are perfect.
I continue to contribute to one of Canada’s top online destinations for business professionals: itbusiness.ca. My latest piece discusses the different types of businesses that I have had the pleasure of studying over the past few years in the digital space.
Please take a little trip on the interweb and read “Why Does Your Start-Up Exist?” I would love it if you could leave your thoughts, comments and share. Thanks!
Back in May of this year I had the opportunity to travel to Orlando for BlackBerry’s Live conference. I wrote a number of articles from my trip on itbusiness.ca. You can read them here, over there, and also here.
Recently, BBM, Blackberry’s popular messaging service, became available for Android and iOS devices. Since then, over 10 million new people have downloaded the app.
I also wrote about BBM and BBM Channels in May. For those curious where Blackberry is going with BBM, Channels and monetization. It is well worth the read (if I do say so myself.) You can read that article over here.
I recently embarked on a new adventure with a really cool company called Catalyst here in Toronto. Catalyst is a successful and award-winning search marketing company. I’m helping to lead their content and social media products. After only 5 weeks, I’ve never been more excited in my professional career. I’m really stoked to see what happens in 2014 and beyond!
I’ve also recently written my first blog post on the topic of Real Time Marketing.
I would love it if you could take a moment to read it and leave your thoughts and comments.
I will admit right now that Malcolm Gladwell is my favourite contemporary author. So this book review may be a little bit biased. Although, I have grown in not taking everything that Gladwell preaches at face value and being a little more critical when I read his work (or listen to his talks).
Gladwell’s latest battle is now of biblical proportions. Many people believe that David’s win over Goliath was one where the underdog beat the favourite. However, citing numerous studies, Gladwell, puts this “urban myth” to sleep. Thus starts the latest book by Gladwell.
The rest of the book sees Gladwell attack our notions of:
Later this week, I’m heading over to the University of Toronto to listen to Malcolm Gladwell talk about his latest book. And hopefully so much more!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziGD7vQOwl8&w=420&h=315]
Too few Canadian students are focusing on an education in science, technology, engineering and math. That’s bad for the kids, and for our economy. #STEM