#SMBOttawa 21

This morning was one of my favourite Ottawa events: Social Media Breakfast.

Maybe it is because I’m a bit of a digital geek, and maybe it is because I get a kick out of meeting new, passionate entrepreneurs at 7:30 in the morning…but I always look forward to what and who this event will turn up next.

This month the guest speaker was gaming industry expert David Nicholson, who spoke about the importance of “gamification” – implementing the mechanics of gaming into innovative communications and marketing strategies.

Here are some tweets that give a small snapshot of the presentation:

• @Jim_Donnelly: Employing game mechanics can make your product or biz “sticky” for consumers, increase retention.

• @VProcunier: Gaming environments: Caring, collaborative, cordial, competitive & combative.

• @jescbird:It turns out that giving away free stuff is not what drives a program to be successful. Intrinsic rewards just as valuable.

• @heyglenns: Ppl don’t want to feel the hands of the puppeteer. Don’t rush to reward users, think of what their motivation is.

• @jescbird:We talked about gamification but you are not making a game: you’re using mechanics of gaming across your communications strategy.

• @jason_faber:Social gaming drives competition because everyone can see your results, whereas before your results were relatively private.

Confused?

The event was perhaps best summed up by a first-timer and dear friend of Local Tourist Ottawa, Alex Hosselet:

“Social Media Breakfast Ottawa was like a delicious pastry,” said Alex. “In the core was a sweet speaking event that drew in the attendees, and wrapped around that was a fantastic networking opportunity.”

“I got to meet and reconnect with some of my favourite social media influencers in the Ottawa community,” he continued. “And David, the speaker, had an excellent presentation on gamification, which I’ll be bringing back to my team and implementing in our work.”

Want to learn more about Ottawa’s digital communications and social networking events? Joe Boughner did a great write up for us a few months back.

Want to share what you took away from #SMBOttawa 21? Leave a comment below.

City of Ottawa launches app: Discover Ottawa

Karen is a wife to Matt, mom to Brandon and works full time at an awesome social media job she doesn’t talk about online. She is the author of Karen’s Chronicles and co-founder of Losing it in Ottawa.

One of my goals for 2011 is to get out and around greater Ottawa more and really experience the things it has to offer.

I’ve relied upon various friends, Kids in the Capital and Local Tourist Ottawa to give me ideas of what is going on or interesting to see around the city. But many of my resources are dependent on people already knowing about what’s going on in advance. And it’s sometimes hard to keep up with my blog reading. Actually, it’s a constant challenge these days.

When I heard that the City of Ottawa was launching an app called Discover Ottawa I was skeptical, but really hoping that it would end up being a good resource for my personal mission.

The name seemed to be promising. The app was developed locally by Purple Forge. I downloaded Discover Ottawa onto my iPhone a few days before the official launch and was amused to find that the databases still had test data in them. It was understandable since I was peeking into something that really wasn’t quite ready for public consumption.

My first impression?

It’s a pretty app. And easy to navigate. It’s a little slow to load, but when you factor in that there is data from quite a few sources – the City of Ottawa, Ottawa Tourism, Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, more than a dozen BIAs, the Ottawa Airport Authority and shopping centres. Since the launch, two of the times I opened the app, I’ve had to download updates to the database. I like that I’m getting up-to-date information so frequently.
So, what does it do? A lot! You can find information on or browse:

• Accommodations – hotels and B&Bs
• Airport arrives/departures
• Attractions
• Chamber of Commerce
• City of Ottawa flickr account
• City of Ottawa Twitter feeds
• Current weather conditions from Environment Canada
• Doctors
• Events – all over the greater Ottawa area, including Gatineau – and you can add them automatically to your iPhone calendar.
• Information about Ottawa – extensive about Ottawa, from local business organizations to profiles on elected officials, lists of embassies and a general overview of the City and its history.
• News from City of Ottawa – PSAs, media advisories and news releases
• Parks
• Restaurants
• Shopping
• Some integration with Facebook and Twitter for users who want to share what they’re doing and where they’re going.
• Tourism services
• Tours
• Transportation – taxis, buses, airport shuttles, traffic news

Finally, users can document their adventures in and around Ottawa with the personalized postcard function. At first, I thought it was a little too hokey for my liking, but then I did one for this post and it’s actually fun. You get to choose the theme, a picture of your own from your device, a stamp and include a message. When you’ve finished customizing your postcard, you can save it to your device and/or share it via email, Facebook or Twitter. It’s a fun way to commemorate a particularly memorable event with some Canadian/Ottawa-themed content.

I’m impressed – really thoroughly impressed with the amount of information in this one little app. It’s hard to find fault with it, but it is a first release and as such, there are a areas for improvement.

The biggest omission that I noted was in the section labeled “Here I Am!” I saw the emblem and immediately thought it would be a way to share with Twitter or Facebook (or Foursquare) where I am. But it’s not. It just opens an email with a link to your location and a blurb about the app. I can’t really think of a reason I’d ever want to email someone where I am like that. That type of sharing is typically used for more instantaneous mediums – such as Twitter and Facebook. I think this section could be built out a bit better to cater to those users who like sharing this type of information.

I also found that the list of restaurants is nowhere near complete. I hope that over time more and more will be added.

Another downside – though not for me – is that the app is only available for Apple products at the moment – that includes iPod, iPhone, iPad users (note that there isn’t an HD iPad version, but it upscales decently well). Blackberry and Android versions are slated to be released later this year.

As someone who is not native to Ottawa – or Canada, for that matter – I rely heavily on personal recommendations of friends for ideas of what to do and where to go.

Thanks to this app, I have a great resource at my fingertips when I have nothing planned and want to get out and find something new and interesting to do.

Thanks Karen! What do you think of the City of Ottawa’s new app?

Local Tourist Ottawa featured on CBC Radio

91.5 FM in Ottawa

Wow – what a great week!

Yesterday morning, CBC Radio’s Rebecca Zandbergen welcomed me into the studio to talk a little bit about Local Tourist Ottawa.

I also had a chance to meet Dave Woodbridge, the creator of Outdoor Ottawa, and the three of us had a great 10 minute Q&A about our projects, the city’s thriving blogging community, as well as the power of social networking and an overall strong content marketing strategy.

It was a great chat!

Listen to Jessey's interview on CBC Radio

I’d just like to say a big thanks to Associate Producers Laura Osman and Jeanne Armstrong who reached out to Local Tourist Ottawa for this segment, as well as the folks at CBC who posted the audio clip up really quickly so everyone who missed the show could catch it later.

If you’d like to listen to the interview, please click here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Losing it in Ottawa: co-founders Karen and Lara reflect on the success of their Ottawa blog

Lara Wellman (blog | Twitter) is a wife, mother, and social media lover/freelancer. As co-founder of Kids in the Capital and Losing it in Ottawa, Lara loves to build online communities that translate into real life communities. Karen (Twitter) is a wife to Matt, mom to Brandon and works full time at an awesome social media job she doesn’t talk about online. She is the author of Karen’s Chronicles and co-founder of Losing it in Ottawa.

So, tell me a little bit about the history of Losing it in Ottawa.

Karen & Lara: Losing it in Ottawa hatched from a post Karen wrote on her personal blog last summer in which she discussed her need to get healthy and lose weight. Lara commented that it would be nice if there was a community in Ottawa that supported that purpose. From there, we brainstormed and found four other women who agreed with us. Everything about starting Losing it in Ottawa was easy and flowed well. As a group, most of us hadn’t met each other prior to coming together for the blog and we became fast friends.

Karen, Ottawa blogger at Losing it in Ottawa and Karen's Chronicles

The community has grown incredibly quickly – why do you think it has been so successful?

Karen: Weight and body image are universal challenges. Even people who are a healthy weight can relate to the need to lose a few pounds every now and then. We have followers who are down to their last 10 and others who have over 100 pounds to lose. The challenge of making the right choices can be equally difficult for the person who is almost at their goal weight as it is for the person who is 20, 50 or 100 pounds away.

We also offer a safe place for people to go to talk about their challenges. Most contributors have published their weight and other measurements in updates. That could leave a person in a vulnerable position, unsure of the response. Will you be judged? Will people make fun of you? The Losing It community has been nothing but supportive and open with every single contributor. Some followers write about their weight loss journey on their own blogs. When you know that you will receive support and reassurance, it’s easier to discuss delicate topics with complete transparency.

Lara, you mentioned that one of your favourite things to do is create online communities and turn them into real communities. Can you talk a bit about that, with respect to Losing it in Ottawa?

Lara: Online community shifted for me about a year or so ago  from being worldwide to suddenly being really local – I was meeting people online that lived in the same city as me and I could get together with them in person.  With the growth of the Ottawa Twitter community, this soon became something that I did regularly, mostly with other moms, and I saw an opportunity for building more community by bringing people with like interests together – specifically those trying to lose weight with Losing it in Ottawa and people with kids on my other blog, Kids in the Capital.

Losing it in Ottawa started because of relationships already formed on Twitter and the incredible support and interest we saw from the first day (over 700 hits to the first post on the blog!) definitely came from the Twitter community.  From there it’s snowballed as people tell their friends and share the information on Facebook.

Social media really is an amazing tool!

Lara, Ottawa blogger at Losing it in Ottawa, Gliding through Motherhood, and Kids in the Capital.

Karen: When we started Losing it in Ottawa, half of us had never met anyone else in our group. We formed a quick, tight bond that hasn’t wavered. Our group of six made the conscious decision to plan activities with each other so that we could connect in real life (IRL) and support each other. The friendship we’ve developed comes through on the blog and when you see our interactions on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s one of our goals for 2011 to build an even stronger and more active community, starting with the addition of eight new regular contributors to be announced shortly. We’re participating in the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers in June and we’ll likely do some other events, such as Run for the Cure and the Ottawa Road Hockey Showdown, as we did in the fall. Doing work to benefit the greater Ottawa community is a bonding experience we’ve come to enjoy.

To build community beyond the group of regular contributors, we’ve reached out and asked followers to share their own stories through guest posts and blog hops. A blog hop – for those unfamiliar – is when a host (that’s us) adds a link to their site so others can share the link to their post. We’ve all connected with many of our followers through Twitter, Facebook and on My Fitness Pal – a calorie-tracking site. And soon we’ll be announcing a date for the upcoming Losing it in Ottawa meetup and clothing swap. We’re all looking forward to connecting with even more of our followers in person.

How has this project impacted you personally?

Karen: There is a certain comfort in knowing that you’re not alone. That you have people around you – even if they are silent – who care that you’re accomplishing goals. They’ve become our cheerleaders, rooting us on when we’re doing well. And when things don’t go so well, they are right there still, encouraging us to keep going and not give up. It gives us confidence in our abilities to succeed. And when you have a taste of success and know how good it is, you want more. That’s powerful motivation.

Lara: Beyond the fact that I’ve lost 23 pounds and started exercising regularly for the first time in many years, Losing It has been amazing because of the friendships that I’ve made. These supporters (both the actual bloggers and the people who are actively taking part in the community) are there for me in my weight loss journey, but also when I’m having a rough time with my kids, or am looking to get out of the house, or am wanting career advice. They are real and true friends and I feel lucky to have them in my life.

How are you hoping your project will affect the Ottawa community?

Karen : We’d love for this to continue growing into a widespread movement to get Ottawa healthy and a community-based support system that isn’t dependent on a particular kind of diet or exercise. Each of us follows our own prescribe plan to achieve our goals. Some like running, others don’t. Some like resistance training, others don’t. The point isn’t what we’re doing so much as doing it in a supportive environment and achieving our goals through healthy changes to our lifestyle. That kind of change is lasting. One day, we’d like to have a community full of people maintaining their weight and doing fun things as part of the process.

How can Ottawa folks get involved?

Read our blog, make comments, share on Twitter and Facebook or anywhere else they’d like to spread a post they’ve enjoyed. Most importantly, we want to hear other people’s stories too. Send us an email (losingitottawa@gmail.com) with a guest post. We love reading about the journey – even if it’s not on Losing it in Ottawa. Let us know if you post to your own blog. We’ll read it, support you and share your story with our readers through Facebook and Twitter as well.

This community is not just about the contributors on the blog. It’s about everyone who is working to achieve health goals.

Any advice for Ottawans thinking of starting their own blog?

There are countless resources that give step-by-step instructions for setting up a blog site. So, I’d say that with every word you publish, be true to yourself. It may take time to find your voice – it’s rare for anyone to start blogging and not change or evolve in some way. Don’t be afraid to share your blog with others. This can be nerve-wracking and vulnerable in the beginning, but this is how you grow a community. You share a little bit of you and through comments, followers share back. And probably the most important piece of advice is to follow other great blogs. Blogging is one piece of a large conversation. When bloggers read and comment on other blogs, they are showing that they care to connect with others. Finally, it’s important to think through the ramifications of sharing information on the Internet. Find your personal comfort level and share within your personal boundaries. There is also a series on Kids in the Capital called Social Media Mondays. There are several blog posts all about starting a blog and joining Twitter and the value of doing both.

Have you had success bringing the people of Ottawa together in a unique way? Send us a note and tell us all about it!

Ottawa’s Girl Geek Dinners: Uniting women with a passion for technology

Mel Gallant (blog | Twitter) is a social media junkie using the Interweb to distract her from an incurable addiction to chocolate. A public relations program manager for an Ottawa-based high tech firm, Mel is an avid reader and a somewhat okay knitter. As co-founder of the Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa chapter, Mel loves sharing her passion for technology and gadgetry with others.

There are tons of networking events to be had in Ottawa, particularly of the social media and technology vein. There are also a lot of technology savvy women in this city with a tremendous amount of expertise and geeky smarts to share. In 2009, Kelly Rusk, Veronica Giggey and myself got to thinking that the city needed a channel to support the sharing of that tech knowledge and expertise between women, and we thought the Girl Geek Dinner (GGD) formula the best approach.

Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa co-founders (l to r): Kelly Rusk, Veronica Giggey and Melany Gallant. Photo courtesy of LeMien.ca

Girl Geek Dinners were founded in 1996 in London, England by Sarah Blow – a geeky girl tired of being one of the only females attending technology events in her fair city. Sarah decided to do something about it, organizing the first girl geek dinner with the goal to “make technology accessible and interesting to all age groups and all people, particularly women.”

The idea caught on and soon Girl Geek Dinners started popping up across the UK and Europe. There are now GGD chapters in 77 cities around the globe, including several cities across Canada (check out http://girlgeekdinners.com to see a full list of participating cities).

The GGD Ottawa chapter (#GGDOttawa) meets on a monthly basis to network, learn and share ideas about technology and related topics. These informal, networking events are typically held in a restaurant with a guest speaker leading a conversation on a particular topic or theme. Our next event is on January 26th, and will feature a panel discussion on leadership with three female business leaders representing both the public and private sector. These women are immersed in technology and we anticipate a lively discussion about their career journey and leadership experience.

One of my favourite elements to the GGD formula is that it is an informal networking event. With each event we organize, Kelly, Veronica and myself see new and returning members, which means the conversation never stales. By the way, men are more than welcome to attend a GGD event – they simply need to be invited by a women to ensure there is no more than a 50:50 gender split at each event.

If you have a passion for technology, and GGD Ottawa sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out our website for more information about our meetups!

Thanks for the post Mel!

Happy (belated) Birthday #GenYOTT!

Jackson Lo is the founder and CEO of KayLo Marketing and an avid blogger. He is also an executive member and photographer at Begin 2 Believe, a not-for-profit organization that lives to build a stronger community in Ottawa. You can follow Jackson on Twitter @jackson_lo.

Japman Bajaj, Jen Butson and Brian Alkerton

Gen Y Ottawa (short form #GenYOTT) is all about social networking – taking an evening to go out and meet great new people in your area, not as a way to find clients or investors (although you may do just that!), but as friends first. GenYOTT was founded by four very social people; Jen Butson, Brian Alkerton, Japman Bajaj, and Matt Richling. Their very first event dates back to November 26, 2009, where their goal was to have GenYOTT serve as a focal point for the tech-savvy, ambitious and creative young people of Ottawa, diverse in their backgrounds and professions but united in their desire to build a community based on the ideals of collaboration, community service, and fun!

Wednesday night’s event was definitely a great one. With more than 150 attendees, the room was packed with people from backgrounds of all sorts. It was memorable because it was the celebration of GenYOTT’s one-year anniversary.

The night started with an hour of mingling – attendees grabbed food, drinks and socialized amongst themselves. As young people, we are very approachable, that is one of the benefits of GenYOTT, everyone there is nice!

The night started with an opening speech by Japman (giving his standup!). Japman then introduced Urooj Qureshi, a Gen Y who shared his journey as a volunteer at Serenity Renewal. Serenity Renewal is a non-denominational charitable organization that provides aid to individuals dealing with the effects of addictions and addictive behaviours. The take away for me is that there are so many initiatives that Ottawans take part in. We make a drastic difference in our community, but often that message doesn’t reach everyone. We all learn something from one another, and I believe it is important to spread the word. We never know what difference you are making to someone who’s looking for something you know. Great job Urooj!

The special speaker at the event was Dennis Van Staalduinen. Dennis is a funny and edgy brand consultant and he spoke about the importance of getting to know who you are better. How many times has someone asked you “So… what do you do?” Do you have your 30-second pitch down? Or do you find yourself stuttering and speaking foreign to the person you are trying to engage a conversation with? Not only did Dennis bring a lot of his knowledge into the room, but filled it with humor and lots of involvement from the audience. We all learned a lot about ourselves from Dennis.

Not only are these events to gather young folks in the community together, but it is also an opportunity anyone to expose themselves to others and build a network with talented and awesome people. I have personally only attended three of GenYOTT’s events but none have been a disappointment. I encourage anyone and everyone to come check out their next event, which will be in the next year (join their Facebook Page or follow their #genyott hashtag to stay updated!). Whether you are a student in your first or last year of university, spend most of your time on Twitter, Facebook or any other social networks, or looking for a way out of a 9-5 job and have an idea to start a business, GenYOTT is the place for you. Oh, and did I mention that the events are FREE? Yes, they are FREE!

We are all excited to see what GenYOTT has in store for us in 2011.

Japman broadcasted:

“Thank you everyone for an AMAZING time last night at #genyott. Can’t wait to reveal the 2011 plans soon!”

Hope to see some of you out at the next GenYOTT event!

Attend a great event in Ottawa you want to tell us about?  Send us a note! Want to learn more about meet ups in Ottawa? Check this out.

Out of the basement and into the spotlight: Ottawa’s online communities do a good job of getting offline too

Joe Boughner (web | twitter) is an Ottawa-based blogger and web consultant who has been known to attend a networking event or two in his day. When he’s not swimming mindlessly in the social media fishbowl, he can be found hanging out with his 11-month old daughter and his brilliant wife who, he admits, is way better at all of this social media stuff than he is.

Far from fulfilling the stereotype of lonely bloggers living in their mothers’ basements, Ottawa’s online community has proven quite adept at getting together in the terrestrial realm. For those who like the social aspect of social media, there is no shortage of events around the city where you can put faces to names and voices to avatars.

Among the longest running are two local takes on well-known event series: Social Media Breakfast (web | hashtag) and Third Tuesday (web | hashtag) (disclaimer: your correspondent spoke on a panel at Third Tuesday in March 2009). Both draw crowds of about 100 and both mostly focus on bringing big names from the social media / digital outreach world to the nation’s capital.

Pro tip for newbies: names notwithstanding, there’s no breakfast at Social Media Breakfast (coffee and pastries are served though) and Third Tuesday is rarely on a Tuesday. Don’t ask. Both events charge $10.

For a more local flavour, check out Case Study Jam (web | twitter | hashtag) (disclaimer: your humble scribe is founder and co-organizer). This event features short presentations from Ottawans trying (with various levels of success) to incorporate social media in their work, followed by small group jam sessions where presenters and attendees bounce ideas off of each other. It’s free to attend but you have to register and it’s a much smaller space than SMB or TTO.

In a similar vein, Social Media Book Club (web | twitter), Girl Geek Dinner (web | hashtag) and GenY Ottawa (Facebook | hashtag) offer regular opportunities to share and network with like-minded folks from their respective niches. Having never attended these events (yet), it would be inappropriate to comment on them in too great a detail but the organizers are passionate and the attendees always seem to come away energized.

For those who prefer a deeper dive, Ottawa is quickly assembling a roster of larger-scale unconference type events too. The city has played host to two ChangeCamps (for those who want to reimagine citizenship in the age of participation), Podcasters Across Borders and PodCamp (for content creators) and is about to host the homegrown CreatorCamp. These events allow participants to set the agenda by pitching sessions, thereby creating truly unique opportunities to learn and network with some of Ottawa’s best and brightest.

And if the idea of sitting around talking about social media with other social media people kind of turns your stomach, there are plenty of other opportunities to bring your online networks offline to talk about and do entirely different things. You can find incomplete but impressively-diverse lists at meetup.com or on eventbrite.com, or you can check out the listings on local blogs like Kids in the Capital (for family-friendly meetups and playdates), Ottawa Tonite (for arts and entertainment events) or Apartment613 (for damn near everything).

Do you want to share your favourite local events in Ottawa? Send us a note!