Jun 30th, 2010 by Paul Holmes
My colleagues at IdeaZone.ca have been working hard on a number of social media projects, both for our clients, and also for our community. Here’s a sample of some of the work we’ve done to promote both the local social media community, and our greater community.
- Most recently, I jumped on as Social Media Day organizer for Victoria, and took the idea to Victoria City Council. As a result, Victoria became the first city in the world to proclaim June 30th Social Media Day, and received a fair amount of notoriety for this from around the world. The main event is tonight, and everybody is welcome!
- I am co-organizing Canada’s first Social Media Camp, featuring local presenters, and well known experts from across North America. The event runs the full day on October 3rd, 2010. Registration is now open, and there are some perks to signing up early!
- I helped found the local chapter of Social Media Club, which was the first in Canada to get off the ground. It provides opportunities for anyone who’s interested to come and learn about Social Media, with different topics each month. Meetings cost $5, so it’s a small investment to make, with the potential to learn a lot.
- I also organized two WordCamp events in Victoria, and plan to continue these about every 6 months. The first event had 100 people, and the last one had 130. We had some great speakers come from all over British Columbia.
- IdeaZone.ca organized the website and social media campaign for the last two Flower Count events in Victoria. This was our contribution to a great promotional opportunity for our city.
- Another great cause, which we happily supported with sponsorships and promotion through our channels (but cannot take any credit for organizing), is Twestival. The local Twestival event raised $8,146.32 for charity, the 15th highest amount in the world (not bad for a city that doesn’t even rank in the top 1000 largest cities in the world). This is a semi-annual event, and we look forward to doing our part to help make the next one a big success, too!
We work with many local small businesses and non-profit societies helping with all their marketing needs, including website and print design, and social media. We’d love to work with you, too. Feel free to contact us.
If you are interested in learning more about Social Media, I offer a number of training workshops, too.
Tags: Social Media, victoria
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Feb 24th, 2010 by Paul Holmes
Jon, Katharine, Jodie and I will be exhibiting at the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board technology show on Friday, February 26th in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Here Jon will be demonstrating the website listings features we are able to offer real estate clients on Vancouver Island, and Jodie will be on hand to answer questions about your social media strategies.
I will also be presenting Social Media and Realty: They’re Both About Making Connections at 10:30am.
Here’s a preview of my slides:
On January 13th, I was a guest speaker at the special general meeting for the Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce. I had a great reception and some excellent feedback from a terrific group of business professionals. I also got to know a little bit more about The Harbour City, and all the excellent stuff that’s been going on there in the last decade or so.
Needless to say, I’m quite looking forward to returning!
Tags: British Columbia, Nanaimo, Presentation, Real Estate, Realtor, Social Media
Posted in Business, News, Social Media, Speaking and Presenting, marketing | No Comments »
Nov 30th, 2009 by Jon Valade, MGDC
The Cridge Center for the Family offers a wide range of community based programs from seniors’ care programs to transitional housing for women in need. They have been operating as the Cridge Centre for the Family since the early 1960’s but with roots that extend as far back at the 1800’s.
The Cridge Centre contracted us to refresh a range of their communication material, but first wanted to extend their present corporate ID across the many services they operate. Each service should be identifiable as a unique identity but remain tied to the overall branding.
Before proceeding, I should specify that we did not create the original logo for the center but it has been in use for a fairly long time and is now an anchor point in their overall branding so reviewing this mark was simply not an option.
Creating logo marks for these services was a bit of a challenge for me. How do I create a graphic to represent brain injuries without it being cliché at best, or offensive at worst?
Since the object was to expand upon the original logo that was the obvious place to start. I considered using the well known candle in the graphics but decided instead to use a soft gradient within the window to show candle light within a room. The florals in the windows are extending outward inviting people into the warmth inside. I used different florals to identify the different services and thus was able to identify each service individually and maintain the spirit of the original logo.
Posted in Design | No Comments »
Nov 19th, 2009 by Paul Holmes
IdeaZone.ca was the lead sponsor for WordCamp Victoria 2009, the first WordCamp ever held in Victoria, British Columbia!
For the uninitiated, WordCamp is like a mini-conference for WordPress users, developers, bloggers and enthusiasts. As many IdeaZone.ca clients and partner companies use WordPress for their content management or blogging needs, it was a very worthwhile endeavour.
IdeaZone.ca President Paul Holmes was the main organizer of the event. It drew approximately 100 participants, and featured 13 speakers, including both Paul and IdeaZone.ca’s very own Catherine Novak, too.
Participants came from all over – Salt Spring Island, Vancouver, Comox, Nanaimo, Seattle, San Juan Island, and even Saint John, New Brunswick!
Paul presented on the topic of domain name acquisition, and his entire presentation is on his blog.
We’re looking forward to WordCamp Victoria 2010!
Tags: victoria, WordCamp, WordPress
Posted in Business, News, Social Media | No Comments »
Sep 15th, 2009 by Paul Holmes
IdeaZone.ca has partnered with Sector Learning of Victoria to offer a “Social Media for Business Success” course.
This is not a lecture, a seminar, or even a workshop!
It is an intensive, small class, hands-on training course designed especially to help small business succeed in Social Media. It is spread over 6 weeks (2 hours per week), to maximize, reinforce and measure the results of the integration of social media over a period of time.
We will work with the businesses on the course, to ensure they focus their energies right, and get the best return on investment possible for their time and money. Our aim is to equip businesses with the skills needed to make the most of the changing Internet landscape.
Do you know a business that this course could help? How about your business?
Follow this link for more details.
Any questions? Please contact myself or Catherine Novak for more information.
Tags: Course, Social Media, victoria
Posted in News, Social Media | 2 Comments »
Aug 28th, 2009 by Paul Holmes
My colleague Catherine Novak and I had the opportunity yesterday to work with a number of local non-profit agencies, presenting a 6-hour workshop on social media, presented by Volunteer Victoria.
While we talk a great deal about the tremendous opportunity social media offers small business, the opportunities for non-profits are even greater. People who are socializing online are looking for what is going on in their community, including events, and causes their friends support.
One of the most common complaints we heard was that boards of directors and management were reluctant to take the plunge, for fear of diluting their brand, wasting time, or their inability to control the message.
Our response was simple:
People are online, right now, talking about your organization. The message is already outside your control. Do you want to be part of the conversation or not?
We plan on posting our slides and a number of other resource materials here early next week. If you were at the seminar (or not), please feel free to comment to this post. We’d love to hear your feedback!
Tags: brand management, Non-Profit, Social Media, workshop
Posted in Social Media | 1 Comment »
Aug 3rd, 2009 by Paul Holmes
IdeaZone.ca was proud to sponsor Blogathon 2009 for the BC Cancer Foundation.
Prominent Vancouver blogger, Dr. Raul Pacheco, managed to raise well over $1,000 for this important cause by blogging for 24 hours.
Dr. Pacheco kindly mentioned IdeaZone.ca in the article outlining his Top 5 Social Media Tips. Despite his certain exhaustion, it was a great article, and the recognition was greatly appreciated.
Cancer is something that we care about. When we launched our web services division, dotcanuck Web Services, we sponsored our own online fundraiser, with contributions going to the Canadian Cancer Society.
Congratulations to Dr. Raul Pacheco for his important contribution to the fight against cancer!
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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On the cutting edge of the marketing business, there are a few newish truisms when it comes to digital media – web 2.0-style design is definitely here to stay, and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) is a new, if ever-changing, reality.
We are proud to unveil the new 