I thought it would only be fitting to share a little of my PAB (Podcasters Across Borders) 2008 experience with you via an audio comment. I’m not going to call it a ‘podcast’ because it is only one snippet of audio - it’s not a ’show’ … yet. You never know - already the other PR Girlz have been eyeing up the Blue Snowball USB mic that I won at the event. I think it might work if we kept it short and simple.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. The audio isn’t edited to perfection by any means but I could spend far too much time on this. I had to call it quits. Please bear in mind that I haven’t willingly recorded myself since I was about 8 years old when I liked to sing along to my favourite songs by Prince and Michael Jackson. I sound sort of ridiculous to myself (not to mention that I can hear some atrocious up-speak at the end of the recording) but I suppose a lot of people feel weird about hearing recordings of themselves. Ah well. I was inspired.

Listen to Podcasters Across Borders 2008

As suggested on the audio, I wanted to share some of the details and my favourite bits with you here in the post. I was impressed with the quality of so many of the presentations. My personal highlights from the weekend were Tim Coyne’s discussion on an actor’s approach to podcasting (the relationship between emotion and action), John Meadows and Scarborough Dude talking about the limits of the medium (or lack thereof), and the session with Nora Young and Dan Misener (I am a major fan of the CBC Radio One show Spark). Other links can be found below in the program outline.

Podcasters Across Borders is organized by Mark Blevis and Bob Goyetche. This year the event was sponsored by Third Storey Productions, ROGIC, Thornley Fallis and 76 Design, I.A. Consultants and Freshbooks.

PAB 2008 featured:

Friday, June 20, 2008

• 1:00pm Video production workshop (Chris Brogan, Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis)
• 2:00pm Social (Media) Science (Dave Brodbeck)
• 3:00pm Community: Why It’s the ONLY thing that matters (Whitney Hoffman)
• 7:30pm PAB2008 Kick-off (Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis)

Saturday, June 21, 2008

• 9:00am Private in Public: An actor’s approach to podcasting (Tim Coyne)
• 10:00am Creating Audiodrama (Sage Tyrtle)
• 11:00am Ménage a Trois: Forums, podcasts and community (Marko Kulik)
• 1:00pm Feeding the Hungry by Feeding Google: A case study (Michelle Sullivan)
• 2:00pm Learning from The Beatles (Sylvain Grand’maison)
• 3:00pm Hosting Secrets From the Book of Tod (Tod Maffin)
• 4:00pm What Are the Limits? (John Meadows and Scarborough Dude)
• 8:00pm Boat Cruise (2 hours, families and partners welcome *)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

• 9:00am Time, Space, Media, Messages and Your Podcast (Jay Moonah)
• 10:00am What Public Broadcasters Can Learn from Podcasters, and Vice-Versa (Dan Misener and Nora Young)
• 11:00am Good Hosting: We’re not talking about your Internet Provider (Jack Ward and Shannon Hilchie)
• 11:40am You Shall Know Us By Our Velocity: Making sense of it all (Neil Gorman)

See you next year!

My morning started with a bang. Literally. A squirrel decided to eat some electrical wires coming out of the transformer across the street from my house. Needless to say, at 6:20 a.m., I was not impressed.

Today, I am going to do a roundup of stuff — stuff that I find interesting and that is somewhat germaine to what it is the PR Girlz do.

• In today’s Toronto Star, Bruce Campion-Smith reports how the Harper government controls its communication policies. It is the first report in the Secret Capital series from the newspaper. Harper’s communications policies are anything but open and stand in stark contrast to the federal rules for open access to information.
• Festival de Cannes ends today. Norm Wilner from NOW has been blogging the event from the French sea-side town. Check out the reviews now — you might be able to save yourself from wasting time at TIFF. [For the life of me, I don't know what Lindsay Lohan was doing there, though. Beyond Mean Girls (brilliant writing) and Altman's swan song (she was cast well), has she done anything deserving of Cannes recognition?]
• I want to play a bit with a Google lab release called Google Friend Connect. The server keeps crashing on me.
• Grant Robertson at the Globe and Mail reports on Wikipedia’s business plan and its desire to remain not-for-profit.
• Tim O’Reilly had a funny post on the weekend about Microsoft’s obsession with search.

Like a lot of folks concerned with social media, I got my mini-geek on at the Mesh Conference held at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. I’m not going to go into a play-by-play account of Mesh — if you wanted that, you’d have followed the meshing on Twitter. Mesh (re) tweaked my interest some important issues that I believe need to be constantly challenged in the PR world. Those are privacy, anonymity and reputaton.

Many folks have an online self which can often have a different personality than their offline self. This is one of the privileges of the Net and social media. We have infinite potential to be who we want, when we want to our chosen audience. I’m sure that many poignant 10-minute unions of the heart and hand have been made this way. I am also confident that there are an equal number of folks who have been cyber-bullied because of this set of circumstances.

As some background … I started blogging in 2001 when I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter. My partner’s family lives in B.C. so we thought that a blog would be an excellent way to communicate the changes of our lives and the pregnancy progress to our family and friends as well as to document the experience of becoming a mother.

Being a “gung-ho” type of chyk, I really dove into the online world. I joined Mamatron.org, a BB for, “mamas of color, bi/lesbian/poly mamas, very young mamas, mamas on public assistance, sex worker mamas, single mamas, artist mamas, socialist mamas, green mamas, anarchist mamas, and pro-choice mamas.” There was a discussion group for women who were due at the same time. I loved that group of women. They supported me through sleep deprivation, money concerns, hormonal flux, and I know that I was able to share with them as well.

That was until a cyber-bully named “Big Fat Breeder” decided that because I had used the dreaded “b” word (hint - rhymes with itch) in a conversation of support with another woman. Essentially, in spite of a mea culpa, I was drummed out of a supportive community because of the actions of a person who lived behind her online identity.

I’m over it, don’t worry. The experience has flavoured my approach to social media, however.

Everyone needs privacy - no doubt. However, if someone wants to participate in a conversation, isn’t it just good manners to say who you are? Otherwise, it is akin to walking into a person’s home, not telling her who you are, provoking an incendiary political discussion and leaving.

Students are being expelled for cyber-bullying: curiously, this practice remains de rigueur, for many adults. It’s too bad. I have to wonder how many conversations are limited due to the power of an anonymous comment.

We are on cloud nine around the office all because “our” Terry Fallis has been named the winner of the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Terry, a guy with a biomechanical engineering degree and a love of words, decided to write about what he knows best — politics, engineering and people – in his first novel “Best Laid Plans”.

The thrill of seeing someone you know and work with honoured with this medal is, well, more than we all would have expected. Considering we spend much of our workday dealing with the media on a full range of stories, finding Terry on cbc.ca today after popping up in the likes of the Toronto Star on the weekend is amazing. And we didn’t have to send a pitch or pick up a phone.

This was no mean feat for Terry to achieve. When he couldn’t find a publisher for his idea he podcast the book, chapter by chapter, and then figured out how he could publish it himself. Once he managed to get it into some bookstores and on to Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca he was amazed that people actually bought it. He even seemed surprised to have so many people tell him they found the story charming and interesting.

Congratulations from the Girlz and everyone else at Thornley Fallis. Now, can we get you to sign our copies? Oh, and what about that sequel?

I was at the gym last night in my own little world, thoughts percolating and I was suddenly shocked to realize “hey, this could be a blog post!” Obviously, we Girlz aren’t having so many of those moments lately…

Now to be honest, this isn’t really a PR topic…though maybe you could make the argument that it is in some ways. (Gee Jos, you’re finally writing a post, get to the point, will ya?) So in case you didn’t know, I’m American. Not dual, just American. Now I’ve lived here since I was three and am a permanent resident (so yes, I can work here legally) but my passport is American. And I can vote on Super Tuesday next week in the California primaries. As it happens, I’ll be there then for a family thing so it works out quite well. Here’s where you come in: I can’t decide who to vote for. At first I thought it might seem unethical to ask internet strangers who I should vote for, but upon further reflection I realized that this year’s candidates are waging their battles more and more in the online space. Youtube, Myspace, they’re there. Many of them have blogs on their main site. So why shouldn’t I use this blog as a testing ground?

Here’s what you need to know to help. I’m a card carrying Democrat. Ok fine, I don’t carry a card (do they have a card?) but you get the point. It’s either Hillary or Barack. And I can’t decide.

I think Hillary has more experience. I like her. She’s intelligent, well-spoken and would make a fine leader of a country in need of such a thing. Bill’s indiscretions? Give me a break. He made a mistake, an error in judgment. Did that cost the Americans anything? No- it was personal but because he was the President and he chose an attention-wh**e, it became front page news. Bush’s “errors in judgment” have cost THOUSANDS of Americans and Iraqis their lives and has seriously damaged the US economy. Don’t get me started. Bill, in some ways, is a huge asset for Hillary. In other ways, I see him as a liability. He will have to stay out of the limelight while she’s in office so as not to take the focus off of her. I think he can do a lot as “First Laddie” but it will have to be under the radar and I don’t know if that’s possible. So that concerns me.

Barack is charismatic and I like him too. Goes without saying that he’s also intelligent and when I see him in interviews, he comes off very well. I like his wife. I think she could do a lot more as First Lady than Bill could in the role and you really are voting for them as a team. Having a great President is all well and good but if they don’t have strong support at home and a partner who’s willing to get out there and improve America, then the “great” President isn’t so effective. I don’t like Oprah’s endorsement of him. Not because she should have supported the female candidate, but because I think she made it more about race than it had been prior to her getting involved. Here’s my main concern with Barack and it does not make me proud of my country: they’re not ready for a black president. It’s not his time. Yes, most Americans would embrace the idea and don’t care what colour he is. But the ones that do? Look out; they’re the dangerous ones. If I were Michelle Obama, I would be afraid for the life of my husband and the father of my young children every time he ventured out. That’s the sad reality of it. Like I said, it pains me to think this, but there it is.

John Edwards? No thanks and here’s why: his wife is dying of breast cancer. Not right now and maybe not even in the next four years. And while I think it’s admirable of them to continue with their lives as though everything was fine, I think it’s dumb. Because at some point, she’s going to be very sick. And his focus would and SHOULD be on her and their very young children. But it wouldn’t be on America and that’s a problem to me.

So there you have it. Barack or Hillary. I go back and forth. Who gets your vote?

What do you get when you bring together interesting and approachable women in technology, great food and a lively speaker? Last night’s 2nd Toronto Girl Geek Dinner!

At one of Toronto’s more esoteric meetups, I had the pleasure of meeting some inspiring women (and a couple of guys, too) from fields as diverse as romance literature and robotics. 

Why I loved it:

• It was completely acceptable to talk about Facebook at length with people I had just met.
• The food was amazing. 
• Leila Boujnane from Idee (last night’s speaker) is a fascinating character and entertaining speaker.
• I think I’ve been convinced to go to a ’shopping class’ on Second Life.
• Wobbly jelly.

I’ll keep you posted on the next event (and we can discuss what I mean by ‘wobbly’).

I don’t know if it’s just me, but as the number of my ‘friends’ on Facebook has grown, the less comfortable I’ve become about doing anything on the platform. I haven’t written a ‘note’ all summer and last night I started to think about why. 

I tell myself that I’ve been busy and that I’ve been adjusting to my new job … melding my personal and professional personas. But I’m not sure it’s that simple. 

Since January, people from all corners of my life (and the globe) have trickled in to my online existence. I joined Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends while I was away. Some people swore against it as I became a resolute fan. I welcomed the social experiment that would surely upset the balance of communication forever and I wanted to know the outcome of it: good or ill. 

It’s been exciting to hear from people I haven’t seen in years and to reconnect with people through photos and stories and video. But to try to conceive of them all together is next to impossible. It’s fine if someone else in my network puts up a photo of me in funny glasses, but to create and share something myself is becoming a daunting idea. And I’m sort of dauntless. 

I don’t mind when worlds collide a little bit. But two worlds at a time are usually enough. As Joscelyn said the other day, “You’re an open book.”

Is that a bad thing? 

Report by Kyra Aylsworth, Special Correspondant, PRGirlz.com

I found my notebooks and camera at the MaRS centre this morning. It was with great relief that I started my day. Now that I have my notes, though, I feel like I have too much material. I’ll try to keep it simple.

Today has been especially exciting here at mesh. The first keynote featured Richard Edelman, Global CEO of Edelman Public Relations, the world’s largest independent public relations agency. The second keynote of the day featured Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster.

Rather than try to sum up everything that was said during those first few hours, I’m going to post my favourite topics and related answers from these two influential thinkers:

Richard Edelman

How do you define success in public relations today?

Public relations is about telling a story. It is not the black arts. Public relations people need higher standards than before. Ad equivalency is not adequate - it’s fallacious. The power of free media is more valuable than purchased media … Some people are prepared (to enter into Web 2.0) and some are reticent. They’ll pitch to CBS and ABC and think ‘I’ve done my job’. We’re not salesmen. It’s better to have 3 to 4 quality interactions [than to 'hit' everyone with the same pitch and vehicle].

Would you ever counsel a client against using social media? What happens if you/your client loses control?

Even in a situation where a client might be walking into an arena of ridicule, the organization will still need to communicate their messages and to tell their side of a story. In the case of Chevy Tahoe, they benefitted by letting the humour run its course. You have to think ahead - about what sort of situation you’re getting into - but if something goes wrong, it’s important to let it happen. If Chevy had ‘put their fist down’ and tried to stop the conversation, it would have been much worse.

Three things to take away:
1. Make your stories visual.
2. Don’t be defeated by setbacks.
3. Don’t let clients say ‘here’s your little box’ (here are your set of conditions). Be bold.

Jim Buckmaster

My 7 favourite quotes:
1. We’re making enough money for all of our needs.
2. The way we do things is actually more fun than worrying about making more money.
3. That’s the benefit of not going public.
4. We only do things that our users want us to do.
5. Craigslist is a site where people connect through basic human needs.
6. We don’t have business meetings.
7. We’ve never lost a tech person in twelve years.

Report by Kyra Aylsworth, Special Correspondent, PRGirlz.com

Canada’s premier Web 2.0 conference, mesh, strives to ‘connect, share and inspire’. It’s a mighty task, but mesh delivers. This event is packed with interesting people and topics and if you’re like me, you don’t want to miss any opportunity to make connections with people and highly nuanced trends and ideas. Today I spoke with public relations professionals, venture capitalists, computer people who went into advertising and startup wonders from all over the map.

I forgot how much energy and focus conferences require. By midday, the conference starts to feel like you’ve been at an interactive art gallery or a museum of modern thought - and it feels like you have a lot to catch up on. I highly recommend it. (Disclosure: I am a mesh volunteer.)

I volunteered at last year’s mesh conference, and from what I can tell, this year’s gathering seems to consist of far more people outside of the tech loop (or I’m just finding myself in sessions that appeal to communicators). More people from public relations and marketing backgrounds are interested in what is happening now and what they can do to incorporate social media into their practice. Last year the scene seemed to be dominated by tech insiders and blog personalities. It’s heartening to see that there are more people in our field who want to make these technologies ‘work’ in the business world.

Of course, this conversation means that there is a lot of talk about ‘authenticity’ and how to manufacture it. Public relations practitioners and marketers keep asking, “How do we connect with our audiences in an authentic way?” Community builders and bloggers usually have the same response to this question (no matter how many different ways we phrase it) and that is, “Be authentic.”

From the perspective of the communications field, it’s social rocket science.

Here’s an example of authenticity (coming from a person who is making their debut in the Toronto public relations community): I would have more details about speakers and what they said if I hadn’t forgotten my notes at MaRS. There it is. Complete disclosure. However, given that my notes and camera are in tact tomorrow, I will be posting here with more quotes and details then.

That said, I need to reference ’someone’ who made the point today that social media isn’t going anywhere. In fact, they said that although we talk about ’social media’ as a separate entity now, that in the future, all media will be social media. This means that we should prepare to enter into dialogue with our audiences with the expectation that this dialogue will continue for years to come.

Stay tuned for more mesh musings tomorrow, when I’ll be talking more about who I met and what they are thinking now.

We have our very own special correspondent at the Mesh Conference. Communications enthusiast, Kyra Aylsworth will be reporting on Canada’s premiere Web and social media event.

We look forward to her account of the proceedings!

-ETA-
Here is a brief bio for Kyra:

Kyra Aylsworth is an aspiring communicator with a background in merchandising and promotions. She is a graduate of Seneca’s Corporate Communications program and recently completed her Masters in Communications at the University of Western Sydney. Her undergraduate degree is from the University of Toronto. A self-described ‘geek cheerleader’, she hopes to find extremely rewarding work in the field of public relations.

Geek Cheerleader. One who admires and encourages the development of computing technologies without fully understanding those technologies oneself.