November 23, 2015 archive

Nov 23

For Immediate Release #10: Responding to terror with cats

Welcome to episode #10 of For Immediate Release. This week’s panel includes Philippe Borremans, an independent communications consultant from Brussels and host of the PR-focused podcast, Wag the Dog; Glenn Gaudet, founder and president of GaggleAMP and host of the podcast, AMP Up Your Social Media; and Donna Papacosta, principal of Trafalgar Communications and co-author of the book, The Business of Podcasting: How to Take Your Podcasting Passion from the Personal to the Professional.

In this episode, we covered these topics:

  • A follow-up to last week’s discussion of social media and the Paris terrorist attacks, including the Belgian response to a request — and the hashtag #BrusselsLockdown — to avoid sharing pictures of official activity on the streets of Brussels by sharing cat pictures instead; a hashtag that gained traction in Toronto letting worried Muslims that #IllRideWithYou; the use of social media to spread hoaxes, and disinformation. Philippe also discussed his work with the Emergency 2.0 wiki.
  • Google+ has redesigned to load faster and emphasize common interests via Communities and Collections. Is it still a worthwhile investment of time for brands?
  • If engagement is the new metric, how important is it for employees to serve as brand ambassadors in their social networks?
  • Listener comments on the terrorist attacks, Millennial’s desire for training from their employers, and teens struggling to differentiate Google ads from organic results.
  • Dan York’s report on Google+, his search for a WordPress plugin, Google’s streaming of apps, and app indexing for search
  • Podcast advertising as the next big thing for marketers
  • A new trend of companies targeting journalists with paid Facebook ads
  • Insights from the Belgian PR Summit
  • Instagram captions becoming a new tool for blogging
  • A new New York Times feature that lets readers “Follow This Story,” opting in to email updates on a given story

Connect with this week’s panelists at @DonnaPapacosta, @GlennG, and @HoratioNelson.

Links to the source material for this episode are on Delicious.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

Join us next week for our 11th episode. Joining me are three panelists named Chris: Chris Brogan, CEO of Media Group and bestselling author of Trust Agents, among other books; Chris Christensen, host of the Amateur Traveler podcast and CEO of BloggerBridge; and Christine Perkett, CEO of PerkettPR and SeeDepth.

About this week’s panel

philippePhilippe Borremans is a multi-lingual corporate communications professional with more than 20 years experience in both internal and external communications, crisis communications, online reputation management and media relations.  His career started at Porter Novelli in Brussels and continued at IBM for about 10 years. Both functions gave him extensive experience in European Media Relations and Public Relations. A specialist in press relations, issues management and communication campaigns, he is currently an independent communications consultant. Every week beginning in January 2015, Philippe interviews thought leaders and curates PR news on his podcast show, Wag the Dog.

glenngGlenn Gaudet founded and leads GaggleAMP, which helps companies get the most out of their social media efforts with solutions that help amplify and analyze their efforts. He also wrote the book, “Connection, Community & Conversation: Making Social Media Work for Business.” Glenn is passionate about sharing business growth insights with our clients and prospects. One of the ways I do this is through a weekly podcast called AMP Up Your Social Media. He also advise startups on how to bring their products to market, bootstrapping and increasing market influence.

donnapDonna Papacosta is a writer, speaker, podcaster and consultant, operating Trafalgar Communications in Toronto. In addition to leading workshops on social media and communications topics, Donna teaches Digital Communications Strategy and Social Media at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. In 2005 Donna launched Trafcom News, one of the first business podcasts in Canada. Since then she has expanded her expertise in both social media and multimedia, and helps people integrate these tools into their communications. She is the co-author, with Steve Lubetkin, of the recently launched book, The Business of Podcasting, and the author of The Podcast Scripting Book. A dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, Donna holds a Masters degree in Public Administration from New York University and a Certificate in Magazine Journalism from Ryerson University.

 

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Nov 23

Video and Slides Now Available For My AstriCon 2015 Keynote: Open Source and The Global Disruption of Telecom

If you're interested in what I said last month at AstriCon 2015 in my keynote on "Open Source And The Global Disruption of Telecom: What Choices Will We Make?", the video and slides are both available.

As I wrote about previously, the context for this discussion was to talk about the changes that are happening all around us in terms of the ways in which we communicate. Here was the abstract:

There is a battle raging for the global future of telecommunications and the Internet. Taking place in networks, board rooms and legislatures, the battle will determine how we all communicate and what opportunities will exist. Will telecom support innovation? Will it be accessible to all? Will it give us the level of security and privacy we need to have the open, trusted Internet? Or will it be restricted and limited by corporate or government gatekeepers?

The rise of voice-over-IP has fundamentally disrupted the massive global telecommunications industry, infrastructure and policies. Open source software such as Asterisk has been a huge driver of that disruption and innovation.. but now what? What role do platforms such as Asterisk play in this space? And what can be their role in a telecom infrastructure that is now mobile, increasingly embedded (Internet of Things) and more and more using proprietary walled gardens of communication?

How well I delivered on that will be up to you to decide... but I felt good about how it all came out and received many great comments and feedback throughout the rest of the event and afterwards. And, as a speaker I could see from the crowd (about 500-ish people) that they were NOT looking down into their smartphones or laptops... which is always a good sign! ;-)

A key point of what I aimed to do was to bring people up to a higher level to think about how their own actions fit into the broader context of what is happening in the world today.

It was fun to do! And I loved all the questions I was getting after that. My goal was to make people think... and it seemed that at least for some I did.

My part of the video starts after 15 minutes of introductory items (this was the opening of the event), so if you watch in the embedded video below you'll need to move forward to the 15:00 mark. You can also follow this direct link to the start of my segment with an introduction to me from Mark Spencer, the creator of Asterisk.

(And yes, this was the first time I had ever given a presentation wearing a ponytail in the long hair experiment I've been trying this year... I'm still not 100% sure I'm going to keep this style. This may be the first and only presentation you see with me like this.)

Unfortunately, the video only shows me talking on stage and doesn't show the slides I was using... so you don't understand what I'm talking about when I reference the slides.

I've posted the slides to my SlideShare account but as you'll see without the video or audio they aren't of much value. This was a wonderful opportunity for me to present in the very minimalist style I prefer where I only use images or a few words - and I thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

However, syncing the slides to the video is not something you'll probably find easy. At some point perhaps I'll create another video showing both my speaking and the slides... but I don't know that it will happen anytime soon.

Meanwhile, here they are...

Some of the links I reference in the presentation include (in the order of their appearance):

If you enjoyed this presentation and would like to have me potentially speak at your event, please do contact me. I've been speaking for many years and very much enjoy giving these kind of presentations at all types of events.