Read my blog:

These past few months I have neglected to post anything on my website which is a shame. Although I have been super busy which is a great sign on a fun project called Neonology.

The study of the new, Neonology is all about promoting a welcoming, safe and inclusive community for all youth. Neonology encourage today’s youth, teachers, school administrators and parents to become leaders of change and help silence stereotypes and prejudices.

The project provides youth with the tools to understand the impact power and privilege has on their lives, teachers and administrators with the means to become aware of the power they have to create an anti-oppressive teaching culture, and parents will a deeper awareness of the complexities and intricacies of their children’s social framework.

During this time I have worn several colourful hats during the development stage of this project. With no real communications plan in place I stepped in to help the North Shore Multicultural Society grow this project into full fruition. Which means that I worked with them on their brand while working alongside an illustrator to get the vision and message on to paper and online.

Our next step was to create a content strategy of what the website would hold for youth. Once the framework of the website was in place, I built their channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help share their message online. Because this project was more visual than content rich, I decided to bring in a film production company to create a promo video for their audience to share.

Did you know that Neonology workshops are in a few high schools across the North Shore and over 1000 students gained a new perspective this year and they are continuing to gain more interest.

Our next step is to get some publicity around the workshops so that they could implement them into other schools around the world but their first priority is the have them across the North Shore.

Lastly we will be launching an event for the students, which will have an arrage of fun workshops focussed on movement physically. Ironically Neonology is a MOVEMENT.

This short video shows you the benefits of AdWords and goes through step-by-step instructions on how to create your first successful pay-per-click campaign.

Find out about:

• How to use Adwords to reach your target audience
• No minimum budget requirements
• Complete access to your stats to see what works
• 8/10 internet users view Adwords ADS every month
• Geotargeting to reach local, national or international audience
• How to create winning ADS

SEO and Social Media are great ways to reach your audience but in both cases it takes time. Pay-per click gives you the opportunity to test your offer quickly.

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Sandro has helped ordinary people achieve extraordinary results. His Internet Marketing Coaching program has helped some of clients make as much as $97,000 USD per month!

The Internet Marketing Coaching program also includes a free website to help you get started.

Read what people have to say about Sandro

Let me know if you are interested and we can speak about how you would like to incorporated a SEO Strategy to your current marketing program.

This week on Collaborative Corner, Nicole Sheldrake who is a creative writer and the founder of Vancouver Innovation Camp discusses exploring ‘Capitalizing on Change’: A Forum for Women Entrepreneurs event.

Last week I attended the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs Spring Roundtable event, my first with the FWE. The topic was ‘Capitalizing on Change’ and the schedule called for a panel discussion then breakout groups with the panelists and finally, networking time. I was most attracted to the breakout groups part since I wanted to do something more interactive than listening to speakers.

Panel Discussion and Change

The 5 panelists were:

• Jay-Ann Ford, Chief Human Resources Officer, Coast Capital Savings
• Susan Yurkovich, Senior VP – Corporate Affairs, BC Hydro
• Zahra Mamdani, President, Wear Else
• Tony Stewart, CEO, Quail’s Gate Winery
• Stan Fuller, President, Earls Restaurants Ltd

The aim was for the panelists to discuss questions from the audience but ended up with the panelists answering 1 or 2 question each without any discussion between them. I think perhaps the set up contributed to this; it’s difficult to have a conversation when you are sitting down the table and across the podium from someone and can’t see their face very well.

Hearing their answers to questions about how they deal with change was motivating because they confirmed that the activities I run at Innovation Camp are teaching the right skills to succeed in the constantly changing world of business.

There were no new insights however. The advice was basically: plan for as many different outcomes as you can think of, a recession is a good time to re-brand and innovate, prototype rapidly, learn from your failures and always, always treat your customers respectfully and with honesty.

Breakout Groups and Innovation

Stan Fuller, president of Earls Restaurants, was our discussion leader for the breakout group. A bright bunch of women and a couple of men shared their experiences and asked each other for advice with their businesses. Issues ranged from how do I get new clients buying my product to tips on starting a franchise. Overall, it was inspiring to hear how motivated and supportive our local female entrepreneurs are!

One particular conversation with Stan Fuller that I found fascinating was about promoting innovation within his company. Until that point, the group had been discussing innovation at the executive level. Stan mentioned that he does not promote innovation at lower levels (i.e. servers) because the employees do not understand the complexity of the business.

On one hand I understood where Stan was coming from but on the other I wondered if he was missing some opportunities – the first one, to educate his staff about the business, the second one, to utilize the different perspectives and individual talents that employees bring to a company.

Earls does promote innovation in some areas however. Every kitchen manager is required to have a certain number of new ideas being developed and prototyped each month.

A Culture of Innovation

It’s clear there is a culture of innovation at Earls but only at certain levels, i.e. executive and management. The question is, is it worth the time and effort to promote innovation at all levels?

What do you think? Let us know your experiences and thoughts!

This week on Collaborative Corner, internet marketing expert Sandro Salsi talks about Google Caffeine and what works now.

With so much emphasis placed on link building and entire industries born on that business model Google clearly had to do something to keep their index clean.

Google Caffeine update has being rolled out quietly during the last few months and it has been continually tweaked to show search results that are more relevant to end-users.

Links that used to be important do no carry the same weight as before. Link buying practices won’t simply die but their effectiveness is now greatly reduced.

Here’s a short list of things we need to pay attention to.

What works now:

• Focus on creating good unique content on a regular basis. Having a blog is key
• Pages load time is a big factor and it influences rankings. Make sure you have a fast webserver. You can tast your page spped here: http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/
• Careful with duplicate content (i.e.: article syndication). You can still have content that is used on other websites but you’ll never get traffic from it
• Post on your blog regularly (few times per week if you can)
• Integrate your social media strategy and make a good use of social bookmarking websites
• Since Google shows blended results you also need to produce videos, podcasts, images and news on a regular basis
• Rethink your site architecture and use CSS heavily
• Place your JavaScript in external files
• When building backlinks make sure they are on topic (i.e.: coming from websites that are related to yours)

Here’s a short video from Matt Cutts that explains a few things about ther recent Google update in details:

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For the last 12 years Sandro has been helping small businesses and corporations to make more sales by driving targeted traffic to his client websites.

This week on Collaborative Corner, Conny Millard talks about the importance of promoting your trade show booth and creating a strategy that will deliver results after the event.

It is the season for conferences, trade shows and business events with thousands of dollars being spent on generating more sales leads and key business connections in your industry.

Getting a good return on the company’s investment on these events is crucial and is typically monitored by the management. From organizing the booth, to getting marketing materials ready, inviting key clients, to planning staff cover, every aspect of a trade show undergoes careful planning and meticulous execution and takes a lot to time to prepare.

In all the busyness surrounding the event, two things are often overlooked, one is promoting your booth to existing, past and potential clients, suppliers or target audiences and the other is the lack of follow up with every visitor to the booth afterwards.

As a sales executive, I have been attending many trade shows either as an exhibitor or as a visitor. As senior management during my corporate years, I have also had the task of measuring the returns and consider the true value to the company of investing into attending these events.

It is proven, that however well the booth and preparations are taken care off, only with the right communication strategy as well as committed immediate follow up with all connections made, are the returns worth the investment.

Therefore when planning your next event, allow for additional funds for promotion starting at least 4 weeks in advance to ensure, your target audience is able to attend.

After the event, implement a system that captures all contacts to receive a written communication within 48 hours, thanking them for their visit to your booth and arranging follow up actions.

This is the proven way to a successful trade show marketing strategy!

This week on Collaborative Corner, Nicole Sheldrake who is a creative writer and the founder of Vancouver Innovation Camp talks about creative thinking and how you can apply these techniques to your daily process.

I’m a writer, so you’d think that when invited to write a guest blog post I would leap from my chair with excitement and shout Yes! Instead, I felt as though I was ordered to prance naked on Granville Street at Tuesday lunchtime.

So of course I accepted.

But it got me thinking about how one simple request immediately brought up my bucket of fears and stories. Stories, for example, I tell myself about not being good enough. Despite those fears filling my head, I said yes because developing creative thinking skills is partly about being open to new experiences.

It would be a practical but exhilarating piece of work. I could see it front me, glowing slightly with inspiration – what to do, how to do it, legions of readers being excited by new ideas… and indeed, it was right in front of me, on this great blog called Copyblogger, on another called Litemind… and so on.

There are already a ton of blogs about creative thinking and how to do it. I figured that, honestly, I would only be repeating what they were saying. So I decided to apply creative thinking techniques and come up with another focus for my blog.

Applying Them Creative Thinking Techniques

Specifically, I tackled the 10 Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking, using #3 Following Rules, to challenge my assumptions.

Assumption #1:

The blog must be non-fiction.

Assumption #2:

The blog must be instructional, i.e. tell readers how to be creative thinkers.

Assumption #3:

I must write the blog from the point of view of an ‘expert’.

So I could write a fiction blog that showed readers how to think creatively from an amateur’s experience. There was some potential there…I’ve read many blogs about creative thinking techniques but none about a person’s experience consciously and (semi-) systematically applying the concepts.

Creative Action Online

Of course there are lots of people out there who are successful in business and creative projects and who apply creative thinking techniques daily. But what about someone who is just starting to ‘unleash her creative potential’? Someone who wants to think more creatively, not just for her creative projects but in all aspects of her life?

Being an expert is not my thing. I’m an expert in my own life. That’s it. And I like applying concepts. I like creative ‘action.’ I made a decision; I could write a blog about the action I am taking to apply creative thinking techniques in my daily life. Disclaimer: you’ll be reading about my failures as much as my successes. Failure is, after all, just a way to get feedback on progress and learn.

Action Items

Do something you fear, every day: It can be small. Very small. Talking to a stranger at the bus stop. Practice acting despite your fears.

Challenge your assumptions: List your assumptions about a problem first. Are they actually true? Can the assumptions be altered in any way? What other possibilities does this reveal?

Keep the Conversation Going

This blog will be about my experiences applying creative thinking to solve problems or just improve my life. If I can entertain you or maybe, just maybe, even inspire you to think more creatively, then I will consider the blog a success.

A blog is a collaborative effort and I would like to hear your comments and stories. What is your experience with applying creative thinking techniques? What results have you got from challenging your assumptions?

Follow Nicole on Twitter

This week on Collaborative Corner, Tony Wanless who is a Certified Management Consultant and a business writer for BC Business as well as the National Post talks about marketing your small business with authenticity:

Listening recently to Mark Silver, a business advisor I deeply respect because he insists business operation should come from the heart as well as from the head, I was reminded of the need for authenticity if you’ve opted to become an entrepreneur in your own independent advice or service business.

You see, most large and corporate professional entities use traditional “marketing” to snare clients. That means that, because their market targets are generally other large corporate clients, they adopt the same language.

Usually that involves spewing a lot of blather about their credentials, their impressive client list, their “processes” and all the usual bumpf that you can see on any corporate website.

This is corp-speak and fakery at its worst. Prospects are apparently supposed to be impressed by the ability to be as pompous, straight laced, and organizational as the every other large firm.

Even though they may give a nod to reality by featuring their principals in an “about us” section, they’re essentially distant and unfeeling. It’s broadcasting, not connecting.

This probably works at that level through sheer size and momentum.

But if you’ve escaped (or were thrown out of)  being a large-firm drudge and chosen to run your own business, you don’t have that kind of momentum.

You’re alone or have a very limited business family instead of an organization. You’re finding the work, as well as doing much of it. You’re vulnerable.

And everyone out there knows it, so why pretend to be anything but.what you are?

Why not be authentic?

Authenticity is really quite simple if you look at it right.

It means you admit you’re a human being and not a corporate entity. You may have a skill that people need, but you’re a human performing it. That means you have flaws, foibles, and the occasional failure.

It also means you have beliefs, characteristics and lines that you won’t cross. It means you understand that they too are humans with their own skills, flaws, and characteristics. It shows you understand that, like you, they’re trying to just get along in this world as best as they can.

This doesn’t mean you have to be some tragedy queen emoting all over the place at a moment’s notice. That’s just another form of gamesmanship and attention seeking.

It just means that you treat clients, prospects, and everybody as real human beings.

It means you’re authentic. And people will like you for it. And probably pick you over competitors who are trying to hide their humanity.

This authenticity stuff may go against all your training — especially if you’ve been in corporate harness for a long time.   But let’s face it, do you want to work with those corporate drones anyway?

If you have to work, wouldn’t you prefer to work with people instead of machines?

So do so. When you’re a small business your best asset is your authenticity.

This week on Collaborative Corner, Robert Ouimet who focusses on digital content creation discusses content that drives successful social media strategies.

I first started working as a journalist in 1976 in Calgary.  I’d been working in radio for a few years, but when I moved to CHQR Calgary in 1976, I became a full-on news reporter, working ‘the street’.

The tools of the my trade were my 1965 Mustang with a giant Motorola 2-way radio strapped under the dash, a pager, a Sony cassette recorder and a bag full of spare batteries.

Stories were my business – and on a good day I’d cover a couple of press conferences, stop by city hall or the police department (the cop shop), and I’d pick up one or two more stories by doing the rounds.

If the newsroom got hold of a good story they needed me to cover, they’d page me.  My beeper would go off and I’d have to find a pay phone to call back to the station.  I’d write my stories long hand on a steno pad, or if I was close to city hall, would pop in there where we had a desk and a typewriter I could use.

Filing stories meant cracking open a phone headset, and with 2 alligator clips, ‘patching in’ my cassette deck audio output to the phone wiring so I could feed clips back to the station.  Then I’d file my story over the phone while they recorded it at the other end.

It’s no surprise that in those days, we didn’t spend a lot of time talking about the technology of delivering the story.  We spent all of our time talking about ‘the story’ itself.

Flash forward to 2010.

I now have a huge collection of digital tools, both software and hardware, that make my 1976 toolset look ridiculously archaic.

These days, it seems to me we’re always talking about the technology. And why not, it’s exciting. Particularly in the social networking sphere where things are developing fast and furious.  But it’s easy to get lost in the conversation about the technology, and forget the point.  What are you there to talk about?  What stories are we actually going to tell with all these new tools?

One of the first things I tell clients is that for business, a social media strategy is actually a content strategy.  It’s about opening up and telling the stories about your product, your company, and your employees – really about anything that someone might be interested in learning about.  Interestingly, often this kind of content isn’t found on the company’s own web site.

The second thing I tell clients?  Stories talk back.  Social media is about engagement. Sure it’s ok to tell people about your products of what you’ve got on sale, but you also have to engage in the conversation.  The analogy I use is that it’s like the customer service desk, not the bulletin board.

I encourage my clients to get involved with social media – but – with a couple of key pieces in place. First, we spend some time thinking and planning the kind of stories they intend to share.  Second, that they understand that social media isn’t  ‘set and forget’; they need to be engaged in a meaningful conversation in order for it to provide meaningful results.

I wouldn’t for a minute go back to the dark ages of 1976. I love my digital studio and suite of distribution tools. I love knowing there’s something new coming at any moment.  I would, however, encourage you to remember that without ‘the story’ none of it means very much.

Oh. One thing I would do is take the Mustang back.

photo by Kris Krug

This week on Collaborative Corner, Conny Millard an international business adviser comes across business owners who are trying to make sense of a marketing strategy to suit their budget and target market:

One recent client comes to mind that had engaged my services following a year of highly ineffective marketing investments, spending in excess of over $15,000.

As a former engineer, she had no background in sales or marketing and therefore little experience in how to take her products and services to market. She thought that as long as she would spend significantly on any marketing activities, returns would be certain.

Devastatingly, that was not the case. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If only she had engaged a professional, she could have spent half of the money in the first year on a carefully selected marketing mix of launching her new venture with maximum impact and return on investment. And she would have had financial resources to help in other areas of her business as well as a financial cushion for this years campaign.

Getting professional help is something I work on with my clients from the very beginning and that certainly includes devising a strategic marketing plan based on her defined target markets. The strategy then needs to be put into action with the help of a qualified marketing executor.

By engaging a professional to help with aspects of your business that you are not proficient in, you will free up your time that is much better spend focussing on your strength which typically relates to immediate revenue opportunities. In summary, your marketing activities become top effective, the time you save is worth proper hard cash, you save and can reinvest the money for even greater returns.

So ask yourself, do you want to make it big or risk wasting it all?

I am pleased to announce that my site as been re-vamped and feeling a lot better than it did before.

I am also really excited to announce that I am collaborating with a few colleagues who will be posting articles on my site. They specialize in business development, web and content management, SEO, graphic design, strategic and creative thinking.

Every Tuesday I will add one of their articles and call this post ‘Collaborative Corner’ so stay tuned!