Blogs

While I rarely like to use my blog as a dumping ground of PDF’s, this one I really wanted to share with you. It was written by Toby Fyfe and Paul Crookall on behalf of The Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC). The title of the report  is “Social Media and Public Sector Policy Dilemmas“. This is by far the most comprehensive and well written report on the subject this year. If you work for the Government, especially the Government of Canada, you need to read this.

The report was developed based on consultations with numerous stakeholders across the country and abroad. It covers among other things, access to information, security, leadership, records retention, privacy, and the need for a culture of trust. It talks a great deal about the biggest impediment to government use of social media, which I have mentioned numerous times in this blog, i.e. the “clay layer” of middle management and the hierarchical public service culture. The report also quite accurately segments public servants into zealots, collaborators and resisters (from a social media engagement perspective), which is exactly in-line with what I have experienced as a consultant for government. Most importantly however, it cites the numerous strategic and successful initiatives being launched across the country, which are now feeding into a growing list of best practices. This document should be on every senior leader’s desk.

Even though some of you may think that pointing out risks and dilemmas only slows things down, I am a firm believer that public sector organizations need to start looking at how the digital space affects the entire organization from a strategic perspective. Part of this process is risk-mitigation and understanding the cost-benefit analysis.  This is the only way we will move beyond merely playing with “shiny objects” and one-off pilot projects and actually start thinking about how the entire organization can benefit in the era of government 2.0.

I have stumbled across this RSA Animate video on a few occasions now, most recently on Kneale Mann’s thought-provoking blog, YouIntegrate. It’s an adaptation of Dan Pink’s talk at an RSA event. This video illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. I wanted to share it with you in light of what the Government of Canada is currently doing regarding innovation incentives.

The premise of the video is quite simple, but controversial nonetheless:

• For simple, rudimentary tasks, a monetary reward works as an incentive.
• For tasks that require conceptual and/or creative thinking,a monetary reward leads to poor performance.

What is the ultimate motivator in the workplace?

Autonomy, mastery, and sense of purpose.

Please don’t miss the very important point that this only applies once the issue of money is placed off of the table. In other words, your employees must first feel that they are being compensated fairly for their jobs.

It’s interesting to see that the Government of Canada is basically taking the opposite approach of what is recommended in this video by offering $10,000 cash bonuses for innovation.

I can’t wait to see the results.

I love open data initiatives; Especially when they are Canadian (my home turf). I wrote about the premise behind the Apps for Climate Change contest back in April, and now that we have submissions, I want to remind you to vote. The total number of submissions that met all requirements is 16, a huge success in my opinion given the infancy of apps contests in Canada. You can see demos and vote for your favourite apps here.

My vote went to the Etho App. An iphone application that “provides shoppers with relevant health, social & environmental facts on the spot to aid them in making ethical purchases”. I’m already addicted to apps like RedLaser, which allow you to scan bar codes for price information, so this would be a natural evolution of that by overlaying environmental data.

Which one did you vote for? Deadline is August 29th.

Earlier this summer, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada posted up their Twitter Policy. While a few other departments were already on it (such as the Get Prepared – PSC – Twitter Policy), this is the first one that is publicly posted in full detail rather than just in summary form [Correction 24/08/2010: Public Safety does indeed have its full Twitter policy posted here.] This is good news for all of you still stuck trying to convince the “clay-layer” of middle-management that Twitter can be used for significantly more strategic purposes than finding out what Justin Bieber is up to.

Why is this good news for government organizations? The majority of decision makers in government like to follow not lead.

By far, the hottest trend I am picking up right now as a consultant in this field is the need for guidelines/policies surrounding digital engagement. At the end of the day, these are merely reminders of existing policies and guidelines that employees are already supposed to be adhering to in day-to-day interactions with other people.  They are just updated and simplified to reflect the real-time digital information environment that we currently live in. Various proactive organizations have already begun creating these (or issuing RFP’s), while the reactive ones are waiting for something to come top-down (at a significant cost in terms of missed opportunities).

Want to create guidelines on your own? Browse the Social Media Governance Database and derive ideas from an existing template.

Those of you that know me personally, know that I like to be blunt, no beating around the bush. This isn’t always easy when dealing with clients, but is often necessary nonetheless. One issue I have run into on a few occasions now is organizations thinking that social media engagement is the be-it-end-all solution to all of their marketing problems. Usually the mentality behind this is that social media engagement will allow them to drastically increase awareness of their product/service at very little cost and have more people using it as a result.

Here’s a little wake-up call folks: “If your service and/or product sucks to begin with, engagement on the web is only going to amplify this”.

There are 4 P’s in strategic marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. All of which should be based on solid research and should be relevant to your target audience, especially your product/service. In many cases, public sector and non-profit organizations have a service or product that is simply not based on anything other than a mandate. For more on this you may want to read a post I wrote a while back entitled,  “How social media can bring strategic thinking back into government“.

Along comes the new and exciting world of social media and suddenly people think that everyone will want to talk about their offering if only they practice 2-way engagement. While I am a huge proponent of digital engagement, keep in mind that I also actively preach a strategic approach to it, not a “jump in the fire and see what happens” approach. Part of this approach includes understanding audience needs and modifying your 4P’s accordingly if need be. If you do decide to engage right a way, then instead of intercepting your audience with information about your service/product, try asking them what they think, and whether or not they have suggestions for improvement. Otherwise, key influencers in your audience may see your engagement as an opportunity to vent.

That being said, if jumping in the fire is the approach you are currently taking, don’t be surprised if you get backlash, instead embrace it with all your might. This could be the best piece of business intelligence that you will get for a long time (especially given what’s happening with the Census).

What do I usually suggest as a first step to organizations in a position to strategically approach social media?

Conduct a social media audit and gauge the tone and level of conversation surrounding your brand, product/service and your industry. You should then use this business intelligence to improve your 4P’s, especially your product/service.

As someone who has been in the marketing game as an executive, manager, professor, consultant in the private and public sector for close to 35 years,  I sometimes wonder if politicians and their subordinates and bureaucrats have any idea  how to do stuff that is cost efficient and makes sense. We are living in an age of sound bites and instant decision-making where no one has the time to think things through and worst people don’t do their homework before making decisions. And oh yes when they do make a decision they don’t have the foggiest notion how to properly communicate it.  

How do you explain the stupidity of our municipal government cancelling the light rail project in Ottawa which will cost taxpayers 100 million dollars with nothing to show for it? After a few years of planning and endless meetings a decision was made to build a North South Light Rail. But after contracting the project out some new politicians come into power and recommend that we scrap the North South Line because we should be building an East-West line. Great… but if the right decision was to go East-West line why didn’t we do this in the first place and save ourselves millions of dollars. How are decisions made? Did the bureaucrats and politicians not know that the need was for East -West?

 The most recent blog I wrote about the provincial government’s  eco fee disaster which clearly demonstrates the lack of strategy and basic common sense. Did anyone do any thinking before they introduced the new eco fee? Apparently not.  The poor Minister of Environment had to eat humble pie and cancel the eco tax.  Now the taxpayer has to pick up the tab.

We have a Minister responsible for our Treasury Board at the federal level who wants to build more prisons, although crime rates are decreasing. His concern seems to be with unreported crime. So, let us follow the logic here: The problem with the current system is that it doesn’t punish crimes we’re not entirely sure are happening severely enough. That’s why the crime rate is so high, even though it’s not, but it would be if people reported all the crimes that are taking place.

Of course the crème de la crème is the government’s decision to cancel the mandatory long-form census questionnaire. Now actually I always felt that the government should rethink the census. Although the info we get from the census is great, for marketers and business much of the data comes to us too late. There has to be a way in this modern age of technology to speed up the process.  I also agree that threatening people with imprisonment if they don’t answer the mandatory long form was ridiculous and frankly Orwellian (although nobody has ever gone to jail for this crime). I also felt for many years that there were too many questions (and yes some very intrusive and probably should have been omitted.)

 But what I would have expected the government to do when making changes to the census is consult with the users of the census. The data generated by the long-form census questionnaire provide decision-makers in the public and private sectors with a deep and rich set of facts about Canadians, facts that are reliable at the local, regional and national levels.  Perhaps the Minister and his officials should have gone out and spend some time talking to people who use the data. Yes Consultation!

As the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (MRIA) wrote in their letter to the government

“ the concern about the Government’s decision to cancel the mandatory long-form and introduce a voluntary  new National Household Survey (NHS) –  (which would have a wider distribution one in three households than the long-form questionnaire .) The concern of the MRIA is that the response rate will likely be substantially lower and the resulting data less robust, given that hard-to reach segments of the population will not likely be included among respondents. The experience of survey researchers and social scientists is that those in lower-income groups, ethnic minorities, and the wealthiest citizens are least likely to answer questions voluntarily.

This they claim would lead to skewed data and doubts about the accuracy of information that is relied upon by public policy and business decision-makers. Without robust census data, it will be exceedingly difficult for governments to respond effectively to shifting patterns of need in the populace or to introduce changes that provide the greatest value for money. One particularly problematic outcome of the elimination of the mandatory long-form questionnaire would be the eradication of the only reliable, national source of information on aboriginal educational achievement.

Census long-form questionnaire constitute crucial input for the sample designs of other national surveys. The long-form data are also combined with other survey data to compute and extrapolate rates for key social and economic indicators. For example, local health authorities can use their own survey data combined with census data to calculate rates of health service utilization and many other vital statistics.

The new National Household Survey – may be biased on important dimensions such as income, education, housing status, and many others. Researchers across the country, working on projects in all areas of public policy and business decision-making, will have no data with which to correct for these biases. It will also not be possible for researchers to compare numbers from census to census, and analyze trends. Source

Now you would think the people who make a living from polling people 365 days a year might have some valuable information to impart. Why didn’t someone in the government think of talking to people who represent the public opinion research and market intelligence industry in Canada before making decisions on the census?

So why Marketing?

Yes the decision to build a light rail transit which did not focus on East – West as opposed to North-South did not make sense. But why did we not know this at the beginning of the process. How was the decision made?

And yes it makes sense to charge a fee to keep discards out of landfills and, if possible, to recycle or reuse their components. Companies that make and sell stuff, and those of us who buy it, should take responsibility for what happens when we’re finished with it.

And maybe there is a good reason to build new prisons. Some of our prisons are very old and need substantial repairs. Maybe we need different prisons i.e. less maximum security and more medium security prisons to house white-collar crime which may be on the rise or maybe we simply want to put more criminals in prison for a longer time to keep our cities safer. I am certainly not opposed to being tougher on crime.  But what’s the deal with building prisons because of unreported crime? Who came up with that one?

Yes we certainly need to rethink the census. For example some countries have done away with the census but not in the name of privacy. The Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and other European states have extensive administrative data bases that contain the same information that Canada gathers in the census. These data include registration numbers that are used to create linked data bases for all individuals living in these countries. The residents (citizens and non-citizens alike) in these countries are obliged to provide this information. All interactions with the state (health, education, taxation, the justice system, migration) are recorded in these data bases.

My beef with governments is not necessarily what they do but how they do it.

What would happen if government took a MARKETING APPROACH which requires them to get a full understanding of the environment in which they are making decisions and consulting with clients, customers, users, stakeholders, partners before introducing new policies, programs, products and services? A marketing approach would ensure that there are clear messages (based on solid marketing research) with clear rationales behind the decisions taken on any given initiative

In an era when governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public, marketing can help governments accomplish this goal. With governments, crown corporations/agencies and other public institutions spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency in the processes used to deliver these initiatives

I would be glad to sit down with policy makers at all levels of government to show them how taking a marketing approach to their program and policy challenges will result in better decisions and save the tax payer millions of dollars..

I’m having a challenge. I know I’m not the only one since this is a much discussed problem among various organizations in our field. I’m pretty sure there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution but I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Our consulting organization CEPSM has a Twitter account (@cepsm); and so do nearly all of the consultants that work here. That being said, we all primarily use our individual Twitter accounts (e.g. @mikekujawski) to build community around our passion/business since individual accounts always beat corporate accounts when it comes to building and fostering professional relationships. So the question is, what is the point of using the CEPSM corporate account when we are all actively involved in two-way business engagement on the same topic via our individual professional accounts?

[Note: this does not really apply to large organizations, which likely have the resources to staff a full-time individual (or team) to manage the official corporate account 24/7. Also, let's assume that we all understand and follow the basic rules of social media engagement , i.e. things like ethics, conflict of interest and common sense.]

Even if we each set up two accounts in a tool like TweetDeck, and have the option of specifying which account (or both) we want each tweet to be sent from (e.g. @cepsm or @mikekujawski), we still run into problems. For example, if I tweet something that has nothing to do with business (e.g my bungee jump this weekend), then I can send it through my personal channel only. One problem with this is that filtering @cepsm tweets to “corporate only/non-personal” tweets turns the @cepsm tweet stream into a dry business-only channel. One of the most effective uses of the Twitter channel from a business perspective is to bring back the “human” element and foster non-linear conversation. Even though my personal side is not necessarily reflective of everyone at CEPSM, everyone that works here can be contributing their personal tweets into the @cepsm stream as well to form a holistic aggregate persona of the CEPSM brand. This seems like a valid solution at first, however if we start sending most of our tweets via both channels, then our audience will begin to get duplicate tweets in their monitoring streams since they likely follow @cepsm as well. In my case this is quite a big problem since 80% of my personal account tweets are 100% relevant to CEPSM (i.e. have to do with strategic marketing, digital engagement, social media, etc…).

There are 3 main approaches I see to this problem, however none of them solve it 100%.

1. Don’t have a corporate account, but rather a “Twitter List” of all corporate employees in addition to their individual accounts. RISK: No official corporate account is not good for web presence and visibility of the brand.
2. Have a corporate account in addition to individual accounts and only use it for official news releases (with a human voice at least as opposed to corporate talk). Create a Twitter.com background image that lists all personal accounts of consultants that work at CEPSM.  RISK: The two-way engagement that we all actively practice in our personal accounts is not reflected in the corporate account.
3. Have a corporate account in addition to individual accounts and send all tweets to both accounts except for tweets that have nothing to do with our industry. RISK: Some people that follow both our individual and corporate accounts will receive duplicate tweets.

What do you think, am I missing some obvious solution? Keep in mind that I am referring to organizations that do not have a dedicated resource for the company account but rather have multiple individual professional accounts. Therefore, mainly small and medium consulting firms in a specific niche industry.

What is the issue?

The Conservative Government decided that it would kill the mandatory long- form census it normally sends out to thousands of Canadians every five years. Instead, a mandatory short form will go out to everyone for next year’s census, with basic questions about how many people live in the household and their ages and genders.

Having just returned from my 100% digitally disconnected cottage vacation, I’ve had quite a bit of catching up to do on this whole situation. Rather than re-stating what has already been written, I want to point you to my colleagues David Eaves (from eaves.ca) and Tracey Lauriault (from datalibre.ca) who are both still providing some quality insight and analysis of this issue on their blogs as it evolves.

Why is this a really bad decision and why should you care?

I’d rather you read the reasons from this rapidly growing list of opposing organizations because the reasons are endless. In short, the government is getting rid of the primary source for evidence-based decision making, and thus will have an excuse to rely on hunch based decisions that conveniently fit the current government’s agenda. This is quite possibly one the most poorly thought out moves ever made by our government. There will be implications for every person in every line of business in the public, private and non-profit sectors. Here are three posts I strongly advise you read:

• Why you should care about the sudden demise of the mandatory long census form – David Eaves
• Uses of long-form data – question justification – Tracey Lauriault
• Research Has Become a Dirty Word: Part Two – Jim Mintz

What about the Scandinavian model in which countries have successfully gotten rid of the census?

Here is quote from Gustave Goldmann, formerly a senior official at Statistics Canada:

“The critics often cite examples of countries that have done away with the census as evidence Canada should do the same in the name of privacy. What they fail to acknowledge is that the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and other European states have extensive administrative data bases that contain the same information that Canada gathers in the census. These data include registration numbers that are used to create linked data bases for all individuals living in these countries. The residents (citizens and non-citizens alike) in these countries are obliged to provide this information. All interactions with the state (health, education, taxation, the justice system, migration) are recorded in these data bases.”

What about the argument that this is to protect our privacy?

Read this post: It was never about privacy

What can you do?

You can sign this massive petition to reverse the decision on canceling the long-form census.

As a marketing communications professional who both works and blogs in the area of public sector and non-profit marketing and communications, I tend to see a lot of stuff … some good and some bad but I cannot remember in my close to  30 years in the business seeing anything worse than the Ontario’s eco fee disaster . If I was to ever write a case study of how not to public sector marketing and communications this would be it, although the most recent activities by the Harper government with the Long Form Census would come a very close second see my previous blog Research Has Become a Dirty Word: Part Two .

First let me say that I always felt over the years that the folks at Queens Park had their act together and were professional in their communications and marketing but the Ontario’s eco fee disaster makes me wonder who is running the show in Toronto.  Clearly the Premiers office and his communications folks in the bureaucracy let him down. After the e-Health disaster, I thought these guys would get their act together but this obviously is not the case.

As Ellen Roseman points out “it’s a relief to see the Ontario government suspend its controversial eco fee program for three months. I’ve rarely seen the citizens of this province react so angrily to a new initiative. In fact, I expected to see more hostility against the launch of the harmonized sales tax, as in British Columbia. Instead, people seemed to channel their rage into the eco fees, which had a lesser impact on their cost of living than the HST.”

“Maybe it was a case of unfortunate timing, since both came in on the same day (July 1). And maybe it was a case of having a well-executed communication plan for the HST and almost no advance notice for the expanded eco fee program – leading to distress when consumers started seeing mysterious charges on their sales receipts.”

Peter Gorrie Environment Columnist with the Globe and Mail explains “that the fee is part of a larger plan to keep discards out of landfills and, if possible, to recycle or reuse their components. The goal is for the companies that make and sell stuff, and those of us who buy it, to take responsibility for what happens when we’re finished with it. This concept began in this direction in the late-1980s, when the Blue Box was invented to reduce the mountain of garbage created by the switch from refillable pop bottles to single-use containers. Since then, the list of recyclable materials has expanded, and several payment schemes have been tried. The same is happening elsewhere in Canada and around the world. We are, in fact, already well along that road: We pay a tire tax and a charge for disposing used motor oil. Fees were introduced on some electronics products, and we began paying eco fees for some hazardous materials, and that list was expanded 17 days ago.”

Mike Arnett, president of Canadian Tire Retail suggests that the fees, which have been mired in confusion since retailers started charging them on thousands of new items July 1, were the victim of a “botched” roll out and “poorly handled” by everyone involved, “We just think that the whole program that was rolled out was not well-managed by anyone, really, and that it’s caused a great deal of confusion for our customers,” “We’re being asked questions that we don’t have good answers to, and we really think the program needs to be reworked. They set up a very complicated structure for charging eco fees and left retailers to sort it out. “Even more confusing, the ‘interpretation’ of these fees is left up to each retailer — meaning that five different retailers may charge five different eco fees for the exact same product — all depending on how they interpret the very complicated fee structure,”

Stewardship Ontario, an industry-led organization that oversees the program, collects certain fees from retailers and manufacturers. They, in turn, determine the fees that they pass on to consumers. Clearly they didn’t do a good job in preparing Ontario consumers for the new fees. Arnett points out that “Stewardship Ontario did not provide answers to the many questions customers and the media had in the face of fees that nobody understood” “We don’t have good answers — because the program itself isn’t built to be intuitive for either customers or retailers.”

Consumers, critics and some industry groups have been scratching their heads about why certain items are subject to the levy, such as laundry detergent, grass seed and environmentally friendly products that use natural ingredients.

The government initially did not take responsibility for the program shifting all the blame for this fiasco on Stewardship Ontario which obviously was a foolish communications strategy. The government should have never allowed the industry to effectively regulate itself with respect to the eco fees. As NDP leader Andrea Horvath stated “The government dropped the ball, it’s now up to the government to pick up the pieces and ensure the companies that profit off this waste should be responsible for getting rid of it — not their customers,”

Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen stated that he takes “full responsibility” for not doing a better job of communicating the introduction of the new charges. “The bottom line is Stewardship Ontario could have done a better job for rolling out the changes, and we, the Ministry of the Environment, the government, and I as minister, could have done a better job of helping them communicate their changes, and I take full responsibility for that,” said Gerretsen.

Yes Minister but where were you a few weeks ago when this fiasco first hit?

Roseman: Lessons for leaders in Ontario’s eco fee disaster

“Make it simple. You have to craft a quick summary of who you are and what you hope to do. It’s called an elevator pitch, since you want to sell yourself in the time it takes to ride from the ground floor to the top of a high-rise office tower. Stewardship Ontario didn’t prepare an elevator pitch. It provided no coherent explanation of eco fees at its website, nor an easily accessible list of fees to use on a shopping trip. Instead, its messaging was defensive and negative from the start – the media got it wrong, this is not a tax grab, we’re not a government body, we have no involvement in the setting or collection of eco fees and no authority over how stewards manage the fees.

Take accountability. When you get bad press, which often happens when you tamper with the status quo, you have to make yourself visible. It’s a time when a chief executive has to respond to every media call that comes in and squeeze as many interviews into a schedule as possible. It’s not a time to hide from the public, as Stewardship Ontario’s CEO Gemma Zecchini did for a week before issuing a contrite news release. And need I mention that the Premier hasn’t made any statements, delegating everything to his environment minister John Gerretsen?  Keep control. When you’re a leader, you can’t escape responsibility for failure by blaming others. You’re in charge and you must maintain oversight of any arm’s length bodies that carry out your wishes.”

One last thing and this is a message to all public sector and non-profit programs, first have a strategy to consult with stakeholders and make sure they are totally in the loop. When instituting major changes to policy, it is important to conduct some public opinion research to ensure that you won’t receive a backlash from consumers. It is pretty standard to have a communications plan but do you also have a plan to SELL your program or policy? Have you considered doing some marketing… we use marketing to sell products and service so why not programs and policies? Too often we hear program mangers tell us at the Centre that they don’t have time or money to run a proper marketing (public education) program but this is a reminder of the consequences of not running and effective marketing program . I hope that the folks at Stewardship Ontario and the Ministry of Environment have learned their lesson.

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Why You Should Attend

• Develop an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan for your organization
• Become skilled at setting realistic, practical marketing objectives and goals
• Learn how to communicate messages effectively to key stakeholders and the public
• Share experiences with marketers in your sectors and expand your network

Who Should Attend

Managers working for government, crown corporations/agencies, non-profit organization and associations who are responsible for:

• Marketing programs, products and services targeted to the public, business and government
• Sponsorship and partnership development
• Membership development and revenue generation
• Exhibit and event marketing
• Social marketing, community outreach and public education programs
• Strategic communications, media relations and media advocacy
• Online and web marketing, social media and digital marketing.

For information click here for link

When I wrote my blog Research has become a “Dirty Word” in the Federal Government , I had no idea how far the government would go in dismissing  valuable research to help guide important government decision making.  Well the recent news about the long –form census being canceled threw me for a loop. When I first heard the news that government would oppose the mandatory long-form census, I thought it was a rumour, or worse a joke or prank but no this is really happening.

Based on news reports, last fall the government decided that they would oppose the mandatory long-form census. Since then, nothing has changed their mind. This policy is being denounced by almost every leading institution and commentator in Canada. See Maclean’s for list

Tabethy Southey in her column: Long-form census? Nah, we’ll ask Paul the octopus points out the  Industry Minister  explained that they can compensate for the fact that certain demographic groups are likely to forego completing the long-form census because “statisticians can ensure validity” with a “larger sample size.” ( i.e done voluntarily).

This isn’t the case. Simply put, no matter how broad a sample size statisticians use, the fact that some groups are likely to be underrepresented will mean that the database will be faulty.

You wonder why this decision was made. (the privacy argument is quite weak- the government knows there are provisions in the legislation preventing answers from being linked to the person giving them. They also know that neither the privacy commissioner nor the committee that crossed the country studying what should be in the census heard complaints about long-form privacy concerns. Canada’s privacy watchdog has received only three complaints about the census in the last decade). Perhaps it has more to do with how this government wants to develop policy.Without detailed data it will be easier to promote and defend public policies that appeal to conclusions based on personal opinions. Politicians seldom want to let the facts get in the way of their opinions based on what their constituents tell them at their local Tim Horton’s. In other words we have government who would rather not be confused by the facts.  But is this the way to run a government?  It means the country’s course will be shaped more by assumption and emotion than by proof and reason.

As Jim Travers points out , credible information is the starting point for sound decisions. Municipal, provincial and federal planners rely on the census for that information, as do businesses, academics and ordinary folks curious about their changing world.

For example, when political parties, including the party in power, want to get elected they make a great deal of use of the census long form demographic results in tailoring their campaigns and advertising.

Let’s face many people happily divulge large amounts of information on the comments card at a chain restaurant, and provide their phone numbers; they give intimate details to dating sites. They provide tons of info on web sites and they have no idea that when they sign up for a card that gives them points or some type of membership they are giving corporations an incredible amount of personal information.

How about social media sites like Facebook? Any privacy issues there?

Without scientific information, parliamentarians fly blind when developing policies or approving legislation… I suspect they like this scenario.

REGISTER NOW

Why You Should Attend

• Develop an action-oriented, strategic marketing plan for your organization
• Become skilled at setting realistic, practical marketing objectives and goals
• Learn how to communicate messages effectively to key stakeholders and the public
• Share experiences with marketers in your sectors and expand your network

Who Should Attend

Managers working for government, crown corporations/agencies, non-profit organization and associations who are responsible for:

• Marketing programs, products and services targeted to the public, business and government
• Sponsorship and partnership development
• Membership development and revenue generation
• Exhibit and event marketing
• Social marketing, community outreach and public education programs
• Strategic communications, media relations and media advocacy
• Online and web marketing, social media and digital marketing.

For information click here for link

I have been a strong supporter of the private sector being involved with health programs for many years. Our group at Health Canada was involved in developing more than 300 public-private partnerships including ones for tobacco, alcohol and drugs, impaired driving, active living, healthy eating, diabetes prevention, healthy pregnancy, SIDS, children and seniors programs, injury prevention, West Nile virus, organ and tissue donation.  As I point out in an  article in Social Marketing Quarterly there needs to be some criteria and some common sense in engaging with the private sector, especially in the health field.

So I recently read about a partnership in Great Britain that made me wonder if the new British government have sold out to the private sector and has really hurt the credibility of private/public partnerships.

Food marketers in the U.K. are being asked to step up efforts to educate the public about healthy eating, after the new British government is cutting its $120 million Change4Life anti-obesity marketing campaign. In return the government will not impose new restrictions on food marketing.

The move is part of a wider plan for marketing cutbacks of up to 50% by the cash-strapped U.K. government, which is currently the biggest-spending advertiser in the U.K., ahead of Procter & Gamble.

Agencies are reeling from the dramatic budget cut, but marketers welcome the opportunity to take a bigger role in the debate, and are also relishing the government’s promise–in return for their help–not to increase regulation of food and drink marketing. The Conservative Party’s health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has ditched the three-year; $120 million budget set aside by his Labour predecessor and urged a “new approach to public health.”

“I will now be pressing [the commercial sector] to provide actual funding behind the campaign, and they need to do more,” he said. “If we are to reverse the trends in obesity, the commercial sector needs to change their business practices, including how they promote their brands and product reformulation.”

The Business4Life initiative brings together marketers including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Mars, Nestle, Pepsi Co, Tesco, Cadbury and Unilever and claims on its website that the group will offer the equivalent of $300 million worth of expertise to encourage better diets and more exercise.

“Business is ready to play its part,” said the group’s leader, Ian Barber. “We welcome being seen as part of the solution rather than being constantly castigated as being part of the problem. We are more likely to get the right results if we have a positive role than if we are constantly having mud chucked at us.”

“We have to make Change4Life less a government campaign, more a social movement,” said Lansley. “Less paid for by government, more backed by business. Less about costly advertising, more about supporting family and individual responses.”

Marketers and media owners see Lansley’s decision as a reprieve from moves to instigate a pre-9 p.m. ban on TV advertising of food that is high in fat, salt and sugar, which would have threatened more than $400 million a year in advertising revenue, according to government regulator Ofcom. Source

The reaction has been quite critical:

In their latest attempt to stem the tide of British obesity, the national government is asking junk food producers to fund healthy living campaigns in return for a promise to not slap any taxes on fatty, sugary, salty, processed foods .And in keeping with this new style of governance, the Prime Minister will also be asking London’s crack and crystal meth dealers to fund the nation’s “Say No to Drugs” programs in return for repealing the nation’s drug laws. They may also looking into new funding arrangements with the tobacco industry, industrial polluters union #666 and NAMBLA.So, why would junk food producers want to fund successful anti-obesity / healthy living programs? Answer: they wouldn’t. But, they probably won’t mind spending a few million on ineffective programs if it means they can continue making billions selling crap food to the British public. Source

In the Daily Mail a very interesting piece by Sophie Borland and Nick McDermott

And for all those non-Brits out there, don’t think that your government wouldn’t sell you out just as quick. Major food firms will be asked to fund healthy living campaigns but controversially in return will not face a clampdown on fatty, sugary and salty meals, the health secretary said yesterday.

Manufacturers of some of Britain’s most well-known soft drinks, chocolates and snacks will be asked to pay for public advertising campaigns. And in exchange, Andrew Lansley will not pass any new laws on foods which are deemed to be unhealthy.

He told a conference for public health doctors he wanted to free food and drink firms from the ‘burden of regulation’  and would invite them to take on a greater role in public health.Mr Lansley said Government programmes cannot force people to make healthy choices, adding that individuals must take more responsibility for their choices.

‘It’s not about good food or bad food because that way, you just close companies out. It’s actually about a good diet or bad diet, good exercise or lack of exercise, it’s about people having a responsibility,’ he said.

He added it’s ‘perfectly possible to eat a bag of crisps, to eat a Mars bar, to drink a carbonated soft drink’ as long as it is in moderation.

But health campaigners immediately condemned the Government’s decision to go cap in hand to companies such as Cadbury, Mars and Coca-Cola in a bid to motivate people to follow better diets and take more exercise.

Tam Fry, board member of the National Obesity Forum, said: ‘It sees them as nothing other than a bare-faced request for cash from a rich food and drink industry to bail out a cash-starved Department of Health campaign.

‘The quid pro quo is that the department gives industry an assurance that there will be no regulation or legislation over its activities. Source

Betty McBride, director of policy and communications at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘We wait with bated breath for the fast food merchants, chocolate bar makers and fizzy drink vendors to beat a path to the public health door. ‘Meanwhile, parents and children continue to be faced with the bewildering kaleidoscope of confusing food labels and pre-watershed junk food adverts.’ Source

In an article Children are Obese due to Overfeeding Not Lack of Exercise Scientists found that lack of exercise is not to blame for increased levels of childhood obesity. A new report suggests that physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness, not its cause. Researchers now believe that overfeeding by parents and children eating more junk food is the root cause of weight gain. The report also said targeting nutrition rather than exercise was the best way to help obese children lose weight Source

Over at ParticipACTION the national voice of physical activity and sport participation in Canada. We find that Coca-Cola Canada has pledged $5 million to support Sogo Active , a national program that challenges Canadian youth aged 13-19 to get active and overcome the physical inactivity crisis. Source. Also check out

Here is the latest press release from Participaction and Coca Cola.

August 12, 2010   |   By Kristin Laird

Coca-Cola Canada and ParticipAction are challenging Canadian youth to get physical and motivate others with the latest phase of its Sogo Active national physical activity program.This year’s initiative includes the “Can You Fill These Shoes?” contest. Teens can register online at SogoActive.com to create their own challenges and encourage friends to join.The 90 teens with the most recruits will receive a prize and the chance to become a Sogo Active Ambassador, for which they’ll receive $5,000 to put towards their education, a $500 grant to support physical activity in their community, Adidas gear, and a Sport Chek gift card.The goal is to have teens increase their physical activity levels by joining national or local challenges or by creating their own and involving their friends, explained Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipAction.”Sogo Active is encouraging and supporting youth to inspire each other to take responsibility for their own health and find new reasons and new opportunities to be active,” she said.Since launching two years ago, nearly 13,000 youth and 1,300 host communities have joined Sogo Active. As part of the program, Coca-Cola invited 1,000 members to carry the Olympic torch earlier this year. 

“The first phase was to marry together the strengths of the respective organizations, and to market physical activity to make it look cool to the teen demographic,” said Amy Laski, spokesperson, Coca-Cola Canada.”We’re not experts in physical activity, but we’ve brought our marketing expertise to help the program,” she said.Some may consider the partnership an odd match considering some Coke products are loaded with sugar. But ParticipAction’s Murumets says Coca-Cola is “an absolutely amazing partner.”"They’re aware of the image they have and have been responsible in the way we’ve set up Sogo,” she said. “Whenever we have an event we always serve the healthiest Coca-Cola product… And  [The partnership] is with the company and not a particular brand.

Concerned Children’s Advertisers (CCA), whose activities include nationally televised Public Service Announcements and curricula for children in kindergarten to grade eight, as well as tips and tools for parents and community workers has a campaign  in the area of healthy living and healthy eating . Their messages include the importance of balancing food and activity and encouraging kids to “eat smart and move more. “To extend the campaign they also develop and produce comprehensive educational programs for children in kindergarten to grade eight. Long Live Kids teaches kids to “eat smart, move more and be media wise,” to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle.But when you look at their partners  you find MacDonalds, Hershey’s, Nestles and Pepsi Co,

White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity to the President. The report included recommendations in a few key areas:

1. Empowering parents and caregivers with simpler, more actionable messages about nutritional choices based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans; improved labels on food and menus that provide clear information to help make healthy choices for children; reduced marketing of unhealthy products to children; and improved health care services, including BMI measurement for all children.
2. Providing healthy food in schools.
3. Improving access to healthy, affordable food, by eliminating “food deserts”.
4. Getting children more physically active.

The report also reports that in 2006, $1,600,000,000.00 were spent on food ads aimed at youngsters. The majority of products were unhealthy. In response, the Council of Better Business Bureaus established the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative , a self-regulatory industry body. By 2009, 3 years later, no substantial changes in marketing to kids were noticed. Read: miserable failure.

In “Out of Balance,” , Consumers Union and CPEHN looked at data from Advertising Age to analyze the amount of money spent on the unending barrage of food brand advertising. The groups found that food, beverage, candy and restaurant advertising hit $11.26 billion in 2004, compared to a mere $9.55 million to advertise the Five a Day campaign, which promotes eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily. The ad budget for the top-spending fast food restaurants alone came in at $2.3 billion, roughly 240 times greater than the communications budget for the 5 A Day campaigns combined. The advertising budget for Snickers, a single brand of candy, is nearly eight times greater than the advertising budget for the entire 5 A Day California and federal programs.

Michelle Obama’s childhood anti-obesity campaign got a big boost when a coalition of major food manufacturers, including Campbell Soup, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Kraft Foods and Pepsi Co vowed to introduce healthier food options, and cut down calories in existing products.

Some believe that the hidden motive here is to convince government to back off and not regulate the industry,” said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. ” Source

To summarize I strongly support partnerships between government Non Profit agencies and the private sector, but there has to be limits to these partnerships and frankly a little bit of common-sense, having producers of candies, chocolate and soda pop is not an ideal partner for those involved in the Obesity battle especially when their ultimate objective is not to be regulated by government.

I would love to hear what you think.

Michael Porter, the Harvard Business School professor and economic theorist, calls innovation “the central issue in economic prosperity.” In the midst of the economic morass , these are some of the year’s best innovations in media and marketing — some that look to have lasting influence, others that could even prove to be real game changers for digital media, in-store marketers, the TV networks, even architects of political campaigns

According to the Association of National Advertisers here are the 10 technological advances marketers can’t live without.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has brought the conversations that consumers were having online, giving marketers the chance to monitor, further and contribute to them in real-time.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search engine optimization is one of the most important and cost-effective ways to attract customers on the internet. Research has found that almost two-thirds of the time, people look only at the first page of their search results. They rarely make it beyond the first 10, and virtually never beyond the initial 30 results.

INTEREST-BASED ADVERTISING (BEHAVIOURAL TARGETING)
Behavioural targeting allows ads to be more relevant, valuable and thus persuasive to the consumer. This has given the marketing industry an unprecedented level of precision.

ONLINE VIDEO: VIDEO ON DEMAND
The arrival of video on demand and sites like YouTube  signalled a huge change in the industry. People started looking to the web for entertainment, and advertisers redirected dollars to take advantage of the growing world of online video. MOBILE: This burgeoning platform is seeing a meteoric rise thanks to the proliferation of cellphones, smartphones and tablet computers.

MEASURING ACTIONS VS. IMPRESSIONS
Online ads originally mimicked those in traditional media, where marketers paid for the amount of exposure gained.

INTERACTIVE TV
As DVRs made their way into consumers’ lives; many industry pundits mourned the end of the 30-second spot and wondered how advertisers would fare now that people could skip through their commercials. The answer was not just to formulate ads that worked in fast-forward, but to introduce interactive TV ads that worked within and in tandem with regular programming.

BRAND-SPECIFIC COMMERCIAL RATINGS
More than $70 billion is spent each year on TV advertising. With such a large amount of funds devoted to commercials, the industry began calling for a better way to assess whether they were getting their money’s worth. Where, on one hand, the digital realm was providing precise statistics on an ad’s effectiveness, TV ratings were still based on the average of all commercials airing with a program. The industry is now starting to see a potential pathway, as a test conducted by Nielsen shows that the move toward brand-specific commercial ratings is clear.

MOBILE ADVERTISING AND PAYMENTS
According to eMarketer, the mobile advertising industry is expected to be worth more than $1.56 billion by 2013. This burgeoning platform is seeing a meteoric rise thanks to the proliferation of cell phones, smartphones and tablet computers. Apple’s iPhone and iPad specifically have brought the mobile arena to the forefront, as consumers increasingly look to their phones to aid in more aspects of their lives.

MARKETING-MIX MODELING
Marketing-mix modeling provided researchers and analysts the opportunity to think more precisely about integrated marketing. Technologists found ways to create highly productive media-decision models by weaving together analyses of consumer sensitivity to a company (or brand’s) media platforms. This tool gave media planners the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of an integrated marketing plan while reducing overall costs. Modeling has become more difficult with newer forms of media; the management process for conceptualizing integrated media plans remains the same. This is expected to improve as marketers and agencies better assess consumer sensitivity to digital media platforms.

AD-ID
Since 1970, advertisers, agencies and TV networks used the ISCI commercial coding system to identify TV commercials. To help bring a higher level of accuracy to the coding process and consistency to advertisement identification, as well as enable the industry for digital convergence, a new identification system was created. It has since been dubbed the “UPC code of the advertising industry.” Ad-ID helped transform the marketing industry for the digital revolution.

Ivana Taylors CEO of Third Force, has come up with her top 10 marketing tips for 2010

1. Get on Your Soapbox: A solid brand position is rooted in a passionate commitment to the customer.  What do you believe about your industry, product or service?  What possibilities are you creating for your customer?  What’s your customer’s burning issue and in what ways does your company solve it.

2. Update Your Site and Start a blog: If it’s been more than three years since you’ve updated your site – it’s time to take a fresh look.  Have you started a blog?  These days, web sites and blogs are almost interchangeable.  They can be hosted for free and often come with free high-end design templates that only require you to write content.  Look at your web site and blog as free or low-cost advertising to your prospects and customers.  Use the blog to tell them about the latest new products or services

3. Create a social media policy: Social media is not a fad any more.  It’s time to stop experimenting and start managing your social media strategy.  Create a policy around social media, even if you’re only a one-person operation.  Your social media policy should include your objectives for each site and any rules you have around posts, articles, pictures, etc.  Creating this policy will eliminate employee confusion, problems and PR and potential digital reputation management nightmares.

4. Build and Combine Lists: You probably have some kind of customer list (or three) lying around.  This is the year to combine these names into a single customer list.

5. Market Directly: Why spend thousands of dollars on advertising that you can’t control?  If you know where you customers live, you can reach out to them personally and directly.  You’ll find your marketing spending power double or triple by simply diverting your advertising dollars to direct marketing.

6. Do Videos: If you have a product or service that shines in demo mode, then videos are an ideal and cost-effective marketing tool for you.  Open a corporate YouTube account and upload demos and live presentations for your prospects to find and customers to access.

7. Productize Your Services: It’s much easier to understand and purchase something that looks like a product.   Turn your service into a product by giving it a name, describing your process as a specification and then charging a flat rate instead of by the hour

8. Mobile Marketing: Globally twice as many people use text messaging than e-mail.  Chances are your customers interact more with their PDA than they do with their computer.  Mobile Marketing Programs allow your customer to opt-in and request certain kinds of messages and updates from you.

9. Referral system: Stop treating referrals like a happy accident.  Run a referral program that includes regular meetings with people who agree to enthusiastically refer you.   Put your focus on attracting “Centers of Influence” and “trusted advisors” who will refer you to their clients and customers.

10. Focus on Ideal Customers: Decide to only work with profitable customers.

Hope you find these useful.

If you have any other top 10 marketing lists, please let me know.

In my previous blog Branding Canada’s National Capital I discussed the importance of marketing as an important function for governments, particularly cities. I pointed out that in an era in which governments need to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of the public; marketing can help public sector organizations accomplish this goal. With public sector organizations spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, especially in the area of tourism promotion there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency.

I also pointed out that in recent years many cities and regions have chosen to market themselves in one fashion or another.  Such marketing initiatives characteristically suffer from a lack of creativity and innovation and fail to benefit from the lessons that decades of marketing experience in the private sector have taught managers in business. Such difficulties can be minimized, however, with overall expert marketing oversight and approach.

Finally I discussed the National Capital Commission (NCC) working to develop a catchy yet dignified slogan,  that’s meant to brand the capital region as a source of pride for all Canadians. The slogan according to the article is to be part of a five-year $2.5-million branding and marketing project that the NCC began last year.

2.5 million and you wonder what they came up with . Well here it is .

It’s a city where shouting, insults and arguments are encouraged in the town’s major workplace; where everyone seems to be either watching political TV shows or appearing on them.

On any given day, you might run into a former prime minister at a newsstand, or a foreign dignitary strolling by the canal. And on the nation’s birthday, Canada Day, it’s a city where people paint their faces red and white and pour into the streets by the thousands for a giant party.

But really, in Ottawa, they’re “just like you.”

That’s the brand-new, poll-tested catchphrase chosen to sell Canada’s capital to the rest of the country — and perhaps to itself, too. The National Capital Commission formally approved the slogan at a meeting this week.

“Just like you” beat out a couple of other contenders for the new, national-capital slogan — “the capital of being Canadian” and “where Canadian stories live” didn’t quite cut it. The new slogan is also a bit friendlier than one chosen by the city of Ottawa nearly a decade ago, when it was trying to re-brand itself as a high-tech centre: “technically beautiful.” Then there was a more a recent effort by some city councillors a few years ago to label Ottawa the “city of trees.” Neither tag stuck.

This newest phrase isn’t just for Ottawa alone, but the area on both sides of the Ontario-Quebec border that encompass the National Capital Region. But it’s not just geography; as some NCC directors noted at their meeting this week, the capital is also a state of mind— and now, that’s best described as “just like you.” It’s not about differences or diversity, but where we’re all the same. (Yes we are all the same here in Ottawa)

In polling done for the NCC by the Environics Research Group, “just like you” was deemed most effective “in terms of connecting on a personal level, catching attention and inspiring people,” according to a presentation given to the NCC board of directors on Tuesday.

Sample ads were thrown up on the screen, featuring various scenes with tag lines such as: “Green. Just like you”; “Grateful. Just like you” and, risky, in tourism terms, “Frostbitten. Just like you.” (Ottawa residents sometimes boast that only the Mongolian capital is colder than Canada’s, but actually, Ottawa’s average annual temperature puts it somewhere in the middle of the top 10 of the coldest capital cities in the world, including Moscow, Helsinki and Reykjavik.) Source

NCC chief executive Marie Lemay said the new slogan will be less of a big, bold ad campaign and more of a stealth operation, with “just like you” slipped into everything the capital commission runs. It’s part of an overall, $2.5 million, five-year marketing operation and coming up with the slogan reportedly cost about $100,000.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be there, making a speech to thousands of Canadians on Canada day and accompanying the Queen on her rounds. Just like anyone else on Canada Day — “just like you,” you might say.

Once tag lines and logos are finalized, the NCC is to start rolling out the slogan during events such as Canada Day broadcasts and Winterlude.

NCC chief executive Marie Lemay said it would be “integrated in everything.”

“You’ll probably be hearing a lot of ‘Canadian: Just like you’ in the next little while,” Lemay said Tuesday, after the board endorsed the slogan.

The slogan isn’t necessarily meant to draw more visitors to the capital region, but to get the area into minds and hearts and reflect its importance and relevance to all Canadians, the board heard.

(So we are spending 2. 5 million bucks to make us feel good but not to attract visitors to the capital… I am sure the tourism industry will be pleased to hear this.)

“Just like you” and “The Capital of Being Canadian” were found to be equally effective for making the capital feel relevant, showing off its importance and role and reflecting Canadian values.

The other slogan, “Where Canadian stories live,” was found to be “generally less effective in delivering the desired messages to Canadians,” according to the presentation made to the NCC board.

It cost about $102,500 to research, develop and test the concept: $42,500 for consultants’ work with staff, and $60,000 for Environics to conduct market research. Source Also check out the following link

So what has been the reaction so far to this great marketing event :

Kelly McParland comments in the National Post: July 2 2010 states the following

What is it with Ottawa and its desperate need to find a slogan that city poobahs hope will convince Canadians it’s more than just a boring place filled with politicians, bureaucrats and museums?

In a big announcement that almost no one paid attention to, the National Capital Commission revealed on Wednesday that it spent $102,500 coming up with yet another slogan.

Wanna hear it? OK, wait for it … “Just like you”.

Yup, that’s it. Ottawa, just like you.

What’s it mean? God knows. Only a city jammed with civil servants would consider it a good idea to spend $102,500 to “research, develop and test the concept” of a lame-ass slogan like “Just like you.” Apparently it costs that much to discover that people think “Just like you” is catchier than “The Capital of being Canadian” and “Where Canadian stories live”, two other equally lame possibilities that were considered.

Grow up folks. Slogans only work for cities that already have an image in the public imagination. The slogan has to catch that image, it can’t create it. Continually blowing money in the hope that some ad campaign will magically transform boring Ottawa into a sexy tourist destination is just a sign of rampant civic insecurity. And a waste of money, to boot.

Actually, we have to concede that its very meaninglessness makes “Just like you” less lame than the other two painfully earnest and truly astoundingly lame slogans that were apparently in contention, though the mind boggles. So way to go NCC!

From the Citizen

The National Capital Commission has hunted for a short slogan and come up with “Just like you.” While it may succeed on one level, it fails on too many others.

To be fair, that’s not quite the whole slogan. This was supposed to be the tail end of a variety of short summaries of Ottawa and Gatineau. The NCC wants to tell the rest of the country that the capital is, for instance, “Green. Just like you,” and “Canadian. Just like you,” and for winter sports, frostbitten, just like everyone except perhaps Victoria.

Focus groups liked the slogan, so let’s hope it works. It’s a big step up from “Technically Beautiful,” the last ill-fated attempt to brand this city.

“Just like you” plays to one of Ottawa’s strengths, our position as a comfortable place to live. As urban analyst Richard Florida noted in a recent visit here, we appeal to people who want a city with interesting restaurants and good schools and hospitals, but who aren’t willing to pay the price of big-city pressures.

In that sense, “Just like you” aptly conveys Ottawa’s democratic sensibility. Unlike Manhattan or even Toronto, Ottawa isn’t particularly status-obsessed and we don’t have huge extremes of wealth and poverty.

But in playing up the relaxed, Everyman aspect of Ottawa, we risk failing to make the city sound distinctive and exciting. We can’t be the same as everyone else and have a distinct identity at the same time. This is where the new slogan falters. It’s bland. We’re comfortable, yes, but we don’t want to be predictable. Would tourists want to spend money to come here, if all we can promise them is more of what they have already experienced?

Good slogans, pitches and campaigns grab you, and you remember the product even when no one names it directly. Sadly, the NCC’s phrase doesn’t have the energy or the distinctiveness required .

And by the way, is it even true? That is to say, are we really “just like” everyone else? Anyone from the capital region who has travelled in Canada knows that the rest of the country does not see itself as like Ottawa. They see us as a privileged city that takes their tax money and regulates their lives.

Auto workers enduring the recession in south-western Ontario might want to see Ottawa someday and same with western farmers whose fields are too soggy to plant. But to say that we in Ottawa, who thanks to the federal public service enjoy a certain economic stability, are just like them might not be the best approach.

Pretty depressed … wait there is still some hope…

By Vito Pilieci, The Ottawa Citizen July 12, 2010

What he found was a buzzing food scene, quaint and attractive neighbourhoods on par with New York’s famed “Greenwich Village” and “serious attractions” such as the Royal Canadian Mint, Rideau Hall, Parliament Hill and the Museum of Nature.

While the large institutions impressed, it was the city’s vibrancy that he couldn’t stop raving about.

“They (the institutions) used to be the reason for a visit to Ottawa, with restaurants and shopping an afterthought. These days don’t be surprised if you find the opposite to be true,” he wrote.

Kaminer said he particularly liked two Ottawa restaurants: ZenKitchen, a vegan eatery located at 643 Somerset St. W, which he calls one of Ottawa’s “hottest tables” and the Murray Street Kitchen, located at 110 Murray St., which he called “an aggressively Canadian bistro,” that “epitomizes Ottawa’s new spirit, with serious creative chops.”

He also applauded Ottawa coffee chain Bridgehead, where he claims he had the perfect espresso.

“Larger cities get the glory, but Ottawa’s kitchens might be some of North America’s best kept secrets,” writes Kaminer. “Creativity here arguably rivals that of San Francisco or Chicago, albeit with less ego, zero attitude and gentler prices.”

He then continues to praise the city’s vibrancy by drawing attention to the patchwork of communities that make up the city. During his visit Kaminer travelled to the Glebe, his favourite area which he claims reminded him of Georgetown. He also had high praise for Westboro, Hintonburg and even the Byward Market, “if you avoid touristy strips such as York Street” he states.

The article was being promoted by Ottawa Tourism as positive news for the nation’s capital, which has had a harder time attracting American’s to Ottawa since new travel regulations, requiring all Americans to carry a passport, took effect last year. In the first three months of 2010, the most recent period for which statistics are available, only 22,000 American tourists travelled to Ottawa. During the same time frame more than 138,000 visitors from Ontario and Quebec made the trek to the national capital.

For his part, Kaminer believes Ottawa is being overlooked by tourists. The writer is already planning a second visit to the city in the coming months.

“Ottawa isn’t Toronto or Montreal (nor do I think it wants to be). But it felt lively, smart, quirky and confident: a city waking up to its own potential after many dreary years.” he wrote.

Lively, smart, quirky and confident now that is the type of branding I want to see.

What do you think?

Just wanted to mention that I’m off re-charging my batteries in the sun for a few weeks so you won’t be hearing much from me. I’ll be back full force towards the end of July.

Cheers,

MK

It’s official, “context” is my favourite word of the year.

This old classic has had a huge comeback for me. I’ve noticed myself using it more and more in all of my various presentations.

• Wikipedia defines it as: “the surroundings, circumstances, environment, background, or settings which determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event.”
• Websters defines it as: “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning”

It is my strong belief that when context is not set right from the get go, you will not get your message across. Most people don’t realize just how limiting human languages are. We assume that by using a common word we’re all taking about the same thing. This kind of thinking is very naive. Hence why any good debate always starts with a definition and contextual setting. And yet, I often come across discussions or debates where the context has not been set, only the word/idea has. A prime example is someone asking me if I believe in God? It is my honest opinion that nobody can rightfully answer that question unless the person that is asking the question elaborates on what they mean by “God” (religious angle, natural angle, chaos theory, etc…). Otherwise, you could answer yes or no and yet be thinking on an entirely different wavelength, coming from a completely different angle, thus making your response pointless.

In the world of marketing, communications, PR, social media, etc…I see this happen over and over again. Somebody will present on marketing performance measurement thinking that everyone in the audience gets the basic premise of marketing. Big mistake, even if you are in a room of marketing professionals, I guarantee you that their approaches to marketing vary considerably based on their background and “worldview” as Seth Godin likes to call it. Therefore, it is crucial for you to explain the angle that you’re coming from at the very start. It’s not necessarily a matter of right or wrong, but rather of establishing a common wavelength for the remainder of your presentation so that the information you convey is absorbed properly.

When I explain the strategic importance of a channel such as Twitter, I find that it’s not enough to define it technically (i.e. a web-based short update platform with 140 character…blah blah blah) and then preach about the potential benefits. I can just see the eyes rolling. Some people in the room have a friend that uses it to talk about their horticulture business, someone else has a daughter that tracks Justin Bieber, another person has a Twitter account at work with no uptake. The point is each of these people see it in a different light.

To remedy this, I establish context from the start. I tell people: “Forget anything you know or have heard about Twitter. Now anytime I mention the word “Twitter” , replace it in your head with “the world’s largest real-time conversation database to which you have full access to” (take a look at my rant to Twitter haters if you want my full explanation on this). I realize Twitter can surely be much more than that, but because I have set context, it’s much easier to then talk about more advanced strategic elements of Twitter without people being clouded by other things they have heard, read, or experienced.

Why am I writing about this? Because if more people take the time to set the context and properly define what they are talking about before they talk about it, more people will understand and more things will get done as a result.

In  my blog “The Lifeblood of Tourism is marketing”, I discussed the importance of marketing as an important function for governments. With public sector organizations spending significant dollars delivering programs and services, especially in the area of tourism promotion there is a need for increased efficiency, accountability and transparency. Not to mention some common sense.

I also pointed out that in recent years many cities and regions have chosen to market themselves in one fashion or another.  Such marketing initiatives characteristically suffer from a lack of creativity and innovation and fail to benefit from the lessons that decades of marketing experience in the private sector have taught managers in business. Such difficulties can be minimized, however, with overall expert marketing oversight and approach.

Our organization the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing mission is “To advance the marketing discipline in the public sector”. We applaud great efforts in public sector marketing and we continually strive to work with our constituency to produce great marketing.

It is with this in mind that we have to speak out about the most recent activity to try to “Market Canada” using fake lakes and other “misguided marketing activities.

First some background on the situation regarding tourism in Canada.

As the Ottawa Citizen points out in their editorial “Sell Canada” the summer season is approaching, and millions of vacationers from around the world are about to pile into planes in search of that perfect holiday. Unfortunately, many of them will head to places other than Canada. David Goldstein, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada has collected some alarming data: Between 2002 and 2008, Canada dropped like a stone in the ranking of tourism destinations.

The numbers are based on a country’s ability to attract international visitors. In 2002, Canada was seventh in the world. By 2008, Canada was 14th, no longer just behind the likes of Italy, France and Spain but also far behind Ukraine, Turkey and Mexico. (I suspect at the rate we are going we will soon  be behind countries like Slovakia and Croatia.) Source

It is hard to imagine a more beautiful country than Canada with all it has to offer. Canada’s under performance is frustrating because we have a terrific product to sell: our cosmopolitan cities, our natural attractions, our reputation as a nation of peacekeepers and otherwise decent and wonderful people, a variety of products from coast to coast, our natural beauty, our lakes, mountains, surrounded by oceans, our amazing Parks, great cities like Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver and oh yes Ottawa. Skiing in winter, we got some of the best ski resorts in the world. I could go on but you get the point. .

Goldstein feels that the problem is in large measure one of “benign neglect.” Canadian policy makers, and maybe Canadians themselves, might think that the Maple Leaf can sell itself. It can’t. Self-promotion might not come naturally to Canada, but aggressive marketing is essential in the competitive world of international tourism. Source

So what do we get from our federal government … a 20,000-square-foot pavilion, called “Experience Canada,” at the G8/G20 which has a Muskoka portion for journalists in Toronto who may not have a chance to see Ontario’s cottage country, the site of the G8 portion of the talks?

The chief organizer of G8/G20 ,  Sanjeev Chowdhury, Director-General of the summit’s management office, states that it will be a “captive audience” for marketing Canada  in defending  a $1.9-million media pavilion. Source .

Our prime Minister is quoted as saying “In fact, it’s a $2-million marketing project,” and “We must not miss this opportunity.” Source

With all due respect to Chowdhury and Harper, this is not intelligent marketing . Nor is it very strategic.

“A lot of people are coming there — a captive audience — to our media centre. This is a great opportunity for us to highlight the best of our country to these journalists,” Chowdhury told CTV’s Question Period.

He also defended the cost of the pavilion as minor compared to the overall price-tag of the summit. Based on security costs alone, it has exceeded $1 billion.

“I think that some of the elements … are very minor costs when you look at the overall expenditures that are being spent on hosting the summit,” states Chowdhury… source

What kind of image do  we give the media when Toronto does not look like a vibrant city this weekend but an armed camp or a police state in a Communist country? Is this the so called marketing image we want to give to those people looking at us this weekend?

And what about the marketing of Toronto? This weekend  would normally be a very busy time for the Toronto.  But theatre productions have shut down for the talks, the Blue Jays have moved a three-game series to Philadelphia, the University of Toronto has closed its downtown campus, and some financial institutions have asked employees to take vacations or work from home. Traffic will also see major disruptions as police monitor a thick security perimeter to keep world leaders safe. source

This is not smart marketing.

If the government has a billion dollar to spend and are really concerned how about tourism in Canada, how about looking at high-speed rail that would make it easier for visitors to see more of the country? Or better still, how about consulting with the Tourism industry e.g Tourism Industry Association of Canada and its provincial counterparts to see what we really need to do to market tourism in this country.

As the citizen editorial points out the lost economic opportunity for Canadians is severe. Tourism is one of the fastest growing economic sectors in the world, generating huge numbers of jobs. Canada needs to compete in this area just as we do in other sectors of the globalized economy. The rise of a middle class in China and India — these are people with holidays to take and money to spend — means that the pool of international tourists is expanding rapidly. Canada would do well to catch their attention. Source

This is not done by building fake lakes and pavilions.

Postscript

by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) on Jun 26th 2010 at 9:00AM

If you’re in Toronto to sample the Canadian city’s great shopping, culture, and nightlife, you picked the wrong weekend.

The G20 summit has caused many of the downtown businesses to shut, reports travel site Martini Boys. The site gives an long list of major restaurants, theaters, and other attractions that will close their doors this weekend. Even the iconic CN Tower will be shut up tight and the Toronto Blue Jays have moved their next three home games to Philadelphia.

Fearing protests, G20 the police have set up a 4 km (2.5 mile) long barricade around the convention center, cutting off much of downtown and disrupting some 2,000 businesses. The U.S. State Department has posted a travel advisory suggesting people stay away. Many places are shutting down for the duration. Nobody is sure what the economic impact of all these closures will be, but the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association says that restaurants alone will lose $23 million Canadian (US $22 million) this weekend.

The idea that this was an effective way to show off Toronto to foreign guests is bewilderingly stupid.

Canadian authorities created a city no citizen could recognize and no visitor could admire. Then, they allowed a pack of brutes to trash it.

John Cruickshank Publisher Toronto Star

Now that various public sector organizations are slowly starting to realize that social media engagement is not really an option but rather an imminent requirement, numerous “Request for Proposals” (RFP’s) have been coming out of government with “social media” as part of their titles. Unfortunately, in most cases the RFP dictates required elements which are predominantly tactical in nature:

• We want to build a social network
• We want to create a blog
• We want 5000 friends/followers on channel X

I always double check to see if I missed something, something like a page which states “objectives”, or “purpose” or answers the question “why?” Really, any of those will do. To my dismay, no such page is missing, it’s just never thought of.

It’s an ethical challenge to even bid on these for us, since the underlying theme of everything we do at CEPSM is “strategy before tactics”. How can we write a proposal to create a blog for you if a blog might not be the right channel for your audience, your initiative, your objectives, etc…? It’d be different if a strategy was already in place, however 99% of the time, it’s not. We therefore go in only to find out through our research that an organization would be much better off on channel X doing tactic Z and yet we can’t do anything about it since the required tactic was already stated in the RFP.

I’m thinking of creating some strategic social media engagement RFP templates for government departments to start sharing. All you #w2p ‘ers out there, let me know if these already exist, in which case I will help spread the existing ones.

Marketing in the performing arts such as small theatres is a challenging business, the public does not always pay attention to marketing tactics, and theatres compete with a tremendous amount of competition like cinema, sports, other theatres and yes television. Also marketing in the arts is not a refined strategic exercise as lot of it is “hit and miss “ without very much planning , which is a shame because communities need live theatre to help make it a vibrant place to live and work.

It is of course difficult to market theatre with only a small amount of money or to gauge impacts on such amounts. But with some proper planning and good marketing strategy one could expect to see strategic marketing efforts having an impact in the entertainment marketplace.

A recent news article in my local newspaper the Ottawa Citizen caught my eye and made me wonder about business practices and marketing in the performing arts.

“The Great Canadian Theatre Company has been given a $175,000 grant as it tries to raise funds to cover a bank loan. Council on Wednesday approved the grant, although a couple of councillors had pushed for the city to provide the money as an interest-free loan instead. Money for the grant will be taken from interest that has accumulated on provincial funding for a new concert hall, instead of the city’s account for one-time and unforeseen expenses. The GCTC asked for the money as it works with a fund-raising consultant (paid for by an anonymous donor) to come up with money it owes Scotiabank. The theatre company took out a $1.6-million loan in 2007 to cover a shortfall in the money it raised to cover the cost of the $11.7-million Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre on Wellington Street West. By June, GCTC is supposed to have paid off $294,000 in interest and principal on its bank loan. “

OK, so the city bails out this theatre which is questionable as governments should not be bailing out theatres or any other business (of course this does not include banks which are too big to fail and General Motors and Chrysler). This should not be the role of government. Funding the arts is one thing and I do support this type of funding , but covering loans etc. is another story.

What really troubles me is the reaction of the theatre after receiving this money. The theatre rep  was on local radio a few days later after receiving this money. When asked what they were going to do to increase revenues for their  theatre the reply  was  hiring a fund raising consultant who would help them  find ways to get grants from governments and foundations for the  theatre.

Not once in the interview were  the words marketing or promotion mentioned. If they were then I must of missed something.

Rather than paying a fund raising consultant would they not be better off hiring a marketing consultant with experience in sponsorships and event marketing, as well as theatre and or arts marketing. Who knows they  may have found some volunteers with this experience but the  knee jerk reaction was to find a fund-raising consultant.  Perhaps it is not surprising that on average 63% of revenues in theatres across Canada comes from box office or box office-related activities. (source).

I do not claim to have expertise in theatre marketing although the first marketing plan I ever wrote as a student  was for the Centaur Theatre in Montreal as a marketing project. That was a long time ago and fond memories of working with them, especially Artistic and Executive Director Maurice Podbrey who felt that marketing if done right could put “bums in seats” . The Centaur Theatre Company is Montreal`s largest English-language theatre company. It was founded in 1969 by The Centaur Foundation for the Performing Arts. From what I understand the theatre is going strong as it continues to market itself with a diminishing English community in a very French environment. It enjoys a subscription base of over 6,000.

To those who toil in the world of the performing arts I recommend you get a copy of  the following book Standing Room Only: Strategies for Marketing the Performing Arts by Philip Kotler and Joanne Scheff.  The authors apply the full spectrum of marketing principles to an industry that has long resisted them–the performing arts. Drawing on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, the authors review all of the key marketing functions–from segmentation to pricing to public relations–in the context of arts management, illustrated through numerous examples. They argue that by embracing fundamental marketing principles and launching innovative marketing strategies, music, theater, and dance organizations can fulfill their artistic missions while building strong customer bases.

What do you think? Let me know, especially if you are in marketing for the performing arts.

I started to write this post in a cab as I was heading back from the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington D.C. last week. I remember my head was engulfed in new insights and ideas. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since but it was well worth the 3-day excursion.

As mentioned in my previous post, my goal for this event was to absorb and connect. This was the first social media/web 2.0 related event I attended in a while where I wasn’t speaking myself. This allowed me to open up some additional data absorption chambers in my head and relax instead of obsessively fine-tuning my own content right up until the last minute as is the usual case.

First of all, let me just say that the conference was very well organized by the O’Reilly folks as usual. It seems that whenever I wanted to know where something was, they had people placed to direct me exactly where to go or answer my questions just as they were formulating in my head. Same applies to the Washington Convention Centre staff, who were A+ all the way. I was also delighted to see more fellow Canadians this year in attendance, although still nowhere near the numbers that we should be at.

I’m sure there will be plenty of great Gov 2.0 Expo summary posts and conversations all over the net (just follow the #g2e hashtag or take a look at the news coverage), however I want to take a slightly different approach by posting up some key takeaways from sessions that stood out for me. Please note that I didn’t attend all sessions since there were multiple streams. I’m also not including all the great discussions I had and people I met during the social elements of this event as that would take up the bulk of this post.

DAY 1

Session Notes:

• How Online Collaborative Games are Improving Policy Making Michael Bean (Forio Simulations)
  • Average console game costs $40M, while simulation/modeling game budgets are a mere fraction of that.
  • Game dynamics can be used in civic engagement
  • Try Googling Climate Policy Simulation Games or check out:
    • Climate Bathtub
    • Climate Momentum Simulation
  • Making something more realistic does not necessarily make it better –>To prove that realistic games are boring, a game was created called Desert Bus
  • Opened my eyes to the world of simulations and games as a tool for civic engagement (brought back memories of SimCity 2000)
  • Want to create your own policy simulation? Try out Forio.com

My Favourite Plenaries – 5 minutes each, links go straight to the videos:

• Apps for the Army Jeffrey A. Sorenson (U.S. Army)
• Sunlight Foundation Contest Winners Clay Johnson (Sunlight Labs)
• Graffiti Tracker: Utilizing Data to Fight Crime Timothy Kephart (Graffiti Tracker Inc.)

Additional links I jotted down that day:

• Virtual Alabama – 3d visualization project
• Xpirze.org – A $10 million+ award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity.
• Data.gov Apps Showcase – Take a  look at some of the latest apps created from open data via data.gov
• Whopaidthem.com – Political campaign funding visualization
• Best visualization of how a bill becomes a law from the Design for America Contest (see all the winners here)
• County Sin Rankings – Quite possibly the most creative yet simple visualization of actual health data
• Everyblock.com – A news feed of local public information based on open data
• CiviGuard – Mind blowing tool for citizen to first responder engagement during a crisis
• Law Help Interactive – A tool that takes complicated legal forms and simplifies them
• Go.usa.gov – A short URL created specifically for the U.S government (because 3rd party ones can`t match the strong gov brand)
• Make Love Land – A land sharing experiment in Detroit based on micro-real estate
• Firstresponder.gov – A first responder community of practice

Day 2

Session Notes:

• Open Government Ninja 101: Skills, Strategies, and Stealth David Hale (National Institutes of Health)
  • David talked about the creation of Pillbox, a rapid pill identification system based on open data
  • Total employees to create Pillbox= 9
  • Pillbox for iphone was created by a student in 3 weeks
  • Pharmville RX –Facebook game created for free by enthusiasts
• A Human Driven Data-centric Approach to Accountability: Analyzing Data to Prevent Fraud, Waste and Abuse in Stimulus Alex Fishman (Palantir Technologies), Douglas Hassebrock (Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board)
  • I wish there was a video for what i saw in this session since it absolutely blew me away.
  • Palantir is the most stunning data visualization platform I have ever seen. I felt like I was Tom Cruise in the Minority Report when he`s scanning future crimes.
  • Alex and Douglas used their platform to show how fraud suspect leads can now easily be proven guilty by visually exposing and linking data
  • Here are some demo videos of some of  their other visualization tools
• Building a Culture of Experimentation Fred Dust (IDEO)
  • A session on re-thinking how to approach problems
  • I learned two things here:
    • That 100%  innovative companies like IDEO still exist
    • That I need to download the Human Centered Design Toolkit

My Favourite Plenaries – 5 minutes each, links go straight to the videos:

• Open Data, Baseball and Government David Eaves (Centre for the Study of Democracy)
• Creating Passionate Citizens Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users)
• The Democratization of Content Gary Vaynerchuk (VaynerMedia)

Additional links I jotted down that day:

• Oilreporter.com – Open data based app created to track BP Oil Spill effects
• Excelgov.com – A conference dedicated to creating a high performance government
• Openstreetmap Haiti – A collaborative wiki effort to map streets in Haiti after the earthquake
• Grassrootsmapping.org – Oil spill satellite imagery can apparently be created with a kite and $200
• Crime Reports 2.0 – The popular crime data mapping tool has been updated (even more updates coming soon)

Day 3

Session Notes:

• Beyond Apps Contests: The Present and Future Possibilities of Civic Innovation Peter Corbett (iStrategyLabs)
  • My key take-away from this session was a slide that illustrated the progressive steps of open-data civic engagement. Can you guess what step most Canadian government organizations are at?  Hint: it rhymes with “bun” :
    1. Local government info
    2. Open data catalog
    3. Apps contests
    4. Civic hacker networks
    5. Civic innovator networks
    6. Civic innovation
    7. Civic marketplace
  • I was also amazed at just how far the original Apps for Democracy contest had spread worldwide and within the U.S.A
  • The World Bank will soon be launching Apps for Development

My Favourite Plenaries – 5 minutes each, links go straight to the videos:

• Law.Gov: America’s Operating System, Open Source Carl Malamud (Public.Resource.Org)
• Healthcare Needs a Redesign Jay Parkinson (The Future Well)
• Global Engagement Starts at Home Alec Ross (State Department)

Additional links I jotted down that day:

• Intelink – A group of secure intranets used by the United States Intelligence Community (my link only points to Wikipedia article)
• Arcgis.com – Online maps and apps for public use
• Esri.com – Same as above
• The Times UK Article – Every UK citizen is to have a personal government web page
• Zipcar.com – Car sharing
• HHS.gov/open – Yet another example of open government data
• Expertlabs.org -  A non-profit trying to answer the question: “What are the big scientific and technological challenges that America should tackle?”
• NATO Training Mission – Afghanistan – It cost NATO $50 to create this website (it’s merely a content mashup)

Favourite quote from the expo: “Public servants are content experts and citizens are context experts”

I thought I’d end off this ridiculously long blog post with Doctor Jay Parkinson’s speech on the future of health care. Yes, I did also include it in my links above but chances are you missed it.

At the Centre of Excellence for Public Sector Marketing  (CEPSM) we are always looking for innovations in the field of marketing .One of the items that is very important to myself and my colleagues at CEPSM these days is understanding where we believe there is growing value for our clients, particularly with the advent of social media and seeing growing numbers transition from learning to doing.

My colleagues and I  have spent the last number of months researching what areas are going to have the highest impact.  A clear winner and a social media area that we feel confident in steering our partners and clients to consider is crowdsourcing.  Crowdsourcing is a broad social media term coined to capture the actions of bringing together a group or set of stakeholders to help to solve challenging issues.

Crowdsourcing (which is sometimes also referred to as Innovation Management) in its simplest form gets the “crowd” to put forward ideas, make improvements to and comments about those ideas, and the participants rate the ideas put forward.  A great way to understand more about crowdsourcing and why it should matter to you would be through books and blogs, of course.  Here is a good blog here (that provides insight into a good book that explains crowdsourcing).

The sponsors of a crowdsource engagement, assuming that the process is sound, are left with a wealth of ideas, many of which have been improved through the engagement, how the ideas compare in rating from the participants, and, ultimately, some ideas that will move to implementation.

In his article, “Power of Crowdsourcing”, Matt H. Evans contends that “Crowdsourcing taps into the global world of ideas, helping companies work through a rapid design process.” This is usually available at relatively no cost, as people are always willing to share their ideas on a global scale.

Perceived benefits of crowdsourcing include the following:  source:

• Problems can be explored at comparatively little cost, and often very quickly.
• Payment is by results or even omitted
• The organization can tap a wider range of talent than might be present in its own organization.[
• By listening to the crowd, organizations gain first-hand insight on their customers’ desires.
• The community may feel a brand-building kinship with the crowdsourcing organization, which is the result of an earned sense of ownership through contribution and collaboration.

My colleague Mike Kujawski is fresh back from the big Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington.  One of the clear takeaways from the many keynotes and sessions that took place was the unofficial crowdsourcing theme throughout the Expo.  Clearly, the resonation of crowdsourcing in so many of the discussions, breakouts, and, most importantly, in the activities of the public sector is the strongest validation that we have seen yet of its evolution.

The Canadian federal government has not been immune to the evolution in crowdsourcing, something that CEPSM has been very interested in.  There are a number of recent examples of successful crowdsourcing engagements from the feds.  As far as we are aware, the only crowdsourcing company devoted to and supporting the public sector, is PubliVate. We have found them to be not only collaborative and innovative but also very much aligned to the principals and focus that we have at CEPSM. Moreover, we have been impressed by their solutions and their results with their public sector clients.  A quick snapshot of that is below from a “quantitative” perspective with their 5 most recent engagements and a look at the number of ideas (blue dots) and comments/improvements to ideas (orange dots) across from each.  In the “worst” case (Engagement D, which also had the fewest participants) their end to end solution produced about 100 ideas and 250 comments and improvements to those ideas to Engagement C where they had almost 1,200 ideas and about 2,800 comments and improvements (the blue dot is hiding behind the orange one).

When you couple this with another element that we appreciated which was the focus on one’s business objective, it is pretty impressive stuff. Lastly, I should mention that their methodology is great; all of the data shown above is was collected with participants in a 3-4 week period where there was both some urgency but also some idea “incubation”. As we know  speed is of the essence from time to time and crowdsourcing is a solution to marketing challenges which can be turned around quickly.

As we all continue to learn and start to become “practitioners” of social media, it is important to understand the outcomes that you can expect and make sure that those are aligned to the outcomes that you desire.

From what we have seen, crowdsourcing is a strong wave that is starting to grow within our community and we want to be there to be as an active participant as well as ensuring that we are providing the solutions to you that you need.  That is one of the reasons why we have established an association with PubliVate and are pleased that they will not only be at MARCOM but – we hope – will be with CEPSM for the long haul as crowdsourcing picks up and ends up being a primary tool for many of our clients.

Regardless, of our associations (although we think we have picked a very good one), I would urge you to find out more about something that is highly flexible, outcome-based, and provides strong returns in many ways to your business objectives utilizing the principles of social media.