A quick follow-up to the last episode and it is all because Kate Trgovac was kind enough to give me a second chance to get this interview done! While audio levels are far from perfect (Rob Walch from Podcast 411 - who I just met in Atlanta at Social Media 2007 - is helping to point me in the right direction for better quality Skype recording).

In the News segment is back but since the episode was close to an hour, I cut the Adjust the Pitch segment.

And, in response to a email from C.C. Chapman, here is a link to help him raise donations for an MS Walk that is also aligned with my Podsafe Music selction of the week. C.C - send me a audio promo and I will play it as often as I can to help you reach your goal.

No comments this week, so call in!! Call into +1-206-666-2242.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Intro Music.
• 01:50 Recap of AIMS event featuring Mitch Joel of Twist Image, Judy McAlpine of CBC and myself
• 03:00Props to Kathryn Lagden, GM of AIMS (who has also promised to call in with comments at +1-206-666-2242)
• 06:38 Bill Sweetman launches his podcast "The Marketing Martini"
• 7:34 In the News: Auto Magazines turn editorials into digital revenue; Canadian Firms will spend more on marketing in 2007; Attack of the tech saavy toddlers - huh?; SlingBox - the gentle disrupter.
• 19:02 In Conversation with Kate Trgovac of My Name Is Kate.
• 24:24 We discuss CaseCamp Second Life.
• 25:10 Bryan Person aka Bryper - I have dubbed you the "Social Media Stalker" - all in jest and with much love!.
• 44:00 NewsText service explained (sort of).
• 49:17 We discuss blog content theft - Scott Cress is still silent.
• 52:30 End of Part 1 of Conversation with Kate (some wonky audio here - it only lasts a second - no clue what I did wrong this time!
• 55:00 Outro Music (Full Song), "Neighbour" by Lascivious Biddies.Help with the cause - Walk for MS

Podsafe Music:
Intro Music – Remember by Black Lab
Transition music - Forever by Derek Chafin

Download Episode #6 - The Client Side, In Conversation with Kate Trgovac edition - Part 1

I met Andy Nulman once. We sat together at lunch with a table full of other people at an event. For some reason, dessert (a slice of cake) was already on the table when we sat down. No salad or bread rolls had even hit the radar yet. Without missing a cue, Andy pulled his slice of cake in front of himself and began eating. He suprised me. I have admired him ever since.

Andy writes Pow! Right Between the Eyes - a blog about suprise. He always makes me laugh and has some great insights. Here is a great post where he tells a tale about asking for what you want. Do you ask for what you want?

Andy is the co-founder of the Just For Laughs festival. Check out his blog, it will make you laugh .... and think.

Yes it is Google.

Here is what William Lozito just blogged about over at Strategic Name Development Blog.

For the second in year in a row, Google has been given the nod by sometimes controversial online branding portal Brandchannel as the "brand that had the most impact on our lives".

This year, 3,625 branding professionals ranked Google once again ahead of Apple, followed by YouTube (which Google now owns) and Wikipedia. Ian at Green Gathering points out that with this announcement, "user generated websites and social media have finally hit the big time."

Is it any surprise? Google is not so much of a brand anymore as it is a way of life. Through the daily phrases and experience of "Google me", "Google yourself", "I’ll Google him/her/them/it/whatever", Google is firmly know as a verb, not a noun (always has been).

However, if you live in China you are more likely to Baidu. If you did not know, Baidu is the Chinese search engine is leaving Google in the dust in the Far East. I can tell through Google Analytics that I have some readers in China, but in terms of percentage of “views by source” traffic that is coming to The Client Side via search, I have yet to see Baidu even mentioned. Obviously I have some work to do with my overseas audience.

So, go get Googled! Or, get your bad boy Baidu on.

Following a very well attended AIMS event in Toronto, our 5th Geek Dinner was a mad hit. By the way, people were referring to it as 4th geek dinner but according to my math it was indeed our 5th. If memory serves there was the one at Houstons, Big Daddy’s Crab Shack (with Shel Holtz), Brasserie, and La Palette and last evening at Marcel’s. UPDATE - Mitch has informed me I am taking credit for one that we only attened - see comments section

The dinners are getting so large (approximately 40 people last night) that questions started to pop-up about when the speeches would start. My response was “right after the candle lighting ceremonies”. If we have that many people again, we are considering renting out table top space for exhibitors!

The reality is that something has been unleashed here. Something powerful. The coming together of the community in Toronto over the past 5 months that I have not seen the likes of before. It is a very cool social developement in the Marketing, Advertising, PR and Tech scene that I continue to be stoked about each and everytime another one goes down. (additional post post thought: Social media is about the power of these connections between people and the manner in which the digital space is accelerating everthing.)

As ironic as this may sound, the credit for bringing together the Toronto digerati goes to the man from beautiful Montreal, Mitch Joel. The genesis of our Toronto Geek Dinners was initiated on a Skype chat on Sunday way back in August. We were talking about his trip into town and the question “Geek Dinner?” came up in the IM chat. And, as they say, the rest is history. Well, not history, more like the future to be frank. I say future because through these dinners the connectivity of people in the business has been incredible. Who knows what the future holds when so many people in the game, who are in the knowm hang out and get their geek on?

Last night saw the usual suspects. Ed Lee, Chris Clarke (our little PR buddy), Michelle Tampoya, Michael LeBlanc, Kathryn Lagden, Salima Valji, Sulemaan Ahmed, Steve Mast, Leesa Barnes, Jay Aber, Eden Spodek, Bill Sweetman. UPDATE - June Macdonald was there too. Thanks Bill

However, last night’s crowd swelled to multi-table event that included John Gustavson, CEO of Canadian Marketing Association, Ken Schaffer of VP, TuCows and One Degree, Judy McAlpine of CBC (great speech at AIMS event btw), Warren Cable of CanWest, Adrian Capobianco and Steve Brown of FUSE, Leonna Hobbs of Flackadellic and TuCows, Andrew Findlander of National PR, Elaine Pratt of KPMG (who I knew from my real “Geek” days in grade 8). Jonathan Huth of Scotiabank, June Li of ClickInsight, Doug Walker of TBWA Chait Day and also World Rock Paper Scissors Society, and Jay Moonah and Chris Pathieger from Uncle Seth. I missed meeting Sean Howard of Craphammer, but there is always next time.

And finally, The Mos – legendary ad and marketing man Peter Mosely brought his joie de vivre to our gathering. And, my new buddy Julia Stein from Fleishman Hillard, who has totally missed her calling as a top-notch creative talent in the ad world. Julia, if you won any money on the bet with David Jones, I want some points ;)

My apologies if I missed anyone in this list, please let me know by leaving a comment

I hope everyone had as great a time as I did and I am already looking forward to the next one.

Last chance to register for AIMS event "Should Your Company be Podcasting?"

I hope you can join us as we shed some light on this topic that is sure to be discussed in the months and years to come as a powerful communications channel that is sure to grow exponentially.

Speakers are
- Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image
- Michael Seaton, Director of Digital Marketing, Scotiabank (that would be me)
- Judy McAlpine, Director International/Business Development, CBC

Followed by a panel discussion moderated by Jen Evans, President, Sequentia Communications.
See here for details and registration. See you there.

Episode #5 of The Client Side podcast is now available here. I have never posted on my blogside of this blog to inform of a new episode, so I thought I'd give it a try to increase listenership.

You can access the podcast via the tab at the top of my blog. And, if you like what you hear, I'd really appreciate if you subscribed via iTunes.

This week my call-to-action is to aimed at you (yes, you). I would love to have you as a guest to present a case study of your work. Let me know if you would like to be interviewed or present - this is open to clients, agencies, vendors, consultants. As long as there are some key learnings and take-aways for the audience it is all good.

Call +1-206-666-2242 and we will tee it up. Or give me a call with your comments and thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.

A self indulgent episode where I talk about me a lot. It seems I somehow weaved myself into each and every item - not on purpose, just how it worked out this time (ya right!) There are no news items this time out, but Adjust the Pitch is included and it is a personal story about content theft from my blog.

This episode runs a bit longer than an average Client Side podcast, partly because I hit record and just let it go - no edits, retakes or stuff like that. And, there is an interview with the organizer/producer Robert Chiarito of Social Media 2007 - a conference in Atlanta I will be speaking at on Jan 31. And, I have a couple of audio comments (hooray).

I'll return with episode 6 sooner v. later with another interview and some items in the news for your listening pleasure (or pain, whatever).

Two items with a call-to-action:
1. Case Studies - I want your case studies to be featured on upcoming episodes of The Client Side (via interview you presenting)
2. Scott Cress - give me a shout.

Call into +1-206-666-2242.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Intro Music.
• 01:20 No "In The News" section on today’s show
• 02:11Call in with comments +1-206-666-2242
• 03:45 Comment from Mitch Joel of Twist Image and Six Pixels of Separation on my forgetfulness and CaseCamp Second Life. Skype call?
• 05:52 Proper props to Joseph Jaffe of Across the Sound who got me going in podcasting.
• 08:54 Call to action – do you want to share your marketing, advertising, communications case studies and have them featured on The Client Side? Call +1-206-666-2242 .
• 11:10 AIMS event: Should Your Company be Podcasting? January 25, 2007 in Toronto. Speakers include Mitch Joel, Judy McAlpine of CBC, myself .
• 13:50 Paull Young in from Australia this week. His blog is Young PR .
• 15:05 Adjusting the Pitch: Plagiarism in the blogosphere. Scott Cress takes content from The Client Side.
• 19:30 Comment from Sulemaan Ahmed of Sears Travel and Vice-Chair of CMA - Canadian Marketing Association's Digital Marketing Council.
• 24:10 Problem with Powergrammo & Skype – 3.0 not compatible! Thanks to CAPOW for all your help.
• 26:24 Interview with Robert Chiarito, producer/organizer of Social Media 2007.
• 43:22 American Copywriter # 48 shoutout. My holiday gift is delivered a bit late, but still rocks - thanks gents.
• 44:30 Outro Music (Full Song), "Ants In My Pants" by Lima Charlie.

Podsafe Music:
Intro Music – Remember by Black Lab
Transition music - Forever by Derek Chafin

Download Episode #5 - The Client Side, The Almost Interview Edition

Don’t let this happen to you. And, take a lesson from this tale of plagiarism in the blogosphere.

Here is a bit of background: While doing some ego surfing on Technorati I noticed a blog called Cressfamily.com that linked back to The Client Side. I clicked through and started reading the post and realized that the words were mine. There was no mention of attribution or acknowledgement of myself as the source. It was simply blatant content theft. The reason the post linked back and I could find it on Technorati was that I had a put a link in the original post that referred back to a previous Client Side post and it remained intact when it was reposted.

I had heard of this happening to other bloggers (mostly to my fellow CAPOW friends) but could not believe it was happening to me. Does this mean I have made it big time? I feel so dirty ; )

And, to top it all off, the post underneath mine was ripped off from none other than Michael Arrington’s Techcrunch. Well, at least I know I am in good company.

Check out Scotts post and Techcrunch

Seems as though he copies, slightly edits by taking out key links to hide the real author's identity and then calls it his own. Anyone wanna bet he failed an essay or two for plagiarism in his scholastic past?!?!

Now the post he copied from The Client Side mysteriously came down today after Bryper came to my rescue, but the trial of it was caught on Technorati

Now for the real kicker – this person, Scott Cress, has a LinkedIn profile right on his blog. And, we were only two degrees of separation apart. He is a marketer from the eastern U.S. and we have a famous Canadian web pioneer as a connection point between us on LinkedIn.

It looks Scott has blogged for a while, so he should just know better. Can he claim ignorance? I think not. Is Scott a nice guy? I don’t know. Bottom line is that this is not cool. Not in any way.

What I hope is that this is a lesson learned. And, to show that I am not sore about it enough to hold a grudge, I am asking him via this post to come clean either by written comment or audio comment to +1 -206-666-2242 and explain his motivations. Enquiring minds want to know.

I’m waiting.

Here is the problem in our business. Or is it? And, was "problem" a bad word choice or a rather astute one?

Either way, the phone is ringing. It's been ringing all year long, perhaps even for two. Yes, that would be a wake-up call.

Next week AIMS Canada is putting on an event titled "Should your company be podcasting?"

Considering that Mitch Joel of Twist Image and I will be presenting along with Judy McAlpine of CBC, we thought it might be a good time for another geek dinner after the event.

Mitch has dubbed it Geek Dinner Toronto IV - I have absolutely nothing to do with his Star Wars tie-in. Here are a few of the details so far:
Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 7:00 pm.
Location yet to determined (likely near the AIMS event location). I'll post it when I know.

As always with Geek Dinners, everyone is responsible for thier own tab and we will try to arrange to have seperate bills for those who join us. Send an email to me, or check out Mitch Joel's blog and email him.

Hope to see you there.

Mish just sent me this link to RBC's - Royal Bank of Canada's blog in support of a contest they are running. Betcha they didn't expect me of all people to post about it. For obvious reasons I will refrain from commenting, good or bad.

Just pointing it out.

Found this via Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion. Just passing it along.

There are some nice redesigns. Perhaps one of these brands will adopt theirs. Or perhaps not. Here is the Flickr link if you want to see larger versions.

Police Unions in Quebec are upset about a new TV commercial for KIA. The spot features a female police officer playing tonsil-hockey with a young male in the front seat of sporty little KIA Spectra. Her dispatcher can be heard in the background from her unoccupied patrol car calling her to back to respond to a call.

An article in the Montreal Gazette reported that the complaints were filed on Friday of this week. The question “should this spot be pulled” was asked via an online poll and the responders seems to be split right down the middle.

I recall seeing the ad but did not remember it coming from KIA. Why? Well if you are like me, the instant tires start spinning on a TV commercial the remote is put to good use (or any commercial for that matter). In my mind, all car commercials are the same. None have stood out in a very long time. Does this offened me? No, it is just boring crap.

So, was this an effective 30 second for KIA? I have to assume others remember seeing it. However, I'll bet they had no brand recall with it either. So, if the branding tactic was to stand out with some harmless negative publicity and break through the clutter, it does not seem to be doing exceedingly well there either. Except perhaps in Quebec.

So, why am I even bothering to blog about this non-story other than it is a slow Satuday? Becuase it brings up the same question again. Is that all that brand can hope to achieve these days from a TV spot?

There has to be a better formula, but until then money keeps being wasted on the old broken equasion that is not showing incremental steps towards improvement.

I am all messed up today and it's not only about the new iPhone. I thought I had posted this story "Apple unveils the new Apple iPhone" over here on The Client Side. It would appear that I was not paying attention to the account to which I was posting and it was posted over at the CMA - Canadian Marketing Blog. Well, at least I can say I have a contribution for CMA blog for 2007 already!

Anyhow, here is the news from the stage at the MacWorld Conference straight-up from Steve Jobs himself. The story Engadget - The Apple iPhone. Hat tip to Mitch Joel for letting me know about the breaking news.

Hey you, Mr. or Ms. Employee who stands behind service-counter and is supposed to show signs of friendliness and goodwill to those of us lined-up, waiting patiently to make our way through your queue - I have a question. Why don't you step around to this side of the counter and see if you like the experience you are delivering? I'll bet you'd expect more of you. You see, the experience you provide is likely not the same as you would expect in our shoes?

And, now for you Mr. & Ms. Consumer who stand on the other side of the counter. It's your turn. Why don't you take the foregone conclusion of bad service "chip" off your shoulder and see where being nice gets you? Do you really think that even Fred Rogers would say good morning to you when you are showing that smug "customer is ALWAYS right" attitude from a mile away? Don't forget that you are dealing with another human before you try and tear them an new one. Start with a smile (even when you don't want to) and see what happens.

Yes, nuthin' but common sense, right? I believe it was Voltaire who said "Common sense is not so common".

Ok, I'm on a bit of rant. Sorry for taking it out on you. Can you tell I had a visit to a Federal Government of Canada office today?

If you were ever in doubt of the creative power of the common people then look no further than "My Box in a Box". This follow-up to the SNL boy-band parody of "My Dick in a Box" is now a bona-fide "hit" on YouTube, showing us yet again that Fifteen Megs of Fame is within everyone’s reach.

While the comedic talents of the current SNL troop are on par with past greats, today's wired world is allowing this bunch of comedians to reach more people and have their jokes last that much longer than ever before. And, now that every viewer has the ability to create content and reach millions on the web, this parody-on-parody has just as much potential impact as the original network-produced skit.

Interesting times we live in as we are witness to a metamorphosis of how entertainment is breeding entertainment. The audience is reacting by becoming part of the fun.

The lovely girl in "My Box in a Box" showcases amateur entertainment in a way “Tiny Talent Time” never could. It will be interesting to watch the long tail effect as much more of this type of content-complimenting-content is unleashed.

Mitch Joel of Twist Image has a great post on this with a more cerebral take on the phenomenon of "Viral In Viral". Check it out.

Did we really need more proof that everything is being recorded?

I'm not 100% certain what to make of this. Is this excessive force? A couple of rent-a-cops just doing their jobs? Mall security having trouble with a take-down?

I don't know the full story, but I do know that the holiday season is a madhouse at LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) stores with everyone and their mother stocking up on drink. Now, if you are not from Ontario, you should know that the LCBO is the only place you can buy alcohol and one has to assume that theft is a big problem this time of year (UPDATE: I forgot to mention the person in the video is alledged to have stolen a 26oz bottle of something). For the most part, even though crowds are large, they always manage an orderly and pleasant experience with knowledgeable staff.

It is a bit unfair to the nice folks at the LCBO that this kind of publicty has their logo all over it. They have built a world-class brand over the past several years and it is a shame this may tarnish it somewhat. Any thoughts?

At last count, it had been viewed 76,000 times.There are also loads of comments on YouTube surrounding this video.

There has been a lot of chatter about Second Life and the real number of residents in the virtual world. The issue revolves around the real growth being reported. It is a matter of those who are regular visitors to SL versus those who never make it past signing-up.

I found this article titled "Why Second Life Numbers DO Matter" over at CNN Money. David Kirkpatrick's article throws readers right into the middle of the debate and provides a glimpse of where the sides stand. UPDATE : here is an article by Clay Shirky over at Corante that I forgot to include yesterday.

I signed-up for Second Life in the summer. I was not a frequent visitor, checking things out here-and-there. Definitely not a regular resident but over time my presence increased as I began to do more.

Now from where I stand, the Second Life story is not about the growth rate. The real importance of Second Life is what is going on inside and how it is a model for the future of the internet and e-commerce. As more individuals and businesses get involved and see the power of the virtual world (i.e. seeing beyond Second Life as the only example) things will blossom in this space. As someone once said, "you ain't seen nuthin yet".

I had the good fortune to present a Scotiabank Case Study at CaseCamp Second Life a few weeks back and was blown away at the power of it all. Not just in terms of that one event,but around the vast potential of it all. So haggling about growth numbers will likely continue but, with so much more to focus on in the world of virtual worlds, ultimately the growth debate will be moot.

The Wall Street Journal unveiled the new five columns-wide format (versus the old six) pepped up with expanded use of color and new summary features.

To commemorate this historic event, first, here is a classic SCTV sketch on The Wall Street Journal. Then, the second video by John Moore of Brand Autopsy (great blog btw) will provide an excellent analysis of the revised WSJ. (note: John's video runs 5 minutes, but since I like reading WSJ, I found it interesting). Thanks for the review John!

SCTV:

Here is John Moore "Unboxing The Wall Street Journal"