that canadian girl

Category: Blogging & Online Media

  • Phew, time for a breather and a mandarin cocktail

    The past few weeks have been pretty hectic at Pepperrell Mansion, and I realise personal updates have been few and far between (as my mom regularly reminds me).

    About three weeks ago, we had Tommy, Trisha and little nearly-3-year-old Emma over for a week from deepest darkest Scotland (not really, somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh. They even have electricity there.) We went to Colchester Zoo, Andrew’s parents’ house in Kent, and had numerous BBQs to take advantage of the good weather.

    Somewhere during that week, I attended Fuel Conference, organised by the fab team at Carsonified where I met a whole new bunch of new people, saw some great friends and got many new ideas I need to start acting upon.

    Then last weekend, we popped down to the inlaws’ house to see our adorable new niece Evie, who’s a few weeks old yet kicks like Beckham in his prime.

    On Wednesday night, I hastily packed my suitcase for a whirlwind visit to Amsterdam on Thursday and Friday, attending the Mobile Social Networks & UGC Conference with a few work colleagues. And yes, we walked by the red light districts and saw “coffee shops”, and no, it’s not really much to see so don’t get over-excited.

    On Friday night, I dropped my suitcase and swapped my stuff around to head off to London early on Saturday morning (by which point Andrew has started greeting me with “hi, do I know you?”) I attended MediaCamp London, an event organised by Chris Hambly at the SAE Institute.

    If you’re wondering what happens at BarCamp-style unconferences, Nic Butler aka Loudmouthman (and yes, he lives up to his name) Qik’ed a few videos (including Steve Lamb’s presentation on social media in the entreprise) so have a look. Here are all the photos taken by Chris as well.

    Met some great people there, Ben, Vicky, Jof, Judith, Melinda, Nic (and many more, I need to dig out the biz cards we swapped).

    SpinVox sponsored the event, and made quite an impression, with many people asking existing users (such as myself) to show off the rather awesome service.

    So today has been a braindead, chill out and tidy up spend time with Andrew day. A simple BBQ for dinner, and now, time to watch Juno on the Apple TV while sipping a mandarin and mango cocktail.

    Ciao!

  • MediaCamp London today

    MediaCamp London

    MediaCamp is an unconference for us social media geeks to network and meet like-minded people (and many with whom to disagree!) today in London.

    Some of the presentations are being streamed here by Loudmouthman so have a look even if you couldn’t make it to London. More updates later!

  • Wikio Top 20 UK Tech Blogs

    The wonderful team at Wikio gave me a sneak preview at the July rankings for the UK Tech blogs. Amongst the ranks are some of the usual suspects and, just off-the-podium, yours truly coming in at #29 30 this month – up by a smashing 81 places from last month!

    Fingers crossed you’ll see That Canadian Girl in the Top 20 next month. 😉

    Wikio Top 20 UK Tech Blogs

    1 dot.life =
    2 TechDigest =
    3 gapingvoid =
    4 Coolest Gadgets +1
    5 TechCrunch UK -1
    6 The Guardian Technology blog =
    7 The Red Ferret Journal =
    8 xlab =
    9 Technology Blog =
    10 Speckyboy – WordPress and Design +2
    11 jkkmobile =
    12 E-consultancy News Blog -2
    13 BlogStorm =
    14 Dial-a-Phone =
    15 Wonderland New
    16 hicksdesign +2
    17 NevilleHobson -1
    18 Gizmodo UK +1
    19 confused of calcutta New
    20 Simon Willison’s Weblog +1

    [Update: Wikio even gives That Canadian Girl a mention in the July top blogs review. What an honour, thank you Wikio!]

  • I'm a camel, I'm a balloon, I'm an entirely Flash website!

    I’m a bit torn.

    Poke, a digital agency in London, created this funky campaign for Orange mobile’s Pay As You Go tariffs – you know, the raccoon, camel, canary and dolphin balloons? Yeah, well, if you see a camel called Vero fly by, don’t adjust your medication – it’s just me floating by.

    The campaign involves floating from one website to the next, in a StumbleUpon random-new-site manner, using your air canister to boost yourself along. You pick up stars, more air canisters and rainbows along the way. All this nonsense for the sake of an Ibiza holiday for the winner.

    It’s cute, it’s entertaining, but my one gripe is that the entire site was developed as a gigantor Flash animation. I’ve been known to whinge about Flash before, and I’m just not a fan of sites that have no deep-linking or easy ways to navigate. Plus, it makes my Mac whirr itself into a frenzy!

    But I just can’t help it, I keep on travelling! So go on, Boost my Camel, baby!

  • Cory Doctorow speaking in Cambridge, UK on 22nd July

    Quick post to tell readers that things do happen up here in Cambridge, interesting things!

    Cory Doctorow is a blogger, science fiction writer and journalist. He is an editor of Boing Boing, the 11th best blog in the world (according to Time Magazine). He was the 2006-2007 Canadian Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. He founded the software company Opencola which was later sold to the Open Text Corporation. He also writes regularly for The Guardian newspaper

    Cory will be speaking for one hour at 5:30pm on July 22nd 2008 at ARM, 110 Fulbourn Road, Cambridge CB1 9NJ. Robinson College, Grange Road, Cambridge, CB3 9AN.

    If you’re thinking of coming to Cambridge for this, get in touch and we’ll make an evening of it.

  • Trust by Positive Brand Association

    A few moments ago, I subscribed to the 4mations “Keep me updated” mailing list, out of curiosity of what it’ll turn out to be (how did I get there anyway?!)

    Campaign MonitorI’ve got a past in email marketing so even though that subscribing should, in theory, be fine, I hesitated. I’m aware of how dodgy or how careless/naive some senders can be – recently, it took me a battle with an agency that shall remain nameless before they acknowledged that I’d requested repeatedly to be unsubscribed, so things like that peeve me off.

    But I subscribed. And it was immediately followed by the familiar green tick mark from Campaign Monitor confirming I was subscribed.

    And you know what? I definitely had a fuzzy feeling inside thinking “yup, I can trust this sender. Even if they write total rubbish, I’m confident I can unsubscribe, should there be a need.” I bet you I would’ve bypassed the hesitation had the subscribe field been accompanied by the Campaign Monitor tick. Think that could help increase subscriptions or give users confidence?

    What brands do that for you? What logos give you the confidence to hand over money, personal details or your precious time?

  • I'm a SOB apparently

    Woke up this morning to discover I’ve been described as a SOB by a fellow blogger – a Successful and Outstanding Blogger. Liz Strauss regularly publishes her list, which I really enjoy readging, so it’s an honour to be added to it.

    Thanks Liz, and most of all, thanks whoever you are faithful readers since 2004. 🙂

  • What top 10 keywords give you blog traffic?

    Last week, I suggested on The Blog Medic that finding out what were the top keywords leading readers to your blog could give some very interesting results. Some of us probably look at our stats daily (ahem, hourly?) but I’d be curious to see what your top 10 is, if you’re willing to share it!

    Here’s my top 10 keywords list

    1. canadian girls
    2. baxi boilers
    3. i can sing a rainbow
    4. pouding chomeur
    5. japanese makeup
    6. cracked macbook
    7. funny google searches
    8. postsecret archive
    9. virtual barbershop
    10. canadian

    Now I can’t believe I come up as the 4th result for “Canadian” in Google – when searching from a UK IP address, granted – but still!

    So, go on, little Friday afternoon meme. What are your top 10 search terms?

  • Bloggers: Be confident, positive (and humble)

    This evening, I came across a post where I couldn’t help but think that I had to share with fellow bloggers.

    Darren Rowse, pro-blogger and six-digit-salary man, tells bloggers to get rid of their inferiority complex, and I could not agree more! He gets loads of emails from bloggers asking for tips or advice (why don’t I get more mail from you readers?!) with many self-deprecating comments, claiming they’re “no A-list blogger” and “don’t write as well as they do…”

    So this is to tell you, my fellow bloggers, to take pride in what you do. It doesn’t matter if all you write is a weenie little blog to track your child growing up, your BMI going down by preparing for a half-marathon for charity, or a technology rant.

    Think positive, be proud of the fact that you’ve braved the wild world of blogging. You may not realise it but you’re boldly going where most of people around you won’t have. So grab that blog by the horns and be a sassy self-promoter. Whether it gets you a job, helps you find like-minded people for a project or just gives you an outlet to blow some steam off, enjoy the fact that you’re still more cutting edge than you might think.

  • Why Twitter is so unbelievably awesome

    Anyone who’s witnessed a typical weekday for me will have noticed my slight addiction to Twitter, a service that simply can’t be explained and has to be experienced.

    But in my attempt to justify the thousands of updates I’ve posted on it, I’ll highlight a few amazing ways Twitter has helped me and those around me this week.

    • It helped me discover how other bloggers felt about being accosted by PR agency, resulting in an article for The Blog Medic called “Marketing Ethics: Ten ways to piss off a blogger”.
    • An ad hoc conversation led to a friend getting a job offer, and the entire conversation up to scheduling an interview call happened over Twitter.
    • It allowed me to find a couple of new contracts for Pepsmedia redesigning blog templates & site launches.
    • Since SXSW, I’ve managed to stay in touch with many of the lovely people I met there without going through the usual “ok I’ll reply to that email later”, where later becomes never. By keeping it bite-sized, Twitter makes it easy to stay in touch.
    • I’ve found amazing support for the idea of SocialMediaCamp in London in July through fellow Twitter users who are interested and can provide skills and contacts I wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.
    • A few people offered sound advice with regards to the process to setting up a limited company, again calling on the experience of others.
    • It was the fastest channel through which I heard about Russell’s decision to stop developing Mowser on Monday night.
    • It’s a great way to swap kitty photos with Mel Kirk 🙂

    So there you go, it’s a business resource like no other, a great communication tool and an entertaining place to have water cooler conversations with like-minded people.