Spring is in the air, and the season is signaled by buds on the trees, birdsong in the morning, and the peeking of the daffodil and tulip bulbs from the cold ground. Weak sunshine cheers us and we look forward to more hours of daylight and more time outside. For those of us who play in the digital space, spring also means a return of Social Media Camp, Canada’s largest such conference. Held [...]
Most of us are familiar with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. These are apps that help us connect with friends and loved ones and share the details of our day-to-day lives. What about apps that support health and wellness? There are literally thousands of apps available in the consumer marketplace to support personal fitness, health, stress-reduction and diet goals. Public [...]
Facebook Groups are a great tool for building online community, offering value, and encouraging true social media engagement. However, life in Facebook-land means responding to ongoing changes to Facebook’s algorithms, including those that govern groups. As a simple explanation, the algorithm is a process that ranks all available posts that can display on a user’s newsfeed based on how [...]
As I write this, I’m putting the finishing touches on a book manuscript. It will be sent to the editor in the morning, and following about a month of substantive edits, it will go into the hands of a copy editor to take care of things like commas and periods. After that, it will be readied for print. The book will be released in March 2019. I’ve had the privilege of co-writing the [...]
It is September and there is a quickening in the air carried by the subtle changing of the season as summer sidles out the door, leaving shorter days and cooler temperatures behind. Forests and gardens are thirsty for rain. The leaves are poised to fall. Children of all sizes lug shiny new backpacks to school, some for the first time. After the long and lazy days of summer, routine is [...]
Different groups have different roles. If you spend any time on Facebook, either for business or personal reasons, you’ve likely noticed significant changes in what content is being distributed over the newsfeed. The reach of most Facebook Pages has been severely reduced while posts from Facebook Groups are getting more visibility. Facebook’s algorithm has always governed what we see and[...]
On April 4, Maple Ridge played host to the Innovation in Emerging Cities Forum. The event brought together representatives from industry, education, and government to discuss ways to foster a climate of innovation and how to attract, develop and retain the talent required to sustain such a culture. I had the pleasure of emceeing the event and working with the City of Maple Ridge’s economic[...]
It is easy to forget, tucked as we are into the far northeastern corner of Metro Vancouver, that Maple Ridge is part of a large urban region with a population of roughly 2.463 million. At the heart of the region is the City of Vancouver, one of the world’s Top 10 most livable cities, according to Conde Naste. Proximity matters, and as land and housing prices skyrocket throughout the [...]
The first in a series on innovation and emerging cities. Technology impacts nearly all areas of our lives, from how we communicate to how we work. According to Randstad Canada, Canada’s largest staffing firm, “Technology is changing traditional industries, and how business is done and the type of work performed. Virtual technologies dictate how natural resources are sourced, recovered [...]
The launch this fall of The Digital Hallway is good news for parents, teachers and high school students. The Digital Hallway is the brainchild of B.C.'s That Social Media Guy, Sean Smith. It is a program that teaches parents, teachers and teens about social media. Not just the bad, scary side of social, but the good as well. According to Smith, there is a cycle when it comes to social [...]