“Ignite talks” are challenging because of a few twists: you have only 5 minutes to make your point, and you have to use 25 PowerPoint slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds: the presenter doesn’t have control over the slides and so pacing and structuring your presentation is challenging. It was, indeed, challenging… but moreso exciting.

“Why getting robbed is the best thing that ever happened to me”

Here’s the video of my talk… about the life lesson that was forced upon me when I was robbed. The ordeal changed my life - for the better. I hope you enjoy.

Live your life so that you make the truly irreplaceable things - the people, experiences, passions you really care about - your priority. ‘Cause you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.

The social media revolution is in full swing… how does it relate to healthcare?

This week, I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Health Care Public Relations Association conference in Calgary. It was a great gathering of smart minds: I learned a lot.

I presented about my favourite project of my career to date: - building the
I Was Born at St. Joseph’s website that used the power of online engagement to empower our community to share their own heart-tugging stories about life and love at our hospital. I’ll post the slides from my presentation when they’re available on the conference website.

Powerful video about social media & healthcare

London’s Laurie Lashbrook of Lashbrook Marketing & PR gave a thoughtful presentation about the role of social media in healthcare - the power it has to inspire and allow our audience to be more connected to us… and us to them.

She showed this terrific video, full of up-to-date Canadian and healthcare-specific social media stats:

my thoughts:
Out of 1,300+ hospitals in Canada, less than 300 engage in social media.
Little by little we’re getting on board - and we should:
we have some of the most *powerful* *beautiful* *moving* stories to tell!

There’s a lot of content out there competing for our audience’s attention, more than there ever has been. How do you manage to get noticed in the increasingly crowded world of content?

Today it’s not just about sending out content to media and hoping they’ll put it in the newspaper. Now it’s all about generating a decent amount of fresh content that your audience will find enjoyable.

I loved this quote:

“As zombies are to fresh brains, search engines are to fresh content”

Your users will find your good content if they’re looking for it and it relates to them… and if you keep it fresh.

How do you ensure your content is fresh?

Learn what your audience wants and develop content that speaks to them.
Use keywords that relate to the types of things your audience is looking for.

And use this tool to evaluate whether your press release has decent keywords that will work with search engines: http://www.pressreleasegrader.com

The London chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators held its Virtuoso Awards this month recognizing the very best of professional communication work in London.

I was thrilled to be recognized with three awards of merit:

• Two for my work redeveloping the hospital websites and creating an interactive story-sharing website
• And one for my work developing a social media campaign for It Gets Better London

Also at the awards night, a new “people’s choice awards” competition took place. Guests voted for their favourite short video produced by local pr pros.

All of the videos had to do with a thought-provoking theme: The Evolution of Communication

• check out the three one-minute videos that capture thoughts on how communication has evolved

Including this absolutely ridiculous “evolution of dating” video that my friend Sonya Gilpin and I created:

Read about my thoughts on volunteering and the potential of London’s emerging leaders to help our city achieve its potential.

My profile in Snap London: at work pointing on the map to my office and where I was born

Today, Canada votes!

And I’m super excited to be playing a part in London’s coverage of the election… I’ll be part of a social media team supporting London’s /A\ News, tonight.

Tonight during the election coverage, /A\ News will be incorporating social media into broadcast. Several London social media experts and I are part of the team that’ll be at the Covent Garden Market studio all night monitoring and reflecting the collective consciousness of the “online world” during the broadcast.

FOLLOW ALONG!

Twitter: Use the following hash tags if you’re chatting about the election in London: #anewsvote, #elxn41, and/or #ldnont.
Also, follow @atvnewslondon and the London social media team: me @ImpressionOne, @JayCMenard, @phronk, @StuartClark, @JamesWilk, @billdeys, @brian_frank, @carmilevy, and @3oh6.
@taraoverholt will be broadcasting from the market and @DanMacLellan will be anchoring.

Facebook: Like Canada Votes and post to the wall tomorrow. We’ll be following along there.

Tumblr: We’ve got a group tumblog rolling: /A\ London Election Internet Cafe.

*****

But don’t just follow along and participate in the social media dialogue. Be sure to get out there and VOTE!

I felt compelled to help fight back, to support others in their fight. I decided to raise funds and run in the Brain Tumour Foundation’s Spring Sprint. I also asked my rowing group to support me.

That’s when I learned that one of my rowing teammates, Vanessa, is herself a survivor fighting a brain tumour. Our team came together with Vanessa to start a strong team effort to run together in the Spring Sprint.

We’re now raising funds for a second year and preparing for our second Spring Sprint this Saturday. We’re inspired by Vanessa and her fight… and doing what we can to take a personal challenge to run and help.

My rowing team and I are pulling hard to help fight brain tumours

*****

The Londoner profiled our rowing team’s efforts to fight brain tumours in today’s edition. Read about us!

If you want to make a difference you can sponsor our team.

That was the case with a project that touched me, my friends and my city very profoundly - a project that I had the privilege of helping a good friend with… It Gets Better London.

In late 2010, the world was shocked to hear tragic cases of young people in the States who committed suicide because they were harassed and bullied for being gay. To help spread hope, American podcaster Dan Savage and his partner recorded a video to show young LGBT people that a happy adulthood is waiting for them if they can make it through the challenging years of their life. They created a campaign, It Gets Better, that went viral: more than 10,000 people have shared inspiring videos including President Obama.

My friend James Wilkinson had a brilliant idea: spread the hope in London with local people telling local LGBT youth “It Gets Better.”

***** It Gets Better London *****

James created a spectacular “It Gets Better” video for London:

I lent my support by building a social media campaign: using Twitter and Facebook to help expose as many Londoners to the video as possible (almost 1900 views). The social media campaign grew into a community of people who heard the message of hope and spread support throughout the city.

And so a second video was created, profiling community members telling LGBT youth in London that they have support. I was proud to lend my voice to the video:

*****

The local campaign has sort of drawn to a close - but it’s been exciting to watch how the social media community grew and how the videos went viral in London.

More so, it was powerful to watch the positive impact on the local community of supporters - to know we were making a real difference.

And communication helped to make that difference even greater.

I am currently writing about my two-week journey across Canada on board VIA Rail’s The Canadian - their flagship transcontinental rail journey. My travels included a visit to Winnipeg, two days in Jasper and five days in Vancouver and Whistler!

Check it out, and subscribe to my travel blog… I’ll be keeping it going with travels near and far; not just one big journey around the world, but rather the everyday journey full of the exploration I see throughout life.