Ryan Anderson dot ca

I don’t typically use this blog to spout my own personal politics, but, well hell – I’m going to.

If you don’t live in Ottawa, you can pretty well ignore this post, but I’d rather you read it just so you can see how incompetent and short-sighted our local government really is.

As part of next year’s draft budget, the city has cut $35 million.  Of that, $26 million is for new projects that have not yet begun, and $9 million comes from existing spending.  The trouble is, that $9 million isn’t spread across the board like cuts of this nature usually are.  Almost half of that $9 million in cuts is set to come from local arts and culture, including 100% cuts to festivals and cultural organizations regardless of stability, sustainability or local impact.

Whether or not you choose to spend your nights at the theatre, you have to understand that disproportionately attacking arts and culture in the city is not a recipe for long-term fiscal repsonsibility.  Ottawa has close to 40 festivals, all of whom provide stimulus to the local economy.  It is estimated that for every dollar invested in the arts, $7 is injected into local businesses.  Besides that, these festivals and theatre companies provide valuable opportunities for young people to further their careers.

In 2001, I was the publicist for the Ottawa Fringe Festival, an organization for which I now serve on the board of directors.  As a direct result of this experience, I went on to found a professional theatre company, build my marketing and public relations experience, and after working for years in agencies, am the owner of a successful agency myself.  These are the types of opportunities the City of Ottawa is flushing down the toilet.

Artists don’t make a lot of money.  In fact, most that I know just make ends meet, and are comfortable with the fact that they’ll never have a huge payday, but they continue to work in the arts and take a substantial pay cut over what they could make elsewhere, because they love it and they want to give back to the community – by teaching children about the arts, by entertaining audiences and by building something that is bigger than themselves.

Ottawa has among the highest property taxes in the country, and the highest user fees in the country.  My question for the city clerk who drafted this budget and considers the arts his “lowest possible priority,” is that in a city that takes so much from its residents, why do you see it fit to so singularly punish those who give so much back?

I could go on at length about the contributions that arts and culture makes to the local community, but frankly, it’s an argument I’m sick of making because it so often falls on deaf and ignorant ears.  The reality is that investment in the arts is good economically (see Broadway) and socially (see countless research papers on the affect of arts education on youth crime).  If you don’t see that value, then you’re welcome to live in the drab, lifeless bureaucratic city that you deserve.

If you believe the arts have a place in cities, then I need your help.  Please, take action, and write your city councilors – all of them, and tell them that cutting the arts completely is not the way to balance a budget.  Email your friends, and tell them about what the City is planning to do with their city.  Get them involved.  The only way to fight this is to make it clear that the residents of this city value more than just a stable government paycheque – that they want the city to live up to its potential and attract people with arts and festivals, rather than being the butt of the rest of the country’s jokes about boring cities.

An example letter is here, and you can find your councilor’s email address here.

Please, spread the word, and don’t let our City Council decimate culture in Ottawa.

A few months back, while giving a lecture on social media to a group of business students, they were surprised when I mentioned that when I’m vetting people for job interviews, I care more about their blog and Facebook page than I did their cover letter.  Looks like Obama feels the same way.

From the Bulldog Reporter:

If you want a job in an Obama administration, be prepared to disclose every blog post or comment you’ve ever written. A nine-page questionnaire requires applicants to list — and if possible, provide copies of — all “posts or comments on blogs or other websites” they have ever made. Also required are “aliases” or nicknames used on those sites.

In politics, transparency is key, and it’s easier than ever to find out what someone wrote on a newsgroup back in 1995.  We sometimes forget that blogs and microblogging are permanent records of our reputation, and need to be treated with care.  Hats off to the Obama administration for understanding this.

[via: Bulldog Reporter]

This says more about my personality than it does about marketing, advertising or communications, but THIS is objectively the best commercial on TV, period.

Know your audience, and entertain them.

I was asked to do an interview for the Globe’s Report on Business about making the leap from a day job to being your own boss. The money pullquote:

“The hardest thing is the lack of human contact. As much as having to put up with the guy who’s constantly in your office talking about last night’s episode of Rock of Love is annoying, when you spend your days working alone, sometimes you wish that guy would stop by.”

Ryan Anderson, principal, Fat Canary Communications Inc., in Ottawa

I’m not going to lie… I do miss that guy. Read the whole article here.

When I talk to people outside the echo chamber about social media tools like Twitter or Friendfeed, there’s one key element of it that is very hard to get across – community.  Of course, most businesses understand the idea of community as a group of people who share the same interests and can contribute their ideas to a product or service, and that’s completely valid.  But real community – the way we think of our neighbours, our families, our church / theatre group / team, is much more meaningful than just like interests.  It’s not just a business relationship – it’s about helping each other out when it’s needed.

A few weeks ago, I was at BlogWorld Expo with Overlay.TV.  My flight wasn’t until later the day after the conference, so I decided to spend a bit of the day walking around before I took off to the airport.  I decided that I would pick up something for my girlfriend at the Paull Frank store on the strip, and as I was about to pay, I made the horrifying realization that my wallet was no longer in my pocket.  Whether I left it on the counter at the last store I was at, or someone lifted it will remain a mystery, but it was officially gone, along with my money and all my cards.

I cancelled my credit cards without incident, but that wasn’t the problem.  I had no cash, nor access to my cash… and I needed to get to the airport.

I tried talking to the front desk at the hotel I stayed at, but they were no help (side note: up yours, Vegas Hilton) so I turned to Twitter.  I had met Rich Becker the night before at dinner, and, being the only person I knew who lived in Vegas, I messaged him and asked him to call me.  By the time he called, he had seen my Tweet, and generously offered to meet me after work and take me to the airport, thereby saving me a three-hour walk through the desert.

Rich not only picked me up, but gave me money for dinner, apologized for not being able to invite me over for dinner with his family that night, and told me how embarassed he and his wife was that something like this happened in their city.

When I got home, I naturally sent Rich the money he had leant me for dinner, and a week later, I got a message from him saying that it wasn’t necessary, and so he had donated it in my name to a cause that was near and dear to his heart.

Given the kindness that Rich showed me – a complete stranger – in a time of need, the least I can do is to encourage all of you to help a member of the community and donate what you can to the 2008 Arthritis Walk.  It’s an important cause, and one that touches the lives of many people.

It’s important to talk about the business and enterprise benefits of social media, but it’s a nice reminder that community still goes beyond products and services, and connects people.

I officially have the geekiest reason to fly to Vegas that most of my friends have ever heard. I’m headed to Blog World Expo this Friday, so if you’re going to be there, be sure to get in touch.  The easiest way to reach me is to ping me on Twitter, or send an email to blog at ryananderson dot ca. I’ll be headed to the Friday night tweetup at the LV Hilton as well, so if you’re a fellow Twitterer, you won’t want to miss it.

One of the main reasons I opted to name my company “Fat Canary” is the visuals element of the name.  Luckily, a friend of mine felt this way as well and designed a new logo for me.

James is a software engineer so it may not be the “typical creative,” that we’re so used to seeing, but I think it captures the name quite elegantly.

Thanks James.  Who says engineers and designers are separate disciplines?

The question of who “owns” social media has been raised a number of times, by a number of very smart people.  Mitch Joel of TwistImage believes that it’s the digital agency who needs to educate themselves and take ownership of the social media landscape.  Jeremy Pepper – one of the most intelligent voices in the PR community, believes that PR will lose social media to the advertising world for the simple fact that agencies know how to sex things up and charge for it.  Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester lays out the organizational difficulties of social media being stuck in a single silo, and argues that who owns the program depends on the organization and the nature of the program.

This is a question I’ve been thinking about a lot lately since I’ve left the agency world to go off on my own, but the more I think about how the media landscape will look in the next 5 – 10 years, the more I think we’re asking the wrong question.

As it stands, social media programs are attempted by agencies, PR firms, contractors, and the odd social media firm.  Some big agencies on all sides of the fence have tried to build up expertise in the area, but for the most part they have been unable to move the needle or get through the levels of bureaucracy at the top of the food chain necessary to really establish social media as a viable offering within the organization.

Perhaps I’m drinking the social media Kool-aid a little too much here, but I think the real question we should be asking – if not now, then soon – is “who does social media own?”

Right now, the answer is “no one.”  In terms of marketing budgets, social media only represents a small fraction of budgets, but when you boil it down to the core strategies of openness, transparency, engagement and consumer participation, it’s the key linchpin that links all other disciplines to the strategy.  When you consider the integration of social ads, online video, event and PR activation, and the creative that goes along with it, social media needs to be the leader, or you’re left with a situation where the tactics are leading the strategy instead of the other way around.

At the end of the day, this is about strategy leading the game and pushing creative into a supporting role.  As much as marketers like to think that social media was created by us, or that we somehow have ownership of it, the reality is that it’s merely and enabling social change, and not simply a communications vehicle.  As consumers continue to change their actions and expectations based on the technology that is available, and that will be created down the road by the next Facebook, the next Twitter or the next iPhone, the importance of making strategies social will be all the more important.

Over time, social media won’t be clamoring for a spot at the table with television and interactive – it will be deciding the involvement of all the players – assuming they fit the strategy, that is.

After a stupendously successful first time bringing Social Media Breakfast to Ottawa, we’re doing it again, and this time the founder of the entire movement will be making the drive from Boston to Ottawa to join us.

This month’s speaker is Rob Lane, CEO of Overlay.tv – an Ottawa-based startup that allows producers to customize and monetize their videos by overlaying contextual information.  Rob will be discussing three case studies in online video ranging in size from a multinational advertising agency to a teenage boy.  He will also discuss how social media helped build the Overlay.tv brand and its product.

Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 2 will be held Tuesday, July 15 at the Offices of Overlay.tv – 80 Aberdeen Ave, Suite 401. As always, the breakfast is free, but you’ll need to register at http://smbottawa2.eventbrite.com.  The day starts at 7:30, and is a great opportunity to network and get your questions about social media answered.

Those who remember the EventBot from the previous breakfast (or from the Fringe) will be happy to know that it will be back at SMB2, and you can ask it specific questions about social media that we’re planning to turn into a video podcast after the event.

In the meantime, feast your eyes upon the video of last month’s talk at Social Media Breakfast:

Event Details:

What: Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 2
Where: Overlay.tv, 80 Aberdeen St., Suite 401
When: Tuesday, July 15 at 7:30am

Joe Thornley nails it with his post about credibility in social media coming from firms actually being active in the space.  In my day job, I work with a lot of agencies, both advertising and PR, and almost all of them claim to be experts in social media.  The reality is, however, that many of the agencies who tout themselves as experts do not invest adequately in training or in actually participating in the space.

I’ve talked before about the importance of marketing peopel to really dig into social media – exploring both the mainstream and the esoteric, and really understanding the culture.  Sadly, it’s easier to jump to conclusions about technologies based on a cursory knowledge of the space than it is to actually experience the culture and the people.

Traditional advertising has almost nothing in common with social media.  Old models do not apply as they once did, and in order for agencies to call themselves “experts,” they need to move beyond assuming and start participating.