I hope you are having a fantastic, festive and restful holiday season! Sorry to interrupt it with the mundane request, but I did want to get this out on the old One Degree site/feed. If you subscribe to One Degree via an RSS feed, can you please make sure you are using our Feedburner Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/onedegree A few of you are subscribed using: http://feeds.onedegree.ca/onedegree. This feed will no longer work once we make the switch. As an incentive to check this, One Degree will be delivering FULL feeds starting with our new posts in January. And as a "thank you" for checking, here's a link to Twist Image's Share 2007 holiday/New Year greeting. It has the video selections of twelve influentials in our space, including Canadians Paula Gignac of IAB Canada, Mary Maddever of Strategy Magazine and John Gustavson of the CMA. Mitch's post about it came out after I had done our final holiday roundup. Thanks again for checking those feeds! We'll see you in 2008 - Happy New Year!

Seasons Greetings, everyone! One Degree is headed into the holidays both with an eye for eggnog but also the exciting task of moving our favourite Canadian marketing blog to a new platform. We won't be publishing any new content but working behind the scenes to get everything ready.

We'll be officially launching (fingers crossed) on January 7th. RSS subscribers, your transition should be relatively seamless. Email subscribers, we're going to make every effort to make your transition seamless as well. But you may experience a slight hiccup - just chalk it up to the 'nog.

We already have some great content lined up for 2008 .. including more videos from IAB's Big Day - this time in Toronto, reviews of new research out from Forrester on social media and some SEO case studies. We also have some exciting plans for contributing to the larger Canadian marketing community ... but I'll wait to announce those.

Domain transfers and propagation being what they are ... please hold your emails to the @onedegree.ca domain. If it's urgent, please contact me at kate AT reinvent DOT ca.

Thank you for all your support and contributions in 2007. I'm really excited about what 2008 holds in store for us! Happy Holidays!

Photo Credit: jonrawlinson

In this final round of holiday etoys and activities, we've discovered a number of unusual activities. There also continue to be some incredible efforts around charitable giving. Instead of doing a crazy review like before .. here's a list with links. Enjoy!

• Tattoo Santa from R/GA. Enough said.
• Remember Elf Yourself from Office Max (warning, site is down a LOT)? They're back with a new group elf feature. And they have also created Scrooge Yourself (it's down a lot too). And check out the riff on it ... Gnome Yourself from Dunder Mifflin :)
• Pimp My Sleigh by Kwik-Fit Insurance - trick out the sleigh that you would ride in if you were Santa
• Snow globes are popular. Pepsi has one that supports their charitable donations to Second Harvest. And PETA also has a snow globe this year where you can give someone a shake who has been cruel to animals.
• 5 Gifts that Cost Nothing .. but could mean everything from Chris Penn at the Financial Aid Podcast. A poignant take on what would really make a difference in both your friends' and family's lives as well as your own.

One of my favourites (though technically not an ecard or viral video) is the 15 Below project from TAXI. Instead of giving staff and client gifts this year, TAXI has designed a coat that can be insulated with newspaper and can withstand temperatures up to -15 (the temperature that causes Cold Alerts to be put into effect). This coat will be distributed to homeless across North America on behalf of TAXI clients and staff. You can view the story of the coat and its design as well as a video of it being put to the test on their site www.15belowproject.org.

Photo Credit: James Jordan

Score a sweet role.

CakeMail is growing by leaps and bounds! We just doubled our staff in Montréal, and now we're seeking a Deliverability Manager to build on our in-house expertise as we expand. We're offering a year's worth of email delivery (150,000 sends/month) and CakeMail schwag for the successful referral, by the way!

Why join CakeMail?

• Belong to a friendly, tight-knit team of talented, entrepreneurial people.
• Be part of a stimulating startup.
• Work with a truly innovative email marketing platform.
• Blaze new trails by forging relationships beyond the major ISPs worldwide.
• Telecommute from anywhere or come enjoy the great quality of life and culture Montréal has to offer.

  What you'll do

  • Build on the ISP relationships established since 2002 during our founder's previous venture.
  • Maintain feedback loop programs and white listing.
  • Resolve email filtering and blocking issues.
  • Monitor black lists and sender reputation.
  • Augment delivery-related data analytics.
  • Work with account managers to prevent, communicate and resolve deliverability issues.
  • Keep abreast of industry best practices, trends and legal changes and share this knowledge with team members and resellers.
  • Participate actively in the email marketing and anti-spam communities.
  • Contribute to industry discussions online, such as ReputationWiki.org and the Email Marketer's Club.
  • Collaborate with in-house and third-party developers to hook various deliverability services into the CakeMail API.
  • Aid resellers in adopting best practices for content, creative, timing, data and trust-building.
  • Propose inventive ways to improve deliverability.
  • Have fun doing what you do!

  Essential ingredients

  • Experience in ISP relations (2 - 5 years preferred).
  • Familiarity with delivery policies and procedures at major ISPs.
  • Technical knowledge of email delivery, filtering and authentication.
  • Familiarity with privacy and anti-spam policies and laws.
  • Strong problem-solving skills.
  • Attention to detail and organization.
  • Effective interpersonal communication skills.

  Icing on the cake

  • Excellent written English, and a strong interest in blogging.
  • Knowledge of other languages.
  • Experience with Linux and DNS administration.
  • Enthusiasm for open source and the collaborative Web.

  Compensation

  • Competitive salary.
  • Generous options package.
  • Possibility of working remotely from anywhere in the world.

  Please send your CV and any other pertinent information or links to jobs@cakemail.com and let us know your salary expectations and (re)location preferences.

  

For our last "Noise to Signal" of 2007, Rob Cottingham reflects on the RFP process ...

OriginHR Canada (formerly RecruitAd Advertising), an HR solutions company, specializes in recruitment advertising, employer branding, HR communications and Recruitment Process Augmentation.

Deliver “out of the box” online solutions to attract top talent and provide project management support to the Sales team.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum two to three years’ sales or marketing experience
• Excellent communication skills
• Superior understanding of MS Office (Word/Excel)
• Strong Internet familiarity
• Basic understanding of HTML/CSS

OriginHR hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. We encourage all qualified persons to apply online at http://www.cncglobal.com/Careers.

The breakout session that I attended at the IAB's Big Day in Montreal was called Widgets: Tools for Branding and Beyond. Moderated by Mitch Joel of Twist Image, the panel included Carrie Lysenko from The Weather Network, Chantal Rossi from Google Canada, and Jerome Carron from Microsoft Canada. Widgets (or as some call them, gadgets) have exploded in popularity over the last few years. You may know them as the embedded type that are mini-web applications and appear on platforms like Google’s iGoogle custom home page or Facebook’s zombies. Or there are the types that you download and sit on your desktop sending you details on the weather in your city or other custom data. Mobile widgets bring information to your portable devices, giving you information on the fly. The panel did a great job discussing the business case for brands to enter the widget space. With the cost of development being fairly low-cost, widgets drive traffic back to your web site, increasing revenue. As marketers, widgets will allow you to push consumer-relevant information in real time and allow users to customize how they want the information displayed or accessed. Treating your little space like a mini-web site, you can give people the information that they want the most, releasing custom content that is only available to widget users, thereby creating demand for the application itself. Chantal Rossi of Google advises that brands try to be the first in their market to deploy a widget, commenting that baby and pet care segments are growing quickly, as those consumers want quick and easy access to information. However, Jerome Carron’s experience with Vista’s new side bar gadgets has shown that making the information too confusing or complex to access will not lead to widespread adoption. Carrie Lysenko has been responsible for the very successful gadgets at the Weather Network for 3 years, making her a veritable old timer in the industry. If you are in the position of selling the idea of creating a widget as part of your marketing mix, she recommends having your clients and try out a variety of widgets in different segments to discover how they work and the value that they can bring. Here’s more from Mitch Joel, Jerome Caron and Carrie Lysenko on whether marketers should enter the widget space and what the barriers to adoption might be:

It comes as no surprise that word-of-mouth marketer, Sean Moffitt’s keynote address, entitled Let’s Get Wiki – Building Your Brand in a Customer Controlled Marketplace, was absolutely jam packed with stats on social media usage, brand integration and spending, clearly showing that a fundamental shift in marketing is underway. For instance, he notes that although 70% of companies are currently spending less than 2.5% of their budgets on social marketing, 81% of respondents projected that by 2012 they will spend at least as much on conversational marketing as traditional marketing. Where consumers are spending as much as 20% of their time online, advertisers are only dedicating 8% of their budget on that channel and accordingly Moffitt advises spending 20% of your advertising budget on conversational marketing. For traditional marketers this may represent a hard sell internally, but Moffitt is quick to point out that brands that have engaged their customers enough to build evangelism have grown by over 15% this year alone.

The morning case studies, which also made up the next day’s Roadshow event, highlighted the successes of publishers who leveraged traditional media with digital campaigns to get the biggest returns. Participants included Rogers Digital Media (Nestlé Singles), Yahoo! Canada (J.C. Penny), Transcontinental Media (Wonder Bra), Sympatico/MSN (Bud Light), Canada.com (Deal or No Deal), Canoe.ca (LotoQuebec). However, it was Marshall Self from the AOL Media Network speaking about a technology being used in behavioural targeting called “retargeting” that really piqued my attention. Using West Jet as an example, he explained how visitors who left the site before their transaction was completed could be tracked to other sites within the AOL network, allowing ads to be served to relevant potential customers. This approach is a shift away from traditional behavioural targeting, allowing a company like West Jet to have ads served on sites that may have nothing to do with travel, but are still be targeted to people who are likely to have a higher conversion rate. Here’s Marshall explaining the ins and outs of retargeting:

In late November, IAB Canada held a one day conference "The Big Day: Genius Edition" in both Montreal and Toronto. We were lucky to have folks available to cover both. This first recap, session summaries and videos is submitted by new contributor, Adele McAlear in Montreal ... Nearly 200 people braved Montreal’s first snowfall to attend the IAB's Interactive to the Max Big Day in Montreal on November 20, 2007, highlighting the newest trends in online marketing, presented by Marketing Magazine and the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada. The day had a great mix of case studies, two keynotes and six panel discussions, giving attendees a wide base of knowledge and experiences to absorb. For marketers looking for new tools and tactics that they can add to their toolbox, the day was a great way to hear what worked, and sometimes what didn’t. And, unlike the Big Day in Toronto and the Roadshow case studies that took place across the country, the content of the Montreal conference was presented in French and English, with an emphasis on the Quebec experience. I give full credit to the organizers, who clearly understand that new marketing is all about knowing your customer. My three session reports include:

• The Roadshow Case Studies
• Keynote: Sean Moffitt, Agent Wildfire Inc. - Let’s Get Wiki – Building Your Brand in a Customer Controlled Marketplace
• Breakout Session: Widgets: Tools for Branding and Beyond, moderated by Mitch Joel of Twist Image

See individual posts for details and videos.

We've gathered up a few more holiday cards/virals for your time-wasting pleasure research. Most are Canadian though I have included one from the US because it is a great example of the integration of online and offline components, plus the use of a couple of social networking tools. Enjoy! Image Courtesy of Violentz

TMP Worldwide is the world's largest independent recruitment advertising agency and the only one ranked among America’s top interactive agencies. We provide a broad range of human capital communications services for clients in both private and public sectors, assisting them to communicate their employment offerings across all traditional and new media arenas.

As an Interactive Strategist you will provide strategic and tactical direction to our clients. This will encompass comprehensive online programs such as research, web development, traffic driving strategies, our extranet product, web optimization and tracking, and other more customized solutions. You will work with Interactive Producers and Account Directors to coordinate and perform needs analysis and create a foundation for the provision of customized solutions and ongoing consultation. You will also work very closely with our US Interactive and “new ideas” teams.

Fluent in French and English, you should have an appropriate post-secondary education and two to five years’ experience in one of the following: delivering Internet-based solutions to clients; an account management role that has encompassed both on and off-line media executions; or a human resources technology role that has seen you gain experience with online tools and ATS’s. You are adept at undertaking thorough needs analysis and a strategy development and are able to effectively control workload. The ability to travel is essential.

Please send your resume to: wayne.burns@tmp.com

Chestnuts roasting on the open fire ... eCards filling your cluttered inbox. Facebook apps make your profile all aglow ... Merry Christmas to you (apologies to Mel Tormé and Robert Wells). Yup, it's that time of year. When clients and agencies alike show off their creative chops and sometimes cheeky spirit with fun holiday messages. Sometimes it's an eCard, sometimes it's a video, sometimes it's a cool website ... but the best Christmas gift would be it going viral. We take a look at some of the promotions that we've been sent this year or discovered. Part of what is interesting to me about these is how they came to my attention ... only a few came through email, several came through Facebook or other social networking links. Image Courtesy of Violentz

One of the most interesting things I get to do in my role as General Manager, Domain Portfolio at Tucows is manage the sale of domain names that we own to third party buyers. Since joining the company, my team and I have dealt with countless inquiries from prospective domain name buyers looking to acquire a domain name from our portfolio. I've seen all sorts of approaches taken, some good, some not so good, and I wanted to share with you the story of one sale that we made because it's a textbook case of how NOT to buy a domain name.

You’re sure “Crowdsourcing” isn’t that thing they do at concerts, but what exactly is it? Get a crash course in the basics in this first in a four-part series on Crowdsourcing.

As an environmental planner, I studied the impacts of technologies (waste treatment plants, large dams, road work projects etc.) on communities. Technology has always had an impact on how we live, how we work and how we interrelate with the environment around us. Similarly, working in interactive communications since 1996, I have seen the growth of digital networks and their communities. While at first glance, it may seem that environmental and digital ecosystems have little in common, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. There are many parallels between natural ecosystems and their networked counterparts and therefore many lessons to be learned. ‘GreenMan marketing part I’ attempts to formalize this strategic approach and lay down a foundation, a philosophy and a way of thinking.

We all know that the world’s first collaborative encyclopedia would not be possible without crowdsourcing – but how else do companies make this concept work? And moreover, how can you, the reader, use it to further your business? Barry Libert and Jon Spector’s new book We are Smarter than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business is a mini-encyclopedia of crowdsourcing for business, describing over 60 examples of companies (including background information and their processes) that harnessed the community hive to great success. As the title implies, the authors take the concept a step further, offering suggestions as to how readers can use crowdsourcing to increase the profitability of their company.

SEMPO Canada, the Canadian Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is involved in the launch of SEMPO's 4th annual State of Search Marketing Survey. Whether you are seasoned in SEM or still wet behind the ears, your input is valued and needed! Therefore, if you have been involved in the preparation and/or implementation of a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Plan in 2007 or if you know someone in your organization or network who has, we want to hear from you.

Please take a few minutes to answer the 4th SEMPO Survey here.

Your help means a lot to us in improving the growth of Search Marketing in Canada. Feel free to blog about it and thanks for you collaboration!

More on SEMPO Canada: SEMPO Canada is a Canadian Non-Profit Professional Search Marketing Association working to increase awareness and promote the value of Search Engine Marketing in Canada. This Working Group was founded in November 2006 by Ken Jurina & Alexandre Brabant and focuses on improving the growth, awareness and understanding Search Engine Marketing (SEM) in Canada, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Link Building, Pay Per Click Management, best practices in this new field of marketing and how it uniquely pertains and is of relevance to Canadians worldwide across any sector, vertical or industry.

Barry Libert is the co-CEO of Mzinga. He is also the co-author of WE ARE SMARTER THAN ME: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business (look for One Degree's review later this week!) Drawing on their own research and the insights from an enormous community of more than 4,000 people, Barry and co-author Jon Spector wrote about what works, and what doesn’t, when you are building community into your decision making and business processes, and how to profit from the wisdom of crowds.

One Degree asked Barry Libert Five Questions about building a successful community, how crowdsourcing can lead to profitability and how businesses need to adapt to this new collaborative environment.

One Degree: How did the book get started?

Well the book got started for me in 1995, when my wife and I were sort of talking about what was wrong with business. And the answer she had was, “Businesses don’t care.” ... The bottom line was that they gave “lip service”, she used to say, to employees, to customers and to investors, but really leaders didn’t have a real relationship with their people and with their customers ... And her analogy was, “Can you imagine going to a party, Barry and you didn’t know the names of your relatives? That’s business."

And I really thought about how business leaders didn’t care about relationships and that’s why the original book title was: “My Wife’s Right”. Because she was arguing that in a world in which people did care, profoundly care, businesses would be far more successful.