I’ll be on a panel at SMX Toronto this Friday: Search and Social – Insight and Inspiration. The panel will be moderated by Alexa Clark and feature a cross-section of smart folks – Leona Hobbs from Social Media Group, Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People and Ilya Grigorik from Postrank.

I’ve always been passionate about the intersection of search and social and how the two can intersect to provide a rich, contextual experience for users. With the quality of people on the panel it’s sure to be a lively and informative discussion.

If you plan on attending, make sure to say hello!

My presentation from the Executing Social Media Conference in Toronto today.

It’s a been a wonderful road watching technology, marketing and social communications evolve on the web over the last 15 years, and it’s been fantastic & exciting being in the thick of it and running my own consultancy for the last 4 years. The last 24 months in particular have been a great journey as social networking tools have come of age rapidly. Seeing companies take the first steps in marketing and DWC (direct-with-consumer)/ social communications in this new hyper-connected reality has been a thrill to watch and participate in. Communications is changing, but at the same time the need for sound strategies, counsel and ideas remains as important as ever to navigate the waters and integrate properly. Social communications is not just outreach and PR; it is part of a larger digital experience with many touchpoints and needs based on standard business objectives.

I have of course focused on the strategy-side of the equation, and in analyzing changes in communications in the digital space. Another part of the digital coming-of-age is having brands move forward in usability and interaction in the online arena to take static, brochure-ware sites to robust, intuitive, user-centric places that continue to evolve and deliver results. Delivering rich creative experiences and personalized programs has started come into its own as clients are willing to invest more of their budget in new media as the value continues to be shown, and not being present becomes a competitive disadvantage. It’s been wonderful to see happen.

I truly believe that Experience touches *everything*: Interfaces, Interaction, Collaboration, Connection, Technology, Relationships, Creative, Information, Service, Engagement, Accessibility, Community…

Currently social media is on the cusp of becoming standard in anything digital, and incorporating digital and social communications with user experience design and solid, engaging creative/ content from the ground up is something I am truly excited about.

One of the best Experience Design agencies out there is Toronto-based Teehan+Lax, with a stellar and incredibly talented team of Associates and amazingly smart Partners (and I don’t just say so myself ;)): Geoff Teehan, Jon Lax, Jeremy Bell & my old partner-in-crime from my MacLaren McCann Interactive days on GM Canada, Dave Stubbs.

In my view, a combination of strategic planning, digital marketing, social communications and user-experience/ interaction design results in a truly robust, meaningful experience that is people-centric and grounded in *business reality*, including insights and analysis that will continue to drive innovation. It’s a natural extension of the way digital and social is moving: doing what’s best for business *and* the public, and doing it as a cohesive unit from ground zero.

Joining Teehan+Lax as Partner – Strategic Consulting makes perfect sense to me. Building this Group to aid clients in strategic business planning, including tapping into social media and mobile marketing & applications, is an exciting challenge, and my vision is to enable Teehan+Lax to provide sound business intelligence and planning capabilities, as a stand-alone offering, or fully integrated with their best-in-class user experience platform and program capabilities to drive business and communications results for clients.

I’m looking forward to the experience and the journey.

[the official press release will go out tomorrow & I'll update this post with the link... but we decided we'd let the social sphere get the scoop first :)]

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Some housekeeping:

- Wildfire SM will not be accepting new clients or projects, although I am happy to discuss new relationships with Teehan+Lax. Any existing relationships will be bound by the same terms as initially agreed to in the contract. If you have any questions give me a shout, I’m happy to talk.

- As of today the www.wildfirestrategy.com domain will re-direct to this blog. The blog will still remain (3i) innovate. integrate. ignite. Because that’s my philosophy towards marketing and it applies fully in this new context.

- This blog will change look and feel over the next couple of months, but everything feed related etc. will remain the same.

This June 8 & 9th the Search Engine Strategies conference will return to Toronto. I had the pleasure of speaking at the event in 2007 and as the landscape continues to evolve, this year looks to have some great sessions on “what’s next” in search, along with the tried and true sessions about SEO & SEM. This year I’m covering SES right here on (3i). I hope to impart some of the goodness I’ll be learning over the two-days and if you have any particular sessions you’d like me to recap, let me know in the comments!

In addition to the keynote by the excellent Miss Rogue, Tara Hunt, author of The Whuffie Factor, the first day has some fantastic sessions, including:

• Is PageRank Broken? The Future of Search
• Universal and Blended Search: Comprehensive Visibility Challenges
• Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?
• SEO Then & Now: What’s the Same? What’s New? [I'll be featuring an interview with one of the panelists, Anne Kennedy, in the coming weeks on (3i). ]

Day 2 again features some terrific sessions in addition to the keynote by Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited:

• Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps
• Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning and SEO
• Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?
• How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department to Get Things Done

If you are at the conference make sure to find me to say hi, or if you aren’t attending, follow along here and leave me a comment with your perspective on the hot issues being discussed!

This is a bit of a rant about something that is occuring all too frequently these days on my favourite social tool – Twitter. Yesterday an article in the Globe & Mail by Margaret Wente appeared that questioned, in her particular snarky tone of voice, the value of Twitter. You would have thought she questioned the cuteness of puppies by the vehement reaction by the Canadian Twitterverse. Update after update sought to match her snide tone and “set her straight”. It was an over-the-top reaction to a piece that in the grand scheme of things was just one persons opinion based on the plethora of mainstream media attention Twitter has been getting recently as the “next Internet phenom!!”. 

We really need to stop being so defensive. It’s a tool some of us use. It’s not for everyone after all and none of us own stocks.

Sure, it would have been nice if Wente had spent more time getting to know the tool before writing a piece about it, but let’s not forget that not every one has hours to spend figuring out the ins and outs of what is a highly charged, established community who are quite vocal when they deem you aren’t using it right. Not every one wants to either. If we cheer when Twitter makes the Wall Street Journal or The Star, are we not asking the general public to join based on what they’re reading? As with anything in life (and marketers should really know this already) people go through phases before deciding to buy (or join). Sure, we’d *like* them to take a test drive, but sometimes we have to rely on the dry specs and pretty pictures to even get on their consideration list. So Wente (who most likely has been hearing about the wonders of new media and Twitter from her colleague Mathew Ingram for months now) checked out the public stream and wasn’t impressed. Not surprising, there’s a lot of updates there about what people are having for lunch, and unless you have a group of people for whom you care about what they’re having for lunch, it really would seem silly for the lay person if we’re being honest. Of course that isn’t the *only* thing happening on Twitter, and not the reason I use it (I’ve explained before here and in an interview on CityNews recently why I use Twitter), but it takes a lot of time and energy to build that network… and maybe that isn’t time some people want to invest, or know they have to. Twitter works when it’s a conversation vs a monologue and perhaps, just perhaps, someone may have other channels they use when they want to converse. 

Let’s also add some perspective to the time investment using Twitter properly is – some people may not be able to bill clients for the hours upon hours they spend using the tool each day either, because they aren’t in marketing communications, PR, or customer service (or an entrepreneur, artist, etc.). Let’s keep that in mind when we jump all over people for not “getting” the tool.

I’m not a fan of Wente’s writing (or opinions) for the most part, but I recognize frustration with over-hype when I read it, and that’s what her piece felt like to me. I also wonder why no one called out the most glaring thing in regards to her article — she asked @biz (the guy who OWNS Twitter) for a chance to interview him the day before the piece ran. Did he care enough to defend it, or even respond? Perhaps her view of Twitter may have been different if the guy with the vested interest in getting positive coverage of his business by Canada’s largest daily paper had gotten back to her.

Twitter is for some, not for others, and it would be productive in my view to allow that there is more than one way to use the tool, or not. 

Also, that everyone is entitled to form an opinion based on what they read/ see. It’s up to the community to convince people the tool is right for them if we are going to get so defensive when they don’t “get it” and vocalize that, question it, or poke fun at it.

[photo credit: merwing via Flickr]