On the Web with Kim Vallee » montreal

My Blogging Tips Sessions at PodCamp Montreal 2009

Kim Vallee — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:35:17 +0000

I had a great time at the second edition of PodCamp Montreal. I am happy with all the sessions I went to. The exchanges provide great food for thought both from the presenters and the participants. People discussed several ways to stay authentic and transparent in CT Moore’s talk about transparency and personal brand. It was fun that it used Donald Drape as a reference character.

My two own sessions went well. I believe that you should review your blog 3 to 4 times a year and make adjustments. Preparing my Top Tips for Better Blogging session gave me the opportunity to review what I am doing. To answer Julien Smith’s question: doing it helps them and me.

I am also thrilled that our “Top Blogueur” panel was about design bloggers. Social media unconferences are not only for the earlier adopters of social media. Everyone is welcome. But people outside the social media crowd seem hesitant to participate and even more to submit a presentation. Having speakers that are not part of the usual circle is showing that things are changing. If you speak French, you can watch the panel here.

Video of Top Tips for Better Blogging

The sessions were recorded on live streaming, which is not always reliable. A little bit more than half of my presentation was recorded. Since it is the first half, you will not be lost.

PHOTO CREDITS:
+ Eva Blue and Jerome Paradis

Sharing My Top Blogging Tips at PodCamp Montreal 2009

Kim Vallee — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:31:03 +0000

I will be a speaker at PodCamp Montreal that will happen this weekend. In fact, I will be in two sessions.

Top Tips for Better Blogging

First, I will share my Top Tips for Better Blogging at 10 am Saturday, September 19th in room DE-3230. The blog universe has evolved and we have to adapt to the new reality. Based on my experience running At Home with Kim Vallee, my talk will focus on what it takes to create great content. I will tell you what works today to grow your traffic and free ways to monitor the social conversations.

I designed this session for all levels of bloggers. I made it so that recent bloggers can learn and seasoned bloggers can brush up their knowledge. I guarantee that you will learn a few new tricks or that attending will put things in perspective to address to current trends and challenges of the blogosphere.

If you cannot make it, my presentation will be live streamed. See you at 10 am this Saturday.

Top Bloggeur Panel

Right after lunch Saturday, I will be a panelist with the talented Éric Bolduc, Gabrielle Chalifoux and Cindy Laverdière. The talk will be in the language of Moliere (French). Michelle Sullivan will be the host of our Montreal-based design panel.

I am thrilled that lifestyle, fashion and art bloggers are represented at PodCamp Montreal. I said many times that design bloggers should mingle more often with geeks. We will exchange on our approach to blogging, the importance of networking, our strategy to build trust and awareness, plus our views on monetarizing our blog.

Panel ‘Top blogueur’ will start at 13:30 in room DE-3240 Saturday, September 19th. If you live out of town or are unable to go, our panel presentation will be live streamed.

It costs nothing to attend PodCamp Montreal. You simply need to register online first. Check out the schedule to discover the other awesome presenters; it’s should be great! If you wish to tweet about PodCamp Montreal, the official hashtag is #pcmtl.

Quickly Share How to Get to a Place on Twitter with TwitArea

Kim Vallee — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:45:05 +0000

Many people use Twitter to meet their friends at restaurants, shops, museums and other public places. Launched last week by Praized, TwitArea enables to quickly lead them to a place’s address, phone number and locate the place on a map. If you have a smart phone, you will find that having a direct link on tweets saves you time while you are on the run.

Another good use is to clearly identify a place. A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted about a hotel in Toronto. But the Toronto hotel has almost the same name as a trademark hotel in Chicago. Linking to the place on my tweet would have avoided the confusion.

How to Use TwitArea

No need to register. All you need to post a tweet with TwitArea is to use Firefox and be on the Twitter.com site. Simply install the Firefox add-on for TwitArea. The Firefox add-on will add an Insert Place button under the text box on Twitter.com. Click on the button whenever you wish to add the information of a place. Find the place you are referring to and click on the Tweet this! button. Voilà!

Your tweet will look like this. Anyone on a computer or using a smart phone will be able to click on the short URL to know the address, phone and locate on a map the place. I like it because TwitArea simplifies my life.

About Praized Media, the maker of TwitArea

TwitArea is related to Praized community database containing the location of 16 million businesses in Canada and in the United States. The Praized application is what is powering my Places community on At Home with Kim Vallee. Located in Montreal, Praized enables publishers with an easy way for their readers to recommend local businesses to each other.

+ TwitArea

Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry

Kim Vallee — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:10:36 +0000

This is the follow-up interview realized by my friend Christian Aubry with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg. In this second segment – a third is coming – Matt Mullenweg talked about how he started WordPress and how the open source community swelled the popularity of WordPress. It is a case where the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Over and over at WordCamp Montreal last weekend, people talked about the fact that WordPress, WordPress MU and BuddyPress are platforms, an infrastructure of which you can build upon. The added values emerged from what you can do with it. WordPress is used to achieve different objectives, to suit an infinite number of markets and is applied in many creative ways. You benefit from not reinventing the wheel. Instead, you concentrate on how you can serve your community. In fact, this is the main reason why I migrated At Home to WordPress.

Matt also talked about the importance of helping each others. If you think about the unconference movement and about blogging, it is mostly people sharing their expertise for the good of others. At the end of the day, it makes a better world where we feel empowered. Be prepared to be inspired.

You see in the background, a group of partcipants at WordCamp Montreal. A third part of this interview is coming soon. If you are looking for a guy to hire for your video reportage, put Christian Aubry on your short list. He has many years of experience.

A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009

Kim Vallee — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:48:56 +0000

I had a great time this weekend at WordCamp Montreal. The conversation with the founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg was inspiring and calming. Matt was really zen while he answered questions from the crowd. In the after-talk, many people pointed out to me his soothing voice. Amongst other things, Matt shares the core value of his company. To give you an idea, check out this short interviewed realized by my friend Christian Aubry.

About Our Presentation

I like going to this type of conference because you always get back from them with some ideas. Several talks gave me food for thought. Plus there is the fact that being a speaker forced me to reflect on my blog design and features. Jerome Paradis and I talked about my migration from subText to Wordpress.

We devised the presentation to highlight the perspective of the blogger and the preoccupations of the developer. I am happy because people seemed to appreciate that duality. I made the envy of a few bloggers to have free access to such a talented developer. Without Jerome, I would have never been able to have made this transition as perfectly as he did.

Now that I migrated to WordPress, I can envision the future. What to do next? I started by increasing the width of the pictures on posts. A lot is more to come. And I think it will be exciting for you.

I cannot recall the name of the caterer but the food was excellent. It is the best food I ate in an inconference in Montreal. Thank you to the organizators and the participants for making it a success.

PHOTO CREDITS:
Except for the laptop image, all the images were taken by the extremely talented Eva Blue. I invite you to see her WordCamp Montreal 2009 photo set, you will not regret it.

Measuring Your Social Media Influence is Key | Webcom 2009 Wrap-Up

Kim Vallee — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:05:39 +0000

Let’s look at what I see as the key elements of the latest Webcom, which happened May 13, 2009 in Montreal. Several subjects were covered. Privacy, identity, authenticity and transparency in social media have occupied a part of the debate. Except for one session that I left in the middle, all presenters did an excellent job talking about their topic. Analyzing and capitalizing on the influence you have on the different social networks is what captures my interest.

I particularly enjoyed the session given by Caroline Allard on how Exvisu measures and analyzes what it is said about a brand, a concept or a person on the Web. They create portraits of digital conversations from what it is said on blogs and Twitter. We will see more and more tools and services like that appearing on the market.

If you are a big participant in social media, it is important to know how well you do. So far, I took baby steps by visiting Twitlyzer and joining the newcomer Viralogy in hope to get some feedback on my social media influence. It is also great to see how you perform over time. I am looking to try more sophisticated solutions in the coming months.

Clara Shih’s session was also a treat. I chatted with her the night before. Clara is the author of the Facebook Era, a book about tapping online social networks to build better products, reach new audiences, and sell more stuff. I bought it. I believe in the power of its social graph of Facebook. I received my copy of her book Tuesday and I did not have the time to start reading it. I also bought the Tribes, the book of Seth Godin.

For many, Facebook is the place where many people talk about their private life versus Twitter, where they communicate on a public forum. Facebook changed the definition of a friend. For many bloggers like me, a Facebook friend may be a reader that never commented on your blog or all the persons you meet in conference. Clara Shih mentioned that we often do business with people that we vaguely know. Keeping a link with them on Facebook extends your connections.

It is to address the privacy issue for family that Cyrille de Lasteyrie alias Vinvin launched Hellotipi, a secret garden Facebook where you connect only your close friends and family members. For the moment, Hellotipi is launched only in France. If things go well, expect Hellotipi to expand their reach in other countries.

Sylvain Grand’maison praised the power of the niches. I cannot agree more. To succeed in a crowded market, you need to differentiate your product or your blog, concentrate on R&D and communication and more importantly be agile. For that kept team small; small is beautiful. Brands should use social media to communicate, interact, and add value by giving time, content and advices. Plus take the time to evaluate who follow you and who stop following you. Again, we are talking about analyzing your social media influence.

Finally, Jessica Lipnack of Net Age showed us an impressive dynamic organizational chart of the chain of commands at the White House.

The Webcom was well-organized. Except for one session that I left in the middle, all presenters did an excellent job talking about their topic. Congratulations to the team and the speakers!

My husband, who sits next to me on the top picture, posted the pictures he took during the day on Picasa.

MORE:
+ List of official bloggers for the 6th edition of Webcom
+ Photo courtesy of Adele McAlear – see Adele’s photo album of Webcom on Flickr

Three apps for the Bloggers: Twtvite, TwtPoll, TwtQpon by Twtapps

Kim Vallee — Fri, 08 May 2009 16:55:32 +0000

I went yesterday to the 4th edition of Startup Camp Montreal. I like 4 of 5 presentations. I say 4 out 5 because I did not like because I do not care about the topic of the 3rd presentation.

One presenter was Felipe Coimbra of Twtapps. I first met Felipe at a Tweetup last March (see picture at the end of the post). Felipe developed simple yet very practical Twitter-based applications. One great feature is that you do not need to register to use his free applications. For a fee, Twtapps can brand their applications to your blog or company. He is also thinking about adding premium services.

The current free version is plenty to fill many blogger’s needs. I wish to put the attention on three popular applications.

TwtPoll let you run simple poll online. This is a very popular Twitter application. It was the 9th most popular Twitter applications according to Compete (February 2009). This assessment was based on monthly active users.

TwtInvite is the most used applications to organize Tweetup events. It would be perfect to plan informal picnics in the park. A quick way to reach the Twitter community for your event. You simply fill a form and voilà. People can respond to the invite. This enables you to track the number of attendees and see who plan to be there. The event can be public or private.

TwtQpon is a simple way for small business owners and etsy sellers to promote rebate to the Twitter community.

Major brands use TwtQpon and TwtPoll. Several Twtapps applications were featured in TechCrunch. Plus Felipe is a nice guy. You should give his applications a try.

+ Twtapps

Official Blogger at Webcom Montreal 2009

Kim Vallee — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:34:05 +0000

The 6th edition of Webcom Montreal is scheduled for Wednesday, May 13th, 2009. This is a bi-annual one-day conference. I am writing a quick note to tell you that I will be publishing posts live (assuming no technological problems) one week from now. Readers of On The Web will be lucky since you will get more than one post next week.

I am one of the 5 official bloggers of the conference. The other official bloggers are Bertrand Duperrin, Frédéric Harper, Philippe Bonneau and my husband Jérôme Paradis. Since Jerome is an extraordinary software developer, our coverage should be from a different angle. As you can see, I am the only woman in the group. Note that 6 speakers out of 32 are women. I wish to concentrate my coverage on topics that will interest you as bloggers and participants in social media.

Being hosted in Montreal, Webcom Montreal has the particularity of having sessions in French and sessions in English. About 40% of the sessions are in English. The 32 speakers are from Canada (many from Quebec), the United States and France. All conferences from 3:30 pm to 6 pm are free. Places are limited.

If you wish to know more, visit the Webcom Montreal conference Web site. The event will take place at the head office of the ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization.

+ Webcom Montreal
+ Blog of Webcom Montreal – in French

Tourism Montreal hiring bloggers

Kim Vallee — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:16:34 +0000

The Gazette about the latest initiative of Tourisme Montreal to promote the city. They wish to hire on a part-time basis bloggers as ambassador to cover what is happening in Montreal.

This great initiative generated bad comments about bloggers being paid for hiring. Let’s make some facts very clear. The bloggers will not blog on their blog. They will publish their text, photos and videos on their dedicated page on Tourisme Montréal’s website.

I suspect Sid Lee with Tourisme Montreal wanted to reach to bloggers because we know how to write engaging stories. They also expect these ambassadors to talk about it in social media. Basically, they will be do the job of a Community Manager, which as far as I know is a real job position for which people are being paid at companies.

Blogger Recognition

What this initiative by Tourisme Montreal / Sid Lee proves is that the skills of bloggers are being recognized. Bloggers are writers who know how to navigate within social networks.

Most bloggers blogs as an hobby. This means the average bloggers earn their living doing something else. Many will like to make a living out by doing what they basically do when blogging or podcasting. Monetizing is the hottest topic for sessions at the upcoming PodCamp Toronto 2009. And yes, I believe blogging come become a profession (although my business model is based on advertising, not paid content).

But for the moment what Tourisme Montreal is looking for are Community Managers to cover 5 lifestyle scenes. They made the mistake of using the proper job designation. Something it does not work to try to be cool!

To close my argument, I invite you to watch the insightful comment by Todd Lucier.

+ More details on Marketing Mag

On the Web with Kim Vallee » montreal

My Blogging Tips Sessions at PodCamp Montreal 2009

Video of Top Tips for Better Blogging

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Sharing My Top Blogging Tips at PodCamp Montreal 2009

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How to Use TwitArea

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Matt Mullenweg Talked about His Open Source Story to Christian Aubry

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A Quick Recap of My Experience at WordCamp Montreal 2009

About Our Presentation

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Three apps for the Bloggers: Twtvite, TwtPoll, TwtQpon by Twtapps

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Official Blogger at Webcom Montreal 2009

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Tourism Montreal hiring bloggers

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