About the Panel:

Finding great people has never been easy but it’s become increasingly difficult and it’s poised to get worse. Student enrolment is declining, wages are sky high and executive level talen is tough to find.

Today’s panel is moderated by Charles Zamaria (Professor, Ryerson University), and the panelists are M. Michelle Nadon (President & CEO, mediaintelligence.ca),  Korash Sanjideh (Managing Director, HMC Interactive) Laura Jo Gunter (Dean, Info Arts & Tech, Seneca College), Geoff Whitlock (CEO, Lifecapture)

Apparently, Laura Jo looks just like Charles Zamaria’s wife. LOL. He put up a picture on the powerpoint and the resemeblance is uncanny!

Let’s Get Started: 

Charles: Is there a crisis?

Geoff: There is definitely a shortage of talented individuals interested in working with new technologies.

Charles: do we see this reflected in enrolment?

Laura Jo: There are two issues. 1) in the computer studies, computer IT, enrolment has dropped 50-70% , and I think part of the problem is that it takes from 2-4 years to just graduate with a masters. So what we’ve noticed is that because of years people weren’t entering in that area, you’re going to notice a huge shortage. We have 100% co-op placement, especially from the Banks. On the arts side we’ve seen a decline in application.

Charles: Is this bearing itself out in the professional arena?

Michelle:  There are two different groups: the students and the marketplace. The students stand a better chance of succeeding than the current labor force. The demographic of +35 have the steepest learning curve.

Korash: In the UK there are a lot of similarities. We want to attract a fusion or art, science and tech students. And to find that is getting increasingly different.

Charles: Is there not enough personnel? Are they leaving Canada? are the school crappy?

Geoff: A little bit of each. In our business there is a revolving door of technologies. Clients are always demanding something new. We’re always using new stuff, and it’s hard for anybody in our industry to specialize in the specific. That’s what they’re doing in university, but we don’t need that. We need you to know a little bit about everything. It’s a whole new kind of requirment. We’re converging our screens on the outside, but our tool sets on the inside. We don’t even hire designers, they have to be able to build a website!

Charles: So you’d rather have generalists?

Geoff: We just need people who are more apt to picking up more than one discipline. It doesn’t help out new marketing.

Charles: Is one of the problems, the fact that the industry is predicated on a project by project that prevents Geoff from providing sustainability?

Michelle: Years ago, generalist was a one way ticket to a general manager’s job. Then it went back to the specialist syndrome, where everyone had one core expertise. Now what we’re saying is that you need to have a core competency but you also supplement it by acquiring different but complementary knowledge bases, which result in a cluster of skills.

Charles: Are universities up to date?

Laura Jo: All universities will say that they are training students for the long term, and the colleges are doing much more of a career, practical training, but we’re starting to move into a bit of a theoretical as well. Universities are starting to work more with industries. Our biggest issue right now is funding, you need to have up to date software, tools and facilities.

Charles: Is there more potential today for industry academic parternships? Pros/Cons?

Laura Jo: There is always a benefit for working with industry. The biggest issue is that we should never work with industry on mission critical projects. They have different time lines, and students need time to learn.

Charles: We have a brain drain here, where do they go in the UK?

Korash:  It’s interesting for us, because we’re based in the south west, which is not really a creative hub, the hub is in London. The university grads are naturally gravitating towards London. We’re losing potential recruits to London, while you guys are losing them to the states.

Charles: Tell us a bit about your project.

Korash: Recently, we recognized the problem, and started to formulate a plan to keep people in the region, and attract people from elsewhere, and what we’ve done is open our company to a radical graduate programs. Grads will leave university and enter HMC for an intensive work internships. What we’re finding is that there is good interest from universities from Holland and Finland to bring graduates over to train from within HMC. We are aware of this whole shadowing and mentoring process, and we’re also talking to our ex-lecturer from our degree and he’s put himself forward to come in once or twice a week to guide the students to industry standard work. It’s a great opportunity, but it’s a bit risky, since a project can fall apart, and then you’ll have clients screaming. But the program is a good incentive to increase retention.

Charles: Can we adopt a model like that?

Michelle: In Canada it might be a little bit different, we share challenges around regional issues, but the advents of the technological marketplace makes that regional differences are becoming less and less importance. At the end of the day it’s all about the internships.

Charles: Ok, what about feasible solutions?

(Note: Charles is a hoot on stage, he’s loud and funny and brings a lot of energy to the panel. I wish I had a video clip)

Geoff: I’m not sure the universities can help because they’re facing the same thing, a shortage of people. Especially with the boomers retiring. There’s no sort of group that goes down to public high schools to create a career package. We pay a lot of money, but people in different industries who still have the same skills. So everyone is looking for jobs.

Charles: Is the solution a rationalize co-op system?

Geoff: that would make the parents consider the stream a more relevant.

Laura: I would settle for math and English literacy. There is a huge crisis of people having really low entry scores for college level math and English.

Michelle: There needs to be more coherence.

Question Period: (I’ll post the interesting bits)

I asked a question about the whole concept of the “revolving door” and asked the panel if they thought that since turnover was so high,  if maybe they should reconsider their HR Strategy to allow independent contractors the option to plug in a more diverse ways with their organizations.

Geoff commented that they recognize the need and are trying to adapt.

Charles: If there were one thing we could do, what would it be?

Michelle:  Knowledge is power, because knowledge= confidence. So I would direct all parties to continually go after knowledge acquisition.

Korash: Be prepared to change. The media industry is moving so fast, you have to keep up.

Laura Jo: I would say, a lot of support for entrepreneurs for this area, because that’s where the job growth is in Canada. You need a lot of support for the younger entrepreneurs.  We’ll see a lot more people wanting to work there.

Geoff: Look at the how the military is recruiting. Our industry needs to open up, explain what’s inside, how much money you can make, etc. That would create an information body so people can understand what they have to offer as a job.

General Comments:

I would have liked the panel address more of the generational issues that will hugely impact that work force and how companies will need to shift their perspective if they hope to recruit and retain Gen Y in the future.  On top of low academic enrollment rates, you have a generation entering a work force that is desperate for talent. I wonder when HR departments will realize that and react accordingly.

The Issue:

When traveling abroad, data costs and roaming charges can be hugely painful. If you’re like me, you’d like a phone, but don’t necessarily need access to email.

During a particularly busy period, I called Rogers and asked them if there was a way to keep the Black Berry phone functionality without the data service.

Well, they told me no. In fact, the person I spoke with on the phone gave me a complicated procedure to set up specific filters for each of my six email addresses in order to limit the amount of data downloaded to the device.

Anyway, today my Pearl decided to stop working randomly and inexplicably. While trouble shooting, I found this nifty little option, and thought I would pass it along to save others the headache of dealing with data while abroad.

The Trick: (For people with Pearls)

1. GO TO OPTIONS: In your applications menu, choose the little wrench to access the options menu.
2. CHOOSE MOBILE NETWORK: Scroll down until you see Mobile Network.
3. TURN DATA SERVICES OFF: At the top of the screen there should an option called Data services. Select it with the track ball and turn it off.

Voila! You can now travel abroad without having to worry about hugely expensive charges and fees.

Happy traveling!

About the Panel:

This panel is examining the online gaming phenomenon that continues to sweep across Asia and EUrope and are now surging in North America. What are the emerging trends? What are the business models? Will these avatar based networks soon replace 2d experiences like Facebook?

Moderated by Lucie Lalumiere (VP Interactive, Earth Rangers), the panel consists of Leigh Alexander (Editor, WorldsinMotion.com), Adrian Crook (Freetoplay.biz), Matt Daly (Co founder, Metaversatility Inc) and Barbara Lippe (Art Director/VP International Relations, Avaloop)

 Heads up everyone: my laptop is about to die, so we’ll see how far along we get! 

About the Panelists 

Adrian Crook: Producer & Designer by trade, has worked for EA, over the last few years has gravitated towards casual MMOs. Currently doing consulting on free to play projects.

Barbara Lippe: Wrote PHD thesis on the gaming scene. At the small startup in Vienna, doing a self funded project called Paperpint.  It’s in closed beta international. It’s an online virtual world where you can interact and play games with other people.

Matt Daley: We do virtual world development in existing worlds like secondlife.com, we have been around for about a year. Our clients range from car companies to organization interested in experimenting in 3d business items.

Lucie Lalumiere: Should we care about virtual world? Are they going to change how we socialize and how we do business?

Adrian Crook:  From a social perspective we already do care, and many of our kids do care. I’m not as convinced it will alter the way we do business. But there is a big entertainment channel for social virtual worlds. There is a business context, I guess I’m just not sold on it.

Matt Daley:  We’ve seen a lot of profound experience illustrating the fact that the framework is there for the game approach, and a lot of the enabling factors aren’t there yet. Either the technology isn’t there, or there is a lack of desire/literacy/interest.  I’m not sold on it either, right now.

Lucie Lalumiere: Who do you think will want to be in your world?

Barbara Lippe: 40/60 male/female split.  We want to keep people busy through games. There is a child making game, that takes a lot of commitment. You have to find a player, fall in love, buy a flat, buy a bed, show you are good at this game, and then you are pregnant with a papermint baby. (Rahaf says: LOL. Sounds like a lot of work!)

Lucie Lalumiere: Who has the time for this?

Adrian Crook: Most of the opportunities in this world are casual MMOs in the under 25 space.  That’s the generation to whom there is no distinction between online/offline lives. So as they age, they’ll be the bulk of our older demographics.

Matt Daley: You see 11 year olds managing guilds on WOW, because they are the only ones with the time to do that. But it’s only a matter of time that we see these games become less game oriented and more enveloped in daily life.  I see virtual worlds going in that direction as well. WOW players, for instance, that are older and have jobs, you see that a lot of them take a lot of their time with a strict schedule so they can incorporate it into their lives.

Adrian Crook: So there is a benefit and draw in asynchronous play, and not necessarily need to spend so much time online developping yoru characters. Fitting it into your own schedule without having to spend hours a day.
Lucie Lalumiere: What are some differences across cultures &  geographies

Barbara Lippe: I think there are defintely different. WE already see different quarters in certain cities and differences among the cities themselves.

Lucie Lalumiere: And in Austria, is there a higher level of engagement?

Barbara Lippe: I think everyone has similar needs, but certain services fit better culturally.

Matt Daley: I think it’s interesting that these spaces are supposed to collapse borders, but we still are at a point where cultural literacies are still different as are technological capabilities. You have a huge percent of Asian gamers that are relegated to cybercafes that might not have system specs that you might want to run on your computer consistently. So you see a lot of interest in low system requirements, browser accessible games.

Adrian Crook: A lot of the free to play sector started in Korea. It did grow out of this need to have games accessible on the fly. So you do have browser based games that you can take where you are. Mobile games are huge.

Barbara Lippe: You have to aware that when you speak about Asia you still have to break it down in smaller regions. Maybe that’s why WoW didn’t take off in Japan because they didn’t like player killings or that.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Is there any sort of development for virtual worlds where soemone doesn’t have to commit that block of time?

 Adrian Crook: Travion, is a not bad example. It’s based on X number of turns that you can take during the day whenever you want. Games with small compulsion loops are great too because you can play them in 2-3 minutes if you want. It’s smart to drive the compulsion loop now.

Matt Daley: Mobile and casual gaming is really taking off. A lot of clients want easy accessibility and better experience.  WoW did it in an excellent way by providing instant rewards, and you can provide an easy way for users to grasp your world in a small amount of time, then it works. Because then as they go through the world the time and difficulty increases, but it eases them into it.

 Lucie Lalumiere: How can we make money?

Matt Daley: A lot of the development is soft revenue.  Where the value is in stickiness, where users can interact in manifestations of the product. Marketing value: attract users and empower them to have some sort of functionality.

Lucie LaLumiere: how do clients pay for this?

Matt Daley:  It’s like ad Adspend, there’s no revenue coming out of these activities, a small part is virtual merchandise, but it’s like an Ad Buy

Adrian Crook: As far a revenue model go, top three are virtual merchandise sales, advertising sales and tiered subscriptions. You can also buy information. There is also opportunity in virtual gifting.

Barbara Lippe: Because it’s a social space, everything that pimps up your avatar is great for you. You have to look the best to get the most flirting items. We work with designer to make outfits which go for 60E. I never thought people would spend so much on virtual items. Giving things is also very popular. It’s important that gifts you give are seen by others.  Professions are good, if people can do something in that world and then sell that capabilities.  We do advertise, but only if can be meaningfully connected to game play or the world. We have an island shaped like a coke bottle, but you’d never see it unless you were using a bird’s eye view.

Matt Daley:  The difficulty is in the congruence, where you can have these beautiful places, and then user generated content where they create ugly worlds.

Adrian Crook: There was a good book called “Paradox of Choice” where essentially he says that too much choice is a bad thing.  People want some nice focused way to contribute and that’s it. Another revenue model is actual merchandising, like webkinz.

Audience Question: What are the possibility of a Grand Theft Auto like game?

Barbara Lippe: There is a game like that. I was disappointed in the choices- you can shoot someone, or drive on the street. It’s extremely limited and American.  If I want a game like this then i want all the choices available, not just three things.
Matt Daley: Spore is a good example of open ended sandbox typed games. It mixes social networking, UGC and defined game mechanics in a clever way. If you give users the ability to build their own content then you immediately have Manhattan developed by RockStar.

About the Panel:

What does community really mean in the context of audience users and open source? THis panel will discuss different views of community enabling and creation. Moderated by Eli Singer (Director of Social Media, Segal Communications), the panelists are Mark Relph (VP devleopment, Mircosoft), Amber MacArthur (New Media Strategist), and Kris Krug (President, Rain City Studios)

Eli Singer: Community is a huge buzz word these days, it’s really difficult to understand what it’s all about. Everyone seems to want community but no one knows what that is.  Who owns them? Manages them? What do they do?

Kris Krug: Rent City builds community websites for all sorts of people, mainly bands and records labels. These guys are looking for all the features of social networking sites, but bring it back to the label. For the last 10 years I’ve been consulting with independent artists on how to use the web.

Amber MacArthur: We are working on a social network for Tony Robbins, which is all about leveraging social networks. I also do podcasts, videocasts etc. For me it’s been all about leveraging and building community. Every thing I’ve done is about reaching out to people and working with people who really believe in that.

Mark Relph: I have a team of 30 people that think all about reaching out to our Eco System and to audiences aroudn the country.

Eli Singer:  What is community?

Kris Krug: I see it a group of people who are interacting, sharing knowledge.

Mark Relph: I agree with that, i would add the concept of an ecosystem, particularly for us. We are helping people using our stuff to do their stuff. It’s about a dialogue.

Eli Singer: Where does your brand fit into this Ecosystem? How do you connect the dot?

Mark Relph: That group of people who self organize, don’t need our help. That group of people have a set of expectations, and the first step is to attempt to meet those expectations in a way that earns our right to be a member of that community. They have their own ways of doing things, and they still expect us to earn our citizenship.

Eli Singer: So you’re identifying a community that you want to be a part of.

Mark Relph: Sometimes it’s what other communities want to be involved in.

Eli Singer: How do you consult with your clients when people want to actually bring that brand into their lives? (ie: Celebrity)

Kris Krug: Communities are forming out there on their own, but it makes a lot of sense for labels to own their communities. The other communities that I’m involved in are all about exchange.

Amber MacArthur: The most important thing is to nurture any community you create. You have to connect people, you need to actively massage the relationships. It takes a lot of TLC, and a lot of people forget that. They don’t realize you have to go there and check in and be there and communicate with people.

Kris Krug: When figuring out where to spend client budget, there is the tendency to throw up a whole lot of money up front without thinking about the maintenance. We also tell them to hire someone full time to manage and nurture.

Mark Relph: You have to do this on an ongoing basis as well. Once you head down this road you have to keep these people on.

Kris Krug: It’s not a side job for a marketing manager, it requires full attention.

Amber Mac: You have to embrace the openness because closed down community doesn’t work.

Eli Singer: So we need new titles, people who aren’t PR, talking to the public? I forsee friction.  How can we bridge that gap?

Kris Krug: There is a conversation taking place out there, you can be a part of it or not. [to Mark] How do you guys deal with haters?

Mark Relph: you ahve to have a thick skin and you have to be able to take feedback. It’s a part of the dialogue and you have to be willing to listen to that. The way you overcome it is that when you are honest and transparent, then the community will return that respect by listening to your point in return instead of seeing it as a PR knee jerk reaction. People are passionate about your product and that’s a good problem to have.

Kris Krug: Does it keep you honest?

Mark Relph: Yes, it keeps us honest.

Eli Singer: If you want to go into community and you want to be successful you have to prepared to use these platforms, you have to be prepared for openness. As a brand manager, should I build a community or do targeting on FaceBook?

Kris Krug: It’s really easy and fun to experiment with Facebook’s ad.

Eli Singer: As a brand manager, dangerous mindfield territory of community, or safe path of extending by ad buy into social media?

Kris Krug: You don’t really mean it do you?

Eli Singer: If there is no buy in at meetings, then it’s a hard sell. So what is it about communities?

Mark Relph: We view it as, if you do communities really well, then you get more permission to do targeted advertising because they are open to it. We don’t do it as an advertising vehicle, we look at it as a community exercises.

 Amber Mac: It’s also about building loyalty. When I heard through my network that they hired David Crow, I thought it was great that they were reaching out.

Eli Singer: what are 2 or three things that you’ve gotten from your community?

Amber Mac: we get content and feedback from our community. We actively go in there and listen to ideas and criticism. We have truly listened to our audience form day one and it’s made our show better. Our users promote the show, and we try to understand that. We give back, if they have something cool to promote, we give back by promoting it. It’s pay back all the time.

Eli Singer: Can we talk about the failures or mistakes?

Amber Mac: I don’t view things as failures, i see them as experimentation. We’re all in this new space and no one really knows what works or waht doesn’t work. So if we go in a direction that the audience that doesn’t like, they’ll tell us because they feel that they own it. As for mistakes you just have to move on.

Mark Relph: I would agree that we would try to do a few things that don’t pan out. We’ve had a few examples where it’s been on a shame on us. Where we’ve had a community that we didn’t use, and then the idea bombs and the community says “I told you so.” We’re doing a series about IT as a career, and that idea came from our network.

Kris Krug: Fake communities, or putting messages that aren’t authentic. Fake blogging is one as well.

Eli Singer: Any measurement tips? How do you value community?

Kris Krug: I dance around ROI, but I look at google results, if you’re on the top ten keywords on google is a good one. User base, how much your community has grown over time. User content contribution is another way.

Amber Mac: If people are going in direct ROI, it’s not going to come. You need to focus on other things like loyalty.

Mark Relph: It’s a gravity that takes place over such a long period of time. I get paid on satisfaction paid surveys. That’s a direct measure, which sometimes isn’t completely accurate. The other thing is how much money you spend on it. Not to say that everything is expensive, sometimes it’s just behaviour that matters, but if you’re going to do it in the long term it better be an independent line item in your budget. It’s an investment.

Kris Krug: You can also point to cost savings.

Eli Singer: Who do you look for inspiration?

Kris Krug: The flickr community. There have been huge blow ups as they’ve changed, and they’ve dealt with all of the issues in a really great way. Google Heather Champ. All the major flickr execs are highly participator and engage their community.

Amber Mac: Leo Laporte, who has a big community on Twit.tv. He’s done a fantastic job of building a community. Another community, although I hate them is the Digg community. You have to admire their huge power, it’s worth looking at even though they’re mean.

Mark Relph: We’ve looked at Ebay and Flickr. I would also add in the users of Craigslist as a great example of an organic community. For me, we have these user group leaders who have day jobs and there’s no glamour, they’re not podcasters, but they do it for the joy and support of a small group of people. They do it for the fun of doing it.

Audience Questions:  

Eli Singer: Let’s get Dave Crow, who I think is the Godfather of the tech community in Toronto.

Dave Crow: I look other communities. I strongly believe in the mix, rip and burn approach. A lot of people are doing interesting things and a lot of that is the tech community. Richard Florida, folks who are looking at taking the tools of open creative space and moving them beyond a single point. Richard Florida is working at a city level.

Questions: How do you bridge the gap of being a small company who want to connect with community but not might have the resources?

Kris Krug: One thing is you shouldn’t outsource, it should be an internal thing. You can have people with invested interest to interaction with your vision. Another idea is if you can get your email support or product centered people to blog publicly and let other users contribute and trouble shoot.  I would shift traditional dollars from PR over to these new mediums where you can have quicker returns or where a tangible reaction.

Amber Mac: A lot of it is passion. If someone is the most passionate on your team, involve them in building communities online.

Mark Relph: You can also look to the fan voice, because you’d be amazed when you talk to the community and provide those influential excited people with a chance to get closer to you, you’ll be amazed at how many people will volunteer to do that.

Eli Singer: you don’t have to create your own blog to participate. Look into your organization and identify what kind of content you’re producing.

David Crow: We talk about this community thing like we’re building something, when we’re really facilitating it. It’s about building your reputation inside an existing community.

Question: Ad revenues and building communities?

Kris Krug: There is a business model to monetize it. They make millions of dollars in google ads. It’s about pushing users and page uses. It’s not the most interesting model but it works. Everyone wants a social network these days. You can sustain a social network through advertising.

Question: What about building a community within the company?

Amber Mac: Use something like ning. Ning lets you build your own network, even brand it. You can add content, it’s easy and fast. For any time of corporation it’s a great way to build internally.

Eli Singer: Do you have sanctioned social networks within Network? How has usage of FB affected your culture?

Mark Relph: We may not be the right example depending on where you work in this crowd. The only restriction we have in our network, is on intellecutal property, and don’t run bit torrent on your machine, oh and porn. Everything else goes. Almost my entire team participates on Facebook and Twitter. Even IM. I’ve been struck by a few panel, where there is a desire to tap into these communities, but there are restrictions on using these. So you should ask yourself “If we can’t be that way, how are you going to participate.”

My good friend Michele Perras invited me to live blog for Interactive Ontario’s Interactive Content Exchange, a fabulous digital media conference she helped organize. I must say I was intrigued, after all I had never live blogged before. I was assigned four sessions (see the details in the previous posts) that lasted about an hour each. I typed furiously, and tried to keep up with the  fascinating dialogue and learned a few lessons along the way I thought I would pass along.

1) Preparation is key! Save your self the anxiety and stress of having to set the context for your post. I prepared drafts before hand outlining the panel description (from the site) and linking to each of the participants. This saved me loads of time as I was ready to go right away.

2) Do your homework.  Since you’re going to the trouble of preparing beforehand, take a few minutes and poke around the sites you’re linking to. They can give you a good idea of why the panelists were invited up there, and could help frame the discussion if you’re not familiar with subject matter.

3) Don’t Transcribe.  You’re not a stenographer in a courtroom! I always listen to what people are saying and then try to capture the essence of their idea. When I post, especially a discussion, I always make sure to state that I am paraphrasing. This way you won’t be caught up in taking dictation and can concentrate on the flow of ideas.

4)  Find your own style. Find your own groove, be it just capturing a few ideas that defined the session, discussion style or a mix of the two, the important thing is to communicate the key take aways of the session to your readers. Check my MaRS posts of the Emerging Tech  for a style comparison.