Does Quebec Need a Digital Plan, Bloggers Say Yes

jean-charest-quebec.jpg

Taking advantage of the pre-electoral climate, Quebec business bloggers write an open letter to Prime Minister Jean Charest to request an action plan in favor of supporting the digital economy.

The initiative started when internet marketing strategist wrote the open letter and published the piece on her professional blog on October 28th. In less then 24 hours, the letter was found in more then 30 other blogs from Quebec and a was created for the cause. The letter already signed by many leaders of the Quebec e-business industry such as Adviso’s , former Montreal Marketing Association’s president , well known e marketing consultant and many more, states interesting statistics showing that if Quebecers buy for 3.5 billions online, the third of these sales are made out of the province. Some others statistics reveal that only 52% of small to medium enterprises do have their own website.

There are the four main requested actions identified in the letter:

1- Give full access to all Quebecers to networks and digital services while eliminating barriers related to online transactions.
2- Increase and diversify the use of Internet into enterprises, particularly into small to medium businesses.
3- Make sure to provide training in the use of information technologies for younger.
4-Create a digital governance.

I think that it will be very interesting to see if any of the provincial partys will react to this letter because not only they send this letter to the Prime Minister Charest but they’ve put a special attention to deliver this to all members of our Parliament.

[]

Posted in digital. 2 Comments »

How Internet Will Impact this Federal Election?

One of the best internet marketing analysis that I’ve read in 2008 is certainly the published by Avenue A | Razorfish (probably the world’s well known interactive agency). Into the 164 pages guide, the authors identify Internet’s impact on the 2008 presidential election as one of the top 10 Digital Media Issue to Watch in 2008′. Here is what it says:

The Web will be the most impactful and influential medium in the 2008 presidential race, not only for presidential hopefuls but for voter self-education and self-expression. Much like radio for Roosevelt and TV for JFK, the 2008 race for the White House will be determined by candidates’ abilities to connect with and galvanize supporters online. The Internet has changed the political environment.

How Internet will impact the upcoming canadian election?
Even if internet marketing strategies coming from Canada are way behind what is currently happening in the States, I cannot wait to see how the Web will change this current federal election. For sure I don’t expect anyone using social networking technology but I know that every candidate/party will probably consider investing time and money in order to understand how they could benefit form social media marketing.

social-media-canadian-politic.JPG

So who will win the battle on the Web?
I know it’s too soon to tell… on one hand , on the other hand have these nice social buttons on their site (FB, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, Youtube and even MySpace!). I guess it’s time to see what they’ll do with all these channels. In fact I don’t know if the worst would be if they don’t do nothing or if they’re not doing the right thing with all these opportunities. It will be interesting to keep an eye on their interactive strategy, in the meantime I’ll be waiting for a first ‘Good night Tweeple!’ from Stephen Harper.

Related to this topic
Political partys on the net: | | |
par Francis sur Go-Référencement.org
Few days ago, Toronto Star columnist,

Posted in digital. No Comments »

New Canadian iphone plans: will Rogers react ?

iphone-rogers-plans.gif
Rogers will definitely need some reputation management on their SERP… don’t mess with the geeks ;)

The Story
from Reuters
from Engadget

The Customer’s Response


update: few days ago, the www.fuckyourogers.com site was redirected to which is a little bit more politically correct.

Posted in digital. No Comments »

Emergency Fair Copyright Organizational Meeting

montreal-chapter-fair-copyright.jpg

Wow this post is a entire copy and paste from a FB event, don’t know if I’ll make it but still… I definitely want to promote the event.

Montreal’s technology and creative communities are mobilizing against a new federal bill to restrict creators’ and consumers’ rights to use digital media.

On June 12th, 2008, Industry Minister Jim Prentice will introduce the amendment to the Canadian copyright act, commonly called “the Canadian DMCA”. The bill was crafted under pressure from American media cartels, and it’s expected to have a chilling effect on free expression and free speech in this country. It will restrict Canadians from freely using their computers and other devices to save, store, and play their legally-purchased media.

The Montreal Chapter of Fair Copyright for Canada is holding an emergency action meeting to respond to the new bill. We’ll have information for citizens to learn more about the Canadian DMCA, and materials for writing and sending letters to MPs asking them to oppose the bill.

Come meet others in the Montreal area who want a balanced, fair copyright system that works for all Canadians. , Meeting at this Thursday 6:00 PM.

Posted in digital. No Comments »

Dove Evolution parody by Foster Farms


Viral stuff
Celebrating 1 year, 6,174,151 views, and .
Anybody who still hasn’t seen yet ?

Posted in digital. No Comments »

Is digital interactivity changing marketing

When I was first introduced to social media marketing, I felt like I’ve been blown away, not only by the tons of different opportunities that it will bring to marketers, but mainly by the fact that it appeared to me truly revolutionary in comparison of old-style direct marketing approach. What I found innovative was the possibility to interact with the consumers. But, as I was reading on social media marketing, I’ve realised that the digital interactivity has brought, until recently, everything except what we were expecting. Then I started wonder why all of the digital progress hasn’t mutated the whole perspective of marketing.

While surfing the net in order to get further information, I went through a paper published few weeks ago by the Harvard Business School on digital marketing. The authors (Deighton and Kornfeld) base their analysis on the identification of five discrete roles for interactive technology in contemporary life, and five ways that firms interpose themselves into these lives in response. The article revealed that not only marketing firms have failed to exploit digital technology but they sometimes directly compete with social medias, pursuing their marketing goals instead of using them.

<>

The authors state five emerging marketing paradigms (thought tracing, ubiquitous connectivity, property exchanges, social exchanges and cultural exchanges) in addition of the broadcast paradigm and the direct paradigm that have traditionally interested marketers. Even if I find the study very interesting I can’t agree with Deighton and Kornfeld, feeling that these paradigms were always part of the marketing. The thought tracing paradigm looks probably more obvious since a whole searche engine market has emerged from people searching via Google and Yahoo, but remember that we use to rely on focus groups and interviews to find out what people were thinking in their purchasing process. We also use to have communities in the non-digital wolrd (societies, clubs, assocications,…) as well as people were participating in anonymous exchanges of good and services. I find that all of these paradigms were as important before as they are today, but not enough considered into traditional marketing strategy.

I finally came with the idea that marketing, even if firms failed to embrace the digital interactivity, hasn’t changed that much from its theoretical basses. In fact, it has been a matter of interact with consumers and then positioning itself regarding the received feedback. The main difference nowadays is more about the speed of this interaction. When the process of distributing a good, service or idea, use to take months, it could easily be done in days see hours in 2007. While the branding process took years, it could now take minutes. This whole concept of speediness is not only a consequence of the quickness and efficiency of the digital technology but it is also supported by . Hopefully if we, as marketers, will have to have better reflexes, we will also gain as much information as we are willing to consider. So be prepared to communicate and interact !

To read :

Posted in digital. 1 Comment »