THIS WEEK IN TECTORIA

A community blog celebrating Victoria's booming tech sector

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Got a cool story about technology and creativity in Victoria? Email stories, tips, pictures, links and anything of interest to Tessa Bousfield at: tectoria@viatec.ca

Archives for January 2013

Ford’s social media guru to speak at Victoria’s Social Media Camp

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Scott MontyIt’s excellent to hear that Victoria’s Social Media Camp is returning. This year’s event takes place on May 6, 7 and 8 with a fine array of speakers, workshops and networking opportunities already lined up.

The opening speaker will be Facebook marketing specialist Mari Smith and there will also be a series of awards handed out one evening. Scott Monty, Head of Global Social Media Communications at Ford Motor Company, is also lined up to speak. Monty was ranked by  Forbes as one of the top 10 influencers in social media. That’s quite a coup.

Ford have been very innovative in social media. Its Ford Fiesta campaign used crowd-sourcing and has been highlighted many times as a pioneering piece of marketing.

The Social Media Camp, which seems to grow each year, is aimed at small and medium sized business owners, students, entrepreneurs, executives and social media professionals.

What is a hackathon?

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD_Nd8JqMEg&w=550&h=330]

My colleague Cliff reveals what is a hackathon and reports on the AbeBooks’ Hackathon staged at the University of Victoria last year.

Crowd Content’s new website goes live

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Crowd Content infographicVictoria’s Crowd Content has launched a new version of its site. Crowd Content is a content platform designed to help organisations gravitate to page one of search engine results for key terms, and as someone who works for an online bookseller, I can assure you that if you are not on page one then you are nowhere.

Crowd Content is also designed to ensure brands can maintain a high profile on social networks where content is king. This video explains the service in a nutshell.

Basically, you sign up for their services, describe what you need to your account manager and Crowd Content’s team of writers delivers the content – whether for corporate websites, blogs, product descriptions, white papers or anything else that requires high-quality copy-writing. The Crowd Content’s service hinges on the fact that it offers an easy way of obtaining decent content. I like how they are pitching at brands but also agencies and a wide range of marketers.

Interview with Q5 CEO Sage Baker

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[youtube=http://youtu.be/mF7NIEmykIw]

Sage Baker, CEO of Q5 Innovations, has been interviewed in a new online series called the Sonar Moment – exploring how decision makers in the Pacific Northwest think and offering insights into their stories. It’s an interesting 10-minute interview.

Sage’s career in senior management for Aspreva Pharmaceuticals, and later leading the West Coast operations of a global consulting firm, led to her launching Q5 Innovations, located in Victoria.

The Q5 business model is built on commercializing innovative technology products and it currently has a stable of 10 at various stages of development.

TicTalking starts a conversation

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TicTalking screen shotThe latest social media innovation to emerge from Victoria is TicTalking. It appears to be a social media conversation platform – according to the company blog (which also quotes the author Henry Miller), “TicTalking helps you create new connections with people based on common interests. Built-in language translation software lets you connect on a deep, meaningful level with people all around the world.”

Peter Nieforth from TicTalking is currently at CES and courting the media, according to this article. “Today I’ve spent most of the day doing video and podcasts and just really being interviewed a lot,” he said.

More telescope news: Andromeda & beyond

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It must be me but it seems that UVic issues a story each month about some telescope or other. The latest story concerns two astrophysicists at the university, who have been analysing how a cluster of ‘dwarf’ galaxies are rotating around a neighbouring galaxy called Andromeda. Galaxies are not supposed to orbit things like planets and moons so this is a key discovery. Scientists using the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in Hawaii collaborated on the project.

Lots of details on the project can be found here. There is also a little video, with some Mendelssohn thrown in, showing what they have seen through the big telescope in Hawaii.