SMPIA is a member-based, not-for-profit organization, which advocates the production and distribution of interactive media in Saskatchewan. Thursday’s event, Multi-PlatFORUM, is an event put on by SMPIA showcasing prominent speakers and case studies in Canada’s Digital Media industry. Also included in the event is an Interactive Reception, taking place Thursday evening, where attendees can engage in applications and creations developed by Saskatchewan players.

We couldn’t resist the opportunity to head down and mingle with other creatives in the province. For the reception, zu will be showcasing Timmy Me and the Rider app, as well as sneak previews of a few other apps we currently have in the works. If you happen to be in the area, stop by for a visit, check out our creations, and score some zu swag. If you can’t make it to our booth, stay tuned to zulive for updates from the conference.

For more information on the conference head to SMPIA’s website.

zu is sponsoring this worthy cause by sending our Creative Director, Albert Jame, to DJ the event. Literacy is deeply ingrained in all zu roles and informs everything we do to create effective online communication.

We also recognize how literacy skills play an integral role in understanding the business strategies of clients, translating objectives into website goals, staying abreast of interactive trends, and communicating daily with clients and internally. For our clients, literacy is typically assumed: they read our recommendations, provide written feedback and understand our invoices. In a booming information age, we often forget that some people don’t have the skills that those of us reading this blog post take for granted—skills needed for employment, banking, public transportation and purchasing food.

The auction goes down March 31, 6 pm, at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon, with celebrity packages that include showing Rider Pride, co-hosting Shaw TV’s Stripped Down, and hosting Alice Kuipers and Yann Martel at a book club. Join zu as we support literacy skill development to create a healthier and economically stronger community.

READ Saskatoon is a volunteer organization that provides free literacy development services to individuals, families, workplaces and the community. Purchase tickets for the READ ‘n’ Feed Celebrity Auction.

The Presentation will be taking place on Wednesday March 30^th at 10:45am in the Sheraton Centre Hotel, Toronto. For more information on the CICA and their upcoming events, head to their website.

Cheers fellas, break a leg!

On February 2, zu Account Executive Jordy Burrows and I headed to Toronto, ON, for the IR Magazine Canada Awards 2011 Gala. We felt fearless in the face of the “Storm of the Century,” a moniker that was overblown [ahem] unless you were coming up from the US Eastern Seaboard.

We attend this event annually to support our clients, and we are always delighted when some of them win. This year, PotashCorp collected three awards, including Best IR Website. I had the happy task of collecting those awards on behalf of Denita Stann, VP, Investor and Public Relations, and Kelly Freeman, Manager, Investor Relations, who were indeed snowbound in Chicago.

The IR Awards Gala is always delightfully over the top, with humourous and irreverent presenters such as Elena Cherney, editor of The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, who this year delivered the Dubious Achievements Awards (the “Dubies”). Also presenting was Amanda Lang, who returned to host in her smooth and funny way (catch her CBC business show, The Lang and O’Leary Exchange, with Dragon’s Den investor, Kevin O’Leary).

One thing about working in Investor Relations is that IR folks are generally fun to be around. They are well-rounded, cynical, humourous, well-spoken, willing to learn and share ideas, call BS when they see it, and generally keep you on your toes because they are used to being kept on theirs.

Probably the other most memorable part of the evening for me was the speech by Lifetime Achievement In Investor Relations recipient, John Rogers. After a glowing introduction, John accepted the award and described how his career in IR started, how his wife found a way to deal with his Fort McMurray career, and how he had been mentored by other IR professionals. One thing he said he believes is key in this industry, and one of the things that makes IR people inherently interesting—and I agree—is that they know their company from “bottom to top.”

At any rate, it was a fun evening and we warmly congratulate all the winners and nominees.

From among the sessions I attended, the keynotes that were presented and the intense intellectual debates I indulged in with colleagues after hours at the hotel pub, I was able to make three observations about the conference and the general state of business communications.

Engaging Employees
Now, what came as somewhat of a shock was to hear someone like Brad Whitworth speak to me of internal communications at Cisco Systems with employees in the tens of thousands. Coming from a company like zu with a staff of just under 60, be it large for a web agency, I realized I had to widen my scope of communication in order to realize the vastness of issues, policies and communication channels that multinational corporations must manage on a daily basis.

I took this into consideration and thought, “How do they do it? Better yet, how do they do it well?” Then I walked into a session called “Inside GM: Communicating Through the Crises” by Katie McBride, Executive Director for GM Global Product Operations/Environment and Energy Communications. I was blown away with how GM and Katie’s team of high-level communicators orchestrated their plan for communicating through their bankruptcy in 2009.

What struck me was the fact that she spent almost the entire presentation speaking about the importance of engaging GM employees to ensure their confidence in GM decision-making and its effect on the future. They developed Q&A forums, webcasts, podcasts, and eventually a program to have employees attend GM events and write press releases and blog articles for their peers to view. They gave the company back to the people who would now lead its recovery. They realized the power in having employees love the company and brand they worked to ensure.

Building Culture
One thing we preach here at zu is the quality of great company culture. It became apparent to me that in large corporations, a strong company culture is a huge undertaking that comes with a huge price tag. But there are many cost-effective ways to allow your employees to enjoy coming to work every day. Many sessions at this conference were on intranets and their utility.

Now, think of your company’s intranet as the easiest way to engage employees. How about putting the time and effort into making it an enjoyable user experience so that every morning when employees sign in they don’t feel like they’re plugging into the Matrix. Allow for status updates and a news feed, and work to create a social aspect to the intranet so that employees can see what their CEO or executives are up to as well as network internally with colleagues.

Remembering the Role of Social Media
So much was said about the power of social media. Social media is a great marketing and communication tool—in a supplementary role. You can have the coolest Facebook and Twitter pages, but without a usable interactive website, what’s the point? Before you dive into the social media world it’s important to have a strong foundation in a well built interactive website. You want to make the website a great personification of your brand and company outlook so that when people are pulled to it through your social media accounts it can educate, stimulate and ‘wow’. If there was one thing that I feel the conference lacked, besides Wi-Fi, it was emphasizing the importance of a good website to engage stakeholders. All too often, zu has clients wanting the bells and whistles when in fact we need to convince them of the utility in a well-designed, interactive website.

Overall the conference was great. I met an awesome group of people from all over Canada and the United States. I even met a group from Slovenia, but it shows that the issues we discussed at the conference are global communications issues. I am looking forward to IABC 2011 in San Diego, and with that I put an end to my experience at IABC 2010.

Good night Toronto!

Oh wait…that’s not actually happening….hmmm, well, why not?

That’s the question we posed to Government of Saskatchewan senior policy advisors, communications personnel and website managers at a zu luncheon called One Government (#1gov) last Thursday in Regina.

We called it a zu first date event because we decided to pick up the tab for dinner, give out chocolates and flowers to see if any government employees would come out to see what we had to say. To our delight, they did show up! They said we were a bit harsh in our assessment of governments for a first date but nevertheless right on the money.

The big picture: one government
After providing a quick intro as to who their date was for the luncheon (ie: zu), I introduced our CEO Ryan Lejbak as the first of three speakers.

Ryan hammered home the point that you shouldn’t have to understand government in order to communicate with it. He said that less than 1 per cent of people know how governments are structured but government websites are setup based on the org chart and citizens are expected to navigate through that maze in order to find the information they need.

He further noted that the early versions of online government were called e-government, whereby information was posted to citizens via the web in a brochure-like manner. While he thought e-government was a great start, it’s now an outdated idea.

And it’s no secret that people don’t trust government information like they used to and there is a need for governments to reinvent their image. The vision for doing just that is what zu calls ‘One Government’ (other thinkers call this Government 2.0 or Wiki Government).

Ryan described One Government as an organization that is effective, communicates with its stakeholders through two-way communication, and provides the same user experience from department to department no matter how the communication occurs. So, when you’re talking to the Ministry of Education, Forestry or Health, the message should be delivered the same way.

He recommended three pillars to tackle this challenge and they can be found on Ryan’s blog post about this event.

The stats
After Ryan gave the big picture for governments online, my fellow amazing Account Executive Stephanie Hughes told us the hard-core facts about online communication tools.

She illustrated that with the evolution of the Internet and the communications tools, people now have the ability to connect with governments in a variety of different ways, and they want to connect with governments using this new technology.

In particular, the younger generations in Saskatchewan, those born after 1974, are constantly connected through technology. They spend copious amounts of time on Facebook, instant messaging, sending text messages and so forth.

Some studies indicate that these groups spend 25 hours in a 24-hour day using technology because they multi-task. I know I’ve been caught watching TV, surfing the web and instant messaging on my laptop, texting on my phone and eating a bag of Cheetos all at the same time.

What really drove the message home that governments need to be better connected online was the latest social media revolution video that we showed. Check it out; it has some powerful stats.

The strategy
To wrap things up, Albert Jame our Creative Director then gave an overview of how to develop a proper web strategy.

Albert talked about how the single biggest hurdle in web planning is having everyone seeing the same end result for their website. To help with this problem he recommended trying a news release exercise at the outset of planning a new website.

The activity asks each person of the website redesign team to write the news release for when their website gets launched several months down the road. You may be surprised at how divergent the ideas are and you’ll see what people are thinking.

Albert also passionately spoke about how all advertising or educational promotions from the government (ie: TV, radio, print, etc.) should point back to the web. He encouraged us to think about the web as an infinite brand impression, compared to a finite one like the pint media. For example, you never see a website refer to a billboard for more information.

He covered a ton of topics but he lastly encouraged the attendees to create a social media policy as a first step so employees can start experimenting with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and the like. Al recommended that any policy should allow the government to be responsive and allow debate but not abuse, while promoting messaging that is genuine and transparent.

The rub
In sum, the underlying message is that action needs to be taken to improve the Government of Saskatchewan’s web presence, like most every government right now. Technology can help make governments better for citizens, make democracy stronger and give citizens a voice like never before.

According to Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, governments have responsibilities beyond market requirements such as addressing issues of poverty, crime and providing adequate health care. That is really just a fancy way of saying that governments deal with really frickin’ important issues that affect us all. Hence, if we do, in fact, believe in democracy and majority rule then don’t these issues deserve an intensely collaborative effort through this new technology? Yeah, I think so.

The answers aren’t perfectly clear yet and they won’t be easy to implement, but it’s time to start trying. Governments have an amazing opportunity to innovate and to collaborate with citizens like never before.

Call me crazy, but I want to have a say in what our government does more than every four years and I don’t want to have to write a letter, join an association or call news talk radio in order to participate.

What made the webcast unique was the first-hand experience of both speakers in dealing with universities. Both Stephanie and David recalled their own university encounters as a student while also highlighting their experience in dealing with university bodies and colleges during their careers.

Throughout the webcast the message for educational institutions was clear: If your students are online, explore the various ways to easily engage them through a dynamic interactive strategy.

Is it good enough to have our content stored in PDF’s on our school website?

It’s important to have PDF’s but it isn’t enough to engage your students or potential students. Audiences want to experience as close to the real thing as possible. A PDF, which is a traditional print piece, will not foster that emotional connection that students look for in a school. With that being said, you shouldn’t disregard PDFs because you want to give your audience file format options: video, photos, interactive maps, and even PDFs.

How do you prioritize all of the projects and initiatives you would like to undertake? Where do you start? It seems very overwhelming.

Well, if you are feeling overwhelmed with all of these online initiatives it would be best to consult with a web agency to help you prioritize your needs. It is important to also look at other initiatives going on throughout the school and use that as your driving force behind the online outlet. We see a lot of online projects fail because schools jump into social media with no meaning behind it. It generates a small buzz, but then fades quickly. There always needs to be strategy for the initial and maintenance stages.

How important is it to have professional photography instead of stock photography?

It is vital. Potential students will want to be apart of something real. Viewing and experiencing what life will be like on campus will come across more authentically with professional photos than with templated photos. You can’t fool students as they are online and live the fast paced visual experience every day.

Everyone talks about social media, what if someone says something bad to us?

The truth is that people are going to say it anyways. Don’t be scared. It is better to be there and be involved.  Not all comments deserve an answer, but most students will want to provide valuable feedback and be heard. The worst scenario would be if no one was saying anything at all.

How do you get buy-in from Senior Admin to move forward with these online best strategies if they don’t understand how valuable they are?

David mentioned that he had been lucky to have Senior Admin who bought in immediately and worked to develop their online strategy. However, if your admin do not understand the value of a web strategy, it is important to educate them. There are so many statistics highlighting the web as a powerful medium for engaging any audience and it will take some time to showcase this to your staff. The important thing is to move slowly having them buy in a small amount at a time.

Join us for this live webcast

Date: Tuesday March 16, 2010

Time: 11:00pm PT, 12:00pm MT, 1:00pm CT, 2:00pm ET

Cost: Complimentary

Register

Join Stephanie and David live as they walk you through basic strategies for how you can enhance your school’s online presence. Learn from current university, college and institution examples, showcasing some of the best websites, online initiatives, and social media tool use. Stephanie and David will highlight how you can develop interactive experiences to fully engage your stakeholders.

• Explore opportunities to reach your main audiences, including students, alumni, and potential staff.
• Examine simple social media tools that schools can use to more widely distribute their message.
• Review steps to take your interactive strategy towards the ultimate goal of creating an engaged, sustainable community, both on and off line.

Stephanie Hughes is an Account Executive at zu and has worked with a variety of educational institutions, including SIAST and SIIT (Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technology). Serving individual departments, entire school divisions, and specialized training centres has granted her well-rounded insight into the realm of schools. When combined with her knowledge of web trends, the newest interactive tools, and her own BBA and MBA experience, Stephanie will share a unique expertise with viewers.

David Francis is the Academic Director for SIAST’s Virtual Campus and has 15 years of experience in leading online learning initiatives. SIAST’s Virtual Campus is the institution’s centre of excellence for online course development and delivery, as well as website oversight, faculty training and print-distance materials. David will share his experiences in managing stakeholder expectations while delivering high quality initiatives for SIAST’s web properties and online training materials.

Before I get further into this story, I want to get you in the mood for what I’m going to do next. To do that, I’m going to ask you to watch the video below. I hope you’re strong enough to muscle through at least half of it.

Ok, ready?

It looks like Internet Explorer 6 – *puts on sunglasses* – has been rendered obsolete.

Wow. I really can’t believe I just wrote that. Or that I spent half an hour trying to think of a good line and that’s all I came up with.

But yes, the bell has tolled for Internet Explorer 6. As of March 1, 2010, Google has officially started phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6. A statement like that is enough for web developers to rejoice and start singing songs. If you don’t believe me, check out this video.

I won’t break down all of the reasons that led to Google making this move but I will be so bold as to sum it up with one word: security. If you wish to know more details, you should read their excellent blog post regarding their decision.

Now that you know what Google is doing, I bet you want to know what zu is doing!

At zu, we have a two-tier browser support system. We build sites so they look and function identically in any Tier 1 browser. With Tier 2 browsers, we have a level of “acceptable losses” in terms of display and functionality discrepancies.

Our definition of “acceptable losses” is the following: “any discovered bugs that affect the usability of the website should be fixed.”

This means that if we notice extra spacing between the top navigation and content, we won’t spend time debugging and fixing that issue in Tier 2 browsers. If the top navigation doesn’t show up in Tier 2 browsers, we would spend time to correct that issue.

Internet Explorer 6 has been a Tier 1 browser dating back to before we introduced our tiered system. I’m happy to announce that as of March 1, 2010, Internet Explorer 6 is officially a Tier 2 browser at zu.

Some may wonder why we haven’t simply dropped support altogether for IE6 as Google has done. I’ll sum that up in one word: 20%. That’s the estimated market share of IE6 as of February 2010. And while we want our developers to not be restricted by a decade-old relic of a browser, we also want to ensure our client’s sites are as widely viewable as possible.

There will be funeral services today and while we won’t be attending, we will be wearing our best mourning attire. I’m guessing there won’t be too somber of an atmosphere though. In fact, it’s likely to be one of the most jubilant funerals ever!

Thursday December 24 – Open 8:30am to 2:00pm
Friday December 25 – Closed
Monday December 28 – Closed
December 29, 30 & 31 – Open 10:00am to 4:00pm
Friday January 1 – Closed
Monday January 4 – Back down to business for 2010. Regular 8:30am to 5:00pm office hours resume.

If we don’t cross paths in the next couple weeks, have a wonderful holiday season and we’ll catch ya next decade!

Happy holidays,
The zuCrew

The evening was a less formal occasion than their previous galas. Architects, engineers, interior designers and graphic designers were treated to the theme “The Evolution of Play”. The room was filled with some great mood lighting and funky house beats. For food and beverages, the du provided a tasty bento box and cappuccino and gelato bar, combined with a full wine and spirits selection. Whether you were standing or sitting, you weren’t far from Lego blocks, play dough, the graffiti wall, or the cotton candy machine.

Big thanks to the Design Council for including us on this party. Hope we can ‘du;’ it again. Check out some photos of the night.

Stantec and Begrand Fast were the architects and designers behind our new home. Thanks to them, since we’ve moved in, I’ve averaged one group tour a day. I figure what better time than this to post some photos of the project, from start to finish. This spanned over a year and a half and was made possible by the good people at Stantec, Begrand Fast, and VCM Construction.

twitpitch: New @zutweets HQ wins collab award at Premier’s Awards of Excellence in Design http://bit.ly/1UFLn4