Trafcom News

Madly loving Oakville

I consider myself fortunate to live and work in Oakville, Ontario. We enjoy the benefits of a smallish town, along with proximity to big-city Toronto and the international airport. My location near the downtown part of Oakville allows me to grab a bite at dozens of restaurants, shop for clothing and food, amble along the lake shore, and drink numerous cups of coffee, should I desire. Another bonus: being able to walk to such events as Midnight Madness and the Oakville Jazz Festival (August 7 – 9 this year).

Would you like an online visit to Oakville? Here is a three-minute video from this year’s Midnight Madness (music, food, shopping and more). At the end you’ll hear a fabulous a cappella group called Fine Grind. The second video is more of Fine Grind. In my humble opinion, their performance was the best part of the night. My video doesn’t do them justice.

You can see more of our town in this video, shot on Canada Day, July 1.

Capturing better images: Tips for non-pro photographers

When you need a photo for your corporate newsletter, do you hand a camera to the nearest employee? Or maybe you ARE that employee! Increasingly, non-professional photographers are shooting pictures for publications, media kits, Web sites and more. In the latest Trafcom News Podcast (22 minutes), you’ll hear some very practical tips for capturing better photographs. Our guest is Peter West, a former journalist and marketer who is also a very skilled photographer and teacher of photography with Henry’s School of Imaging.

Visit the Trafcom News Podcast blog to listen to the audio and read the shownotes.

Testing the new mp3 player for TypePad blogs

If this works, we should see a Flash player below. Yes, I know that I can use AudioBoo to publish audio snippets to my blog, but I really would like to be able to publish audio directly within TypePad.

Here’s what I did:

• Recorded an audio file on my iPhone using iTalk. (I could have used any digital recorder or even recorded directly into my Mac, but I’m an iPhone junkie this week.)
• Transferred the file to  my Mac using the iTalk synch feature.
• Converted the aiff file to mp3 format.
• Followed the instructions in this video to pubilsh the  audio file on the blog.

Testing flash

If you’re a TypePad user, I hope you find this tip useful!

The best of my Twitter feed this week

I could fill 20 screens with all I’ve learned from my Twitter friends this week. I’ve culled some of the best tidbits for you here. Enjoy.

Event marketing and such
Tips for “live tweeting” an event
Via http://twitter.com/jangles and http://twitter.com/karinhoegh

Advice for conference bloggers
Via http://twitter.com/mynameiskate

Plus, read these comments to Joe Thornley’s post about live-tweeting conferences
Via http://twitter.com/thornley

Social media wisdom
"A Corporate Guide For Social Media: How do you guide employees in the social Web?"
Via http://twitter.com/creativefusion and http://twitter.com/IABC

A must-watch two-minute video that shows that in this era of social media, business-to-business marketing fundamentals do not change
Via http://twitter.com/webinarwisdom and http://twitter.com/dmscott

The Value of Twitter Followers: Quality Over Quantity
Via http://twitter.com/copyblogger and http://twitter.com/YummyMummyClub

Fabulous list of "Facebook for business" resources
Via http://twitter.com/JasonFalls

Marketing matters
Oh, boy. How could a communications manager *not know* that this is wrong?
Via http://twitter.comjenzings

The one thing you should start doing TODAY to grow your blog 
Via http://twitter.com/MackCollier

What really generates referrals
Via http://twitter.com/webinarwisdom and http://twitter.com/ducttape

All things iPhone
New tools help journalists focus on content: Posterous, journalism and mobile
Audio via http://twitter.com/wmacphail

How to record a pop song on your iPhone
Via http://twitter.com/podcasting

You may have noted that I'm not repeating the myriad links and commentary about United Breaks Guitars. I love the whole concept, but you've probably heard about it from 11,800 people already, right?

Social media for the big guys

In Trafcom News Podcast 86, you can hear how Fortune 1000 organizations are learning to thrive using social media tools. In this 12-minute podcast, you’ll meet Bob Pearson, president of the Social Media Business Council, which helps large enterprises to share best practices on social media issues. Bob spoke at Third Tuesday Toronto on July 7, 2009. Visit the Trafcom News Podcast blog page to listen to the podcast, or download it, and to read the extensive show notes. (Yes, I’m proud of my show notes, people!)