[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis]

On Tuesday, June 29th, Sean Hallett of Erinwood Ford presented a 2011 Ford Mustang to an Erindale Secondary School graduate and award winner for outstanding leadership on Rogers First Local, Mississauga.

Check out the clip:

In order to reinvigorate and revitalize downtown Ottawa businesses hit hard by the recession and the bus strike, Thornley Fallis and 76design  conceived, developed and executed the Picture it Downtown campaign for The City of Ottawa, where residents were encouraged to go downtown, snap a photo and share it online.

Point, shoot, share – a simple concept to get Ottawa excited about all it has to offer. The “Picture It Downtown” concept we developed served to visually promote downtown Ottawa as a whole, but also the eight specific areas being promoted:  Byward Market, Downtown Rideau, Sparks Street, Bank Street, The Glebe, Chinatown, Preston Street (Little Italy) and Wellington-West Village.

Residents could participate in the campaign contest to win daily ($50), weekly ($250) and grand ($500 to $1200) prizes by taking pictures of downtown activities and uploading them to the campaign website.

The campaign included a media launch event involving the Mayor, a website with a list of downtown activites, a description, videos and photos of each area, contest rules and regulations, a photo gallery for people to submit and view photos, and YouTube videos, featuring all that’s cool in several neighbourhoods, print, radio, online and transit advertising, weekly news releases and ongoing online outreach using other social media tools including Twitter and Flickr.

Thousands of people participated and competed for prizing provided by local businesses.

The campaign was to remind Ottawans of all the diverse experiences and excitement downtown Ottawa has to offer, and entice them to visit downtown — ultimately spending money while engaging in the various activities highlighted in the eight main areas being promoted.

For the City of Ottawa, running a marketing campaign with a heavy online and interactive component was not only a smart business and communications decision, but its creativity generated a lot of buzz within Ottawa and got people sharing ideas and photos of great things to do and see in the city.

The fall 2009 campaign resulted in over ten thousand unique visits to the campaign website, more than 1300 entries (photos uploaded to the website), significant earned media in targeted outlets, photo and video assets for future use by the City, and a general buzz across the City about the creativity of the campaign, particularly by government.

Picture it downtown would not have been possible without our lead technologist Brett Tackaberry, senior web developer Steve Lounsbury, our superb designer Steve St. Pierre, the ad campaign led by Laura Mindorff, the videos by Ryan Knuth, writer and producer LeeEllen Carroll and our SEO expert Shaun Scanlon. Special thanks to our GM Keelan Green, who has a knack for assembling the best teams to deliver outstanding results.

Thank you IABC for the recognition. It’s nice to bask in the spotlight… and great to share successes. As I used to say in my former journalistic career, you’re only as good as your last story. So that means back to work. Right now.

[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis.]

On Saturday May 29, nearly 200 Ford Mustang drivers came out for Dupuis Ford Lincoln’s Mustang Poker Run and helped raise $101,666 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The grand total was double what they expected and surpassed last year’s record donation. The tears of joy I witnessed at this event gave me enough goose bumps to lift the hair off my skin.

Breast cancer research ranks amongst the top causes Ottawans support and will do anything for – including running a marathon to raise money and awareness for what matters most: the women they love.

Six years ago, Dupuis Ford Lincoln in Casselman decided to take their fundraising initiative for CIBC’s Run for the Cure to a whole new level. For decades, marathon and Race Weekend participants have ran, biked, or rollerbladed across the Eastern Ontario region. A dealership stocked with horsepower and  transmissions, Dupuis Ford Lincoln has a need for speed and a commitment to one of the longest community support initiatives in the Ottawa  area. It was their passion and support from the community that helped create their unique and innovative fundraising event, the Mustang Poker Run.

The 6th edition Mustang Poker Run covered the Eastern Ontario region for a distance of nearly 230 km. Participants stopped at five stations and collected playing cards in attempt to win the grand prize with the best poker hand. Entertainment for the whole family included, “Show & Shine,” “Ford talk,” contests, games, a used books sale, and live performances from local band Hometown.

The fun-filled day was complete with caring families and their beautiful Mustangs, sports car drivers sporting shirts saying “Je t’aime ma femme” or “Je t’aime ma maman,” and stories of survival, honour and praise.

Time spent at the Mustang Poker Run proves there’s more to the pink ribbon campaign than just tying up laces or revving up engines:  there are real people, true stories, and thousands of battles worth fighting.

R to L: Nicole Bourgeois (Cancer survivor and pace car driver), Marie-Claire Ivanski (Organizer), Martin (Son of Nicole), Sylvie (Daughter of Nicole)

L to R: Nicole Bourgeois (Honourary guest), Marie-Claire Ivanski (Organizer), Carole Séguin-Millaire (Organizer)

Michel Dupuis (Owner of Dupuis Ford-bottom right) and Mustang Poker Run team

Mustang Poker Run participants

"Show and Shine"

Yesterday a colleague noted that the front page image of a major Canadian newspaper was credited to Facebook, the social media site that many use to keep in touch with friends and families. Birthdays, family vacations and pictures from a golden wedding anniversary are the stuff of social media lore. Long-lost high school chums finding one another on Facebook were, for a time, a staple of soft journalism.

In an earlier era the Personals section of daily newspapers often carried short ads from people looking for lost loves, estranged family members, past neighbours and so forth. There was an element of sympathy for the person who placed an ad encouraging someone to “call home, all is forgiven” or wondering whatever happened to the boys from the Cub Pack.

We read these ads knowing we would never know what happened to long-lost Uncle Joe, or if John and Marsha patched things up.

The Viet Nam War—a miasma of grief broadcast to hundreds of millions of living rooms on the evening news decades ago—created the modern take on the storied war correspondent. Images from the battlefield, field hospital or ruins made war real, and perhaps routine, to the audience back home. Given the media consuming habits of the Viet Nam War generation (tune in at 6 for the evening news, with a trusted anchor) the war could be presented, positioned and edited for public consumption.

Someone, somewhere, was exercising final approval on what made it to the network. Brutal images (still available all over the internet) from Viet Nam played no small part in sickening public opinion and helped turn its tide.

In due course the public lost their appetite for the war and the confrontation ended, after too many years, with a whimper and not a bang. Perhaps the audience had seen too much?

The image on the newspaper yesterday was not edited. It was real, raw and as unscripted as life itself. The growing bank of images—of mind-numbing devastation coupled with the awareness that Haiti is a place of poverty, struggle, dictatorship, crime, violence and a complete lack of hope—are reaching a new audience.

The audience today has countless options for information. Social media updates about the earthquake in Haiti will continue to proliferate as NGOs, news organizations (legitimate and illegitimate), charities, support groups, interested bystanders, family members and the  public reach out online for information, images, context and, most importantly, understanding of the events in Haiti as they unfold. Moment by moment.

I believe that this change is a good one. Unhindered by an editorial bias, citizen journalists are at their best when presented with a story that begs to be shared with others. Sharing the images, stories, experiences and developments in Haiti using social media tools empowers us. It is impossible to ignore the suffering of strangers when our knowledge of that suffering comes from a stranger.

The late Walter Cronkite was often called “the most trusted man in America.” I trust the citizen journalists, social media users and others “broadcasting” from Haiti just as much.

We have watched the destruction and its aftermath. Social media tools and citizen journalists will enable us to watch the response and reconstruction. We will know what happened to the people affected by the earthquake; watch hospitals, schools, police stations and presidential palaces reopen and—thanks to strangers on the ground—remain involved.

5 days old, Peyton MacKenzie Green, visits the Ottawa office of Thornley Fallis & 76design, and records his first billable hour.

More knowledge from the recent Social Media for Government conference that took place in Ottawa this week.

Following demographic developments is a fascinating study. Society is changing as new technological advances change the face of one generation and redefine how that group interacts, understands, consumes and advances their culture.

From a presentation from some thinkers at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum I learned about Millennials (for more on the ROM surf this). Intrigued by this demographic, I did some research.

Millennials are broadly described as being born post 1980 (say, between 1982 and 1994) and only know a world with digital technology. They signal the largest shift in media and behaviour since the dawn of television, which separates them in numerous ways from an older generation of media consumers.

Millennials have some interesting characteristics that further define them as a demographic group.

Socially expressive and inquisitive individuals, Millennials are the product of a society that included high rates of divorce and two-income families. Some theorists believe this translates into Millennials lacking an automatic deferral to authority and a new take on romantic and personal expression.

The ability to recreate, remix, retrieve and reconfigure the past (through technology) is expected. Millennials are resourceful and collaborative and have proven to be innovative thinkers.

Highly social and interconnected, Millennials work well in teams but are not considered highly loyal to employers, work places, or even–it is believed–romantic partners. There is no broad consensus if this “lack of loyalty” stems from social conditions (for example, divorce rates) or from some other factor. Millennials expect–and subsequently create–challenging and stimulating work experiences and places with a strong focus on the “team” and social life. (That is, they work and play together.)

This is an interesting demographic now assuming positions in the workforce and in the broader community of consumers. It will be interesting to watch them and their impact on society, consumer culture, communications and social media development.

Yesterday I substituted for Joe Thornley and chaired a conference in Ottawa about Social Media for Government. The conference was hosted by the Advanced Learning Institute under the direction of Kelly Flynn, who put together a one-of-a-kind event.

The attendees were engaged, interested (and interesting) and all were either operating with social media tools now or preparing to launch them in the near future. It was a high-energy day with ideas, innovation, thought-leaders and learners collaborating together in sessions, presentations and meals. (Kudos to ALI for creating dynamic lunch and supper sessions that offered both choice and networking.)

Joe has a following among innovators who are active with social media tools and there were a number of people who already interact and communicate with him now plus a new cadre of people who joined social media sites–for the first time–yesterday and learned directly from Joe how to make these cutting-edge tools a part of their work lives.

This was a connected day. I was learning myself while chairing the day and I made some great contacts among the crowd.

Today (Weds) Thornley Fallis was again present; Joe is back to chair and lead the day while John Sobol and Nick Rusczkowski (my colleagues) presented at the morning session.

I will be adding more information about individual sessions as soon as I touch base with the presenters. As a teaser, however, I can announce that there are a number of federal government entities who are planning to launch social media tools in the near future. What I would like to do is post some Q&A sessions on CapitalPR with these innovators and share their message and knowledge with  an even broader base.

As you can see from the photos below, expansion of the Ottawa office of Thornley Fallis & 76design is progressing well since my August 7^th post.

All the new walls and doors are up. Electrical is in. Drywall has been taped, mudded and primed.  Basically, all that remains is painting, carpeting, trimming and any final finishing touches.

Everything looks great and is on track to be completed by the end of next week (Friday, August 29^th).  Furniture and equipment will be moved into and set-up in the new space over the long-weekend, so we can be up and running on Tuesday, September 2^nd!

Blogs, links, jumps, sidebars, comments and emails. Spend enough time on the Internet and you will come across hundreds of thousands of each one.

This one lead me to this.

Then I saw this and I encourage you to read it. It is important, it is Canadian, and it is good. I am even going to encourage you to forward the link to people you know.

Then I read this.

No matter what happens over the next few weeks the spirit of these discussions will not go away. Even the requirement that foreign journalists will need to apply for access to Tiananmen Square 24 hours in advance if they want to interview, broadcast or film in the plaza won’t turn this story off. (Intrepid journalists will, I believe, find people to interview, film, record and photograph at other venues. I’ve visited Tiananmen Square and it isn’t the only venue in Beijing where one can reasonably expect to find citizens milling about. It is, after all, a big city.)

It is just not possible, you see, to shut the Internet down. Nor can true public conversation be silenced. Shouts might become whispers but never silence.