talk with Tony Hsieh, CEO billion$ company Zappos on Delivering Happiness at Grow Conf

The Grow Conference took place Aug 19-21 at the Vancouver Convention center. I didn’t attend any of the Conference sessions, as I spent all day interviewing over 22 Grow Speakers, Organizers, and other Business people attending Grow.

The interview list includes featured Speakers such as; Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos.com, Leonard Brody, President of Clarity Digital Group, Wesley Chan, Investment Partner at Google Ventures, Robert Goldberg, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Zynga, Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner at SoftTechVC, and Tom Conrad, Chief Technical Officer, Pandora Internet radio. I interviewed several event sponsors such as Jason Brandon, Director of Rogers Ventures, and Robin Axon and Duncan Hill, General Partners, Mantella Ventures. I also sat down and spoke with Dealmakermedia.com CEO and Grow Conference organizer Debbie Landa. These audio interviews will be published over the next week or two.

Featured interview: with Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos.com, whose company has grown to 1 billion dollars in yearly gross revenue from online sales. He wrote a book on his Entrepreneurial experiences and his company’s pursuit of “Delivering Happiness”.

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com and Author of "Delivering Happiness". Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Sonia Ryan from Bootup Labs, and Tarlan Seyedfarshi from Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Listen to Tony Hsieh interview: 

Transcription of the audio interview

Jonathan Hanley: Can you tell me your name and a bit about your company?

Tony Hsieh: My name is Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Zappos – we’ve been around for a little over 11 years now. We started out selling shoes online but we actually sell alot more than shoes here, we sell clothing, and beauty products, handbags, and so on. The vast majority of our business is in the U.S., and really our goal is to build the Zappos brand, to be about the best customer service and customer experience. We’ve grown from basically no sales in 1999 to we’re now doing over a billion dollars in gross merchandise sales every year. The number one driver of that growth is through repeat customers and word of mouth. ( online sales ).

Prior to Zappos, I had started a company with a college roommate called Link Exchange. We specialized in online advertising. This was in 1996. We grew that to 100 or so employees, and ended up selling the company to Microsoft in 1998.

Jonathan Hanley: What was the reason for starting Zappos?

Tony Hsieh: After selling Link Exchange, then this guy Alfred, he and I got together and started an investement fund. We invested in 20 or so different internet companies. Zappos just happened to be one of them. But over the course of a year, I realised after a year that for me investing was pretty boring. I really missed being part of building something. It felt like I was always sitting on the sidelines. I ended up joining Zappos fulltime within a year.

Jonathan Hanley: What keeps you motivated to stay at Zappos?

Tony Hsieh: I think it’s that things are always changing. The sky’s the limit, since we’re building our brand about customer service. As I talked about in the interview at the Conference, there could one day be a Zappos Airlines. That’s just about the very best in customer service. I think if the business was just about selling shoes, I’d just get bored.

Jonathan Hanley: Maybe elaborate on your talk today. You spoke today at the Grow Conference, is that right?

Tony Hsieh: I was interviewed by Kara Swisher. I just talked a little bit about Zappos and the book that just came out called “Delivering Happiness” and the subtitle of the book is “A path to profits, passion, and purpose”. Part of the reason for writing the book is that Zappos may seem like an overnight success, but the truth is we made a lot of mistakes along the way. During the interview we talked, for example, hiring mistakes that cost us over a 100$ million dollars. We learned a lot of lessons along the way. Prior to Zappos, I learned a lot of lessons as well. So part of the goal is to share those stories with other Entrepreneurs and Business people and hopefully help them make fewer mistakes.

Jonathan Hanley: What was the reasoning behind the title of the book?

Tony Hsieh: Well, we started out in 2003, we decided let’s build the brand to be about the very best customer service and customer experience. That’s all about making customer’s happy, and then we decided to make culture the number one priority with the thought that if we get the culture right then delivering great service or building a long term enduring brand will just happen naturally on it’s own. The culture is all about making employees happy. So we decided, let’s just expand for the brand about delivering happiness, not only to our own employees and our own customers, but we now have a program called Zapposinsights.com which is about helping other companies build their own strong cultures and deliver great service to their own customers.

Jonathan Hanley: Was there anything that came out of writing the book that you took you in a different direction than you had expected?

Tony Hsieh: It’s been great hearing stories from people who read the book and decided to change their lives and follow their passion, or focus on company culture and customer service, then hearing them come back that their business profits and growth are up.

Jonathan Hanley: How have these stories translate into how you’re running Zappos. Has it affected Zappos in any way?

Tony Hsieh: Yeah, because for Zappos Insights we hold two day seminars at Zappos. In some ways, it forces us to make sure we never get too comfortable. We need to always think about how to grow and improve our culture, especially now if it’s own business we are selling to other companies.

Jonathan Hanley: In terms of a American-Canadian connection is there something, or was it more just coming up because of your Entrepreneur stories?

Tony Hsieh: Yeah, I always love Entrepreneur Conferences. Just the Entrepreneurial spirit in general. That combination of creativity and optimization is pretty infectious.

Jonathan Hanley: What are you going to take away from this Conference

Tony Hsieh: I don’t know. The first thing I did when I got here I got on stage, so I haven’t had a chance to see stuff.

Jonathan Hanley: Ahh..I just caught you in the beginning. Well I hopefully you have a good time and enjoy your time in Vancouver.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Canadian Entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley Investors connect at Grow conference

Entrepreneurs, Investors, Thinkers, and Influencers attending the Grow Conference at Vancouver Convention Center.

The Grow Conference took place Aug 19-21 at the Vancouver Convention. I didn’t attend any of the Conference sessions, as.I spent all day interviewing Grow Speakers, Organizers, and other Business people attending Grow. I interviewed ten of the events’ featured Speakers, several event sponsors, and organizer Debbie Landa.

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Debbie Landa, Organizer and Host of the Grow Conference at Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Debbie Landa interview:

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Leonard Brody, President, Clarity Digital Group. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Leonard Brody interview

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Jeremy Toeman, Founder of Stage Two. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Jeremy Toeman interview:

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Ariel Poler, CEO of Textmarks Inc. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center.

Robin Axon and Duncan Hill, General Partners, Mantella Ventures. Sponsor of Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Robin Axon interview:

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Jason Brandon, Director, Rogers Ventures. Sponsor of Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Jason Brandon interview:

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Wesley Chan, Investment Partner at Google Ventures. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Wesley Chan interview:

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Joel Flynn. Lecturer at TechOne. MA at SFU, Segal Graduate School of Business. Grow Conference in Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Joel Flynn interview:

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Farhan Thawar, VP of Engineering, Extreme Venture Partners. Sponsor of Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Farhan Thawar interview:

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Tom Conrad, Chief Technical Officer, Pandora Internet radio. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Tom Conrad interview:

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Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com and Author of “Delivering Happiness“. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Sonia Ryan and Terian Seyedfarshi of Bootup Labs. Listen to Tony Hsieh interview:

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Alan Juristovski, CEO and Co-founder of Metroleap Media. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Alan Juristovski interview:

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Rob Hayes, Managing Partner at First Round Capital. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Rob Hayes interview:

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Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner at SoftTechVC. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Jeff Clavier interview:

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Jason Bailey, GM of Virtual Currencies at Adknowledge ( aquired his company Super Rewards ). Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Jason Bailey interview:

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Robert Goldberg, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Zynga. Speaker at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Robert Goldberg interview:

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Ian Bell, CEO of AppSocial Media. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Ian Bell interview:

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Anthony Nicalo, CEO of Foodtree. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Anthony Nicalo interview:

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Minh Le, Relationship Manager at Silicon Valley Bank. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Minh Le interview:

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Robert Lewis, President and Editor, Techvibes. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Robert Lewis interview:

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Boris Mann, Co-founder and Managing Director of Bootup Labs. Sponsor at Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to Boris Mann interview:

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David Gratton, CEO and Founder of DEQQ. Grow Conference in the Vancouver Convention Center. Listen to David Gratton interview:

Grow Conference related links:

Conference site: http://growconf.com

Organizers: http://dealmakermedia.com/team

A Grow Conference photo slide show. Hosted on flickr.com

keywords: techvibes, robert lewis, foodtree, anthony nicalo, silicon valley bank, minh le, super rewards, jason bailey, leonard brody, clarity digital group, ariel poler, textmarks, joel flynn, sfu, techone, mantella venture partners, robin axon, rogers ventures, jonas brandon, google ventures, wesley chan, metroleap media, alan juristovski, extreme venture partners, farhan thawar, pandora internet radio, tom conrad, bootup, sonia ryan, tony hsieh, zappos, softtech VC, jeff clavier, aydin senkut, Felicis Venture

Popularity: 1% [?]

Kris Krug talks about BP oilspill and social media at Remixology

Kris Krug knows how to fill the house. I had to look for an extra seat when I arrived, because the room was filled for Kris’ presentation on the BP oilspill as part of FreshMedia’s first monthly REMIXOLOGY event. The event was moderated by the Vancouver Sun’s Dig Life columnist Gillian Shaw, on the topic “Toward Cooperative Media Making: How can professional and citizen journalists collaborate?”

Kris Krug watching his slides from the TED x OilSpill Expedition, at the W2 Storyeum.

I’ve seen Kris speak many times before and he is an engaging speaker. It was clear from the passionate tone in Kris’ voice during the presentation, that he was moved by his expedition to cover the BP Oilspill. The audience was given real ‘in the street’ journalism stories about meeting fishermen, local residents, and hearing how their environment, their livelihood and most importantly their Cajun culture was being threatened.

Everyone in the room was touched by the enormity of the Oilspill through the vision of Kris Krug’s photographs from the streets of small towns, and flying above the ocean. One thing I’ve always noticed in Kris’ photos is his ability to bring a common humanity to everyone he photographs, in simple terms you feel you know the person and place he is photographing.

I was at once disgusted by the oil covered ocean waters, yet awed by the beauty of the oilslick. I had to remind myself this wasn’t some big abstract painting, but a real event in a real place. Hearing Kris talk in layman’s terms about his real experience meant more to me than watching the many TV reports or talks from Scientists.

Gillian Shaw moderated the Remixology event. She was kept on her toes by Kris and the audience when the Questions & Answers or Discussion time took place. Hands were up everywhere in the room. Some questions were about the oilspill, the US Govt, and BP’s involvement in the clean up process, but many questions were about how Kris made a living travelling around the world covering events. I had to remind myself that the main topic of the event was “Toward Cooperative Media Making: How can professional and citizen journalists collaborate?”

Gillian spoke with me about supporting Freshmedia’s Remixology event. She appreciates that Freshmedia is asking important questions on how citizenship journalism and traditional media who the two can co-exist and provide better content by working together.

Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun’s Dig Life columnist ,( vancouversun.com/technology/digital-life) moderates at Freshmedia night at w2 storyeum.

I interviewed Kat Braybrooke, who was a co-producer for Freshmedia.me of Remixology. It was clear from the full house that the event was successful, so we talked about the purpose of Remixology as an ongoing monthly event.

Kat Braybrooke: Beyond Robson editor, and Fresh media ( freshmedia.me ) co-producer of the monthly event, at Freshmedia night at w2 storyeum.

For the final part of the evening, audience members were asked to stand up and speak for 30 seconds if they wanted to network or speak about their own social media projects. There was surprising number of people that quickly raised their hands to speak about their own work.

The following are photos and interviews with just a few of the many creative people representing amazing projects going on in Vancouver.

John Ornoy spoke about being interested in the line between traditional media and social media and how citizen journalists fit into the picture. He is producing a documentary called “With glowing hearts” that looks at the questions of how traditional and citizen journalists cover events in the context of the downtown eastside with the backdrop of the Vancouver Olympic Games.

John Ornoy- Documentary producer of “with glowing hearts” , at Freshmedia night at w2 storyeum

Gala Milne who is the co-coordinator of Media Democracy Day this year, spoke to me about the project which takes place on November 6th at the Vancouver Public Library from 12PM-5PM. One of the key focus’ of the event is having discussion about bringing together local and independent media producers. The event is co-produced by the School for Communication at Simon Fraser University, coordinating partner OpenMedia.ca and co-sponsor Vancouver Public Library (VPL). Since 2001, Media Democracy Day has provided a place for citizens, activists, media artists, innovators, policy makers, students, academics to come together and engage in a dynamic dialogue on the importance of creating a participatory, democratic media system that works in the interest of people, not just corporate bottom lines.

Gala Milne Co-coordinator of Media Democracy Day ( mediademocracyday.org/vancouver ), at Freshmedia night at w2 storyeum

David Beers who founded web magazine thetyee.com spoke about their Tyee Fellowship. The web mag suggested to it’s readership that they donate to essentially hire a journalist to dedicate themselves to a specific journalistic project. Four journalists will be given 5,000 dollars each to write a series of articles for the magazine. The readers were able to submit their own story suggestions when donating money, which gave another twist on the term ‘citizen journalist’. Not everyone actually wants to write the story, so now people can have a say in what stories are covered by a magazine and help support quality in-depth journalism.

David Beers, Founder of thetyee.com web magazine. ( thetyee.com ), at Freshmedia night at w2 storyeum

Background on the FreshMedia monthly “Remixology” event, from their freshmedia.me site.

THIS MONTH’S TOPIC //
Toward Cooperative Media Making: Featuring acclaimed photographer Kris Krug (TEDxOilSpill and National Geographic). How can professional and citizen journalists collaborate?

WHY //
Because inquiring minds need to discuss! Because connecting and collaborating matters. Because Vancouver needs a launch pad for media innovation, and we want you to be a part of it.

FULL AGENDA //
Social technology expert Kris Krug will share photos and thoughts from his recent trip to capture the BP disaster through TEDxOilSpill.
Following this, we’ll open up to a broader dialogue that explores a big question: How can citizens, professional media makers, and everyone in-between collaborate to produce media for social change?
Finally, there will be an opportunity for participants to do a “collaborator’s callout” where you are invited to do a 30 second introduction to a project you’re working on that’s relevant to the group. The gathering will close with a social/networking session including a cash bar, light refreshments and music.

Links

Kris Krug’s articles on the

http://staticphotography.com/blog/kk/tedx-oil-spill-expedition-visit-bird-island-southern-louisiana-heavy-hearts

The Flash slide show of my photos on flickr.com/pixelate

Popularity: 4% [?]

F5 Expo

I’m following up on my experiences at the F5 Expo at the Vancouver Convention center. F5 is a business conference for executives on changing technologies in the online space such as social media, search marketing, mobile applications, and future trends. The event took place from 830am with Lindsay Smith’s keynote speech, followed by a broad range of sessions including: Metrics of Social Media, Cost Effective Videio Marketing, The Secret of Success: Avoiding Start-up pitfalls, ending with the keynote speech by Malcolm Gladwell on Innovation and Limitation. The F5 Tradeshow showcased over sixty Exhibitor offering products and services from mobile video, cellphone apps, data backup, broadband phone, to social media marketing and web developments.

I met and interviewed several Vendors in the Exhibitor room of F5. I told people that I was looking more for stories than generic sales “speal”, so that readers might better understand the motivation of the company and it’s team for developing specific products and services.

Exhibitors

HUstream.com based in Vancouver. Nick Kellet – Chief Marketing Officer. User driven – persona based. Tailor content to audience. For web sites, employee engagement ( internal ), Government ( reaching youth community ).

Distige.com based in Vancouver. Brand management and print marketing for small to medium sized businesses. I spoke with Ashkan Azrahimi. Marketing vehicles. Breaking boundaries and trends. He came to F5 to form partnerships, be part of community.

media2o.com based in Vancouver. I spoke with Tristan Jutras, Director of Marketing & Business Development. M2O offers social video marketing. During the F5 Expo, M2O ran a content to win an ipad based on the most testimonials for fave exhibitor. I asked if Tristan if he’d been able to view other exhibitors or sessons and he mentioned encryptinc.com which was provided encrypted email for blackberry. Tristan wanted to see Malcolm Gladwell after reading his “Tipping point” book, because he’s someone that makes you think of things from a different perspective.

M2O was at F5 as a result of being part of Vancouver 2010 and working with VANOC. During the Olympics, M2O worked with Molson Corr to enable their national staff across Canada to view Olympic experience remotely. Sixteen members of Molson Corr’s staff was trained to be social reporters by documenting events using a mino camcorder. The staff shot video during the day, then the videos were edited at night by M2O and were presented the next day on the Molson community blog.

I spoke with Van Eyk Olivier, Owner and Producer of Breakfree Productions who are based in Vancouver. He says that Breakfree provides services that are a mix of an Agency and a Production company. Breakfree was at F5 for the Marketing expo. He appreciated that F5 provided sessions on strategic business. Van Eyk mentioned that audio is now searchable on google, so choosing phrases or words to be found via search engines will become more important as more web users and developers understand this new search feature. Breakfree works with clients on the video script to help search engine ranking.

Mobiry Technologies

I spoke with Mohamed Amirali, Director of Business Development at Mobiry Technologies. He moved to Vancouver from Montreal to be part of the local Tech community and to start a new family here. His interest is in IT, Business, and Strategic Marketing. Mohamed likes how things change so quickly in the Tech field, which is why Mobiry is helping Businesses adapt.

Mohamed explained to me that Mobiry was the 1st company in the world to develop and integrate Optical Character Technology ( OCR ) for the mobile device market. I must admit talking with Mohamed I was a bit confused on their services, but I knew that was due in part to their company venturing on the edge of marketing to the mobile market. A basic description would be that Mobiry enables businesses to offer and track coupons to customers, while helping customers get good deals on products or services – all on your cellphone!

As a customer you could get a promo code via a text message on your cellphone, which you could then redeem when you pay for your dinner, or movie ticket. Another option would allow you to take a picture on your cellphone that becomes a SMS code for another way to get deals.

Alexy Mykhaylov, President of parent company Integrio.net, explained to me that Mobiry was developed after Integrio originally developed a Mobile OCR product for a movie theatre company in Mexico. Integrio.net saw the potential for a new product to digitally manage coupons tfor the cellphone market. You can see the potential when you consider there are over 267 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. Over 213 million are using text messaging on a regular basis, and over 84% of those subscribers continuously have their cellphone within 10 feet of them no matter where their location.

Mobiry is in the process of looking for partners such as CardOne to offer customers an integrated solutions for using coupons and businesses credit card processing and electronic payment systems.

If you want to see a video demonstration on how to use the Mobiry coupon product, then visit youtube.com/integrio/

I didn’t really have patience to sit on the Sessions as I was more interested in speaking with individuals and learning mor eabout their stories one-on-one. For example: I interviewed several speakers individually but didn’t attend their sessions

( John Chow )

I spoke with John Chow runs johnchoow.com and spoke at Booth210 on Blogging for Profit. John Chow is based in Vancouver, but caught web wide attention for publically tracking and blogging about how much he was making from his advertising campaigns. John Chow was able to make money by blogging about making money from blogging – how creative is that! I wasn’t able to find any current income blog posts by John Chow, but as recently as 2008 he was blogging his marketing and affiliate earning of 40,000$ for January 2008. Despite not publically posting earnings on his blog now, the marketing and affiliate business is still going strong if you take a look at Pros such as Jeremy Schoemaker, Joel Comm and others.

Ardash Pallian from Pallian Creative was showing off his ipad with John Chow and Brian Wong from Digg.com. The first thing John said to me was that it was amazing there was no WIFI at F5. John clarified that one could get WIFI, but had to pay for it, which he thought was odd for a Tech focussed event. Mr. Chow said he was at F5 for fun mostly, because 80% of his business came from the USA.

John and I talked about his weekly meetups called dotcomPho, which he hosts as way to network with people and share a meal together. Every meetup is videotaped and viewable online. The dotcomPho is another local example of Geeks and Entrepreneurs using Social media to bring the digital and real world connection.

I found out about dotcomPho because his latest video caught my attention. What turned out to be a great viral video, occurred because John and his friends were bored so decided to try out the latest video chat site chatroulette.com. The site was developed in a few months by17 year old Russian tech phenom Andrey Ternovskiy and is getting a lot of media buzz because has become so popular within months of launching. The video chat software generates one-on-one Webcam connections between you and another randomly chosen user, which is likely why every time the other user saw John and his friends they quickly left the chat. I thought it was a humorous story that actually brought to light some real problems with a site like chatroulette.com and the spontaneous fun of a virus video by John Chow.

( brian wong )

I spoke with Brian Wong, Business Development for Digg.com. He presented at the Mobile Marketing – the “App” explosion session. Brian is a UBC Grad who has made the big move down to San Francisco to work for Digg.com. He appreciated the great bustling technology industry in Vancouver, and the mix of new and venture people locally. One reason he moved to SF was to soak in as much knowledge and wisdom as he could from the working in the SF web community. Moving into a tech hub like San Fransisco has been an eye opener for Brian, but he’s likes how it’s a bootcamp for gaining tech skills and experience.

At some point Brian Wong would like to create more of a bridge between Vancouver and San Francisco. In the future, he envisions creating projects that make use of Canada and UBC’s skilled tech community. Recently Birand was in Miami and thinks it’s Tech community is very similar to Vancouver with it’s combination of schools, experience, and passion.

Brian Wong mentioned theC100.org, which is a non-profit, member-driven organization dedicated to supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurship and investment. Most of it’s charter members are located in Silicon Valley while some are also located in Canada. C100′s main mission is to support Canadian technology entrepreneurs.

To encourage various levels of involvement from individuals and companies, the C100 supports three types of membership: General Membership for any qualified technology professional supporting Canadian technology entrepreneurs; Charter Membership by invitation only to accomplished and fast-rising Canadian technology executives, entrepreneurs and investors; and Sponsor Membership for sponsors of C100.

(Daniel Chu)

Daniel Chu, CEO of Silkstart.com, utilizes the linkedin platform and expands on the idea of ‘who you know’ to who you ‘should’ know. In your silkstart profile, which is imported from linkedin, you can fill in extra info to make worthwhile connections with Investors, Service Providers, and other Entrepreneurs. Silkstart.com is in talks with SFU’s Computing Science department ( Natural Language and Processing, and Data mining ) to develop technology to understand and interpret linkedin.com, facebook.com, and twitter.com information.

The site is currently in Beta after getting launched from funding by the Government program IRAP and personal funding. It took about 3-4 months from developing a prototype to show IRAP to launching the Beta site. Consider how many Investors and VC people talk disparagely about the difficulties in getting Government for technology development, it seemed that Daniel was very quickly able to get funding and launched to market. Hopefully more examples of active Government support for the Canadian tech community will come to light.

Daniel Chu was at F5 to promote Silkstart.com’s goal of helping people realise their dreams.

I spoke with Ryan Holmes, CEO of Invoke media and product Hootsuite, who spoke at “The secret of Success: Avoiding Start-up Pitfalls”

Session – Video Conferencing and Mobile Management

Interesting points on working on projects remotely with teams or internally over internet:

- Use skype for communication. Ability to share screen with other user, which is helpful if you are working on project or tech issue with remote team members.

- Wesley Chan, Entrepreneur & General Partner Google Ventures, said that he often uses a combination of tools to share notes and documents. Wesley uses Google Docs because it allows him to collaborate in real time. Another product Wesley used is Manymoon, which is a free Project Management tool that is heavily integrated with google.

Vanessa Leigh – Publisher/ Fashion Director ( ionmagazine.ca )speaks at Pecha Kucha.

Bankground on Pecha Kucha

The Flash slide show of my photos on flickr.com/pixelate

Popularity: -0% [?]

Socializing with more than 140 characters at Vancouver Twestival

A rainy day in Vancouver presented an interesting opportunity for Tweeters of all stripes to come together this past Thursday at the CBC radio building for the second
Vancouver Twestival (#YVRTwestival, #Twestival ). Beyond being a chance to meet all the people they previously only knew online, the Twestival may just demonstrate how the face of fundraising could forever be altered by social media. Indeed, the attendance of between a 150-200 people successfully raised over $9000.

1st photo: Volunteers, Tarlan (@capsusbridge ) and Sonia (@sonsryan), 2nd photo: Rebecca Bollwitt (@miss604) Vancouver Twestival Organizer

Nick Molnar ( @nickmolnar ) is a self-described web-strategist who has worked on several social media projects in Vancouver and recently started a web-site called adoptaband to pair indie musicians with aspiring photographers to boost the profile of both. He describes his most recent endeavor as a means of making poor people less poor as opposed to making wealthy people more wealthy. He’s been excited to watch the emergence of Twitter as a real force for social change. “If this were a gathering of all the people on Twitter in 2006, it’d be pretty boring,” noting that the existence of these tools becomes even more powerful when real people start to use them.

Danielle Sipple (@fiercekitty) and Kris Krug ( @kk )

Danielle Sipple (@fiercekitty) agreed that Twitter is an amazing forum for bringing together people of many stripes and giving communities that otherwise would not interact the chance to do so. A “word nerd” whose been tweeting for over a year and a half joined because she found it fascinating before any of her friends has even heard of it. She follows 600 people and is followed by around 1700. Danielle noticed her initial Tweets have evolved from snarky insights into her own personal life to more profound and reflective and less self-deprecating as a function of how her way of being and community have changed so much with her involvement in the Twittersphere.

There were plenty of folks on hand helping out the local organizer Rebecca Bollwitt (@miss604) who were stoked about the charity benefiting from the efforts of the Twestival, Concern Worldwide ( @concern). Kirsten (@6oz) is inspired by their holistic approach to combining health care and education strategies to the alleviation of poverty, although a few people I talked to knew only the basics about the organization, gleaned from the link on the Twestival website. So although a few people mentioned the “good cause” they were supporting not many actually knew a whole lot about the charity itself, which in no way detracted from their enthusiasm for the event and socal media itself. Second year marketing student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, Vivian Lou ( @vivianlou) was exuberant about the power of Twitter for social good. She went so far as to say “social media is breaking down the old school corporate culture.” When I asked her to clarify she proclaimed, well, if they want to know how to be effective in social media, they have to come to us. It was a powerful, confident statement delivered with an assured smile.

After the event I spoke with Vancouver Twestival organizer, Rebecca Bollwitt.
“We don’t have all the silent auction donations in yet but our grand total is above $9,000 so far.

From what’s been calculated an inputted globally (see here: ) it looks like Twestival around the world has already raised enough to build 18 schools, provide close to 12,500 meals, and educate over 3,000 children with Concern Worldwide.
In Vancouver it’s about getting out from behind your computer and being social with those you know through your social networks. So many people met for the first time last night even though they had been communicating over Twitter for years, it was great to see those connections. The fact that this is 100% volunteer-driven and that it’s all for a cause makes it that much better. As you can see from the numbers, this is our most successful Twestival yet in Vancouver – we have doubled what we raised last February at the first Twestival and tripled what we did in September at Twestival Local. This is my third time organizing and my first time rallying an amazing team to help out. Azita, Kirsten, Kim, Melissa, and Sonia were key. They worked the door, brought prize sponsors on board, and gave valuable input. Marc Smith from Amuse Consulting donated his event planning services which were a big part of the event’s success.
Volunteers, organizers and sponsors were all rallied through Twitter – it’s just so amazing that social media can be used for social good.”

Article co-authored by Jaia ‘Quarian ( @jaiaquarian ) and Jonathan Hanley, with photos taken by Jonathan (@musicgiving )

Photo gallery: Social Media & Twitter folk at Vancouver Twestival

Rob Cottingham ( @robcottingham ) and Victoria Ronco ( @victoriaronco ) Rob’s twitter quote ( 140 characters ): “irresistable combination of great cause and bringing social network into the real world. Love seeing so many friends. Thanks miss604″ Victoria’s twitter quote: “nice to put faces to names and meet people in person”

Chris Mathieson ( @cogno ), Rebecca Bollwitt ( @miss604)

Dave Olson ( @daveohoots ) and Noah Bloom ( @nbloom )

1st photo: DJ’s Patrick Lok ( @djpatlok ) and Jeremy Lim ( @jeremylim ). 2nd photo: Live band Mojave ( @mojaveband ) with Paul and Lisa Jarvis )

Jen Grebeldinger ( @jgrebby ), Adam Cullen ( @simonfiction ), Trina Isakson ( @telleni ) Jen’s twitter quote ( 140 characters ): “CBC green glass artwork display is cool” Adam’s twitter quote: “Glorious sushi. Too many social marketing types.” Trina’s comment on why she is at Twestival: “My New Year’s resolution was to meet new people and socialize more.”

( Alisha Mann @iglooqueen ) Cole Johnston ( @vanragazine ), Josh Rimer ( @joshrimer ), Raul Pacheco ( @hummingbird604 )

Janis Behan ( @janisbehan ), Erin Buttler ( @EzzaAtGap ), Emily Inram ( @emilymarieinc ) Erin’s comments: “I came to socialize. It’s a great opportunity to meet other twitter peeps. I work for an adventure Travel company. I’ve been on twitter for a year, and I’m learning it for business. “ Emily’s twitter quote: “Cheap drinks. Good people. Nice and open atmosphere”

At Registration table: Kim Werker ( @kimpwerker ) and Miranda Lievers ( @mirandaL )

Susan Main ( @susanmain ) Comments: “I’m not here for business, but to socialize and meet people who I follow on twitter more than I should. I go to lots of tweetups.”

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