Dear Members and Readers,

It is with regret that we announce the Ottawa Women 2.0 Chapter is closing. Although we support the Women 2.0 vision and mission set forth by our parent chapter in California, they differ from the goals we had set forth for our own chapter. The new governance structure set forth by our parent organization would have required our local chapter to change significantly in format and organizational structure.

We thank you all for the interest and support you have brought to Women 2.0 Ottawa during this past year. Your enthusiasm has been outstanding and we are truly honoured for the opportunity to have worked with you all to cultivate a social network for women entrepreneurs and women working in high tech.

See you at an Ottawa tech event soon!

Melany Gallant and Veronica Giggey

Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Chapter

It’s with great pleasure and a little bit of sadness that I announce some changes taking place with the Ottawa chapter of Women 2.0 (W20) Canada.

Monika Surma who worked with me to co-found this chapter has accepted a new job opportunity in fabulous Vancouver and as such has stepped down from her role. It has been a pleasure working with Monika this past year to build up the W20 brand in Ottawa and although I am sad to lose such a great team member, I do wish her nothing but success and enjoyment in her new life on the west coast. I am also a little bit jealous that Monika will be living so close to the ocean. I can admit that jealousy freely. ;D

Monika - you’ll be missed. Best of luck in Vancouver!

Now for some happy news…

Kristina Mausser of Digital Word and Veronica Giggey of Social Media Group have joined the organizing committee for Women 2.0 Ottawa and I couldn’t be more pleased. These two exceptionally talented women will be working with me to organize our events for the coming year and to promote the W20 brand in this great city.

We have our planning well underway so expect to hear more about W20 events soon. In the meantime, here is a brief description of why these two women are inherently Women 2.0.

Kristina Mausser

…is inherently 2.0 because she would rather splurge on a shopping spree at BestBuy than on a new pair of Manolo Blahniks …although she’s creative enough to find the resources to do both.  Kristina is a firm believer that technology is the facilitator of communications and has taken her lowly English degree to places her parents never dreamed as President and Senior Web Content Strategist of Digital Word. Kristina lives close to the “new French Quarter” of Ottawa, traditionally known as Vanier, and has been known to enjoy a cosmopolitan or two with friends on any number of the fabulous patios located in and around the nation’s capital.

Veronica Giggey

…is inherently 2.0 because she is passionate about the idea that it’s not about the technology but about what people can do with it. Her past experience includes working as a consultant for two different collaboration software vendors helping their clients make the most out of their solutions. She is now a project manager at Social Media Group and is committed to helping companies use Web 2.0 technologies to form relationships with their clients, employees, partners, shareholders and all their constituents.  She lives in Ottawa with her family but has not-so-secret plans to move to a lovely Honduran beach.

Welcome ladies!

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

GreenGirs.TV is definitely a site worth checking out. According to Mashable the blog tries to put an entertainment spin on the green movement, covering the news and views from greentech, eco-friendly companies with the purpose to inspire folks to live a more ecology conscious lifestyle.

Beverly Crandon | women 2.0 | Toronto Co-founder

A new Canadian publication titled, HEART, launched this month for women in business. They describe themselves as:

“…the only publication of its kind dedicated to providing mentorship for career and life success. We get to the heart of issues concerning women in business today, profiling successful professionals, focusing on health and well being, and providing articles of interest that encourage personal diversity and creative exploration to augment your life.”

HEART is offering a sneak preview into their July/August 2008 premiere issue at http://www.heartbusinessjournal.com/extras.html

Take a read and let me know what you think…

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

The founders of the Ottawa chapter of Social Media Breakfast (aka SMB) just announced the date of their next event - Tuesday, July 15th.

This month’s speaker is Rob Lane, CEO and Co-founder of Overlay.TV. Rob’s main responsibilities include being Overlay’s chief evangelist and community listener. With this input, Rob sets Overlay’s direction and creates an environment where the team can excel in the ever-changing space of video commerce and interactions.

A marketer at heart, Rob has built and led teams at both start-ups and blue chip tech companies in Europe and North America.

What’s Rob going to talk about?

Rob will cover two main topics:

The first will focus on video as a social utility using case studies from Overlay’s client base. The discussion will illustrate examples ranging from large agencies such as JWT to individual UGC producers at the other.

The second part of the discussion will focus how Overlay is using social media to build its community and business.

And the special guest is…

Also in attendance for this event is SMB founder Bryan Person! Join us in showing him some Canadian hospitality!

To register and read more event details, visit http://smbottawa2.eventbrite.com

Melany | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

In the early Spring, Women 2.0 Ottawa met Jennifer Buck, Senior Technical Lead at LoyaltyMatch, a site that lets you redeem your air mile rewards for “stuff” like iPODs, HDTVs and Kate Spade handbags, instead of just redeeming them for travel.

The company describes themselves as…”the world’s first person-to-person loyalty program marketplace enabling loyalty program members from most loyalty programs, with the ability to sell or trade rewards such as merchandise, entertainment and leisure attractions, services and more for cash or for rewards not available in their loyalty programs.”

Jennifer shared with me some recenct news coverage that LoyaltyMatch garnered, and since the startup is Canadian and has a woman directly involved with product development, I thought I’d share links to that news coverage here.

New York Times, “Practical Traveler”

Ferri & Partners - Trends in Travel & Tourism, “Profiting From Your Frequent Flier Miles (and Others)”

It’s great to see Canadian startups making a name for themselves.

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

I attended the inaugural Social Media Breakfast Ottawa (SMB Ottawa) event on Tuesday and was it ever a great time. Over 60 attendees came to Ramius headquarters to hear Adrian Salamunovic, co-founder of DNA11, talk about his experiences and lessons learned in using social media to build his company’s brand.

DNA11 is an Ottawa-based company that creates art based on your DNA. The art they create includes fingerprint portraits, kiss portraits and even portraits of your actual DNA.

Adrian attributes the success of DNA11 — the company’s art has appeared in Absolut Vodka promotions and on an episode of CSI! — to directly embracing the social media phenomenon. It is the bloggers and journalists using the web to share interesting news and stories with readers who helped launch DNA11’s explosive growth.

Social media golden rules…

During his talk, Adrian shared a few golden rules about using social media to build brand awareness.  A lot of these rules mean taking a common sense approach to any social media strategy and mirror PR best practices:

1. Have an interesting product or story. Be creative.
2. Know your target. Stay focused.
3. Understand which blogs influence your target (demographic).
4. A little bribery never hurts. (i.e. providing product samples to people with a genuine interest in reviewing your product, not to people just looking for a freebie)
5. Be authentic.
6. If possible, let an evangelist (company spokesperson or brand champion) do the pitching.
7. Be persistent (not annoying).
8. Build real relationships.
9. If you get into the ‘big’ blogs, the little ones will follow.
10. Measure and monitor.

Rinse and repeat, and there you have it. A social media strategy that’s helped build DNA11 into a global brand, and could potentially help you do the same.

More about SMB Ottawa 1

Check out these resources for more event recaps:

http://www.socialmediabreakfast.com/2008/06/12/recap-social-media-breakfast-ottawa-1/

• - Mark Blevis’ podcast and blog post
• - Andrew Alexander’s photos
• - VideoBot’s (by EventBots) VideoBytes

Save the date…

The next SMB Ottawa event is scheduled for Tuesday, July 15th!

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

I may be dating myself with this one, but I couldn’t help but post it as it sent a deep and painful pang to my stomach, which caused be to gasp at a very loud volume. What could be causing me such anguish you ask? The makeover they’ve given Strawberry Shortcake - revealed just yesterday.

Yes. I get it - Strawberry Shortcake came out in the 80’s and its now 2008, but I really don’t see what was wrong with the old image.

What made the makeover worse were all the mean things the creator said about the 80’s version of Strawberry Shortcake.

Apparently the 80’s image was:

• Too candy-obsessed
• Too ditsy
• Too fond of wearing bloomers.

In my opinion, Ms. Shortcake was not ditsy. Furthermore, what is wrong with wearing bloomers?

Nonetheless, this is what they are saying about the 2008 version of Strawberry Shortcake:

• She prefers fresh fruit versus gumdrops
• Appears to wear just a dab of lipstick
• Spends her time chatting on a cell phone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard.

What the hell kind of substance is that!

On a more serious note, the Shortcake transformation makes the double standard clear. When male action figures go through transformations to make the character current, the changes are minimal and more so have to do with changes to colour or texture - but it is never about the action heroes personality, likes and dislikes. Why then do toy makers equate making a girl/female child character more current, to having her make adult or womanlike lifestyle changes?

Beverly Crandon | women 2.0 | Toronto Co-founder