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

Thanks to Simon Chen of Ramius, Ottawa now has its own franchise of Social Media Breakfast, an event started by Bryan Person (a blogger and podcaster Simon and I had the privilege of meeting during this month’s Community 2.0 Conference).

According to Bryan, Social Media Breakfast (SMB) is “an almost-monthly event where social media experts and newbie’s alike come together to eat, meet, share, and learn. Marketers, PR pros, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, new media fanatics, and online social networkers are all welcome to attend.”

Cities that host SMB include Boston, New York City, the Twin Cities, Austin, Memphis, Phoenix, San Francisco, Singapore, and Cincinnati. And now Ottawa!

SMB Ottawa 1 takes place Tuesday, June 10th.

The inaugural speaker is Adrian Salamunovic, Co-Founder of DNA11. DNA11 is a company that pioneered the creation of personalized artwork from the DNA of its customers. Much of DNA11’s success has derived from social media exposure.

To find out more and register to attend SMB Ottawa 1, visit at http://smbottawa.eventbrite.com. You won’t want to miss it!

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

Come join Women 2.0 Ottawa at the next Ottawa DemoCamp - scheduled May 26th at The Velvet Room in The Market.

For those of you not in the know, DemoCamp is a variation of the un-conference style event. PowerPoint is not allowed - presenters must give an actual demonstration of the product or service they are presenting.

Demonstrations are 15 minutes in length: 2 minute introduction, 8 minute demo, 5 minutes for Q&A and discussion.

It’s a fun event that brings together a wide range of people from Ottawa’s high tech sector. And it would be great to see more women from the high tech sector attending DemoCamp.

So we encourage you to come watch demonstrations of some cool products and technologies either already created or in the midst of development. Give feedback to the presenters, ask questions and learn about the cool technologies and products being developed right here in the Nation’s Capital.

To register, add your name to the registration list on the Ottawa DemoCamp wiki at http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/DemoCampOttawa9

The companies presenting at this month’s DemoCamp:

• - dD dot tv - beta preview
• - Stockify - Investing Software
• - SIMtone - Virtual PC, http://www.simtonecdu.com
• - picsphere - complete workflow solution for event and studio photographers
• - Ramius Corporation - Sixent.com (psst…Ramius is the company I work for - Sixent is our newest product)
• - myChoiceBot - Web app for shoppers researching any type of purchase decision.

Date and Time: Monday, May 26 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Location: The Velvet Room, 62 1/2 York Street, in The Market (b/w William and Dalhousie)

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0  Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

Women 2.0 Ottawa invites you to join us at Vineyards in The Market on Wednesday, May 7th.

For this event we have no set topic for discussion. Instead, we’ll get together for a casual conversation about whatever topics come to mind!

Event deets…

When: Wednesday, May 7 at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Vineyards, 54 York Street (In the Cellar) website
What: Super casual networking mixer for women in technology and related fields
Why: To swap energy, ideas, and experiences with each other

Please RSVP

Please RSVP for this event on the Women 2.0 Ottawa event wiki.

You can also email ottawa [at] women2 [dot] ca to to join our mailing list for upcoming Women 2.0 events in Ottawa.

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

Shane Schick of ITWorldCanada has taken the time to recognize 10 Canadian tech bloggers worthy of following. Shane lists some great bloggers to check out, including two well-known female tech bloggers you may have heard of before.

Shane promises the list is in no particular order so I’ll put the two female bloggers first…just because I like them so much:

Maggie Fox - Longtime W20′ers know of our great respect for Maggie of Social Media Group. A guest speaker at our February Pass the Torch event, Maggie is a leader in the social media industry with great insights on how to leverage social media as an engagement tool.

Kate Trgovac - Of My Name Is Kate - Kate is a Internet marketing expert. She blogs about marketing and technology in a funny and engaging way that makes you want to read more.

Jevon McDonald - StartUp North - I started following Jevon on Twitter (@startupnorth) because he gives really great overviews of companies that have pitched or demo’ed products at BarCamps, DemoCamps and other Canadian tech events. If you’re interested in following tech happenings in Canada, follow this blog.

ITWorldCanada bloggers - http://blogs.itworldcanada.com - Because they deserve to promote their own talent!

Alec Saunders - http://saunderslog.com - Alec is an Ottawa blogger and co-founder of Iotum, an Ottawa-startup focused on communication technologies. He discusses a lot of different topics related to technology. Check out his list of Ottawa blogs.

Michael Geist - http://www.michaelgeist.ca - a law professor at the University of Ottawa, Geist is also a columnist for the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, and BBC. Writing about technology law, Geist covers topics such as digital copyright, net neutrality, Internet governance and user-generated content.

Mark H. Goldberg - http://www.mhgoldberg.com/blog - Goldberg covers the telecommunications industry including issues, news, trends and so much more.

Stephan Ibaraki - http://blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers - Ibaraki is a key contributor to this blog. As ITWorldCanada states, he “interviews countless executives (such as General Motors of Canada’s CIO) and turns them into easy-to-download podcasts. He also serves as a sort of online liaison between the vendor community and associations like the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS), giving him a good understanding of issues across the board.”

Mark Evans - http://markevanstech.com - Evans is a technology journalist with The Globe & Mail and The Financial Post. He’s also the co-founder of the mesh Conference - Canada’s only Web 2.0 conference. He covers a range of technology topics including telco and emerging technologies and startups.

Rob Hyndman - http://www.robhyndman.com - Another mesh Conference co-founder, Hyndman describes himself as “a lifelong student of technology, and a geek at heart.” His blog covers topics related to business law and technology, as well as developments in business, media and politics.

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 Canada | Ottawa Co-founder

If you’re stuck wondering how to leverage the Web and search engines to build leads and sales for your business, then consider attending tomorrow’s Ottawa Network event “Leads and Sales Through Web/Search Engines.

Stephen Lau of Salientmarketing.com will share his knowledge and experience in generating leads and sales through web/search engines and the importance of brand association on Google (search rankings and leads) Leads and Sales Through Web/Search Engines”.

Event deets…

Wednesday April 9th 5:30-7:00pm
Nepean Sailing Club, 3259 Carling Ave

Melany Gallant | Women 2.0 | Ottawa Co-founder