learning.comm Blog

Meryl Streep Does Not Always Win the Spotlights By: Lisa Legatto

2010-02-02T12:30:00.001-05:00

Today, the Oscar nominations were announced. You may think Sandra Bullock is not in the same league as Meryl Streep but an Oscar nod confirms one thing — she got people’s attention. Something that all the nominees, actors, directors, writers, producers and composers have in common is that their work made an impact. They did something special that was noticed and set them apart from their

Design matters By: Maria Pontikis

2010-01-21T10:06:00.001-05:00

Like many ideas, this one was born in a casual hallway conversation last week, as I was chatting with one of Cabinet Office’s talented designers, Noelle Campbell-Smith. If you don’t know Noelle – and you likely do – she’s the creative force behind the Online Design Program and one source of beautiful visual work that comes out of Creative Services and New Media.The crux of our hallway chat:

Blogging blogTO By: Maria Pontikis

2009-12-03T09:49:00.003-05:00

Even five years ago, the blogging world was in its infancy: reserved for the nerdy few who wrote online web logs (where the term originates). Then easy-to-use platforms like Blogger, Wordpress and Movable Type came into play, and suddenly everyone has a blog. But blogs aren’t just online diaries where people talk about their vacations and post photos of their cats. They have changed the way we

Communicating with style By: Nancy Westaway

2009-11-03T10:00:00.007-05:00

What do George Clooney and the new Communications Style Guide have in common? Both have been described as “handsome” — albeit the guide has only received this compliment once (so far). But, the new guide has also been called functional, searchable and a handy reference.What does the new guide mean for government communicators? It means there’s now an updated source to go to when you have

All Media is Social Media By: Lisa Legatto

2009-09-29T12:00:00.002-04:00

Mathew Ingram’s message to OPS communicators was clear — all media is social media. In fact, he suggested that the term social media will soon be meaningless.Mathew is the Communities Editor at the Globe and Mail. He writes about things the Globe is doing to connect with readers online, and the interaction between the Web and media. His presentation focused on how the Globe is reaching out to

The New Communications Professional By: Rhonda McMichael

2009-08-10T14:19:00.009-04:00

The thought occurred to me while launching our new news release format, more than a year ago, that we were putting the “public” back in “public service.” Up until that point, I’d often wondered what type of “service” we were providing as communicators by pushing our messages out to the gen pop. When we moved to our new, clear language, News/Quotes/Quick Facts/Learn

Web pages, websites, gadgets, widgets and more! By: Steven Green

2009-07-24T15:23:00.006-04:00

The web sure is getting a lot more complicated!It used to be all about web pages. Today however, there are more pieces and parts than ever before.I’m often asked the difference between a website, web page, gadget, widget, system, or application. It gets confusing as different folks are using these terms in different ways.Here are the differences and plain-language definitions we use as part of

Domain names are dead. Long live keywords! By: Steven Green

2009-07-02T11:23:00.008-04:00

I was reading an article about Facebook releasing vanity keywords and it suddenly made me realize: Domain names are dead.Last month's Facebook “vanity grab” takes me back to the old days of domain squatting in the ‘90s, when I was in the private sector and every client wanted their names “protected” by holding onto every possible variation of their company’s domain name.“Ourcompany.com is not

Spotlights 2009: Roll Credits By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-06-04T16:12:00.009-04:00

A big shout out to all who came out to celebrate the Spotlight Awards last night!Check out the video we showed last night on the Spotlights page. We’ve got a few pictures up in the gallery and will be adding more over the coming days. And of course, there’s the list of winners.Overall, 13 ministries took home some kind of hardware — I put a scorecard of sorts at the end of my entry.One of the

Get WIRED! By: learning.comm

2009-05-19T14:08:00.001-04:00

Once again, it's time for another Web Innovation Roundtable for Exchange and Discussion (WIRED). This Friday May 22nd WIRED returns with a special two hour session on the risks and benefits of the Social Web. From 12pm - 1pm join us for a panel on using social media tools strategically and then stick around from 1pm - 2pm to discuss uses of Twitter in government. Hear from Lloyd Rang,

Leadership Series Sparks All Kinds Of Questions By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-04-14T15:51:00.006-04:00

We’re now two-thirds of the way through the Leadership Series for directors and managers, and I thought it was about time I blogged about it.The first two sessions were focused versions of the integrated marketing and social media strategy courses offered through learning.comm.I had a great time at the social media session on Thursday. Anyone who’s taken a course with David Jones from Hill and

MCSS Delivers First Spotlights Submission By: Lisa Legatto

2009-04-14T13:42:00.008-04:00

We know they’re out there. We write the deadlines on our calendars and create reminders in Outlook. We plan to get things out of the way and still the dreaded deadline manages to creep up on us. Unexpected crises and busy workloads take up our time and before we know it — the deadline.Last year, on the day of the Spotlights deadline we had a steady parade of colleagues from the ministries

Who Are You? Who Are They? What Are We Thinking? By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-03-26T15:19:00.003-04:00

Selling your product or tailoring your service to 30 million-plus Canadians is daunting.Rupen Seoni and the team at Environics Analytics have made it a little easier by imagining those 30 million Canadians as a much more manageable 66 different clusters of people with similar lifestyles. They’ll even tell you which cluster they think you fit into – just scroll down and click the “Lifestyle Lookup

Move Your Audience By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-03-24T14:04:00.001-04:00

Lots of comments on Steven Green’s Twitter post last week — I think we broke a commenting record — let’s keep it up!The reaction reminded me of why we liked the idea of Kevin McCann as a workshop facilitator for the ReachOut communications conference happening on May 1.He’s all about moving groups of people into action and putting social media tools to work. He reminds us that a simple, targeted

How Obama is Reaching Out By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-03-20T14:33:00.004-04:00

Barack Obama sure picked a good time to become “leader of the free world” didn’t he? Credit crisis turns into bank collapses turns into tarring and feathering of greedy business execs.But turn your clocks back six months and remember the astounding success of his presidential campaign. Even as the in-house Obama sceptic, I was amazed by the way he and his team transformed political campaigning

Step Into The Spotlight By: Kristin Mercurio

2009-03-20T13:58:00.001-04:00

It started as these things often do, with a positive experience, spurred on by all the enthusiasm it stirs up. In February, MOL Communications was acknowledged, for a variety of key accomplishments, by our Ministry colleagues in other branches. Yes, you read that correctly. Our cohorts in Policy and Operations recognized us. For our value add. And all glibness aside, it was sweet. We appreciated

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter! By: Steven Green

2009-03-19T13:18:00.003-04:00

I think I’m done with Twitter.At first I thought it too simple a tool to be an effective marketing or communications tactic. Not enough signal rising above the noise. In an earlier blog post, a colleague and I discussed some of the pros and cons. It still looks like this giant new media zombie to me – it walks and talks, sure, but there isn’t anything going on upstairs.But such is the world of

How does a conference think like the web? By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-03-11T13:30:00.007-04:00

Preparations for our conference on May 1 are really picking up speed and it's time to start letting you know what to expect.A while ago, the team sat down to figure out what this year’s conference was going to be about. What thread did we want to run through it all, starting from the keynote speaker through the workshops and the panel?We decided that this year’s conference needed to strike a

Podcamp Toronto By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-03-02T12:50:00.002-05:00

Yours truly managed to throw himself out of his comfy bed last Saturday and plunge into the world of self-described (and proudly so) web geeks at Podcamp Toronto.What’s a Podcamp, you ask? Well it’s a “meetup for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and new media types of all stripes.”An amazing 900 signed up for the free event, but many decided to watch the live streaming videos from

My Deep Dive Into Social Media By: Lisa Legatto

2009-02-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

For the last year, I’ve been talking the social media talk. I’ve had countless discussions about the importance of social media. I’ve designed courses with very smart people who will teach social media courses. Monday, it was my turn to walk the walk.I was one of 15 participants in learning.comm’s first social media boot camp. The boot camp took place in a computer lab allowing us to “play in the

The Spotlights: Your Time To Shine! By: learning.comm

2009-02-23T15:06:00.010-05:00

The Spotlights honour outstanding achievements by government communicators.This year marks the second edition of the Spotlights. We're looking forward to recognizing the best and brightest in OPS communications at the awards celebration in June. While June might seem a long way off, the deadline to enter this year's awards isn't — April 20 is just around the corner.Not sure what projects you want

Spotlight Awards Launch 2009 By: Jonathan Leigh

2009-02-17T15:38:00.006-05:00

This week we kick off the 2009 Spotlight Awards, beginning with a mid-day launch party tomorrow (Wednesday) in Ontario Room South at noon. If you haven’t already RSVP’d, don’t forget! Don’t let the super-keeners get a leg up on you!Laurie Sloan from the Advertising Review Board will give us the inside scoop from the judges’ deliberations — what they loved, what drove them crazy and tips on how to

Changing With The Times By: learning.comm

2009-02-03T14:51:00.006-05:00

If you could change the way government and citizens interact, what would you do?Last month a bunch of citizens, techies, policy wonks and government employees got together to discuss that very question. And it landed on the front page of the Globe and Mail’s Toronto section.Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation was among the ChangeCamp attendees. He also happens to be our

More On Mashups By: learning.comm

2009-01-27T13:48:00.005-05:00

Read what Melissa Tullio, an intern at the Ministry of Community and Social Services, had to say about the Speakers Series on mashups. She talked about it on her own blog.

Set Your Data Free By: Lara Torvi

2009-01-08T16:47:00.006-05:00

Do you know what a mashup is? It is a little like fusion cooking, taking two cuisines and combining them together to create something that's new and delicious.As Seth Godin explains:When a DJ takes two records and melds and mixes them into something new, that's a mashup. When an Obama supporter takes a twenty year old commercial and splices it with some campaign footage, that's a mashup too.