Skip to content

Tag: government of canada

Poorly written “social media” RFP’s

Now that various public sector organizations are slowly starting to realize that social media engagement is not really an option but rather an imminent requirement, numerous “Request for Proposals” (RFP’s) have been coming out of government with “social media” as part of their titles. Unfortunately, in most cases the RFP dictates required elements which are predominantly tactical in nature:

  • We want to build a social network
  • We want to create a blog
  • We want 5000 friends/followers on channel X

I always double check to see if I missed something, something like a page which states “objectives”, or “purpose” or answers the question “why?” Really, any of those will do. To my dismay, no such page is missing, it’s just never thought of.

Why you need to focus on mobile right now

I recently switched smartphones (now representing 50% of the worldwide cell phone market) from RIM‘s Blackberry Storm to Apple’s iPhone 3GS. Why did I do it, and more importantly why should you care?

The first reason is simple. On November 5th, 2009 Telus released the iPhone, finally taking the Canadian network monopoly away from Rogers (i.e. not my provider of choice to put it lightly).

Google now offering FREE branded YouTube channels for government orgs

A few of my contacts at Google (i.e. owners of YouTube) have recently informed me that the branded YouTube channel (formerly $50,ooo to setup), is now being offered for free to all government departments (this includes the Canadian Government of course).

What’s the difference between a branded and non-branded channel?