MaRS

Don't be left in the dust.

When it comes to new media, it’s important to get beyond the buzz. The web has brought upon us a new communications paradigm for the 21st Century. To early adopters, the domain of “www” is a cinch, to others; it can be decidedly perplexing.

Some would say we suffer from perpetual information overload, an overwhelming stasis. However, paralysis – a common response to feeling overwhelmed – should not be the answer; nor should sticking your head in the sand. A reductionist approach that dismisses the web phenomenon as a “generational thing” will not work either.

Virtual conferences: Coming soon to your couch

Save money. Save time. Save the environment.

Welcome to the world of virtual conferences.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, more and more organizations are choosing to offer virtual conferences instead of traditional ones. Attendees can watch webcasts of sessions or download videos at their leisure. They can interact with each other through forums, blogs and Twitter. And, best of all, they can avoid airport line-ups, security checks, travel expenses, bland meeting rooms and the huge carbon footprint of air travel—the beauty of a virtual conference is that it can be attended from the comfort of your ergonomic office chair. (or couch. Or bed. Or wherever.)

The Semantic Web: More intuitive than ever

The web’s capacity to be instantaneous, replicable and viral is offering up unparalleled results.

In fact, never before has offline mobilization happened more quickly or in a robust manner than yielded by web-enabled, people-powered or co-created mediums.

Many associate social tech strategy with Obama-rama. The hyper-local, hyper-segmented campaign resulted in $639M raised, 67% of it through online donations. It might have taken the inauguration of the “people’s president” to mint the intersection between social tech and social change, but it is only one among countless stories.

Chris Hughes, Facebook cofounder

Founding executives of Facebook once said the only way they’d be stopping in Waterloo Region, Ontario Canada, was if the plane crashed while flying to the east coast. How times have changed.

If there is any better evidence that things are hopping in Waterloo Region, it’s got to be that the tech and talent in this little area west of Toronto can attract someone like Chris Hughes, one of the three co-founders of Facebook, to speak as a part of “Entrepreneur Week” on November 16th.

Designing for the crowd

So you’ve got the killer social application, community, feature, software. The idea is going to make mint! Now what?

According to IDEA2009 – the conference for social and experience design, held here at MaRS yesterday – you need to design an experience that will make that idea sing with users. For that, Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone, authors of O’Reilly Media’s Designing Social Interfaces, present: 5 Steps, 5 Principles and 5 No-No’s for your killer social media innovation.