1) What steps did you take to develop your brand as a tech, pop culture, PR, fashion and multimedia all-star and when did you realize that you’re officially “tech savvy”?

My entry to the media landscape was as a news-talk producer, which taught me how to find the right story for the right audience from a wide variety of news topics. I got into the tech scene just over two years ago when I produced a technology-based radio and TV show. The tech and mobile space moves just as fast as the news so I’m used to staying on top of trends. I keep up with the latest and greatest because I love technology so my tech-enthusiasm fuels my passion.

Can you tell us about some current trends you think will strike it big?

Augmented reality has been a buzz-word for some time now, however, it will be explored even more in the next year or so, especially in the world of online shopping. There are a growing number of eCommerce sites that offer deals on fashion and home decor like HauteLook, eBay’s fashion store (Fashion Vault), HomeSav, Gilt, and Amazon’s newly launched MyHabit, that need to find innovative ways to attract more shoppers and encourage more spending. This is where augmented reality will make its grand entrance onto the catwalk. A web cam or front-facing camera allows shoppers to virtually “try on” clothing and accessories from the comfort of their own home.

eBay recently rolled out an AR app to help shoppers try on sunglasses before buying. UK retailer Banana Flame’s AR app, the Social Shopper, lets you try on a bunch of outfit virtually by standing 4-5 feet away from your web cam and moving the pieces onto your body. You can share the pictures with your friends. It’s only a matter of time before your Facebook News Feed page will have status updates like: “Does this outfit make me look hot? Plz comment. I’m taking a poll on whether or not I should buy it at 50 per cent off. Good deal, eh?”

Do you have any favourite sources of tech/media news?

I refer to a lot of sites. Off the top of my head: Engadget, TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat, LA Times Tech, Vancouver Sun, The Verge (formerly This Is My Next), TrendHunter. Another good source is the MediaBistro newsletter which provides a succinct rundown of the top stories in news, pop culture, and tech. I also enjoy listening to Leo LaPorte’s podcast, The Week in Tech as I appreciate his perspective as well as the strong panel of opinionated guests he invites.

Integrating platforms such as TV, film and the web in order to provide a single, transmedia experience for users seems increasingly important — is there anyone in the digital space who’s doing this particularly well?

One brand that immediately comes to mind is Salomon, the makers of sports-specific clothing, footwear, and equipment. They’ve done an impressive job of taking elements of TV and film and applying it to the web and online audience with the launch of its web-series, Freeski TV. The content in each episode is compelling, interesting and leaves viewers hungry for more. Salomon is reliable and consistent on delivering the content for its growing audience; as a result, they’ve earned respect as a strong yet cool brand in the industry. They’ve innovated the advertising model for ski/snowboard from being a logo slapped on an athlete’s helmet to utilizing content to drive brand awareness and loyalty. It worked on me, as I just bought new gear from them.

If you were to coin a term that communicates today’s current media landscape (that isn’t “new media”) what would that term be?

“Distinctively trending media” The current media landscape is hustling to be bigger, broader, and grander. Media players, brands, companies and personalities are experimenting with ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors. There is no clear path in the landscape for anyone, it’s like throwing darts at the board until something sticks or better yet hit a bull’s eye. Essentially, players are experimenting in this media playground with the intention of being distinctive and trending. #Innovation

Here are some of the things we’ve done to cook up a delicious workplace culture at the office. Feel free to copy these ideas in your own workplace.

Introduce new team members with fun facts and favourite foods

As the team expands, there’s a bevy of new faces in the office and it’s always our goal to make each new addition feel welcome. New team members are introduced via company-wide email and, as an icebreaker, we share some fun facts about the person, including their favourite foods. It’s a terrific talking point and something that most people can identify with or feel comfortable inquiring about.

Deadlines meet dinnertime

We’re a tech company with deadlines to keep , so it’s no surprise when people surpass regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours to get a job done. Here at Invoke, we sometimes bring in dinner to keep everyone going while they diligently finish up projects. To make it easier, we’ve been testing (and using)  Food.ee and having the food come to us. There’s nothing like sharing a meal while working to galvanize a team and remind everyone of shared goals.

Find food trucks together

Remember going into fits of delight when you heard that old, familiar ice cream truck jingle roll by on your street? Well, finding a food truck together can be nostalgically thrilling. Just ask our developer, Jon Chui, who goes into paroxysms of joy when he spots the Tacofino truck rolling by.

Come Friday lunch, Invokers can be found joining our friends at HootSuite for Food Cart Fridays or using the Eat St. App to locate food truck finds near our new location and sharing our discoveries, and our lunches, with the team.

No team member left behind

Inquire about food allergies and dietary restrictions. You can’t bank on everyone being able to eat absolutely everything. To ensure that you don’t feel terrible every time you offer your peanut-allergic coworker some of your trail mix, do be mindful of your coworkers’ dietary restrictions. There’s no reason why everybody can’t be included in food sharing and food fun at the office.

Graph via PEW Internet Project

What if your grade relied on how many tweets you sent out during the semester? Sound crazy? It’s not unheard of these days. With the proliferation of social media and social networking sites, professors are finding ways to integrate social media and digital platforms into the classroom.

From class Wikis and course-specific hashtags, to tweetups, guest speakers via Skype and live-streams of lectures, professors are finding creative ways to extend the classroom onto the web. A Pearson Education social media survey in 2010 found that overall, 80 per cent of educators have at least one social network account and social network use is highest in humanities and social sciences faculty.

According to a PEW Internet study on college students and technology, 86 per cent of undergraduates and 82 per cent of graduate students are using social networking sites. Students are using social media before class, during class, and after class. Why not leverage this and extend the educational experience?

How is it being used?

As an intern at Invoke and a business and communications student at Simon Fraser University (SFU), social media has played a significant role in my student and professional life. At SFU, various professors have taken to social media to enrich the classroom. Richard Smith, a professor of communication, teaches Introduction to Information Technology and was my dive into the deep-end of the world of social media. When I took the course, there was a classroom option and an online option. I enrolled into the online class and the lectures were entirely live-streamed for the 13 weeks of the semester. In the comfort of my pyjamas, every week I signed in to view the lecture, which was live-streamed from the lecture room.  The online students, participated in discussions via chat. But the online experience crossed over into an offline experience as tutorials were held in-person and online classmates became more than just usernames and words on a screen.

Peter Chow-White, an assistant professor of communication, teaches Social Contexts of Information Technology. Besides using a course-specific hashtag (#cmns353), sharing YouTube videos, and connecting with students via Twitter, he also integrates a class Wiki to enrich the collaborative experience of the classroom. The Wiki became the central location for discussion between the students, the professor and the teaching assistant – we shared study guides and notes, accessed readings, and helped each other when preparing for midterms and final exams. The Twitter experience enhanced the classroom experience as it became another platform to share interesting and relevant links and connect with each other.

In other courses, Skype was used to engage in a discussion with a guest speaker on the other side of the country in a different time zone. In this way, social media was used to connect with someone we otherwise would not have had access to. In another course, we were required to have a Twitter account and a percentage of the grade depended on our participation and activity on the social network.

Why should you use it

Social media is about connecting people and its’ ability to traverse temporal and spatial boundaries is a key characteristic that allows it to be integrated into the classroom. Education is a continuous process that extends beyond the lecture hall. As students flock to popular social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, educators need to find ways to broaden their reach beyond the classroom and continue the discussion long after the PowerPoint notes and tutorials.

As a skill, having Microsoft Office on your resume was once highly regarded; nowadays, experience and skills in social media are valued. Besides enhancing the educational experience, it is becoming increasingly important to learn about and develop skills in social media. As businesses begin to integrate social media into their strategic plans and business models, it is important to introduce these skills to students as they plan their careers and begin their job search.

New media is increasingly becoming the site of self-expression and social, technological, and cultural change. It has the potential to create new textual experiences, new patterns of media consumption, new representations of the world (such as virtual environments), and, most importantly, it shifts our personal and social experiences with implications on identity and community. New media has the ability to affect how we experience ourselves, our place in the world, and, in this context, our roles as students. To leverage this new technology is to tap into an entirely new social experience and a new way of communicating and interacting with others in our community, be it a community of employees or a community of students and educators.

When hiring an intern at Invoke to help out with the Eat St. App, I wanted to take a page from Google’s book and offer her a chance to dedicate 20 per cent of her time to either our internal processes or our customers in any way she sees fit. Then, I realized this would be cutting a day out of the week to help with projects I desperately needed her assistance with. How could I empower her to be creative while still completing our objectives? It’s simple — I could give her 80 per cent time instead.

Essentially 80 per cent time is this – hire the people you can trust to manage their time, create quality products and act in the best interest of the company. Take up 20 per cent of their time providing direction, purpose and a clear objective and then get the hell out of the way.

Eighty per cent time isn’t an official Invoke policy. But it’s part of the company culture whether employees realize it or not. When I first started, I was attending a company party in the Hootsuite office and I distinctly remember asking Invoke’s COO, David Tedman how Invoke managed to pump out such quality products with a young staff roster. His answer was that they look for the best and brightest locally, nationally and internationally. There’s a huge focus on the people. What I didn’t realize then was that he was only telling me part of the reason. The secret sauce is 80 per cent time.

The 80 per cent of the time Invoke employees aren’t in meetings with management, they’re coming up with creative ideas to fulfill their objectives, bouncing them off colleagues and executing them. There are set milestones to check-in at, but management isn’t standing over their employees’ shoulders micro-managing.

So how’s it working out? Recently, Hootsuite hit two million users, Eat St. got featured in a full page Apple ad in the NY Times and Invoke’s own Kate LeGresley got her transmedia article published in Forbes online. There’s no reason to be shy about 80 per cent time, because it can’t be stolen. It’s baked into the company culture. I encourage other companies to empower their employees in the same way, but it has to start early and come from the top.

Article written under his own free will by Corey Dilley, a recent Invoke hire working on Eat St. You can check out more of his marketing ideas on his personal blog.

More importantly, do you need to be? Having a presence on every single social media is not only time consuming, it exhausts valuable resources.  Deciding which networks your brand should be on is now easier, with CMO’s Guide to the social landscape.

From Tumblr to Facebook, the guide is an essential read for brands wanting to better leverage major social media sites. CMO.com has done the research for you, explaining which websites offer the best in customer communication, brand exposure, site traffic and search engine optimization.

For example, did you know that photos properly tagged on Flickr are indexed in search engines and passes links and page rank? Flickr is also a major part of Google’s and Bing’s social search component—increasing search engine rankings organically. Flickr = great SEO.

Or did you know Linkedin doesn’t send as much traffic to your site as Facebook, however, it’s great for brand exposure showing the professional prowess of your organization? Linkedin = not so good traffic to site.

Before diving and creating multiple profiles on every single social site, save time and resources by selecting the best fit for your brand’s goals.  Invoke can help you create a strategy that integrates social engagements across social media channels.