Word AIDS Day is held on the the first day of December as an opportunity for people to unite in the fight against HIV and to show support, and remember, those with HIV and those who have died from AIDS.

It’s a day to learn the facts and take this information to make healthy choices and remember to treat people with HIV fairly.

In Vancouver today, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS launched their brand new website, www.treatmentasprevention.ca. Designed and built by Invoke, the site is a resource for people who want to learn more about HIV, where to get tested and where to find local resources. Treatment as prevention may sound backwards but what it comes down to is this: the more people who get tested, diagnosed and treated, the less chances of them spreading HIV. Treatment as Prevention has a positive message to share — HIV treatment prevents spreading the illness. So while there isn’t an immediate cure, it is possible to slow transmission. It’s a good thing to consider on World AIDS Day.

The BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is dedicated to improving the health of BC residents through monitoring, research and treatment programs for the disease. Use the  new site to take the Fact of Fiction quiz, share your story about an experience you had getting tested and get the basics about HIV and AIDS.

Get the latest news, check out Treatment as Prevention twitter feed and join the community on Facebook from the site.

So what happens after World AIDS Day? You can still take action and take the pledge to  get tested and to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS in British Columbia — and elsewhere — by visiting the Treatment as Prevention website, or liking the organization on Facebook.

Listen up Los Angeles, LA.com is giving away tickets to see Jay-Z and Kanye West in concert, Dec.13 at the Staples Center. This is your chance to win free tickets to see the Watch the Throne tour! Our pals at LA.com Deals are running a contest that we think you’ll love.

We’re working with LA.com and Deals.LA.com, (which is not only has hyper local daily deals), but they also have monthly contests too. Last month it was Katy Perry tickets, *swoon. This month: Jay-Z and Kanye West tickets.

It’s not just two nose bleed tickets either. No siree. Deals.LA.com is hooking you and 12 friends up with a luxury suite at Staples Center. And all you have to do is register to win. The contest is on now until Nov. 30, so register soon.

We also recommend you share this contest with your friends. Because if they win they’ll be obliged to take you, because you were the one that told them about the sweepstakes in the first place! Right?

Register here for your chance to win.

You can also check out LA.com’s Facebook and Twitter profiles for deals, events, and news in and around L.A.

Creating the perfect HootSuite dashboard is an art. It’s a process involving choosing keywords to track, search terms, finding lists, and building lists, in order to get the most out of social media updates from around the world. At a glance, HootSuite’s dashboard organizes the noise of Twitter. It automatically refreshes, it shows conversations, it gives you a quick view of images without clicking on links, etc.

Below, I share my top 5 must have Twitter streams from my Twitter tab. I also have an Inbox/Outbox tab, a Facebook tab, Linkedin tab, and Fun tab, for all the other social profiles HootSuite organizes, but that’s another post. I will admit, I do not have a MySpace tab.

It’s important to set up a dashboard to best suit your needs. Are you just reading what others are saying, or are you actively using Twitter to interact with friends, companies and power users? As a community manager, I use Twitter to watch what people are saying about Invoke, its products, its clients and its projects. I also use Twitter to follow breaking news stories, a select number of friends’ tweets, and any RT to win campaigns. What?! I like free stuff too.

1) @Mentions
This is a standard stream to have, but one of the most important. Quickly see who has included your Twitter handle in a tweet. Collaborate with team members and see if someone has already responded. Never miss mention again. You can easily respond, RT or DM, favourite, email, and assign a message to a team member. For a wider range of mentions, consider create a search column with your brands keywords and URL, which you can also share with a team to track who has replied to the mentions.

2) An influencers Twitter list
I have a tab dedicated to digital lists that I follow. However, I recommend following and monitoring your industry news in at least one stream in your dashboard. By following lists influencers have created you don’t have to spend time creating one from scratch and you will be at the forefront of industry news. A quick Google search with your industry’s keywords will bring up loads of lists to choose from. Keywords like tech, news, magazine’s, design, agency creative, celebrities (just kidding). Find and follow a list then add it to your HootSuite dashboard.

3) The people you work with stream
Never miss an inside joke, where the boss is, a tip from a guy in a different department, etc. Create and manage a Team Twitter list to track real updates of the people you work with. Include all your company’s twitter profiles, products, and people. It great way to track what tweets are going out, give feedback on the laguage being used, and again at a glance, know what everyone is reading / sharing / doing!

4) Clients
Create a stream of your clients Twitter profiles. You can create the stream by draging and dropping or by keyword. A keyword stream will act as a newsfeed, as it will help you stay on top of what they are up to, who they are talking to, what language they are using, what others are saying to them etc. It’s also a huge time saver for finding content to post. You use the stream to write tweets by RT’ing, replying to, and thanking them.

5) RT to win OR comment to win
Ok ok it’s not a must have stream, but it is a great one to have! Create a search stream with “RT to win” OR “comment to win” and just browse some of the campaigns out there. We have had several people in the office win something, and that’s fun!

This list is not complete. What streams do you have in the first tab of your HootSuite, the ones you go to daily?

Ashish Gurung teaches an undergraduate social media course at SFU Beedie School of Business. He is also involved with a bunch of other stuff ‚ some startups, some consulting and lots of non-profits. Find him @ashishgurung and http://www.ashishgurung.ca

Tell us a bit about the social media course you created. What motivated you to create an entire course about social media at SFU’s Beedie School of Business?

Jan Kietzmann, a SFU professor, had the idea to bring social media to the business school. We noticed students were entering the work force with little or no formal education in social media. So, we paired up to teach this course. This is the first course dedicated to social media at the SFU Beedie School of Business. It just makes sense — students need to be educated about social media, especially from a business-driven context. It’s a natural and needed extension to our undergraduate program. Plus our class reached the waiting list within a few days of registration.

Why do you think it’s important for students to learn about and familiarize themselves with social media?

It’s important for our students to not only learn about current trends in social media, but to understand social media as a whole – from learning about behavioural economics, to virality and building communities. We’re bringing the gap between the classroom and industry. We’re skyping in awesome startups like Summify and Launchrock, and the students get a chance to meet leaders from Invoke, HootSuite and EA. It’s a great balance between theory and practical applications. Students will be leaving our class with a greater understanding of social media and its impact on both society and businesses.

Why do you think it’s important to incorporate social media in universities and lecture halls?

I think it’s very important to incorporate social media in our classrooms. I know many instructors who still don’t believe in the power of social media and refuse to integrate it in their classrooms. It’s how the students communicate with each other — it’s how they hear the news. There’s a high probability that students are browsing Facebook while in class. It’s important to now use these tools to enhance the learning experience.

Invoke: Where do you see the future of social media in the classroom?

Our class uses a Facebook group and Twitter chat (#bus495) to communicate with each other and it’s awesome. Students are posting articles, comments and having discussions everyday on our Facebook group and Twitter chat. I’m surprised by how much the students have embraced it — they’re communicating with each other, getting to know each other and are having intelligent conversations over these channels. As the instructors, we’re using Facebook to post online notes, presentations and class updates. I’m hoping to see more classrooms embrace social media. The goal is to create a culture in the classroom where students are learning from each other and from the instructors. I believe we’ll start to see educators adopt web apps that encourage a social learning environment.

What are your top five industry sites that you check out on a regular basis?

Hacker News,  Summify, 
Hootsuite , Social Media Examiner and TechCrunch.

This Friday, at the Woodwards building in Gastown, Invoke is demonstrating our projects as a part of the VEDC Innovation Gallery. Along with five other Vancouver companies, we have been selected to display and chat about how the digital space and the TV/film space are intersecting more than ever, how our experience has been and what we think the future holds.

Our experience in transmedia lies in creating digital strategies, using the memelabs platform, and building mobile applications.

The memelabs platform has been used for some outstanding transmedia projects in past, including VH1’s hit television show Single Ladies. TV viewers now have social networks to chat, share and comment on their favourite shows. For Single Ladies, we built a memelabs contest in Facebook people could submit entries too based around theme tied to the show. When the TV pilot first aired, the photo contest had a surge of photo entries. In the span of 65 day-campaign, there were 5,731 photos submitted.

Another path TV and film producers should consider are mobile apps. Paperny films, Food Network Canada, and Invoke came together to build a mobile application to be used alongside the TV show Eat St. The Eat St. mobile app is a utility app for finding food trucks in your area. The app is a tool and plays an important role in the real world and the TV show played a huge role in the app’s marketing.

It’s really no surprise that Invoke will be at the mix and mingler, networking reception of Friday’s event. We’re excited to chat with and help out the TV/film folks cross over to the interactive space.

From the website:
Merging + Media Conference is Canada’s premier cross-media conference. M+M’s current focus is to help promote the understanding of cross-media production in the media industry. Initiatives created aim at providing industry awareness and opportunities for partnerships to develop between media sectors. More info on Facebook and Twitter.