Journey

Jamaica Pegasus Tweetup, The Second Edition

// September 4th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Cool Stuff, Life, Technology

The Jamaica Pegasus has done it again! They have staged the second successful Tweetup in Jamaica. A tweetup is a social event for twitter users to meet, mingle and socialise in person. The Pegasus first hosted a tweetup on June 18, 2010, it was the first event of it’s kind in Jamaica and was a huge success. Jamaican twitter users all over were talking about the event for months, wait, correction we are still talking about the event. When the second event was announced it took only 8 hours to fill the 250 person cap for the event, the previous event took 3 weeks (only 150 people). In total over 300 people actually attended.

Was it better than the last one? Definitely! The food was good, and Capt. Collin Hinds kept the music juggling. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, people were actually dancing on the dance floor. One thing to note was that people were actually socialising, in person, and not just tweeting away on their phones. Marcia Forbes, twitter’s Jamaican media queen, prepared a survey for attendees to fill out on twitter usage and demographics, I can’t wait to see the results in her upcoming book. Mrs. Prudence Simpson, head tweeter for @JamaicaPegasus was also out and about greeting everyone. Corve Dacosta recently interviewed Mrs. Simpson for his The Last Word series on his blog, take a read. A tonne of prizes were also being given away, my friends @persephone101, @byrumjr and @wabamonsta were all winners, as well as @sweetpersona who always seems to win something as well. There were several other winners as well for prizes like a weekend for two at Secrets Resorts, which is another twitter-friendly hotel.

I was glad to meet with a lot of tweeples (twitter people) at the event, the list is big so I won’t call names, but thank you all! Due to the larger venue I don’t think people mingled quite as much as the last one, but it was absolutely necessary given the volume of people. After the event a group of us ended up going to the 24/7 Cafe on premises to enjoy some Bailey’s Milkshakes and Sandwiches. We didn’t end up leaving The Pegasus until after 2 AM! My only disappointment in the night was that nobody jumped in the kiddies pool, I was betting on that next time I guess? I would like to thank The Jamaica Pegasus for organising a great event, I had a great time! Please see some photos below:

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The Jamaican Blogger Project

// August 27th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Cool Stuff, Technology

Yesterday Morning Nicky McFarlane came up with the idea of Jamaican Bloggers using the hashtag #jamaicanblogger to make blogs easier to find. Well, this is a prime case for social media, within an hour the hashtag was being shared heavily on twitter, and within a few hours over 45 blogs were tracked. I am currently tracking the term #jamaicanblogger, #jamaicanbloggers, “jamaican blogger” online to see how much it is used. Please see the widget below:

Also you can follow these bloggers on my twitter list: http://twitter.com/utenjm/jamaican-bloggers

To get listed please tweet your url and #jamaicanblogger also please encourage friends to share so we can get a full listing of Jamaican blogs. Eventually I will aggregate the data and post it online, so we can have a central library of Jamaican blogs. Also please share in the comments below how using the hashtag has helped you get more visitors, better search engine ranking or new twitter followers! Thanks

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Kingston Beta: The Town Hall Meeting

// August 27th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Cool Stuff, Life, Technology

Kingston Beta is the bimonthly networking event and Startup pitch platform where Jamaican and Caribbean tech/internet/mobile/business professionals, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts come To Learn. To Be Inspired. To Network.

It was founded by Ingrid Riley, entrepreneur, blogger and tech evangelist in 2007. Since then,  Kingston Beta has seen hundreds of attendees and scores of startup pitches from Jamaica, plus Caribbean startups from the region and the United States.

Today’s meeting was different than I expected. I had never been to a Kingston Beta meeting before and somewhat expected a hollywood style frenzy of the who’s who in tech. Ok so I was a bit imaginative, the who’s who of tech was there but it was a lot more down to earth than expected. The theme of the event was a Town Hall Meeting. The main discussion was supposed to take place after a Skype conference call with a guest speaker, but ninjas kept stealing the wireless signal and we had to abandon hope.

The discussion was vibrant and informative, unfortunately the habit of introducing people came mid-way discussion, so if you attended please add comments below so I can give kudos where due.

Ingrid Riley, Founder of Kingston Beta

The initial topic was how Digicel’s 4G is going to help spur entrepreneur-ism in Jamaica. The general consensus is that nobody could say how it would help directly, however greater internet access would aid development, especially in the form of jobs and web applications. Ingrid also pointed out that Facebook now has over four hundred thousand (400,000) Jamaican users. These statistics show just how much potential there is in social media and web development, since there is a large user base to interact with.

From the initial discussion we moved on to the value of social media, after the town’s Doubting Thomas, who’s real name is David Clayton, asked who was making money from social media. A long discussion ensued going over the difference between using social media to make money and making money from social media. This discussion drew contributions from nearly everyone, it was quite informative. As one of the last people to hold the mic, I summarised that to make money from social media you either need to be a social media marketer, a company using social media marketing, a content generator/developer, a content distributor, or a data harvester. Everyone who makes money from or as a result of social media falls into one of those 5 categories.

Foursquare, my favourite topic was also discussed. The question came up about who used it, what it was about, how does it benefit businesses? Of the 15 or so people in the room, about 5 were on Foursquare, we were referred to as the early adopters. Earlier in a twitter discussion with one of my followers we figured there were around 100 Foursquare users in Jamaica. I am beginning to think there are many more. Foursquare is a geolocation social networking application that allows users to compete for points and mayorships. In essence it is a game that allows venues to reward users by offering specials. Users who share their Foursquare activity with Facebook and Twitter then help to build presence for the venue they are checked in at. It was also noted that there are serious privacy concerns for a new user, however once someone understands that it is not always best to check in, or share your location then they can proceed to becoming mayor of their most frequented venues. I also managed to testify on the increased discussion levels online for Chilitos Mexican Restaurant because of their Foursquare special.

My Elite Grocer’s Gale Peart confronted the developers at the meeting by asking why there were not more local smart-phone and web applications, especially for Facebook. She emphasised local media houses had good content that needed create mediums for sharing it. Also corporate Jamaica could use these applications for better service and support. Hey with 400,000 Facebook users, if 10,000 of them paid US$1 for an application then that is the equivalent of a young programmer’s salary for a year.

Overall the event was good, had a long discussion afterwards as well with some of the attendees. I will definately try to attend the next one, I hear there are big plans for it being part of an international entrepreneurs week. Please comment below if I have left out anything.

Twitter users who attended:

@yorkali @ingridriley @persephone101 @chrysalisceo @forresterod @myelitegrocer @moniquepowell @top5jamaica @marciaforbes @CRAC16 these are just the usernames I know, please comment if I forgot you. Thanks! ’til next time!

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Reforming Jamaica’s Education System Using Social Media

// August 23rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Life, Technology

Jamaica’s education system is in distress. In the past, Jamaica’s education system used to be hailed internationally for churning out top students. Although we still do, the general standard of education has fallen over the years. In the 90’s a fallout was created when both the UK and US created special programs to recruit our teachers and other professionals. This brain drain coupled with a change in society and home life has fueled our growing education problem. The government now has an even greater issue, in trying to clamp down on spending and to control the country’s debt, it is cutting down on tertiary tuition subsidies.

In the past ten years though the internet has proven how access to information can change lives entirely. What we need to do now is embrace the technology available to us to solve our issues. Back in 2002 or 2003 I submitted an idea to Cable and Wireless for an international competition they were hosting to find the next big idea, unfortunately I didn’t win, however I think it can still be used today. The idea was to create an online platform like Wikipedia to store information for Caribbean school syllabi. Why is this better than wikipedia? Because it is controlled and precise, the information would be relevant to the current syllabus in an easy to read form.

Since then I have attended university online and taken part in web-casts and online tutorials. What was available in 2002 is nothing compared to what is available today. Now information exchange is affordable. Cheap cameras allow every class/lecture to be recorded on the fly. The video can then be uploaded for students to watch again, or to prepare themselves for the next class. Wouldn’t it be easier to do your homework if you could re-watch math class from this morning? We could have the best teachers do video lessons, so every student can have the same access to the best of the best. The tutorials also don’t have to be location specific, members of the diaspora could contribute time to help create a lesson. Also thanks to the Caribbean Examinations Council, all students in the Caribbean follow the same syllabus, so create it for one country and it applies to the whole region.

Today’s generation is fully integrated online, after video lessons / online notes are created they can then be shared using class mailing lists, Facebook, Twitter or any other social network. Allowing students to discuss and share content using platforms they are used to and want to use. Content can be hosted using free course management system Moodle, which is already being used by NCU, UWI and UTech, as well as thousands of schools worldwide.

OLPC XO Laptop

In Jamaica we have the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. The project is aimed at integrating the XO laptop in our primary schools. The laptop is rugged, affordable and scalable. It is designed to be worked on (literally) by a young child (5-12) and the software is fully open source, with contributors all over the world. If the government and private sector would support a project to roll these out to primary schools it would totally change the way Jamaica learns. The laptops also network with each other, allowing a mesh network to be created to share information between students via wireless without the installation of expensive infrastructure. XO laptops also support Moodle right out of the box!

The fact is, if the government and private sector made an investment in technology and social media for education, we could greatly increase literacy rates and the quality of education overall. This investment would provide even greater returns if it was done as a regional effort. This is far greater than ensuring each school has a computer lab to learn word processing. Everyone would have the same access to information regardless of background or economic conditions. Tutorials can be shared online to give everyone access to the best teachers. The information is there for 24/7 access by anyone, making research and studying easier. Tertiary education costs could also be cut as some classes can be held entirely online, using material previously generated. The greatest gain from a project like this would be what we cannot imagine or measure now. The possibilities are endless.

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Digicel: The Experience

// August 22nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Life, Technology

Last night I attended Digicel’s 4G launch at Hope Gardens in Kingston. I knew this event was going to be one not to miss, after receiving my invitation in a gold envelope earlier in the week. After entering the venue I was greeted first by Tashana in the 4G lounge, where my drink was ordered via MSN messenger to the bar. Tashana then invited me to experience 4G using one of the computers on hand. I promptly tested and was happy with the results of 8MB/s.

Tashana and myself Digicel 4G Experience

Speed on Digicel 4G service

There were some other attractions as well like the Digicel 4G martini which was made with dry ice:

Digicel 4G Martini

There was also food, and lots of it, I remember seeing at least 3 different buffet tables, I am partial to Sushi though:

om nom nom nom

Thanks to tweeples @persephone101 for coming with me and @andrewcheeky who attended as well:

@persephone101 and myself

@andrewcheeky and @dmitridawkins

Mark Linehan Digicel’s CEO welcomed everyone and made a brief speech on the impact that Digicel 4G will have on the country’s development and GDP. I was glad, because I blogged about what impact 4G could have last week. Afterwards he introduced a new commercial and video, myself and a few others were a bit upset at the video, since it was a ripoff of a viral video launched in 2008! Considering the video has 11 million views on youtube, they must realise people will have noticed. The replaced each frame that has “Did you know?” with “Digiknow” in company colours. Shame. See the original video below:

The night’s live musical entertainment started off with a live stream from disc jockey @pjbutta in LA. Everyone was skeptical of the stream because of the great sound quality but when @pjbutta looked at his watch and told us what the exact time was, we knew it would have been hard to sync that. Kudos to Digicel on using a live stream over 4G service. Tami Chynn shortly followed live on stage afterwards singing several numbers, getting the crowd to actually move. While she was performing I was thinking to myself I wish Tami’s sister, Tessanne, could perform tonight as well.

Tami Chynn

The next live stream over Digicel 4G was to Junction St. Elizabeth where Wayne Marshall was performing. This time the audio quality was not as good as @pjbutta but it was still good, the stream didn’t lag at all. After his performance my wish was granted as Tessanne Chin graced the stage, can you say win? What was even better was when both sisters performed a new single from Tessanne’s upcoming album.

Tessanne and Tami

Overall the night was great, thanks to Digicel for inviting me, you guys sure know how to throw a party, ahmm I mean launch a product!

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Facebook Places, Failure to Launch?

// August 19th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Social Media Marketing, Technology

Using the Tagline Who, What, When, and Now…Where Facebook has officially announced the introduction of Facebook places. Will this be a killer for geolocation services Gowalla and Foursquare? It’s a bit early to tell however they may have taken a wrong step by not including certain features.

Places is currently only available in the US first of all, whereas both Foursquare and Gowalla support international venues. Places was also only released with an iphone app and a website for phones that support HTML5, this excludes millions of Blackberry and Android users from using a native app to check in.Given these facts Facebook may not gain traction as quickly since it lacks a single killer feature. Also most smart-phones are not able to use the online checkin since HTML5 is still an emerging technology. The lack of international support really is another issue especially in developing countries like Jamaica where check-in based service Foursquare is one the rise.

Facebook does have one feature that trumps both Foursquare and Gowalla, when a friend tags you at a location you are automatically checked in there. Facebook also shows friends nearby, so you can link up. Both features raise serious privacy concerns though, especially if they are turned on by default. Also if you can be tagged anywhere how is this verified?

It is clear Facebook plans on monetizing the service, with a places for business section under their help page (so they are definately competing with Foursquare). Facebook has also promised to have a read API ready (allows applications to work with Facebook Places) which should allow Foursquare and Gowalla to integrate their apps with Facebook’s new service. By allowing Facebook checkins through Foursquare, Foursquare could increase market share by being THE major app for third party checkins on Facebook, since there is no official app got Android or Blackberry (that would be ironic).

It is still too early to tell but with lack of international support and no native applications for Android and Blackberry this seems like a case of deferred success. What do you think? Please comment below:

Your Name is Your Brand

// August 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Life, Social Media Marketing, Technology

Search engines, everyone uses them and now people are using them to find you. When you start a new job or project and people first hear your name their first instinct is to look you up online. If someone searched for you online what would they find? For most people the first page is their Facebook account. Other social networks like linked in, twitter, myspace, youtube, formspring, foursquare may also show up. Some people may have personal blogs which will also be featured in the search.

So what do those pages say about you? After all you want to give the right impression to those searching for you. Do your top search results include items which you would prefer to be invisible? With social networking becoming more and more integrated personal information and activities are available online.

To help reduce your visibility online I suggest you adjust your privacy settings on Facebook, only share what is necessary and only to your friends. Also if you have a blog or account with questionable content, then share it using an alias (nickname or different last name). Most blogs also give you the option to turn off search engine crawling, which prevents search engines from indexing your blog. Also search for yourself regularly, don’t wait for something embarassing to pop up before you do something about it. Remember your name is your brand, protect it, once it loses integrity it is hard to reclaim.

For more information and tips subscribe to @DM3Tips and @DmitriDawkins or click like on Facebook!

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Online Ads: Location is Key

// August 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

The first time I ran an online campaign I was amazed at the multitude of options I could select. The level of precision that I could target my ads was impressive and immediately I thought, standard advertising is dead. Well standard advertising isn’t quite dead, but social media marketing is quickly gaining traction as an effective marketing tool for nearly every type of business. Before we continue let’s understand the following:

Analytics

Website analytics are used to track what visitors are doing on a website. This information cannot be used to identify a specific person, however it can share information such as their city/town and country, as well as what they clicked and how long they spent on each page.

Conversions

A conversion is when you get a visitor to follow a specific path to complete a given task. This could be signing up to your newsletter, or purchasing  a product or filling out a survey. In your online campaign one can have several aims and track the channels for each conversion.

So….

Given these two terms we can then create a very precise standard online ad campaign. When standard online ads are coupled with social networks like Facebook, it is made even more powerful. Facebook allows you to target ads based on age, adding another option to location and keyword fields targeting. Given these tools one can create an ad for a specific area (Kingston, Jamaica) and specify an age group (18-25) who are searching or reading about cars for an upcoming product targeted to that area, age group and interest. Not only that but using analytics an online ad manager can see exactly how many people interact with your ad, what they do on your web-page and track subsequent conversions. The higher the conversion rate, the more successful your ad campaign is. The best part about this is there is no guess work and you know how effectively the online ad campaign is affecting your sales or interactions (by tracking conversions).

Creating an online presence

Even if your ad viewers are not interacting as you would like you are still increasing your online ad presence. What is an online presence? Well it is the level of brand awareness online. How can we track this? By looking for keywords on Twitter and Google, to see how people are discussing your brand, see who is sharing your content and to see which online personalities have the most influence. Sometimes the buzz generated by those with high influence is so great you can make the person a brand ambassador.

So in short, when creating an online ad you don’t have to worry about creating a huge campaign that is going to be visible to the whole internet. You can target the ad to a specific parish or city, age group and specific keywords, for maximum effect and minimum cost. Traditional media sells blanket advertising, online ads are specific to your target market only. How have you interacted with social media advertising?

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Jamaica: The Digital Era

// August 10th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Life, Technology

Jamaica is being ushered into a new digital era. Never before has the country had so much opportunity for development. For years Jamaica has developed more and more business based on information and communication technologies (ICT), but this is now about to explode. Today with the launch of the first 4G data service Jamaica will soon be recognised for how ICT can turn around a Caribbean country.

When computers were first made, hardware was the limiting factor, after the cost of hardware fell and capacity increased, programming languages were the restriction. Shortly after that the limiting factor was people who could use these computers. Currently the limiting factor is access to the internet. In Jamaica many people have access to computers, broadband access however is still limited in rural areas. The more people get access to the internet is the greater the nation will be developed. Access to the internet is the opportunity for a paradigm shift for the nation.

When someone first gains access to the internet they realise what was impossible is now possible. This does not only apply to ICT based businesses, but to everything Jamaica has to offer. The music artist or filmmaker who thought he could never get a big break can self publish on Youtube. A photographer can post his photos on flickr and gain an international audience. Local professionals and businesses can leverage the internet in a multitude of ways.

For decades Jamaica has needed to increase exports and the local economy. Jamaica needs to make digital products and services the number one export. Wages in Jamaica are low compared to the UK or US, the country can provide services at a lower cost than first world counterparts with the same or better quality. Also exporting ICT products is less restricted than physical products that have expiry dates or are subject to high tariffs.

Already there are thousands of people in Jamaica who are using ICT at home and in their businesses. In the next ten years, a new generation of professionals will be ready to join the workforce to do jobs that don’t exist today. They will have grown up using the framework which will allow them to do the (currently) impossible (the Internet). Jamaicans by nature are innovative, they always know how to get things to work, to bend the system so to speak. Broadband availability in Jamaica is now very high, thanks to service providers Flow, Lime, Digicel, Claro, Dekal Wireless, equipping our current students to learn faster, gain more exposure and do things never done before.

The point is, ICT is not only a business model, but a tool and framework that we can use to develop our existing industries. The tourism and music industries have already started using the web to promote their products, how can you use it to sell yours?

Are you making the most of what is available?

Foursquare For Business

// August 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing, Technology

Foursquare is a steadily growing social networking that allows people to checkin at different venues. So what if you own/manage one of these venues? Well you can claim it on Foursquare and view detailed statistics on checkins as well as setup Foursquare specials. There is a whole lot more information available on the Foursquare website. However let’s go through some of the dynamics that are not covered on the website.

Foursquare Tips

Foursquare allows users to add a tip to your venue. These tips are there to help other users get the best service at a given venue. Sometimes these tips will be negative which will be a clear sign as to what to improve. Other times the tips may coincide with specials, like enter free before 11pm, or happy hour is between 8-9. No matter what the tip is, you want your customers to leave tips, it is crucial interaction that will help to promote your venue.

Foursquare Specials

You can create specials to reward repeat customers and also to increase the frequency of their visits! Every business has repeat customers, so why not reward them? If someone knows they are appreciated they are going to come back more often. Plus using Foursquare you can reward based on frequency, so for every x checkins within y days you can give them a special! There are so many ways to leverage this feature of foursquare and it is not just giving away products/discounts, it is creating buzz for your business. When someone earns a special then they tell their friends, who then share the story or try to get the special as well. What does this mean for you? The best advertising ever, direct referrals from friends.

Foursquare and the snowball effect

Foursquare allows users to connect with other social networks, namely Facebook and Twitter. According to Facebook the average user has 130 friends. The average twitter user also has 126 followers. Foursquare allows users to share their location with Twitter or Facebook, thus immediately notifying people that they are at a location. Earlier we mentioned creating buzz about a venue, when people see their friends visiting a venue on Foursquare they are immediately more willing to try it (it is viewed as a direct referral from a friend).

When a user shares their location on Facebook then an average of 130 friends will also see that the person has checked in at your venue. Many people have much more friends than 130, I have 750+ which means that potentially you just received free advertising to hundreds of people. Have five Foursquare users share their location in a day and that is 650+ on average. Have just 5 users check-in every day and that’s 19,500 per month. Once again this is direct friend referrals. How does that compare to your standard advertising methods (Radio, TV, Print)? The great thing is, many venues are already getting more business because of Foursquare, by claiming your venue the benefit is being able to track the statistics as well as create specials to generate more business. Think of it as the yellow pages on steroids.

Foursquare is a wonderful accessory to any social media marketing campaign. It can generate huge buzz for your venue online and the results are trackable, you can see in numbers how much your brand is being mentioned. Via tips and tweets you can also see what people are recommending to friends/family and take notes on areas to improve on. You can also find out who are your most loyal customers and reward them!

For more information on Foursquare and how to claim your venue, please contact me: info <at> dmitridawkins.com or on Twitter: http://twitter.com/dmitridawkins