This past week I attended AIM (Atlantic Internet Marketing) conference in Moncton. Organized by Rob Swick and Peter Sickles of alpha search.

We started off with some networking events on Sunday. Several of us joined in for a game of foam ball (paint ball with foam balls instead). We donned our helmets and airguns and snuck in behind bunkers as we got to know each other by pelting each other with foam balls. My first hit was Peter Sickles and that’s how I got to know him. The bruise on his arm evidence in the coming days;)

As usual with conferences, we can never attend all the talks and have to narrow down to a choice for each time slot. Some of my favourite talks from this year were:

Actionable Analytics/Writing for the Web by Stephanie Lummis of ISL

Website Usability and Conversion by Rob Swick of alphasearch.ca

The Authentic Web also by Rob Swick and Jeff White of Brightwhite Design

Marketing yourself as a free-agent on the Internet by Harold Jarche of Jarche Consulting

Location Marketing by Malcolm Fraser of ISL

The panel critiquing websites was very popular with everyone. Those who offered the sites up for examining have got courage.

There were a few of us twittering the events. A quick tweetscan picked up these;

brightwhite :

watching peter sickles review a aim conference attendees website

2008-05-06 07:07:10

jbignell :

Great day at the AIM Conference, now off to play rubber ball!

2008-05-05 17:12:48

walkinggal :

listening to Rob Swick from alpha talk about Gary Vaynerchuk’s how to cut through the noise, http://garyvaynerchuk.com/

2008-05-05 15:22:04

Some suggestions for next year’s conference:

1. offer more advanced talks/seminars

2. topic suggestions - monitoring your personal/company brand online, social media measurement, e-commerce conversion, advanced web copy (writing for personas)

3. more case studies

4. more booths? with more swag;) Note to the Yahoo table, we were so disappointed the yahoo swag didn’t make it in time;)

I have to say that the atmosphere of the conference was fabulous. I made lots of new friends and contacts. We’re connecting up through twitter, linkedin and facebook and I hope to meet up with everyone at next year’s conference.

2008 will be the year that;

1. A barcamp/democamp/startup camp etc. will be held in Atlantic Canada. Possibly PEI at Rob’s place. Harold has made the great suggestion of it being a Kitchen Camp. Perfect maritime flavour.

2. We will have tweet ups to meet fellow twitter friends. An attempt was made over the holidays but everyone’s schedules were a little crazy, so no luck.

3. Dan Martell will hopefully organize an event for us to watch a video of the Future of Web apps. Possibly Fredericton. Date TBD.

4. If you can, you should try to attend The Power Within in Halifax, Feb. 26. We will have the opportunity to meet up with others from Atlantic Canada involved in this industry and we can all corner Mitch Joel to pick his brain;)

5. The AIM (Atlantic Canada Internet Marketing) conference is in Moncton this year, May 4-6.  Another great opportunity to engage with others.

6. We all love social media. We’re twittering, facebooking, seesmicing, blogging, Second Lifeing and so on. It’s wonderful we can connect up with like minded people. Yet you’ll notice all these above points are about meeting people in person. Making real life connections on top of the virtual connections. David Alston from Radian6 expressed it well that his number one resolution this year is to find balance - to invest in both social media and traditional family and friends relationships.

Here’s to a connected and balanced 2008 in Atlantic Canada!

So Kate (MyNameisKate) tagged me in a 2008 meme. Ironic that her #1 item is that she doesn’t like to do these things,  because I never tend to do memes either;)

Eight things you (probably) didn’t know about me

1. I used to be a Veterinary Technologist. At one time I had 4 cats, 2 rabbits, 2 rats, 2 budgies and 2 guinea pigs! That doesn’t include at other times the great dane and 5 mice. Once my kids were born, well attrition started taking its toll. I have one cat left and he’s 18 years old.

 2. My youngest child was 11 lbs 2 oz born at home with a midwife. There should be awards for that is all I have to say.

 3. I was born in Quebec. I’m half french and grew up saying one, two, tree and dis and dat for a little while, thanks to my father;)  I am not bilingual unfortunately, unless you count the ability to curse in french fluently bilingualism?

4. I’m very accident prone. I have broken my ankle, wrist and hairline fractures in my vertebrae playing basketball. I dislocated my shoulder skiing moguls at Marble Mountain in Newfoundland. Not to mention hundreds of sprains, pulls and tears often from basketball. One would say it might be wise to stop playing. I’ve never professed to be wise. When I go away somewhere, my family and friends all warn me to be careful;)

5. I’m a speed reader. Which comes in handy in trying to absorb what’s happening in the blogosphere.

6.  I moved to Ontario when I was 21 and spent 10 years there and moved back to NB 7 years ago. I love being back in NB and I think Atlantic Canada is a beautiful place to live.

7. Having said that, I have never been to BC. It is the only Canadian province I have never visited yet.

8. I struggle with loving tech gadgets and materialistic things with throwing it all away and living a life of voluntary simplicity. I try to maintain balance without feeling like a hypocrite.

In keeping with the Atlantic Canada theme, I’m sending this New Year meme to Harold Jarche (NB), Mark Dykeman (NB), Robert Paterson (PEI), Jane Boyd (PEI), Gary Kelly (NF), Megan Cole (Newfoundlander living in BC)  Chris Campbell (NS)  and Carolyn Campbell (NS).

Happy New Year everyone!