Just picked this up from propelSJ.

Impact of New-Era Technologies on Society & Business presented by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Tuesday, Feb. 5, 4:00 - 6:00 pm.
Saint John Trade & Convention Centre, One Market Square, Saint John NB

Wednesday, February 6, 2008, 4:00 p.m. — 6:00 p.m.
Delta Halifax, 1990 Barrington St., Halifax, NS

The topic of area that interests me is:

ampliflection* a new type of Internet-based marketing; adaptive mashups

It’s free, but registration is required.

For more info, see propelSJ

Money or Passion: Which one are you following? This is a great essay written by Gair Maxwell that Dan Martell was fortunate enough to post on his blog. Go read it.

Bloggers take home the CBC Test the Nation Trophy. No surprise with that;) My 11 year old and I had a respectable (hopefully) score of 44/60. Rick Spence had a whopping 57/60.

You might want to think twice about gift cards. See Chris Nadeau’s experience.  Seth Godin talked about the gift card scam this past holiday season.

Manage your time as you do your Money. I’m a big believer of Jeremy Owyang’s tips on this.

I confess I haven’t had a lot of time to formulate my thoughts on this. I certainly would not call myself an expert in IT by any stretch of the imagination. However, today a series of articles came through my feeds that culminated after reading a guest post by Will Pate at StartUp North.

The first news item was:

Industry feels pinch as numbers of IT grads plummet (Globe Investor).

The synopsis? Canada’s University and college enrollment in IT and computer related fields have dropped from 36% - 64% depending on the province.

At ThinkNB this year, I spoke with recruiters from UNB and the NB Community Colleges. They confirmed that enrollment was down. UNB was addressing this with a new program that will combine business with computer technology in a Bachelor of Information Systems program.

Next news feed article today:

N.B. IT doing well: software exec (Telegraph Journal)

According to the quote in the Telegraph Journal:

“I would say the knowledge industry in New Brunswick is healthy,” says Paul McSpurren, former president and chief executive officer of Moncton-based Whitehill Technologies Inc.

“And will be healthy and vibrant in the future.” 

NB also recently held the Rising Stars awards where 10 ITC winners will be able to participate in a year long mentorship and networking program.

Now I want to send you the last article that I mentioned by Will Pate. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking of starting your own business, read his post.  Let’s make sure that NB is in the race. 

Will’s right. This is a race and as Canadians we do tend to just plod through until the work is done. But when you’re following the industry and you see how fast it changes and how someone is always coming out with something new or different. We have to be able to keep pace. I have met many people in NB in the ITC sector and they all have a passion for what they’re doing.  As Paul McSpurren said in today’s Telegraph article, I think the knowledge industry in NB is healthy.

We have innovation happening here in NB. We have groups like catalict whose tagline says “Start your engines. The race is on.” We have the Wallace McCain Institute that helps entrepreneurs grow their business.

There are other organizations I could mention as well but the point is that I think we recognize in NB that there’s a need for speed, experience and skills to get ahead in this industry. And maybe because NB is always playing catchup with the rest of the provinces, we’re already used to racing.

What do you think? Is NB in the race?

I just read on Mitch Joel’s blog that they’re looking for volunteers for The Power Within. So if you’re interested please check out Mitch’s blog post.

By the way Mitch. I spoke with Carman Pirie of Colour last week at our first NB Social Media meetup and we’re actively conspiring to organize a meetup with you;)

That’s what Jason Falls told approximately 30 people this past week for our first NB Third Tuesday Social Media Meetup. Visitors came from Nova Scotia and in NB from Saint John, Moncton, Woodstock and Fredericton all came to take online social networking offline. The event was generously sponsored by radian6 who arranged to have Jason Falls speak on his work in Social Media.

Attendees came from a wide variety of backgrounds from those with no experience in Social Media to those who work in it daily. But what brought everyone together was put best by Susan Nind from Insights Atlantic:

If Social Media is about transparency and honesty, then for New Brunswickers it’s something that we come by easily. I think that in NB we can create the wave and not just ride the wave. And I’m excited to be part of that.

Susan’s comment seemed to affect everyone the same way. So simple, yet so true.

There was a continuous buzz of conversation before the talks started. The same thread in nearly all the conversations was that people were interested in social media. They wanted to know more about it. How can they use it in their companies? What are the advantages to using social media? How is social media changing branding and marketing in business? Do you know what people are saying about your business? Jason Falls was able to show us some real life applications using social media with his Robbie Gordon twitter tracker campaign.

Considering it was 11 pm (with a start time of 7:30 pm) before we wrapped up completely, it was obvious that we have many topics to discuss in our upcoming meetings.

Other posts on the event from attendees:

Jason Falls
Jason Falls snowmobiling in NB
What really happened with Jason Falls snowmobiling
Chris Nadeau
Mark Dykeman
Flickr photos
justFred.ca photos and video

If you haven’t already, please join our Third Tuesday Social Media Meetup group so you can be notified of upcoming events. We have some great ideas and speakers in mind that will be entertaining and educational. We also would really like feedback from you about what you would like to see and learn.

Social media is growing. As Jason said just by learning and pushing to know more about social media, you’re all experts. NB may be small but there’s a ripple effect happening here and the end result will be a powerful social media wave.