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about me
I'm William Azaroff. I direct Online Strategy & Community Engagement at Vancity, Canada's largest credit union.
My opinions and views are just that, and don't reflect the views of my employer (or, perhaps, anyone else).
my peers
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From Mass To Grass is where it's at.
Let me start this post by stating that I am, in fact, a reasonably proud Canadian. So now I must confess something to you. I've never been to Toronto. Ever. Well, other than the airport a few times. Insane, I know.So I'm very excited to take my first trip there to speak at the Canadian Marketing Association's extraordinary From Mass To Grass Word of Mouth Marketing conference.
I'm on a not-for-profit panel called Building Buzz for Good, along with Deborah Kaplan, the Executive Director of Zerofootprint, a renewable energy company. The panel is being moderated by Kate Trgovac a very well known and well respected blogger.
It is being described as so:
Not-for-profits have been organizing and activating grassroots influencers since their first inception. Learn from some of Canada's top and most innovative non-profit organizations and initiatives on how they build community, activate influencers and build support for their causes. If you are a non-profit or CSR-focused organization, this is a must attend segment.Check out this funny video promoting the event (hat tip to Michael Seaton for the video):
Labels: canada, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, social media
posted on Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Great time at Convergence.
I was at Convergence for most of today, and it was an impressively put together and attended event.The event, which partnered with the overall VIDFEST, is a production of Cossette, one of Canada's largest communications agencies. They brought together some impressive speakers, with a nice mix of locals and imports.
One thing I don't get to do enough of is meet peers here in Vancouver. I spend so much of my time on the road at events, I don't attend that many in town. Today was a welcome change, and I met some amazing people doing some amazing things.
The panel I was on was called Giving Your Brand Away: Brand Communities and featured four of us, all on the client side, who have created online communities to support our brands and companies.
I was delighted to learn from my fellow panelists:
- George Hradecky from McDonald's USA launched an enormous community undertaking called StationM, which is an online community for McDonald's' 770,000 front line staff across North America.
- Thierry Hay-Sabourin runs the Future Shop Community Forum a place where gearheads can ask questions and exchange tips on their gear. It was so great to meet another local online community guy.
- William Bakker runs eBusiness at Tourism BC, including their blogs and social media initiatives. Again, great to meet another local doing interesting things.
- The panel was moderated by Angele Beausoleil, who is the Director of Strategic Planning at Fjord, Cossette's interactive wing. She ran a great panel, with enough moderation to give us focus, but a light enough touch to let the panel unfold organically.
One thing I was really struck with was how we ran four totally different communities, with four different business intentions behind them, and yet we all came to remarkably similar conclusions.
We all felt that the community had to be authentic and transparent, that you needed to seed the community with the right kind of people to get it going in the desired direction, that it had to grow organically in its own time, that you had to get buy in from the top to start initiatives like these, that you have to know exactly what you want the community to do for your business regardless of how hard or soft that impact will be.
I was honoured to be a part of it, happy to meet so many amazing people and impressed at how well run the event was.
Labels: changeeverything, conference, social media, vancouver
posted on Thursday, May 22, 2008
See you in Minneapolis.
I'm off to Minneapolis tomorrow for CUES Experience.I'm excited to see so many of my CU alum there, including Morriss Partee, Tim McAlpine, Robbie Wright, Denise Wymore, Brent Dixon, and am most excited to finally meet Ron Shevlin, Steve Williams and Christopher Stevenson in person after months of being eConnected. I hope I didn't miss anyone - did I?
I'm presenting a Credit Union case study from Vancity, covering who we are, how we show up and how we leverage social media. Should be a good presentation.
It's also been a fantastic way to procrastinate finishing my chapter for the new Age of Conversation. Truth be told, I'm starting to panic, it's due in 3 days.
If you'll be in Minneapolis, please say hi.
Now I gotta figure out how to transport fresh fruit across the US-Canada border, because my son Ivan is expecting tiny apples from a place called Minneapolis (say it aloud).
Labels: changeeverything, conference, credit union, CUES, currency marketing, everythingcu, gonzobanker, shevlin, vancity
posted on Monday, May 12, 2008
See you at Cossette Convergence.
I'm excited to participate in the upcoming Cossette Convergance 2008 here in Vancouver at the Arts Club Theatre.I've been asked to speak on a panel entitled Giving Your Brand Away: Brand Communities, and will be a panelist alongside Ben Stringfellow from McDonalds USA, Thierry Hay-Sabourin from Future Shop and William Bakker from Tourism British Columbia. The panel will be moderated by Angele Beausoleil from Fjord, Cossette's online agency.
I'm honoured to be among these amazing people, and it should turn out to be a great event.
I'm very keen to hear from the keynote speaker Grant McCracken the author of Culture and Consumption.
If you'll be there, please let me know. And if you're thinking of attending, you can register here.
Labels: azaroff, changeeverything, conference, social marketing, social media, vancity
posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Congrats to Flock, hats off to Facebook.
So we gave it all we had, but in the end ChangeEverything.ca didn't take home a Webby.Truly, it was such a crazy honour just to be nominated. We got all of Vancity behind this, right up to our CEO. It was great and very fun, but it was not meant to be.
The last time I was able to check, we were in second place for the People's Voice Webby Award, but a distant second (7%) to Facebook (78%). Needless to say, Facebook took it.
And the judged award went to the very cool Flock, the social media browser.
Here are the winners in our category of Social Networking
Labels: changeeverything, facebook, flock, social media, vancity, webbys
posted on Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The last day to vote in The Webbys.
A great article in the local daily 24 Hours today about ChangeEverything.ca (below). Today is the last day to vote for The Webbys. If you haven't already, please take a moment to do so now.
Thanks!
UPDATE: The writer seems to have spelled Kate's name wrong in the article. For the record, it is Kate Dugas.
Labels: banking, changeeverything, credit union, news, vancity, webbys
posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008
I'm asking for your vote (and showing you a funny video).
As most of you know, ChangeEverything.ca was nominated for a Webby Award in the Social Networking category. And now I have to ask for a favour. I need you to do two things:- Register on the Webbys site and vote for ChangeEverything.ca in the Social Networking category
- Spread the word by sending this video (below) to everyone you know
Thanks in advance for your help!
Labels: changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, social media, vancity, webbys
posted on Monday, April 21, 2008
The image says it all!
Labels: changeeverything
posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Day 1 at Net.Finance.
Today was a good day. I'm too tired to write much. I was extremely pleased with the way my presentation went. The hard work paid off.If you're looking for good Net.Finance coverage, my peer at Westminster Savings Credit Union is partially live-blogging. Meet the fantastic Ed Brett and his Small FI Blog.
Oh, and how did I miss that Michigan First Credit Union started a blog? It's all about their community engagement, and is called MI Community Space. Did you all know that? I met James Anderson at Net.Finance last year, and spoke with him again today. A highly impressive individual.
--
Also, check out Rob Cottingham's latest cartoon with a reference to our Webby Nomination.
Labels: banking, blogging, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, credit union, netfinance, socialsignal
posted on Monday, April 14, 2008
I'm off to Net.Finance.
I leave today for Scottsdale, Arizona to attend and present at the Net.Finance conference. This will be my third year attending Net.Finance, and I always come back with some great new ideas to implement, lots of ideas to share with my peers, some new friends and colleagues from across North America and a nice time away in a sunny climate.This year, it's especially nice because this is an important first anniversary for me. It was a year ago when I presented at Net.Finance about ChangeEverything.ca, and my journey on the conference circuit began in full force. Presenting at conferences has become a real passion for me. I get to share knowledge, meet lots of fascinating people, attend conferences that Vancity simply doesn't have the budget to send me to, and I get to perform in front of a crowd, which is something I truly enjoy.
This year I'm presenting on Corporate Social Responsibility As Key Differentiator, which is a fancy way of saying social marketing and social media. I'll talk about how Vancity's community focus takes an increasingly strong role in our advertising and marketing, how we can leverage that community work into successful use of social media, and how it positively impacts our triple bottom line.
I gave two practice sessions to my peers at Vancity on Friday, and feel ready to go on stage and present in Arizona.
And this year at Net.Finance marks another nice anniversary. It was a year ago, in April of 2007 that I changed my blog's purpose and focus from a place to put humourous links for my friends (with a whopping subscriber base of 8 readers at the time [thanks Ruben]) to a place where I discuss social media, corporate social responsibility, online branding and banks and credit unions (and now have a subscriber base of 140 or so readers [thank you]).
It's been profoundly rewarding, enlightening and social. I have met some great people through my blog, taken part in some amazing discussions, and have received some very useful feedback on my work. It's something almost indescribably wonderful.
So now I head off to Arizona, with five more major conferences ahead of me this year, an excitement about my work, and some extremely exciting projects ahead.
So thanks for reading, let me know if you'll be at Net.Finance, and I hope to break 500 connections on LinkedIn by the time I return.
Labels: banking, blogging, changeeverything, conference, corporate responsibility, credit union, LinkedIn, netfinance, social marketing, social media
posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008
ChangeEverything.ca is nominated for a Webby Award.
I am so pleased and excited to announce that ChangeEverything.ca was nominated for a Webby Award.
This is such an incredible honour, and follows on the heels of being an Official Honoree last year. Please vote for ChangeEverything.ca for the Webby People's Voice Award.
It is worth noting that the four other sites nominated in the category of Social Networking are:Perhaps you've heard of some of them. It is mind-boggling to be nominated against some of the biggest developments in social networking of the last year or two. Amazing also to be the only company-created social network, up against a bevy of startups.
Equally impressive is the lineup of judges who selected the nominees and will select an ultimate winner.
The Academy is an intellectually diverse organization that includes members such as musicians Beck and David Bowie, Internet inventor Vint Cerf, political columnist Arianna Huffington, Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser, "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening, R/GA Founder and Chairman Robert Greenberg, Virgin Atlantic Chairman and Founder Richard Branson, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Partner and Chief Creative Officer Alex Bogusky, and The Weinstein Company Co-Founder Harvey Weinstein. Members also include writers and editors from publications such as The New York Times, Wired, Details, Fast Company, Elle, The Los Angeles Times, Vibe, and WallPaper. The 11th Annual Webby Awards received over 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states and generated over 750 million media impressions worldwide.It is pretty much exactly two years since we started developing the site from a concept, and so rewarding to see where Kate has nurtured and engaged the community of over 3,000 registered users. I am also heartened that we are the only socially responsible community in the running. Proves you can do well by doing good.
UPDATE: I added a link to where you can vote for ChangeEverything.ca for the People's Voice Award.
Labels: banking, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, drupal, facebook, innovation, media, social media, technology, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Honoured to be featured in innovator podcast.
I am so happy to be included in instalment #3 of Currency Marketing's Credit Union Innovators Podcast series. I was honoured that Tim asked, and I hope the resulting podcast is informative and entertaining.Enjoy!
Oh, and you can subscribe to the whole series via iTunes.
Labels: azaroff, banking, changeeverything, credit union, currency marketing, innovation, podcast, social media, vancity
posted on Thursday, February 07, 2008
An interview with me in CU Management Magazine.
I was interviewed by Diane Franklin several weeks back for an article in CU Management Magazine's upcoming issue. The article, entitled Web 2.0: High Tech, High Touch focuses on what a credit union board should know about social media.We had a great interview, addressing many different topics, and I guess it was enough material for a whole other piece, titled One Credit Union's Web 2.0 Strategy. It's a good take on Vancity and why we launched ChangeEverything.ca.
Take a look...
Labels: azaroff, changeeverything, credit union, vancity
posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Viva La Resolution! part 2
A year ago, we ran the Viva La Resolution! contest on ChangeEverything.ca for people to name their New Year's resolutions, and if they blogged about them at least three times, they could win $500.The entries last year were amazing. The story of EnviroWoman, who resolved not to use any new plastics in 2007, provided amazingly inspirational stories and drew a ton of new visitors to the site. She won the contest, and had to be paid in an alternative to the Visa gift card we were giving, because we just couldn't give her plastic as a prize.
LJMK came in second with her resolution to de-clutter her life. And degan came in third place when she resolved to run a marathon.
Now, a year later, we're re-running the contest, looking for people to name their 2008 New Year's resolution and blog about it. The prizes have been doubled, so the winners will receive $1,000, $250 or $100 in the form of a Vancity mytreat Visa gift card.
Please spread the word.
Labels: blogging, changeeverything, credit union, social media, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Monday, December 24, 2007
A whole 'nother level of online community.
I love Open Source software. The self-organizing of people to collaboratively create something they feel is worthwhile is an amazing model.I've written a lot about ChangeEverything.ca here, but I have never written much about Drupal, the platform CE was developed on. This week we launched a small bit of new functionality to the ChangeEverything community called nudge. It's a fairly simple application:
...you use it to tell the creator of a change or the writer of a blog post that you're inspired by what they're doing... and you want to hear more. Click it, and ChangeEverything.ca instantly sends that person an email - including, if you want, a personal message from you.But the thing I love most about it is that when we wanted to add this feature to the site, there wasn't a module available that did this. So after custom-developing "nudge" for the CE community, we released it free to the world as a module for any Drupal site.
Now that's community!
UPDATE: Here's a post on the subject from Social Signal.
Labels: blogging, changeeverything, drupal, socialsignal, technology, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007
Speaking at CUES Experience.
I'm excited to be going to Minneapolis in May to speak at the new CUES Experience: Immersion Learning for Marketing, Technology & Operations Leaders. This is a new conference CUES is putting on, and they're planning on mixing a traditional conference with on-site visits to some of the more innovative companies in Minneapolis.They have some amazing speakers lined up, including Arkadi Kuhlmann from ING Direct, Jeremy Gutsche founder of trendhunter.com, Steve Williams and Terence Roche of Cornerstone Advisors and GonzoBanker.
But, I'm especially excited to meet one of my favourite bloggers, Ron Shevlin.
Plus I've never been to Minneapolis, so that should be very fun. I'll do my best to live blog it as well.
Labels: azaroff, banking, changeeverything, conference, credit union, CUES, gonzobanker
posted on Friday, November 09, 2007
An interview with me about social media.
When I was at Finovate, I got to meet Christophe Langlois in person. I have been following his very good blog, visible-banking.com for some time now. He ended up doing an interview with me and posted it today.View the interview here.
Labels: azaroff, banking, blogging, changeeverything, credit union, finovate, social media, vancity, visible-banking, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, October 16, 2007
ChangeSomething contest down to final five.
The ChangeSomething contest on ChangeEverything.ca has been whittled from the initial list of 18 organizations down to a final list of 5. ChangeSomething encouraged people to write a compelling blog post (or a series of them) about a cause or organization that they felt deserved to receive $1,000. Eighteen organizations were nominated and, based on voting by the community, the list has been whittled down to the final five, one of which will get the cash.The final list includes:
BCSEA - promoting sustainable energy
CARES - helping homeless cats
girls education international - building schools for women and girls in Pakistan
SAINTS - caring for animals with special needs
working gear - clothing men in the DTES entering the workforce
Get voting!
Labels: banking, changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, social media, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Tuesday, October 16, 2007
ChangeEverything.ca is a 2007 Digital Marketing Award winner.
I am so pleased to learn that ChangeEverything.ca won a Certificate at the 2007 Digital Marketing Awards in the category of Website: Financial services.
The category is described as "Any site designed to promote banks, trusts, co-ops, investment brands, insurance, etc."
The awards as a whole are described this way:
The Digital Marketing Awards represents the best of interactive marketing in Canada. The awards are produced by Marketing magazine, and judged by the industry. The mandate of the DMAs is to inspire many by rewarding few. Those few will be chosen for their innovation and creativity, and for leveraging the interactive environment to it's full potential.The jury is impressive, and includes my friend Michael Seaton.
It's so nice to see ChangeEverything.ca doing good things in the community, while getting recognized by the industry. Feels good.
Labels: changeeverything, credit union, design, media, news, social media, socialsignal, user experience, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Sunday, October 07, 2007
$1,000 still gets attention.
On August 28th, I blogged about the ChangeSomething contest now running on ChangeEverything.ca. At the time, we had very little uptake on the contest, and I even wondered if this was going to be the first unsuccessful initiative we'd had on the siteNow that the contest has closed, I thought I'd chime in with an update. In the end, we had 18 contest finalists all submitted by members of the online community. Some of the entries generated excellent discussion.
Voting began on Friday, September 21, and now just 3 days later, the poll has 753 votes. Normally a poll on ChangeEverything.ca gets between 20 and 100 votes after a week or two. This is extraordinary. The winning entry takes the $1,000, so get voting.
Major kudos to Kate, the site's moderator who helped keep this top of mind and build momentum, even when there appeared to be none. I'm looking forward to seeing which cause the community wants to give $1,000 to.
Labels: changeeverything, corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, social media, vancity, web 2.0
posted on Monday, September 24, 2007