Yulbiz 2007 - Best of Montreal's Business Blogosphere
Yulbiz 2007 wrapped up last night at Cafe Melies with the Yulbiz November edition, featuring the release of the new book Pourquoi blogger dans un contexte d'affaires (Reasons to Blog in a Business Setting). After the jump (the read-more link), I've got the news, gossip and best of all - some cool pictures and video of Yulbiz November's participants! Plus, a wrap-up of my Yulbiz 07 experience and the people it's allowed me to meet.
I'm writing this from school and have unfortunately left the cards I was given last night at home. So if I forget to mention you, just drop a comment and I'll be sure to update this post.
After saying hi to my friend, expert internet marketer Michel Leblanc, and new acquaintance Mathieu Bélanger, of K3 Media web agency (more on K3 in a minute) who were standing outside (see picture above) I went in and spotted Eric Kucharsky (left), of TechnoMontreal whom you'll recall I met at an earlier Yulbiz. I took a picture, but he was in a conversation so I didn't want to interrupt too much.
To start things off, I sidled over to the cool camera lady from Canoe.ca. We talked about how she came to be working as a camerawoman and it turns out she studied biology and then journalism, with a view to getting into scientific journalism. That said though, she says she's having a blast at Canoe! I can't find the video on Canoe, she had no business cards and my memory isn't working so great on 5 hours sleep. So, if you want to help me out and comment to tell me her name, that would be great.
I caught up with Bruno Bhutto (please correct me if I'm misspelling that, Bruno), who was a panelist at FacebookCamp, where I also spoke on Facebook advertising. We had a fun chat and he told me about this photoshop community he's been with for a good 5 years, called Worth 1000. As in, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
Particularly cool are these two aggressive looking plants: Bang Bang and Revenge.
Bruno and I shot a video describing the site. He describes the contests on the site, mentions the mainstream media have picked up on it and more.
Stupid Blogger/Blogspot isn't letting me upload, so that'll have to come in a later edit.
Soon afterward, I caught my buddy Sylvain Carle in a shot with Bruno. Sylvain (and Michel) are co-authors of Pourquoi blogger along with some of the other folks. I picked up my copy last night and it's really looking good and enjoyable, though I haven't read it all yet (so maybe it sucks around Sylvain or Michel's chapters ... not! ;) ).
Sylvain also discussed his chapter of the book with me in a video, but that'll obviously have to wait. Speaking of which, how do you rotate video? I shot it with my handheld camera upright...
Pascal Veilleux of NSI and myself discussed what he and the gang are doing with corporate blogs and all, and it sounded quite exciting. Pascal's on my list of experts on corporate bloggers, so if that's your bag, you should go over and give him a shout. Again, I'll post the video later.
Further in, I sat down for a quick talk with my buddy Andres Restrepo, whom I also met at a previous Yulbiz (if you're no good at reading between the lines, the name of the game is consistency and frequency). He's now working for Ressac (smart move, Ressac!) where Julien Raby, who's now heading up Cossette's search marketing arm, used to work (btw, Julien, you guys need to rank for Cossette search marketing! Let me know when Cossette's at least got a specific page in place and I'll modify that link to SEOmoz's Service marketplace).
Passing by at that specific moment was another friend I made through Yulbiz, popular blogger (and videoblogger!) Philippe Martin, who's the go-to-guy for making and http://www.nayezpaspeur.ca">designing blogs! Notice that the link to his site is a deeplink. I used to just link to the homepage, but his design skills placed a tab to that part of the site above the fold and made me notice it! So there you go, he'll help you do better SEO too!
Following this I was fortunate enough to chat with my friend Nicolas Cossette, who blogs on SMO (aka SMM) and works at NVI Solutions. I also met a couple of new people. For the first time, Guillaume Bouchard, NVI's CEO, showed up as did his new hire, Samuel (don't think you told me your last name, I'm afraid). It was great talking to him and I think it's fair to say we both learnt something from each other (I learnt some tips on closing the sale, he learnt my credit card # ;) ). Here are Nicolas, Samuel, Guillaume and I:
See the FacebookCamp shirt I'm wearing (click the pick to enlarge)? That's from speaking at FacebookCamp Montreal, and the shirt and conference were partly sponsored by K3. Thanks a lot for the generosity Mathieu!
Anyways, if you're looking for SEOs who know the French market, besides Michel, you'd be hard pressed to find a better crew (Michel's not a crew, but you get the idea) than Go Referencement. (If you want something in English ... I'm outranking Guillaume and NVI for Montreal SEO ;). Write me: Gab at seoroi dot c o m.)
Next up I had a quick hello with Etienne Denis, CEO of 90 Degres (who's looking for a French editor for his company's content services). Yet another fellow I'd met at a previous Yulbiz! I've got a video with Etienne too.
About that time I caught up with a recent acquaintance and new friend, Claude Malaison. He's been involved with tech stuff since before I was born - literaly. Besides organizing Webcom Montreal and suchlike (he's the French Canadian Danny Sullivan!), he's President of Emergence Web, a boutique agency focused on Web 2.0 strategy. In any case, I pulled Claude into a pic with Nicolas, Philippe and Stephane Waffo (another new acquaintance and a cool dude :) ). I also got those fellows in a shot with Martin Lessard, a terrific blogger whose first chapter in the Pourquoi blogger book I'm really enjoying - check out Zero Seconde for more Web 2.0.
Left to right: Martin Lessard, Stephane Waffo, Philippe Martin and Nicolas Cossette.
Same order: Stephane (slightly cut out, sorry!), Philippe, Claude and Nicolas.
By the way, please don't read anything into the size of the pics. I'm just playing around with formatting and seeing Blogger's capacities (also trying to speed up load time), as I don't often get to do a post with pics.
As the night began to wind down, I saw my friends Kim Vallee, Muriel Ide, and Jerome Paradis. Muriel's started a jewelry line! Jerome's developing a Facebook App that he's nearly got finished! More info when it's out :). (Speaking of which, Martin's talking about a televised debate about Facebook at ZS.)
Here are Jerome, Kim (far right), Stephane and his friend whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment (Stephane or Stephane's friend, if you read this, please comment to remind me) - but who happens to be a really good communicator. I think I bored his ear off for a half hour and he showed interest throughout!
Finally, I had the opportunity to meet the excellent Tristan Peloquin of Technaute. He's only started blogging since last March's Quebec elections, but as this brilliant fellow can attest, that means nothing. We emailed around the time of the elections on political marketing. Tristan, if you're reading this, Epiar's blog has the Presidential ROI thing I was telling you about. For my other readers, Tristan also wrote a chapter in the book, fyi, and from my previous reading of his writing, I'm sure it'll be great!
Here are some other posts on Yulbiz you might like
"You'll biz it up" with other IT business pros and develop your network of like-minded bloggers. That was certainly the theme of yet another succesful Yulbiz bash at cafe Melies, as dozens of Montreal business bloggers. Here's the low down [and dirty] on the cool people I chatted with at Yulbiz October 2007.
You need to read through to the end to make sure you hear about all the coolest people that matter in Montreal marketing and tech! (And then leave a comment.)
Sebastien regaled us with the story of how his girlfriend (conjointe gets lost in translation to English, please excuse me Sebastien) and he set up a screen capture movie on Second Life with actors playing out part of her youth/children's book. This genius marketing tactic was apparently a big success at a book fair in Sherbrooke. It's on sale at Mosaique.
Pascal's company has a great name, where I'm concerned: Never Stop Improving - NSI. Pretty appropriate for a company that is in the business of offering reviews and constructive criticism! And I need to give them my compliments for using a blog as the basis for their website!
Speaking of blogs, Vincent's company is selling them big-time! They've come up with a new CMS oriented to banks and conservative companies not at ease with open-source software and that prefer a proprietary solution. Thus, the multiple media content manager. We didn't get a chance to discuss it in much more depth unfortunately, but hopefully next Yulbiz we can speak about it some more!
Around the time I was hanging out with Vince, Pascal and Seba, Claude Malaison of emergence web and I traded a few words. You might recall that I couldn't remember his name from a previous Yulbiz... Well, I got his card this time! Claude is organizing Webcom (amongst others) and is excited as he's bringing in some great speakers!
Edit: I didn't get Jacques's card, but he wrote me his name and specialization in my agenda. Jacques Warren is an analytics expert and former reseller for Web Trends. He's got a handful of blogs, which, when updated, offer some good material. Consider this one (in French) on analyzing visitor paths.
Same Edit: Similarly, I didn't get Julien Niquet's card but what I did get was much more significant: a sneak peak at the future of banking. He's working on Colektivo. I'd say more, but I think it's hush to avoid getting the idea stolen. Julien and his project are absolutely a pair that need to be kept an eye on, because they're doing big things!
Soon afterwards, I was chatting with Olivier Niquet and Jean-Philippe Wauthier of Cent Papiers (a french play on words that I can't translate properly...). Consider it the french equivalent of Gooruze, Squidoo or Youmoz. (If you have no clue what I'm talking about, google those words.)
Another fascinating conversation was the one I had with Sophie Lachapelle of Infopresse. She's working on an article on how Quebec marketing and ad agencies make use of social networks. (I'll have a case study on SEO ROI about my own efforts and discuss other peoples' ad efforts on the site soon enough. Sneak preview: CTR is terrible! Stay tuned...)
Jonathan Stoikovitch and his friend Nico Stinghe got in a word edgewise (Nico handing a card over: "photographe" lol), but we didn't have very substantive conversations. Jon's got some interesting software for co-browsing available in any case.
And last but far from least (perhaps the most enjoyable conversation on the night) was with Nicolas Cossette. He's joined ranks with the enemy (kidding about the "enemy" thing... what I meant to say was "evil empire" haha - OKOK, relax, I'm joking ) but is nonetheless a very friendly guy. He commented on my SEO ROI blog a little while ago and we finally got to meet and have a chat :). I'd keep my eye on him, fellows, because he's a clever guy and I'm a fairly talent judge.
(I also need to mention Philippe Martin and Michel Leblanc, who, as usual, were the cool and courteous organizers of this month's Yulbiz. Also, a cheery-o to Geoffroi and Alain whom I saw but didn't get to chat with.)
Following the fun time I had at September's Yulbiz, I've decided to start a Yulbiz meme. A meme is like a blog version of the children's game tag, except that instead of just saying tag you're it, you have to talk about a specific topic.
Describe your personal brand and your blog's brand in 50 words or more.
Why do you come to Yulbiz?
Read on to see how I've answered those questions!
I'm motivated to blog because I realize that it's a powerful promotional tool and also because it's fun to see comments and traffic on your site!
My ultimate professional goal is to have a succesful business allowing me to enjoy life and live comfortably while having enough money to give to charity to have some impact on my environment/community/society.
I promote my blog through - big surprise - SEO! Amongst other things, I rank for Google Sucks, which happens to be Googled often enough, as well as SEO Specialist, Montreal SEO and SEO Montreal. As well, I like to comment on other blogs when I have a moment and other bloggers have written something interesting/intelligent.
My personal brand is outgoing, friendly, a bit mature for my age (20) and generally a fun guy to be around. I tend to smile a lot and crack jokes, partly because it feels good and partly because other people seem to like it. My professional brand, as you can tell by my Bookworm-SEO pseudonym is well-informed on the latest goings-on in the search marketing world. That's why I can offer cutting edge services like Local SEO and Online Reputation Management. Additionally, and particularly where my SEO ROI brand is concerned, the branding is upmarket and professional. You're not buying a discount service, you're investing in your future lead-and-sales-generation. That's what I delude myself into thinking anyways. Check out SEO ROI and tell me what you think!
I participate in Yulbiz because it's an awesome get-together of the local business/tech community. You meet some brilliant people and fascinating entrepreneurs, besides just enjoying a down-to-earth atmosphere amongst like-minded people.
Yulbiz September 2007 was another classic meeting of business bloggers.
The "incontournable" networking event, as one participant put it to me, saw some fresh faces and also some familiar ones my regular readers will have seen before. Heading that list of friendly faces are of course Michel Leblanc and Philippe Martin, cofounders and organizers of the event. They are, respectively, one of the most respected voices in internet marketing in Montreal and one of the top blog designers in Montreal.
Read the full post to find out about the other fascinating people I met and spoke with, including one awesome entrepreneur who's just raised $1M in VC funding (Round 1)! To start things out, I'd like to give kudos to the smart team at Les Affaires for coming by to do a story on Yulbiz. This included Mr. Jérôme Plantevin, journalist for Les Affaires, and tech blogger.
He was there with cameraman Benjamin Nantel (couldn't find blog for him, and I don't recall him saying he had one, but he's got videos on Youtube). There was also an editor from Les Affaires but somehow I didn't get his card (if you read this, please leave a comment to tell me who you are and where you'd like me to link!).
But then, I figure some credit should also go to Guillaume Brunet, who's left TD Meloche Monnex (your loss!) to go to Transcontinental (smart move!). Transcontinental, for those of you who don't know, is a Canadian media giant that owns, amongst others, Publisac and Les Affaires.
Mr. Brunet and others were also busily talking about the new Regie des blogues d'affaires - the first French language blog ad network, a la Pajamas Media and Federated Media. It's supposed to be fully operational since the 20th, according to Guillaume, but I can't see a site for advertisers and publishers to sign up. Congrats also to Guillaume for snagging a juicy speaking spot at a Quebec tourism industry conference.
A little later in the night I had the pleasure of meeting Benoît Marcoux, who is a veteran in this computer stuff. He used to program in C back in ... 1987! We're talking about when the Internet consisted of Usenet groups and Al Gore (sorry, Al, I couldn't resist ;))! Benoît registered Marcoux.ca back when you needed a company to register a .ca domain! You know, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth ;) (and when Al Gore was busy inventing the Internet). He is a management strategy consultant.
About the same time I met Phillipe Régnoux. He's working for 2RCommunications, when he's not planning a Quebec - Gabon entrepreneurship exchange. The man has got at least one thing right (and probably many more): it's business development, not charity, that will help Africa develop and solve its economic hardships.
Running through the beautiful cards I collected this Yulbiz I find the names of Jerome Paradis and Kim Vallee. Jerome has a software company and is currently developing some Web 2.0 type stuff and a Facebook app! The specifics aren't coming to mind at the moment, but I recall being impressed at the idea when he told me aout it. Kim is blogging on party tips and advice.
Other people I got a moment to speak to include Geoffroi Garon, whom I'd met at a Yulbiz a while ago, and who's taken his consulting skills in house at K3Media. Also interesting was Marc Snyder, who's a political consultant with the Mayor's office for Le Plateau. You can reach him at marc.snyder@ville.montreal.qc.ca.
I was also fortunate to once again (see my previous Yulbiz post) speak with Sylvain Carle, the popular blogger and serial entrepreneur behind A Frog in the Valley (his personal blog) and Praized Media. A loud congrats to Sylvain, Sebastien and Harry on raising their first round of financing from VCs!
(Speaking of VCs, the VC I told you about (my cousin's best friend) is called Liroy Haddad.)
Interestingly, Sylvain's two partners are both local search experts! Harry Wakefield and Sébastien Provencher both worked at the Yellow Pages Group for a while before moving on to other projects.
I've just gone to add Sébastien as a friend on Facebook and I see he's got a Restaurant Reviews App on his profile ... the man is familiar with local! And wouldn't you know it - Praized "will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can trust." By the way, though we didn't have a very long conversation, Seb, it was certainly nice talking to you at tonight's Yulbiz!
Did I mention I save the best for last ;)? Once again, great Yulbiz folks!
Local SEO is an increasingly-important service as more and more searchers turn to Yahoo, Google Truelocal and other search engines to get information on local businesses. But this type of SEO requires more than just link-building, it requires knowledge of your locale. Like Montreal, for example, where French-speaking searchers are just as likely to look up référencement local as they are local SEO. A great way to
To optimize your site for local searchers, you need to know what sites they visit and who are the information hubs in your area. For example, my colleague Michel Leblanc runs a popular Montreal SEO blog, and he also talks about other internet marketing issues.
Similar sites in the Montreal scene are Montreal TechWatch and Techno Montreal. I heard about both of them - you guessed it - at a local event, Yulbiz! Yulbiz was started by Michel Leblanc and Philippe Martin.
This month's Yulbiz was a very fun event and I got to meet a whole bunch of new people, and see some old acquaintances again. Amongst other people, I met or saw:
The reason I mention these people whom I met at Yulbiz is twofold. First, it's to make the point that networking offline is just as important a part of your promotional strategy as online networking. Second, it's to say thanks for chatting, help their SEO a bit and hopefully develop a further relationship online! Local SEO isn't just about mastering Google Maps ... like regular search engine optimization, local seo is about networking (PDF). And knowing the people in your area offline is as important to your search marketing effort as it is to know them online.
SEO Montreal is a Montreal-based local Search Engine Optimization consulting company. Nous sommes une agence spécialisée dans le référencement. It is part of the SEO ROI family.
