Overdue Apologies – and where to find me

I honestly do feel bad I have to write to apologize for my negligence on this platform.  While I’m sure I could tell you “I’ve been busy”, I know you’ve been busy too – I just haven’t been blogging enough.  I’ve certainly been tweeting and experimenting with posts on various platforms, but the nitchblog has been a casualty of all the great things happening over at Weber Shandwick.  But no longer.  With this early New Year’s resolution I’m promising more blogging in this space – not a ton, but more....

Excitement of Olympic proportions

I usually try to keep personal news out of the blog, but there’s just too much goodness to share to avoid it this time. Later today, in the culmination of about 5 years of planning and anticipation, I’ll be boarding a train to travel across Canada with the final destination of the Vancouver Olympics!  In addition to an unforgettable trip across the country (something I’ve never done before) and having tickets to multiple Olympic events, my travel buddy Zed and I pitched our adventure to the CBC and they’re letting us blog about it!  We’ve...

Talkin’ New Years, NXNE, and needing your support

I’m a little late to the game on this but Happy New Year Decade everyone! I’ve been busy updating all things nitch* lately to give it a fresh new look and hope that everyone likes what they see.  But in the meantime, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I’ve applied to present a panel at the upcoming North by Northeast Interactive conference (#NXNEi).  My panel is called “Content, Storytelling and the future of digital brand engagement”.  Those who’ve read the blog before shouldn’t be strangers to my strong views...

Social networking and scoring a ‘date’ in the world of digital business

While some people out there may think of social networking as a fad, or even an annoyance, I think it may be the best thing since, well…  networking.  Sorry if you were hoping for something profound there…  And while I can’t seem to join enough networks myself, I find myself running into more and more of these: Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I understand that on a platform as massive as facebook, there are security concerns for people who are high school teachers or may have had an over-zealous admirer of two in the past.  But...

Branded Entertainment, Bell Fund and mixing business with pleasure at nextMEDIA

As I publish this post, I’m sitting in the Rocky Mountains preparing to attend the 2009 edition of the nextMEDIA conference.   Leaders in the spaces of digital content, production, advertising, marketing and media are converging on Banff this weekend to mix and mingle (as we always do quite successfully) and to try solve the problems of the digital world (as we seem to do with more limited success). While the odds are that we won’t revolutionize the digital space this weekend, I’m looking forward to some exciting discussion and to meeting and...

Could Chris Bosh save the music industry?

Ok maybe that’s a bold statement, but the Toronto Raptors face of the franchise and Warner Music Canada announced today that they’re teaming up on an incredibly unique venture that shines light on another creative way the music industry may bust out of its slump. I’ve written about the music industry’s need to adapt in this space before, but we’re not going to re-hash that today. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I’d be writing about the music industry today at all. However, I had set my calendar as Bosh had let his fans...

Billionaire Wrestlemania comes to Denver – just without the wrestling

E. Stan Kroenke never thought there was going to be a basketball game in Denver last night, and that’s where his problem started. Kroenke, the owner of the Denver Nuggets of the NBA, the Colorado Avalanche of the NHL and Pepsi Centre, the venue both teams call home, has been at the center of a war of words between World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the past week. The only thing is, in spite of being the catalyst for the entire fiasco, E. hasn’t spoken a word. (Sorry, couldn’t resist the play on...

To boldly go where no niche has gone before…

Ok, maybe not “no niche”, but I couldn’t resist the chance to quote William Shatner. If you hadn’t yet caught on, this post is being put up today as a tribute to the release of “Star Trek“, the motion picture (not be confused with “Star Trek: The Motion Picutre“).  The Trek movie franchise has come along way since the slightly overweight and greying crew was dusted off back in 1980 for its big screen debut.  Today, as the internet is a-buzz about the 11th installment of the series it makes for a particularly timely...

‘Hacking’ into niche content – launching a web series, with Jill Golick (Part 1)

With microblogging and social networking seemingly dominating all of the headlines these days, I was really refreshed a short while ago when I came across an original pay-per-download instructional web video series called Hailey’s Hacks. I thought it was great to see someone investing video content with a clear purpose, rather than simply networking, and even greater, to see that it was starting with a business model – a somewhat novel concept these days! I got even more excited when I realized that Hailey’s Hacks was created by Toronto’s own...

It’s not Gossip, Girl – it’s the future of hyper-niche citizen journalism

I have a confession to make. I love cheesy TV dramas. The unenlightened among you might call them “chick” shows, but as a regular viewer of many such programs, I can assure you that they do have entertainment value for the discerning gentleman – just sometimes it’s a little harder to spot. In spite of this confession, up until this week I had managed to avoid a program that all the ladies seem to be talking about these days. A little show called, Gossip Girl. The show was actually named for a pop-culture term that I always thought I...