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Changing the World!
Sunday, 31st May 2009
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Well we did it! We finally did it!!! On the 25th of May, 2009 we launched our Technology Training Initiatives!!!! It was an amazing moment, and quite stressful in the lead up to the launch, but I loved every bit of it. We got to change the world!
A few weeks ago I was thinking about how best to organise everything for the launch. Jack from the BEC was taking care of the logistics of hosting and catering and Grant from HP was coming up to the Launch to show his support, but it was up to me to market and promote the event so I thought I’d do something different, because well…BLKMGK ICT’s slogan is "Something Different". So what did I do, and how did I do it? Read on!
First up, I needed a flyer. So I thought I’d put one together and I started downloading pictures of "technology" related items. I thought of having a few pictures, a bit of text and voila it would be a done deal. Then I saw a picture of a smart phone, and I thought that it would be great to have the smart phone picture covering the entire flyer, and then having the details on the screen of the smart phone. And that’s when my imagination started to run wild. From there I thought, hmmm why don’t I just create a flash movie and have the details magically pop up on a phone. And so I came up with this. Turn your sound up.
So I sent that clip out in an email, along with a very mysterious messages telling people that they may or may not have heard about a covert operation in the Northern Territory designed to shake up the ICT Industry and change Small Business forever, and if they wanted to find out more information they would have to log visit the link, or if technology let them down then they could click on the attached invitation for more information. So how was it all received? Well…a lot of people LOVED the idea of how I chose to market it and it generated a lot of excitement and anticipation about the entire launch. It was great! Others didn’t understand what I was on about and thought that I had finally lost the plot. Oh well. Win some. Lose some. But it’s all in the name of promotion!
A lot of people registered via the special flash application, and a few emailed through their attendance. About a week away from the launch there was still a lot of people who hadn’t registered so I sent out another reminder and got a few more people signed up. I created a simple spreadsheet to help me manage all of the invitees and attendees. When the day of the launch came around, I sent out another reminder email to everyone who said they were coming, but instead of a boring reminder notice, I sent out a map with the location of the BEC Offices, and contact details incase anyone got lost. Most of the people knew where they were going, but it was still a different excuse to get in contact with them as a reminder (timely communication is a must in this game!).
We invited close to 100 people - just by spreading the word through our networks and in the end around 40 people turned up, which was fantastic! Jack also managed to get the Minister for Business - Dr Chris Burns to officially launch the initiatives so we must have had some real interest within the community! But as you know…I’m always one for going that extra step further. So I decided to do something different…again!
On a slightly unrelated note…lately I’ve been thinking a lot about social media and the impact that it has on business. These days a lot of businesses use Facebook and YouTube to market their services but recently everyone has been talking about Twitter. The basic concept of Twitter is to send short messages out to a bunch of people who subscribe to your feed. It’s a lot like sending out an SMS except instead of a few people receiving it, it’s out there in the world to anyone who wants to see it. Sort of like you smsing thousands of people. Originally the idea was to update your friends and family on what you’re doing at any point in time, so people would often send messages like "eating food…its yummy!" out to their network. This can seem quite boring, but when you look at the concept of the technology rather than the application, you start to see so much more useful things that this technology can be applied to.
Take for example, the case of an emergency situation like a bushfire. It’s total chaos and the most important thing that you need to do is start getting information out to everyone about the emergency. So facts like - how many injured? where is the fire located? who’s on the scene now? can mean the difference between life and death. So if you take a technology such as Twitter, assuming there is internet connectivity around the emergency, all of a sudden you can get instant updates from people at the scene. It’s fantastic!
So what does all of this have to do with my launch? Well earlier on that day before Grant arrived, I got the crazy idea to Twitter the entire launch! Recently I heard about all of the Hollywood Celebrities Twittering away during the Oscars earlier this year and it enabled people all around the world to experience it in real time - even though they weren’t there. So I thought I’d try out a social media experiment and do the same thing for my launch. It was a great success and I had people following it all over the world! Here’s the Twitter transcript of the launch, and I’ve also matched the tweets (Twitter messages) to photos taken during the event. Enjoy!
Sorry guys there’s a bug in the system. Please scroll down to see the twitter posts!
| BLKMGK is online and twittering! Social media experiment for our TTI Launch tommorow. http://www.blkmgk.com.au for more info.6:18 PM May 23rd from web | |
 Ok just downloaded twitterfon and am trying it out on my iPod…6:55 PM May 23rd from web |
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| Not bad! What about twitteriffic now…6:58 PM May 23rd from web | |
| Okay twitteriffic is on steroids!!! Great interface design but takes time getting used to it. Not sure what ill use at launch tommorow.7:06 PM May 23rd from web | |
| Just woke up and I’m excited! Changing the world in less than 11 hours!!! Lots to do. Game on!!!1:50 PM May 24th from web | |
| Finished my todo list. Not too bad. 24 items and I can outsource most of them. Decided to stick with twitteriffic for today.2:02 PM May 24th from web |
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| Since us little entrepreneurs can’t afford a car with more than 2 seats…I’ve “acquired” a larger one for the day. Now pimpin in a BMW!4:29 PM May 24th from web |
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| Just confirmed numbers for tonight. 30 people! Which seems small, but considering we’re trying to change perception about ICT this is great!5:31 PM May 24th from web | |
| Minister for Business and Employment has confirmed attendance for tonight!!!5:41 PM May 24th from web | |
| Sent out an email to all guests which included a map of the BEC Office.It’s not hard to find but don’t want to risk it.Also a good reminder.6:41 PM May 24th from web | |
| Off to the center to see how everything is being set up!!! I could be very pleased or have my first heart attack of the day! Stand by…6:47 PM May 24th from web | |
| Just walked in and everything is looking good. Just setting up the laptops for the demo. Really excited!8:19 PM May 24th from web |
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| @katharinagerste hey kat! Yeah everything is going great. Hope this MSG gets to u. Still learning how to twitter! C u tonight!!!8:21 PM May 24th from web in reply to katharinagerste | |
| Okay all set. Time for lunch and then work on my speech!9:27 PM May 24th from web |  |
| I can walk into a room & inspire& motivate 400 people yet I can’t work out what to say to 30 people at my own launch!Still working on it…10:37 PM May 24th from web | |
| Ok slides are done! Just hope the words flow!!! Time to get changed and go change the world!11:16 PM May 24th from web | |
| Okay were ready to rock and roll! Few last minute stuff and were good to go! Never again! Too much stress. Agh but I love it!!!12:19 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Wow guests are here already!!!!12:19 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Minister just arrived!12:38 AM May 25th from web |  |
| The party has just started!!!12:43 AM May 25th from web |
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| Excellent speech by jack!!!12:46 AM May 25th from web |
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| TTI is officially open!!!12:49 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Im up for my speech next wish me luck!12:51 AM May 25th from web |   |
| never thought I would be standing in front of all the people that have supported me over the last 4 years launching a training center!!!1:06 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Inspiring speech by grant from hewit packard!!!1:08 AM May 25th from web |
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| Everyone seems to be enjoying them self… I hope!1:12 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Heeerree comes the activities for the guests, to make it not a boring speech!1:20 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Haha role playing time!1:21 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Shhh good role playing by from 5 different companies! Well done guys!!!!1:34 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Thanks everyone that attended the TTI launch! The night went so well!!1:54 AM May 25th from web |   |
| Ahh all done! Time for a drink and some r n r. Changing the world is hard work! Thanks to everyone who attended! It was a great success!!!3:42 AM May 25th from web |   |
From this, you should hopefully start to see the potential of new social media technology such as Twitter and what it can offer you to broadcast yourself to the world and make it just that little bit smaller. To check out future Twitter activity from me, this is the link to my Twitter page. Speaking of social media, I also had my friend Viran video a couple of speeches and they have gone up on our YouTube channel. The quality isn’t that good but you should get an idea of what the launch was like:
So there you have it. Using Social Media to reach the masses! The launch was a great success and I would like to sincerely thank everyone involved in it - Grant Cleary from HP for consuming too much "red cordial" with me in Perth; Jack Hughes and the BEC Board for supporting the proposal; Marni Wall from HP for her support in our application and her ongoing support after we won the grant; Jaysin Jones and Natty Peek for helping me come up with the original concept almost two years ago; Andrew Hodges from Microsoft who gave us a letter of support; Dough Phillips from Department of Business for also giving us a letter of support; Minister Chris Burns for attending our launch and cutting the invisible opening ribbon; and last but not least, to all the people who attended the launch and gave their support to the initiative. Hopefully it will be something that will continue to benefit the Northern Territory for years to come!!!
So with that in mind, I encourage you all to Dream great dreams, Build amazing things, Inspire those around you and Lead through motivation, because you never know when you will get a chance to change the world! Now that’s exciting…
AJ~
P.S. To visit the official TTI Website please click [here].
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Category:
dream, build, inspire, lead, technology training, BEC, HP, BLKMGK, Dr Chris Burns, Twitter, YouTube, Social Media;
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