CaseCamp will also be making an appearance during SMWTO. Stay tuned for details on speakers. I’m happy to say that this will be a return to the roots, with a smaller and more intimate event.

Please visit my Magma channel for a bevy of interesting videos, or reach out to me on Twitter or email. Thanks!

Looking back, I suspect that I have been hurtling towards this eventuality all along, and now that it’s here I couldn’t be happier. We have a narrow focus, blogging and corporate social media, and I’m humbled to be (or have been) working with great clients like the Museum of Modern Art, Staples, Massey Hall Roy Thomson Hall, SickKids Hospital, Aeroplan and Nokia. More news on Entrinsic to come later, but wait, there’s also… CaseCamp!

On September 16th, CiRCA will be hosting the 10th CaseCamp in Toronto and I couldn’t imagine a better line-up. All my Internet heros will be here, and instead of listing them all, I encourage you to read this post. Please, sign-up, it’s going to be amazing.

For the last 6 months my go-to site for Internet randomness has been PopUrls. I value a well done aggregator, and Magma takes the concept to the next level. Not only does it pull videos from across the web, it works in real-time so the freshness is near 100%. That, combined with filtering putting the best videos on the top, makes for a fantastic homepage experience.

I look forward to seeing the rollout of the social networking and measurement features, as well as how others take advantage of the API.

For reviews and screenshots visit TechCrunch and Dembot.

The Drinkup will be at Function 13 in Kensington Market, with a DJ and a freshly opened interactive art exhibit.  Doors open at 9pm.

We will be fundraising for SickKids Hospital, and if we can get things all arranged in time, announcing the next CaseCamp with some very special guests. 

What distinguishes this book in my mind (aside from the breathtaking graphic design by Mr. Paul Hodgson) is the thoughtful study of the linkages between branding and culture. Through understanding the values that make Canadian brands tick, we learn a little more about our national identity and ourselves.

I congratulate my long-time friend Jeannette Hanna and her co-author Alan Middleton on their outstanding new book.Read-up on ikonica in The Globe and Mail, Canadian Business, and MJ Braide’s blog. Or just live vicariously and head over to Indigo and buy it right away for some good summer reading.

Thanks as well to our great presenters, participants and after party planners (Mark Kuznicki especially) for helping to catalyze such an outstanding community.  Photos are here.

This camp produced more online discussion than any before, specifically around the Story2Oh! case.  The core of the discussion has taken place here and here.  Having this much discussion is something that I find very exciting.  Woven into the fabric of CaseCamp is the mash-up dynamic of arts and business, it’s a place that showcases grassroots uses of social media like Spacing, Newmindspace, Rocketboom and Istoica with corporate cases like TD Bank, Petro Canada, Sears, BMW and WWF.  Obviously the goal is to foster discussion and take everyone to new places.

CaseCamp needs to be a safe place where people from various communities and industries can feel comfortable sharing their work, exchanging their ideas, asking questions and getting into healthy debate.  It’s not good for the community when the dialogue turns sour, when it gets personal, when there’s swearing on message boards and collegiality disappears. I urge everyone participating in this online debate to keep it respectful.

Looking ahead to the next camp I think we’re starting to have an issue with size.  I find that community events don’t scale very well and that the tone of CaseCamp has changed from when it was a 150 person event.  If anyone has any ideas as to how we can work to get back to that smaller group feel when we’re a 500+ person group, please email me.

Last, congrats to Mark Aronson for winning a pass to the Interactive Marketing Conference, I’m working on getting everyone into the CaseCamp LinkedIn group so please be patient, and check out the amazing line-up at Mesh!

This time, the cases are:
1)  RedFlagDeals.com - Boxing Day 2007 and growing their online community. RFD has made the jump from being exclusively online to now advertising on the TTC, Derek is going to talk about this   strategy too.

2)  TD Canada Trust - Key learnings from their Facebook initiative, The Money Lounge.  Presenting will be Sue McVey, VP Strategy Planning.

3)  Jill Gollick - A television screenwriter who is evolving TV scripts to live on social networks.  Her case will be Story2.Oh!, a weeklong romantic drama that had an audience of thousands and ran on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and other social platforms.

4)  The Radiothon Diaries - The strategy, program, and metrics behind the videoblog for the Hospital for Sick Children.

Many thanks to our sponsors - Social Media Group, Pigsback.ca, Segal Communications, comScore, Intercom Jobs, Thornley Fallis and Freshbooks.

This year, I am part of the team at Segal Communications that has added a new twist to the event.  We’re filming a daily videoblog capturing stories and moment from the SickKids atrium, and sharing them on YouTube, Facebook and a variety of websites.

Below are the two most recent diary entries. These videos are made to be shared, so please, send them to your work associates, friends and family.  And if you’re moved to donate, well, that’s a good thing.

Part 2 - SickKids Radiothon DiariesShare on Facebook

Part 1 - SickKids Radiothon DiariesShare on Facebook

Lila was born with a heart defect called transposition of the great arteries.  My deepest thanks go out to the brilliant and caring staff at Mount Sinai and Sick Kids hospitals who gave Lila a tremendous amount of care from the moment of birth, performed a flawless surgery, and are now helping her (and us) through these last stages of recovery.

Thank-you to everyone who has been emailing and calling over the last week, your support has meant the world to us. Iris and I can’t wait to bring Lila home and introduce you all to her.