A hundred years ago, the first filmmakers built their own movie cameras and recorded the world’s first motion picture images. These pioneers correctly predicted that their business would change the world. Making the ‘dancing shadows of light’ on the silver screen would soon be regarded as the highest art form, a powerful new communication tool called cinema. Storytellers from around the world experimented with length, dialogue and genres, and eventually a common narrative form appeared, and an entire new industry emerged to repackage man’s archetypal myths on silver nitrate. Human brains need emotional narratives the same way our human bodies need nutritious food. Today we live in another great age of change – web media is a powerful new tool that’s quickly transforming our lives and changing the way we do business, and the way we tell stories. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. All… Read more »
Posted in: article marketing, business storytelling, Future Technology, Interactive, Personal Blog, Photography, Social innovation, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing
Taged with: Battleship Potemkin, constructing meaning on the web, Rudolf Arnheim, Soviet Constructivism, storytelling
One of the best parts of my job as Managing Director of Lenzr Corp is walking to work in the morning through the Distillery Historic District in Toronto. Located at 55 Mill Street, south east of Front and Parliament, this is one of the oldest parts of the city and was originally the busy lakefront up until the 1870s. I used to work as a grip in the film business, and I’d get called to shoot movies here in the 1990s, which was before it was restored to its present glory. Today the compound is still filled with cinematic old buildings and beautiful cobblestone streets, but also accommodates a thriving community of artists and theatre workshops, cafes, galleries, stores and specialty markets. The area has been preserved as much as possible to accommodate museum quality historic artifacts and tell the life story of a large Canadian distillery, Gooderham and Worts… Read more »
Posted in: corporate social responsibility, Interactive, Lenzr, Photography, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, Web Resource
Taged with: Christmas Market, Distillery District, Electronic Engineering, Gooderham & Worts, historic buildings, Lenzr photo contest, mortgage broker, reed switch, Toronto
Posted in: Canada Blog Friends, Photography, Social Media, Toronto
Taged with: Abode nightclub, Andrew F Stewart, Blogger, Boardwalk Empire, Canadian Club, Casie Stewart, HBO, John Leschinski, Lauren ONizzle, PraxisPR, Whisky
The anything-goes, colorful world of HARTH really came to life at 99 Sudbury St in Toronto on Weds 26 October 2011. Harthfest 2011 was a large colourful event attraction filled with enthusiastic phone app developers fresh from AndroidTO. Raymi the Minx told me about harthfest in a heartfelt mass email. She wrote, Hey idiots this is how you come to harthfest for FREE tomorrow – get your tickets for your flight on harth air, i’ll be checking you in at the door. Forward this to friends of yours you want to bring with. 8PM 99 Sudbury See ya! http://harthfest.com Harthfest was the AndroidTO After Party 2 ROOMS – 2 EXPERIENCES, both of them kinda chilly LIVE PERFORMANCES COLORFUL EXHIBITS were arranged about the room behind a boxing ring, The StickerYou Make-Your-Own-Sticker Photo Booth Roller Derby champions THE ROLLERGETTES in-person The art of Jimmy Chiale The Eightshit social media profile pic… Read more »
Posted in: Canada Blog Friends, Charity Event, Friends of Smojoe, Mobile software, Photography, Toronto
Taged with: AndroidTO, Andy Milonakis, Casie Stewart, Harthfest, Michael Nus, Raymi The Minx, Sean Ward
As an interactive story engineer, I’m always interested in learning new ways to communicate business messages in digital media; I like to see companies doing exceptional things that ‘hook me’ and make me want to know more, and thereby bring attention to their products and services through story. There are many examples of how the magic of a good story has moved consumers, most famously, Ted Williams, the homeless man-with-a-golden-voice in Atlanta Georgia, the Old Spice guy, and Susan Boyle surprising Simon Cowell and everyone in Britain’s Got Talent. Susan didn’t win the competition, but her first moments on stage were so special that her fame will forever eclipse the names of the winners. She went on to sell millions of recordings and is living proof of the power of story. Business management consulting uses visual storytelling to communicate complex ideas. Each Lenzr Photo Contest is a Ready Made Story… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, business storytelling, Interactive, Lenzr, online business, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Smojoe Events, Social innovation, Social Media, Toronto, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, Web Resource, workshop
Taged with: business storytelling, Click Clip Deals, free coupons, management consulting, printable coupons, social media marketing, Twitter and Facebook, video media
Lenzr is a serial photo contest website that lets business sponsor art. We started the website in August 2009, and have hosted over forty contests in two years. The average price of a photo contest is about five thousand dollars, with prizes and tax included. The companies that sponsor the photo contests get some buzz marketing, and notice some rise in traffic, but more importantly they get a shot-in-the-arm of social relevance that search engines can’t ignore. A photo contest is a catalyst to growing social capital. On February 1st 2011 nine different matches launched on Lenzr, with all manner of interesting and unusual theme challenges. For the first two days there were no photos entered into any of the categories… it was unnerving. But as of March 26th 2011, there were over 300 photos entered in all nine different challenges that compose the latest Lenzr offerings. In the ten… Read more »
Posted in: Analytics Software, Interactive, Lenzr, online business, Photography, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, User Submitted Content, Web Marketing, Web Resource
Taged with: creating social relevance, evolution of enterprise, Judges, Lenzr, photo contest, Web Marketing, winners
Channing Smendziuk is Miss Teen Canada 2010 Miss Teen Canada World Winners press release gives insight into the action-packed week of activities, events and experiences that culminated in a dazzling night, the Grand Finale on July 17th. Congratulations to 17 year old Channing Smendziuk from Brandon, Manitoba. She’s the 2010 Miss Teen Canada-World. The girl is tall and beautiful, and smart and funny; she’s a very good blogger who finished with a score over 8.0 in the blog component of the pageant. Be sure to check the MTC-W facebook group for more news and updates about Channing’s most recent adventures, and her follow her challenges at the Miss Teen World pageant in Houston Texas. After that climactic event, and in company with all of the agents and producers choreographers photographers and web storytellers that she meets abroad, Channing will be traveling all across Canada as part of the pageant next… Read more »
Posted in: Charity Event, Fashion Blog, Friends of Smojoe, Interactive, Personal Blog, Photography, Smojoe Clients, Social Media, Toronto, Web Resource
Taged with: beauty pageant, Blog Army, bloggers, Cynthia Loewen, Jaya Pham, Michelle Weswaldi, Miss Teen Canada, Shelby Gobbo, Social Media, Thrinh Theresa Do, Twitter and Facebook, world
Let’s start this journal update with good news… As an online storytelling service, Smojoe likes to hand craft happy endings, and we’re especially fond of documenting Lenzr photo contests, especially when prize winners send in proud photography of themselves with their winnings. Slimmswitch won the Neuton CE6 battery powered lawnmower courtesy of a Toronto area grass cutting service. That’s a happy ending. The sponsor was thrilled too; they used the Lenzr platform to promote their solar powered organic lawn care business and used contest messaging to get their name passed around in social networks. Slimmswitch reports that the high technology lawnmower is flawless. It’s good, fast and really quiet. He’s been tweeting about it @LOCOHIPPO. So have I, and in keeping with my tradition of packaging top shelf ideas as fragmented stories, I’ve been putting a lot more resources on Fotki, and webshots. You can find more details there and… Read more »
Posted in: Actually sharing secrets, article marketing, Friends of Smojoe, Lenzr, Photography, Toronto, Web Marketing, workshop
Taged with: battery powered, grass cutting, lawyers, Lenzr, Ontario private school, Order of Canada, PEZ, photo contest, prize, Wikipedia
Lenzr is packed full of photo contests for March and April 2010. They came out of the woodwork to be part of this series, and there’s more queuing for May. It seems local businesses like the buzz that a properly promoted photo contest can deliver, and the price is right. If you’re interested in promoting your business on Lenzr email rob at smojoe dot com, or you could message Lenzr admin but it all goes to the same place. The buckstop is here. Toronto Party Rentals Company seeks Backyard Party Events photos on Lenzr Backyard Party Events is a photo contest for the DIY party people who would rather host friends than be guests. The sponsor is a Toronto party rentals company that wants to see pictures of people who stay home and do it themselves, renting tables, chairs, tents, wet bars, stages and fences for their own world class… Read more »
Posted in: Future Technology, Lenzr, Photography, Smojoe Clients, Web Marketing
Taged with: business phones, Fire and Ice, Geoinstallers, geothermal, grass cutting, How Green Are You?, lawnmower, Lenzr, modern office, Neuton CE6, Obsolete Office Equipment, solar power, Steve Hamoen, sustainable lawn care, tent rentals, Toronto party rentals, ZoneLife
Yesterday I wrote two blog entries, back to back, two hours each, from 7am til 11am in the morning. Then I spent the rest of the day leisurely bookmarking and promoting the posts in a ritual that has evolved over the years to include Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and Reddit and I tweet the links on @roberrific and have recently begun to use Zoomit. Toronto Dentist on the Lenzr Blog I started writing this piece by hammering out my recollections of the exact moment when Toronto dentist Dr Natalie Archer DDS of the Rosedale Family Dental Care office at 600 Sherbourne St unit #808 met a 22yr old female York University student named Seattle Dredge, the winner of the Lenzr Kids in Action photo contest, who already has lovely teeth btw; her smile is today far whiter whiter than my own teeth will ever be. While writing the blog I remembered… Read more »
Posted in: Canada Blog Friends, Friends of Smojoe, Lenzr, Photography, Smojoe Clients, Toronto
Taged with: Bariatric Medical Institute, Dr Natalie Archer DDS, Dr Yoni Freedhoff, Kids in Action, Lenzr, photo contest, Seattle Dredge, teeth whitening, Toronto dentist, Weighty Matters