Claude and I spent a great day yesterday at webcom Montréal 2008. The program chair for Webcom Montreal is Claude Malaison, and as usual he put together a very good event with a schedule packed full of interesting keynotes and well-chosen conference sessions.

There are too many people we met to single them all out in a post like this, but we’d like to acknowledge the support of our friends from K3 Media who (again) helped us to get the most out of an important Montreal event. In a day or so I’ll post about some of the key take-away thoughts from the sessions.

We’re happy to announce that Exvisu’s Montreal office has moved to the Main - 5369 St-Laurent, Suite 450. Our new space will give us a better environment than ever to collaborate on our research and strategy work - and we have more options to invite clients and friends to visit us. Special thanks to our friends and colleagues at Station C, which has served as a great home base for the past few months.

The March issue of National Geographic Magazine’s feature on Megaprojects in Iceland has some stunning photos of the immense dam built to supply Alcoa’s new aluminun smelter near the NorthEastern town of Reydarfjordur. The story focuses on the debate raging around aluminum, industrial development, hydro power dams and jobs in this small island nation. Not suprisingly, the story also reinforces much of the findings presented in the Exvisu Report Alcan & Alcoa in Iceland - Iceland has not been culturally acustomed to debating its future and making choices- for centuries the land and sea offered a natural bounty and beauty that produced an economy based largely on fishing. But now all of that has changed. Iceland is a modern society now, and technology-oriented businesses have largely replaced traditional ways. But the future is uncertain and the population holds a deep love for its natural environment. Big multinationals see easy opportunities and “win-win” scenarios, but as both Exvisu and National Geographic point out, companies that ignore the popular pyche and deep land-oriented history of this beautiful island may find it difficult to proceed with their projects

Dans La Presse de ce matin, on peut lire un article sur l’importance que les patrons devraient accorder à l’information qui circule sur leur entreprise via des sites de réseautage social, comme Facebook. L’article met l’emphase sur l’intérêt de connaître les propos que peuvent tenir certains employés au sujet de leur entreprise sur le Web.

Nous ajouterions qu’être au courant de ce que nos employés disent à notre sujet n’est que la pointe de l’iceberg. Les réseaux sociaux sont riches en informations qui ne touchent pas seulement la réputation de l’entreprise: en effet, ce sont non seulement les employés, satisfaits ou non, qui discutent de l’entreprise, mais également différentes parties prenantes, comme les consommateurs en général et certains groupes possédant des intérêts dans certains produits ou projets relatifs à l’entreprise. C’est tout un portrait de certains enjeux qui peut être révélé grâce à l’étude des propos tenus au sein des réseaux sociaux.

C’est d’ailleurs sur cet intérêt d’obtenir un portrait des opinions de toutes les parties prenantes que semble insister Sylvain Sénécal, professeur agrégé et titulaire de la chaire de commerce électronique RBC Groupe Financier à HEC Montréal, dans l’article cité plus haut:

“L’entreprise devrait effectuer une veille systématique, c’est-à-dire au moins une fois par semaine, sur ce que l’on dit sur elle et ses concurrents dans l’internet. Le web est devenu un puits au sein duquel une société peut découvrir une foule d’informations sur la façon dont elle est perçue par ses employés, ses clients, ses fournisseurs, etc. Elle peut ensuite en profiter pour se conforter dans ce qu’elle fait de bien et investir ses énergies dans ce qui devrait être amélioré.”

Alcan and Alcoa in Iceland is our blog based network intelligence mini-study of the sustainability debate surrounding the aluminum industry’s role in that small country. This study has been featured in the latest online issue of Corporate Knights magazine. I especially like Prof. David Wheeler’s ANT-like approach to corporate structure:

Think of the modern corporation less as a monolithic, fixed structure and more as an entity presiding over a kind of business ecosystem or a set of interlocking ‘value based networks’, where value is defined by the firm and its different stakeholders according to the nature of the relationship”

If one were to map such a stakeholder network in the blogosphere, the network graph would probably look like this (click on the image to access a full-sized version):

On my last trip to Paris I had lunch with Gilles Prigent, founder of Take Part Media and creator and administrator of Scitizen. Scitizen is a peer reviewed science news source: news edited and created directly by the scientists who make it, directed to well, everyone.

The technology that allows Scitizen to work is brand new, but the idea of peer review, which is a core element of Web 2.0, is as old as science itself…

Whether we are looking at Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Scitizen or the process of open source programming, a self regulating community review is what makes these sources of information so reliable.

Scitizen is an excellent example of how Web 2.0 is democratizing the means of information production, blurring the line between scientist and journalist and cutting out the traditional TV or newspaper middlemen.

Exvisu unveiled its latest brand study at Webcom Montréal (http://www.webcom-montreal.com/) last week. Webcom was exciting to say the least, one could feel rise of the participative web in the conference halls. For a good summary of the Webcom conference check out Benoit Marcoux’s blog: http://www.benoit.marcoux.ca/blog/.

We (Exvisu and K3) looked at a day in the life of the Red Bull brand on the blogosphere… and found some pretty interesting correlations.

The study was realised with Exvisu’s Micheal Boyle (http://www.mikel.org/) and the head of K3 media’s web consulting group, Alain Lépine (http://www.k3media.com/1/Conseils).

The study summarized over 550 blogs that mention Red Bull with key words: health, party, sex, performance, sport, work. We actually found a strong correlation between Red Bull’s main active ingredient and depression… of course Red Bull’s sponsorship of sporting events greatly improved its brand presence on the blogosphere… to see more about our findings check out the one page pdf summary:

Red Bull one pager

Exvisu attended the fourth annual Tremblant Forum on Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability on the 19th and 20th of September.

The Forum presented an ideal setting for communicating vital ideas about the future of corporate sustainability. Clearly the future must take a turn for the sustainable.

The last session on Corporate sustainability and the media was the most animated. François Bugingo of Reporters Without Borders engaged with Marc Gunther of Fortune, Toby Heaps of Corporate Knights and Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail on such topics as climate change, the credibility of NGOs and reporter’s responsibilities. Exvisu opened a debate on how the web 2.0 will affect traditional print media by asking the panel how they view blogs as an opportunity for a new form of media-consumer-producer engagement.

For a good overview of the forum read:
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/September2007/20/c3362.html
http://www.tremblantforum.org/

On August 28 and 29th, Exvisu was invited to the founding meeting of the NE3LS, a research network created by NanoQuébec, in collaboration with FQRNT, FQRSC, FRSQ and IRSST, focusing on ethical, environmental, economic, legal and social stakes linked to the development of nanotechnologies.

Presented last August 27th-28th, this symposium follows the actions plan NE3LS presented last fall and is an important step to the launch of a knowledge transfer network in nanotechnology.

With such an initiative, Quebec becomes the first Canadian province to adopt a NE3LS strategy based on a knowledge transfer network.

Exvisu’s past experience in Nano based scientimetrics was sought out and Exvisu’s heterogenous data analysis capabilities will play a role in understanding how this powerful new technological revolution will affect us all.

More on the NE3LS network:

http://www.frsq.gouv.qc.ca/fr/publications/autres_publications/communiques/pdf/nanotechnologie.pdf
http://nint-innt.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/research/neeels/index_e.html