8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson's Welcome & Opening Remarks

Julian Mills, Vice President
PRESCIENT DIGITAL MEDIA

8:40 a.m.

Business Drivers, Approvals And Resources: Before You Engage Your Audiences With Social Media, Make Sure You Have All Three To Seize The Full Potential Of Your Communication Efforts

This informative session will address three of the biggest, and often over-looked, challenges for public servants who want to seize the potential of social media channels.

By examining several pioneering public-facing projects, you will learn how to develop social media strategies and tactics to successfully take you beyond the pilot phase.

• Focus on the problem not the tool
• Make friends near and far
• Identify and assess risks
• Brief up, brief down, brief sideways
• Leverage existing resources
• Know what success looks like

Tracie Noftle, Director, Learning Communications
Adrian Cloete, Manager, Social Media
HUMAN RESOURCES AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT CANADA

9:30 a.m.
Break-Out Blitz!
Network And Discuss Social Media Challenges With Your Fellow Conference Attendees

This session will open the conversation by connecting you with other training participants and gain greater understanding into many similar issues, concerns, and challenges that your peers are also facing. Become acquainted with your fellow training attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

10:30 a.m.

How To Use Social Media To Keep Citizens Informed During Periods Of Change And Interruption

During an unprecedented amount of road work (five years worth of construction in one year) the City of Guelph has used blogs, feeds and social networking tools to inform residents and visitors about traffic interruptions.

The City’s recent Guelph Remastered campaign used social media to respond to comments and questions about construction, and targeted project updates to different user groups; motorists, transit users, businesses, media and residents.

• Integrate social media tools – using a single post to propagate multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts
• Create compelling messages to target different user groups
• Monitor and maintain content with the appropriate resources
• Compliment these tools with traditional media

Greg Hahn, Business Systems Analyst - eBusiness Webmaster
Stacey Hare, Communications Coordinator
CITY OF GUELPH, ONTARIO

11:20 a.m.

How To Launch A Successful Social Media Pilot Program That Evaluates Your Agency’s Readiness For Monitoring Online Engagement And Policy

Government departments have long hoped for an efficient way to understand the public opinion of, and to inform policies.  Couple that with the challenge of measuring the effectiveness of communication strategies, and it's clear that social media now has a key role to play.

Canada's annual seal harvest provided a tremendous opportunity to test several social media approaches the government can and should explore.

This session will outline a pilot project undertaken by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada to better understand the internal readiness for, and benefits of, social media monitoring and corrective blogging. Through their shared lessons and experiences, you will leave this presentation better equipped to implement your own social media pilot project.

Martha McLean, Deputy Director of e-Communications
FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE CANADA

12:10 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion accompanied by one of our expert speakers. Take this opportunity to connect with others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing social media for government concerns.

1:40 p.m.

Social Media Guidelines: Balancing Proper Guidance For Use With Social Media's "Open" Communications Channels

Social media cheerleaders all trumpet the potential social media has to break down silos, flatten hierarchies, and sidestep and replace traditional communication channels. Even its most conservative advocates acknowledge social media’s transformative capacity.  However, the great potential of social media in the public sector must be balanced with proper guidance for use.

• How much and how quickly communication has changed
• The role of existing and new guidelines in ensuring government agencies realize social media’s potential in a responsible way

Jeff Braybrook, Senior Director, Chief Information Officer
TREASURY BOARD OF CANADA SECRETARIAT BRANCH

2:30 p.m.

How To Enrich Your Government Programs Using Social Media

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) holds an immense collection of Canada’s historical documents, photo collections, art, portraits, multimedia, and government records and has been exploring a number of ways to ensure this data is accessible to the public, can be improved by users, and is known the world over.

Attend this session and learn from the approaches LAC has implemented to build on its current presence in the social media realm to engage the public, improve access, and enrich their collections.  In particular, you’ll gain insight from the organization’s successes and failures of their social media experience, as you explore:

• How to address the key challenges associated with using Web 2.0 tools
• Ways to use social media to engage your audiences
• The concept of Open Data with in the Government of Canada

Angelina Munaretto, Manager, Digital Engagement and Social Media
Ronald Surette, Acting Director General, Digital Preservation,
Information Technology Branch
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

3:20 p.m.

Afternoon Refreshment & Networking Break

Parks Canada is a Federal government agency that manages Canada’s 42 national parks and over 160 national historic sites, each staffed locally with teams that have a robust interest in reaching the public using innovative means. The national New Media Strategies and Investment Team (NMSI) is charged with facilitating the use of new technologies, including social media platforms, across its widespread network in ways that respect the Government of Canada’s policy requirements and promote the Agency's new brand.

Determining the effectiveness of social media initiatives is key to establishing best practices and directing investments appropriately.

During this session, members of the New Media team will review several case studies of research and evaluation work they have done over the past year, including the use of Twitter for a short-term (2-3 month) public outreach and marketing campaign from Point Pelee National Park, and an online public consultation process that incorporated both traditional and social media components to better inform the future management of Nahanni National Park Reserve.

You won’t want to miss out on the valuable lessons and experiences of this cutting-edge government agency.

Morag Hutcheson, Manager, New Media Strategies and Investment
Michael White, Senior Research Analyst, New Media Strategies and Investment           
PARKS CANADA

4:25 p.m.

Social Media Is Not One-Size-Fits-All: How To Choose The Right Tool For Your Audience, Your Message, And Your Organization's Goals

The secret is out – and now many government departments and agencies are considering launching their own YouTube channel or Facebook fan page. But how do you choose which tools are the right ones for your organization?

The Army News team in the Department of National Defence has posted more than 1000 videos to YouTube over the last two years and those videos have been viewed nearly 1.5 million times. Their channel is currently ranked within the top 75 YouTube channels for Canadian news and reporting. They're also using Twitter, iTunes and Flickr to share information, and have plans to launch a Facebook fan page soon.

Social media is not one-size-fits-all. Not every tool is appropriate for each situation. In this session, you will learn how to choose the right tool for your audience, your message and your organization's goals.
 
You'll also review some common issues to consider when using social media tools in a government environment, including:

• Tweeting in both official languages
• Managing comments – and responding when necessary
• Giving your organization an authentic "voice" and personality through social media
• Developing content that is relevant, interesting and timely

5:15 p.m.
Close Of Day One

5:30 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue networking. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Ottawa's fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.