Taking advantage of the pre-electoral climate, Quebec business bloggers write an open letter to Prime Minister Jean Charest to request an action plan in favor of supporting the digital economy.

The initiative started when internet marketing strategist Patricia Tessier wrote the open letter and published the piece on her professional blog on October 28th. In less then 24 hours, the letter was found in more then 30 other blogs from Quebec and a Facebook group was created for the cause. The letter already signed by many leaders of the Quebec e-business industry such as Adviso’s Jean-François Renaud, former Montreal Marketing Association’s president Louis Delage, well known e marketing consultant Michelle Blanc and many more, states interesting statistics showing that if Quebecers buy for 3.5 billions online, the third of these sales are made out of the province. Some others statistics reveal that only 52% of small to medium enterprises do have their own website.

There are the four main requested actions identified in the letter:

1- Give full access to all Quebecers to networks and digital services while eliminating barriers related to online transactions.
2- Increase and diversify the use of Internet into enterprises, particularly into small to medium businesses.
3- Make sure to provide training in the use of information technologies for younger.
4-Create a digital governance.

I think that it will be very interesting to see if any of the provincial partys will react to this letter because not only they send this letter to the Prime Minister Charest but they’ve put a special attention to deliver this to all members of our Parliament.

[for the full letter written in French]

The Web will be the most impactful and influential medium in the 2008 presidential race, not only for presidential hopefuls but for voter self-education and self-expression. Much like radio for Roosevelt and TV for JFK, the 2008 race for the White House will be determined by candidates’ abilities to connect with and galvanize supporters online. The Internet has changed the political environment.

How Internet will impact the upcoming canadian election?
Even if internet marketing strategies coming from Canada are way behind what is currently happening in the States, I cannot wait to see how the Web will change this current federal election. For sure I don’t expect anyone using social networking technology to leverage its campaing the way Obama did but I know that every candidate/party will probably consider investing time and money in order to understand how they could benefit form social media marketing.

So who will win the battle on the Web?
I know it’s too soon to tell… on one hand Liberals have [sarcasm] this beautiful podcasting section [/sarcasm] , on the other hand Conservatives have these nice social buttons on their site (FB, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, Youtube and even MySpace!). I guess it’s time to see what they’ll do with all these channels. In fact I don’t know if the worst would be if they don’t do nothing or if they’re not doing the right thing with all these opportunities. It will be interesting to keep an eye on their interactive strategy, in the meantime I’ll be waiting for a first ‘Good night Tweeple!’ from Stephen Harper.

Related to this topic
Political partys on the net: NDP | Liberal party| Conservative party | Bloc Québécois
Analyse du référencement des sites des partis politiques fédéraux par Francis sur Go-Référencement.org
Few days ago, Toronto Star columnist, Chantal Hebert has launched her political blog
Michelle Blanc thinks that the conservative site is crap
The Digital Divide Between McCain And Obama

The Story
Customers groan as Rogers sets iPhone prices from Reuters
Rogers announces iPhone 3G plans, unlimited data isn’t one of them from Engadget

The Customer’s Response
Fuck you Rogers | Screwing Canadian iPhone customers since 2008
Rogers Canada iPhone Data Plan Petition
The petition on Facebook

update: few days ago, the www.fuckyourogers.com site was redirected to RuinedIphone.com which is a little bit more politically correct.

Wow this post is a entire copy and paste from a FB event, don’t know if I’ll make it but still… I definitely want to promote the event.

Montreal’s technology and creative communities are mobilizing against a new federal bill to restrict creators’ and consumers’ rights to use digital media.

On June 12th, 2008, Industry Minister Jim Prentice will introduce the amendment to the Canadian copyright act, commonly called “the Canadian DMCA”. The bill was crafted under pressure from American media cartels, and it’s expected to have a chilling effect on free expression and free speech in this country. It will restrict Canadians from freely using their computers and other devices to save, store, and play their legally-purchased media.

The Montreal Chapter of Fair Copyright for Canada is holding an emergency action meeting to respond to the new bill. We’ll have information for citizens to learn more about the Canadian DMCA, and materials for writing and sending letters to MPs asking them to oppose the bill.

Come meet others in the Montreal area who want a balanced, fair copyright system that works for all Canadians. Facebook Event, Meeting at Station C this Thursday 6:00 PM.

While surfing the net in order to get further information, I went through a paper published few weeks ago by the Harvard Business School on digital marketing. The authors (Deighton and Kornfeld) base their analysis on the identification of five discrete roles for interactive technology in contemporary life, and five ways that firms interpose themselves into these lives in response. The article revealed that not only marketing firms have failed to exploit digital technology but they sometimes directly compete with social medias, pursuing their marketing goals instead of using them.

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The authors state five emerging marketing paradigms (thought tracing, ubiquitous connectivity, property exchanges, social exchanges and cultural exchanges) in addition of the broadcast paradigm and the direct paradigm that have traditionally interested marketers. Even if I find the study very interesting I can’t agree with Deighton and Kornfeld, feeling that these paradigms were always part of the marketing. The thought tracing paradigm looks probably more obvious since a whole searche engine market has emerged from people searching via Google and Yahoo, but remember that we use to rely on focus groups and interviews to find out what people were thinking in their purchasing process. We also use to have communities in the non-digital wolrd (societies, clubs, assocications,…) as well as people were participating in anonymous exchanges of good and services. I find that all of these paradigms were as important before as they are today, but not enough considered into traditional marketing strategy.

I finally came with the idea that marketing, even if firms failed to embrace the digital interactivity, hasn’t changed that much from its theoretical basses. In fact, it has been a matter of interact with consumers and then positioning itself regarding the received feedback. The main difference nowadays is more about the speed of this interaction. When the process of distributing a good, service or idea, use to take months, it could easily be done in days see hours in 2007. While the branding process took years, it could now take minutes. This whole concept of speediness is not only a consequence of the quickness and efficiency of the digital technology but it is also supported by what historians call change acceleration. Hopefully if we, as marketers, will have to have better reflexes, we will also gain as much information as we are willing to consider. So be prepared to communicate and interact !

To read :Digital interactivity : Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing, and Consumers, by John A. Deighton and Leora Kornfeld