Date:
Thursday, November 12

Location:
Downtown Ramada Inn - 708, 8 Avenue. S.W., Calgary, Alberta.

For more information, visit our event website.

Also you can buy your tickets now directly online by visiting http://www.amiando.com/smis

ABOUT WEST17MEDIA
West17Media offers consulting on a range of different social media services such as: Strategic Consulting and Planning, Reputation Management and Monitoring, Education and Training, Crisis Management, Project Management, Search Engine Optimization, Custom Web Analytics and social software development. For more visit www.west17media.com.

To interview Roger Kondrat, please contact Lyn Cadence at 403.465.2345 or lyn@cadencepr.ca

An engineer and Harvard MBA who has traveled the world gives his views of the oil sands and how they can become Canada’s path to clean energy.

The oil sands are a perplexing and controversial subject. Most of what we hear is shocking and overwhelmingly negative. But is there more to it than dead ducks and tailings ponds? Gordon Kelly argues convincingly that the oil sands are not the horrendous environmental disaster many suggest. New technologies and strong political and corporate leadership can allow Canadians to lead the world in the development of “clean” mobile power sources in the future, from within and beyond the oil sands.

This book challenges Canada to realize its potential in this critical area and lays out a framework to begin the task.

GORDON KELLY, B.A., Sc., M.B.A., P. Eng., is president of Integrated Planners, Inc., a Calgary firm specializing in corporate intelligence and international marketing. He is an engineer from the University of Toronto and has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School. He has more than 40 years of experience working in the oil industry with companies such as Imperial Oil, Dome Petroleum, and Arthur D. Little. His experience ranges from roustabout to supervising field operations to planning mega-projects. He has also consulted for major oil firms as well as OPEC. Gordon has worked in 24 countries around the globe, including China and Russia, and uses his experience to explain the oil sands in simple terms.

published by Kingsley, distributed by Fitzhenry & Whiteside
available October, 2009, 978-09784526-50, Cdn $24.95 pb
6 x 9, pb, 336 pages, with 100 charts, photographs and illustrations, bibliography, index

Books are shipping to bookstores now.

Gordon Kelly will be launching  The Oil Sands in Calgary in November and touring the country soon.

Gordon Kelly will be available for interviews in Calgary at the end of October. For review copies or to arrange an interview with Gordon Kelly, contact Lyn Cadence at 403.465.2345 or lyn@cadencepr.ca

Last year, the first Twestival was orchestrated  in London, England by twitter users to raise money for the homeless. Over the year, other similar initiatives have been observed in the twitter community. So this year, Twestival goes international and celebratory events are being organized in cities round the world. (see www.twestival.com for an event in the city nearest you) All of the work on this initiative is organized by volunteers and this year all of the proceeds from all of the events will go toward the work of CHARITY:WATER. More specifically, all of the proceeds will go directly towards the drilling of wells for water in communities around the world. Why?

•  Right now 1.1 billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in six of us.

•  Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.

•  Many communities in developing nations often have a plentiful supply of clean drinking water just below the ground, but no way to get to it.

•  This is where CHARITY:WATER and their partner organizations come in. Drilling a well can cost from $4,000 - $12,000 USD and many living on less than $1 a day cannot afford one in their community, even if the money is combined.

Join us for the Calgary Twestival, February 12, 7 pm at The Auburn Saloon, at the base of the Calgary Tower,
163-115 9 Avenue SE, Calgary, AB. The event includes social media workshops, live music and a silent auction.

COST: Early Bird Special
 $30.00 bring a friend (2 tickets included) until February 2, 2009
 $20.00 advance purchase, $30.00 at the door
 Tickets go on sale Monday, January 26

Ask us about advertising opportunities by sending an email to calgarytwestival@west17media.com

                                                  ###

To interview organizers Wil Knoll or Roger Kondrat, contact Lyn Cadence at lyn@cadencepr.ca

                                             
BACKGROUNDER

ABOUT TWITTER
Twitter was founded in 2006 in San Francisco, CA and is used in countries all around the world. Twitter is a micro blogging service used to share information in 140 characters or less.  It is simple to use and is available across multiple platforms (web, smart phones and sms).
 
Twitter users include the general public, governments, companies, non charitable organizations, and newspapers.  Barack Obama used Twitter in his campaign in the US to connect with Americans; civilians used Twitter to update the world in real time about terrorists attacks in Mumbai; and Calgary Arts Development uses Twitter to notify people of updates on their website and create awareness about the arts.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

ROGER KONDRAT is a former national team ski jumping athlete and x-country racer. He started his career as an entrepreneur in 1996 launching a landscaping company and in 1998 selling the profitable business to launch West17 Media (www.west17media.com) a venture that quickly led to being hired by Cybersurf working to rapidly design and develop new innovative products and services.
From 2002 Roger worked as a consultant on many projects for organizations as large as the Calgary Board of Education to multinational startups in the UK where Roger learned a great deal about online platforms, web 2.0 and mobile technologies.
Roger has just recently landed back in Calgary and intends to continue his consultancy here as a Social Media & Web Innovation Marketing consultant.
Links
Linkedin: http://cli.gs/rogerslinkedin
Facebook:http://cli.gs/rogersfacebook

WENDY PETERS is a web design and marketing professional in Calgary.  She has always maintained an interest in participating in the community she lives in.  Currently, she is a leader with a Girl Guide unit in Calgary, an active frisbee player in the Calgary Ultimate Association and an avid participant of many design, social media and marketing interest and user groups in Calgary.
Wendy moved to Calgary in 2005 and has since pursued her interests in web design, internet marketing and online communications.  She works full time as a communications professional and runs a web design company part time.

WIL KNOLL (GCIA Gold) is a network security analyst and theatre performer in Calgary. He has spoken about varied computer security topics for SAIT and SPIE (Security Professionals Information Exchange - spie.ca).  
Wil found himself honored to be a guest on “The Lab with Leo Laporte” where he educated about firewalls and web servers (episodes 168 and 180). His recent theatre credits include Rosencrantz in Christmas Hamlet (Swallow-a-Bicycle) and a short stint wielding a
megaphone on the roof of the EPCORE Centre in -30 weatherin Freak Show (Swallow-a-Bicycle), during the opening weekend of One Yellow rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo.  
Wil believes that social media is about participation and leading through example. He dislikes writing bios.

Resources

Calgary Twestival

Twestival - International

Charity:Water

Related Links

Follow us on Twitter

Join Twitter

(Calgary, January 7, 2009) In a remote location west of Brooks, Alberta in 1980, scientist Gordon Freeman discovered a Sun Temple that pre-dates Stonehenge. According to Freeman, it was constructed some 5000 years ago by the Oxbow People, and contains a solar calendar like ours, but slightly more accurate. He states that the site also contains a detailed lunar calendar. During field work in England from 1986 to 2006, Freeman found striking similarities between the surface geometries of Stonehenge and this site, findings which have far-reaching historical implications. These discoveries are carefully documented and interpreted in Gordon Freeman’s new book, Canada’s Stonehenge: Astounding Archaeological Discoveries in Canada, England, and Wales, launching February 4th.

Freeman describes the Alberta site as a complex, lace-like pattern of stones extending over an area of about thirty square kilometres. Local ranchers have called the hilltop Sunburst centrepiece of the site “the Sundial” for the last hundred years, while archaeologists apply the term “medicine wheel” to this and similar constructions across the prairies. Gordon Freeman’s investigations reveal much more.

As Freeman states, “I had found an amazingly accurate year-round calendar in this Sun Temple, marked with rock lines pointing to Sun rises and sets at critical dates.” He notes, “I later learned of arguments going on, mainly negative, about whether Stonehenge contained marked observation lines to the Summer Solstice Sun rise and the Winter Solstice Sun set. By applying what I had learned in Alberta to observing Sun rises and sets through Stonehenge, I found that an accurate, entire year-round calendar exists in Stonehenge.”

In the book, Freeman reveals other discoveries he has made from applying his painstaking techniques and resulting theory to other similar sites, including one on Preseli Mountain in Southwestern Wales, and another on Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

Throughout Canada’s Stonehenge, Gordon Freeman carefully outlines his arguments and illustrates them with detailed, colour photographs and maps, while he tells his story of discovery.

Gordon Freeman is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta where he pioneered interdisciplinary studies in chemistry, physics and human societies. He was introduced to Stone Age artefacts at age six and has visited and studied many archaeological sites in Canada, the United States, Britain, Ireland, Europe and Asia. He lives in Edmonton with his wife Phyllis.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, A REVIEW COPY, OR TO ARRANGE AN INTERVIEW WITH GORDON FREEMAN, CONTACT LYN CADENCE AT lyn@cadencepr.ca OR 403.465.2345.

To order see http://www.fitzhenry.ca/detail.aspx?ID=10210

backgrounder

ADVANCE PRAISE
Gordon Freeman is the true Sunwatcher—a humane investigator of the record of human observations of the sun, the moon, and the seasons.
Passion and science blend in this remarkable, readable book, as Freeman takes us along on his patient and exciting discovery of a 5000-year-old Temple in the plains of Alberta. What he finds at the Majorville Medicine Wheel in turn informs his convincing account of Stonehenge archaeoastronomy.
–Roald Hoffmann, chemist and writer, Cornell University, 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

A fascinating chronicle of a scientist’s investigations in two of the world’s most intriguing ancient sites, Stonehenge in Britain and the Majorville Cairn and Medicine Wheel in Alberta, Canada. Freeman reveals that 5000 years ago, Britons and Plains Indians made precise astronomical observations at these sites, halfway around the world from one another, at nearly the same latitude. Canada’s Stonehenge adds the flavour of the Canadian prairies to important new discoveries of Neolithic science.
–Alice B. Kehoe, Professor of Anthropology, Marquette University, worked with Astronomer John Eddy at the Moose Mountain Medicine Wheel

MORE ABOUT GORDON FREEMAN
Gordon Freeman was born in 1930 in Hoffer, Saskatchewan, and was introduced to Stone Age artefacts at the age of six. His father collected stone projectile points and stone tools from the Saskatchewan prairie after dry winds had blown away tilled soil.

He obtained an M.A. from the University of Saskatchewan, a Ph.D. from McGill, and a D.Phil. from Oxford. He is a Chemical Physicist, was for ten years Chairman of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Alberta, and for thirty years Director of the Radiation Research Centre there. He is now a Professor Emeritus. For forty years he has pioneered interdisciplinary studies in chemistry, physics, and human societies. Interdisciplinarity is now the standard approach to understanding in the sciences and humanities. He has more than 450 publications in chemistry, physics, and other subjects.

As a hobby he visited many archaeological sites in Canada, the United States, Britain, Ireland, Europe, and Asia. In 1980 he discovered a 5000-year-old Sun Temple in southern Alberta, and has studied it ever since. In 1989 he took observation techniques he had developed in Alberta to England, to resolve the controversy that surrounded a possible calendar in Stonehenge. The astonishingly beautiful, ancient calendars in southern Alberta and Stonehenge are displayed for the first time in recent centuries, with far ranging implications for international prehistory and history.

He is married to Phyllis (born Elson). They have two children and six grandchildren.

10 IMPORTANT POINTS IN Canada’s Stonehenge

1. Genius existed on the North American Great Plains 5000 years ago. Genius existed around the world, independent of longitude, as it does now.
2. In southern Alberta a 5000-year-old Temple to the Sun, Moon and Morning Star has been discovered.
3. It is a complex, lace-like pattern of stones extending over an area of about thirty square kilometres (equivalent to about 35 x 35 city blocks).
4. The Temple contains a calendar, a solar calendar like ours. The calendar is so accurate that it exposed a deception in the revision of our (European) calendar by Pope Gregory XIII in AD 1582.
5. The Temple also contains a lunar calendar that marks the monthly cycle of visible Moon shapes, and the nineteen-year cycle of Full Moon rise and set positions on the horizon near the Solstice times.
   Stonehenge in England contains the same solar and lunar calendars as the Temple in Alberta. The Stonehenge calendars are about seven centuries younger than the ones in Canada.
6. The solar and lunar calendars in Stonehenge are entwined with exquisite artistry. They are displayed here for the first time in history.
7. A Sun Temple with a solar calendar has been discovered on Preseli Mountain in Wales. Preseli Mountain is the source of the “Bluestones” in Stonehenge. The Temple on Preseli Mountain might be contemporary with the Temple in Alberta. It is intriguing that the Temples are at nearly the same latitude and separated by a continent and an ocean.
8. New light has been shone on the King Arthur legends. They might be rooted in myths 3000 years older than previously thought.
9. Colour photographs and maps clearly illustrate Freeman’s findings throughout Canada’s Stonehenge.
10. The same accurate solar calendar exists on Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

The poetry has a unique warmth — it really sounds like a loving grandmother reading to her grandchild. This charming book is the sequel to Trixie Dee — a book Oltean, now in her 80s, released 25 years ago.
- Ages 2-5.”    - Calgary Herald

Eleanor Oltean’s first children’s picture book, Tricksy Dee, “>a glorious marriage between her stunning paintings and enchanting verse, has sold out long ago. But now, after a twenty-five year absence she is back with Tricksy Dee in Winter, telling the tale of survival of pixies and fairies in verse and the lush winterscapes she has painted over the years.

Eleanor Oltean grew up with painting and poetry; prairies, pixies and fairies – and has nurtured these passions over her lifetime. Now in her eighties, Oltean is best known as a painter of prairie landscapes, with paintings in collections in fourteen countries around the world.
With her late husband Dean, Eleanor Oltean built pixie and fairy homes in the hollows of dead trees on her farm in Saskatchewan. She still keeps one of these, a fairy stump, in her home in Calgary.

Tricksy Dee in Winter will soon be available at your favourite online bookstore. Meanwhile, contact info@cadencepr.ca for further info.

Trixie Dee in Winter
Kingsley Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-0784526-0-5;
8.5 x 11; hc, 32 pages; $9.95

Content is always king, form follows content, and the minutiae of your life isn’t going to gain you a following unless you are a humourist whose books are based on engaging minutiae. So choose a subject that is near and dear to your audience. Use your blog as research for your next book. If you are a poet and don’t want to give away all of your poems, use some of them for illustration in a blog on poetics. If you are a food writer, write about the aspects of food that you are researching and include tips and recipes. Let your audience know what you are doing with your latest book. Tell them the stories behind the development of your current book and how it is affecting your audiences. But most important, decide your strategy and target your audience in advance and build your following. That means marketing and promotion.

I’ve amassed quite a collection of resources in the past few years - books, ebooks, websites, blogs - on blogging and other social networking blather and am delighted to provide you with a free, straightforward, how-to e-book for beginning bloggers, courtesy of Maria Reyes-McDavis, the web success diva. Just go to her website at http://www.websuccessdiva.com, sign up for her newsletter and receive the no-nonsense Blog Success 2.0 Guide: “A complete step-by-step guide to turn your blog into a lean, mean traffic building machine that will target, engage, and convert your audience.” It’s the whole, meal deal without all of the choices and philosophical meanderings you’ll find in the various tomes on the subject. Not only that, but her newsletter is always filled with meaty, useful tips that you can put into action immediately. Maria’s expertise moved me from research into action. I hope she’ll do the same for you.

Times changed. Guests changed. It used to be that someone made coffee and cookies or bought cheap wine and sliced some cheese and put crackers in a basket and guests were so thrilled to be at the book launch, they bought books in quantity to support their friend. But then, the publishing process speeded up and there were more and more books being launched. So many launch parties were happening that guests compared them all to each other. They began complaining about the food and beverages at the average launch and expected to receive a free book along with the refreshments. So policies were put into place by many publishers. How could they know which launches would net a lot of book sales? How could they explain to their authors that one would receive a launch and the other would not?

So, have your own launch party. Why not? You deserve it. You probably want to thank the people who supported you through this long journey and you definitely should mark the event with a celebration shared with your friends and associates. So, why not go ahead and have the party that you want. If you plan it carefully, and well in advance, you might even be able to turn it into a media event with supporters who will continue to support you long after the event. Or, you could have a party your friends will never forget. Or, you could angle for a position on the local bestseller list.

An important consideration is how much you can afford to spend; another is whether or not your objective is to get on your local bestseller list - if your community has one. You could have a lush launch at an exclusive venue, and you could choose to give away your book if you wish. It would be lovely, but it isn’t necessary. Your local bookseller would probably be delighted to host the launch for you if you are inviting your friends and family and will contribute for refreshments. If your local bookseller is one of a few booksellers in your community who is asked for a report on sales for the bestseller list, and your friends buy lots of books, you might get on the list. To improve your chances, go ’round to the other booksellers and offer to sign books. If you decide to proceed with this approach, be gracious and understanding. If the bookseller you speak with isn’t familiar with your book, stay calm and positive. Take it as an opportunity to introduce your book to the local bookseller, as you introduce yourself as part of the local community. If the experience is a positive one, the bookseller may do a terrific job to handsell your book to uncertain buyers coming in looking for a gift for a relative or friend they don’t know well. Good stories go a long way to making sales.

If you have your heart set on a more expensive launch, bestseller lists aren’t an option or a concern, and you can’t really afford to do it the way you want, use the proceeds of book sales to offset your costs. Houseparties can make for splendid launch parties. For your launch or for potential future speaking engagments, you might offer a portion of the proceeds to your favourite charity. You can offer organizations a portion of book sales for their fundraising endeavours. It will give you greater promotional opportunities through their lists, and the many not-for-profit listings in your community.

For a public launch, invite the media, local politicians, important business contacts in the community. Call on your friends for help. Invite members of every organization that you hold membership, contribute the invitation to their newsletters if you can. Invite your neighbours, condo-members, fitness club or bridge club. In the process, collect information about future speaking opportunities at local groups that are appropriate for the topic of your book. Keep notes and follow up.

Send email invites, contact everyone via all of your social media channels and encourage them to pass it along via their social media channels if the event is in a public place. At the same time, consider printing some hard-copy invites or sending postcards. The personal touch is not to be disregarded. Follow up with phonecalls wherever you can.

As for the itinerary for the actual event, there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules for a launch party, but here are a few guidelines:
Have someone introduce you – if you have a celebrity friend or well-known author that would be ideal, but your publisher, editor or a good friend will do nicely. Keep the introduction brief, and keep your response brief. The purpose of the event is to celebrate and introduce the subject of the book.
You may want to outline the journey that got you to the publication of the book and why you did it and what kept you going. You may want to thank your friends and family for their assistance and support. At the end of your brief talk, encourage your guests to enjoy themselves and make your way to the book signing table where you will hold court – selling copies of the book, personalizing inscriptions and answering questions. Have someone hustle you over to the book table if you are prone to social demands on your time.

And, there is no rule that says you can only have one launch party. Especially if you have friends in surrounding communities or travel a great deal.

Launching a book is a great sales and networking opportunity. Work it - and have as much fun as you can.

But, the problem with these very general demographics, is that they don’t take into account your niche market community. In my experience, there are more Canadian publishers, authors, and avid readers on Facebook than the other sites, despite the younger skew of the general demographics. So, if you are looking to try one tool, start with Facebook. Your correspondents will steer you in another direction if your niche community is making a bigger presence elsewhere.

If you are a real keener add MySpace and LinkedIn.

Here`s a video that explains how to get set up on Facebook, http://tinyurl.com/5jso56. Check the related videos underneath the window to see if you want further assistance. I must confess that when I was first invited to join Facebook, I was very surprised. In my mind it was something that teenagers wasted too much time on. However, my long, lost friend had gone to some trouble to track me down through the internet and made a compelling argument for me to stay in touch with her in this way. At first I accepted almost every invitation and gift and gadget until I found a way to really make use of Facebook. Don`t get me wrong, it was usually fun, it`s just that I`m extremely busy, and I engaged in a certain amount of time-wasting - because I went in believing it was a time-wasting activity.

So, get started with a serious plan and objective. Ask yourself who you want to be connected with and why. Once you`ve signed up, set up your profile and selected all of the settings to your satisfaction, go to the search box at the top right corner of the page for organizations in which you have membership or wish you did, and other interest groups whose members should know about your books and join. If appropriate, check out the group first, introduce yourself and your book or your latest undertakings.

You can set your notifications so that you receive few or even no email. But make a little time to connect. You can build an audience for your blog, find out about writing groups, conferences, calls for submissions, and build a launch invite list for your next event. Devote a few hours to do your initial set up. After that, you could decide to spend a mere 10 minutes over Sunday coffee to keep up.

Here are some great suggestions from Sachi Studios about how authors can develop their Facebook strategy - http://tinyurl.com/5jso56

Kickback unveils The Law of Contribution which states, “You get what you want when you give to meet others’ needs. The law holds true in your family, business and community.

Kickback demonstrates that this law not only works, it is proven to produce a predictable result, a kickback that enables success and fulfillment when your actions conform to the law, but prevents satisfaction in life when your actions violate it.

Author Robert Urbanowski explains, in plain language and with convincing stories and examples, the rewards that we experience by contributing everything we have to offer – our skills, abilities, gifts, talents, and even our personality – and how doing so creates a life of rich rewards.

Robert Urbanowski is a business growth strategist and president of Guru Strategics Inc. His unique ability to make complex ideas easy to understand led to his successful discovery of the Law of Contribution and the workshop series, which help people and businesses achieve meaningful goals.

National Philanthropy Day® luncheon in Calgary
Friday, November 14, 2008
TELUS Convention Centre, Macleod Ballrooms A-D, Lower Level
120 - 9 Avenue SE, Calgary, AB
Tickets $75.00
To register and for further information, see http://afpcalgary.afpnet.org

Support National Philanthropy Day®
National Philanthropy Day®(NPD) is a special day set aside on the fifteenth of November. The purpose of this day is to recognize the great contributions of philanthropy — and those people active in the philanthropic community — to the enrichment of our world.

National Philanthropy Day®, which is registered with the Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Department of Commerce, is coordinated by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, (AFP) whose motto is “advancing philanthropy through education, training and advocacy.
Calgary’s AFP states that “Calgarians are incredibly generous, giving of their time, talent, and resources at a level that exceeds the Canadian average by more than double! ”
Events are scheduled throughout the week, across North America.

Kickback, by Robert Urbanowski, 978-0-9810370-0-4, $22.95, published October 23, 2008.

Robert Urbanowski is available for interviews. Please contact Lyn at Cadence Public Relations for further information: 403.465.2345 or info@cadencepr.ca

Learn more at www.lawofcontribution.com