Enjoy some post-event dialogue about the Canada-e-Connect conference program and festivities, as blogged by a few savvy delegates:

• Jaime Horwitz
• Daniel Vasquez
• Philip Caines
• William Bakker
• Joe Buhler
• Ian McAnerin
• Marc Tyrell
• Sean Moffit
• Timothy O’Neil-Dunne
• Heather Kirk
• Stephen Joyce

I personally wanted to thank everybody - speakers, sponsors, volunteers, attendees, the Canadian e-Tourism Council, my staff, and my personal advisors and mental support (you know who you are) - for making Canada-e-Connect and the Canadian e-Tourism Awards a big success. Thank you to all of you for the many emails congratulating me and my team about the conference. I have created a Canada-e-Connect Group on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8560151146). Please join, share your pictures and videos, as well as post your thoughts about the events on the wall.

This was certainly an interesting an intense experience. But I learned a lot…

Here are my Top 10 learnings (in no particular order):
1. Stick to your vision
2. Know your true friends
3. It’s all about focus
4. In the end, the devil is in the detail
5. Content is King
6. Life’s a party
7. Surround yourself with great people you can trust
8. Integrity is the most important thing
9. Nothing is impossible
10. Always remember your customer

Last week the first ever Canada-e-Connect conference program wrapped after two frenetic days of outstanding keynotes and interesting panel conversations. For participants in the Canadian e-Tourism Council Summit, the program held an extra day action-packed day of dialogue and collaboration.

With experts present from all sides of the e-Tourism arena, Canada-e-Connect delegates clearly proved to be an innovative and dynamic group. I hope good times were had by all, and that you found the conference program rewarding.

Pictures from the November 7-9th Event:

If you have pictures uploaded to your Flickr account and would like to add them to the Canada-e-Connect photo group, you can either tag your photos with “canadaeconnect” (so we can find them) or simply join the conference flickr group and submit your images.  You can view the Slideshow of all images tagged with “canadaeconnect”.

Today was an incredible day of keynote and panel sessions. The Canadian e-Tourism Awards were an exciting way to finish the day, followed by a terrific after-party at Coast Restaurant sponsored by Yahoo!  

With the Canada-e-Connect conference only a week away, many delegates (including myself!) are busy organizing meet-ups with colleagues and generally planning activities for November 7th - 9th.

Get Organized with Mobile Phone Alerts!

We’ll be able to access at-hand information and stay connected throughout the conference via mobile phone and FREE Mobile Alerts/Information powered by QuickMobile:

• Receive real time updates on activities, events, and breaking news

• Send event details and logistics directly to your phone

• Participate in real-time mobile polling and mobile Q&A sessions

To start the service, conference delegates simply need to text START to 604-318-0512. This activates your mobile alerts.

Mobile Alerts Menu:

START - Subscribe to Canada-e-Connect’s Mobile Alerts.

STOP - To be removed from the service.

HELP - Receive the full list of keywords

BUS - Bus transportation details for the evening activities.

TAXI - Contact details for local taxi companies.

PARTY - Time and location details for tonight’s reception and party.

KEYNOTE - Morning keynote details, including time and location.

HOTEL - Location and contact details for the conference.

*Mobile Alerts are a free service at the Canada-e-Connect conference, however, text messages may be charged according to your cell phone usage plan.

The Canada-e-Connect Entrepreneur Competition was launched to give online travel start-ups the opportunity to win a scholarship to participate in the conference.

The chosen start-up would be able to present their value proposition in 10 minutes in front of the coveted Canada-e-Connect audience.

Yesterday I received word from Jens Thraenhart that a winner was announced for the Entrepreneur Spotlight competition, and today it is my pleasure to announce the name of this really interesting organization.

The company is called PlanetEye.com, and the concept is very exciting.

PlanetEye is dedicated to inspiring travellers to discover captivating destinations around the world specifically through photographs, videos and valuable advice from independent travelers and locals.

So…what’s the buzz about PlanetEye?

We’ve all heard the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, right?

This is a concept that PlanetEye has really embraced as their core offering as they work to develop a truly different kind of travel guide featuring beautiful photographs and videos that immerse viewers in a destination.

Imagine looking at a photo that evokes the seductive aroma of a Parisian bakery, or a photo that captures the hustle, bustle and noise of Times Square in New York. These are the kinds of photos that will be featured on PlanetEye.

Butch Langlois, President & CEO of PlanetEye Inc., will be presenting PlanetEye during the Canada-e-Connect Entrepreneur Spotlight on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 12pm.

Butch had this to say about PlanetEye during a welcome message on his excellent company blog:

“While many Web sites provide incredible value to travel consumers, we believe there is an exciting opportunity for PlanetEye to leverage many of the emerging elements of the Web such as photo-sharing, geo-tagging and mapping to create something that will inspire travelers to discover the most captivating destinations around the world.

We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We see our core mission as helping people plan their trips by providing them with the essence of a destination through beautiful photographs, insider tips and innovative mapping technology that puts everything into context.”

As geotagging technology becomes increasingly popular and available, more people are realizing there is tremendous value in being able to accurately pinpoint the location of their photographs. Travellers, for example, are discovering that geotags are a great way to track their journeys, while businesses are learning there is huge value in being able to tag all kinds of data to provide consumers with an aggregated view of the world.

I’ve long been a huge fan and advocate for photography-sharing communities such as flickr, and I am delighted that PlanetEye is making waves in the travel space by converging photos, video, UGC and mapping/geotagging.

The concept of geotagging is fast moving beyond geek-ville, and it’s exciting to seeing all of these technologies brought together for the purpose of inspiring travellers to share their experiences so that other viewers may create new ones.

I can’t wait to hear more about PlanetEye.com.

French blogger Claude Benard is a prolific (and popular) writer on the topic of Travel 2.0 and e-Tourism on his excellent Les Explorers website.

Claude writes mostly in French, but he has featured some excellent english-language interviews with an impressive list of e-Tourism CEO’s and operators.

In a recent post on Les Explorers, Claude offers the upcoming Canada-e-Connect conference as a shining example of bringing the public and private sectors together in a single venue to strategize about the future of e-tourism.

Claude mentions the following reasons why he believes that France and other nations should look to the Canada-e-Connect program model as the standard when planning their own e-tourism strategy events:

>> They use Web 2.0 tools: blog, wiki
>> They use Facebook and travel blogs network to make event promotion
>> They have a Entrepreneur Spotlight
>> They have a Student Contest
>> They mix panel representatives from DMO’s and private sector
>> They have a strong focus on social media impact

Claude and I met many months ago through the blogosphere, and Jens Thraenhart (CEC Conference Chair & Founder), met both of us independently also through blogging activity.

Being a part of such a rich wealth of knowledge is very rewarding, and I was delighted to read Claude’s positive perspective on what Jens and the Canada-e-Connect conference team are accomplishing with this premiere event.

It’s True. The team at Canada-e-Connect just released the newest conference program agenda (PDF) for November 7th to the 9th.

New speakers announced. New panel topics. It’s all coming together. There are only a few spots left to confirm for conference day, so you’re almost looking at the complete package with still a month to go.

Wait, only a month?

I’m lucky since I can walk to the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel, host hotel for the Canada-e-Connect conference in twenty minutes from home. Many of you, however, are travelling from across Canada, the U.S. and even Europe to attend…so now might be the time to firm up those travel plans!

Last week I managed to twist Jens Thraenhart’s arm into going for a drink after work to talk about developments with the Canada-e-Connect conference program. As expected, a whole lot is happening!

If you haven’t yet perused the bios for CEC keynotes and speakers, I highly recommend that you take a peek here. And you’ll find the conference agenda posted on the Canada-e-Connect website, or by clicking here (PDF).

Jens and the conference team are busy confirming and finalizing the CEC speaker list and conference agenda, so we can expect a revised version very soon with some exciting new speaker announcements.

I’ll be sure to post the link to the revised agenda here on the blog the moment it goes live.

UPDATE: Revised Conference Agenda PDF, October 10, 2007