We have enough Ambassadors for this upcoming event, but if you’ve ever thought you’d like to lend a little help to upcoming Game Summits and use a little of your talents and knowhow to make our Skirmishes the best they can be then the Game Summit Ambassador program may be the thing for you! We have plans to kick-off annual Game Summits in 6 cities across the country + a national event hosting major tournaments. To accomplish this mission we will be launching our official Ambassadorship program this spring.

What is an Ambassador?

An Ambassador is a volunteer over the age of 16 who loves gaming and wants to be part of the Game Summit team. We enlist the assistance of people with something to contribute and assign them tasks and responsibilities to be done at the event itself or to help with the planning. This might involve helping us plan a tournament for a game you love, acting as a “host” for attendees who need a hand, or even using our materials and resources to plan an entire Skirmish.

Being a Game Summit Ambassador is more than just being a volunteer, however. You become part of the Game Summit organization and get to experience some of the best gaming the world has to offer, hands-on, at the hottest gaming event in Canada.

Why become an Ambassador?

Being a Game Summit Ambassador is a lot of fun, but also a lot of hard work. In return we offer our Ambassadors a variety of cool perks, from Game Summit Gear like shirts and hats to major discounts on sponsor products and invitations to Game Summit exclusive events. Best of all, Ambassadors get a lot of what they love most: Gaming.

If you think that you might be well suited as an Ambassador, drop me a line and let me know, I’d love to hear from you.

First things first: Registration for the Game Summit Winter Skirmish is now open, and you can get there by catching a taxi to the Registration Page. Note that early-bird registrants get 25% off the admission price. This is definitely a decent deal, but if you can’t get online to register (or don’t have means to pay electronically), check out the Game Summit Forums for information on how to register at stores in the Ottawa area and still take advantage of the early bird price. Note that if you’re going to join in a tournament, you really should register ahead of time. If you arrive and we’re out of spots in a tournament, you’re out of luck!

What are you going to see at the Winter Skirmish? This is the good part! If you were at the Fall Skirmish in 2008, you’ll remember we held it at the Canadian War Museum. We thought seriously about going back, but we simply needed more room. Instead, we’re going to be at the Embassy West Conference Centre in Ottawa with over 8,000 square feet of gaming, events and general shenanigans. Let me break down what’s going to be there:

The Winter Skirmish event will be divided into three main areas: The Casual Gaming Pavilion is host to all the board and card games the rooms can hold. From classic, well-known games like Stratego, Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne to newer titles like Monsterpocalypse and Descent… and even popular favorites like Heroclix, Chaotic and Bakugan, there will be great strategy games for kids, families and fans of dice and playing cards. If you’ve got the time for something a bit more immersive, The RPG Den will feature legendary role-playing title Dungeons and Dragons and the massively popular card game Magic the Gathering. For a bit of flavour, check out the cult classic card game Munchkin and its new released Muchkin Quest board game. If you fancy yourself a hardcore gamer, let the dogs of war slip in the Arena where table-top wargames are afoot; join the fray of Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40,000, Warmachine and Hordes.

Game Summit’s Winter Skirmish also boasts the finest in sponsors and vendors to provide event deals and specials to hobbyists and gamers looking to get great bargains. Games Workshop, Reaper Mini, Rio Grande Games, Hasbro, Steve Jackson Games and Privateer Press lend their support, but also Ottawa-area stores such as The Comic Book Shop, Toys on Fire and Wizard’s Tower will all be there to give gamers the best in gaming products and deals.

Where else can I find information on Game Summit? Game Summit is all over the web. The best places to start looking are in our forums, our Facebook Group and Twitter.

The event was really interesting, Corey and I realized by looking around the room that this could actually work. Our sponsors were amazing. Toys On Fire and The Comic Book Shoppe both gave us tons of stuff to just give away for free. Really nice. Games Workshop gave away tons of stuff as well as doing a Q&A session. Reaper Mini gave us 108 bottles of paint and 40 miniatures for the participants to sit down relax and learn painting tips. Almost everyone got to leave with something they didn’t have when they came in.

So we’re in the middle of planning our next one for the weekend of Feburary 28th. Two full days with more games, more tournaments, more activities, entertainment and merchants! We also launched our new community site for Gamers. (www.gamesummit.ca/blog/)

The Other Side Studios wants you to explore your city, snap some photos and party Canada Day away with an exciting new event called City Hunters. This July 1 in Ottawa’s ByWard Market, teams of Hunters will set off from Pub.101 on a scavenger hunt with digital cameras in hand to snap pics of cool and interesting items while having a lot of fun exploring this gorgeous part of the city. After checking off as many items on their list as possible, Hunters will come back to Pub.101 for the judging, food, drinks, prizes and a great party. Cost is $30 for a team of two Hunters to enter together and $20 for a solo Hunter, and will run from 10 AM until the mid-afternoon (or stick around for the evening if you feel like it). It’s the best place to be on Canada Day and combines the best of seeing the Ottawa sights along with a great party in a popular pub. And it’s early enough in the day that it fits right into everyone’s Canada Day plans.

The Other Side is really proud to put this together and watch it happen. The Hunting itself is a lot of fun, but we’ve also put together a lot of really terrific prizes. Hunters also keep their pics at the end so they can remember the great day once it’s over. And look where it is: Is there a better way to spend Canada Day than partying within a stone’s throw of the Parliament Buildings? For as low as $15, there’s nothing in Ottawa that’ll give you a better time.

The Other Side Studios is a company dedicated to incubating and growing creative startup events and ventures. Established in 2004, The Other Side is currently producing several exciting ideas which are born from entrepreneurs in the Ottawa region.

Social Marketing

Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing alongside other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good. Although “social marketing” is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is not the case, and an over-simplification. The primary aim of “social marketing” is “social good”, while in “commercial marketing” the aim is “financial”. This does not mean that commercial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good. It is important not to confuse “social marketing” with other types of “commercial marketing” where there is a contribution to a social good involved but not the primary aim.

Source: Wikipedia

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. A phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even SMS text messages.

Source: Wikipedia

10 basic starter tips how to make your site viral

1. Bring traffic to the site by adding a “Recommend This Site” feature
2. Bring traffic to specific page/article by adding a “Share this with a Friend” feature
3. Promote newsletters or promotion by adding a “Forward this to a Friend” feature
4. Increase member registrations by rewarding existing members when they refer friends who sign-up
5. Create “Rewards” or “Incentives” to visitors who recommends your site to their friends
6. Add audio and/or video Podcasts and offer easy ways to link to them from other sites

Our May 25, 2006 – digitalOttawa’s monthly informal networking event designed to introduce you to other digital media and creative professionals, freelancers and students from across the city. Darlene Moore from DriveTraffic made a presentation on “What will Drive Traffic to your Web Site?”. [download presentation]

Topics included:

• PPC vs. SEO – Huh?
• Blogs – Do I need one? How come Google likes them so much?
• Web 2.0 – Do I need to care?
• How to avoid being blacklisted by Google.
• Can I get rich from Google AdWords?

March 30th – Speaker: Mark Edwards from Edwards Law discussed “Copyright and Contracts – an overview of legal issues affecting the acquisition, development, financing, production and licencing of original digital content”. [ download presentation ]