Are you ready for Prospects North?

As a full service northern Agency, we also have the expertise in-house to coordinate events of any size. Headed by Joanna Tiemessen and backed by our team of communications professionals and designers, we've executed some of the North's premier events and conferences. And this year is no different.

Over the past several months we've been working closely with the NWT Chamber of Commerce to plan, promote, and execute Prospects North 2010 taking place in Yellowknife October 4-6. Prospects North is a business and investment conference, designed to showcase the North's economic potential and to foster opportunities for partnership and investment.

More than just planning and executing the conference – our team helped out by designing and developing the conference website, running a successful email marketing campaign, a Search Marketing Campaign and Print Advertising.

We hope to see you there! Register Now

KELLETT client relationship workshops

On September 14th, as part of a day of workshops for both our team and our clients – we brought two industry leaders north from Victoria, BC to lead two workshops at The Champagne Room.

– Social Media Strategy Workshop –

Chris Burdge, President of Bwest Interactive in Victoria led a morning workshop on social media. Chris founded bWEST Interactive, a new type of social media consulting business focused on helping companies grow their businesses using social media and emerging web technology.

About 13 people attended the workshop, including members of our team and representatives from Arctic Energy Alliance, Northwestel, the GNWT and YKOnline.

Some things we all learned from the session:

• Northern businesses and organizations should not ignore social media. Northerners are having conversations using social media about topics relevant to you. You should join the conversation.
• Other governments are getting involved with social media.
• It may be cheap and easy to get started, but you need to have a plan. You need to ask yourself first: What will success be? How will we achieve that?
• It will take resources to manage your social media strategy. The worst thing you can do is to be there, but not actually listen or engage.

Read more about the workshop in Chris's blog post.

Contact Dave Watson if you'd like to learn how your business or organization can use social media. He'd be happy to help get you started.

– Creative Collaboration Workshop –

Doug Brown, managing director of Copeland Communications from Victoria, BC came to Yellowknife to talk about creative collaboration. About 15 people attended the workshop, including members of our team and representatives from Northwestel, BHP Billiton, the GNWT and FirstAir.

Doug inspired everyone with a presentation on why we should work together. It is important to break down possible walls between the “suits” and the “creatives” within the agency and get rid of the master-slave relation between the client and the agency. It is all about collaborating: if you get everyone more involved and engaged, the happier everyone will be with the results!

The second half of the workshop consisted of a brainstorm session on how to build online communities in the north – all the attendants generated lots of great ideas and we worked out a couple of them in more detail. Read more about it in Doug's blog post.

It was an interesting and valuable afternoon: not only did we learn more about how to communicate in the North, but also about how we can work together even better with our clients!

See you at The Black Affair

On October 12, we will be hosting a charitable event at The Champagne Room to raise awareness about prostate and testicular cancer. We decided to put this event on because we recognize that these forms of cancer are all too often kept behind closed doors. This event will get the guys out, raise awareness, and fill a gap in northern cancer awareness fundraising. Thanks to the amazing support of friends – Investors Group and Trinity Helicopters – and great clients – BHP Billiton and Northwestel – we will able to make this event happen and keep 100% of incoming funds directed solely to the Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation.

While limited, some tickets are still available. Get yours by emailing cya@theblackaffair.com or calling us at 669-9344.

BHP Billiton Community Performance Survey

The impact of diamond mining has touched every Northerner. This month, we are executing a survey on behalf of BHP Billiton EKATI Diamond Mine to learn about the perceptions of their contribution and gain insight as to how they can direct it better in the years to come. Distribution is comprehensive – mailboxes, newspapers, online and direct calling – so we hope to generate a very successful response.

The information gathered from this survey will help BHP Billiton direct contributions from their Community Guarantee program. Make sure you take the time to participate.

Town of Hay River website

Last fall, KELLETT was awarded a contract to redesign & develop a website for the Town of Hay River. Their existing website was difficult and expensive to keep up to date, and had therefore become completely outdated and irrelevant to both visitors and residents.

The main goals for the project were to develop a new website with improved appearance, functionality, ease of navigation and marketing capabilities.

We achieved this by completely changing the way the website content is organized on the site – focusing on the target audiences, and by integrating a powerful, yet easy to use content management system that empowers town staff to update the site themselves.

Dave Watson traveled to Hay River on Sept. 13 to present the new website to Town Council, staff, and local media. The website was well received and the town is looking forward to utilizing their web investment to its full potential.

Since the site was launched two weeks ago, there have been over 2000 unique visitors and over 10,000 page views.

Other Agency News

Judith Siebring has recently joined the KELLETT team. New to Canada and direct to the North, Judith was born and raised in Groningen, Netherlands. She studied Communications and Information Services at the University of Groningen, and then started her own consulting company, which she ran successfully for five years before moving here. In that realm, she worked with clients directly to help determine exactly what was needed as a solution to their communications needs. She was kept very busy writing business communication plans and strategies, and creating website copy and concept.

She focuses on the overall picture for clients, helping them realize what they need isn't necessarily what they think they want. Her Dutch honesty breaks down any misunderstanding barriers, ensuring everyone is on the same page from the get go. When approaching projects, Judith is efficient and organized and brings both of these qualities to the final product which is highly functional and effective in the marketplace.