Requirements

• You’re fluent in English and French, both spoken and written
• You’re passionate about food, about baking, about recipe development
• You’re a skilled photographer and interested in building on that competency
• You’re a confident writer.
• You’ve got the “figure it out” gene, if you see that something needs doing you do it rather than wait to be told.
• You’re a nice person who would like to work with other nice people.

Additional Information

Before we invite people to an interview, we’d like to learn a little bit more about them. Please note that these points are mandatory to secure an interview.

• Tell us about three blogs you’re reading, at least of these must be a food blog, and what makes them special.
• Tell us about three brands that are doing awesome things on Facebook and what you like about them.
• Tell us about three people you’re following on Twitter and why they deserve your time.

Send Submissions To:
Andreas Duess
e:
andreas.duess@fisheyecorp.com

Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.
Salary: $600/week

The other thing they have in common is that they are financially supported by CAN Fund , a not for profit organization devoted to raising funds and awareness of Canadian athletes, which in turn is supported by one of our clients, Redpath Sugar.

A recent contest we designed for the French Redpath Sugar Facebook page pitched athletes against each other in an arena where few of their fans will have ever observed them – the kitchen.

In front of an enthusiastic audience of Redpath Sugar contest winners, as well as friends and families, their natural competitiveness soon started showing, as pucks, boards and skates were swapped for sugar, flour and eggs in a race to a culinary finish line no less thrilling that any of the athletic feats they usually perform on ice and snow.

Referee and well known Montreal bakery owner Christine Mitton ensured that contest rules were kept to, no competitor’s eggs “accidentially” developed suspicious cracks and the heat of contest was kept at least somewhat below the heat of the ovens.

In the end, audience applause determined the winner. Caroline Ouellette walked away with top price for her white chocolate tiramisu, closely followed by Marc Antoine’s angel cake, Valerie’s goji berry bars and Caroline’s organic banana bread with pineapple.

The fisheye Montreal team had a great time putting this contest together.

This is a Summer contract, from mid-June to the beginning of September. You’ll be working from Friday to Tuesday, with Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

Requirements

• You’re personable and outgoing, you talk to anybody, young and old. You’re interested in people and what makes them tick.
• You’re right at home in Social Media.
• You use technology well, you’re computer literate.
• You’ve got photography and videography skills and samples to show us.
• You’ve got experience shooting with a DSLR camera – and you know what DSLR stands for.
• You’re a foodie, you’re interested in cooking and baking.
• You’re a confident writer.
• You’ve got the “figure it out” gene, if you see that something needs doing you do it rather than wait to be told.
• You’re a nice person who would like to work with other nice people.

Additional Information

Before we invite people to an interview, we’d like to learn a little bit more about them. Please note that these points are mandatory to secure an interview.

• Tell us about three blogs you’re reading, and what makes them special.
• Tell us about three brands that are doing awesome things on Facebook and what you like about them.
• Tell us about three people you’re following on Twitter and why they deserve your time.
• Send us a link to an album of some photographs you’ve taken. If you’ve got some video work to share, so much the better.

Send Submissions To:
Andreas Duess
e: andreas.duess@fisheyecorp.com

Only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.
Salary: $600/week

It’s no secret that one of our passions here at fisheye is working for clients in the food industry. We’ve got trained chefs on staff, we’ve got a test kitchen at the ready and, more often than not, our HQ smells delicious from one of the many food shoots that happen almost daily.

Building on that expertise, we’re happy to announce that Golden Gate Margarine, one of the Canada’s leading margarine manufacturers, has chosen us as their marketing partner.

More updates as work commences, but needless to say we’re all super excited about this awesome opportunity.

Using our powers for Good

We work with a number of Not for Profit organizations and NGOs – ABC Life Literacy Canada, The Hearing Foundation of Canada, Habitat for Humanity and now TRIEC. While we don’t work pro bono, we charge 50% of our usual rate.

Jo-Ann and Andreas, fisheye’s founding partners, share a wealth of board experience, giving us access to valuable sector information.

While QR codes can be really useful, they require the download of a dedicated scanning app. Especially for non-technical users, this can make them difficult to access or understand. A NFC (Near Field Communication) tag is much easier to use – just place your NFC enabled phone on the tag and the requested link will open.

NFC tags are cheap to buy, less than $1.00 a piece and easy to program – here’s a link to Tagstand NFC Writer, the Android app we’re using.

Gracie knows how to use twitter correctly – socially. About one third of your tweets should be dedicated to social outreach, commenting, questioning, complementing.

Copyblogger has published a great post, looking at the recent uproar amongst marketers and social media professionals caused by Facebook’s changes to Edgerank, the algorithm that decides what content to show to what people.

In a nutshell, these changes mean that fewer people will see your posts, regardless of the size of your fanbase and the quality of your content. Facebook is doing this to drive profits through sponsored posts and ad sales. After an IPO many consider botched and overvalued, they need to make money, on the double.

We have believed for a long time that relying on somebody else’s property to build your own marketing strategy is a fool’s game. At the heart of everything you do online should always be an owned property, a website, a blog, an app. This property should then get connected to the world using the appropriate channels. This allows you to make changes quickly if the landscape changes and to build an audience that is connected and loyal to you, not a third party tool.

Chat with Andreas on google+ or twitter

Yet many twitter streams, especially those run by brands, are intensely self-focused, a never ending stream of vaguely promotional content with hardly any interpersonal communication.

That kind of behaviour isn’t social. It’s old school marketing in disguise, the kind that people go out of their way to avoid.

To get full value out of twitter, try the following:

1. Search for something that interests you, or where your brand can add genuine value.
2. Go through the results, look for tweets that stand out from the crowd. Is the author asking a questions, expressing frustration?
3. Interact. Offer an opinion or help out, agree, disagree, congratulate, communicate, build a relationship.
4. Continue doing this for at least 1/3 of your twitter interactions.

Doing this consistently takes more time and effort than just posting a copy of the latest press release, but it also builds meaningful, valuable relationships that translate into brand value.

Chat with Andreas on google+ or twitter

We’re getting a ton of fake LinkedIn posts right now. Thankfully almost all of them are getting filtered out by our spam folder, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for them. Check the link they are sending you to before clicking it.

That’s as easy as holding your cursor over the link and waiting for the tooltip to pop up. If the link doesn’t point to linkedin.com, don’t click it.

Chat with Andreas on google+ and twitter.

To keep production going, Redpath stores raw sugar in Toronto Harbour, delivered during summer and ready for winter, safely tucked away in concrete basins underneath heavy duty tarpaulins.

Yesterday we climbed one of these sugar mountains to shoot a portrait of Jonathan Bamberger, President of Redpath Sugar. The view from the top was awesome, all over the city and Lake Ontario. We’ll post pictures when they’re ready for publication.

Chat with Andreas on google+ and twitter.

In typical fisheye fashion, we designed and build the desks ourselves, from 3/4″ black iron pipes and furniture grade plywood. We became good friends with our local Home Hardware in the process and the results look amazing.

The fever seems to be catching on, as even Ian, our video editor, has now expressed interest in working standing up.

Julian hard at work. We did run a router around the edges of the wood, then whitewashed and varnished it.

Kendel behind her desk, made-to-measure for her 6’1″ frame. A mat on the floor makes standing comfortable.

Chat with Andreas on google+ or twitter

How easily? Take a look at this, Big Ben’s (unofficial) twitter account:

A fun, automated, account tweeting out the relevant amount of BONGs on the hour, every hour. It has a Klout score in the mid-to-high 70′s. Which is higher than, for example, Warren Buffet’s Klout score. We rest our case.

Chat with Andreas on google+

Maybe it’s because of our close involvement with ABC Life Literacy Canada, we created the current brand, but we love the Little Free Library Movement.

The idea is simple: Build a little hutch, fill it with books and place it in a public space. A park, outside your house or office. People are encouraged to take books out of the library and replace them with books they consider worth reading. It’s a free book exchange program that fosters community, literacy and the love of reading.

The first Little Free Libraries here in Toronto have been spotted in the Beach and Annex neighbourhoods. Andreas, our chief creative, is going to build one for his front yard in Parkdale and we’re looking into the possibility of fitting one outside the fisheye HQ in Kensington Market.

Chat with Andreas on google+

With the launch of this year’s fall lottery season in Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg and Halifax, busy times are ahead for our team.

Yesterday, Julian and Mitch drove up to the prize cottage for the Princess Margaret Home Lottery to shoot an interview with interior designer Cindy Mckellar who is responsible for styling this stunning little piece of paradise on Bass Lake.

If you’d like a chance to win it, here’s a link where you can order a ticket for the Princess Margaret Hospital Lottery.

In short, quite the kerfuffle.

Thankfully, times are changing. We’re now the proud owners of a brand new on-camera hardware encoding and streaming box, courtesy of livestream.com.

To get one of these for yourself, follow the link above and order a Broadcaster box. Yes, it’ll set you back $500, but if streaming live content is part of your service offering then, we think, it’s worth every single cent.

The encoder does a couple of things. It grabs video content from the camera via HDMI (hurrah and goodbye to FireWire – finally), encodes it to a choice of resolutions ranging from VGA to HD, then streams it out via WIFI, Ethernet or a 3G/4G modem.

To get our mobile internet on, we visited the nearest Rogers store – we’re in Canada – and purchased a LTE wireless hotspot. That means that (almost) wherever you’ve got a cell signal, you now have faster, wireless, broadband that most people have in their homes. Data is still expensive, we’re paying $80 for 6GB, but having a reliable connection makes up for it.

LTE modems offer blazingly fast upload speed, allowing us to stream in full HD. Getting up and running is easy. The encoder sits on the camera’s hotshoe. Switch it on, connect it to your modem via WIFI, plug it into the camera’s HDMI port and you’re up and running.

We now use our Panasonic Lumix GH2 for streaming because a: it does audio really well and b: it doesn’t shut off its screen when detecting an HDMI connection, unlike Canon’s offerings.

Conclusion? It all works beautifully. So far we’ve streamed from a remote cottage in Muskoka, from Toronto’s Sugar Beach and from our HQ in Kensington Market. Both the Rogers modem and the encoder have performed without any issue, running for several hours on one battery charge. If you’re frequently live streaming your events, this is the setup to do it with.

Olympic Games are crazy expensive, as are their broadcast rights. It used to be that the big broadcaster could pay huge money regardless of the timezone the Games were being held in. You could count on a captive audience to watch supposed “live” events during prime time, allowing you to collect big commercial ad revenue from all of those passive eyeballs.

Of course times have changed. Broadcast models have not.

At fisheye we talk to our clients about the importance of using the “second screen” to drive adoption of the first screen. The Second Screen (smartphones, tablets, PCs) is now being used by TV viewers to engage deeper in content and turn TV into a more social, shared experience.

In the case of Olympic events that take place during the day rather than prime time, that second screen is also used to watch events as they are actually taking place – “live”.

NBC pretends each evening that things are unveiling live on the TV screen during primetime. Instead of figuring out how to use this second screen in concert with the first they are putting their head in the sand and hoping that viewers will as well.

Of course viewers haven’t. #nbcfail is the top trending hashtag on twitter right now in the US. Game, Set and Match to social media.

Here’s what we need:

• You’re a confident shooter, but you’re also good editing somebody else’s footage.
• You’ve got experience shooting with DSLRs, specifically Canon cameras.
• You edit in Final Cut X, colour correct in Magic Bullet.
• You’re a great storyteller, with an eye for a good picture.

Sounds like you? Send a quick mail to andreas.duess@fisheyecorp.com, including links to work samples.

We talked about our plans for the coming months, checked out crafts, drank beer brewed in the style of the 1800′s and explored the buildings and farms. To get everybody there and back we tried out Toronto’s new Uber Car service, which turned out to be awesome.

We had no idea he had such a thing for woodworking. Here’s the man himself, in full cake-building time lapse action.

Over 30% of Canadian teens will reach adulthood with some degree of noise induced hearing loss, almost exclusively caused by listening to music with headphones at an unsafe volume. How could they get teens to turn the music down to safe levels?

We knew that a typical PSA message, warning teens of the dire consequences of their behaviour, would be a waste of time and money.

Fact is that a teenager’s life is already full to the brim with “don’t do this” messages. Don’t drink, don’t party, don’t come home late. Do not hang out with that guy/girl. Adding to those lists would only create resentment.

Instead of telling teens yet another thing they shouldn’t do, we did something else. We realized how important music is to teens. Maybe instead of listening to reason we could get them to listen to more music.

Our reasoning was that you needed your hearing to be able to listen to music. Maybe we could sneak our message through that way.

We partnered with two emerging Canadian musicians, Ana Miura and Jordan Croucher, to write and record the I Hear Ya song.

Here’s Ana folk version:

Here’s Jordan’s urban soul version of the same song.

On the back of this recording we then launched a pilot for the I Hear Ya program. Live concerts in schools were supported by a web hub, social media activities, contests, and videos showing the realities of hearing loss.

The result? The program performed exceptionally well in a research study, with over 75% of teens taking part stating that they had reduced the volume to safe levels.

Not to be outdone by their Anglo friends, who made jam in the middle of the berry fields of Whittamore’s Farm, the Bec Sucre gang shot this lovely blueberry jam recipe video in the middle of the Laurentians.

So last week we hired our friends Frank and Dave to build us this green-roofed shed to keep our bikes dry and secure. The roof has been planted with a mixture of herbs, blueberries and even a raspberry bush. Sweet smelling plants that’ll make us smile for years to come.

The resulting video is part of our ongoing content production for the Redpath Sugar Social Media channels.

We designed custom made silver USB cufflinks and bracelets, containing a self running presentation. We worked in partnership with Zsolt Szekely from Made You Look, a Toronto jeweller with experience in creating the unusual.

We sourced the smallest possible micro-USB drives, then Zsolt hand crafted every single cufflink and bracelet. Tolerances are tiny, to allow the parts to come apart without falling apart. As a final touch, the client’s logo was discreetly laser engraved on the back.

USB jewelry instead of a printed brochure? Worth talking about for sure.

Rather than approaching the design work with the usual screen based tools, we decided to express the values of Kensington Market using a very different technology, letterpress printing.

A selection of beautiful letterpress typefaces expresses the variety of the businesses that make the Market what it is, in five carefully selected colours. The result is an identity that is a respectful and integrated part of the community it helps to define. It’s another example of what we call Marketing with Meaning.

Appendum, posted Friday, 3:00pm

Wow.

Some interesting opinions there, a big thanks to the people who took the time to be thoughtful – your passion and insights are appreciated.

As nobody has, yet, taking me up on my offer for coffee, and in the hope of keeping this discourse constructive, here’s a little bit of background.

When we were tasked with developing an identity for the BIA, we knew that it needed to be a reflection of the messy eclecticism that makes the market what it is. Creating a glossy logo felt wrong from the get go. We knew we needed to find a different path, something that expressed the individualism that’s at the heart of Kensington. We looked into the option of using sign-writing, an allusion to the store fronts of yesteryear, but decided that this was too backwards looking, too much of a relic.

We also wanted to make sure to be respectful of the history of the market – alluding to, for example, a hebrew typeface within the logo could easily be read as commercial exploitation of people who’s culture was once prevalent in Kensington. The same is true for the other cultures that have contributed to the fabric of the market.

Choosing a selection of antique letterpress faces was done with the aim in mind to express the variety of stories that make the market, while at the same time using a technology that looks and feels handmade as opposed to corporate and machine created. Choosing contemporary colours was done to express the mix of old and new, modern and traditional that we see all around us. All of the faces in question were inspired by signs we noticed in old Market photographs. They were chosen because they are a living connection to the past, without exploiting it.

The logo is designed to be fresh, welcoming, colourful and non-threatening. Like the market, the type has history, comes in different sizes, in varying quality. Like the market it is a jumbled mess, always in flux, always changing.

In fact, a perfect representation of what it is.

On any platform, on any device? Get in touch, we’d love to talk.

The latest incarnation of our Gracie’s Marketing Wisdom Series. As per usual, she’s 100% correct. Clever doggie.

What we’re looking for

• You’ve got a background in PR, journalism, marketing or anthropology.
• You love to write and got the samples to prove it.
• You’ve got the “figure it out” gene, if you see that something needs doing you do it rather than wait to be told.
• You’re a nice person who would like to work with other nice people. You like dogs and food – we’ve got an office dog and we frequently eat together.

Additional Information
Before we invite people to an interview, we’d like to learn a little bit more about them. Please note that these points are mandatory to secure an interview.

1. Tell us about three blogs you’re reading, and what makes them special.
2. Tell us about three brands that are doing awesome things on Facebook and what do you like about them.
3. Tell us about three people you’re following on twitter and why they deserve your time.

Send Submissions To:
Andreas Duess
andreas.duess@fisheyecorp.com

Now an Israeli agency called smoyz has devised a campaign for Kotex, sending out personalized gifts to influential pinners, gifts that were based on the content of their Pinterest pinboards. Take a look at how it all worked:

The result: Almost 100 per cent of the recipients posted about their prizes on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This resulted in 2,284 interactions and 694,853 total impressions. Not a bad result for 50 gift boxes.

Google captured more than 50,000 still images, which were then stitched together to create a 360º experience. This is what they say on their blog:

Take a virtual boat ride down the main section of the Rio Negro, and float up into the smaller tributaries where the forest is flooded. Stroll along the paths of Tumbira, the largest community in the Reserve, or visit some of the other communities who invited us to share their lives and cultures. Enjoy a hike along an Amazon forest trail and see where Brazil nuts are harvested. You can even see a forest critter if you look hard enough!