One of my favourite parts of a movie is when the credits roll and scenes of the actors cracking up or flubbing their lines are played.

One of those moments occurred when I was working on a video testimonial with one of our customers, Mike House from the University of Alberta’s School of Business. If you know Mike give him a pat on the back; he was just elected to the Citadel Theatre Board and is president of the the Association of Fundraising Professionals Edmonton chapter. I was setting up the camera and tri-pod, trying to find the best way to fit in both Mike and the School of Business logo in the frame.

One of Mike’s coworkers strolled by, watched intently for a few minutes, then shouted: “Hey Mike, your head is blocking all the letters!” Mike took this in stride and joked he will now go by the name Alberto — a reference to his head blocking out the ‘a’ in Alberta. To watch the testimonial, head to our website.

The comment about Mike’s noggin was made in jest. His mound is not so round that it blocked out the letters behind him! But it was a missed opportunity nonetheless (sigh!).

Mike and I filmed the rest of his heartfelt testimonial and while he was a great sport — I made him stand, sit and even crouch — the best part of the morning was hearing what he had to say:

“We used to spend a lot of time making sure people’s addresses were correct and mail merges happened. We decided to go to an online system and we have found our alum is now more responsive to online requests. We’re thrilled to use InviteRight — it has helped us engage our alumni the right way.”

You won’t see bloopers in this testimonial, but you will see an impactful example of how InviteRight is used to make alumni engagement smoother.

Imagine going into your attic or crawlspace and pulling out an old shoe box, looking inside and finding some treasures that remind you of your high school days. Shoe boxes full of faded pictures and buttons are fun, but I’m not sure they will have the same appeal to kids in 2012.

Recently, I came across the term Infographic and realized that it does the same thing as the shoe box in the sense that you can use this tool to collect memories.

If you break down the word you can probably guess what an Infographic is — but the definition (I am paraphrasing Wikipedia here) is that Infographics are graphics that represent information, data or knowledge. They can convey complex information quickly and clearly.

So I got to thinking, this is a great tool for teachers! Infographics probably have plenty of uses in the classroom, especially when it comes to helping students better comprehend data sets. But here is a more practical idea.

Have students create an Infographic of their high school career and noteworthy events that took place in their life during this time — sort of like the shoebox idea. This is just one of many visual tools that teachers can use when trying to engage students and (to me) it would be a heck of a lot of fun to have the students interpret each others’ Infographics to see if they agree on what the most important or most memorable events from high school were.

What a great way to chronograph grad!

For many young sports fans watching their favourite Edmonton Eskimo or Edmonton Oiler play up close or even up high in the “cheap seats” section is commonplace. And the same can be said for those who make it a habit to watch a play or musical.

But for some youth, seeing their sports idols play in person or watching a professional symphony or theatre production may never be a reality for them. A family-friendly partnership between eventIQ, Northlands and non-profit foundation Kids Up Front will result in one Alberta youth having an “event experience” of their choice, whether it’s sports, theatre, or even a concert at Northlands.  The free tickets for a student and three family members is part of the Grad Give Back Program, announced Oct. 26. The program also includes a $500 scholarship and some free time-saving tools that are on our InviteRight SchoolTools website.

Please spread the word about this fantastic community program and watch our blogs page for future announcements. If you are on the grad committee or are a community-minded businessperson that want’s to participate in the program, contact eventIQ at 866-811-3144 or via email at sales@eventiq.com.

We’ve already looked Plurality Voting, Preferential Voting, as well as how to organize a Referendum in ElectionBuddy. Approval voting is another election type that is supported in ElectionBuddy, and that’s what we’ll hone in on this Feature Focus.

Approval voting is an election method that lets voters vote for (or approve of) as many of the candidates as they wish. The winners is the candidate receiving the most votes. More information can be found at the Wikipedia article on approval voting, but it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Approval voting is beneficial for re-electing a group of people. If your organization uses a “If ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, approval voting might be the way to go for keeping, for example a group of board members.

ElectionBuddy offers a variety of election types that will suit your organization. Today we’re taking a look at Preferential Voting.

Preferential Voting (also known as instant runoff voting) is a type of election where voters rank the candidates in order of preference, with “1″ being the highest (most preferred) ranking. The first preference on each ballot counts as a vote for that particular candidate, and the votes are tallied. If no candidate receives a majority (greater than 50% of the total valid ballots), the candidate with the fewest number of votes is eliminated and the ballots for that candidate are redistributed to each ballot’s second preference. The process continues until a majority is reached by one of the candidates.

The Wikipedia article on Instant Runoff Voting is a good reference.

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Before I announce the winner of World Junior hockey tickets from eventIQ’s draw at the Alberta Technology Leaders in Education’s annual conference, let’s give everyone who entered a big round of virtual applause for participating.

Jeannine Bobrowsky, from Elk Island Catholic Schools, had her business card picked from 120 others that were dropped in our draw box at our trade show booth. Jeannine was gracious and modest in her victory, yet let out a hoot when she was given the good news.

Asked if she wanted company at the game from a fellow hockey lover (I won’t mention names but this person just happens to write a blog for eventIQ), she politely declined: “I’d love to share, but my family is lining up for them already.”

We hope you enjoyed the game Jeannine. We sure enjoyed giving the tickets away!

On November 4th, 2008 (Election Day in the United States), the ice rink at Rockefeller Center displayed a map of the United States. During the day, tourists and visitors were able to skate over the rink. But in the evening, States were painted blue or red depending on whether they went to Barack Obama or John McCain. Being from Canada, and a hockey enthusiast, I loved this idea!

Photo by Elizabeth Wentling

“We always want the best man to win an election. Unfortunately, he never runs.” – Will Rogers

Talk about having a tiger by the tail… the striped cat is McNally High School’s mascot and their students and teachers certainly aren’t tame when it comes to fundraising.

Myself and some of the eventIQ team attended McNally’s annual pancake breakfast today. The event is a fundraiser for TWO fantastic charities, the Edmonton Christmas Bureau and Adopt-A-Teen program. McNally students entertained parents and peers with musical performances, local politicians like Linda Duncan and Raj Sherman dished out sausages and pancakes to a long lineup of hungry visitors and the Edmonton Oilers brought along the Octane Girls cheer team to perform. The rest of the roughly 300 family and friends watched and enjoyed the breakfast. Students of course polished off their breakfast in a hurray so they could get to class on time.

This breakfast came on the heels of a fundraiser where McNally students raised $58,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society from a Bike-A-Thon.

Congratulations to the grad class and teachers who organize these amazing charity events. I can’t wait to see how the school’s future events “stack up” against this one!