TARA HUNT
Co-founder of Citizen Agency
Hunt, who lives in San Francisco, promotes her vision for the future of marketing through the internet consulting firm Citizen Agency, which she co-founded in 2006; in public speaking appearances; on her Twitter feed; in her upcoming book, The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business; and, of course, on her blog, horsepigcow.com.
: How’d you end up in San Francisco?
I was living in Toronto in August 2005, writing a blog and interacting with another blogger who was working in Silicon Valley. He recommended me for a position and 10 days later I was in Redwood City, doing marketing for Riya, a visual search engine.
: How was the move?
It was like walking into a geek mecca. In Toronto, I spent a lot of time talking to people who just didn’t get it. The Valley is this fantasy world where everyone understands that traditional marketing isn’t very effective anymore. My first hairdresser here had her own blog.
: What’s the idea behind Citizen Agency?
We don’t use traditional forms of marketing, like throwing up a billboard. It’s marketing without money; it’s building relationships with one customer at a time, and spreading ideas through word of mouth.
: What do you owe to your hometown of Sundre (population 2,500)?
I think there’s something about coming from a small town that help you think about relationships differently, and that really translated into marketing. You know how you tell a neighbour something, and by the next morning the whole town knows? Coming from a small town, I was able to see the patterns of the way word spreads online.
: You’ve done a little programming, right?
My father was excited about technology; I was programming on a Commodore 64 when I was 6 or 7. In Toronto, I used to develop websites and write HTML, a bit of Java, PHP. It was easier for me to build prototypes for clients than it was to convince clients to hire web developers.
: You’ve travelled widely. Any highlights?
I loved Bangalore. I loved India. I’d read The World Is Flat and expected, at best, diligent customer service people or coders. But there are tons of startups there, huge creativity, people that really get what’s happening.
: What’s next?
Eventually, I want to go back to school and do a Master of Economics. I want to write another book, and I’m taking an executive position with Intuit, working on a project that will help small businesses. From a business standpoint, if you can raise the social capital of a region to make it more attractive for networks, you can create more opportunities. And if you can translate that to developing countries, that would be huge.
: photograph by melissa kaseman / JAN 25.09 / 1:17 PM / SAN FRANCISCO / USA
WES JICKLING
Urban director of policy and communications for the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association
Wes Jickling has done development work in Brazil, Swaziland, Ukraine and, most recently, Sudan. There he managed the UN’s $300-million campaign to fight infectious disease. He returned to his hometown of Regina with his young family last September.
: Last year, you took your family to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital. What were you thinking?
A lot of people thought we were crazy. At the time, my daughter was a year and a half and our son was a couple months. We did a lot of research that said Khartoum is the safest city in Africa. The reputation that Sudan has, it’s about Darfur, not Khartoum.
: How’d it go?
We’d been there for four months when the UN suddenly issued an immediate evacuation order for northern Sudan. I was in Juba, about
1,500 kilometres from my family. Suffice it to say it was hugely stressful.
: Any other close calls in your travels?
I was in Brazil, working for UNESCO, at the time of the SARS outbreak. I was suspected of having SARS, and very unexpectedly I was quarantined in a prison cell in the hospital.
: A prison cell?
I think it was actually a former operating room. But it was a dark, damp concrete bunker, and as they put me in, they took out these two guys who were handcuffed to their beds. I was down there for 24 hours. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t then.
: How is work in developing countries different from Canada?
I was sometimes frustrated that things were not happening as quickly as I’d like. But there are different priorities. From Swaziland to Ukraine to Sudan, you have to start with a clean slate and say, “OK, how is business done here?’”
: Any chance you’ve got the travel bug out of your system?
Not at all. I love Regina, but I like the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way that things happen in developing countries. We thought about settling down in a developing country, but in the UN you’re never in the same place for long. It’s not a family business. U
: photograph by mark taylor / wes and shelley jickling / FEB 07.09 / 10:08 AM / REGINA / CANADA
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just a reader
Good articles and informative especially about the programming entry