| Lindsay Smith is the CEO and founder of Massive Media Inc., the producer of Canada’s leading technology event for business. When “TechLinz” isn’t engrossed with her business, she’s speaking on emerging trends in technology; concentrating in the areas of social media and mobile. TechLinz is also a go-to tech expert for Global TV and Studio 4 on Shaw Television.
Previously, Smith was a co-host of GetConnected’s national TV show aired on the Business News Network and CityTV from season 2 through 4. Smith also hosted GetConnected’s radio show aired weekly on the corus radio network across Canada in 2007 and 2008. Prior to starting Massive Media (F5 EXPO) in 2005, Smith was the CEO and co-founder of Techvibes.com, a portal that markets high-tech companies to the masses. Drawing on extensive experience in communications and information technology, Smith used forward innovative methods for helping companies grow their business by using both new and established technologies. In 2004, Smith joined the National board of directors for Wired Woman, a Canadian association for women in technology. There she volunteered her time as CTO until she was elected to President of the association in 2005 and remained with the society until 2008. Smith’s experience has been rooted in the high-tech sector for over 10 years. Her career in technology began in 2000 when she co-founded GeekRave Productions in order to build more networking opportunities in the height of the tech boom. Originally Director of Public Relations and quickly promoted to President for the company, Smith and her team successfully attracted thousands of people to their high-tech industry events. Considered an expert in her field, Smith has been quoted countless times by local and national media and speaks regularly on GlobalTV, Shaw Television, and the Business News Network. She holds a Bachelor of Applied Sciences from Simon Fraser University and resides in Vancouver, BC. Awards & Nominations |
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F5 EXPO – April 7, 2010
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Impressive profile mate. Do keep in touch.
Cheers,
Mihir.S.Bijur
what about wired men?
Thanks for the tip, this is my first time on any of these bloggers or any chat thingys.
BB
Congrats on the new blog, Lindsay! I’ll be following.
Lindsay
You are a gem, I am truly honoured to call you my friend
Stuart Crawford
Bulletproof InfoTech
Calgary, AB
http://www.bulletproofIT.ca
http://stuart.calgarybloggers.ca
Nice blog, It is very informative.
Hello Lindsay:
I love your web site.Congrats on the new blog, Lindsay! Add me on my facebook.
Cheers
Tony
Thanks Tony! Glad you like it :)
You were great on TV this morning. Should artists be more proactive on the Net than what we are right now?
Ron in Victoria
Hi Ron – I think that artists (for the most part) tend to be new media savvy :) It’s hard to pinpoint one demographic and say that they should be more proactive on the net…since I believe everyone should be embracing web technologies. There are so many tools available today which allow us to share knowledge and experiences. The information is truly at our fingers tips now and none of us really have to be a full-on geek to get it. It’s much easier than many people realize ;)
Hello,
I just wanted to know if it’s OK for me to link to your blog from my website? Thanks.
BM
Hi BM – I would love the link back :) Thanks for thinking of me.
Cheers, Lindsay
I just saw her on the news, shes really cute
so you shacked up ie uncommon-law? seem pretty “liberated” aka NWO sock puppet
Hi Lindsay, I found your blog through the F5-expo site as you a presenter in an upcoming conference. I just started reading and enjoying it. Cheers Ron.
Hello Lindsay,
I too recently found your blog through the F5 Expo site. Congratulations on your myriad achievements and elevating women in the workplace.
Gladwell’s work and personal story of success is fascinating. I would love to hear about your ‘cultural legacy’ if the opportunity presented itself.
Have an amazing new year and best of luck with the Expo.
Hi Lindsay,
Good to see you are reaching new heights in the tech biz. I have to say I am impressed with your achievments. I wondered where you disappeared to, now I know! Women in tech are great, they bring fresh thinking to this sector. Keep up the good work and bring more of your sistahs over to the tech side!
~Rodre
I saw the last minute of your interview on Global TV March 13,2010 and missed the app you were talking about for the iPhone. It was the app that shows you coupons on your phone when you are around stores that participate.
Could you please email me more information.
Thanks,
John
Hello Lindsay,
I enjoyed the to see you on Global BC Show with Sophie Lui. The show on Sat- March 13, 2010.I was thrilled to know the new gadget on the market. Thanks for showing us the Amber Alert GPS device which you brought in the show. Its a fantastic device for $13, dollars a months connections/maintenance fee. I’m not too thrilled about the $350 price to buy per piece. I hopefully many will be sold on the market, and price will come down.Hopefully the company which makes (The Amber Alert GPS) will invest in a large marketing campaign to sale huge quantities, and nearfuture the price will be lower than $350. The Iphones and Blackberries are already too expensive to have regardless of all the deals available in our competitive market. The Amber Alert GPS)for it’s all features its the greatest things ever created for parents to have with kids of any age. :-)Specially if they have teenagers who drive. I noticed you didn’t mention about multiples, triples usage. How it works if you have more than one child to monitor? How the plan works? Look at this scenery – In case one individual has 3 kids to monitor with the Amber Alert GPS. What kind of plan does the company offers ? I would love to see you back in the show with Sophie Lui to discuss with more depths. Great job Lindsay! keep up with the great work . Thanks Grace
Hi Grace,
Your wish has been granted. The Amber Alert GPS device is now as low as $149.00 in Canada. Let me know if I can help you further and have a great day.
Ken Corey
President
Amber Alert GPS Canada
Mobile: 604.788.2725
HI Grace – Thanks for taking the time to comment. With regards to the expense of the Amber Alert, yes it’s a bit of an upfront investment ($249 with 3 yr contract).
I understand your frustration with the cost of the blackberry and iphone. The devices are priced more for a business customer, aren’t they? have you heard of or tried out the Palm Pre? I recently demo’d this device and thought it was a fantastic smartphone. It has all of the features you need (email, camera, social media apps, etc.). One thing I really like about it is that it has both touch screen and a keyboard so you get the best of both worlds. Plus the graphics are incredible.
I just checked the Bell site and it’s free with a contract…insane! http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PalmPre/68346.details#
As for monitoring multiple children, you can set up devices for each of them and assign them all to one account as well as one or more cell phones for the tracking. I don’t know if they offer discounted rates if you purchase multiple devices, but the Canadian representative for the product is Ken Corey – http://www.amberalertgps.ca
Hope this helps :) Linz
Dear Lindsay,
I am very impressed with your blog which has some amazing posts covering on Cloud Computing.
I am the community manager for TooStep and and thought it would be great to have you in my TooStep community. Our community members also communicate, share and network on different issues pertaining to Cloud Computing
And I’m really interested to showcase you as an expert and seek your valuable participation on this topic -
Title:The Wisdom of Cloud Applications in 2010
URL: http://toostep.com/topic/the-wisdom-of-cloud-applications-in-2010
And if your blog audience will benefit from this, please add the following link to your website. I could also offer help from my community to promote or discuss around your content.
I look forward to this great partnership. Do provide your feedback.
Regards,
Neha Sharma
Community Manager, TooStep
Hi Linz,
Haven’t talk to you for a while. This is a great site … LOVE IT!!! :)
Cheers,
Patrick
Dear Lindsay,
I discovered you through Shannon Kelsick & the F5 Team…and I’ve become quite a social media activist, so this is super interesting for me.
I wanted to commend you on all your achievements; you have so many!!
I sent you a tweet mentioning that I’d be interested in offering my restaurant as a location for your team members to celebrate the success of F5! We do quite a few meet-ups and tweet-ups and we’d love to be more involved in the social media community. Ceili’s Irish Pub & Restaurant is on Granville Street – feel free to visit the website: http://www.ceilisvancouver.com
Thanks so much for your time & I wish you nothing but ultimate success!
Lesley Bidlake
Thanks to Ceilis for hosting the #F5Expo Tweetup the night before the 2010 F5 Expo. It was a great way to meet a pile of people. Lesley, your team was great! And thanks to Jason Baker for helping a Calgarian plan a Vancouver Tweetup :)
Lindsay – hopefully we will see many more Expos from Massive Media! It was a veryw worthwhile conference.
I just watched you on global tv talking about tethering vrs the rocket stick and I felt you must never have used a rocket stick and have based your conclusions based on preconceptions. First thing is if you are thethering with your iphone say because your iphone is doing other things for instance sending a push to check for emails your speed will fluctuate. The rocket stick is designed for one purpose so your overal speeds will be more stable. Also all mobile devices are max 7.2 mbs the new rocket sticks are 21 mbs so nearly three times as fast where available. Teathering will drain your laptops battery as it has to to charge your Iphone that uses far more power then a Rocket stick. Finaly Rocket sticks are free on 1 year terms at Rogers Wireless with no activation fees. Hopefully people will look into things further but I beleive you should do more research or at least compare things rather then make assumptions.
Hi Aaron – Thank you for taking the time to watch and reply to the Tech Talk segment. To answer your question, I currently own 2 usb internet sticks (the one you saw on tv was one of them) and I had 3 previous to that. When they first came out, I was thrilled with the technology and they have been an invaluable tool for my business so I certainly understand the benefit. What I was trying to communicate during the segment was that there are other tools which can now replace the usb sticks and won’t necessarily cost as much. For example, I upgraded my iphone dataplan from 500 mgs to 1gig for only $10/month with no contract on the upgrade. This allowed me to turn on tethering which essentially replaced my need for the usb internet stick. The three benefits to this are:
1. Eliminate need for additional piece of hardware. With the rocket stick, I would have to bring it with me all the time and plug it in when I was outside of a hotspot. However, my phone is ALWAYS with me and usually right beside my computer so I’ve found it far more convenient to turn on phone tethering (via bluetooth) than to fiddle with the USB stick. Furthermore, I’ve seen a few break USB sticks break because they can be easily bumped which has always made me a bit nervous when I’ve used the sticks.
2. Smaller fees (ie: if I’m already paying for a dataplan, it’s far cheaper to upgrade to more data on the phone than it is to order the rocket stick which is essentially doubling my data fees.
3. No contract for the increased data usage – Since I’m already locked into a dataplan with my phone, there is no need to lock into a 2nd contract. For me personally, this was a huge frustration with the rocket sticks. I had 3 dataplans which i wanted to switch over to my phones for tethering; however since the carrier considered them to be seperate contracts, I was not allowed to do this. Thus, I was forced to choose between paying between $200 and $300 per stick in cancellation fees if I wanted to make the switch. (Note: my reason for wanting to make the switch was for the convenience of using phones instead a separate stick)
I understand what you are saying about the design of the usb sticks being specifically created to ensure consistent push and pull speeds. But I should share that I’ve been using my iphone for the past 8 months for tethering and have never experienced a problem with the speed. Note: the activities that I do while tethering are general internet surfing, email communications (sometimes with attachments),and accessing SaS tools like an online CRM, File transfer sites, etc.
With regards to draining the laptop battery, you are absolutely correct that if you were hard wiring in, this would drain the battery. I made the assumption that people watching the segment would know I was talking about using a bluetooth connection (which will not drain the laptop’s battery). So i’m glad you’ve helped clarify this for people. My recommendation is to use bluetooth. Although, another point to consider is that tethering your phone does drain the phone’s battery more quickly (especially with the iphone…where the battery doesn’t last as long to begin with). To resolve this, I rely on the Mophie Juice pack which gives me up to 8 hours of additional usage. It’s been a saving grace for long days where I don’t have time to recharge my phone in the docking station.
Finally, I didn’t intend to give the impression that people have to pay for the USB hardware. From what I’ve seen, the carriers offer the hardware for free, but lock you into a 3 year term (I’ve seen some specials for 1 year terms). The one year term is easier to swallow, but I’m still not sold on the benefits of the stick over bluetooth tethering. Although, I 100% agree with you that people should ask their carrier and do their own research before they make their decision (note: i did mention this in the segment). All phones and laptops are different so it’s a good idea to look into what will work best with the hardware you are using.
Hi Lindsay,
Just saw your Tech segment this morning on Global TV. Really liked your show – good information and tech advise. I was wondering how can I contact you to show our products. I work for Keating Technologies and proudly representing some consumer electronics products at some of the large Brick & Mortar in Canada.
Please advise.
Best Regards
This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.