Tod Maffin

Tod Maffin is one of North America's leading digital marketing experts, specializing in viral and ROI-based campaigns for sectors from human resources to real estate to education.

Maffin, President of engageQ digital, is one of the country's go-to commentators on the impact of accelerated technological change and innovation on the business and economic environment and can speak to every aspect of technology and resulting implications for the world in which we live.

One of Canada's podcasting pioneers, Maffin writes a blog that is followed by thousands of people in the media, technology and business communities around the world. He continues to report on national technology trends on CBC Radio and is the past host of todradio dot com and Real Life Chronicles.

Maffin is recognized as a thought-leader in business innovation and strategy to trend-spotting and technological advancements. In January 1999, he launched MindfulEye, an artificial intelligence firm that developed the patented Lexant technology to perform syntactic analysis on public opinion comments posted on the Internet and aired in the media, thus providing a "mood monitor" of stocks. The launch of MindfulEye precipitated a meteoric rise in his popularity as a technology futurist.

Maffin's comprehensive understanding of Generation Y, high-velocity change and competition, hyper-innovation, and the accelerating pace of the world around us offer audiences an insider's viewpoint of what the world holds in store and what lurks around the corner, whether it's six months, a year, or ten years away.

His energetic, upbeat, jargon-free and highly entertaining presentation style ensures that audiences are not only captivated and engaged, but entertained and motivated. Maffin has addressed audiences around the world, from Stockholm to Berlin and from Romania to Australia, and is one of very few speakers capable of bringing an audience to their feet in a standing ovation at 7am.

• C. Taking Crazy Back: A New Roadmap for Mental Health in the Workplace

  With depression rates soaring in the workplace, do we need a radical new way of providing mental health services to our employees?
  
  The founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar technology firm, Tod's workload and always-on personality finally caught up with him and over the following years, he was crippled by a devastating depression and addiction - all the while struggling to appear to be productive to employers and colleagues, and happy and healthy to his friends and family.
  
  In this provocative keynote speech, Tod will reveal to your delegates how this always-connected landscape has seduced all of us into endless multitasking and infinite email - all the while pretending that this increasing workload is the best thing for "productivity."
  
  In fact, this hyper-connected economy may be both destroying the productivity of workplaces and eroding the mental health of companies' most valuable asset - their people.
  
  Tod will outline his own bold strategy for bringing mental health discussion out of the shadows in a way that will challenge your attendees for years to come.
  
  Tod's story is emotional - at once funny and poignant, sad and hopeful. Nearly all audiences give him a standing ovation for his work on the podium. He has spoken for the Canadian Mental Health Association, universities, companies, and many more.

• A. Smart Communities, Engaged Citizens

  They're already there. Your citizens and businesses are engaging with each other, talking about your community, and doing business with each other.
  
  And your community's voice is, well, is an aging web site.
  
  It doesn't have to be this way.
  
  Using the same web sites that your civic stakeholders are already using, you could be helping lead the dialogue, getting important information to people, collecting opinion on issues from zoning to schools to property tax. And all with safe, secure, and standards-compliant tools.
  
  Tod Maffin will show you how successful cities and communities your size are already using social media to be more effective in their communications, cutting costs, and - most importantly - developing an engaged, active citizen base.
  
  In this fast-paced, information-packed, and fun keynote session, your attendees will walk away with great ideas, a list of resources, and a kit of information for follow-up.

• B. NEW! ONE CLICK AWAY: Cultivating Brand Loyalty in a Digital Economy

  Listen closely. That click you hear? It's the sound of your customers leaving you.

  In this era of the empowered consumer and websites that report the lowest prices on everything, it's mission-critical that organizations be proactive in deploying specific tactics aimed at earning and cultivating brand loyalty. Tod demonstrates how quickly loyal fans can fall out of love with their "favorite" brands and offers precise action steps that need to be taken in order to maintain that loyalty. Through a combination of specific social media tactics, including Facebook geo-targeting and consumer-site countering, he shares industry-specific examples and works with organizations to help turn an existing base of raving fans into life-long brand advocates.

  Audience members leave armed with a copy of the presentation slides, a resource kit complete with links to every site and tool mentioned, as well as the option to enroll in Tod's free 30-day video training series on social media marketing.

• I. The Problem With Rock Tumblers: Why Education Is In Crisis. And How to Fix It.

  The system means well, but it's slowly asphyxiating the future of education.

  In this provocative keynote address, Tod Maffin identifies the primary ways the education system is taking the rough stones of learners and tries to grind and polish their way to education while actually scraping away the culture and uniqueness the learners bring.

  Maffin's five steps to repairing this damage will get your conference delegates talking days after the address.

• H. Labour Relations in the YouTube Era : Responding to Attacks and Improving Relationships

  It starts as a striking worker starting an anti-management blog. Or a locked-out staffer uploading videos to YouTube of managers crossing the line. You don't need to be online to discover that labor relations in today's digital era is an entirely new animal.

  Tod Maffin should know. When the CBC locked out him at 5,500 other employees in 2005, Tod started a blog. In time, it grew to be the hub of communications for both labor and management, garnering 10,000 unique visits daily, and some say the blog helped end the dispute earlier.

  In this fast-paced, information-rich, entertaining presentation, Tod will walk you through how the CBC story unfolded, introduce you to his SWARM methodology for responding online, and how to speak in a new voice that engages, not offends, those on the line. New Rules: The Dangerous Sound of Silence

  Self-organizing

  Direct public lobbying

  It's true. Your words live forever.

  Case study: Angry blogger vs. Hotel Fort Garry

  The S.W.A.R.M. Methodology applied to labour relations

   

• G. Leading the Facebook Generation: How to Manage, Inspire, and Retain Generation Y/Millennials

  In this follow-up to Tod's massively popular presentation Recruiting the Facebook Generation, Tod will show your delegates the eight key ways your business must change if you want to engage and retain this new, young, and energetic workforce.

  From developing personalized benefits packages to learning an entirely new leadership model, the presentation walks you through, in plain language, the specific areas you need to focus on. You'll see real-world case studies of what works (and examples where attempts to manage this generation went spectacularly wrong) and will walk away with a detailed online kit of resources, additional articles and reports, and notes of the presentation.

  Integrating the Generations

  Living a New Leadership and Management Style

  Rethinking Benefits and Evaluations

  Developing On-Demand Workplace Education

  Creating a Safe Space Where Innovation Just Happens

  Structuring a Team by Removing Its Structure

  Fostering Loyalty by Training Them to Leave

  The Six Reasons Millennials/Generation Y Leave Their Employer

   

  The presentation is completely flexible, from a 60- to 90-minute keynote presentation to a half-day interactive seminar format. It's designed for human resources professionals, small-business managers, and anyone else who works with people aged 18-32. What you learn may prevent a workforce exodus.

• F. Recruiting the Facebook Generation: Winning the New War for Talent

  They're fickle, media-savvy, highly-connected and living on the cutting-edge of technology.

  The Facebook generation knows it is in the driver's seat in the workforce these days. Employers worldwide are scrambling to understand what makes this unique generation tick.

  If your organization thinks grooming your future leadership is about placing stale ads in papers and using old-school recruiting techniques, there's a nasty shock in store. Leading edge companies are harnessing and exploiting the powerful networking forces in social media Web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube to find and recruit the future workforce.

  In this presentation, Tod Maffin walks audiences through the minefield of challenges involved in this new world of talent management and delivers invaluable insights into the future generation of workers: where to find them, how to attract them, and, perhaps most importantly, how to keep them engaged, motivated and fully productive.

• E. Tweet Warfare: When Good Buzz Goes Bad: Protecting Your Brand When It's Attacked Online

  It's clear now - the new war for market domination is being fought 140 characters at a time. Your company may already be a sitting duck in the crosshairs of an online brand attack - do you know how to respond to convert attackers into friends?
  
  Social media futurist Tod Maffin shows your meeting attendees how to:
  
  Automatically monitor social networking sites to uncover attacks in development
  Respond to a #hashtag attack on Twitter
  Protect your brand on hundreds of social networking sites in less than five minutes
  Convert attackers into friends that will help you instead
  Achieve a Win-Win: Let the attacker have their say without it affecting your brand
  Deal with blog trolls and comment flames before they spawn offshoot attacks
  Pinpoint-measure the effectiveness of your response
  Learn the perfect tweet character length and why using it is so important
  
  And you'll learn Tod's proven SWARM Response model for responding to an online attack - what you learn here might save you a whole world of trouble.

• D. Deconstructing Viral: How to Build a Killer Viral Marketing Campaign

  Today's viral campaigns may seem like jackpots in a one-in-a-million lottery, but it turns out they are well within the reach of any marketing team's grasp. All it takes is knowing the secret ingredients behind some of the world's most talked-about campaigns.

  By reverse-engineering each element of a successful viral campaign in your industry, Tod Maffin will show your audience the key markers that can launch a campaign into the viral stratosphere; markers that can be programmed into the smallest budgets.

  He will literally deconstruct a viral campaign, piece by piece, then show your group how to re-assemble a campaign for their own organization.

  And, using his ASSURED ROI methodology, Maffin will detail for your attendees each of the seven action steps required for launching an impactful and measurable viral campaign.

• Tod's friendly style and wit allow him to communicate ideas in such a way that attendees feel that it's just a friend sharing some ideas. By the end of the presentation though, attendees have a full page of notes, a head full of ideas, and haven't noticed the time fly by. I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to bring Tod in to speak again at PAB, or at any other event, be it social media or corporate. I know he'll deliver.

  Podcasters Across Borders 2007-2009

• Tod's presentation on Recruiting the Facebook Generation was to say the least, engaging, relevant and inspiring. His knowledge regarding the Facebook Generation is bang-on. His use of media and language throughout the presentation captivated the audience and kept you at the edge of your seat wanting to learn more. I walked away from the presentation inspired and motivated for change.

  LCBO

• He's not about the cookie-cutter application or speech, rather his ability to listen and identify a company's specific needs and then tailor his approach to its stage of readiness is really unique to most gurus in this area. He is an absolute professional who will enthusiastically tell you your present and future, if you're ready to hear it.

  Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

• Maffin's address was liberally spotted with light-hearted stories, but it was also thought-provoking. More than a few of the association's membership were making notes for future reference.

  Calgary Herald

• Tod packed the house in both sessions and he delivered! He has an enormous wealth of expertise on the whole gamut related to social media and the Web 2.0. But content aside, he was also so incredibly engaging and inspiring as a presenter that you couldn't help but have a fabulous time along the way. What was clear to me was that this guy is authentic. He's passionate about what he does -and does a terrific job in engaging his audiences.

  TGIM Work-Life

• I've had the pleasure of hearing Tod speak a number of times, and invariably come away with unexpected insights, great stories and a bucket of inspiration. Tod speaks with a rare but powerful combination of authority and unpretentiousness. I love his warmth, humour, humanity and clear-eyed understanding of both the potential and limitations of technology - and his incredible store of facts, anecdotes and case studies.

  President, Social Signal

• Tod Maffin was a runaway successful speaker. All respondents rated him a 3 out of 3 and comments were extraordinarily positive. Not only was he an outstanding presenter, but his personal story had a very strong impact.

  Minding the Workplace conference

• Thank you so much for your presentation in Calgary at The Conference Board of Canada's Workplace Health Conference. Your presentation was really excellent! Your professional and personal messages are powerful, engaging and moving. You truly are a very gifted speaker and a resilient individual! It is a great pleasure to work with you.

  Alberta Mental Health Board

• Your keynote presentation ratings reflected excellence with an overall evaluation of 5+ out of 5 and a standing ovation (which is in itself a rarity and speaks volumes).  Consistent feedback from delegates included, "Awesome speaker, simply outstanding"; "Absolutely amazing speaker!"; "Best speaker ever"; "Excellent, motivational and excellent choice for this conference"

  Conference Board of Canada

• Your presentation was awesome.  It has changed the way that I'm pursuing my career path regarding my family and friends!  I want to be a human "being" again!  Thanks a million.

  Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission

• I am constantly impressed by Tod's ideas, passion, and execution when it comes to digital media, exploring the future of traditional media, and public speaking. He is one of the few people I know in the media who is deeply and actively engaged in experimenting with new digital technologies, figuring out ways to make them work, and then sharing those ideas with colleagues and audiences in ways that easy to understand, easy to implement, provide results, and get people excited instead of 'scared.'

  CBC Radio

• Delegates at an NCLGA convention are elected officials and senior staff from local governments across northern BC. When they saw  Tod Maffin, digital communications strategist, listed as the keynote speaker for our recent convention there was definitely some concern. "That social media stuff is for my grandkids" were the type of comments we were hearing. AFTER Tod's presentation, we had staff coming up and saying "Thank You! And how do we book Tod to present to our councils & boards?!" Elected officials who didn't expect to enjoy the session were very pleasantly surprised to find that they DID enjoy it, and that the information was presented in a manner they could relate to, understand and see the value in using social media from a local government perspective. We would highly recommend Tod to other local government organizations.

  North Central Local Government Association

• 
  January 2010

  Drive!

  DRIVE! The Busy Realtor’s Guide to Profitable Social Media Marketing is a quick 60+ page handbook for any realtor who wants to get started in social media marketing.

  
  
• 
  January 2004

  Idea to Air

  From Idea to Air Are you a freelance writer looking to expand your business into an entirely new (and lucrative!) market – – writing for public radio. Tod Maffin was a national public radio producer — and a finalist in the coveted New York Festival Awards (considered by many to be the Oscars of radio). This 80 page book will guide you through everything you need to know to structure, write, produce, and pitch your writing to public radio and get paid for it.

  
  

Speakers 2.0