Conflict is a photo contest on Lenzr, and story sauce on the internet.

The number one failure of boring public speakers, bad business presentations, and weak online storytelling is the lack of conflict.

Hero driven social media marketing is built on a dynamic relationship between two or more characters, and its most powerful when presented as a protagonist’s struggle against a formidable antagonist. The journey from problem to solution should be a storyful vessel filled with human emotion on a compelling character arc, cause that’s what people remember…

Smojoe Social Media Marketing in Toronto endeavours to do business without conflict, and all case studies proudly showcase positive and productive client relationships. But when composing good brand stories an Online Social Relevance Director, cognizant of his client’s best keywords, campaigns and community managers, should isolate and engineer the most interesting examples of ‘human business’ to achieve a myth making that fuels viral connectivity. And this should include conflict.

Conflict really will occur when voting begins on September 20th 2010;  its then we’ll see professional photographers and contesters line up their social networks to vote for their favourite pictures.  There will be elaborate vote fraud detection systems running right up until the contest ends on Oct 1st 2010. The highest ranked photo wins a Blackberry mobile phone.  Take pictures of conflict and upload them to Lenzr and you could WIN a Blackberry BOLD* 9700

Smojoe social media marketing uses Lenzr photo contests as a tool in their quest to build high quality social capital for their clients. The firm also authors Canada Blog Friends, and does blogger outreach through multiple channels in Canada and the United States.  This company authors compelling stories that intrigue humans and satisfy search engine robots.  Smojoe social media marketing always improves client search engine rankings - each story funnel is a punch of online social relevance.

People Building Things photo contest is an old idea that stems from a natural fascination humans have watching other people work, especially if they are building something interesting. The contest reminds us of a story about how the final stages of the CN tower assembly used to stop traffic in downtown Toronto as citizens admired the helicopters installing the uppermost sections of this monolithic structure.

Construction sites are even more interesting when they happen at home, in the backyard, or on the driveway in front of the garage. Show us people building parade floats and fishing boats, or doing an interesting home renovation. Perhaps you have pictures of people building a tree house? or putting in a dock, or constructing a veranda or even building new homes and cottages?

Ontario photographers submit your own pictures of People Building Things and tell us the story behind the picture. Be sure and mention what’s being put together. Tell us all where the picture came from and when, and you could Win An iPad courtesy of Eco Deck Builder, an Ontario deck building company. Voting begins September 20th 2010 and the highest ranked photograph automatically wins the prize when the Contest ends October 1st, 2010. Must be 13yrs old or older to enter, open to all Canadians, excluding Quebec.

Eco Deck Builder job sites are quieter than your neighbours’ pool, and their green building techniques let everyone enjoy nature.

Citizens of Planet Earth, stop using gas and diesel generators! Solarline Power strongly objects to anyone mixing oil and gas to make the blue smoke exhaust in dirty two cycle engines.  With very few exceptions, two cycle engines should not be used for any reason! Solarline Power makes and assembles portable solar power generators (PSG’s) that are quiet and deliver clean renewable power. These units charge batteries that can replace small engines as a power source on a great many industrial tools.

SolarLine’s Mobile Solar Work Units deliver remote power for outdoor rock concerts, field hospitals and remote construction sites. This company works diligently to make solar powered battery charging systems for the next generation of power tools and battery powered devices that will replace gas and diesel generators, and banish all two cycle engines to the history books.

Green power is affordable, especially solar power because of the low maintenance costs and lengthy product guarantees - each solar panel on a Solarline Mobile Solar Work Unit is guaranteed for 25 years, and the batteries are guaranteed for 8 years by their manufacturers.  So when consumers factor in the long term costs of fuel and upkeep, solar powered systems and devices are good investments.

Solar powered calculators and wrist watches have been with us for many years.  The future will bring many more such handy solar powered devices to  North American households.

Morning Sunshine photo contest on Lenzr - Ontario photographers are asked to capture people and objects in the early morning sunshine. Voting begins September 20th 2010, the highest ranked photo will automatically Win an Apple iPad prize when the web challenge ends October 1st 2010, must be 13yrs old or older to enter, open to all Canadians, excluding Quebec.

Special thanks to Michael Reichmann, the Ontario photographer who generously allowed us to use his  Sunrise_Barn photo for the primary contest plate, here’s the host Ontario photography gallery where we found this beautiful gem.

Cinematographers call late afternoon the ‘Golden Hour’ and Hollywood movie scenes are sometimes lensed in the hours just before sunset – Thelma and Louise for example, can you remember Sigorney Weaver’s glowing hair in those the driving scenes in their stolen convertible car? That’s a great example of golden hour photography. By contrast the early morning light is called ‘Magic Hour’ and although not as popular, its often even more spectacular because of the beautiful light that first trespasses through the Earth’s cool atmosphere at dawn. Those first rays of light glow the fresh morning mists and ignite the dew drops on the leaves; they celebrate the dawn of a new day.

The view from the roof above your own home or business can be spectacular, or rather depressing depending on your own perspective, and photography skills… Depressing views can also be really interesting though, and if you can show a piece of the roof on which you’re perched it would make the excellence of your entry in this web challenge more assured.

Photographers, if you can manage it, please show us all some really dirty rooftops with broken shingles and grass in the eaves troughs. Show us the view from roofs that are forests and beautiful gardens and or roofs that need repair in the foreground of your image to set the tone for the landscape, or cityscape beyond.

The Lenzr View From The Roof photo contest endeavours to collect the vistas from properties all across Canada.

In the crowded cities its becoming really fashionable to build gardens and green space on the tops of buildings. White roofs are cooler and they reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere. Lenzr admin hopes that some of these green and white images will appear in this diverse photo challenge. Also welcome are images of  sharply inclined snow covered rooftops in our nation’s most northern cities and towns, and these will will hopefully be contrasted by asphalt and tar covered flat roofs of the industrial parks beside Canada’s biggest cities.

The registered member that uploads the highest ranked will WIN AN IPAD! Voting begins September 20th 2010 - the highest ranked photograph automatically wins prize when the Contest Ends October 1st, 2010. Must be 13yrs old or older to enter, open to all Canadians, excluding Quebec.

All Weather Roofing specializes in flat roof repair in the greater Toronto Area.  Are you thinking about installing a new flat roof this summer? Call these experts and get a free quote for a ToughRoof system.

TOUGHROOF is a WHITE multi-layer flat roofing system with no seams. The new age roof coating is is extremely versatile, and ToughRoof is the only White flat roofing system that can be placed over top of your existing flat roof - saving consumers a great deal of money and saving the planet more precious landfill space.

TOUGHROOF is probably the very best surface for solar panels and solar cell installation and is also a welcome addition to green roof applications, under gardens and rooftop patios in Canada. All Weather Roofing is built on experience, and with over 59 years experience in roofing, this firm really does stand behind its work. All TOUGHROOF warranties last forever and are fully transferable. This is the last permanent flat roof system your building will ever need.

The photography challenges end October 1st, 2010 and there’ll be a whole lot more good information about them on this blog in the immediate future. The changes to the voting protocols on the website are permanent.

The new Lenzr voting protocol promises to level the playing field and ramp up the excitement.  Now each photographer’s pictures will be on display only, until there are just ten days left in the contest. When the countdown ends, the time to vote begins! This upgrade should make each contest 2x more exciting, and 100% more fair.

In the past we’ve  had problems keeping the contests fair.  Lenzr is still evolving and we discovered over time that the contests were set up to favour early adopters. Users that were the first to upload pictures always had a much better chance of winning because of the volume of members and voting visitors that saw their pictures first and any vote no matter how small helps each photo.

This idea for a countdown mechanism came to  us from a member that emailed suggestions to help improve the overall Lenzr user experience.  Fortunately, when we hear a good idea we jump on it – six months later!  This update is long overdue but is expected to radically improve the overall fairness of the competition, and the overall user experience.

Lenzr hopes to create a photography competition that is fair and equal for everyone involved. There is no question that the best photo should win, but quality is subjective – what might be considered beautiful by some users may be hideously ugly and unprofessional to others. So its only when we can poll the masses and take the mean averages that admiration can be properly quantified to determine the preferences of the voting population.

INSIGHT - in the next upgrade there will be a coupon distribution mechanism added to incentivize Lenzr members to vote on images.

Crowded Places had the most participation with 46 PHOTOS UPLOADED | TOTAL VOTES 1828.

Ve3bnw Bill Watson wins the brand new Blackberry Curve courtesy of Innate Media Group for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. Bill’s aerial photo of the Rockton Worlds Fair is quite interesting and was well received, collecting 270.2 points, the most in category.  The image was clearly taken from the sky, and so is most likely a product of Bill Watson’s remote controlled helicopter gunship and budding aerial photography business. This smart phone will certainly come in handy for the high flyer.

50 Going On 15 was won by Mommakoala, AKA Debbie Watson, Bill Watson’s wife. This long standing member of Lenzr is a Hamilton resident and part time nurse and passionate photographer. She takes imaginative pictures and has a knack for writing good titles and captions. Her ‘No Pesky Neighbours’ photo won the first Ontario Tourist Attractions photo contest on Lenzr on November 1st 2009.

Portable Luxury was won by Seattledredge when Mommakoala’s photo was deleted by admin with only 15 minutes left in the competition.  It was indeed an ugly finish to what had been a close struggle. This strange but not unwarranted eventuality is explained in great detail in What Happened to Mommakoala’s Candy Stash? The account proferred along with an apologetic  explanation and rare glimpse into the world of the Lenzr admin. Remember we are all trying to achieve something that has never occurred before, a perfectly democratic contest community where business sponsors art.

The contest itself collected a lot of very strange and amusing ideas relating to our human notions of luxury, and what it means to move your comfort zone. There were 17 PHOTOS UPLOADED | TOTAL VOTES 680.  The Portable Luxury photo contest started late and that’s why the numbers were relatively low, but the prize is the greatest gift that has ever been shared by the site admin on the behalf of Lenzr’s most generous sponsor to date.

Seattledredge plus one guest have won three days and

two nights in Las Vegas courtesy of a portable toilet rentals business in Toronto ItsMyPotty.com

May June contests come to a conclusion, with one strange upset…

Another unusual chapter in the story of Lenzr has been written today. An unprecedented event occurred at 11:45pm on June 30th, 2010. Mommakoala’s image, My Candy Stash was eliminated from the competition. The correction was made by admin.  The result of their decision makes her ineligible to win the Portable Luxury photo contest, and the Las Vegas vacation prize for which she has been campaigning in multiple social networks for a month.

Debbie is upset, Bill is furious, but Lenzr has to be fair to all members.

As everyone knows this blog is connected to a serial photo contest website that issues new challenges every sixty days. Its the only indy photo contest website of its kind, and as such it has developed a core following of veteran contesters that dominate each challenge and sub-divide the spoils. These individuals scour other social networks recruiting votes and promoting their work, and this activity is encouraged by admin. That’s right. We like it when that happens. When contesters put the message out on their own social platforms it compounds the quality and distribution of the marketing.

However, Lenzr website admin must also guard against proxy IP vote fraud and multiple domain registrations for / by which the only activity is voting perfect 10s for specific images from specific members (and voting 1 for everyone else) We can see when that happens.

Although Mommakoala’s My Candy Stash was the only photo removed in this session, almost all of the photos uploaded by just about every member have red flags attached to them in Lenzr reports; they are being flagged for some terms of service violation or another, by both humans and the filter. And that’s understandable because its just the way the votes are collected…

WHO’S TO BLAME? Because the abuse is so widespread across the entire database we have to believe that individual contesters themselves are not really responsible for the methods and passion of their friends, or strangers who might otherwise seek to disqualfy them.

Its a strange web we weave when we invent and launch a ‘democratic photo contest website’ made ‘by the people for the people’ wherein admin has ALMOST no control.

Remarkably, Seattledredge’s Portable City had no such red flags or suspicious activity. It appears to have collected 330 points in a most organic fashion. Admin had to act here, to be fair to Seattle and reward her for submitting some very pretty images in all three categories.

So a decision was made to reward Seattle’s image over Mommakoala’s submission, and as Admin has no power over the voting algorithm itself, our only option was to eliminate Debbie’s image entirely from competition.

Mommakoala is one of our favourite associations. As you will read in the next write-up, Debbie’s Elton Johnish photo is the winner of the 50 Going On 15 photo contest, and she will collect over 50 lbs of pure chocolate from Choclicks courtesy of TempoToronto.ca

Ve3bnw Bill Watson, Debbie’s husband will reap the Blackberry reward for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. I myself, Rob Campbell the Lenzr blogger have offered to host a banner promoting Bill’s aerial photography business in the sidebar of the Lenzr blog.

NOW WE ADAPT A SMARTER PROGRAM where VOTES ARE COLLECTED AT THE END

From July 1st 2010 forward, Lenzr has a new voting ritual. The new procedures will cure all the vote fraud malaise as we together evolve and perfect this social experiment and make it friendlier and fair for everyone that chooses to participate. Comments and queries are encouraged and will be answered directly.

Slimmswitch is Really Cutting Grass now!

Here’s a prize winning Lenzr member named Slimmswitch cutting his own lawn with a Neuton CE6  electric battery powered  lawnmower.

The How Green Are You? photo challenge ended dramatically on May 1st 2010 with Slimmswitch twenty points ahead of Johnny. The web challenge collected 27 photos which garnered 1592 votes.  Almost all of the images are focused on green subjects, and most share insights into one or more facets of the green energy industry.

Sponsored by a solar powered grass cutting business in Toronto Ontario, the company used the contest to showcase their green services which includes bio fuel trucks and lawnmower trailers adorned with adjustable solar panels. The firm proudly offers a sustainable, organic grounds keeping maintenance that is also a relatively silent. The Neuton battery powered lawnmowers are also very quiet as Slimmswitch has no doubt discovered.

Portable Luxury

The prize is a Las Vegas vacation! And that means airfare and hotel accommodation for two people for three days and two nights in this hedonistic hotspot in Nevada. At the time of this writing, Lenzr admin doesn’t know the exact dates, carrier or hotel specifics. No mention of meals, but from what I understand good food comes cheap in Las Vegas hotels. Finally, please remember, the winner is obligated to send Lenzr admin some pictures and anecdotes for storytelling on this blog.

The sponsor is a portable toilet rentals business that owns and can deploy several dozen luxury units to any location in Southern Ontario. If you ask them what the words  ‘portable luxury’ mean, they’ll open the catalogue and show you what Hollywood movie companies rent for A list stars, and the bathrooms going out for the foriegn dignitaries at the G20 summit.  They have some really fantastic bathrooms on wheels.

Backyard Party Events  - Photo Contest Winners

Here’s Sandra Ausma the 2nd place contestant standing beside John Kenyon the marketing director at Absolute Tent and Event Services who was actually the first place winner of the challenge.  It wasn’t a mistake - his photo was excellent and you can read all about it in the contest summary two posts below this one on the Lenzr blog.

Sandra’s photo was equally storyful and she was rewarded with the 10×10 pop-up tent that you can see big John leaning on, as well as, a $500 gift certificate to be spent on anything and everything this unique Toronto party rentals warehouse stocks.

On behalf of John Kenyon let me thank everyone that participated in this very entertaining Lenzr photo contest.

Crowded Places has become a rich media repository for images relating to really popular recreational activities. Here’s an inside look at unpleasant traffic jams, and pedestrian bottlenecks in rush hour.  There are many geographic variables and circumstances that make popular places that spawn crowded spaces.

Like all photo contests on Lenzr this web challenge is specifically designed for Canadians.  Yes of course anyone may upload photos and participate, but the prize may only be won, and will indeed only be shipped to residents of Canada.

Just as the name Crowded Places implies traffic and commerce, so too has the odour and intensity of competition become manifest in this online photography event. Behold photos of Olympic torch athletes and fish ponds, raves and transit problems.

Everyday the whistle blows and you hear the alarming sound of the municipal rooster in the morning - just watch the people start moving forward on sidewalks, streetcars and subway cars. The same whistle blows all through our history, at meat packing plants and on factory floors. It issues forth from the subway cars and the whistle also sits in the dry mouths of the brave captains who urge their men over the top.

Innate Media Group is a full service web, media design, application development and internet marketing company that consistently provides effective solutions for global business. They make websites that perform well in search engines and this makes crowded places on the internet.

PS everyone at Lenzr just loves the photo of Smojoe submitted by Ampfoto.  The picture was taken at the IABC conference on May 12th at Ryerson in Toronto. The image captures the moment when Rob Campbell announces to the audience that Smojoe stands for ’social media optimzation’ joe. You can read all about the seminar in Smojoe blog. There was a crowd of at least forty people in the room, and so it does indeed qualify as a crowded place.  The Toronto web developer that sponsored the Crowded Places photo contest is sitting at the laptop with his back to the window.