Besides being a friend of ours, Adele McAlear was named one of the Top 10 Most Influential Women in Social Media in Canada. Her expertise has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and nationally in the Canadian Press, CanWest Global, and The Globe & Mail’s Report on Business.

As an early adopter of social media and a technology enthusiast, Adele lives much of her life on the web. She is researching, writing and speaking about Death and Digital Legacy to help people understand the personal, social and business implications of all that they leave behind. And, that’s the subject of her talk at PAB2010.

Few have stopped to consider what digital content they want to survive them. What is important to you, your community, your family, and your profession? What is relevant to one person may be irrelevant to the next, and how your digital affairs are handled after you pass will have long-lasting consequences.

Death and Digital Legacy examines the intersection of death, social media and technology and looks at the ripples that are created with loss. This wide-reaching topic looks at the chasm between online communities and families; legal, privacy and security issues; policies of online services; and what each of us should do today to prepare our digital assets.

Adele will raise issues at the forefront of this emerging topic surrounding the lack of global infrastructure needed to manage online identities and digital assets. With no established norms, development is driving forward with sweeping Terms of Service policies leaving few options for control of valuable content and accounts.

Her dedicated site for this topic is DeathAndDigitalLegacy.com.

We asked Adele five very important questions.

What is your best memory of creating media for other people to enjoy?

I like interviewing people and covering events, sharing some of the excitement with others who can’t attend. I fondly remember talking to Bob Goyetche on video at the opening of the first Podcamp Montreal in September ’08.

Which media creator has been most inspiring to you and why?

Christian Payne (a.k.a. @documentally / ourmaninside.com) has to be one of my favourite media producers. He’s just the consumate creator. He’ll do a 5 minute monologue on the joys of waiting for tea to steep, or pick up a guitar and make up a song on the spot, he’ll interview anyone about anything. He uses video, audio, text and photos to create constantly. He has a geek camp, he covers events for the UN, he lives and breathes social media. His fetus had a twitter account – and is now knon as @minimentally. He tweets on behalf of his 80 year old grandmother (@granumentally) and was even featured on Norah Young’s Spark on CBC with his grandmother. Christian is a lovely person and shares so much of his life, it’s hard not to be inspired by him.

What do you think is the most important consideration to media relevance?

The ability to connect with the topic either emotionally or intellectually. Relevance is subjective to the individual, and so niche appeal is the key.

If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?

I wouldn’t change a thing. Every decision I’ve made – whether it was good or bad – has brought me to this moment in time and has taught me something. I live without regret, but try to learn from every lesson life throws at me.

How do you hope your PAB2010 session will change the way people think and/or act?

I hope that people will view what they create online as digital assets and assess what is important to them. Then, at minimum, I hope that they discuss it with their families so that their wishes are considered.