Now that we are ready to blow the roof off this joint and actually start promoting what we are doing to the world (instead of talking to a small audience of friends and colleagues), it is time to talk about our vision for how we will build Social Media Club from a discussion into a loosely joined association of passionate people. As I explained in the first post on this blog, “we wish to build a community that is truly of, by, and for the people it serves - people from all walks of life who care about, benefit from and create Social Media.” The question is how do we make this well intentioned idealism real?

The answer is first we need to turn the lights on. Then we start talking about our vision. We see who shows up. We listen. We embrace the ideas that are aligned with our values. We adapt our plans according to the needs and wishes of the community. We build a truly democratic process that encourages participation by respecting the value and contributions of every individual. We believe that smart, passionate leaders will emerge and step up to the challenge. They will be the ones who make Social Media Club a reality - all we have done is gather the firewood and and hand over the match.

The conversations about the future of Social Media Club will happen online though Social Media like Blogs, via our email discussion list on Yahoo Groups, within other ad-hoc group discussions, and most importantly through a series of BrainJams styled events we are organizing around the country over the next several months. These conversations will hopefully culminate with the formal Social Media Club launch at our Web 2point2 BrainJam in November 2006. So the next few months will be spent figuring out what we all collectively want from a group like Social Media Club, identifying who will be leading the organization, refining the values we want to encourage as a community, and working together on projects we want to support - whether our own or other’s that exist such as Creative Commons, Internet Archive and MicroFormats.

Over the next few weeks we will schedule a series of Social Media Club “Founder’s Circle” events around the country, and hopefully around the world, to discuss the future of social media in society. These half day and full day unconferences will bring together communications professionals, bloggers, podcasters, journalists, tool makers, service providers, teachers, artists, and others who are passionate about social media for the purpose of making connections and reinforcing local communities around our shared interests. The events will be slightly more structured than a typical Open Space, but will fully embody shared leadership and encourage active participation - with some sessions being very short monologues or demonstrations (no powerpoint), more sessions embracing Dave Winer’s principles for Discussion Leaders and others using the World Cafe format.

While the exact format of the Founder’s Circle events are still being determined, we have four outcomes we will seek from each event, with the final outcome being the formal launch of the organization.

1. Bringing people together in the local community to discover each other and share your understanding of Social Media. In essence, we hope to draw out the people who ‘get it’ to share what they know with others, so that more and more people eventually understand why Social Media is so powerful.

2. To discuss the operational plans for Social Media Club, improving upon them by brainstorming ideas for projects while engaging people more fully in the projects we are already undertaking, such as the New Media Release (hRelease) and local Social Media Club unconferences.

3. To identify local chapter leaders who are interested in making the vision for Social Media Club a reality where it really matters - within each community.

4. Finally, and most importantly, we will take this opportunity to collaborate with each other like paramedia around important areas of interest, organizing educational resources so that people who are trying to learn about Social Media can easily get involved and start creating.

In case it is not clear at this point, the primary focus we have for the organization is to help more people and organizations understand and fully utilize the potential of Social Media such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, vlogs, tagging, and peer to peer unconferences. The technology is important, and will play a big part in our work, but only as a tool that makes the world a better place for the people that use them. This principle is first and foremost in our thinking about the Social Media Club organization and applies equally to independents, small businesses, large corporations, artists, government entities, not for profits, for profits, educational institutions, communications firms - whether professional or amateur, from all walks of life.

Over the past several months with BrainJams, we have explored the world of ad-hoc collaboration, social learning, leadership, large group dialogue and what many people still refer to as Web 2.0. Through this process we have learned much about what works and what does not. Admittedly, I personally still have a lot to learn in this regards, but we have all come far in a short period of time. One area of particular concern is the delicate balance between too little structure and too much, and how the nature of the tools shapes the nature of participation. We hope to achieve this balance for the majority of everyday people and professionals who care about Social Media, but I expect we will make some mistakes along the way, so I am asking for some forgiveness for some of the screw ups I will make along the way.

This is where you can really help a great deal - besides joining the discussion on our Yahoo Group, volunteering to help, sponsoring one of our many Social Media Club Founder’s Circle Unconferences, or financially supporting us through a Membership, what we really need from you is your ideas, your feedback, your leadership and your complete honesty.

As Howard Rheingold says (and I often quote) “What it is –> is up to you.”

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