Social Media Club – Boston

Chris and I are headed to Boston and wanted to put a couple of events on your calendar:

First stop – support our friends over at SNCR as they hold their Inaugural Research Symposium and Awards Celebration. There are a few seats left for this event and I am told if you register online at http://tinyurl.com/hqmom and use the promo code ‘NCR20′, you will save almost 20%!

Then we will join our buddies at Topaz Partners who have offered to co-host the first ‘official’ meeting of Social Media Club Boston on Thursday, November 2nd from 6pm to 8:30pm. We are currently looking for a venue* in downtown Boston (Topaz is located in Woburn), so just put the date on your calendar for now and we will get an update to you shortly.

*If you have venue suggestion for the SMC event, please email kristie [at] brainjams [dot] org. We are trying to keep it in downtown Boston near a public transportation stop to make them easy to get to.

Also, we do ask if you plan on attending the SMC event to please pre-register online at: Social Media Club Boston

Media Alliance celebrates 30 years of making media and making change!

Media Alliance is a media resource and advocacy center for media professionals, non-profit organizations and social justice activists located here in the Bay Area, and Social Media Club is proud to support their efforts and the work they do on a day to day basis.

They are celebrating their impressive 30 year anniversary with a benefit gala on October 12th in San Francisco, and we would like to encourage everyone who believes in their cause to join Chris and I by lending your support through donations and/or tickets to attend the celebration.

Let’s help them make it to their 60th anniversary!

Social Media Club NY Wrapup

I’ve attempted to take some rough notes of the meeting. As I was also actively participating, some of my notes are admittedly incomplete. Please feel free to add your own notes via the comments or point towards your blog. Also, please feel free to expand and amplify the discussion.

Meeting notes (very rough):

Introductions

Chris Heuer introduced himself, gave brief background on the genesis of Social Media Club and of BrainJams.

Howard Greenstein (that’s me) gave a brief backgrounder as well.

Chris discussed the following:
Web 2.0 – less a technology or a thing and more a spirit of rebirth, a sharing culture. Social Media is inclusive rather than exclusive. These ideas lead to the genesis of the Web 2.1 conference opposite the Web 2.0 conference.

In SMC we want to connect people from diverse communities and help them learn from each other.

3 main ideas:

1. Promote media literacy – general population, schools, underserved communities, etc.

2. Share best practices

3. Promote ethics and standards. One standard we’re working on is the hRelease/New Media Release. As part of this, Chris attended the XPRL meeting in London last week.

The group then discussed resources available to them in NY – Other groups or events.

Bar Camp NY

Next NY

Meetups (New Technology ones, as well as others (Russian language, etc. )

We discussed ideas for future meetings:

1. More about the non SM literate communities – how we can reach out to them, etc. Someone asked if when we mention these communities we were considering both the computer users who were not SM literate, and those who had limited or no online access – yes for both.
2. SM club as part of schools. We had a discussion about how we could best reach out to Schools – NYMouse.org, other groups
3. Someone would love to see the group share volunteering opportunities
4. An entreprenur has been asked to create an SM site for a 2008 campaign and wants to know how Social media will affect the public discourse around the election, and other public events.

We then got into a discussion about information overload. There are many, numerous different kinds of tools for Social Media, and many web 2.0 services. To which ones should we pay attention?

Discussion of Feed Readers, how many feeds and inputs can people handle?

Someone mentioned Berry Bloglines as a way to read feeds on the Blackberry mobile device.

We then moved to a discussion of Podcasts, and how many of them people can and actually do consume. Many good podcasts mentioned:
A few: Dr. Floyd, Podshow Music Rewind, Gillmor Gang, Jim Leher News Hour, etc. Debate (with Googling) of how many people listen to or have tried podcasts, and how to measure. Also, how much to measure vs micro or narrow casting. Discussion of narrow casting vs spray and pray large audience advertising – which works better?

Moved into a discussion of the Social Media Release/hRelease format. Points included some first and second hand accounts of how Journalists actually use and consume releases, what they would need to adopt a new format. Discussion of what to include in a release. Someone noted that the press release may just be one part of a much larger campaign, and ability to show people the associated ads, products, campaign material could be quite beneficial both to the company issuing the release as well as to the journalist or especially the blogger who is trying to put the release into context for a story. Feeing that Bloggers and Citizen Journalists more than journalists might benefit from the New Media Release format. Additional discussion ensued.

The next meeting will be announced with location shortly. Thanks to all who showed up, and to BusinessWire for hosting the event!

The Importance of Social Media

Our friend Josh Hallet (Hyku) has given me an “interesting” task in helping him lead the last discussion of the day at BlogOrlando. I say “interesting” as it tough to take on the last spot when everyone is thinking about happy hour and experiencing the “magic of the kingdom”, but the focus for this discussion is something I hold near and dear to my heart so despite the challenge, it is the perfect opportunity for me to share my thoughts around this.

According to Josh’s email:

“our session is going to be dealing with the future of social media, what are the next steps and how can we change the world type stuff…”

Hmmm…the future of Social Media, next steps [for getting there] and changing the world. Sure enough, let me just get out the crystal ball and Merlin’s favorite dish rag to polish it so I can answer that question right away. While I am at it, I will predict the next big stock market winner and President (hint, it won’t be Bush who is in New York today clogging up traffic for the UN’s general session). In all honesty, one of the great things about Social Media is that no one really knows what the next big thing is. It truly is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Still, since this is the sort of thing some folks pay me to do, I will let you in on a few of the trends that are worthy of the question.

There are four major trends I see from where I sit today:

1. Social Media will become more of a business, but will retain the power from its personal passion, unlike new media in the big dotcom boom
2. More individuals will band together in networks small and large, changing the very notion of freelancing and employment
3. The corporation will be forever changed, traditional media will adapt before dying completely and all companies will become media companies thereby shrinking the advertising pie
4. Ultimately, Social Media will be a primary catalyst in saving the world…or bringing about our demise

1 – The Business of Social Media

If you think that Social Media, as represented by blogging, podcasting and vlogging, is only a personal or social pursuit with no room for making money or corporate involvement, you are clearly still living in 2002.

I was talking with Jason Hoffman of Joyent over a few pints in London about the early days of Text Pattern and how Dean Allen originally turned his personal passion into a real business. It is a perfect example of why things are different today than before, but it is also clearly about business in the age of personal power and open, participatory networks. Dean could not have found a better partner than Jason. He is clearly one of the smartest people I have ever met in the Valley, and I have met quite a few people in my 5 years living there. I can’t do the entire story justice here (Chris Lott did), but the interesting part I want to share is the story of the VC200 – which was the 200 people who answered Dean’s call for pre-paying for a year’s worth of hosting at $199 each, giving the company enough money to get up and running without having to sell their soul to the venture capitalists.

Of course, Dean did what any smart, value minded business person would do – he took care of his customer/investors and promised them all free hosting for life if the business was successful (and a free t-shirt). That $40,000 was the beginning of a company that I personally think will be worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. This is a story about the power of an individual who gets it, and the power of many individual’s who join together in trusted networks for their collective benefit. This is the power of Social Media, and it is the power of business done right.

The problem generally is that business is often thought of as a four-letter word for many people, because so many assholes have done it wrong, for their own personal, selfish, greedy, and power hungry reasons that are not in harmony with the world around us. When the people who run a business are able to act like human beings, using the good values they hold in their hearts and minds rather than the socialization of greed we have inherited from prior generations, great things can be accomplished and everyone can be the better for it.

Even if you don’t agree with my perspective on the business of Social Media, I am sure you will agree that it puts the power of the press/satellite/antenna in the hands of everyone with access to the Internet. The democratization of media and the means of production (represented by increasing access and decreasing costs) also removes the barriers to entry into the media business. In 1999 I invested all of my life savings, and some of my grandfather’s to launch InfoApps.com, which was primarily an Internet media property akin to Engadget or Gizmodo. It was just a bit before its time and cost tens of thousands of dollars in development expenses. Today I could launch that same site on WordPress for $20 per month with half the effort and 1/100th of the initial setup time.

Today anyone with talent and creativity can build a media property out of sheer personal interest or for personal profit. Per Joe Krause’s statement in Business 2.0 last November, it is surely easier in many regards to launch, but no easier to develop it into a business. For every Chris Pirillo, Jake Luddington, Dooce, or Daily Koz, there are tens of thousands of others who toil away in relative obscurity away from the glaring spotlight of cultural popularity. If they are doing it only for the limelight, then surely these ”unpopular failures” would quit – but they aren’t doing it for that reason alone, they are doing it because they enjoy it, because it builds their reputation, because they have an opinion, an idea or a cause that is worth doing for their own personal satisfaction or for any one of another personal million or more reasons.

Over the last year, I made about $11.46 on AdSense via my blog, but some of the folks I know make in excess of $250,000 per year working less than 30 hours per week. This is not some get rich scheme, it is the power of networked media when combined with free thinking, some business sense, a great work ethic and a passion for something that is shared by others. Sure I would like to make more money doing what I love, but I am doing what I love and doing what I need to do in order to spend more time working on my passions. I am also studying, gaining insights and seeking collaborators. As you might tell from the length of this article/post, I am also seeking an editor…

Further to my point, Social Media is a playground for emerging talent and we will certainly see more and more ”stars” coming from amongst our Social Media peers in the years to come. AdSense and text ads are not enough to make most people wealthy, though some are making a living from it while others are creating mini-media-empires. As with professional sports though, there will only be so many ”one-percenters” at the top of their game. Many excel at creatively but lack the business sense required to build an audience. Those who are smart enough to realize this will either join networks like Federated Media, find the right business partners like Chris/Ponzi/Jake, join a company like Robert Scoble did with Podtech or sell their content in Social Media marketplaces such as Social Roots. [disclosure: I am an advisor to Social Roots]

If nothing else I say is true Social Media represents a training and experimentation opportunity from which amateurs, hobbyists, creative doodlers and diary keepers will emerge as professional producers of professional media. Or they will simply tuck that skill set in their virtual hats and use it within their selected careers as needed from time to time. Predicting what actually happens is impossible. As Neo says in the Matrix, “the problem is choice.” Or more accurately, the brilliant part is free will, and that is what makes it so exciting and impossible to control.

I do fervently believe that this is the era of the producer. Talent that joins together with the right producers will excel, while those who stubbornly think that they can be the proverbial ”one man band” and do it all may have some short term success but will not reach the heights of those who collaborate effectively with the right partners. This is why I propose to you that…

Freelancers Will Form Networks and Build “Fast” Companies

This is somewhat obvious with things like the original thought behind Citizen Agency (before it became the Chris and Tara consulting shop), Co-Working and the renewed enthusiasm for small startup teams, but there is something more subtle and deeper at the heart of this. Simply put, teams of people can do more together, better, than any individual can do alone. As I have banged on my drum for the last two years – in a knowledge economy, the number one driver of value is the ability of smart people from diverse backgrounds to work together.

Some of the lessons of old media will hold true for Social Media. This is most notably the content networks (ala PodShow, Gawker, Weblogsinc), the power of talent (ala Amanda Congdon and RocketBoom), the need to build an audience and the ability to produce in a really slick way. As we have seen with reality television, the hybrid of overly produced “barely based on reality” does not hold sway with people for long. The deep human desire for genuine connections with the heroes journey via Joseph Campbell will not tolerate gimmicks or fools for long. Genuine human drama, ’How To’ content, insightful commentary, truly funny comedy, emotionally charged entertainment, engaging conversations, factual news of the world and stories well told will rule the day.

While an individual alone may be able to make a few extra bucks via advertising and affiliate product sales, or by syndicating their content – they will get the most impact in terms of influence and dollars by joining networks. These can be small networks of a few friends working together, or can be the basis for new startups. Some may have the right formula and grow big organically, but most will not truly obtain their full value unless they are able to benefit from the scale of an even larger network.

This is similar to the difference between living in a rural countryside versus living in the city. Neither is necessarily good or bad on its own merits and- you can choose whichever one you like, but both are generally better if you belong to a network for support. Working freelance is somewhat like tilling the land on your own farm. You can make a living if you put your shoulder into it and can find a market for what you have to offer, but there are a lot more things required of you to be successful. In this analogy, working on a team is like living in a city where you have more of the basic resources required for success provided for you. This is one of the reasons I have come to believe that co-working is quite possibly a transition for many people back into companies.

The key difference being that the companies created out of it will not be companies based on command and control hierarchies, but instead will be chaordic in nature. The purpose of the organization will be clear to those within it and everyone will be a leader from time to time. However, it will still require a visionary thinker, a finance wiz and an operational expert at the helm for maximum success as Tom Peters proposes in his concept of the “Golden Leadership Triangle”. It will also be a values driven organization that may make a reasonable profit or a huge one (in line with the value created) but will most assuredly be socially responsible and focused on people.

This is exactly the sort of world envisioned by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor when they formed Fast Company. Only now, we have all the lessons of irrational exuberance, the further democratization of the means of production, the knowledge economy rather than the information economy and a more wide spread desire for change in the face of looming world wide conflict.

An Interlude – a Point Skipped (for now)

At this point in the story, I should be talking about point three, how the corporation will be forever changed by Social Media, but at word 2004 of this post, let’s leave that for another post and talk about the important societal concern we are facing. You should know I am generally not an alarmist by nature. In fact, I generally forgo confrontation in favor of conversation, but if I don’t stand for this, I stand for nothing.

For the last year I have been pursuing BrainJams, Social Media Club and supporting other similarly inspired ideas from others (like NetSquared and BarCamp) because I am an optimist who believes we can change. That was the reason I wrote The Noble Pursuit. That is the reason I was trying to get funding for Insytes. Yes, I hope to achieve a certain bit of fame and fortune too, but this is all really about me finding my purpose for living and it has little to do with either, though it may be a byproduct of the activities. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, none of it was completely clear to me until this past weekend in London. I suppose it only makes sense since this is where the original idea for Insytes and the situational knowledgebase from The Noble Pursuit became clear in 2002.

On Saturday I was leaving the British Museum with Jason Hoffman and I happened to mention that both my mother and father had Cerebral Palsy and I felt like kind of a blessed miracle child. To this, he replied something along the lines of ”well you better do something big with your life then”. Of course, I have always felt this since I was small, but I have not been connected with that reality fully, particularly in the way I have chosen to live my life on occasion by avoiding certain confrontations. Then on Sunday, when I was visiting Mark Adams at his country home, he asked me ”Why are you really doing this? What do you hope to see happen as a result of your work today?”

Wow. A powerful question right up there with a Tim Taylor sort of reflection, which is not surprising given how sharp Mark is. What was surprising was how clear the answer was. After pausing for a few seconds, I said ”well, the world is kind of at a point in time where we get to choose whether we are all in this together or we are in it alone. I hope to be a catalyst to ensure we survive as a human race instead of destroying ourselves through intolerance, greed and closed mindedness.”

Social Media Can Save the World

Social Media is the way forward and if it is spread around the world imbued with the right values, it can be the means for fixing what’s broken in the world and bringing us together instead of continuing to keeping us apart. Tom Munnecke promotes this concept through the Uplift Academy, it is a way to identify what is working in the world and ensure we do more of it by amplifying that understanding across our social networks around the world.

Unfortunately, as we know all too well, the same tools we choose to use for bringing us together as the human race are also used to keep us apart. Al Qaeda not only uses the Internet to secretly coordinate their activities using encryption technology, but also to spread their message of hate. As we use the tools to spread the message of hope, they use it to spread fear and hate of everyone who is not like them – the supposed non-believers. Of course, the conservatives in the United States are also using these and other media tools to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans in the ideological war.

Unfortunately, for most of society fear is still a bigger motivation than pleasure and there are many who are more easily swayed by the politics of fear. This is not to say that there is not a real threat and something to be afraid of, as there clearly is something to be aware of, and the enemies to our way of life are many which may indeed require us to take up arms in order to make the world a better place. It is simply my hope that we can all get smarter about using Social Media and work hard at organizing ourselves as Paramedia rather than paramilitaries.

Of course the most important thing to remember is that we must start with small actions and small victories. We need not inspire 100,000 people to see things this way with one blog post, we just need to reach one person to begin to make the world a better place. We need to realize that we will not affect any change unless we release our fears of failure and our dreams of grandeur and seize upon the present moment with its unique opportunity to perhaps reach just one other person with our words, our voice, our song, our art or our story.

To quote an old saying, ”If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”

Clearly the time is now, we need not rely on our current systems to show us how, we need only to look within ourselves and find our personal power and apply it to our personal passions, to stand up for what we believe is right, to say it out loud through our blogs, our podcasts, our vlogs or our conversations with others. But like the powerful force of the river, we must be yielding when we see that it will not move and go around it, wearing it down with persistence over time.

The future of Social Media is the future of the world . The final chapter is not yet written, but this chapter in our history is nearing its end. Thankfully, it is more like a Wiki document than a dictated memo.

So what is your contribution?

XPRL Meeting in London

When I first saw the note from David Phillips about this meeting, I was intrigued, but after discussing the XPRL standard with more seasoned PR folks did not have high hopes honestly. People I spoke with said it was a dead but valiant effort to bring standards into the professional Public Relations world. They said the principal reason for failure was the lack of adoption in the many years since it was conceived. As is often the case with technology projects, it seemed that there was not enough early buy in from the people who were affected by it.

I was happy to see this was not lost on the members of the group and was indeed one of the key points of emphasis pursued during the course of the meeting.

In attendance were: [Read more]

SMC London Agenda

Social Media Club Agenda
for 15 September, 2006
London, United Kingdom
@ the offices of Fleishman Hillard in Covent Garden

A. Introductions to one another (5-10 Minutes)
Your name, organization and 3 tags that describe you and your interests.

1 – Conversation about Social Media Club (<20 Minutes)
What is the purpose of Social Media Club and what great things can we do as a group? How might we build a diverse community of hobbyists and professional practicioners?

2 – Conversation about Social Media (30 Minutes)
What are the pre-requisites of broader usage of Social Media across society, among individuals and organizations, particularly here in the United Kingdom?

3 – Conversation about the future of the Press Release (30 Minutes)
Is the press release dead, evolving or irrelevant? What might be done to make it more valuable? What is the big idea behind the New Media Release (aka hRelease)?

[really looking forward to this event, which is just 2 hours away...]

Social Media Club Event RoundUp

This morning I shipped Chris off for two weeks to help launch the local chapters of Social Media Club in London, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. These four cities are the first in (hopefully) many with Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, and Boston to follow shortly thereafter.

Event details are as follows:

London, September 15th at 5:30pm
Fleishman Hillard offices located at 40 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London

Registration: As of this post I do not have anyone officially signed up though several have verbally commited to attend. We would appreciate your signing up on the Mollyguard site so we can prepare the security guard at the front desk for your arrival.

Need additional details? Please contact Chris Heuer at chris@brainjams.org.

——————-

New York, September 18th at 6pm
The Business Wire offices at 40 East 52nd Street, New York, NY

Registration: As of this posting we have 18 people registered – Chris Heuer, Howard Greenstein, Laura Sturaitis, Eric Nehrlich, John Hui, David Bradfield, Christina Koukkos, Annette Krame, Kaarli Tasso, Robert Tolmach, Toby Cohen, Laura Allen, Jen Gherardi, Steve Eisenberg, Ed Costello, Colin Ruane, Nate Westheimer, Sherri Weiss.

Need additional details? Please contact Howard Greenstein at Howard@socialmediaclub.org.

——————-

Miami, September 25th at 6pm
PLEASE NOTE THERE IS A LOCATION CHANGE:

The WeblogWire Offices located at 3550 Biscayne Blvd, Miami Beach, FL

Registration: Chris Heuer, Jason Baptiste

Need additional details? Please contact Jason Baptiste at jason@theweblogwire.com or (305)576-1171 x13

——————-

Los Angeles, September 28th from 4:30pm – 6:30pm
The Press-feed offices at 6767 Forest Lawn Drive, Suite 212, Los Angeles, CA

Registration: Chris Heuer, Sally Falkow, Dawn Wilcox, Allan Weiss, Robert Niles

Need additional details? Please contact Sally Falkow at sally@press-feed.com.

——————-

We hope you will join us at one or several of the meetings where you will meet other folks in your own ‘backyard’ interested in all things Social Media.

Social Media Club Forms Working Group to Develop New Standard for Press Release

On the heels of its official launch, Social Media Club (SMC) formed the Media Release Working Group to begin development of the hRelease, a new standard for modernizing the traditional press release for a Web-centric world.

The Media Release Working Group will work closely with the Microformats community, while evaluating other technologies such as XPRL, XBRL, and NewsML to establish a standard way of organizing, tagging, distributing, and sharing ‘official’ organizational communications among blogs and other online communities.  The group intends to present an initial draft specification on November 2nd at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston. 

Current members include:
·         Chris Heuer, Social Media Club
·         Brian Solis, FutureWorks and PR2.0
·         Tom Foremski, SiliconValleyWatcher
·         Mark Nolan, PR Newswire
·         Laura Sturaitis, BusinessWire
·         Bill Accola, Marketwire
·         Todd Defren, SHIFT Communications and PR Squared
·         Jen McClure, Society for New Communications Research
·         Jason Baptiste, TheWeblogWire
·         Todd Van Hoosear, Topaz Partners
·         Sally Falkow, Falkow, Inc.
·         Darin Wolter, Marketwire

According to Heuer, “The Media Release Working Group is the first tactical step of this increasingly important initiative.  This working group is dedicated to addressing the industry’s concerns with the existing press release format while maximizing the value of news content for an Internet-driven world.  We are striving to create a standard that everyone can support by including every stakeholder group’s perspective and we aim to make significant progress before the end of the year.”

Brian Solis who is on the Social Media Club Advisory Board and a member of the working group added, “This is a very important initiative as many view the traditional press release as only scratching the surface of its potential value within the emerging, and increasingly influential, online media movement.  We will work with some of the industry’s most prominent players that are involved in the press release process every step of the way, to help create a proposed new standard for industry-wide adoption.”

The effort is inspired in part by working group members, including Tom Foremski, who, in his original blog post, proclaimed “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!,” and by Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications, who offered the first example of a “social media” press release.
“The Society for New Communications Research is very pleased to be a partner in this important industry-wide initiative,” stated Jen McClure, executive director, Society for New Communications Research. “We are confident that by bringing together a wide range of participants in this collaborative effort, we will successfully develop a standard that will benefit organizations, professional communicators, traditional journalists, bloggers and social media practitioners, media companies and their audiences.” 

The goal for the working group is to include at least 1-2 members from the different stakeholder groups that include: journalists, news wires, editors, public relations, bloggers, podcasters, academics, and technology specialists.

To follow the developments of this group, or get involved, the New Media Release Google Group hosts real-time discussions of the future of the Press Release. Interested parties may also write blog posts or identify relevant articles with the tag ‘hRelease.’ The working group will document its progress in the the hRelease Wiki donated by SocialText.  There is also a weekly NMR (New Media Release) discussion hosted by Shel Holtz on his award-winning For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast.

The Media Release Working Group will hold its first meeting on September 14^th via a Skype conference call.

Links:
Social Media Club – http://www.socialmediaclub.org
Social Media Club Membership – http://www.socialmediaclub.org/about/membership/
New Media Release Google Group – http://groups.google.com/group/newmediarelease
hRelease Wiki – http://www.socialtext.net/hrelease/index.cgi
For Immediate Release NMR podcasts – http://www.forimmediaterelease.biz
Todd Defren’s Social Media Press Release template – http://www.shiftcomm.com/downloads/smprtemplate.pdf 

About SMC
SocialMediaClub.org is an association of amateur and professional social media practitioners that are committed to sharing best practices, supporting ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy.  Social Media Club was founded by Chris Heuer, serial Internet entrepreneur and Chairman of the not-for-profit BrainJams.org.

Technorati Tags: hrelease, Social Media, socialmediaclub, Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher, Howard Greenstein, Sally Falkow, Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, brainjams, futureworks, PR2.0, Jen McCluer SNCR, todd defren, shift, pr-squared, Todd Van Hoosear, topaz partners, Jason Baptiste, theweblogwire, Laura Sturaitis, businesswire, microformat, businesswire, prnewswire, sally falkow, pr, public relations, marketwire, Darin Wolter

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Social Media Club Miami

September 25th finds us in Miami for the launch of the Social Media Club chapter at the TheWebLogWire offices in Coral Gables.  If you are interested in Social Media and are in Miami, please plan on joining us at 6pm for a lively discussion on developing the local chapter and digging into our first project, the hRelease.

The WebLogWire offices are located at:

1450 Madruga Avenue, Suite 207
Coral Gables, FL 33146

For more information, please cnotact Jason Baptiste at jason@theweblogwire.com or at (305) 576-1171 x13.

Auburn University’s Robert French Develops New Process for Social Media Press Releases

Social Media Club is about sharing new information and highlighting advancements and best practices in our industry.  I wanted to take a moment to recognize the efforts made by Robert French recently around the Social Media Press Release (SMPR) movement.

Robert French runs InfoOpinons?, a blog that was created to help him, and his PR students at Auburn University, learn together. He says in his bio, “None of us pretends to know everything and we’ll likely learn from you.  We blog in our classes. It is all about becoming familiar with Word-of-Mouth (WOM) or WOMM, Word-of-Mouth Marketing.”

Recently, French introduced a process through which students may practice creating versions of Todd Defren’s social media press release template.

For their Fall classes, French has created a new site: The Loveliest Village Newsroom. This is part of a larger site where students will be posting news and feature stories they will write and produce (audio and video) during the semester. The Loveliest Village utilizes blogs, a wiki, Flickr, del.icio.us and is intended to provide experiential learning.

In June, I wrote a post, “Colleges Send Marketing/PR Graduates to Workforce Ill-Prepared,” which basically discussed exactly what the headline implies. I’ve hired far too many PR graduates who were not adequately prepared for the day-to-day regiment of a PR career.  French is one of many educators looking to change that…

We at Social Media Club applaud Robert French.  His actions here will echo far beyond the SMPR.  His students will achieve greater success after graduation because of his dedication to education and his passion for embracing new technologies as part of the PR craft.

And did I mention we have a new office?

On September 1^st we have moved into the Looksmart building in the South of Market (SOMA) district of San Francisco. Brick walls, open floor plan, and a block from the ball park. Perfect space for the Social Media Club/BrainJams collective headquarters.

While we could have continued working out of our respective homes, there is something to be said for us all being in the same building, and being able to have a professional looking space to meet clients.

Our new mailing address is:

625 Second Street,
San Francisco, CA 94107

Phone: 415.348.7355 (Chris Heuer)

Feel free to call if you are in the area and we would be happy to give you the three second tour.

NMRcast #7 – Real World Implementations

A look at some real-world implementations of new media releases*, introducing new members of the working group, a review of Todd Defren’s post on the key principles of a social media release, and an update on the XPRL meeting in London.

The New Media Release Podcast, episode 7 can be downloaded here (MP3, 10.6MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon). Also, the Apple iTunes subscription is now available here or by searching for NMRCast at the Apple iTunes store under “podcasts.” If you subscribe to the FIR “everything” feed, however, this podcast will not be included.

*Shel Holtz provides a list of real world implementations on his website.

Social Media Club London

Chris Heuer will be in London for the XPRL meeting (related to the new Media Release format for revitalizing the traditional Press Release) and will be participating in the first meeting of the London Social Media Club that takes place on Friday, September 15th at the Fleishman Hillard offices at 40 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9LG.   We will start around 5:30pm.

If you are in the area, please plan on joining us for a robust discussion on the future of the Press Release and to establish plans for the club in London!

They Get It #1 – Jackie Danicki

They Get It is a new show from Social Media Club that invites you to learn about social media directly from the people who really 'get it'. Each week we will be interviewing one or two of the most insightful Social Media people we have had the pleasure to meet.

In our first show, Chris Heuer interviews Jackie Danicki who shares her insights on the importance of looking at the whole picture. She also reaffirms the mantra of the upcoming Web 2point 2 Unconference – the point is people!

Jackie also nominated Adriana Lukas and Brian Oberkirch as two people she knows who also get it. Each are now honorary members of "They Get It" and we will try to interview them very soon. Each will be receiving a one year professional membership to Social Media Club as well as some other tokens of appreciation which will be announced shortly.

The theme music is from Jeff Shields, Podcast Troubadour called EnoRoxyTheme.

Social Media Cast 0.2

In this week's Podcast Chris and Howard talk about the reason for choosing the Microformat as the technology for the new Media Release standard. Most of the episode is devoted to a discussion of upcoming events and the expansion of the Club. SMC meetings will be held in London on 15Sep2006, New York City on 18Sep2006, Miami on 25Sep2006 and Los Angeles on 28Sep2006. Additionally, SMC will be hosting a Social Media conference for High Tech PR and Marketing professionals in Silicon Valley on 23Oct2006.

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