SMC New York City Meeting Reviews

Thanks to Les Blatt from LB’s Rambles for a great set of notes from last night’s SMC NYC meeting. In his post on “Learning from the Crowd” Les captured much of the discussion that went on as people introduced themselves and were asked to share one site or resource they found useful so that everyone in the group could learn about it.

Then, in “Business Gets Personal Again” Les reviewed Chris Heuer’s slides and the discussion that the group had around how Social Media is making business personal.

Allen Stern had a slightly more critical review of the meeting at Center Networks. Chris responded in the comments, and so did I but that one seems to have gotten lost or hasn’t been moderated as of yet. Allen’s feedback is appreciated, and we are looking for more folks to lead more topics. The challenge of the room’s layout -which didn’t allow for people to see each other (classroom format) - will hopefully be one of the things we fix in future meetings.

Steve Eisenberg recorded the meeting.

Sphere: Related Content

Discounts to SNAP Summit (San Francisco): October 26th

SNAP Summit is a one-day, single-track conference that focuses in-depth on the Facebook platform and beyond, taking place Friday, October 26th in San Francisco, CA.

Sphere: Related Content

SMC Happy Hour: Web 2.0 Wrapup from The Palace Hotel

I was very fortunate to be hanging out in the lobby of The Palace Hotel checking in with a few friends from Web 2.0 Summit on Friday Afternoon - check out our chat with Joseph Smarr, Salim Ismail, Richard MacManus and Jason Hoffman - very insightful stuff… The victory of open source platforms, the open social graph/bill of rights, the latest from Yahoo! Brickhouse, the importance of the iPhone SDK and other observations from Web 2.0…

Sphere: Related Content

Social Media Workshop in Austin Nov. 6

Dell Campus ~ Austin, TX ~ November 6 ~ 8:30 to 5:30

Many thanks to the folks at Dell for sponsoring our upcoming Social Media Workshop on November 6. Austin’s queen of social media, Connie Reece, will join keynoter Shel Israel, coauthor of Naked Conversations, Social Media Club co-founder and thought leader Chris Heuer, and PR/social media measurement pro Kami Huyse as presenters for this day-long workshop, which will explore how businesses can implement a social media marketing program to initiate conversations and build relationships with customers.

A quick look at the agenda shows that the day will be filled with valuable information plus interaction. The agenda will be tailored to the attendees’ needs, so if you have a specific topic you would like to see covered, let us know when you register and we will try to include it in the program or answer your questions during the breaks.

We’ve also announced special pricing for the Austin event: the regular price of $299 will be discounted to $199 if you register by Friday, October 26. If you’re a member of Social Media Club at the professional, business or corporate level, the price is just $149.

But wait, there’s more!

Use the discount code CONNIE for an additional $50 off when you register online. (Hey, it pays to know the woman in the hot pink boa!)

This event, which will be held at Dell’s HQ campus in Round Rock (just north of Austin), will be a one-of-a-kind opportunity for Austin this year. In addition to the presenters mentioned above, Lionel Menchaca and the Dell Digital Media team will be on hand to share their experiences in implementing social media strategies.

Sphere: Related Content

Social Media for Nonprofits: The Workshop That Need to Happen

As part of a contract with SLHI, I decided to try offering a workshop for nonprofits this morning. Jon Ford, with whom I work most closely at the Foundation, has been engaged in an effort to build community through web tools. This was one of the ideas we came up with to preach the gospel.

We were not preaching to the choir. Most nonprofits are too small to have IT departments, and have few technology resources. So when we sent the invitation out to SLHI’s mailing list, we filled up a 30-person room in a day. If we knew how to set up a waiting list on Eventbrite, we would have done so. I think there’s at least another room full of people who would want to come to learn about all the free tools now available.

I started off simply defining social media, because most of them hadn’t heard the term before. I told them it was a means to carry on a conversation that built a community. I was going to use a bunch of examples I had gathered from the web, but then I decided to start by talking about how social media impacted my own life: how I got my first inkling when I found Widownet, which has been online serving the bereaved since 1995. My husband died, leaving me grieving and sleepless, in 1997, and I weathered many nights because of Widownet.

Then I told them about my Yahoo Group, which I started in 1997 to help my friends deal with their technology problems, because I was working at Intel at the time. It now has become a broader group to which I send one email a week just to keep in touch. It has grown to almost 2000 subscribers, most of whom do not yet read blogs.

So I send the same content that I post to the blog, only I post to the blog more than once a week, so they get a taste, but not the entire thing.

From that introduction to show how the tools could be used in business, I guided them through free social networks public and private (Facebook and Ning), showing how those were used by nonprofits. Then we went through Change.org’s platform for nonprofits, which I think is going to launch something new next week that Heather probably doesn’t want me to talk about

Then we spent the rest of the time helping each other figure out which tools were right for which agencies. In the process John showed them Zoho, the online suite of tools that can replace Microsoft for people who have better things to pay for than software licenses.

Everyone loved it! They wanted more.

And there’s definitely more to do: we didn’t get to wikis, widgets, RSS, YouTube, podcasts…

But I think the big takeaway from the morning was that you can be free of licenses, support, and that web designer who built your site and went out of business — if you are willing to learn some free, new tools.

When I first saw social media, I knew it would be great for nonprofits. Now I hope some of them know it, too.

Sphere: Related Content