Social Media Club: Weekly Chapter Call

Want to launch Social Media Club in your city, or have you started, but would like some advice on how to growth or manage the group?

We are getting requests daily to launch chapters in cities around the world, so we are scheduling a weekly call series for every Wednesday at 8:00am PST to review what it takes to launch a chapter and how to ensure success when you do.

As I mentioned in an earlier post today, one of the goals of SMC is to encourage the sharing of knowledge between the cities – I want Paris to know what is important to Chicago, London to know what Austin is talking about, New York to keep tabs on Kansas City, etc. – so you should keep in mind we are building infrastructure to help you not only manage the local chapter easily, but also to connect with the other cities and members. It is coming, I promise, but for now – things are done a little manually across various platforms (wiki, Facebook, Ning, the main SMC site). We will also invite local chapter leaders from existing Clubs to join in each week to share their insights of what has worked best and guide you along the way.

The conference call info is as follows:

Conference Dial-in Number: (269) 320-8400
Access Code: 509633#

We will be recording each call, so if you are not able to join us live – feel free to take a listen when time allows:

Playback Number: (641) 715-3445
Access Code: 509633#

We are also working on an official chapter launch guide, and have started to draft some items on the wiki. We encourage everyone to review these BEFORE you join the call so we all have a baseline to work from:

• Wee if your city is already meeting, also some good info if you scroll down to the bottom
• Suggestions from active chapters on how to ensure success in How To Run a Meeting

SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, also interviewed SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, recently on Organizing a Local Social Media Club. This is a 30-minute podcast, please take a listen.

Who Owns Social Media – SF 10/21

Join us on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @ CNet headquarters in San Francisco from 6-830pm for this important debate / conversation.  Professional members of Social Media Club (paid members in good standing) receive free registration, the general public is $5 in advance and $10 at the door if there are seats remaining.

Who owns social media? This is a question that really needs to be understood better. Of course, the first response of many people is that no one can really ‘own’ social media, everyone uses it. But enterprises around the globe are struggling with figuring out where social media fits within their hierarchical, org chart driven world. This is an important question that has significant consequences for how social media evolves.

In this sense, we are really talking about who is responsible for social media in the enterprise? Most social media ‘insiders’ would naturally say, everyone is responsible, but this is just not the reality for most businesses. Someone needs to allocate budget, someone needs decisionmaking authority over infrastructure and major programs, someone needs to rewrite job descriptions upon which employees are measured and many more people need to understand why, where and how to engage.

At the moment there seems to be an inclination that Social Media belongs in the communications wheelhouse, but others argue for support and others argue for Human Resources to be in charge while others think that this is clearly an IT issue. Can all of these people be right? In which situations is it most appropriate? How are organizations evolving to embrace the new conversational modalities of customer interaction? What about its use internally?

With the ever insightful Cathy Brooks from Seesmic joining Chris Heuer as co-moderators, we will explore these questions and many others to develop a deeper understanding of this issue that will hopefully help corporate Social Media Champions around the world. The debaters/panelists for this great event include Seth Goldstein from SocialMedia.com, Mike Manuel from Vocce Communications, Jeremy Toeman from Live Digitally and one other person still TBD.

The evening starts at CNet at 6pm with networking and informal conversation. From 7-8PM we will be digging into the question of Who Owns Social Media? The event will wrap up at 830pm.

Special thanks to our continuing Social Media Club event sponsor, Optaros, a development and strategy firm that designs, assembles and supports next generation Internet applications. If you are interested in sponsoring this or other Social Media Club events, contact us today.

Please do register in advance as we expect this event to be sold out.

In the meantime, lets get this conversation rolling.  Who do you think owns social media? why?

Social Media Club: A short history, a long and bright future

When Chris and I started Social Media Club (SMC) two+ years ago, we understood growth was going to be more organically based as there were only two of us working on the organization on a part time basis, and we needed to set up each city with a baseline infrastructure to ensure we met our goals of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.

We could have followed BarCamp by posting a wiki page and leaving it open to anyone to host an event, whenever – but we wanted to make sure these events happened more regularly (monthly), they were both informational and socially based, and at the end of the day – the learnings would then be shared back into our community for the betterment of all. We realized early on, we needed to set some guidelines and then oversee the chapters to ensure we were meeting our goals. We had to manage it.

Fast forward to 2008: we are now a handful of people managing the global organization on a part time basis, and actively working towards hiring full time staff as we file our 501c6 and push SMC further into the global space. Thanks to the efforts of our local leaders, we have grown to over 25 active chapters with 10’s of 1000’s of people gathering around the world. Woot!

Now, with all the woot! comes the reality we have fallen short on some of our goals – primarily, not connecting the chapters as well as I would have liked, and we need to ensure the knowledge shared at SMC chapter events is then pushed back into the system so all can utilize. A large part of this is the infrastructure behind the scenes. Wikis are tough for some, Ning and Facebook are not the best storage sources.

In order for us to continue to grow and show value to the community – we need to finish building out the new portal that will make launching new chapters easier, finding events in your local community faster, allow communications with other members, and harness the knowledge produced at each event.  The last piece (knowledge sharing) is critical to me – when chapters are talking about a certain topic, we need to ensure there are digital scribes in the room who are then responsible for bringing that info back into the portal so other chapters can then use it for their chapters or members can read up on what is hot in that community. This requires someone managing the global calendar and then following up with each city the day after to make sure this is being done – this is a primary role for me to fill, and I hope to have announcements on this shortly.

We are also working on our Four Missions Project and are gathering volunteers to drive them forward: Media Literacy, Sharing Lessons Learned, Encourage Adoption of Industry Standards, Promote Ethical Behavior. If you are interested in helping on one or more, please add your name to the wiki and the project leader will be in touch with you.

SMC has been extremely fortunate over the last two years to have people believe in the organization and support it via paid memberships to allow us to continue to grow. To all of you who have contributed so far, thank you, thank you, thank you.  It means the world to us.

Stay tuned for more to come. As Timbuk3 likes to sing – SMC’s future’s so bright, we gotta wear shades…

Social Media News: September 2008

In this issue:

· Welcome New Members!

· Member Benefits Package

· Social Media Workshops: Starting the Conversation

· Documenting Election 08 Using Social Media

· SMC Gatherings Around the World

· Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

· Local Chapter Leader Conference Calls

——————–

Welcome to our SMB and Professional Members:

We’d like to acknowledge our new Co-Founders, Small and Medium Business Members, and Professional Members here. Thank you ever so much for opening your heart, and your wallet, to support the mission of Social Media Club.

· SMB Co-Founders: Janet Fouts, CJ Brasiel, Patrick Sellers, Roxanne Darling, Shane Robinson, Lee Odden

· SMB Members: Bradley Silver, Tom O’Brien, Laura Chavoen, Aaron Strout, Heather Strout, Matt Shandera, Regan Fletcher, Karen Greenburg, Ted Morris, Ashirwaad Badami

· Professional Co-Founders: Jackie Peters, Patrick Reilly, Steve Banfield, Jennifer McClure, Scott Schablow, Stephen Collins, Alex de Carvalho

· Professional Members: Douglas Pollei, Joel Richman, Ayelet Baron, Jeanne Meister, Jim Nieters, Chris Ray, Crystal King, Beth Harte, Eric Rochow, Tucker Carney, Jason Falls, Cyril Simone, Janie, Graziani, Jason Kintzler, Ziad Kane, Jeff De Cagna, Te-ge Bramhall, Allen Mireles, David Naumann, Steven Fish, Tim Eby, Kathleen Ferretti-Gambale, Andy Sernovitz, Michelle Brusyo, Heidi Proctor, Zoe Korstvedt, Tessa Horehled, JoAnn Peach, Kyung Han

Each of the members mentioned above will receive a Social Media Club Member Kit that includes a membership card, t-shirt and stickers.  We are also happy to announce that for the next few months, new members will also receive an Akoha starter kit.  If you don’t know what that is yet, you need to check out http://akoha.com/ to see this great concept for yourself. We will continue to beef the kits up as time goes on with other promotional items, discounts and various other benefits, so stay tuned for further announcements!

——————–

Member Benefits Package

We have been working behind the scenes to define the value proposition to attract new members (and keep existing ones connected) to Social Media Club and work towards building out the member benefit packages that are a little light right now.

The committee members are Michael Brito, Serena Erlich, Chris Heuer, Aaron Strout, Des Walsh and Kristie Wells and some thoughts have been shared on the SMC website on what we are thinking of and we would absolutely love your feedback on what you think the should be included in your SMC membership. Please post a comment and/or connect with us directly. Thank you for continued support.

——————–

Social Media Workshops: Starting the Conversation

If you are trying to understand why Social Media is such a hot topic and what your organization should be doing about it, this is your chance to attend a workshop hosted by SMC professionals from around the world.  Each workshop has a slightly different focus and flavor, and each workshop is hosted by a different group of leaders, but each workshop is designed with you in mind, so you not only learn from lectures, but through conversations and interactions with the leaders.

We have two workshops coming up this year (with more to come in 2009):

Honolulu Hawaii – October 23, 2008

• $295 Registration ($100 discount if you register before October 10th)
• 8AM – 3PM @ The Hawaii Prince Hotel
• Workshop leaders include Roxanne Darling, Beth Kanter, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells
• More information on the Hawaii workshop including the agenda is available on the http://SocialMediaWorkshop.com Web site
• Register Now

Northern California – November 8, 2008

• $395 Registration ($100 discount if you register before October 31st)
• 9am – 5PM @ TBD
• Workshop leaders include Erin Kotecki Vest (QueenofSpain), Lauren Fitton (Pistachio), Adam Metz, Jeremy Toeman, Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer
• Erin will be leading off this workshop with a keynote on her insights from the 2008 Presidential Election from the prior Tuesday.
• More information on the Northern California workshop including agenda and venue details will follow shortly

SMC Members in good standing (i.e., paid up on dues) can receive an extra 10% off by using a special discount code, which you can receive by emailing events@socialmediaclub.org.

——————–

Documenting Election 08 Using Social Media

The SMC Boston chapter, to encourage more hands-on social media learning, built a social network for people to document Election 08 from a Social Media perspective. In a little more than a week, there’s been a lot of great content, and from some very cool and smart people in the Boston area. But it’s not just a Boston idea. It can work everywhere.

Add your thoughts now and join the conversation.

——————–

SMC Gatherings Around the World

We have a fresh round of local events coming up over the next month and hope you can join us at one of them:

• Dallas, TX ( USA) – September 25th
• Paris ( France) – September 29th
• Boston, MA ( USA) – October 9th
• London ( UK) – October 9th (planning meeting)
• Phoenix, AZ ( USA) – October 9th
• Isle of Man ( British Isles) – October 16th
• San Francisco/Silicon Valley, CA ( USA) – October 21st

More cities to announce upcoming dates shortly. Keep watch online for a gathering in your local city.

As for growth, while we would like to build the organization organically and just blindly say ‘go do it’ – we also know the value of the Club will be finding ways to get the cities to work with one another, so we are intentionally growing at a slower pace right now as we implement the technology to ensure that happens.

If you are interested in launching SMC in your local city, please sign your city up on the wiki so we can start collecting names of other people interested in attending in your area, and seeking out venues to hold each gathering.  It will make it so much easier when we get ready to launch to know what the dealio is.

We also ask that you listen to the following podcast and read the wiki material on things to consider, and then jump on our weekly call held on Wednesdays, starting October 1st, to discuss the requirements for launching Social Media Club in your city, as well as receive advice and feedback to ensure your launch is a success.

• SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, recently interviewed SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, on Organizing a Local Chapter (30 minute podcast)
• Best practices and items to consider provided in the How To Run a Meeting guide (on the wiki)
• Weekly call on Wednesdays at 8am PST. Conference Dial-in Number: (269) 320-8400, Participant Access Code: 509633#. These will be recorded for those who are not able to attend the live call. Playback Number: (641) 715-3445, Access Code: 509633#.

——————–

Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

I am pleased to pass along discounts provided to members of the Social Media Club (SMC) community for the following events:

• AMA – Viral Marketing – Is it right for your firm?: September 25, 2008 in San Francisco, CA – Discount Available: $15 off standard non-member ticket price of $50. Use discount code fall08.
• Social Media Marketing Summit: October 1-2, 2008 in San Francisco, CA – Discount Available: Passes available for $495 (onsite reg. $1,295). Use discount code w3ace2.
  
• SMX East New York: October 6-8, 2008 in New York, NY ( USA). Discount Available: 10% off badges at all levels. Use discount code smx10smc (case sensitive)
• Executing Social Media: October 15-16, 2008 in Atlanta, GA - Discount Available:  $200 off the registration fee. User discount code ESM08SM.
• Social Media Summit: October 20-23, 2008 in New York, NY – Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.
• Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2008: October 28-29, 2008 in Dallas, TX – Discount Available: Call +1 617.613.5905 or email events@forrester.com and mention SMC to save $400 off the full conference rate. Discount applies to new registrations only and cannot be combined with other offers.
• Searchnomics Social Media Strategies Conference: October 29-30, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: $150 off registration. Use discount code smclub.
• The Marketing & Online Communities Conference: November 5 in New York, NY – Discount Available: $100 off registration. Use discount code smcmoc9.
• Social Media for Internal Communications: November 17-20, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.

Other conferences happening around the world:

• BlogOrlando: September 25-27  in Orlando, FL ( USA)
• NCDD 2008 Conference: October 3-5  in Austin, TX ( USA)
• Social Media for Social Changes: October 10 in Boston, MA ( USA)
• BlogHer Reach Out Tour: October 11 in Boston, MA ( USA)
• BlogHer Reach Out Tour: October 13 in Washington, DC ( USA)
• New Marketing Summit: October 14-15 in Foxboro, MA ( USA)
• Mystic Meetup: October 17-18 in Mystic, CT ( USA)
• PodCamp Pittsburgh: October 18-19 in Pittsburgh, PA ( USA)
• Web 2.0 Berlin: October 21-23 in Berlin, Germany
• MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer: October 23-24 in Scottsdale, AZ ( USA)
• PRSA 2008 International Conference: October 25-28 in Detroit, MI ( USA)
• Blogwell: October 28 in San Jose, CA ( USA)
• Web 2.0 Summit: November 5-7 in San Francisco, CA ( USA)
• 3rd Annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala: November 14 in Cambridge, MA ( USA)
• 3rd Annual Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference: November 19 in Phoenix, AZ ( USA)
• Web 2.0 Tokyo: December 3-4 in Tokyo, Japan
• SXSW Interactive: March 13-17 in Austin, TX ( USA)
  

——————–

Local Chapter Leader Conference Calls

We are going to begin regular monthly conference calls with the SMC Chapter Leaders to ensure you are informed on the latest happenings within and around the Club.  Your feedback will ensure the Club grows strong and is meeting the needs of our members.

Watch your email for the details on each call.

Be well you Media mavens.

More conferences to put on your calendar

In addition to the conference/events I just posted discounts for, there are several others we think are super and you should add to your calendar to attend:

• NCDD 2008 Conference: October 3-5, 2008 in Austin, TX – NCDD’s dynamic conferences bring together leaders and future leaders in public engagement, conflict resolution and related fields to share resources and strategies, build lasting relationships, increase the visibility and effectiveness of their work, tackle challenges we face, and initiate collaborative projects.
• BlogHer Reach Out Tour: October 11, 2008 in Boston, MA – One-day conference that will feature a broad range of topics and speakers, cocktail parties for networking and socializing, and a little bit of local flavor. We’ll be focusing on topics that seem to resonate strongest in these cities, and looking to local bloggers to help lead the discussions.
• BlogHer Reach Out Tour: October 13, 2008 in Washington, DC - One-day conference that will feature a broad range of topics and speakers, cocktail parties for networking and socializing, and a little bit of local flavor. We’ll be focusing on topics that seem to resonate strongest in these cities, and looking to local bloggers to help lead the discussions.
• Blogwell – How Big Companies Use Social Media: October 28, 2008 in San Jose, CA -Unprecedented insight on social media from Cisco, Intel, Wells Fargo, Walmart, UPS, Kaiser Permanente, Graco, and Home Depot. Measuring ROI, managing teams, legal issues, BtoB, working with agencies and creating great content. This is the best opportunity available for anyone looking to get started or improve their corporate social media efforts. Learn from the world’s top companies who are already doing it well. Get practical, how-to advice, a lesson on tricky disclosure issues, and loads of ideas and examples for just $200. From GasPedal and Blog Council.
• 3rd Annual Society for New Communications Research Symposium & Awards Gala: November 14, 2008 in Cambridge, MA – This very special event will feature the presentation of the Society’s Fellows’ latest research projects and winning case studies from around the world through the Society’s Excellence in New Communications awards program.

Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

I am pleased to pass along discounts provided to members of the Social Media Club (SMC) community for the following events:

• AMA – Viral Marketing – Is it right for your firm?: September 25, 2008 in San Francisco, CA – The right viral campaign can turn a small company into a household name and can even generate coverage in traditional media. Indeed, the successes of viral campaigns by companies such as Ford, Kodak, Trojans, and BigFix have triggered the rise of hundreds of viral marketing companies in recent years. But not all viral campaigns succeed. How can you evaluate whether viral marketing is an appropriate tool for your firm? Discount Available: $15 off standard non-member ticket price of $50. Use discount code fall08.  Side note: I am moderating this panel, which should make for an interesting evening as this is the first time I have ever been handed the microphone to lead a session.
• Social Media Marketing Summit: October 1-2, 2008 in San Francisco, CA – Yamaha, Best Buy, Cisco, Ticketmaster and Wells Fargo are just some of the major case studies to be presented at Social Media: The Marketing Summit, along with presentations by some of the biggest names in the industry: Charlene Li, Shel Israel and Brian Solis among them. If you want to know how to get results with blogging, YouTube or Facebook, don’t miss this event. 12 in-depth sessions, 23 experts, over two days. This is the only new media marketing summit you need. Discount Available: Passes available for $495 (onsite reg. $1,295). Use discount code w3ace2.
• SMX East New York: October 6-8, 2008. SMX East delivers the most comprehensive educational and networking experience conceivable — whether you’re just starting in search marketing or you’re a seasoned expert. Your All Access registration pass gets you in to the more than 50 search marketing sessions. See the complete agenda. Discount Available: 10% on their badges at all levels. Use discount code smx10smc (case sensitive).
  
• Executing Social Media – Interactive Conference & Roundtables for Internal and External Communications: October 15-16, 2008 in Atlanta, GA - In two, jam-packed days, you will learn the business opportunities and risks presented by the new technologies, including blogging, podcasting, RSS, YouTube, Twitter, social networks, and virtual communities. You’ll learn how each of these work and how to put them to work in your organization. Discount Available:  $200 off the registration fee. User discount code ESM08SM.
• Social Media Summit – How To Use Blogging, Podcasting & The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Engage Your Employees, Reach Your Customers & Build Your Brand: October 20-23, 2008 in New York, NY -Attend this conference to learn how to use Social Media, and leverage the latest interactive tools and techniques to advance your organizational goals. Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.
• Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2008: October 28-29, 2008 in Dallas, TX – Join Patricia Seybold, Vivi Zigler, Paco Underhill, and other marketing experts for “Keeping Ahead Of Tomorrow’s Customer.” Through keynotes, track sessions, and one-on-one meetings with Forrester analysts, you’ll learn proven strategies for winning customers’ dollars and loyalty today and in the future. Discount Available: Call +1 617.613.5905 or email events@forrester.com and mention SMC to save $400 off the full conference rate. Discount applies to new registrations only and cannot be combined with other offers.
• Searchnomics Social Media Strategies Conference: October 29-30, 2008 in San Francisco, CA - Premier event for CMOs, Social Media Managers, Online Community Managers, Corporate Communications, PR, Marketing, Advertising, and Recruiting Professionals. This Conference will focus on how organizations can leverage Social Media to achieve their business goals by using technologies such as blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, podcasts, video, RSS, forums, social networks, online communities, and social bookmarking. Discount Available: $150 off registration. Use discount code smclub.
• The Marketing & Online Communities Conference: November 5, 2008 in New York, NY – The Marketing & Online Communities Conference is an invitation-based event that will bring together thought leaders from the marketing and online community sectors to discuss marketing challenges and unprecedented opportunities – in online communities. Discount Available:$100 off registration. Use discount code smcmoc9.
• Social Media for Internal Communications – How To Engage Employees, Drive Change & Improve Your Bottom Line Using BLOGGING, PODCASTING & The Latest WEB 2.0 Technologies: November 17-20, 2008 in San Francisco, CA – Attend this conference to learn how to use Social Media, and leverage the latest interactive tools and techniques to advance your organizational goals. Discount Available: $200 off registration. Mention Social Media Club when registering.

The Bigger Tent

Wednesday, 9/24 in NYC, Social Media Club is going to welcome Dan Patterson, a blogger, podcaster, and professional journalist, and Ann Cooper, who teaches at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Ann has worked as a reporter for newspapers, magazines, and National Public Radio, and was the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Recently, Ann published this article at the Columbia Journalism Review:

CJR: The Bigger Tent

And so it went for a few years, bloggers versus journalists; a fight over much more than semantics, a fight to see whether the big tent of American journalism would become a bigger tent to accommodate the newcomers and their new ideas. Who belongs in that tent, and who gets to decide who’s in it? Put another way: Who is a journalist? It’s a tantalizing question, but it’s hardly worth asking anymore.

This is the subject of our meeting tomorrow night. There are journalistic acts happening everywhere online, by bloggers and journalists alike. How do we know the difference, when is the difference important, and who decides?

On a side note, I’ve been blogging for 10 years, but not until I got picked up by a mainstream business publication did I start getting offers of “press passes.” So it seems the lines are still pretty blurry.

UPDATE: More food for thought from Max Gladwell:BlogWorld 2008: The Line Between Blogging and Journalism 
This is an important question, and I hope you’ll attend if you’re in NYC, and support our chapter there.

Social Media Now 09.22.08

Here are just a few of the interesting bits of social media goodness we read last week. Missing something? Add your own links in the comments, or email your favs for the next round of social media now.

Blog World 08 kept everybody hopping last week. See the Tweetstream at #BWE08 to see what people were/are tweeting.

Podcamp Montreal took place on the 20th and 21st in, you guessed it, Montreal. Dave Fleet posted a iGoogle dashboard of events here.

Technorati released their State of the Blogosphere / 2008 report with some fascinating info on blogs.

Adele McAlear wrtote about Yammer winning the TechCrunch 50.

Sarah Perez posted her thoughts on Socialmedian’s new “Replize” tab.

PodTech posted a video interview with Spencer Tall of Allegis Capital about what VC’s are investing in these days.

Bright Shiny Objects

• BudURL launched another link shortening service, but with a twist. This one can return “click stream” stats on your link.
• Dwigger launched a cross between Digg and Twitter. Post your links to Twitter from their site and get them “Dwigged”.
• Scribblar launched a new multi-user whiteboard and sharing service based in the UK.
• Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop got a spiffy new look and feel, making it even easier to find out what’s hot.

Best Buy Continues to Host the Conversation in Minneapolis.

In conjunction with Social Media Breakfast MSP, tomorrow’s Social Media Club of Minnesota (8AM CST) will be hosted again by Best Buy and guided by Rick Mahn. Best Buy’s recent acquisition of Napster will make for some interesting Q&A. We’ll be meeting at the Best Buy headquarters in Richfield, MN  and will welcome the co-founder of Blue Shirt Nation, Gary Koelling who will share some stories and background on Best Buy social media initiatives including BSN, Gift Tag and others. Gary spearheaded Blueshirtnation.com for BestBuy. Their objective was to obtain more information about customer likes and dislikes through the blue-shirt-wearing sales associates on the floor of the sprawling entertainment and appliance retail giant. This information would help Best Buy create more effective advertising. “I grew up on a farm wanting to be a writer, went away to the city and learned how to write then became an account guy. I didn’t like that so I became a copywriter. I liked that a lot. Then I became a creative director and that’s pretty fun too.” Gary previously worked at Carmichael Lynch, Colle McVoy, and Campbell Mithun.

Agenda

• Gary Koelling, co-founder of Best Buy’s BlueShirtNation
• Group question: Social Media “Pureists” vs. the “Corporatists” in the enterprise. What’s your take?
• Three Volts will talk about web video and it’s use by companies
• Conferences – Who’s going and why (BlogWorld Expo, DEMO, Defrag, SXSW). Good conversations with participants like Graeme Thickens who attended DEMO and TechCrunch50 last week.
• Local event/meetup update – what’s coming up & details on SMBMSP8.

Chat:
Our chat room for this webcast can be found at: http://www.meebo.com/room/smbmsp/

Video:
Our webcast can be found at: http://www.mogulus.com/smbmsp
Please note that we’re using the Meebo chat listed above rather than the embedded Mogulust chat. Sorry for any inconvenience!

Social Media Breakfast & Social Media Club
Local conversations, with national connections!

Organizing a Local Social Media Club

Social Media RoundUp

I put a request out on Twitter earlier today asking for recommendations of the ‘must read’ articles that have been penned over the last week that focused on the use of Social Media tools.

You fine folks answered with the following:

• 5 ways to use Social Media to reach people who don’t use Social Media: by Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web 
• 50 ways to take your blog to the next level: by Chris Brogan
• Are you conversationally tone deaf: by Connie Reece
• Disruption of cascading conversation: by Jay Deragon
• Growing use of Social Media Technologies in Businesses: by peopleperhour.com
• How Barack Obama Is Using Web 2.0 to Run for President, by Daniel Nations at About.com
• How to Use Yahoo Answers for your Social Media Campaign, by Vine at primaryeffect.com
  
• IBM’s Beehive social networking community: by Toby at Communitelligence
• Limiting, and watching, what children watch: by Lisa Guernsey at New York Times
• Twits on Twitter: by Rob Sellen
• Using Twitter for business: by John Jantsch
  
• You can do your job without Twitter: by Chris Brogan
  

Interesting tool found: flibfarb

Other: Collection of live streams by loremcast

Thank you to everyone who submitted an article to share with the community. We greatly appreciate your input and will start collecting these regularly to help spread the word about interesting conversations happening around the world.

How Des, Michael and Aaron Spent Labor Day Weekend: Brainstorming SMC Membership

A few weeks ago prior to Labor Day Weekend; Des Walsh , Aaron Strout and I (Michael Brito) were asked to brainstorm ideas about SMC membership and answer the following questions:

1. How do we increase new membership of Social Media Club
2. How do we increase engagement and generate excitement for existing members?
3. How do we localize SMC chapters on areas with few members and a lot of miles in between?

So, went off to our little corners of the globe, literally, and this is what we came up with; while of course, enjoying our three-day weekend.

Increasing Membership:

Drive awareness of the organization:

• Continue to drive awareness of SMC at traditional marketing/consulting events through sponsorships (my guess is that Barter will work)
• Advertising on Facebook as well as on prominent board member blogs (barter where possible)
• Consider submitting speakers at traditional marketing/consulting/technology events) under the “Social Media Club” name
• Make sure that all board members and active SMC members include a badge on their blogs touting the fact that they belong to the SMC (e.g. “Ask me about the SMC – I’m a member”)

Clearly articulate value proposition

• Consider adding free consultation sessions as part of membership (maybe monthly “member only” Skype or Conference calls with select board members) – if we each took a turn at this, we could get away with doing this 1-2/year/board member)
• Create a clear list of discounts to things like:
  • Analyst memberships (Forrester/Gartner)
  • Select conferences
  • Subscriptions
• If we thought about bolting SMC events onto things like SXSW, Web 2.0, Defrag, etc. (we may already do this), we could proactively invite potential members/companies

Co-marketing

• Continue partnering with a number of organizations like BlogHer; and consider partnering with more organizations (especially traditional ones)
• Agree to co-market events of more traditional groups to our base

Promoting Membership Engagement & Excitement

Engagement

• Create a rotating welcoming committee
• The goal would be to welcome (through email/phone/twitter) new members to SMC by reaching out to them and connecting
  • Twitter and blog “shot outs” for new members
  • Serves two purposes: engages existing members/welcomes new members
  • Connects local chapters w/new members
• Facilitate monthly (or bi-weekly) conference calls / webinars (similar to Twebinars); facilitated by random SMC members
• Provide coordinated speaking opportunities for all interested SMC members
• Offer free 1:1 (30 minutes) blog training sessions for new members who are thinking about launching a blog
• Provide sub domain blog hosting or existing members that do not have a blog (i.e. http://newblog.socialmediaclub.org

Recognition

• Create a recognition program that recognizes existing members who go “above and beyond” for the SMC community
  • Badge
  • Monetary: gift certificates for Amazon, Starbucks, iTunes

Communication

• Create a monthly newsletter with rotating levels of responsibility
• SMC members will rotate managing editorial process, writing articles, etc.

Localizing Membership (making it more convenient to attend local events)

The model of SMC presented on the wiki is of a city-based group that has face-to-face meetings (language of the wiki is all about clubs based on cities).

Looking at the wiki and observing the current “State of the Club”, there seems to be little or no incentive for someone to join who does not live in a city, preferably one of the cities where there is:

• something already happening regularly, or
• a critical mass of people likely to be interested in forming a local SMC

In fact, the way SMC is presented on the wiki makes it look as if people not in a city with an active chapter and unable or unwilling to set up a city chapter need not apply.

If there is an openness to other models, here are some suggestions.

In working on member benefits (and responsibilities) consider benefits people could have who are not in a city with an active SMC:

• for people who travel, this could be a regularly updated online guide as to what’s on and where
• person nominated in each chapter to promote the chapter’s events to the broader membership and be “welcomer” for out of town visitors
• for all, especially people more remote from the cities where there are active chapters, provide online resources, forums etc of value
• various benefits listed in “How do we get existing members involved?”, especially self-identifying badges for blogs/websites

Re-write all the membership information to make it clear that there is an encouragement to join no matter where someone lives.

Have nation-wide and international online events to enable members to connect with one another beyond chapter boundaries.

If you have any other ideas that would help address the challenges we have or simply to share some other ideas; we encourage you to post a comment and/or connect with us directly. Thank you for continued support.

Social Media Now 09.06.08

Of course everybody has been talking about Hurricane Gustav, and a flurry of resources emerged to track the storm and communicate with friends and family. Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb created a fine collection of resources both for Hurricane Gustav and the next ones…

In a New York Times article, Clive Thompson
writes about “ambient awareness”, a term social scientists use to describe the effect that apps like Facebook, Tumblr, Doppler, Twitter and even Loopt on the iPhone have on society, helping us keep a a constant eye on our friends, where they are and what they are doing and how this is becoming a norm.

Jason Falls wrote a guest post on Conversation Agent about the future of social media and “the agency” (not the FBI).

The Forrester Groundswell Awards has a bunch of new entries. Every one is worth spending some time with and it’s not to late to add your own entry, the deadline is September 9.

Over at Mashable, Mark Hopkins just couldn’t resist pointing out that FriendFeed is suddenly showing some of the favorites you might not have wanted to share with the world. Apparently Vimeo changed the ID’s used in the feeds and refreshed their links, and all those savory tidbits you favorited years ago on YouTube  and forgot about are coming to the fore. Check your profiles folks.

Bright Shiny Objects
Status is a Microblogging app for the enterprise, allowing users to connect inside the enterprise just like Twitter, complete with archived messaging and can be accessed from a mobile, a desktop widget or online.

Several new monetization schemes popped up for Twitter.

Twittad replaces your background image with an ad.

Twittertise lets you schedule your tweets and then gives you back tracking and stats on who read it.

Adjix is a link shortener like TinyURL, but they insert a link that creates a small pop-up ad when your friends click on it.

Stand Up To Cancer, Virtually

Tonight in the US at 8Pm EDT and PDT, all three major networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS will show a program promoting Stand Up To Cancer, a non-profit dedicated to wiping out Cancer in our lifetimes.

Today is the day for the Virtual Standup.  Tweet it, blog it, Facebook it, shout it. Please help make people aware of this cause.

More info on my blog as well.  Thanks for reading.

Social Capital: Media Skills Education

I was recently interviewed for a UK newspaper around the subject of MediaCamps, I felt this information would sit really well on the SMC Blog also, and a couple others where I have cross-posted.

So could you firstly sum up what the media camp you’re involved is? How is it implemented? What do you mean by unconference?

I coined the phrase “MediaCamp” in 2007 having witnessed various self-organising groups in the technology sector create events where like-minded people came together to share knowledge and experience, though none, from what I could tell with some rare exceptions, were really reaching outside of their own knowledge sector and attracting both new-comers and seasoned practitioners to media, particularly in UK, I sensed a need for a melting-pot of pollination, an event with no echo.

I run them through my web development consultancy company and under the trading name of the Social Media Mafia, which is a large growing collective of people approaching 1000, as of this post.

The key in the term unconference is the “un” where we try to unravel the bad points about standard conferences. In a standard format conference attendees are seated and typically listen to a speaker(s) talk at them for a lengthy period of time whilst showing some slides, whilst, of course, this has clear value, it is in fact an ancient educational model. The spirit of an unconference is in participation, that is to say it is more workshop style, where a room of people engage in a dynamic session around the topic. Sure, the sessions have a focus, a point, but everyone is treated equally. This makes sense considering that working in the relatively young field of new-media we find that the participants may know just as much as the speaker, or be able to contribute in a dynamic way…. knowledge is the focal point, not “the speaker”.

MediaCamps inevitably have multiple sessions running concurrently, participants are encouraged to stand up and walk out of a session if they are obtaining no value from it and walk into one which interests them.

The majority of organisation for a MediaCamp is conducted on an open access wiki. That is a website which can be edited by anyone. So we put out some initial pages, such as:

* where
* what
* when
* who etc

We then watch as the participants themselves start to populate the pages with information about the camp, by adding topic sessions, local eating spots, travel details etc etc. It really is a camp for the people, created by the people, though with a leadership to ensure accuracy of details and practicalities with the venue and personnel.

I couldn’t find many of these in the UK – but loads in the US – why is this?

You are correct, the concept of “camp” is pretty much an American way of life, the Brits are not culturally so used to coming together with strangers and getting stuck in on a mutual project we are more suspicious and generally not evangelic by nature, the irony is we are really good at it, and can more than hold our own in comparison with the USA!

Who is it most useful to; those breaking into the industry (students, for examples) or those already in it? Why?

To be honest we have people right across the board coming along, from senior managers to students. If you imagine a CEO sitting down next to a recently graduated student there are great cross-cultural possibilities, both can learn from each other without the traditional barriers of management chain obfuscation.

What sort of skills can attendees expect to gain (and how)?

Life-long learning skills, where participants construct their own meaning from the topics, they create and foster their own experience through the topics, rather than just being told so, this is known as constructivism.

How do you design the programme? Do you look at skills gaps in the industry to tailor the information, at all?

Yes, I must admit I do target the industry and the skills gap to an extent, and there is going to be a huge skills gap in many of these new emerging media areas, particularly needed will be individuals able to manage change, critically analyse solutions/methods and rapidly, and also operate with significant concern for ethics and accountability.

Can you tell me about the ways it is shaping the media workforce?

The workplace is undoubtedly becoming more dynamic, we are seeing more and more people working from home, choosing alternative hours, and venues, work is becoming an extension of life-style, where we are always connected, or able to be. Large industry is generally a slow moving entity, it is hard for a company to stay abreast of fast moving communication changes, and very hard to embrace cultural change in the workforce, where employees will talk about the company in the online spaces. The world of social media enables all your consumers, employees and parties with a vested interest to communicate to thousands within seconds, garner opinion and amplify the “noise” both positively and negatively.

How and why are the camps useful for professionals? Can you tell me specifically what sort of impact it could have on a career?

As mentioned above research does indicate we are on the verge of huge skills shortage, I see it for myself in that companies really will need change management, they will need skilled employees and policies that are able to embrace “social captial“, and actively encourage their staff to use it for the benefit of the company, MediaCamps aid in that no question, we dig-deep into the positive aspects and, perhaps more importantly, the negative aspects openness can yield, the dangers of “wisdom of crowds”.

The camp format is not for everyone mind you, you have to pitch appropriate for your target audience in order to educate, you need a tiered process, so I am also organising a regular conference taking place 23rd October called Social Media in Business. This takes place in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. The content is much the same as a mediacamps but we have wrapped this up in a more traditional format to tempt some more of the corporate world out of their ivory towers, because they really do need to know about these disruptive emerging areas. The line up of speakers leading the sessions is mouth watering, they are all practitioners in the field with a vast amount of experience between them with case studies to share, it’s set to be a great day.

In addition we have a MediaCampSicilia (Sicily) taking place next weekend which is exciting, and I personally am looking forward very much to see how the Sicilians are engaging, or coping with, new and social media in the workplace, of course Sicily is culturally very different to UK.

Next Page »