Social Media Workshop Hawaii – Update and Thanks

Aloha! We are so excited to be here in Hawaii to share what we have been doing for the past several years and enjoy this beautiful island.  I have said it before and I will say it again, Kristie and I are some of the luckiest people alive – we get to do what we love, with people we love, enjoying some of the loveliest parts of the world along the way.

If you hadn’t yet heard, it’s officially “Geek Week” in Hawaii by a proclamation of Governor Linda Lingle.  We are here to help our good friend and all around incredibly amazing human being, Roxanne Darling, launch the local Social Media Club by hosting a Social Media Workshop tomorrow, and we also are privileged to speak at PodCamp Hawaii on Friday. Roxanne’s dedication and hard work is really paying off in a big way and we are grateful to her for making this all happen.  She is truly someone who not only gets it, but shares it (and makes it better too!)

Tomorrow we will gather at the Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki with a couple of dozen local professionals who are interested in understanding how to leverage Social Media in their lives and their work.  We have a great day planned, not too short, not too long, but just right – a good mix of conversations, presentations, and ideation.

It goes without saying that these sorts of events couldn’t happen without some great sponsors (or patrons as I like to refer to them, connecting with the renaissance era more explicitly).  For this event in particular, due to the higher travel costs, we would not have been able to pull it off without their financial and moral support.

In particular, we want to thank:

HTDC – The High Tech Development Corporation is working to cultivate and retain high tech companies and talents on the island.  We are expecting several of the key leaders to be participating and look forward to working with them.

Chi.mp – Provides individuals with an identity on their own domain together with a passport to the thousands of sites that offer OpenID signon. Myles from the SF New Tech Meetup connected us with the founder Rob, who were already working with PodCampHawaii, so it was just a natural fit.

KnowHowCafe – Roxanne Darling and Shane Robinson’s new company is going to be a great educational resource for people looking to learn more about how to engage with Social Media, marketing and more.  Can’t say enough about Rox, and we are looking forward to meeting Shane finally.

HubSpot – After seeing their advertising on Facebook for the last few months, I finally got a chance to get the inside scoop.  They have some great software (as a service) for small businesses that makes it easier for them to have solid presences on the Web and be more effective with their marketing.  They also have some really cool tools with WebSite Grader and Twitter Grader. Since Mike Volpe of Hubspot couldn’t fly out, he gave away his ticket through a Twitter haiku contest to Arlene Anderson who wrote “Vivid stars twinkle/ Waves crash only to recede/ Thoughts bare on the sand” – awesome job!

Viddler – Viddler is a platform for video publishers which has clearly been taking the podcasting world by storm.  In fact, Jim Louderback of Revision 3 said “”We love the advanced features of Viddler’s streaming video player – they’ve done an amazing job building in interactivity and navigation.” I have not met these folks before, we had to fly all the way over here to the islands to catch up with them.  I imagine we will be hanging out a bit talking shop this week.

Well, now its time to go prepare for the workshop, do all that last minute stuff.  For once, I am not personally doing a powerpoint presentation, but rather a talk.  Am also getting my chapter on Social Media Principles ready which I am going to release as a PDF on Friday morning at Podcamp, so until next post, Aloha!