SMCEDU: Social Media Principles Can’t Be Ignored

Social media is gaining more acceptance in both the business world — both as a tool to connect with customers and for co-workers to connect with each other — and the academic world, where more educators are using social media tools such as Classroom 2.0 and Social Media Classroom to teach and engage.

But WHAT is being taught? I saw an interesting article this week about a class being taught at Parsons New School for Design in NYC called “Internet Famous.” It focuses on the how to use social media tools to gain fame on the Internet. It sounds like a fun class, and teaches useful metrics on measuring your impact in the online world.

I think the class highlights the possibility of delivering whatever message you want, whether it’s for personal acclaim or corporate visibility. The tools for saying what you want and finding out who’s listening exist, and are being taught. But I think there exists another component to social media education that doesn’t receive enough attention, and that’s the social part of the equation.

A big part of this project, in my mind, is not only to collect and share a curriculum, but also to advocate a set of principles that can help people relate to each other in a text-driven, somewhat-faceless world. Chris Heuer’s Social Media Principles provide a great summary:

Be Human

Dont Just Be Human, Be Yourself

Be Aware

Don’t Just Be Aware, Be Smart

Be Honest

Don’t Just Be Honest, Have Integrity

Be Respectful

Don’t Just Be Respectful, Live By the Golden Rule

Be a Participant

Don’t Just Be a Participant, Contribute Value

Be Open

Don’t Just Be Open, Be an Agent of Change

Be Courageous

Don’t Just Be Courageous, Be Willing to Fail

What we’re witnessing and participating in isn’t just another way to launch a marketing campaign, but a change in how marketing works. We’ve all heard that it’s about listening to your customers/audience, but it’s also been said (and often lost) that it shouldn’t be an act — it should be how you do things in life, how you interact with everyone.

I had a great conversation with Susan Beebe, founder of SMC-Rochester and the newly-formed SMCEDU-Roc this week. One of the important points that we discussed was the establishment of standards in social media education. As of today,I don’t know of an institution that currently accredits social media classes.

Since so much of social media is collaboration, perhaps that should fall, for now, to the teachers of social media. Although there isn’t a large number of teachers that head a Social Media class, there are many that use it, and in some way teach it.

We want to hear from those teachers. I’d like to propose another conference call on the week of October 12. As I’d like to get as many teachers participating as possible, I’ll contact as many of you as I can to see what days/times will work best. The purpose of the call will be to re-connect, and also discuss topics which will include the establishment of standards.

Orange and Viadeo sponsor the Social Media Club France

Some heartwarming news from the French SMC Chapter just arrived: Orange renews officially its annual support to the Social Media Club France, while a new sponsorship deal has been stroke with Viadeo.

By having supported the French SMC chapter since 2008, and with several SMC active members coming from its ranks, Orange is the historic and most significant partner of the French Club. By keeping on supporting the Club, Orange positions itself as a key-player in the definition and the diffusion of best practices in the social media industry.

With more than 8.5 million members, Viadeo is a worldwide leader in the professional social networking space, as well as a pioneer (founded in 2004!). After participating to a session, Nicholas (Viadeo’s PR Director) spontaneously offered his support to the Club. As Viadeo is often seen as one of the most appealing jewels of the French / European Social Media industry crown, we were of course very proud of Nicholas’offer (and accepted it right away).

Backed by major organizations, the Social Media Club will keep on extending its action in France and Europe: events will be organized on a more regular basis, intern or part-time worker will be hired, new projects will be launched,…

Again, many thanks to Orange and Viadeo, for their trust and support. We are all very pleased to be supported by such great professionals.

For any info on the Social Media Club France and its future / past events, please visit our wiki section or contact Pierre-Yves Platini (pyplatini at gmail dot com).

Conference Discounts Available to SMC Community

Below you will find several conferences that have offered nice discounts to the SMC member community:

• Social TV Forum: September 28 – 29, 2009 in London (UK). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Government: September 29 – October 2, 2009 in Ottawa, Ontario. How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 member discount!
• Social Media for Healthcare: October 5-8, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Use The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Engage Your Community, Improve Quality Of Service, And Build Your Reputation. Mention “Social Media Club” to receive a special $200 subscriber discount!
• The Social Media Business Forum: October 23, 2009 in Durham, NC. This conference will feature national and local speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed due to social media.Use code SMC to get 15% off.
• TribeCon: October 28-29, 2009 in New Orleans, LA. Join us as we assemble national community leaders to discuss ways of leveraging online tools to grow communities and empower action. For brands, activists, entrepreneurs, artists and anyone who values the power of communities to create share resources and create change both online and offline. Use code SMC to receive 25% off tickets!
• Social Networking World Forum North America: November 9 – 10, 2009 in Santa Clara, CA (USA). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Crisis Communications in Government: November 2-5, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Integrate The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Maximize Effectiveness Before, During, And After A Crisis. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 member discount!
• The Social Consumer – B2C Case Studies and Roundtable:  November 12, 2009 in New York, NY (USA). Social communications is now part of an integrated marketing and communications platform for most leading organizations. This conference will showcase the best case studies that demonstrate how leading brands use social communications to achieve tangible business goals. SMC members receive a discounted rate of $155. Please tell them you are with SMC.
• Social PR Forum: December 4, 2009 in London (UK). SMC community members receive 20% discount by using code SMClovesU.
• Social Media for Government: December 7-10, 2009 in Washington, DC. How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results. Mention “SMC” to receive a special $200 discount!
• Social Media for Gov Conference: Feb. 8-11 in Washington, DC. Mention this post & receive a $200 registration discount!

Worthy cause for you to check out:

• TweetsGiving09: November 24-26, 2009. Social Media Club is proud to partner with Epic Thanks, a global celebration that seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude. This event is scheduled for the 48-hour event and will encourage participants to express their thanks using online tools and at live events to be held globally, and to give to a common cause in honor of that for which they’re most grateful. More details to follow.

Welcome to our new SMB and Professional Members

We’d like to acknowledge our new 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 (’SMC’).

• SMB Members: Alexander Guiragossian (Edinburgh Fine Gardens, Inc.)
• Professional Members: Piia Aarma, Ann McDermott, Michael Lamattina, Chris Abraham, Chad Latz, Jill Howell, Jennifer Windrum, Marie Kare, David Shantz, Angela Darcy, Joseph Donlan, Zac Bowling, Jim Caruso, Vernon Brown and Linh DePledge.

We would be honored if you were able to join as a paid member so that we can continue sharing our knowledge and bringing people together to expand our collective abilities.

If you are able to support Social Media Club so that we can afford to continue to advance Social Media around the world, please sign up here today. We look forward to welcoming you officially to the SMC family!

San Antonio Screams and Howls for Social Media

For those of you that remember the SeaWorld Summer Nights event, Social Media Club along with Social Media Breakfast and a few other local groups have been invited to be the special guest of SeaWorld San Antonio once again for their Howl-O-Scream event. As we approach Halloween, SeaWorld has a bevy of thrills and frights in store for all their guests and we’ve been invited to get a behind the scenes look at everything they’ve got planned.

Also, hear about our plans for social media for the rest of the year. The SeaWorld social media team will be on hand to answer any questions.

Come join us for a night of enlightened and scare-worthy fun.

RSVP HERE (RSVP by September 25th)

Host: Kami Huyse
Location:
SeaWorld San Antonio
10500 Sea World Dr
San Antonio, TX 78251
When: Thursday, October 1, 6:00PM to 10:00PM
Phone: 210-683-6776

DOWNLOAD PDF

SMCEDU: Start-up Meeting in Sydney

According to Jenna Langer, the #SMCEDU start-up meeting in Sydney was attended by a group that included SMC-Sydney board member Doug Chapman and others excited about getting the social media education initiative going in Australia’s largest city.

It will be groups like these, started informally (this one was publicized using our Ning group site and Twitter) and publicized viraly, that will help spark interest in various locations that lead to organized collaboration.

The more groups we have from locations all over the map, the greater the collection of educators and students, and the result will be a higher quality effort. If you have any thoughts on getting a group started in your area, please share!

We’re trying to teach social media by USING social media: by gathering, communicating, sharing, and collaborating, we have the opportunity to make this project into something sustainable and valuable to many academic institutions, businesses, and most importantly, PEOPLE.

To an extent, we’re learning as we grow. We have talented people, both educators and students, who want this effort to develop into something that can be adopted nationally and globally.

The goals of #SMCEDU haven’t been attempted before, but that’s part of what’s so exciting. The scope of this effort is something that’s in our hands — it’s up to anyone who makes the time to attend a meeting or tell someone else about what we’re trying to do. THAT’S what will turn a small gathering in a coffee shop into a contributor to an ambitious, groundbreaking project.

The SMC-Sydney Education group will meet again on October 12; if you’re in Sydney, come join the group and see what’s going on. If you can’t make it, maybe you can help by telling a teacher about it. Teachers involved in marketing, communications, journalism, and any discipline that incorporates aspects of social media have a stake in this. Let them know!

On the other side of the world in Richmond, VA, SMCEDU-RVA plans to have their launch event on October 12 at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The event’s featured panel discussion includes perspectives from a student, recent graduate, professor, recruiter, and tech blogger — key perspectives for any in the academic world interested in how social media affects them now and will affect them in the future. VCU Journalism and Communications professor Marcus Messner will be moderating.

I’ll write more about this event as details develop — tickets become available on Tuesday, September 22 and are limited, so be sure to reserve your seat!

It’s Time for a Reality Check

I am excited to tell you about the launch of a new Social Media Club program called Reality Check. This will be our coordinated effort to get past the hype on several key issues to Social Media professionals by connecting across several of the different cities with active local Social Media Club groups, and exploring the practical, real world usage of key technologies and activities.

While some might see it as an event sponsorship, others might see it as a mini-site, others might see it as an online advertising buy, still others might see it as a video blog and hopefully more of you will see this as the forest and not the trees since all those things are true.

From my perspective, it is a foundational element of the future of marketing, which is a focused ‘market conversation’ around a topic of mutual interest between a given community/market and a sponsor/advertiser. Broadly, it falls under a practice area I am calling Market Engagement Optimization (MEO) which I will be writing about more later this week [teaser]. While some may call this a ’sponsored conversation’, I call it a market conversation because it is about the market more so then the sponsor.

The simple idea behind a market conversation is that there is a question of interest to market participants that is ‘underwritten’ by a sponsor, which we have framed under the guise of doing a reality check on our industry, something we feel is sorely needed. In this case, we are working with Real Player SP to do a reality check on portable video. How are people really using portable video, how would they like to be using portable video both personally and professionally?

In addition to sponsoring several local Social Media Club events around the world, their sponsorship has underwritten a videographer in each city, allowed us to hire Roxanne Darling (from Barefeet Studios and also Beachwalks with Rox) as the Executive Producer and enabled us to launch a new site focused on the Reality Check. We are providing Real Player SP with broad sponsorship of our digital media from our newsletter, to our member badge/widget, to the local events, to inclusion in all promotion for Reality Check and of course, on the site and videos we produce.

This sort of holistic integration of online-offline efforts is what I personally see as one of the best ways to get a corporate entity engaged in issues that matter to the community while respecting the community and its members.  Rather then focusing on pushing their products, they are a part of the conversation and in this case enabling it to happen in a more organized, professional manner.  They are actively participating by enabling this discussion to happen, but also by listening and contributing. In fact, RealTweeter and Real Networks Blogger Lacy Kemp is heading to many of the events herself and even CEO Rob Glaser is engaged after attending the Seattle Social Media Club meeting recently.

While Social Media Club gets funds it needs to enable the local and the international conversations at the core of our community, Real Player SP gets increased awareness, consideration for their new product (which I personally think is really cool and useful), research on a core issue that matters to them, a chance to humanize the brand (key to MEO) and a chance to show that they are not only engaged and listening, but taking different actions because of it.

How it works: we take 15 minutes out of the meetings in selected cities to discuss the same questions, reaching beyond our own world view to see how people from all around the country and all around the world think about a given topic. This is recorded on video and distributed on Reality Check, where participants from different cities can discover the similar and different perspective of others. We then use the Reality Check blog to gather new insights and discuss the topic together.

We previously did a network sponsorship of local Social Media Club events with H&R Block that was focused on them delivering tax advice in the month leading up to April 15 (our tax due date in the US). Reality Check takes this network event sponsorship idea to the next level.

Ultimately, I feel this is one of the best ways we have so far to connect our members and explore a topic together. So I invite you to join this month’s Reality Check, and let us know how you use portable video and how you would like to use portable video both personally and professionally.

BTW – Future Reality Check’s are planned for blogging, social networking, podcasting and even Twitter. If you are interested in participating in a Reality Check around your market, please contact us.

Tyson Foods Steps up to the Hunger Challenge. Again.

The San Francisco Food Bank, Tyson Foods and Social Media Club San Francisco are working together to increase awareness around the issue of hunger during the 2009 Hunger Challenge taking place this week:  September 20-26.

Tyson has graciously offered to donate truck loads of food based on our ability to use Social Media tools to  spread the word in support of our local food banks. 

From Tyson’s blog:

There’s a list of hunger facts below.  All Tweetable.  Tweet  or retweet any of them with the hashtag  #HChal and Tyson Foods will make a 100 pound donation (up to a total of 100,000 pounds) to the San Francisco Food Bank. Blog about this effort and we’ll donate 500 pounds.  Or comment to this post with your own verifiable fact (not opinion)  about hunger and we’ll donate 100 pounds.   That’s all you have to do. Let’s see how far and fast we can spread these facts out there in Twittervillle. If you’d like to make reference to this post, here’s a shortened URL:  http://bit.ly/sBE9x

Tweetable Facts About Hunger

• More than 35 mil. people in the U.S. are on food stamps–up 3 million since Jan.  #HChal
• App. 40% of families now on food stamps have “earned income”–up from just 25% 2 years ago.  #HChal
• For every $1 donated @SFFoodBank can distribute $9 worth of groceries. #HChal #hungeraction
• In San Francisco, 150K people are unsure where their next meal is coming from. #HChal #hungeraction
• 1 in 4 San Francisco children lack reg.access to food they need to learn, grow, & have a healthy start in life. #HChal
• 1 in 5 San Francisco adults can’t count on daily meals they need to lead healthy, productive lives. #HChal
• 1 in 4 San Francisco seniors lack the nourishment need to control chronic health problems. #HChal
• .@SFFoodBank distributed over 33.5 million pounds of food in the past year–nearly 8% more than the year before. #HChal
• 60% of the clients @SFFoodBank served last year come from working families.  #HChal
• In CA, the average food stamp recipient gets $4 a day to spend on food.  #HChal #hungeraction
• In CA, a single person can get food stamps only if their yearly gross income is $14,079 or less. #HChal
• 5.3 mil. Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($21,834 for a family of 4) #HChal
• The number of households participating in @SFFoodbank’s grocery pantry program is up 24% over last year. #HChal

Bonus Challenge:

Social Media Club would like to up the anty and asks everyone to donate $5 this month. Forget the latte for one day, and help feed a family of four. If you do not have the $5 to donate, the food banks could always use food – their most-needed foods include rice and pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, tuna or other canned meats, soups and stews, peanut butter, and cereal. You can find a local drop off center near you.

I hope you will help us reach that goal of donating 100,000 pounds of food. Would be awesome to raise $10,000 this month too. Can we do it?

SMCEDU: Two Great Conversations in DC and Sydney

Last Thursday, I met with Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer during the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, D.C. We had a lively conversation about social media in general, and #SMCEDU in particular.

What is it that we’re trying to teach in a formalized SM curriculum? Conceptually, we discussed the importance of teaching people that they are members of a community. In keeping, there are ways to participate within that community that will reflect the responsibility and conscientiousness that allow participants to contribute in a way that adds value.

From an applied level, one of the mission statements of Social Media Club is to expand media literacy. Media literacy, as it relates to social media, has three key components:

Consumption

There is an overwhelming amount of information available, and knowing what to listen to is difficult. Earlier this week, I saw the quote: “It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure.” A media-literate consumer of information will think critically about both the content and source of that information. As a new model of news distribution takes hold, this will be more crucial than ever before.

Production

Adding to the community, supplying your own voice, is what separates social media from other forms of information distribution. There are many ways to do this, whether it’s through words, images, audio, or video. Knowing how to “produce your voice” and share it with others requires technical know-how, and an understanding of what medium would best serve a purpose.

Search

It’s not just about adding, but using what’s already there. Search is not only thoughtful consumption, but knowing where/what to use to find specific information quickly and accurately.

There will be MANY aspects to the #SMCEDU curriculum, and there are teachers out there that teach some aspect of media literacy but don’t categorize themselves as social media teachers.

This is a new initiative and an emerging discipline that touches on many subjects that already exist — we would appreciate the help of any teachers that can cover one of the above topics. If you are, or know of, any teachers that fall in this group, please let them know about what we’re doing!

I can’t stress enough the importance of teacher contribution to this effort. One program we’d like to start is a regular online lecture series that features different educators doing what they do best. A collection of knowledge that’s available to all that want to learn would be a tremendous resource, and would help shape future classes in social media.

I also had the pleasure of speaking with Jenna Langer, an expat living in Sydney, Australia, who has a passion and enthusiasm for life in general and social media technology in particular. While in the U.S., she was a member of Social Media Club-Sacramento, and has been the key to starting a #SMCEDU group in Sydney. By the way, here are SMC-Sacramento’s and SMC-Sydney’s Facebook pages if you live in either area.

The way things get going in Sydney will be the same way things get started in many locations — through people with an interest in social media education getting together and forming groups of their own. I’ll share any progress made by the #SMCEDU-Sydney group, and I look forward to hearing the ideas coming from that area!

By connecting with the national/global effort online, we can help each other stay in touch and add to/share from the formidable collective brain power of those involved.

I look forward to speaking with more teachers!

Happy Birthday SMCSA, Now One Year Old!

Well we’ve hit the first of what is sure to be many milestones, our first year in the city of San Antonio and we’ve had the pleasure of meeting a great many new people and we’re honored to have them and all of our regular favorites share in this experience with us.

Can you believe it’s been 1 year since San Antonio joined the Social Meda Club family? In that amount of time we’ve seen our club grow from the early-adopter geek crowd to include business, non-profit and media types.

We’ve got a great speaker planned for this event who will share with all of you the key points to social conversion. Brian Massey who is otherwise known as the “Conversion Scientist” will be joining us as our amazing guest speaker for this big event and we’re hoping that Brian can help you figure a way to turn that community of yours into something big. Brian’s topic: “Social Conversion Rate” is sure to be as informative as it is entertaining.

You can also catch Brian’s amazing wisdom over on his website The Conversion Scientist, but don’t blame us for your success!

Time: September 10, 2009 from 6pm to 8pm
Location: C4 Workspace, 108 King William, San Antonio, TX 78204

Photo Credit hfb

SMCEDU: Local Chapters Sprouting Up

Recently, I wrote about SMC-DC and Georgetown University working together to create a student chapter of Social Media Club with the intention of promoting #SMCEDU in the area. The #SMCEDU group would work with the affiliated school and local businesses to create opportunities to meet, network, and learn.

Renee Goldman of Georgetown University wrote and posted a charter (thanks, Renee!)  for a student SMC chapter at her school.

The charter (which can be found here) and wiki page are to be used by the newly formed SMCEDU-GU organization. The group, sponsored by Booz Allen social media lead Steve Radick, looks to lay down a blueprint for other chapters around the country (and eventually, the world) to follow. As more #SMCEDU groups are created, we’ll try to keep everyone connected so that a uniform approach to accomplishing our goals for #SMCEDU will be maintained.

The D.C. area is just one hotspot for getting #SMCEDU rolling. In Australia, Jenna Langer is working to get another group going in Sydney. I’ll try to speak with Jenna in the coming days and share their exciting plans with the rest of the community.

Also, it’s the eve of the Gov 2.0 Summit in Washington, D.C. Social media is playing a larger role in business, and will (hopefully) help transform government. This is by no means a political forum, but I believe you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone involved in politics who wouldn’t agree that improved efficiency and clearer, more accurate communication with more representation wouldn’t be welcome. Social media can help government at both the local and national levels to achieve that…just another reason why teaching social media will be more important than ever.

As always, we ask that any instructors that are teaching any aspect of social media to add their name to our directory, and please share any information on your curriculum in our repository. This is one area of the project that I think could be especially beneficial to other instructors around the country and world. Even if the material you are teaching is not a “social media” class per se, please let me know what aspect you’re touching on…it will help to collect as much information as possible!

SMC San Francisco/Silicon Valley Chapter Seeks New President/Team Lead

It has been a good ride over the past three years, but the time has come for me to resign as the president of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley chapter*, and hand the baton on to someone who can really devote the time and attention needed to ensure the chapter continues to serve the needs of the local community.

My current time commitments – president and acting COO of the global Social Media Club organization, my contract with Ribbit and helping to manage our Agency, AdHocnium, are requiring more of me these days, which leaves little time for anything else. I want to stay involved, but in a much lesser role (see below) – note, we also need a Production Director.

The local chapter has been loosely run, with a fairly large group of 15+ people volunteering as time allows. I think going forward, it would behoove the new local president/team lead to reduce the core organizational team to six people, each focused on one main task, and then have a larger group of ‘general managers’ supporting these six roles to ensure things run smoothly.

• President/Team Lead – Event project management, locks in schedule and ensures events actually happen monthly, works with Directors to complete projects assigned. Oversees all accounting records. Fills in where needed. Open position
• Programming Director – At the heart of the Social Media Club is great interactive events. The Programming Director manages all aspects of the activity calendar for the San Francisco /Silicon Valley club by determining topics to be discussed and speakers to present. Confirmed: Jennifer Lindsay with support from Chris Heuer and anyone else who wishes to submit topic ideas and/or speaker suggestions
• Production Director - Securing venue for each meeting, managing on-site signage, video, audio and lighting, working with Partnership Director to coordinate food and drink with event sponsors and/or venue, ensure supplies are provided at each event (name badges, pens, markers, etc.). Open position
• Digital Scribe(s) - Responsible for recording the discussion and producing a blog post/video/podcast that will be posted to the socialmediaclub.org website within one week of the event. Confirmed: David Libby, could use 1-2 more volunteers here.
• Promotions Director(s) - Managing the local chapter calendar postings on the socialmediaclub.org blog, wiki, Facebook group, Upcoming and other related forums. Confirmed: Janet Fouts and J.J. Toothman
• Partnership Director - manages the relationships with the national Social Media Club parent organization, other important related organizations (both national and local), as well as with local businesses and organizations interested in sponsoring or hosting upcoming activities. Confirmed: Kristie Wells (also acting Secretary/Treasurer)
  

When the work is distributed as noted in these roles, I would imagine each role would require, between 1-4 hours per month administrative plus 2-3 hours the night of the event.

If you are interested in taking on one of these positions, please let us know as soon as possible – either leave a comment below or shoot me an email to kristie [at] socialmediaclub [dot] org. Fall programming is in full swing, we need to lock this new team in and start making plans for 2010!

*P.S. We have been alternating meetings each month – one in San Francisco, the next in Silicon Valley. San Francisco events see between 75-150 people each month, Silicon Valley between 50-75. There was talk of splitting the group up and forming two chapters again, but I would love to see it continue as one…at least through the rest of 2009.