SxSW Panel Rejected? Here’s a second chance

There are a lot of reasons panels get rejected by SxSW. Some don’t even make it into the panel picker, while others just aren’t ‘pimped out’ hard enough to garner sufficient votes.  Some are really, really fantastic ideas, but miss the mark regarding timing.  Some are just bad (note: if it’s bad, you have no second chance unless you rework it).

Whatever the reason your panel was rejected, here is your second chance to present your talk with your panel on the afternoon of Tuesday March 16, 2010. So submit your panel to us in the comments below (make sure everyone can be there still) and we will, at our sole discretion and judgment, select two (2) or three (3) panels which will receive 30 minutes each to live stream to our global audience from the Social Media Clubhouse beginning around 3pm.

We have this fantastic venue 20 minutes from the convention center, a shuttle bus and a live musical performance we are putting on from Kole Christensen starting at 5pm as part of our KUT Live series.  We also have a daily recap show to produce on Tuesday at 6pm with TechZulu. But we don’t yet have a Summit booked, or a sponsor for it other then Social Media Club, which has a pretty awesome announcement to make this week </teaser>.

So let’s go for it and share some knowledge together. If you get it, we will stream it!

Suggestions

• If it’s a commercial pitch, forget about it, you should have signed up as a sponsor
• If you want more immediate attention, tweet it @socialmediaclub with a link to the panel submission elsewhere online and make sure to use the #SMCH3 hashtag
• We are looking for topics that are interesting to our Social Media Club members from around the world, so if you have a strong case why it would be, present it in the comments (or on your own blog post)
• Don’t contact me personally, please. Especially if you know me personally. I just dont have time to deal with all those extra communications while we are in the midst of producing #SMCH3
• The ‘application’ we choose will be notified by Sunday night so there is time to prepare on MON
• Ummm, well, if you have something to talk about regarding media literacy and how to create more of it, or anything to do with our core missions, that, well, that might get some preferential treatment.

Important SMC News: March 2010 (SxSW Edition)

In this issue:

• New Website, New Membership Drive To Launch on March 12th!
• Social Media Clubhouse: Your Virtual Home for SxSW
• Local Leadership BBQ at SxSW: Request Your Invite!
• It’s a Wrap: Social Media Week
• Social Media Club Census 2010
• Local Chapter News
• Welcome New Members!
• Conference Discounts Just For You

New Website, Membership Drive To Launch on March 12th!
We’ve been thinking about this since we first realized the traditional association model was broken in the era of do it yourself community and inexpensive global network organizing tools, and the day is nearly here! On Friday March 12, 2010 we will debut our new Social Media Club web site and kick off a new membership drive as we kick off SxSW at the Social Media Club House with a special BBQ for all our local leaders and members. (more details below on the BBQ

Many of you have asked how we sustained this organization, and the answer has long been the tiring refrain of ‘we built this on our credit cards and through the generosity of a few hundred folks who bought expensive t-shirts!’. Well that time has come and gone, and we are ushering in a new era. An era in which we give you several great reasons to actually join us as a paying professional member or business member. An era in which we can build our organizational infrastructure to more fully and forcefully deliver on our primary missions. An era where Social Media Club grows from its humble roots in the Chris & Kristie home office and goes out in the world as an adult.

While the site has been refined in our heads for a long time, it won’t be refined in the real world to the point that we are completely happy for a few months. We need to hear from you with your criticism and compliments. We want this to serve your needs, which we understand, but which we don’t yet see or appreciate fully enough. So at the very least, when the site launches, please go and sign up as a free member and give us your feedback so we can talk about the ‘overnight success’ that Social Media Club has become in the 4 years since first registering the URL and dreaming this big dream.

Stay tuned for details on the http://www.socialmediaclub.org/ website. Follow our updates on Twitter and check out the new site on Friday March 12, 2010. ::we are so excited::

Social Media Clubhouse: Your Virtual Home for SxSW
If you are unable to make it to Austin for SxSW this year, don’t fret, because the Social Media Club House will be your source for all things SxSW from March 12-21. We have big plans for “The Clubhouse” in 2010. First launched in 2007 as a place for members and supporters to stay together and make media during a double conference stint in Las Vegas, then reinvented for Le Web this past December, we are now evolving the concept even further as our home away from home where we can report on conferences that matter to you.

In addition to reporting on SxSW with blog posts from clubhouse residents each day and our daily recap show produced with TechZulu and Justin.tv every day at 6pm CST, we are doing some pretty special events. With our sponsors/partners we will be hosting several conversations that matter in addition to a musical showcase with local NPR affiliate KUT 90.5.

We invite you to tune in to our live streams on the Social Media Clubhouse blog of The Synaptic Web Summit (Saturday, March 13th @ 3pm CST) sponsored by Intel, Maximum Engagement: Understanding the Social Media Multiplier (Sunday, March 14th @ 3pm CST) sponsored by Awareness, Inc and the Co-Working Summit (Monday, March 15th @ 1pm CST) sponsored by Moonfruit. Each show will be followed by a special musical performance from a rising star in the music world and then later on by the daily recap show.

It’s going to be a great start for our new site and we hope that you not only tune in, but help us by embedding the live video feed in your local chapter’s site and/or your own blog. Please do help us spread the word on this so that we can knock this out of the park and ensure that we can do bigger and better clubhouse’s at the events that matter most to you.

Local Leadership BBQ at SxSW: Request Your Invite!
If you are a member of the leadership team of a local SMC chapter or a professional member attending SxSW, you are invited to request an invite to join us at the Social Media Clubhouse on Friday 3/12 from noon to 2pm. Here you will be able to meet other leaders from around the world to network, share success stories, discover the new members site and hear about our important plans for the future (including how we will be getting you more sponsor dollars and providing more operational support if you want it). Even better yet, the BBQ is being catered by the world famous Salt Lick BBQ, which has been featured all over television as the best BBQ in Texas.

The Club House is about 15 minutes from the Convention Center on Lake Austin, and we will be providing transportation to/from the event to make it easier for you to attend. This event is first and foremost for local leaders, but if we have room, we will be opening up the guest list to more members and supporters as space allows. If you are not a SMC organizer or you are, and have not received an invite yet, you can request an invite here. Well, since we haven’t gotten the invites sent to local leaders yet, consider this your invite and register your interest in attending and we will reply to you confirming attendance ASAP! If you know a local leader, please do forward this to them for us and make sure they can attend to bring you all the info you need to know about the future of Social Media Club International.

In addition to serving as the official Austin Ambassadors at the Social Media Clubhouse, the local host chapter in Austin is organizing two other events during SxSW which you can register to attend:

• The fine folks at Kickapps and Akami are hosting a party on Sunday, March 14th and you are invited! You must register to attend, so please do so sooner than later at http://www.kickapps.com/ barparty
• Then on Tuesday, March 16th join our hosts for their monthly meeting of SMC Austin at the Bazaarvoice offices. Registration page is opening up shortly, so its best to follow SMC Austin on Twitter accounts for details. Both Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer (thats me) will be attending and talking about the new site and the bigger plans for Social Media Club, Social Media Camp, SMCEDU and all the other initiatives you haven’t even heard about yet.

We look forward to seeing you in Austin very soon!

It’s a Wrap: Social Media Week San Francisco
One week. Six cities. 100’s of events. Learning. Teaching. Networking. Good times.

As the organizers of Social Media Week San Francisco we can tell you it was a real blast and really exhausting with all these events happening in such a short time frame. Since we jumped into SxSW mode before the week was even out, we haven’t had much chance to tell the bigger story, but we do want to thank everyone who came out to the events to make the week a big success. We learned a lot across the week, at our 2nd official Social Media Camp, at workshops, at panels and even yes, in bars and living rooms. As a bonus, we closed the week with a terrific closing party that also raised $1800 for NetSquared!

Please join us in saying a hearty ‘thank you’ to all the Social Media Week San Francisco sponsors without whose support we never would have been able to do it all: Biz360, IDEA, Bing, SAP, GoGrid, Justin.tv, LinkedIn, Tungle, and Visible Technologies.

We love you guys. Thanks for all you do and for supporting this week’s worth of events. It is much appreciated and it was key in laying the foundation for our future growth. We also want to thank Toby Daniels, the original organizer and inspiration behind Social Media Week for allowing us to participate and for putting up with our vocal opinions throughout the process.

Social Media Club Census 2010
If you or someone you know is part of a local organizational team, please take a moment and complete the Social Media Club Census. We need to collect the ‘Census’ information so that when reporters, sponsors, or members of our community ask us about the current state of the organization, we can give them an up to date and truthful answer instead of our best guess (as I have been doing over the last few months especially). This information, in conjunction with the new website, will provide powerful levers in furthering our primary missions to promote media literacy, share lessons learned, encourage ethical behavior and promote industry standards.

Also again, we need your help! Can you please check in with your local leadership to make sure they see this link and complete our census? It really is going to take the village in ensuring we get to everyone we need to make this effort a success. https://socialmediaclub.wufoo.com/forms/social-media-club-chapter-survey-the-basics/

Local Chapter News
Social Media Club has experienced a strong period of growth over the last six months – going from 91 chapters in July 2009 to over 160 chapters today (though I suspect there are still some more smaller ones hiding out there somewhere). In fact, we have confirmed sitings of chapters on six of the seven continents on this fine planet of ours (we are coming Antarctica, I promise!!).

Every local chapter is a little different from the next, just as every local neighborhood has its unique flavor. Some use Facebook. Others use Ning. A chapter might user Twitter just to promote their events. Another uses an email service, like iContact. Some love the wiki. Others don’t even know where to find it. This is good. This is a chance for us all to learn. The experiences of each of the chapters has informed our growth along the way and lead us to some important insights we have put to good use in the new site launching on Friday March 12, 2010 (see above).

We plan to focus on infrastructure in 2010, improving the ways we communicate with one another and helping local chapters find the right path to sustainability for their particular needs. We sincerely appreciate everyone who has taken a leadership role in Social Media Club. Your efforts are the reason we exist today and we love you for it. While the new site will bring some changes and a bit more structure to our operations, our principles of openness and inclusivity remains at the core of our being.

However, in order to support our global efforts we need to secure more funds to employ the staff required. It can no longer be Chris and Kristie working on Social Media Club as a secondary job without income from it if we are to succeed at our mission. That said, the way we are setting this up, as we will discuss with local leaders during the BBQ during SxSW, is a great turning point for taking SMC to the next level and we hope you not only join us, but help lead us to the next great milestone!

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

• Corporate: Lacy Kemp (RealNetworks)
• SMB Members: David Berkowitz (360i)
• Professional Members: Tammi Hitchcock, Guillaume Vermeulen, Kyung Han, Michael Kauffman, Charle-John Cafiero, Candice Strudel, David Vanderpoel, Tina Hui, Suzanne Reinfranck, Richard Reader, Suzanne Alderson, Kathlen D’Amato, Wing Lian, Michael Moloney, Debbie Pascoe, Stacy Van Meter, Michelle Krasniak, Sean McCandless, Sean Engmann, Shelly DeMotte, Derek Brookmeyer, C. Rachel Dunnavant, Deidra Bodkin, Bronwyn Saglimbeni, Adam Helweh, Michael Howard, Stephanie Sammons, Eric Weaver, Constance Marshall, Anne Bertelsen, Andrew Sternberg, and Kevin Urie.

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. We think that once you see the new site and hear our story, it will be very worth your while – so much so in fact, that for the first time we are not only comfortable asking you to consider joining as a paying member, we are actively encouraging it! But hey, don’t take my word for it, take a look at the new site that will launch on Friday March 12, 2010 and see for yourself.

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

Conference Discounts Just For You
Below you will find several conferences that have offered special discounts to SMC members. In the future, the only way to find these benefits will be through the members site, but until then, these are for everyone on our mailing list and blog too.

• Social Media Club Local Leaders BBQ: March 12, 2010 in Austin, TX. We are hosting a special (free) BBQ featuring Salt Lick BBQ for our local chapter leaders who are in Austin during SxSW. Watch your email inbox as your invitation will be coming in the next 24 hours. Space is limited, and this will be on a first come, first served basis. If you are a new local leader or you dont think we have your proper email address, you can ensure we know about you and get you an invite by filling out a request to attend right now.
• Social Media Marketing: March 15-16, 2010 in Singapore. This conference is designed to facilitate organisations’ adoption to a customer centric approach to marketing by building a framework for social network marketing. It will help organisations recognise the value of using this platform and will reveal the latest trend in this field, current best practices and how marketers are employing it today and in the future.Mention “SMC” and receive a 10% discount!
• Social Media Strategies Conference: May 18 – 19, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA. The conference will focus on social media marketing, optimization, analytics, case studies, work shop & best practices and how executives, managers, and marketers can leverage it to meet their business goals. Social Media Club members receive $200 off registration when using ‘SMC2010′.
• NewComm Forum: April 20-23, 2010 in San Mateo, CA. This events feature five exciting keynotes, one full-day and four ½-day pre-conference workshops, post-conference strategy sessions and a one-day executive summit. Social Media Club members receive a $100 discount when using “smcCOMM”.

Worthy causes/initiatives for you to check out:

• Social Health 2010: March 11, 2010 in Austin, TX. SXSH is a day-long international social health un-conference encompassing all aspects of healthcare. The objectives of this unconference are threefold: To bring together an international group of stakeholders in pharma and healthcare (patients, providers, professionals, and industry) within an unconference format, To encourage the interaction and discussion among these stakeholders in this open forum. To expose this traditionally “insular” group of stakeholders to the true culture of social media (i.e. it’s not just about the tech) at SXSW.
• TWESTIVAL GLOBAL 2010: March 25, 2010 in various cities. We are rallying around Concern Worldwide to bring attention to the fact that 72 million children in the world don’t get the opportunity to go to school. One day, one cause and this year is gearing up to be unmissable. Twestival is focusing on global education through fundraising for Concern Worldwide (@concern), a phenomenal organization who have been working to support the world’s poorest people with their innovative and compassionate approach for over 40 years. Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” This has never been more true than now; with Haiti losing over 4,000 schools in the earthquake and other regions of the world where children are forced to work on the streets or struggle with hunger and water issues which prevent them from attending. The Social Media Club members around the world have enthusiastically embraced Twestival and made an undeniable impact on their local communities along with other volunteers. We invite you to spread the word and join Moscow, Seoul, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, London and Cape Town by hosting an event in your area on March 25th. The event can be as big or as small as you wish, the idea is to come together for a night of fun and fundraising to put your city or school on the map. So get out to a Twestival event near you http://twestival.com / and follow @twestival for updates. Better still, become an organizer of a local event and show the world the caliber of leadership within Social Media Club and prove to the world the power of social media for social good!

——————–

Well, it’s a slightly long newsletter a long time in the making, but well worth it. We are really looking forward to taking the wraps off the new site next week and ushering in the next phase of growth for Social Media Club. In the meantime, be well and make great media!

Cheers,
Chris Heuer & Kristie Wells
Founders, Social Media Club Global

Website – http://www.socialmediaclub.org
Twitter – http://twitter.com/SocialMediaClub
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/SocialMediaClub

Enter to Be Our Resident VJ for Social Media Club House during SxSW

I am really thrilled to be writing this blog post. Over the past two months we have been busy organizing the logistics and finding partners for our Social Media Club House down at SxSW. Just yesterday, everything really started to fall into place – just as everything came together for Social Media Week San Francisco recently.

We won’t be publishing the calendar of livestreams from the club house or event dates just yet, but I can tell you its not a bloggers lounge, and its not a place where a lot of people will be hanging out.  We will be dropping by the TechSet Bloggers Lounge for that ourselves, so we will hopefully see you there (and hopefully in my Core Conversation with John Biehler on Friday March 12 at 330 called “Do the Cool Kids Leave When the Suits Arrive?” </plug>.

The idea behind the club house is still the same as when we did it in Las Vegas in 2007. There are a lot of folks in our community who go to the same conferences and we wanted a place where we many of us could stay together, make media and have a shared experience of it with each other. This creates opportunities to get to know each other, to learn, to see more of the conference through each others eyes, to be social and to create content.

After resurrecting the idea in Paris, France just a few months ago with the Social Media Club House at Le Web 2009, we are doing it even bigger and better down in Austin, TX.  Inspired by Real World, Forbes and our own experiences, the Social Media Club House is a mashup of epic proportions (just enough to match the grandeur of SxSW itself I think so we are psyched to kick it off here).

Its one part group housing, one part live stream studio.  It’s where Social Media Club will be reporting on SxSW and sharing our observations with our global community members. Its where we will be hosting some serious conversations like the Synaptic Web Summit and the Engagement Summit. It’s where we will host some special and intimate musical performances.  It’s where Social Media Club will host its local leadership celebration for SMC organizers from around the world with a big BBQ from Salt Lick on Friday  March 12 from 12-2pm. And it’s where Social Media Club and TechZulu will produce its daily recap livestream of what is happening in Austin throughout SxSW in conjunction with Justin.tv, Hootsuite and other media partners still to be announced.

And this blog post is your chance to join us in person as a resident of the Club House! It’s also a ’save the URL’ for Social Media Club members to tune into the reporting and live streaming we will be doing during SxSW from http://socialmediaclubhouse.com/, (new site and schedule coming early next week).

The Contest.

Starting today, we are looking to find one or possibly two Resident VJ’s for the Club House (yes video jockey’s, to call it a blog jockey would be NSFW). The chosen VJ will join myself and the other residents and reporters. In exchange for producing content on the Social Media Club House blog each day and contributing some video to our live stream and hopefully a bit more, we provide a sweet place to stay with a bunch of cool people and an experience to remember for a life time. It’s also a chance to break through and show you have mad skills, so be creative, this is your moment to shine.  It’s not quite American Idol, but it will put you in a position to meet a lot of cool people and put your talent on display. More details on the terms of the contest are below.

When I was originally thinking of the contest, it was going to be open to paying Social Media Club members only, as a membership benefit. But after tweeting with Eric Berto I realized we should make it open to anyone over 21 who is willing to agree to our Club House terms below. I don’t want to be the guy saying pay 100 bucks so you can enter the contest and then maybe not win – that’s not the sort of membership experience anyone should have. In the future though, we will have some things open to only members (ie, this same opportunity). But that will only be after we can show you the value we will provide in our new members web site and we complete our upcoming reorganization (or initial organization as some of you may be thinking – ha).

Look, this contest is really simple, we want to have you producing great media with us each day out of the Club House. For that, you get to stay there with us and some other really cool people who will be announced very soon.

How to enter.

Shoot a video that is under 3 minutes (bonus for being awesome and doing it under 1 minute) telling us why you would be a great Resident VJ in the Social Media Club House. Send us an email to socialmediaclub at gmail dot com with your name, social url’s, phone number, the dates you are going to be in Austin, a link to your video entry online (please also tag it #SMCH) and a link to some blog posts you wrote from another conference you attended (whether live blogging it, summarizing a session, summarizing the experience, writing about the party scene, whatever it might be that you think would be relevant.)

DO THIS BEFORE 23:59 EST ON WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2010

If you want to, you can also tweet at us with a link to your video and we will retweet it for others to see from the @socialmediaclub account.

The winner be chosen at the sole discretion of the Club House producers, a full list which will be published on this blog in the coming week but right now it includes me.

What we are offering is a chance to be our roomie for SxSW for either interactive, music, or possibly both.  What we are asking for is that you serve as the resident club house VJ, reporting everyday on whats happening in Austin.

It’s gonna be fun.

Here is a simple statement of the general terms:

We provide you a bed in Austin, TX with a roof over it between March 11th-21st in this really cool house (ok, its a mansion, really) we rented on Lake Austin. There will be about a dozen or so other people staying there, maybe a couple more on some nights as a place of last resort for our friends and misplaced celebrities. Chances are several of the meals will be covered like the BBQ we are hosting for our Social Media Club chapter leaders, but you should be prepared to spend a little money here and there for food, transport and having fun. You cover your own travel (unless we get a last minute travel sponsor) to and from the Club House from wherever you are in the world. Winner must be 21 years of age or older so please don’t submit an entry if you are not. We are planning to have some transportation to and from the convention center daily as the house is 15 minutes away, but we can not guarantee it to be on call and it will not be available around the clock.

The bottom line is we think it would be cool to make some content together and we wanted to do a talent search to find someone to do it with us. Perhaps that is you…

Please Note: We would love to be more open with the Summits and other things we are doing in the Club House, but there are just some physical constraints that don’t allow for us to open it up to a big group. It’s intended to be more like a private studio then an event venue.  The other thing is, the house is in a residential neighborhood, so out of respect for the house’s owner we just can’t do any public events here.  So instead, the summits are essentially invited guests in an executive round table format to discuss the topic and stream it to the world.  We are still seeking sponsors to offset the huge costs though, which is another way to participate.

SMCEDU Needs a Grant + Our Purpose, Our Goals

First, thanks to the members of SMCEDU for creating a strong foundation for a real community, and a real global initiative to improve the quality of social media education in our school systems. We have some wonderful stories of on campus successes, some great resources have been pulled together and most importantly some wonderful connections have been made between teachers.

In short, for being an idea, staffed by a hard working but part time intern (big thanks to Yong C Lee for making this possible), SMCEDU is an early success. But there is much harder work to be done and there is a real need in the overall academic community for the type of support we are seeking to provide.

So today I am writing to seek your help in finding a volunteer grant writer and some foundations to get funding that will take this SMCEDU initiative to another level and help us hire Yong C Lee as a full time program manager. We need $250,000 so we can hire Yong, a “curriculum curator” and another part time program manager to work on developing specific initiatives with our teachers and administrators from around the world. We can start with something as small as $50,000 so we can at least hire Yong full time but we need to go for more so we can expand our efforts and do it right.

So that the vision is a bit more clear, here is a current draft of what I have set out for the program goals

• Develop a set of resources and links to resources that reside elsewhere which professors can use to help them get social media related classes approved in their schools and offer the best social media focused education possible – ie, case studies, syllabus, courses, suggestions for getting past no, etc…
• Build the most comprehensive directory of teachers offering social media globally and become the source for schools looking to see what people are offering. This requires building out additional resources on top of the Ning network, ie coding/programming
• Develop and encourage the development of Open Courseware programs that are Creative Commons licensed and available to other teachers to use and improve upon (using non-comercial share and share alike licenses)
• Create relationships between local Social Media Club chapters around the world and their local universities so that we can create a path to professionalism for those seeking to be a social media professional, or merely those seeking a chance to use social media as a part of their chosen career
• To encourage the on-campus development of Social Media Club chapters, empowering students to create their own local communities that can be connected and supported by our global network
• Offer internship and mentorship programs so as to develop real world professional experiences to supplement the classroom education
• Develop and offer training for those teachers seeking to offer Social Media classes at their school and/or using social media as part of teaching other subjects
• To identify and review other social media education offerings outside of our domain
• Support and increase awareness for other important initiatives of interest to social media professors including but not limited to Classroom 2.0 and Social Media Classroom. To expand this global web of support and partnerships so as to form a network of similarly oriented initiatives for mutual benefit and support.

My recollection from my very early youth is that an education is supposed to prepare you to enter the world and be a valuable contributing member to society. Is that still true? If it is, then the goal of SMCEDU is straight and true. My purpose for SMCEDU has never been more clear – it is to prepare students to be better critical thinkers when it comes to interacting with the world around them, especially focused on a broad set of skills I reference as media literacy. It is also focused on preparing them to enter the real world of work, to provide current workforce literacy which means an understanding of how to interact, create value and leverage social/web technology for the purpose of the organization as opposed to the individual. More broadly, I hope to imbue a sense of community in students so that they see the interconnectedness of the world around them and can take that education to make their world, and ours by extension, a better place.

We could really use your help in securing a grant (or grants) in order to fulfill this mission. Please let us know your thoughts and help us if you can.

#SMCEDU Chat: Social Media in the Classroom…What’s the Incentive?

Social Media Club Education Connection (aka #SMCEDU) is a national initiative whose goal is to unite educators, students, and professionals to further the development of social media curriculum in our schools, enabling a wider network of learning and workforce preparedness.

#SMCEDU is a part of Social Media Club, a nonprofit organization that is working to promote media literacy and connect people to share what they are learning about social media.

Last week, Social Media Week wrapped up in five different cities around the world. I wrote about a panel event held in New York on Friday that featured an interesting question from the audience, a question that lead off today’s #SMCEDU chat (you can hear the question in the second video here at the 35:10 mark).

First, to frame the question: A member of the audience (a professor) stated that it is the goal of teachers to educate, and the goal of students to hand in their assignments so they can receive a grade quickly. As a tenure-track professor, he also has the incentive to publish research, along with his other responsibilites.

The professor, who admittedly enjoys using technology, professed that he used wikis, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook in all his classes, only to be met by a mere 20% adoption rate and frustrated students. His question: “What is the incentive for both teachers and students to adopt these friction-reducing technologies?”

Our participants had their perspectives ready.

Incentive for Students to Use Social Media in the Classroom

The incentive for students to adopt these technologies in the classroom seems fairly obvious: it impacts their career perspectives. Not only are more professionals relying on social media to network within their industries and perform their jobs, but SM tools have helped many on the job hunt as well.

Here are a few other responses, followed by my own thoughts:

• Personal branding: It’s expected in the communication, journalism, public relations, and marketing fields, and more industries are Googling potential new hires to view their personal portrayals.
• Grade requirements: Although students can be “forced” into using SM tools, and could ultimately benefit from this course style, subject retention rarely comes without some level of personal interest
• Student/public recognition: As Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jeff Nugent imparted at Social Media U in Richmond, his students underwent a “transformative expereince” when they realized their comments and posts could be seen by others beyond their classmates.
• Teach not only how to make connections, but facilitate them as well: Many professional connections begin in school; cultivating your networking skills early will only bolster your pool of contacts.
• Greater engagement: When given a greater pool of students and teachers, more thoughts and ideas are brought together. Shared experiences can pave the way for new lessons.
• Learning new skills: The SM tools used in the classroom (wikis, blogs, etc.) are the same used in the “real world.” Sharpening skills in the classroom means you’re ready to use them before/after graduation.

Incentive for Teachers to Use Social Media in the Classroom

This seems to be where things get contentious. As educational institutions (at least, four-year schools) are slower than the business world to adopt to rapid transformations, changes to the traditional classroom paradigm are viewed with skepticism. In fact, there were more tweets about why teachers are unwilling to adopt social media in classrooms than suggestions for incentive. There are factors to consider when thinking about using SM in class, and the viewpoints of the participants are favorable to using technology. Here are some of of those views. Again, reasons followed by my thoughts:

• Sharing knowledge: As we learn, more content will (hopefully) be shared for greater benefit.
• Greater impact on students: This goes hand-in-hand with the issue of engagement, the lack of which is a common problem for students.
• Speaking of engagement… The main reason for teachers to use technology, or any teaching tools, is to educate students. There are as many methods as there are teachers, but expanding the classroom outside of a physical space has benefits…whether or not the benefits are worth the risk and work are up to each teacher.
• One of my favorite tweets.

Incentives for Both

• Exposure/Positioning when compared to other schools: The rest of the world is becoming more digitized; a school that emphasizes its willingness to accept that change and prepare students for it is a more attractive option.
• Greater personal fulfillment: This is one of my favorite reasons. Thinking beyond professional aspirations, media literacy and taking responsible, informed action are benchmarks of Social Media Club’s mission. What I don’t find mentioned often enough when hearing about reasons to continue education is curiosity. The Internet is a huge pool of both information and misinformation…learning to swim in it is vital.

Currently, the rallying cry to use social technologies to learn is coming from students. And while some teachers are reluctant to move away from the more traditional methods of education, there are many that are pushing for social media to improve learning and the educational experience.

Welcome to the many new voices in #SMCEDU chat, your thoughts and input are greatly valued! We hope you all can join us next Monday at 12:30pm EST for more discussion!

Social Media Camp SF Schedule ++

Big thanks to all the early participants who signed up on blind faith and to all the sponsors who are subsidizing our participation costs (especially for the lucky few who got one of the $5 tickets). We have been working hard to build a great single-track Social Media conference that will be the backbone of a strong ‘camp’. Each of the sessions below are designed to be 45 minutes with 15 minute breaks in between. Due to the layout of the building and proximity of the rooms to one another, we will be sticking to this schedule as best as possible.

In under a week, with the support of our Social Media Camp Gold Sponsors (Biz360, IDEA, SAP), social media leaders, community organizers, and many friends, I think we have something that  will be highly valuable – in fact, I would say its the equivalent of a much higher price conference, or better in some instances, but hey, I will let you decide for yourself. (there are only about 30 tickets left!)

8am – Registration, Breakfast, Networking

9am – Opening – Three 10 Minute Keynotes
Chris Heuer, Camp Director, will open the day and introduce what he believes are the most important things necessary for Social Media to continue to be relevant and to continue to grow.

• Keynote 1:  The Synaptic Web, Khris Loux, Echo
• Keynote 2: The Art of Tummeling, Kevin Marks, BT/Ribbit
• Keynote 3: Personal Voice, Personal Storytelling, Cathy Brooks

945am – Planning the Camp Sessions
F0r 30 minutes, participants will be able to offer up suggestions for an additional session that they will lead in one of the two other rooms we have set up. In total, we will have to collaboratively plan 10 sessions the day of the event.

1030am – Measuring What Matters: Social Media AND Metrics (Moraga/Main Room)

This discussion will be lead by Maria Ogneva from Biz360 and is geared towards social media professionals / marketers within their organizations, but is suitable for everyone working to prove the ROI of their investment in Social Media. The central premise is that we all need to better understand what matters most (and what doesn’t matter at all).

• Maria Ogneva, Biz360
• Rick Klau, Google
• Jaime Schiller
• Sudha Jamthe, PayPal (just added!)

1130am – Rethinking Communications: Social Media AND Marketing (Moraga/Main Room)

Tap into cutting edge thinking and insights from this group of experienced professionals. After their presentations, ample time will be provided for group discussions and a rigorous Q&A before heading to lunch.

• Kevin Barenblat, Context Optional
• Chris Heuer, AdHocnium

1215-130PM – LUNCH BREAK

Box lunches, with vegetarian options, will be served

130pm – Customer Service As Marketing

It’s been said that customer retention is the best form of customer acquisition. In this panel, we bring together people who know this first hand to discuss how and why customer support has transcended its traditional position as a cost to be minimized to become a valuable marketing investment.

• Chris Pitre, Idea
• Thor Muller, Get Satisfaction
• Kristie Wells, Ribbit/Social Media Club
• Bliss Dake, Mighty Leaf Tea

230pm – Rethinking Collaboration (a ‘fireside chat’)

I once heard an employee of a really big company say “you can have my email when you pry it from my cold dead fingers” referencing an initiative to bring Enterprise 2.0 tools into their company.  The fear of change often prevents people from adapting to new ways of working, making collaboration more of a human issue then a technical one.  As technologies, and our concepts of how we use them have changed in the face of ’streams’, what’s it going to take to not only rethink collaboration, but to make the new workflow a simple to use reality. As we move from static depositories of documents into work ’streams’ collaboration wont only be within one tool, but across many. What does that world look like and how will it come into being. [this is a deep, rich topic for us to explore, expect the conversation to move around a bit from this description]

• David Meyer, SAP
• Chris Heuer, AdHocnium

330pm – Facing the Reality of Real Time

Real Time is the new black. Its mentioned everywhere, and it seems straightforward enough, but what does it really mean. How are you supposed to manage a brand in the face of real time onslaught of customer complaints, market developments, events, news and everything else that is going on. In diving into the reality of real time, we will explore the topic from a technical, humanistic and organizational marketing perspective, with a lot of time devoted to group discussion with all participants.

• Jeremy Toeman, Stage Two Consulting
• Brian Zisk, Collecta
• Jolie O’Dell, Read/Write Web

430pm – Closing Remarks (15 minutes)

Chris Heuer will wrap up the day with a synthesis of the key themes and ideas presented across all of Social Media Camp and discuss his vision for future Social Media Camp’s that will be held across the country in 2010.  This is also a chance for all participants to share their big a-ha moments from the day and to discuss all the other great events happening during the rest of Social Media Week.

Some of the titles and speakers above may change slightly, but the focus is in place and we are confirming additional speakers each hour…

For those of you attending, who may see a topic that is just not interesting to you, remember, its not just a conference, its also a camp… soyou have a chance to help program 10 additional sessions that will be hosted throughout the day.  I will be writing a separate post on how we will run the camp shortly.

We have a great day planned out, with a ton of great people, in a nice venue.  While the Presidio Officer’s Club is not the Ritz Carlton or a Class A Conference Center, it suits our purposes of getting together, learning from each other and making valuable new connections. We have a great caterer bringing in a continental breakfast, an array of boxed lunch choices and sodas, waters, and coffee throughout the day.  We also have very limited WiFi it would seem in this building, so I have to ask you in advance to expect we will have some wifi problems – in fact, if anyone has some Mifi hotspots or something they could bring, that would probably help a little bit.  As a camp goes, this will be a great, high energy event with a ton of great speakers, ideas and insights.

So bring an open mind, tough questions and big challenges to Social Media Camp next Monday and help us kick off our first Social Media Week in San Francisco with this great unconference hybrid. If you haven’t registered yet, you can still do so now, but get it soon, there are only a few tickets left.

See you on Monday!

Social Media Camp: San Francisco

It’s been a hectic start to 2010, but I couldn’t be happier where things are heading this year. Today it became apparent that we had the sponsor support we needed to sign the contract for Social Media Camp, so it’s time to open registration, sign-up volunteers (who get a free pass), and get the word out.

We will kick off Social Media Week in San Francisco with a full day conference called Social Media Camp on Monday February 1, 2010 from 9am-530pm. This will be the marquee event of the week locally, providing a great opportunity for leading Social Media professionals to come together as a community. With all the great ‘influencers’ and professionals living here in San Francisco, it’s also a great opportunity to showcase our region as a global leader in this space.

Social Media Camp is perfect for communications professionals, marketing executives, technology startups, social media consultants, journalists, bloggers and anyone else interested in learning how to apply Social Media to your organization.

Social Media Camp was originally envisioned as a Job Skills Retraining event for the underemployed and unemployed. While we will still serve this purpose by offering a great day of Social Media education at a great price, our vision for taking Social Media Camp around the country in 2010 is much bigger and we will be discussing this further at Social Media Camp on Monday February 1st.

What we are doing is a hybrid conference – one part traditional conference and one part barcamp. We are co-producing a series of panels, talks and keynotes with our sponsors, bringing in some of the smartest people we know on the most important topics such as Social Media and Metrics, Local Search, Community Management and more. In fact, we will start announcing the speakers and sessions on Monday. In the meantime, if you have been to a BarCamp, you know that you have an opportunity to offer up a session on the morning of the event, during the Social Media Camp kickoff, which will then be given a room and a time slot during the conference during which you can host a conversation about what matters most to you.

While we are offsetting some of the costs with the sponsorship dollars, we aren’t able to offer this event for free at this time. We can however offer it at the very reasonable price of $100, with pre-registration offered at a discount levels starting at $5. Yes, that’s right…$5!!! Get your ticket quick!

There is a lot more going on throughout the week, and we have more information to distribute, including formal thanks to Social Media Week San Francisco
local sponsors GoGrid and LinkedIn for being an early sponsor in this process with us. We will be announcing other sponsors over the weekend and into early next week.

Now that we have a contract, a plan, sponsor support and you reading this, lots of exciting things will start falling into place.

Get your ticket now!!

About Social Media Week San Francisco

Running from February 1 – February 5, 2010 (MON-FRI) we are expecting to host around a dozen events in and around San Francisco in support of the global efforts. The SFAMA, Citizen Space, Mashable, Context Optional, Stage Two Consulting, LiveWorld and Social Media Club already have events scheduled, with many more being published in the coming days. You can stay up to date via the main Web site at http://socialmediaweek.org/

A Discussion on Case Studies – Old Meets New

Happy Martin Luther King Day to everyone! The holiday saw new participants interested in social media education in our weekly #SMCEDU chats — another week, another great exchange of ideas! To all that joined for the first time, welcome! I hope we can continue to learn from each other in the future!

Our chat this week revolved around case studies, but what caught my attention more than the need for examples of such was a late conversation that seemed to represent (at least in my mind) what’s happening in social media at the university level.

First, let me say this — one of our main goals this year is to open up coursework for educators looking to incorporate or teach social media. A main factor for those that are struggling with the “should” question is proof of efficacy, and case studies are a proven way to see examples. With that in mind, our chat participants struck gold with these suggestions:

• Corinne Weisgerber brought up this excellent point about finding industry-specific information by creating and maintaining networks related to your field. She also provided this link to a wiki of social media marketing case studies, which looks to be a valuable reference.
• If you’re a part of the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry, James Walker shared this link to a related wiki of social media case studies.
• Booz Allen Hamilton social media lead and SMCEDU-DC authority Steve Radick posted this link to the OpenGov wiki. This effort struck a chord with me as it is something I envision the Social Media Club Education Connection wiki could be — a living collection of lessons, information, and references available in an easily-navigated interface.

After seeing the OpenGov wiki, I’m inspired to spruce up our SMCEDU wiki, and I’ll start by pulling information from the suggested links above and any other suggestions you’d like to send my way. In the very near future, I hope to feature it again as a resource that makes SMCEDU valuable to the education community.

The sharing of different case studies was great, but things got interesting with this tweet from Rowena Briones of College Park, MD. It led the way to some opinions that represent a new approach to how to deal with social media in the classroom.

Nathan Hughes of SMCEDU-RVA summed up that “new approach” sentiment eloquently in less than 140 characters with this tweet. The spirit of the message, that in many ways we’re dealing with a lump of unmolded clay, was echoed through numerous re-tweets.

Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club, also started SMCEDU and maintains the same vision for the project as when it first started.

We’re certainly facing something new — the hesitancy among faculty members to adopt new technologies/methods, the degree of student participation and interaction (the “hands-on” lessons alluded to so often during today’s chats), and the many opinions of social media itself are evidence of that. We can’t ignore traditional tools like case studies, but we also can’t rely completely on traditional methods (textbooks, lectures) to encompass social media education. After all, participation and innovation are key components of whatever you want to call the merge of technology and social interaction.

Our chat was also covered today by Andrea Genevieve of George Washington University, stay posted for her writeup of today’s chat later this week on her blog.

We’re moving forward, and doing it quickly. SMCEDU-RVA is hosting an event next week that’s catering to educators, and I look forward to the reactions and reception from professors. We’re also re-booting our advisory board, more on that to come. Our wiki is my focus for this week, and as always, we’ll have another Twitter chat next Monday at 12:30pm EST.

Again, thanks for all the great input today, we look forward to it again next Monday!

The Challenges of Social Media Education Can Be Overcome

Our weekly #SMCEDU Twitter chat proved once again to be an exciting forum, quick to address the challenges facing the Social Media Club Education Connection (aka SMCEDU) and consistent in providing a wide range of perspectives.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I’d like to focus on key challenges for social media education this year. One of the slippery questions we face is actually defining what a social media education encompasses. In a micro-text/minimum-contextual format such as Twitter, 140 characters just aren’t enough.

Despite that, we got great input from teachers, students, and professionals today.

I opened with a question that always gets different responses, and it deals with the challenges that face educators interested in social media.

I read this post recently regarding why social media marketing receives resistance, and I believe some of the same challenges are faced in the education world.

Anna West of VCU brought up this and this point, with the lack of a strategic approach being a complaint I’ve heard numerous times.

Ana Adi in Scotland brought up something that challenges many schools, deficiencies in infrastructure.

James Walker, an associate at APCO Worldwide and a student of social media, brought up the point that teaching social media may require a new educational paradigm. He cited his favorite professor as being someone who taught “off the cuff” and was able to adapt quickly to new changes.

Brett Petersel of Mashable and Susan Beebe of SMCEDU-Rochester, NY both mentioned the rapidly changing landscape of technology as hurdles in formalizing social media education.

At this point in the conversation, I became a bit flustered. You see, we HAVE the resources — the people, the technology — to overcome these obstacles. We CAN create a better social media education (which, in turn, can produce smarter people that understand the impact of sharing and spreading information).

Before I go on, let me tie in a few thoughts on one of the main objectives of smcedu: opening coursework development to all educators and creating a repository of social media curriculum.

This, I believe, is what needs to be done first in working toward that obective:

• From our collection of professors, define what they’re teaching as part of “Social Media Education.”
  • This includes an intro to what social media is, integration of social media into different disciplines, measurement of success, and any other touch points that are concerns
  • From there, create lessons on each

• From our collection of students, define what they want to learn as part of a “Social Media Education.”
  • Skills specific to different career paths
  • Lessons learned from those that have done it

• From our collection of business leaders, define what they want potential employees to know as part of a “Social Media Education.”

Despite the challenges of teaching social media, there are ways to integrate lessons into traditional programs.

I’ll work to gather this information from various professors, but would love to see a live collaboration between the educators that are currently teaching social media as a class or component. Any suggestions?

Thanks to all again for a great chat, please join us again next Monday at 12:30pm EST on Twitter…click on the button below for a reminder!

Lenovo Live @ CES 2010

Social Media Club members are invited to join Lenovo along with other leading journalists and bloggers for Blogger Nights @ CES. Tonight’s event is sold out, BUT if you are a card carrying member of Social Media Club, a registered member of the gdgt community or an attendee of Social Media Jungle, all you need to do is show your credentials to enter. We will be at AquaKnox in the Venetian from 9:30PM to 1:00AM.

If you missed last year’s Ultimate Blogger Dinner, you don’t want to miss Lenovo’s Blogger Nights @ CES 2010. We have incredible food from one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas (according to last year’s reviews), and an open bar with premium wines, cocktails and beer.

Lenovo’s Blogger Nights is a chance to relax and unwind at the end of the day with your colleagues, to share stories and to create some new ones for your readers/viewers/listeners (and some that will stay in Vegas). This is one CES event you won’t want to miss.

Lenovo’s Blogger Nights is co-hosted by Social Media Club, gdgt and Social Media Jungle. During Blogger Nights, Mitch Ratcliffe will be live streaming each night, interviewing attendees to discuss the most interesting news from each day. If you would like to pre-schedule an interview, please email mitch@ratcliffe.com.

Be sure to check out Lenovo Social, a great portal to find recent news on Lenovo and things happening here at CES.

SMCEDU is Getting 2010 Started

As we enter a new year and a new decade, we’re realizing with less frequency the impact and ubiquity of social media. Less, you say? Let’s put it this way: The past few years have been the “growth” years, a time when people began to realize the percussive scope of using social media and participating in social networks. But it’s not about hearing the drum beat anymore, now it’s about moving to the tempo.

In 2010, it isn’t likely that you’ll have to convince anyone that social media is useful; rather, you’ll have more people asking for best practices. Students in many fields realize the impact social media will have in their future careers. Today’s lessons shouldn’t be limited to introduction or mere mention of social media, but should focus on how to leverage its usefulness.

With so many participating in social media, the question becomes: “How do we know if we’re getting what we want out of it?”

Kendall Morris of SMCEDU-Richmond had this to say, and I’d have to agree. In 2010, it’s about measuring impact.

This includes impact within the classroom. What’s the best way to reach out to students, to give them lessons that they’ll listen to? Andrea Genevieve of George Washington University believes it’s about breaking up the lectures with the visual elements that we’re used to interacting with on the Web. We’re VERY interested in building a collection of video lessons from a range of academic disciplines and would love to hear from any teachers willing to contribute!

And while intriguing graduate programs with social media arches are being offered, is it too much too soon?

I’m still finding mixed opinions on that one (here and here for example). What’s agreed upon by many (like Mike Johansson and Nhat Pham) is that while a degree program might not be essential now, integration into current coursework is.

At one point in the chat, Mike Johansson offered this question, and Susan Beebe and Andrea Genevieve echoed what we hope will be a major contribution of SMCEDU.

So with that, we’ll continue what we started in 2009. I enjoyed the dialogue and range of responses we got in our chat today…seeing continued contribution would be benefit all!

Hope to chat with you all again next Monday at 12:30pm EST!

Are you safe online?

We spend an increasing amount of time online – most of us log countless hours on social media outlets alone.  We know our way around the Internet like our own home, so we’re lulled into thinking we’re as safe online. We’re not. Practicing good habits online should be as second nature as locking the door when you leave the house.  Unfortunately, we have a long way to go.

The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) is educating people to be safe online through several awareness programs.  This year marked the 8^th annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month (October) and the first campaign directly targeting 17– 25 year olds.  Our firm, Hastings & Pleadwell worked with NCSA to educate this age using the most relevant social media sites – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and MySpace.

Perhaps the most interesting pieces of this campaign were two web videos produced to educate and entertain.  “Don’t be a Billy” is a spoof on a 1940s etiquette film that shows what not to do online.

“Cybercriminals” takes a much different approach.  The video profiles three seemingly innocent people who made simple mistakes online that caused serious consequences.  While you may never be subject to the harsh interrogation depicted in this web video, if you aren’t updating your security system, using complex passwords and using common sense online, you are at risk.

First things first, use security software and complex passwords.  Update your operating system often and think twice before clicking on any link or giving out too much personal information.

Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube to get more tips, or visit us online.

SMCEDU Chat: Wrapping Up 2009, Looking Ahead to 2010

We had a great #SMCEDU chat today, headed by Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer. Joined by many who have shown early interest and contribution to the project, we tackled the subject of the top three priorities for social media education as we head into the new year:

1. Community Identification and Engagement

This is something that we’ve been working on and have accomplished, although greater awareness can always be achieved and wider participation will increase the breadth and depth of shared knowledge

2. Create a program/plan document for Social Media Club chapters or local SMCEDU supporters to follow in starting a program

With the help of Booz Allen Hamilton social media lead Steve Radick in the DC area and Social Media Club-Richmond in the central VA area, collaboration between SMC chapters and universities is continuing. We’ll keep you posted as progress is made and share documentation on how to cultivate formal relationships between schools and businesses

3. Open coursework development to provide resources to educators looking to start teaching social media

According to members of the social media education community like Alex de Carvalho and Mashable’s Brett Petersel, this would be a valuable resource. Many others have also expressed interest in seeing this happen.

There were other great ideas, like this suggestion from Ana Adi and this observation from Susan Beebe. Also, this point brought up by Alex de Carvalho sums up one of the major challenges in defining social media education.

The scope of the project is and always has been ambitious, but we’ve got an experienced, knowledgeable community that cares about the quality of these lessons. With their continued help we can address and implement many ideas, starting with the plan above.

The holidays are a busy time for everyone, so we’ll resume SMCEDU chat again on Monday, January 04 at 12:30pm EST. This link should provide you with a way to add a reminder to Google Calendar, let me know if you have any problems/questions with it.

So, Happy Holidays to all, and thank you for a great first (half) year for Social Media Club Education Connection! Just a reminder: if you know of any teachers involved in or interested in social media education, let them know about our Ning group to stay connected with the community! We constantly post updates to our efforts and this is the best way to provide feedback or ask questions.

Thanks to all who have helped, we’re looking forward to big things in 2010!

Social Media Week: San Francisco

Hey San Francisco!

The second annual Social Media Week is almost upon us, so save the first week of February 2010 to join us and others (people, businesses, organizations) in your community and around the world as this five day conference focuses upon the many ways that social media has impacted businesses, lives and cultures everywhere.  A series of panels, presentations, interactive workshops, events and receptions will fill the week

San Francisco, along with New York City, Berlin, Toronto, London and Sao Pãulo, will simultaneously celebrate Social Media Week during February 1st – 5th.  Chris Heuer, Founder of Social Media Club, will be representing San Francisco as Social Media Week’s global partner.

Each city’s full program/schedule will be published soon.  Per the Social Media Week website “…organizers are inviting the business communities in each city to get involved by registering events, submitting speaker proposals and by registering space that can be used to host events.  You can get involved here.”

We will continue to post updates to this story as we receive them.

Welcome to the Social Media Club House

This week Social Media Club President Kristie Wells and I are here in Paris to cover Le Web 2009 and support the growth of Social Media Club in Europe.  If you aren’t yet familiar, Le Web is the premiere conference for Web entrepreneurs and innovators in France. Loic and Geraldine LeMeur have done a fantastic job putting together an event that transcends national boundaries, bringing in some 2.000 people from all across Europe and all around the world.

We are fortunate to be here for the full week, exploring the true Paris, interviewing European startup and re-connecting with old friends.  We will also be hanging out with Social Media Club members like Pierre Yves Platini, Erho Hannink, Nicole Simon and many many more talking about how we can better connect local chapters all over the world.

I started thinking about coming to Le Web as soon as I arrived at the conference last December. There are so many stimulating conversations.  There are so many people you can’t meet anywhere else all in one place. And best of all, its in one of the greatest cities in the world.

But I didn’t want to just attend, I wanted to do something special.  So when I started talking about Le Web with Dana Oshiro from Read/Write Web back in October, I said “we should host a Social Media Club House during Le Web”. Of course, her reply was the same as you are thinking now. What the heck is that?

Social Media Club House is a way that we can bring members, media makers and friends closer together in a sort of “Real World/MTV” meets Social Media sort of a way.  Only this time, its all about getting along and making media instead of hooking up and fighting each other (though there is perhaps on some occasions an equivalent amount of drinking .

After having lived in a fraternity house in college and a group house on South Beach (Miami) with a business partner and a bunch of fashion models, I personally love the idea of communal living.  Even more so when you look at the mix of people we have in the house.  Yesterday, the Americans arrives with Robert Scoble, Cathy Brooks and Dana Oshiro joining myself and Kristie.  On Tuesday, the unstoppable Stephanie Booth arrives.

While its not an open party house out of respect for the people we are renting the house from, it is quite a special place to call home for the week. Considering our schedule, It hardly seems like we will be in the house very much.  But when we are, we will be writing, sharing stories and live streaming to Justin.tv

Of course, we couldn’t do something this cool all on our own.  We are fortunate to have PayPal and PayPal X as our patrons and sponsors (or perhaps you prefer the word underwriters).  Without their support, this would have just been another unfunded great idea.

Given the nature of this conference, we wanted to do something special.  We wanted to cover the conference and the city in a way we haven’t been able to do yet. This week is your chance to peak behind the curtain, to join a bunch of bloggers and to participate in a way you have never been able to do before.  So join us, be a part of our Social Media Club House and help us make the most of this great opportunity together.

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