“A lot of great things happened with Social Media over the past year - some expected and some surprises. What are the most important things that have happened in Social Media during the past year? Imagine yourself sitting here one year from today - what do you hope you would say about what happened in 2007?”

On Tuesday night we will be in Portland at Fehrenbacher Hof, on Wednesday night we will be in Seattle at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, and on Thursday we will be at Bryght offices in Vancouver, B.C. So if you are in any of those towns and have an interest in talking with other Social Media peeps who get it, please register for a Round Table near you (Portland, Seattle or Vancouver) and join us with your experience and insights. There is no cost to attend and we will most likely be heading out for some food and drink afterwards.

On a more personal note, many thanks to my friends who are helping to make this whole thing possible. Tomorrow (TUE DEC 5, 2006) Alex Williams of Podcast Hotel and Feedia is my gracious host and lead organizer in Portland, along with his other friends from Portland Social Media Portland (PDXSOCIALMEDIA) Tim Germer (Northwest Noise) and John Hartman. Not only did he line up the venue and get several cool, smart people to join us, he is also letting me crash at his place so I dont have to put money into the hotel system. It sounds like they have found a really kick ass place to host the gathering and have some great food and beer options for afterwards.

On Wednesday, I am in Seattle crashing at Randy Stewart’s suburban jewel (thanks to his wife and young baby for opening your doors). In addition to Randy, both Chris Pirillo and Mitch Ratcliffe have been helping get things underway up there - I am really looking forward to seeing who all might have some time to really help push things forward in Seattle.

Then I am in Vancouver on Thursday, being hosted by my good friends up at Bryght (who host BrainJams and have an all around kick ass Drupal hosting environment). I am actually staying at a hotel that night, though I could have had a couch somewhere - I just figured after all the airport time this week, I am going to need some real rest and quiet.

While I have a few meetings lined up and a ton of work to do from the road, I am happy to set aside some free time during the day to meet with folks for a chat. I will most likely be working somewhere near the evening venues, but I have a rental car which makes me somewhat mobile. Just let me know if you are interested through my blog or call my cell or email.

SMC London Agenda

Social Media Club Agenda
for 15 September, 2006
London, United Kingdom
@ the offices of Fleishman Hillard in Covent Garden

A. Introductions to one another (5-10 Minutes)
Your name, organization and 3 tags that describe you and your interests.

1 - Conversation about Social Media Club (<20 Minutes)
What is the purpose of Social Media Club and what great things can we do as a group? How might we build a diverse community of hobbyists and professional practicioners?

2 - Conversation about Social Media (30 Minutes)
What are the pre-requisites of broader usage of Social Media across society, among individuals and organizations, particularly here in the United Kingdom?

3 - Conversation about the future of the Press Release (30 Minutes)
Is the press release dead, evolving or irrelevant? What might be done to make it more valuable? What is the big idea behind the New Media Release (aka hRelease)?

[really looking forward to this event, which is just 2 hours away...]

Going Beyond Silicon Valley…

In last week’s NMRCast, I mentioned that I was considering an extended trip to host a few Social Media Club meetings outside Silicon Valley. On Saturday evening, Kristie and I decided that I should commit to the trip and see if providence would really move.

We are still working out the details and are looking for client opportunities, sponsorships and other support, but here is the initial schedule we are working with:

9/13 - Arrive in London, get my bearings and stay with the ever insightful Jackie Danicki
9/14 - Open day of meetings, XPRL Meeting at 3pm
9/15 - Afternoon/evening - Social Media Club London Kickoff Meeting
9/18 - Fly to New York, Social Media Club New York Kickoff Meeting that evening
9/21 - Fly to Miami, Social Media Club South Florida Kickoff Meeting (or on 9/25?)
9/22 - Drive to Orlando for Blog Orlando to hang out with Josh and all the other Disney loving Bloggers out there
9/25 - In Miami for business meetings
9/26 - Fly home to San Francisco in the early evening

In planning for this trip, and discussing Social Media Club operations, it became clear that my original goals for hosting 25 or more Founders Circle Events this fall was overly optimistic. We are still assesing this aspect of the launch plans, but intend to hold true to the spirit of the original idea - to get out into the rest of the world and understand how other people view social media and learn what people want from a Social Media association.

I can not begin to tell you how excited I am about this trip. More details to come later this week…

Social Media in Silicon Valley

For lunch today I met with former ‘eastwicker’ Giovanni Rodriguez and Silicon Valley Watcher’s Tom Foremski to discuss ideas we had for hosting a conversation on Social Media among Silicon Valley Marketing and PR professionals. After a couple of hours of brainstorming and bs’ing, we have a great idea for doing something unique. We are organizing an event that will provide key insights and strategies for Silicon Valley communication’s professionals to make the most of Social Media, and right now, we are looking at holding the evnt in the 2nd half of October.

Giovanni and Tom have agreed to be Co-Chairs of this event, as well as becoming Presenting Sponsors. They will be helping with the content, event design and promotion - ensuring we have the right mix of participants. Yes, we are taking about a participatory, interactive dialogue rather than a “Panel’s and Podium’s” sort of event - but more on that to come over the weeks ahead as the details fall into place. We are also making this a fee based event, rather than a free one, with discounts for Social Media Club members (more on that piece to come after Burning Man and the Labor Day Holiday).

At the moment, we need help with the big pieces of this emerging puzzle - venue, sponsors, volunteers. We have some good location leads in Silicon Valley, but we are still open to other suggestions or opportunities. If you have any interest in helping with this event, please do contact us and let us know.

I am very, very excited to have the combined wisdom and support of two of the most enlightened Social Media thought leaders I know. This is a powerful first step in expanding the types of programs we are offering through Social Media Club - we are certainly off to a good start, and heading in the right direction.

Social Media Club Meeting Details

We have been slammed for the last couple of weeks, achieving some great progress but not having much chance to write, but that changes this week with our first meeting on Wednesday and much more to talk about. Before getting into the week though, I wanted to get a real headcount on who is coming to the meeting on Wednesday in person, so please RSVP on this event registration page we created at Mollyguard.

If you are unable to attend in person, you can grab one of the 10 Free Conference Call spots by downloading the Meeeting Call-In Details PDF and joining us by phone at 6:30pm PST Wednesday August 16th. You can also access this call via Gizmo Project which is a Skype like VOIP product. If you join via Gizmo, follow the same instructions from the PDF.

Finally, we will be running a back channel on Internet Relay Chat. You can join us during the call, or even at many times before the call on irc.freenode.net on the #SocialMediaClub channel. If you have any questions, please comment here…

The First Public Meeting of SMC

Making Social Media Club More Real Than Real

Wow! I can hardly believe how much has happened over the past week, but it seems we really hit the nail on the head with Social Media Club - and for once I am on trend instead of a year ahead of it! I must be slowing down in my old age!

In the New Media Release Podcast we did yesterday, I referenced that we would be holding an organizational meeting here in the Bay Area very soon. Today I received confirmation from Seth Mazow that we will be able to use the conference room at Interplast for this meeting to be held on Wednesday August 16th from 6-8PM. For some reason I thought it was Redwood City, but their offices are actually in Mountain View. I will post the details in another post once I get the Structured Blogging setup for creating an hCal Microformat post for the event.

At the moment I am talking to people in New York, Los Angeles, London and Toronto about establishing Social Media Club in those cities. I don’t know how much they want to say about their involvement yet since we are just beginning the conversation, but I can say that great minds think alike! Many other people see the bigger picture we see and I am excited for the opportunity to come together as a community.

This is why I have always felt it so important to do this as an open community process rather than trying to claim solo ownership on this endeavour. I really don’t know what its final form will be, I just know that there must be good intentions at the core of what we do and that shared values must drive all of our actions - regardless of our political, cultural or ideological differences. It is also the reason for taking it to the streets - for getting out of Silicon Valley and emrbacing a real global perspective on this new era of our economy.

I was just Skyping with Heather Gold of Subvert fame about some of the things that are happening in the business world today. She pointed me to an article about her approach to Open Source Management which was written up in WebMonkey. I think she is onto something here - it very much feels like the sort of approach we want to take with organizing Social Media Club.

If we are to make this thing more real than real, we will need to do it together and we can learn a lot from the practices of the open source community. It looks like a few of the first ‘co-founders’ are starting to step forward - I hope they, and the others that will follow understand this ideal and choose to engage with us together rather than going it alone.

There is a world of opportunity that awaits - let’s seize upon this today and make the most of it!

Building the Social Media Clubhouse

Now that we are ready to blow the roof off this joint and actually start promoting what we are doing to the world (instead of talking to a small audience of friends and colleagues), it is time to talk about our vision for how we will build Social Media Club from a discussion into a loosely joined association of passionate people. As I explained in the first post on this blog, “we wish to build a community that is truly of, by, and for the people it serves - people from all walks of life who care about, benefit from and create Social Media.” The question is how do we make this well intentioned idealism real?

The answer is first we need to turn the lights on. Then we start talking about our vision. We see who shows up. We listen. We embrace the ideas that are aligned with our values. We adapt our plans according to the needs and wishes of the community. We build a truly democratic process that encourages participation by respecting the value and contributions of every individual. We believe that smart, passionate leaders will emerge and step up to the challenge. They will be the ones who make Social Media Club a reality - all we have done is gather the firewood and and hand over the match.

The conversations about the future of Social Media Club will happen online though Social Media like Blogs, via our email discussion list on Yahoo Groups, within other ad-hoc group discussions, and most importantly through a series of BrainJams styled events we are organizing around the country over the next several months. These conversations will hopefully culminate with the formal Social Media Club launch at our Web 2point2 BrainJam in November 2006. So the next few months will be spent figuring out what we all collectively want from a group like Social Media Club, identifying who will be leading the organization, refining the values we want to encourage as a community, and working together on projects we want to support - whether our own or other’s that exist such as Creative Commons, Internet Archive and MicroFormats.

Over the next few weeks we will schedule a series of Social Media Club “Founder’s Circle” events around the country, and hopefully around the world, to discuss the future of social media in society. These half day and full day unconferences will bring together communications professionals, bloggers, podcasters, journalists, tool makers, service providers, teachers, artists, and others who are passionate about social media for the purpose of making connections and reinforcing local communities around our shared interests. The events will be slightly more structured than a typical Open Space, but will fully embody shared leadership and encourage active participation - with some sessions being very short monologues or demonstrations (no powerpoint), more sessions embracing Dave Winer’s principles for Discussion Leaders and others using the World Cafe format.

While the exact format of the Founder’s Circle events are still being determined, we have four outcomes we will seek from each event, with the final outcome being the formal launch of the organization.

1. Bringing people together in the local community to discover each other and share your understanding of Social Media. In essence, we hope to draw out the people who ‘get it’ to share what they know with others, so that more and more people eventually understand why Social Media is so powerful.

2. To discuss the operational plans for Social Media Club, improving upon them by brainstorming ideas for projects while engaging people more fully in the projects we are already undertaking, such as the New Media Release (hRelease) and local Social Media Club unconferences.

3. To identify local chapter leaders who are interested in making the vision for Social Media Club a reality where it really matters - within each community.

4. Finally, and most importantly, we will take this opportunity to collaborate with each other like paramedia around important areas of interest, organizing educational resources so that people who are trying to learn about Social Media can easily get involved and start creating.

In case it is not clear at this point, the primary focus we have for the organization is to help more people and organizations understand and fully utilize the potential of Social Media such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, vlogs, tagging, and peer to peer unconferences. The technology is important, and will play a big part in our work, but only as a tool that makes the world a better place for the people that use them. This principle is first and foremost in our thinking about the Social Media Club organization and applies equally to independents, small businesses, large corporations, artists, government entities, not for profits, for profits, educational institutions, communications firms - whether professional or amateur, from all walks of life.

Over the past several months with BrainJams, we have explored the world of ad-hoc collaboration, social learning, leadership, large group dialogue and what many people still refer to as Web 2.0. Through this process we have learned much about what works and what does not. Admittedly, I personally still have a lot to learn in this regards, but we have all come far in a short period of time. One area of particular concern is the delicate balance between too little structure and too much, and how the nature of the tools shapes the nature of participation. We hope to achieve this balance for the majority of everyday people and professionals who care about Social Media, but I expect we will make some mistakes along the way, so I am asking for some forgiveness for some of the screw ups I will make along the way.

This is where you can really help a great deal - besides joining the discussion on our Yahoo Group, volunteering to help, sponsoring one of our many Social Media Club Founder’s Circle Unconferences, or financially supporting us through a Membership, what we really need from you is your ideas, your feedback, your leadership and your complete honesty.

As Howard Rheingold says (and I often quote) “What it is –> is up to you.”

Technorati Tags: ad-hoc+collaboration, barcamp, brainjams, fillingthefunnel, heartofbusiness, hRelease, newmedia, newmediarelease, pr2.0, smc:founderscircle, socialconference, socialmediaclub, Web2.0, Web2.1