Preserving our Fondest Memories Digitally - SMC San Francisco Thursday Sep 20

Join us this Thursday September 20, 2007 in San Francisco at Adobe’s offices beginning at 630pm for a fascinating look at how we are preserving our memories and sharing them with our loved ones (please register here). Social Media, emerging technologies and storytelling are changing the way we connect and stay connected with our families and friends - but what about those folks who don’t know Web 2.0, or those that are not digital natives. How can they preserve their memories and share their favorite stories? This is more than just another look at Flickr and YouTube.

We are going to take a look at a great service I first heard about from Social Media Club Phoenix called iMemories, when I met Linda VandeVrede, their PR Director. Joining us for this discussion will be Mark Rukavina, their CEO wo will talk about some of his insights from helping the boomer generation leverage Social Media technologies. He will also address some of the difficulties of dealing with non-digital media and the solutions they have developed for digitizing them and storing them in higher quality.

Additionally, I am very excited to have our long time friend and very early supporter Jen Myronuk joining us to talk about the importance of digital storytelling and her experience interviewing important senior community leaders before the pass away. Jen is the founder of Storyfield and brings a unique perspective to this subject that is very complementary to Mark’s.

We will kick off the evening with a short introduction on the topic and share some personal experiences about how we are each preserving our memories today. Mark and Jen will each then give separate presentations, discussing the social and technical issues involved. We will then dive into a round table discussion of the challenges we each face in preserving our own memories - from conversion, to storage, to sharing and even educating our families about how to use the tools.

Many thanks to Adobe for hosting us and sponsoring this great event with food and drinks. We will have informal networking from 630-7pm, kicking off the discussion and presentations promptly at 7pm and going through 830pm. Please register here so we have an accurate head count for food!

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CommonCraft Paperwork: RSS in Plain English

Great video from Lee and Sachi LeFever working to craft a better explanation of RSS for everyday folks. Good idea, and something we want to see more people trying to do - coming up with their own stories explaining the real value they get from their tools and how they use them. It is in their new ‘paperwork’ format and the first in what I imagine will be many such episodes, Video: RSS in Plain English.

The important thing to note here is that just because it has been done, doesn’t mean you can’t improve on it by trying your own creative explanation, but do give them some good feedback and love over on their blog. I think the one thing missing really was a good podsafe music background. I kept getting a Mr Bill vibe, was a little worried for the little guy sitting at this computer really… I really miss those great clay figure shows - perhaps Lee was channeling a bit…

I tried to embed the video here, but it is not cooperating with WordPress, so check it out over on their site… Video: RSS in Plain English.

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Better Interviews - SMC San Francisco

On 20FEB2007, we gathered at CNet headquarters in San Francisco to talk with Tom Abate of the San Francisco Chronicle (and ) about interview techniques. It was certainly the right group of people for this topic, with some people just getting started like Lorna Li of and her friend/new editor Marianne Betterly, a veteran from radio Stacy Bond of and Peter Shaplen, a veteran television producer. Listen in to this 87min podcast for some really valuable insights. We had a great, diverse group of people sharing their experience and helping each other with this important topic. The group included about 20 people, from our new advisor Tom Buckholtz to good friend Andy Kaufman to Jordan Gray & Jonathan Grindstaff.

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Quick 5 minute Audio - “What is Social Media?”

Ramon Ray of SmallBizTechnology.com did an audio interview with me (scroll down a little bit) on the floor of the NY XPO last month. The audio quality is a little scratchy because it was a trade show floor of over 10,000 people, but you can find me answering some basic questions around “What is Social Media,” “Why is Social Media relevant to a small business person” and “Are Blogs just for Geeks?”

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Can You ‘Get’ Social Media in an Afternoon?

Probably not entirely, but we think we have designed a great event that will set you on the right path, or help you get the most important bits so you can make the most of this opportunity for your company. If you are a Communications Professional in Silicon Valley (PR, Marketing, Advertising) this is exactly the sort of opportunity you have been seeking to learn all about Social Media Strategy and Tactics. You may even be the lucky one that wins a ‘blue sky’ consulting session live on stage with Robert Scoble from PodTech.net, Lisa Stone from BlogHer, Giovanni Rodriguez of HubBub and myself, Chris Heuer.

On Monday October 23, from 1:00-6:15 PM we are holding a workshop at the SAP Offices in Palo Alto, CA entitled From Social Media to Corporate Media which costs $150 and includes a great cocktail party afterwards where we can mix and mingle and and absorb the insights from the great conversations of the day. The event is described in detail along with some more background on the development plans for Social Media Club, so I won’t get into that too much here except to say thank you to SAP, Fleishman Hillard and PR Newswire for sponsoring the event and making it possible. Equal thanks to media sponsor Silicon Valley Watcher’s Tom Foremski who was extremely helpful in the original planning, but who will unfortunately be out of town on that date due to other commitments.

Since this workshop is unlike any you have ever experienced, I won’t bother linking directly to the registration page - you need to read about it in more detail first.

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