Social Media Workshop on UStream.tv

I am very happy to report that a good portion of the Social Media Workshop we are doing on Monday at SAP will be broadcast live on UStream. While we will be able to take some questions during the course of the day from the chat room, our attention will be mostly focused on paying participants in the actual room.  To tune in on Monday from wherever you are in the world, go to our Social Media Workshop Channel on UStream at 9am PST on Monday June 11, 2007.

We could really use some help running the camera and monitoring the chat room for questions, so if you have experience with managing some light Web A/V and would be willing to volunteer, please leave a comment here and I will contact you about arranging a free pass.

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Social Media Workshops

Today, Social Media Club will announce “Starting the Conversation,” our first series of day-long business workshops, at SocialMediaWorkshop.com. The first will be June 11 at SAP headquarters in Palo Alto. Then we move to New York City on June 19th; Boston, June 21 and Austin June 26.
Consultant-writer Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations, How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, has agreed to be host-moderator for the entire series. Shel has been a frequent and well-received keynote speaker on social media issues to business audiences in Europe and North America.

In each city, guest instructors prominent in social media will join us. They will be announced as we get closer to each event. These workshops are designed for mid and upper level professionals who are interested in not just getting the big picture of how social media is fundamentally changing business, it is for people who want to understand real and actionable tactics for bringing social media media programs into their work environment, without fear and based on programs that will show co-workers the value of social media. (More information on the agenda page.)
Tickets are on sale now, with an early-bird discount for those who purchase seats soon. Also available is a package where attendees can purchase membership to Social Media Club and obtain the member discount of 10% off the advertised price. (Existing Social Media Club Professional, Small Business and Corporate members can also benefit from discount code SMCMEMBER). We hope to see you there.
Technorati Tags: socialmediaworkshop, socialmediaclub, shelisrael, blogging, education

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Storytelling and the Blogospehere -Third Thursday April 2007

This is the recording from Third Thursday’s monthly meetup in Silicon Valley on April 19, 2007. This month’s discussion featured a great presentation from Elisa Camahort and Kathy Klotz-Guest called “How Storytelling is (Still) Critical to Communications in the Blogosphere”. There are really some wonderful insights here that get at the heart of branding, engagement and blogging’s role facilitating both. From the event’s description:

As companies try to figure out how to use blogs and other social media tools to engage with customers, successfully participating in the blogosphere remains a bit of mystery to many marketing and PR professionals. Social media initiatives can’t be spin, but companies must have a compelling story to tell about their brand, culture, products, and customers in their online activities. At the heart of every communications effort must be a story. Storytelling can be an organic process that comes from open dialog with customers.

More feedback on the Meetup from attendees and a full description of the event is available on the group’s Meetup page.

Many thanks to Jen McClure and the Society of New Communications Research for sponsoring this month’s Meetup.

Download MP3 File

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Social Media Bay Area Events Update!

I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s Social Media Club meeting here in San Francisco. Raines Cohen will be leading a conversation around the topic he just wrote about on DailyKos:

“how do blogs, vlogs, petitions, podcasts, bulletin boards, email lists and forwards, chat, Content-Management Systems (CMS), and even Twitter help us communicate, organize, inspire, and fight rumor, despair, and malicious campaigns.”

Saving the Earth through Social Media: Blogging the Global Climate Crisis

From my perspective, this is a very interesting opportunity to discuss how people participating in the Global Climate debate engage with each other. Which tools they are using and why? To better understand from practical examples how social media tools are being used by passionate people, in a debate on an issue that affects us all.

Given that this is San Francisco, I think it is important to note here that we are trying to focus on how respectful disagreement is handled, and how flat out untruths are spun by people on all sides of the issue to the detriment of everyone else involved. The point is not to engage in the debate around Climate Change, but to focus on new ways that people connect with each other around shared interests and how those people communicate and collaborate with each other in that context.

There is a lot to be learned by all…

San Francisco Leadership Team

With all of the travel and other commitments, I am finding it difficult to put enough attention into getting this together in the way I would like each month. So I am hoping a few of you might consider joining the local leadership team for San Francisco. This will help to ensure the key pieces come together each month for a great conversation and we can also find ways to work together and support our community. Immediately following the San Francisco discussion in San Francisco, we will meet briefly to discuss and plan for next months discussion and review other logistics. Please comment here if you are interested.

Silicon Valley Group Starts!

I am really greateful for the support of Meredith Smith from NBC11 and Mike McGrath of Tacit Partners in getting Silicon Valley started. Meredith has been working hard at trying to put something real together for different types of media producers to come together and talk with each other. She really ‘gets it’ and I have been very happy to have been working with her on this. Mike popped up out of thin air it seems, with a lot of great insights on what is happening today and a wealth of experience in technology driven media innovation.

This sort of event is right in line with our thinking about how we all have something to learn from each other - the people I have spoken with at NBC sincerely want to be part of the conversation, to listen and learn, and to share what they know so we can all produce better quality media. From my perspective this is a great opportunity for a serious discussion between traditional and citizen journalists, as well as the media technologists of the Valley. I hope you will join us for a great evening - the first event will be a World Cafe at the NBC11 Studios in San Jose discussing “The Future of Local News”. Due to the format, there is a limited number of seats - see the Silicon Valley page and register at EventBrite to attend. We will also be meeting briefly after this event to talk about the next Silicon Valley conversation topic and to see what we might be able to do to support the needs of the community.

If this topic is interesting to you, you are probably interested in hearing Dan Gilmore and JD Lassica speak this Wednesday in Palo Alto on “Citizen Media“. We are very forunate to have some of the brightest thinkers around on this important topic - I hope to see you there.

MeshWalk!!!

If you are in the mood for inspiration tomorrow, join up with our friend’s Pascale Diaine of Orange and Shannon Clark of Never Eat Lunch Alone for Mobile Meshwalk. This is a great way to have fun, while exploring the city and talking with some really smart folks. When I helped Shannon with his first MeshWalk in Seattle, great podcasts and exceptional insights were found, along with some great friendships amongst us all (special props out to Dallas’ own Giovanni Galluci who has recently decided not to blog (text) any longer).

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Does Old Media “Get it?”

I noticed this article, Web 2.0: Does ‘old media’ get it? by ZDNet’s Donna Bogatin discusses the meme started by friend of Social Media Club Tom Foremski regarding are companies like Google the New Media companies, which also implies the NY/Hollywood crowd are over.
Donna comes out with some good ideas about NYC, including some ideas on why as media content companies, the NY scene may be even more valuable than the valley folks realize. But I don’t think anyone wants this to be an east-west smackdown.
Those around in NYC tonight and who already signed up at NextNY’s wiki will get a chance to discuss “New York’s Present and Future as a Place to Foster Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” and perhaps figure out how to reinvent the parts of NY that aren’t working as well as they could. See you there later.

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PLEASE READ: Details for San Francisco January 16th meeting

We are very excited for our Social Media Club Round Table in San Francisco - which became so popular, we not only had to close registrations, but we have had to change the format for the event to accommodate the group - we also need your help in finding a sponsor to cover the costs, so read more below.

As a result of your enthusiasm, we have been inspired to launch a new series of events we will be hosting regularly around the world called the Social Media Café.

http://www.socialmediacafe.com/ will be launching soon

Additionally, we are very pleased to announce that we have the support of Thomas Hurley, a master at facilitating The World Café format, which we have used successfully in the past. If you are not familiar with The World Café format, it is in essence a series of small group conversations you will have with other participants focused on key questions of interest to the group. This is a great way to tap into the collective intelligence of the room, by enabling the insights and experiences to bubble up from the small groups to be shared with the larger group.

You can find out more about The World Café @ http://www.theworldcafe.org/

VERY VERY IMPORTANT

• I had originally intended to purchase beverages and snacks myself for this event, but with the event size being what it is, could really use a sponsor/patron. Since it is last minute, we just want to cover costs. If anyone is interested, please contact me at 408.834.0884 or leave a comment in this post.
• If you can not make it to the event, please let us know so we can open up your spot to someone else. There are over 160 people attending/watching on Upcoming!
• If you know of someone else who wants to come, please have them contact us to be put on the waiting list.
• We would very much like to start this conversation before we get together and keep it going afterwards. To that end, if you have something that has been keeping you up at night you want to talk about regarding what you hope to see happen with Social Media in 2007, or what you want to prevent from happening, write it up and tag it with ‘SMCafe1′. We are also very interested in talking with you about what you want to see from us, as a community of Social Media Practitioners, so any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

There is a lot more to talk about, but we can save that for next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend! We are looking forward to seeing you on TUE night.

=======Event: Social Media Club - San Francisco========

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From Social Media to Corporate Media - SM2CM

It’s easy to get caught up in the rapidly evolving world of social media and sometimes I have to stop and remember that there’s a whole other world out there that thinks social media is a group of friendly journalists.

Over the last several months I have had the opportunity to help start and participate in the Social Media Club along with Chris Heuer. In the last six months, I have learned more than I have in practicing traditional PR for years. It’s one thing to practice it in your own bubble, but it’s another to learn and share with each other; and that’s the point of Social Media Club, “If you get it, share it.”

On 10/23, we held our first event, From Social Media to Corporate Media at the SAP offices in Palo Alto.

Social Media Club was formed to help share all things social media and how it applies and benefits the world of marketing communications.

The goals are simple:

Promote media literacy – production and consumption

Promote ethics and standards

Share best practices around the emerging area of Social Media

Chris Heuer kicked things off with a profound assessment, “There is more wisdom in the room than what stands in front of you. And it’s this collection of shared wisdom that will help us collectively learn.”

He quickly reviewed the differences between strategy and tactics, as keynote Robert Scoble was focusing on SM Strategy and co-keynote, Lisa Stone of BlogHer discussed SM tactics.

So to recap, strategy is about goals and the plans to reach those goals and tactics are the activities and attitudes to execute.

So what does from SM2CM mean? The cost of production has dramatically reduced the price of admission, which is opening the door for the masses to produce and share content on their own.

If you look at the Cluetrain mantra that says “markets are conversations,” then it has definitely been manifested in the form of social media. Social media represents the opportunity to engage with customers, potential, stakeholders, employees and anyone else that shares relevant content. In the corporate world, businesses can apply social media in the form of blogs, podcasts and video blogs.

Why? Because it opens up the corporate kimono and allows customers and company executives to enter a forum of productive dialogue. Transparency is the new honesty - instead of its old meaning, hollow or fake - and at the root of social media, we’re quickly learning that we don’t market “to” anymore, we “talk” with those who make up the market.

It’s about being human and being connected.

According to Heuer, “you can’t manage micro segments in the long tail.” He’s right. The segment manages itself, although you can do your part to reach them using SM tools that interact with them directly or with those around them.

In today’s social media world, it’s all about people and listening. Participation is marketing nowadays, and the goal is not to focus all efforts on controlling the message, but simply trying to be part of the conversations that are taking place with or without you.Again, listening is more important than talking.

True engagement is genuine and value driven, and not focused on sales! To reference Heuer, it is the “because of” effect. I’m here “because of” my desire to learn about social media. I purchased your service, “because of” my trust in the company’s honest and open door communications policy. Remember, as social media marketers, we’re not here to sell, we’re here to share and we’re also here to listen to our customers.

So, coming back to social media and what it means to corporate media…

By integrating social media tools, we can reach our customers in a whole new way that also encourages them to in turn, socialize your company and its products/services. It’s all about opening up channels to listen, participate, and befriend and help markets.

More to come…

For additional coverage on the SM2CM event, please visit Jeremiah Owyang and Giovanni Rodriguez.

For more pictures, jump to one of the several SM2CM flickr streams. Additional Social Media Club event pictures, including a collective repository of pix from SM2CM, are also available here.

Tags: socialmediaclub chrisheuer briansolis futureworks robertscoble lisastone blogher pr pr2.0 publicrelations sm2cm giovannirodriguez

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Talking About Disclosure Round Table Recap

Wow! What a great conversation tonight over at CNet’s Headquarters here in San Francisco - thanks again to Joel Sacks and Rafe Needleman for hosting us there. Unfortunately my M-Audio died again in a new and interesting way - thankfully Martin Mckeay had his trusty iRiver and we will be posting audio of the nearly two hour conversation soon. You can subscribe to the Social Media Club podcast via iTunes by searching for Social Media Club in their podcast directory.

As for the meat of the matter, it was quickly clear that the issue of disclosure is one that impacts everyone and everyone understands its importance in the broader context. When one person makes a bad decision, everyone is impacted so it is an issue that everyone wants to work on together. The mix of people was pretty good with 19 people showing up including Rafe Needleman, Mike Arrington, Tantek Celik, Joel Sacks, Greg Narain, Brian Solis, Sean Savage, Shannon Clark, Vic Podcaster, Sanford Barr, Jeremy, Daniel Riveong, Pete Kazanjy, Glenda Bautista, Matt Levine, James Yu with nearly everyone contributing some great points. (too many links to research and create this late tonight - my apologies everyone)
There were a few key points that emerged from my perspective:

• I started off the conversation talking about this era needing to embrace the 3 T’s (as opposed to the old focus on the 3 C’s) which are Transparency, Truth and Trust
• There are a lot of grey areas so absolute rules are hard to come by here, we should strive for greater understanding of best practices (which is the purpose of Social Media Club)
• Disclosure is somewhat situational in nature and will vary by geography and culture
• The biggest issue is seemingly one of media literacy amongst media consumers as much as it is an issue for those producing media
• Everyone is biased in some way, journalists are not immune as we are all human - bloggers need more appreciation of how they can be influenced
• We all get free drinks from time to time (including everyone who attended tonight) but that usually is not enough to be bought
• We need to find a great and easy to understand metaphor/story about what is ok and what is not ok
• We have more to figure out and map than one discussion could allow

Kristie Wells took some good notes of what people had to say which are available in a MindJet MindMap format as well as a PDF and also took some good photos. Personally, I am really looking forward to listening to the audio and dissecting some of the finer points of the discussion. Perhaps someone out there will take the MindMap and re-organize it according to topics rather than speakers and that will really move it forward. (you can download a free trial from MindJet or get their free MindMap viewer if you want to play with it - yes MindJet has sponsored our events in the past, but I bought the software before we had a relationship because I loved it so much)

At the end of the conversation, Mike Arrington made a proposal that:

We begin a dialogue and process that we all agree to adhere to the outcome of in regards to what is the proper, ethical way to handle disclosure - even if it is not the one I want, I will agree to abide by the group’s decision. We also need to have a meethod of resolution for challenges to ethics where the process can begin in private first so that people can not use such challenges to create controvery and generate increased page views and notoriety through baseless accusations. (paraphrased, not quoted)

So we have opened up the Social Media Club Wiki (password is ‘media’ without the quotes) to start working on a real Social Media Code of Ethics which will be adopted as the standard for the club and all members to endorse. Rafe Needleman suggested we keep our initial efforts focused, perhaps just on Technology Bloggers so we can avoid some of those muddier grey areas and I think he is probably right about that.

The entire effort is adopting the tag “blogger+ethics” (tip of the hat to Greg Narain on the added value the plus sign has here). We would like to start by tagging all relevant codes of ethics thusly and also all opinions on these matters to be collected in Blog posts tagged similarly to help us start focusing. Also, start making use of the Wiki to begin our work on this important effort.

There is a lot more to discuss here and we came up with some more interesting ideas for the Disclosr service that Social Media Club is beginning to develop. As I suspected in my post last night, this is only the beginning of a very important and high impact conversation.

Thanks to everyone for coming out. I am looking forward to continuing this conversation in DC next Monday and Boston next Thursday at the Round Tables we are holding there. I imagine it will be a part of the conversation in New York tonight as well.

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Talking About Disclosure - A Social Media Club Roundtable

I think about disclosure or talk about it with someone almost every day. Often it is in regards to whether or not I am able to disclose something because it has to do with advice I am giving clients, which happens all the time if you write about the field in which you work. If I am able to do so, then the question becomes whether I should write about it. Rather than just thinking about it on my own, I thought it best to organize a conversation among those who care about this issue here in San Francisco and put together a last minute Social Media Club roundtable at CNet’s headquarters for Wednesday October 25, 2006 from 6:00-8:00 PM. Thanks to Joel Sacks for helping secure the space at the last minute. While it will probably be a small turnout, it looks like it will be a great bunch of people who will have a lot to say on this subject.

The issue of disclosure came to the forefront recently with the Edelman problems with the Wal-Marting Across America blog and then two other ‘flogs’ that were being written by Edelman employees. The thing is, I did not want people to think I am just calling out the utter failure of the Social Media consultants at Edelman to do the right thing because I work as an independent contractor with Fleishman Hillard, a competing PR agency who used to do Wal-Mart work (I was never involved with that account). Look how much text I had to use to disclose that one portion of my interest in it. Then consider the 20 or so minutes I have spent editing that disclosure to make sure it sounded right, addressed the important points and fit into the story. I have a lot to say on the Edelman story, but so much else has already been said. I think I will be talking about it for a long time to come, because their failure to be transparent and authentic is a huge lesson for corporations which hopefully won’t be repeated, but most likely will.

My newfound emphasis on the topic of disclosure, however, came from my friend Mike Arrington’s little dustup with traditional journalists at the Online News Association conference which Jeff Jarvis writes about here and Mike writes about here. The subsequent post by Nicholas Carr called ‘A glass house‘ really struck a deep chord with me. I know Mike and I don’t believe he is purposely trying to deceive anyone, but he does have a competitive streak and many other interests across the Web 2.0 landscape which puts him in a precarious position. From my discussions with many people, there are no truly easy ways to make disclosures and there is no standard accepted practices for how to disclose and when to disclose. As I have consulted my clients over the years, it is often the perception of impropriety that is the problem not the actions themselves.

In speaking with Scott Rafer last week at the Dogster party, he reminded me of another important bit - sometimes there are interests that people can not disclose because they are not allowed to talk about the relationship they have for legal or other security reasons. To his point, it is indeed a very gray area which needs some more light shed on it for everyone of us to understand better. It is also, as my friend and colleague Stowe Boyd has pointed out previously, a problem in dire need of a solution.

This is why I immediately resolved to do something about it and began to organize a Social Media Club Roundtable for Wednesday October 25 called “Talking About Disclosure.” What I hope we get from the event is a great discussion about the best practices around disclosure of interests in pursuit of a common understanding of how to properly apply the principles of transparency and authenticity. The conversation has already begun, with great articles written by Jason Calcanis (older but relevant post), Shel Holtz, Matthew Ingram and Todd Defren. We want to bring that conversation into real time, with a focus on the solution. Also, we want to move from conversation to action, so we are hoping that we can produce a set of guidelines to recommend as best practices for people to use, which will ultimately be a part of the pledge we ask members to make when joining Social Media Club. We also will address WOMMA’s lack of action on the Edelman fiasco which is a point Shel Holtz makes in his post - though I don’t know what we can do differently.

Lisa Stone brought our attention to a post by a former Edelman employee on Blogher at our workshop yesterday in which Lisa points out some of the key requirements around disclosure that need to be addressed by a blogger.

What kind of commitment should bloggers make to their readers? I’m one of the people who thinks every blog owes its readers four answers, whether the blog is a corporate blog, a news blog or a personal diary:

1. Who are the bloggers?
2. What are the bloggers doing?
3. Why are the bloggers doing this?
4. Why do I — the reader — care?

The Wal-Mart blog flunks every question:

Finally, in the pursuit of full disclosure (which may come back to bite me in the ass for doing so too early), we have begun to work on a new service called Disclosr which will simplify the process of making disclosures for professionals who produce Social Media. The service will be available for free for all Professional members of Social Media Club and for a nominal subscription fee for non members. It will leverage the understanding we jointly develop of best practices for disclosure at the heart of the service. That still won’t cover all the gray areas that Scott Rafer pointed out last week, but it will get us further than not doing anything. There probably is not enough money in that business to be a really profitable standalone business, but as a public benefit that furthers the advancement of Social Media, it fits perfectly with our mission of supporting ethics.

In the end it comes down to the same thing I have been telling publishers and broadcasters for the past 12 years - don’t ever squander the trust you have with your audience by not being completely truthful. The public (aka audience) will revolt if you do and they will speak up and call you on it. Even though there are a number of assholes in the world with their personal axes to grind who may attack for the sake of being able to do so, most people won’t buy into that crap - particularly if you have continuously proven your trustworthiness over time while building a great relationship with your audience.

If Mike Arrington does have a conflict of interest, whether real or perceived, it is usually revealed by comment #5. The difference between Blogging and traditional journalism is that Mike then engages in real conversations to explain why the commenter may be wrong and admits when they are right, making a correction or clarifying the original statement. This is what often happens when having a conversation with real people - the story is much bigger than we are able to get across in the time we have to speak, so it sometimes takes a few rounds of back and forth to get to all the important points. I am not an apologist for Mike, he can handle that himself quite well, I am just trying to point out that Blogging and other forms of Social Media is conversational and there is more to it than just perceiving someone has evil intentions.

Wheww, I actually have left out many other important points that are worthy of discussion and will bring up when we get together tomorrow. I am sure you could probably add a few dozen more, particularly when we get to talking about real world situations. So please add to the conversation here in the comments and join us at CNet’s Headquarters in San Francisco on Wednesday October 25, 2006 from 6-8pm. Please do RSVP on Upcoming so I know how much soda and beer we need to bring to keep the conversation flowing…

PS - I had been speaking with Mike Arrington about participating, and he agreed to do so - in addition to inviting other journalists and interested parties. After waiting for over a week for him to respond to my emails, voicemails and text messages after initially saying yes and being enthusiastic, it doesn’t look like he is coming. Or then again, perhaps one of his readers or other friends will point it out and he may write a post on Crunchnotes.

[10/25 update - Mike Arrington was sick and dealing with the financing on Edegeio which is why I did not hear back from him - he actually saw the post himself and was kind enough to write up something this afternoon on TechCrunch and will hopefully be joining us this evening.]

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The other Web 2.0 gathering (for $3,000 less)

I was speaking with Ben Wan last week at the Stirr mixer briefly when he asked if I was going to the Web Guild’s 2006 Conference, focused on the ‘New Web’ aka Web 2.0. Given that we have eight events in the next couple of weeks, I really did not think I could get away for another conference despite the fact that I watched the Web Guild grow with much interest from Miami back in the early days. That was before I read the bio of Ram Shriram and realized that Marissa Mayer of Google was the other keynote. And that is just the morning lineup. After that Om Malik, Jared Spool, Kelly Goto and a few of the smartest folks in the business were also speaking. So despite my dislike of panels (or pain’ls as I occasionally reference them), I am heading down the Peninsula to get my fill of some gooey-good Web 2.0 Insights.

Brian Sollis sent me info on a discount code (every bit helps) that will give you admittance for the member price of $198 instead of $239 - use the code WGDY6. According to the organizers, “The conference is identical to O’Reilly Web 2.0 with most of the same speakers except the price is $239 instead of $3200.”

Its not as inexpensive as Web 2point2 at $32.95, but pretty darn good considering the prices some conferences are demanding these days. Maybe we can coax a few of the traditional conference goers to come along and experience an unconference for themselves…

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Can You ‘Get’ Social Media in an Afternoon?

October 5, 2006

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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Social Media in Silicon Valley

August 21, 2006

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.

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Filed Under About SMC · 3 Comments