SMC News: December 2008

In this issue:

• The Year Behind, The Year Ahead
• Getting All Official Like: Filing the 501c3
• Welcome New Members!
• New Website, Events Calendar (and more)
• Member Badge Now Available
• Local Chapter News
• Social Media Workshops: 2009 Planning Begins
• Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members

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The Year Behind, The Year Ahead:
Recently, during the Social Media Club South Florida meeting earlier this week at Yahoo’s Miami offices, Chris Heuer delivered his first annual ‘State of the Club’ address over Ustream. It was a last minute decision, which will be promoted further in advance next year so you can join the chat online as a dozen plus other people did. Some of the highlights are talked about in more detail below, but the big picture is this

• We have 33 active cities now with 37 more forming very soon
• We took in approximately $13,000 in membership fees this year and a little bit of money from our workshop in Hawaii and other smaller events – this was against approximately $20k in expenses, meaning Chris and Kristie are still funding some of the organization on their credit cards
• A lot of good things are happening soon, details below

You will be able to view the live discussion, which includes a look ahead at Social Media in 2009, on the SMC website [will update the post over the weekend], and you can follow along with Chris’s slides on SlideShare.

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Getting All Official Like: Filing the 501c3
Yes folks, we finally did it. We sent the paperwork and the check in to receive our 501c3 non-profit status from the IRS. We are told it could take months to finalize this, but it feels good to have that ‘in the works’ now. As such we will be seeking nominations for our formal board of directors as well as a few workgroup leaders at the beginning of January. The initial board consists of Howard Greenstein, Serena Ehrlich, Todd Defren, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells. We are looking forward to having representative directors based on the wishes of paying members, so if you want to be considered, or would like to be part of the process – send an email to kristie [at] socialmediaclub.org and watch the Web site (or RSS feed) for more details in January.

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

• SMB Members: J.J. Toothman and Holly Hagen (Shiny New Toy), Mike Volpe (Hubspot), Frederik Hermann (Jajah), Brian Flatow (The Ad Store), Tami Casey and Danielle Salvato (Kulesa Public Relations)
• Professional Members: Jennifer Lindsay, Charlotte Ziems, Sarah Mason, Dave Peck, Dahna Chandler, Erin Bray, Jean Shirk, Adam Hirsch, Eric Doyle, Steve Radick, Yvette Ferry, Shwen Gwee, Pamela Abbazia, Jeff Cole, Des Walsh, Peter Fasano, Antonio Viva, Jack Hadley, Simon Small, Lynn Miller, Chris Lynn, Sean Davis, Pierre-Yves Platini, Pete Codella, Dale Larson, Vanessa Rhinesmith

Each of the members mentioned above will receive a Social Media Club Member Kit that includes a membership card, t-shirt and stickers. They also get included in the SMC Member Badge, which includes a member directory, events calendar, and featured posts from all paying members ($100 level+). Also, members receive three free job postings on http://socialmediajobs.com/ with other benefits being added soon. We will continue to beef the kits up as time goes on with other promotional items, discounts and various other benefits, so stay tuned for further announcements!

It’s hard to ask for money in these economic times, but we would be honored if you were able to join as a paid member so that we can continue sharing our knowledge and bringing people together to expand our collective abilities. If you are able to support us financially to continue our work, please register here, and we look forward to welcoming you officially to the SMC family!

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New Website, Events Calendar (and more)…
November was a busy month for us as we launched our new website, events calendar and a shiny new member badge (more on that below) all in an effort to help you to connect with local chapters, social media practitioners and continue learning (and teaching).

We still have some work to do on the website, but are happy with the progress being made.

Want to know what Social Media related events are happening in your neighborhood? Make sure you check out the new Events Calendar that highlights the local chapter events, and other conferences and seminars we think you might be interested in. Even better is the ability for you to feature any Social Media related event members should know about by filling out the form offered on the bottom of the events calendar page.

We are always on the lookout for interesting content to share with our community, if you have a video or an article you would like help promoting, please send us an email to socialmediaclub [at] gmail.com and we will work to get it up on the website. Likewise for any good presentations or video on teaching social media we might be able to feature on our home page.

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Member Badge Now Available
We released the Social Media Club Member Badge to highlight those who folks within our community to help promote you and the work you do. They way it works is every day we go through all of the blog posts written by members and select the best posts on Social Media, which then get featured inside the badge. The badge also has a member’s directory of professional members ($100 level+) and an events calendar that we also just recently launched. It also features a book store of the most interesting books written by members and friends of Social Media Club.

We would like to thank Chris Carfi and his excellent team from Cerado who developed the badge for us. There are going to be some even better developments put into the badge during Q1 we think you will really appreciate.

To get your SMC Member Badge, go to Cerado’s site where you will find both mobile versions as well as a code snippet for your favorite dashboard service (netvibes, iGoogle, etc), web site or blog.

<ad-sponsor-request> If you are interested in sponsoring the badge and the various mobile versions of it, we are currently getting around 2500 views per day on it and seeking a monthly sponsor for $1,000 which is around a $14cpm, but distribution is growing as is page views. </ad-sponsor-request>

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Local Chapter News
Fall 2008 has been a busy time when it comes to chapter launches, and it doesn’t look like it is going to slow down in Spring 2009 either. We are still working to get some stronger organizational tools in place before launching more cities, but found…sometimes…you just need to let it happen and worry about the details later. J If this has been frustrating for you, we would like to apologize, but we only have so much time in the day and have been doing this as a labor of love as opposed to doing it as a paying job. We appreciate your patience and your continued support of our growth, hopefully in a city near you soon!

Here is what has been happening and what is being planned (that we know of):

OCTOBER:

• Chapter Launches: Chicago, IL (USA) - Indianapolis, IN (USA) - Las Vegas, NV (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Charlotte, NC (USA) - Honolulu/Waikiki, HI (USA) - London (UK)

NOVEMBER:

• Chapter Launches: Atlanta, GA (USA) - San Diego, CA (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Jacksonville, FL (USA)

DECEMBER:

• Chapter Launches: London (UK)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Greenville, SC (USA) - Orange County, CA (USA) – Seattle, WA (USA)

JANUARY:

• Chapter Launches: Greenville, SC (USA) - Salt Lake City, UT (USA)
• Planning Meetings (preparing for launch): Detroit/Ann Arbor, MI (USA) – Hamburg (Germany) - New Orleans, LA (USA) - Orlando, FL (USA) - Portland, OR (USA) - Tampa, FL (USA) - Toronto, ON (Canada) - Tucson, AZ (USA)

To find out information on your city launch and/or planning meetings, please visit the SMC Wiki and click on the city nearest you. The great thing we have found is that you too can start an SMC chapter in your town – so just add your city if its not there and review the ideas and insights on the wiki about what you can do to be more successful with your efforts.

We are also hosting a weekly chapter call where we answer questions around what is needed to launch Social Media Club in your local city, how to develop awareness campaigns, discuss topics/conversations that have worked well in other chapters, securing sponsorships, and so much more.

The calls take place every Wednesday, and alternate weekly – at either 8am PST or 5:30pm PST - an updated schedule is available online in the Social Media Club events calendar. The conference call dial-in number is (269) 320-8400, and the access code is 509633#. These calls are recorded and will be posted shortly on the SMC website.

We do ask that you review the SMC Chapter Guidelines (scroll down to the bottom of the post) before you jump on the call and if you have time, you might check out this 30-minute podcast SMC Founder, Chris Heuer, did with SMC Louisville Chapter Leader, Jason Falls, on Organizing a Local Social Media Club. Take a listen.

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Social Media Workshops: 2009 Planning Begins
We are starting to plan for the next year and are looking at bringing the Social Media Workshop to several cities around the world.

We will be contacting local chapter leaders shortly to see about interest in hosting one in their city, and welcome your thoughts on where these should take place too. Please send your suggestions to events [at] socialmediaclub.com and we will publish the list shortly. Plans include both a US and European ‘tour’ with the possibility of adding in Australia and perhaps China. Stay tuned for more details

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Conference Discounts Available to SMC Members
I am pleased to pass along discounts provided to members of the Social Media Club (SMC) community for the following events:

• Blogwell: January 22, 2009 in Chicago, IL (USA) – Discount is 15% off ticket price. Just mention SMC when registering.
• Social Networking Forum: March 9-10, 2009 in London (UK) – Discount Available: 15% off ticket price. Please register using this special form to ensure you receive the discount.

Other conferences happening around the world we think you might be interested in:

• Social Media Jungle: January 7, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV (USA)
• Chicks Who Click: January 9-10, 2009 in Boulder, CO (USA)
• SoCon09: February 6-7, 2009 in Atlanta, GA (USA)
• SXSW Interactive: March 13-17, 2009 in Austin, TX (USA)

Also, keep on the lookout for more details about Pool 2.0: The Ultimate Tech Pool Tournament which will be held on Sunday, March 15th in Austin TX at Buffalo Billiards from 8-midnight. Paid SMC Members get in free, while others will pay a small fee to offset the costs of the free beer, live music and charitable tie-ins. If you want your company to field a team - check out this post on the event and then contact chris [at] socialmediaclub.org for more details.
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Be well you Media mavens.

Cheers,
Chris and Kristie
Website - http://www.socialmediaclub.org
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/SocialMediaClub
Facebook - http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Social-Media-Club/13521448764
FriendFeed - http://friendfeed.com/rooms/social-media-club

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Social Innovation Camp: Changing the World One Weekend at a Time

Last weekend in London, I witnessed what I would call a series of miracles that soon could be a part of our everyday waking lives, or at least the lives of my friends in the United Kingdom.  The Social Innovation Camp hosted by The Young Foundation was a barcamp/startup weekend sort of event for social entrepreneurs, people looking to do good and make enough money to be sustainable.  If what I saw was as indicative of the scene in London as I believe, this is perhaps one of the major epicenters of transforming the world into the better place that we all know it can be. There is a really great write up of the whole weekend over on the SI Camp Blog.

Besides meeting tons of brilliant people like, I learned a lot about how to facilitate these sorts of events, how to empower better team collaboration and the deep seated desire that so many people the world over have to engage in what I call The Noble Pursuit.  I also confirmed that London is still one of the best cities in the world, and perhaps the only other city I would actually live in other than San Francisco.

I hope to work with a foundation or two in the Bay Area, along with my AdHocnium colleague JD Lasica to bring this sort of event to my home soon.  We are working on several great ideas I hope to tell you all about very soon that is related to our work with AdHocnium and JD’s work on Media Innovation Camp.

As I sat there last Sunday afternoon, I was impressed by the final presentations of the seven social startups created oer the weekend.  Each one progressed in dramatic ways from where they were at the prior Friday night when things got underway.  I personally had a chance to sit in on parts of the discussions on almost all of them and contribute little bits here and there, in an advisory sort of role.  As an outsider, I didn’t want to get too deep, but I did want to be a ‘useful visitor’, which is actually the team I spent the most time with and hopefully the one I contributed the most real value to.  I hope to continue to advise them over the years ahead to ensure it is successful.  It is something that I would surely use, as I suspect you would too.

A full write up on the process and the judging talks further about the prizes. Our Useful Visitor team came in 2nd place behind GoodGym. Their concept is interesting and has potential, but there are some security concerns.  The idea is that this service can enable people to do good while running, walking or biking by pairing them up with people who need help, companionship or support.  Recruit people staying healthy to run errands for people and just stop by for a visit.  Kind of like Big Brothers, but perhaps its more like BigRunners Will share some more thoughts on them in the coming days.

The other teams were We-Need, OwnGrown, AccessCity, Carbon Co-Op and PostPost. I will write up something on each of them next week along with some recommendations / advice but you can read more about them, see their presentations and check out the web sites they built by clicking on their names above.  In the meantime, I thought I would hand out some of my own awards.  This isn’t an attempt to make sure ‘everyone feels like a winner’, especially since I didn’t get to see everyone closely.  Rather this is just my appreciation of what I saw as some really great accomplishments that should be recognized.

Awards

• Most Prepared: We-Need
  Craig came in with a ton of planning diagrams and ideas - he really understands the problems faced by the people he is trying to help at a deep level and it showed.
• Best Research: GoodGym
  The team went out during the weekend and interviewed runners as to whether they would use the service… they actually signed up 10+ volunteers!
• Best Name Change: OwnGrown
  Prior to the weekend, this startup was called Vegsy - clearly, OwnGrown is a multi million dollar brand.
• Best Web Site: PostPost
  The UI is simple simple, the site looks fantastic.
• Best Team: Useful Visitor
  Well, this is a bit self-serving, but I really do mean it - with such a big team, to execute as well as we did and work so well together, I am really proud of everyone.
• Best Presentation: GoodGym
  Ivo Gormley was the epitome of dry British comedy and his presentation was superbly crafted.  Bravo.
• Best Post Presentation Q&A: Useful Visitor
  OK, again a bit of self interest here, but I didn’t see many other people get an applause line for their responses in Q&A so I was impressed…
• Most Easily Sustainable: OwnGrown
  I agree with the remark of one of the judges, this should be a real business.  I think it is perhaps a co-op as well, but it is surely a market.  If people don’t pay on the transaction level, they should at least be paid members.  Who doesn’t want locally grown produce at a reasonable price?
• Best Presentation Stunt: OwnGrown
  Towards the end of the presentation, they brought in a huge tray of vegetables because ’someone in the room ordered them’
• Most Needed: We-Need
  I can’t overstate this point - we need, We-Need.  There are too many people who need help from the system which is unable to connect with them properly.  Please support this effort in any way you can.
• Most Important / Biggest Impact: Carbon Co-Op
  One person can make a difference, but a village of people, working together to change the local energy consumption rates can make a huge difference.
• Most Valuable Player(s):The Young Foundation
  There are some really great people here doing important work.  This would have not happened without them opening their minds, their hearts and their offices - thank you so very much.

All in all, this was one of the most gratifying things in which I have participated in a long time.  Big thanks to The Young Foundation, Dan, Kati, Anna and all my new friends for welcoming me into your space this past weekend.  Hopefully we can find ways to work together again in the future.

PS - more of my photos from the weekend are available on Flickr.Technorati Tags: sicamp, social innovation camp, barcamp, social entrepreneurs, social startups

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Help Us Save Darfur

Special thanks to Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells for encouraging us to blog on the SMC site about some work we are performing on behalf of Save Darfur. This week marks the beginning of an aggressive campaign to take advantage of the administration change and use social media to encourage President-elect Obama to action and end the Darfur genocide.

The Save Darfur Coalition’s “Be A Voice For Darfur” postcard campaign seeks to ensure that Darfur is a top priority for the Obama Administration. Obama has already promised “unstinting resolve” to end the Darfur Genocide.   The effort, which aims for no less than 1 million postcards to be emailed, blogged and snail-mailed to President-elect Obama within his first 100 days in office.

The hottest part is the unveiling of a petition application developed in conjunction with Facebook Causes. Other social media components include an influencer relations campaign, and a Darfur Blogger Toolkit with videos, photos, and other resources at http://www.addyourvoice.org/pages/blogger_toolkit.  And of course, there’s the mandatory Twitter hashtag: #voice4darfur .

The appalling genocide in Darfur continues – now in its sixth year and at the price of nearly half a million lives. Ironically, this December marks the 60^th anniversary of the United Nations  Genocide Convention, and we are still dealing with this horrific issue.

The time to for action is now, and in a year when many of us are suffering financial hardship, we can still make a difference. Signing the petition, tweeting or writing blog posts  are great ways to help without expending a lot of cash.

This is a great example of social media for social good.  But for it to work, you, the Social Media Club member needs to believe in the cause and do something about it. Help us end genocide, and spread the word to your friends online and with other local Social Media Club members

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The Social Media Club Member Badge++

I am very excited to publicly announce this great new member benefit, which we produced with Chris Carfi and his excellent team from Cerado.  Chris calls it a “Ventana” but I think of it as a “nano-site”, being about the size of an iPod Nano, but also being smaller then what you would call a “mico-site”.  Some other folks think of it as a “site in a widget”.  However you think of it, we think you will call it cool.

As a benefit for Professional Members and business members, we are able to use this new member badge to help promote you.  In particular, we go through all of the blog posts written by members each weekday to select the most relevant posts on social media related topics, which then get featured inside the badge.

We also have included a members directory of professional members and above with links to each members blog.  In essence, it is a blog roll of our members, helping drive traffic to those who are working to support our common missions. If you have been holding off on joining as a Professional member, now is a great time to join us and help Social Media Club become the foremost organization of Social Media professionals and those seeking to learn.

Perhaps of greatest interest is the addition of our Social Media Club Events Calendar in which members can feature any social media related event you want to promote by simply filling out the form offered on the bottom of the events calendar page.

Finally, we are also featuring books written by our members along with a few other very important social media books that we believe every social media professional should read.

This is just the first of many more member’s benefits to come, and we think it is a terrific one that is right in the spirit of what we have always tried to do, work together to promote the good works of each other.

So if you want to stay up on all the latest and greatest from Social Media Club and our members, simply check out their sites.  Or if you prefer, you can read the best blog posts from our member’s each day on your iPhone by visiting http://iphone.socialmediaclub.org/

Members, please note, if your name links to an incorrect blog, please send us an updated address to socialmediaclub [at] gmail.com so we can correct - simply reply to the email I sent you last week with the correct info, or leave it here in the comments - this is why I asked for your current address a short while ago.

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Five For Sharing: Social Media Case Studies in the Valley

We have some terrific case studies that were submitted for our event in SIlicon Valley tomorrow night, Five For Sharing.  It was hard to choose, and indeed we had to pass on a couple of really great one’s just due to time constraints.  In the end, we have a great balance that will be really informative and entertaining.

In addition to Shashi Bellamkonda who will be presenting an overview of the integrated social media programs being produced at Network Solutions, we will also be joined by:

• Mike McGrath of McGrath/Powers will be presenting on how his agency used social media as part of a product launch for Nero
• Dave Peck will be sharing how he promoted this video on YouTube, how he drove traffic there and how they engaged in the conversation that ensued.
• Cathryn Hrudicka will be talking about the new social media program underway at Sutter Health about building a new medical center.
• Cory O’Brien will be talking about how they used social media for a Dwell Magazine conference.
• We also may have one other remotely presented case study, which I will simply call our surprise guest for now….

In short, we have case studies on the use of social media for: an event, a product launch, promoting content, engaging with community and as part of a broader marketing initiative at a high tech company. Wow! You just gotta love how we can all do things like this together.  Thank you all for agreeing to participate and share what you have learned.  So now that you know what we are going to be discussing, go register today so we can have an accurate head count

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Social Media Now 11.15.08

Here’s what’s been going on in Social Media over the last week or so. Missing something? Email me or add your news in the comments section!

Louis Gray wonders Does Anybody Care About Non-Blog Commenting Anymore?

Francine Hardaway points out that Obama’s decision to put his weekly address out on YouTube might very well be a game changer, and of course everybody is talking about the website, Change.gov and how it will affect the way America reacts to politics. At the same time, Caroline McCarthy wonders if it’s time for a digital reality check.

Andy Sernovitz wrote about how to get bloggers to write about you, and Michael Martine tells PR people how to pitch to bloggers.

Jennifer Leggio contends social media will not kill PR, but it does expose industry weakness.

Media giant Gannet purchased social media development company Ripple6 for their social media technology and analytics. Ripple6 will continue to develop  communities, operating as an independent entity-according to VP of Marketing Rich Ullman.

The fires in California are still raging, and Paul Glazowski shows us how to get the latest news in real time or darn close, and many added their favorite resources to the comments.

Bright Shiny Objects:

• There was a lot of buzz when the rumor came out that TwitteRank was a hoax, set up to steal your login information for Twitter and do something dastardly with it. Although it turned out to not be true there may still be some security issues to think about with Twitter.
• CrowdStatus and Tweetworks offer ways to create smaller more focused groups of Twitter users to communicate with.
• Twitter/Readburner RSS -Tracks the most shared topics from RSS feeds and then posts them to Twitter.
• 12second.tv seems a like a Twitter version of YouTube, but there are people creating some pretty interesting channels already.
• Ever wonder what personality type is reflected in the voice of your blog? Typealyzer.com is your answer, just for fun.
• 29 Travels is a Google map generator that lets you color and highlight all the places you’ve traveled to. Go ahead, show your map off on Google Earth.

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• Cracking the Boys Club in Web 2.0: Ten Women Pioneers of Web 2.0

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Social Media Now 10.22.08

Here’s a quick round-up of some recent news in social media. Did we miss your favorite social media news story? Add it in the comments or email us to add it to the next post for social media now.

Shel Israel writes about not mistaking popularity for influence. There’s an interesting post on Mashable about top blunders from the social media gurus, with a little something we can all learn from. Chris Brogan reminds us that it’s not necessarily true the famous bloggers are the only ones with anything important to say, and to promote and encourage others to keep the conversations fresh. Blog Action Day showed how social media can help us raise our voices and awareness about critical issues and thousands of bloggers responded in their own ways. Nonprofit Bootcamp happened in San Mateo, and over 2000 people got the resources they needed to get down to business online. Nielsen online ratings showed huge traffic growth for several social media sites this year, especially Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, while some other sites like Buzznet and imeem slipped a bit, and imeem may be doing some cutting back. FriendFeed announced their real-time API, so now you can keep up to date on your friends in real-time.

Bright Shiny Objects

• AppLoop is an iPhone friendly RSS reader that’s getting good reviews.
• Lijit search just added advertising to it’s bag of tricks.
• Twine can help you track your bookmarks and other content, and learns what you like the more you use it and then makes recommendations based on your usage.

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• FriendFeed Announces Another Update
• Followers, Friends, and Fans: Expanding Your Online Community - Emetrics Summit DC 2008 - Day 1

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Who Owns Social Media? SF/SV Panel

We had a great conversation tonight about the question, Who Owns Social Media? When I asked it originally, I had meant to ask it within the context of ‘within the enterprise’, but in twitterland, had to shorten it a bit - as we discussed, it was also the question I was being asked by many different clients.  We found some very interesting insights along the way.  I have much more to add, but not enough time to do so tonight.

Thankfully, these folks already did manage to write some more…

• Andrew Mager liveblogged the event over on ZDNet
• Kenneth Yeung posted a ‘rebuttal’
• Ashley Messick furthers the conversation
• Daniela Barbosa gets a chance to ask her question (panel was too short, yes, so we continue here)

Well, I have to do a little more work before getting to the airport in the morning (heading over to facilitate Social Media Workshop Hawaii and then speaking at PodCampHawaii), so will need to pick this up later THUR… will hopefully see your thoughts here.

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Feature your video or presentation on SocialMediaClub.org

Would you like to have your presentation featured on the home page of Social Media Club? We are looking for the best educational materials on all things related to Social Media (web 2.0, community, new marketing, pr 2.0 and other related materials). Please let us know it exists by adding a link to it in the comments below along with a short description.

When reviewing our media literacy program with Michael Brito the other day, we hit upon another potentially big idea for this important spot on the home page, a weekly course focused on a different strategy or tactic.  By this I mean that one week we could feature a new presentation/video each day on the same topic , such as Blogger Relations.  In this case, we would look for someone (hello members!) to put together an online ‘course’ on these topics that has five lessons in it.

What do you think? How might we do something like this best? Are there any pieces of free or SaaS software out there we could use in conjunction with this program? Please let us know!

PS - we are also starting to develop our webinar program and need help in selecting a vendor.  We will be posting separately on this program, but since it is related, thought I should mention that here as well.

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Hawaii Geek Week: October 18 - 25, 2008

Pulled from an email received from Roxanne Darling, Barefeet Studios.

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Governor Lingle has declared the week of October 18-25 ‘Hawaii Geek Week‘.

There are several events focused on “the social web” - which is by far the best business opportunity since typewriters were invented! We hope you will join us as we learn, network and promote Hawaii to the world using the best tools of Web 2.0.

We are offering several opportunities that may be of interest to you, your colleagues or even your friends and family. They are equal interest to for-profit, non-profit, and governmental organizations.

Here is an article defining Social Media, how these events affect the Hawaii business community, and how to decide which events to attend:

+++ Social Media Workshop +++
Thursday, October 23, 2008; 8 am - 3 pm
Hawaii Prince Hotel

$125 per person, includes continental breakfast, lunch, and charter membership in the Hawaii chapter of the Social Media Club. Send 4 from your organization and the 5th attends Free!

Register Here.

This is a small, exclusive business event to give you the 30,000′ view of the social web and how it is already affecting your business. Get one-to-one consulting and work with several mainland experts so you have specific ideas and action you can take to build your brand on the internet. “Geek Speak” not required.

+++ Podcamp & Wordcamp Hawaii +++
Friday and Saturday, October 24 & 25, 2008; 8 am - 5 pm
Hawaii Convention Center

Free to attend. Register Here.

This event is open to the public and will include lots of short sessions and hands-on workshops with local and mainland speakers. We have 350 people already registered to attend this event. It is a perfect follow-on to the Social Media Workshop and we recommend organizations send as many of their staff and volunteers as possible.  Rob Halper, of  the Johnson & Johnson Health Channel and Christine Lu, of the China Business Network, will join many of own local experts.

+++ Music and Hula Spots Available +++
We have openings for local artists to share their culture with our attendees at Podcamp. We will be live video streaming much of the day to viewers around the world, and think this is a great chance to share their talents. Plus there will be many podcasters there doing interviews and making media about the event. Please forward this email to anyone you know who may be interested in performing. People can sign themselves up on the wiki: http://www.podcamphawaii.com/wiki/

We hope you will join us at one or both of these events.

Mahalo.

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Who Owns Social Media - SF 10/21

Join us on Tuesday October 21, 2008 @ CNet headquarters in San Francisco from 6-830pm for this important debate / conversation.  Professional members of Social Media Club (paid members in good standing) receive free registration, the general public is $5 in advance and $10 at the door if there are seats remaining.

Who owns social media? This is a question that really needs to be understood better. Of course, the first response of many people is that no one can really ‘own’ social media, everyone uses it. But enterprises around the globe are struggling with figuring out where social media fits within their hierarchical, org chart driven world. This is an important question that has significant consequences for how social media evolves.

In this sense, we are really talking about who is responsible for social media in the enterprise? Most social media ‘insiders’ would naturally say, everyone is responsible, but this is just not the reality for most businesses. Someone needs to allocate budget, someone needs decisionmaking authority over infrastructure and major programs, someone needs to rewrite job descriptions upon which employees are measured and many more people need to understand why, where and how to engage.

At the moment there seems to be an inclination that Social Media belongs in the communications wheelhouse, but others argue for support and others argue for Human Resources to be in charge while others think that this is clearly an IT issue. Can all of these people be right? In which situations is it most appropriate? How are organizations evolving to embrace the new conversational modalities of customer interaction? What about its use internally?

With the ever insightful Cathy Brooks from Seesmic joining Chris Heuer as co-moderators, we will explore these questions and many others to develop a deeper understanding of this issue that will hopefully help corporate Social Media Champions around the world. The debaters/panelists for this great event include Seth Goldstein from SocialMedia.com, Mike Manuel from Vocce Communications, Jeremy Toeman from Live Digitally and one other person still TBD.

The evening starts at CNet at 6pm with networking and informal conversation. From 7-8PM we will be digging into the question of Who Owns Social Media? The event will wrap up at 830pm.

Special thanks to our continuing Social Media Club event sponsor, Optaros, a development and strategy firm that designs, assembles and supports next generation Internet applications. If you are interested in sponsoring this or other Social Media Club events, contact us today.

Please do register in advance as we expect this event to be sold out.

In the meantime, lets get this conversation rolling.  Who do you think owns social media? why?

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Social Media for Social Good 08.28.08

Austin Social Media Club is once again partnering with 501 Tech Club of Austin to enlist Twitter users in a community project. This time the beneficiary is the Capital Area Food Bank and the event is a HAM-up (September is Hunger Action Month). Tyson Foods issued a challenge on their Hunger Relief blog, offering to donate 100 pounds of protein for every comment posted, up to a full 35,000-pound truck load. Organizers were floored when the truck was filled in just six hours; comments topped out at over 600.

Beth Kanter challenged the 250 attendees at Gnomedex to raise $2,500 before the end of the two-day conference in order to send Cambodian student Leng Sopharath to college for her junior year. With Twitter working as the back channel, word of the fund-raising project spread far beyond the conference center in Seattle. At the 90-minute mark the fund had surpassed the goal; the final total raised was $3,774. The additional money will no doubt be put to good use in another one of Beth’s projects for Cambodian children.

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Social Media Now 8.11.08

Social Media Now 9-11-08

Here’s a bit of what’s going on in social media of late. Feel free to add your own links in the comments section, or send us you suggestions for the next issue of Social Media Now.

Chris Brogan shares his best advice about social media.

The Dontgo movement showed that the Republicans can get social media and they used social media channels to help build their “revolution”. Then they showed they didn’t get social media when they started banning posts from the Twitter feed as “inappropriate”. After some fast thinking they now offer a feed in “filtered” and “unfiltered” versions.

We found some interesting stats on the most popular social bookmarking services on Digital Inspiration.

Jeremiah Owyang posted his thoughts on the tracking of the propane explosions in Toronto as news spread from Twitter to the print press.

Another  take on social media as a buzzbuilder, “Applying Circuit Breakers to a Social Media Mob Mentality” is  about how we can fan the flames of a personal interaction until it quickly becomes the shot heard round the world.

Benedikt Koehler posted an interesting cloud/map of who’s investing in Web 2.0 companies.

Bright Shiny Objects

Missing your Facebook pokes because you don’t have a smart phone? Sarah Perez from ReadWriteWeb posted an article on a free mobile push app called BlueWhaleMail that can push your Facebook posts, pokes and messages to your mobile phone, even if it’s not a smart phone. (Available for selected Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones)

Speaking of Facebook, Guy Kawasaki set up a Facebook group for Alltop for viewers and owners of the sites and blogs Alltop aggregates. Sign up here:

Crunchgear turned 2 on August 11, and they’re giving away goodies for the next 10 days.

Posty is the latest Adobe Air app. to surface. It posts your updates to Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr Frinedfeed and Identi.ca.

AllofMe launched their public Alpa. It’s a timeline builder, allowing you to scan event or project timelines visually, or create a personal timeline of important events.

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Social Media Club Forms Interim Board To Chart Strategic Direction and Advance Its Goals

The Social Media Club (SMC), a new media and advocacy organization focused on social media, today announced that 42 well-regarded industry leaders have volunteered to form an interim Board of Directors.

The new interim board has been charted to address several key organizational and strategic deliverables, including development of membership goals, acceleration of local chapter development, increase in adoption of industry standards and implementation of a new legal structure to enhance future growth.

New interim Board Member and Adjunct Professor of Social Media at University of Miami Alex de Carvalho said “Social Media Club is an important industry organization that has been working to establish social media standards and ethics. The voluntary participation of such noted industry leaders to further its mission is a clear indication of the Social Media Club’s value and contributions. I look forward to collaborating with the new interim board to progress the Social Media Club from being a ‘big idea’ to serving the community as a prominent agent of change.”

According to Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club and Partner at The Conversation Group, “The Social Media Club is honored to have so many accomplished and well-regarded industry evangelists come forward to lead the organization. While the interim board will focus on charting the organization’s future direction, our core mission will remain the same: promotion of media literacy; support of industry standards efforts such as Creative Commons licensing, Microformats, Data Portability and OpenID; discussion and promotion of ethical behavior; and sharing our knowledge among our members and the industry community at large.”

Co-Founder and Social Media Club President Kristie Wells added, “We are grateful to have received so much support from around the world over the past two years. With nearly 200 paying members and over 500 open members - we are deeply appreciative of the volunteer efforts to make the Social Media Club a success. With leading corporate members, such as Business Wire and SHIFT Communications, as well as dedicated individual professionals, the Social Media Club will continue to gain momentum and serve the greater needs of the industry while sharing our lessons learned along the way.”

The board will also focus on increasing its research efforts and strengthening relationships with other organizations such as the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and the International Association for Business Communicators (IABC). The interim board’s work will be completed once the club reorganizes as a new entity, and holds an election amongst its members for a formal Board of Directors.

The newly named/appointed members of the interim board are leading social media analysts, bloggers and business leaders, and are as follows:

• Lee Aase - Social Media University, Global
• Rohit Bhargava - Influential Marketing Blog and Personality Not Included
• Richard Binhammer - RichardatDell
• Michael Brito - Britopian and Conversations Matter
• Chris Brogan - ChrisBrogan.com
• Mike Chapman - Austin Social Media Club and Every Dot Connects
• Megan Cole - MeganCole.org
• Alex de Carvalho - alexdc.org and Social Object
• Todd Defren - SHIFT Communications and www.pr-squared.com
• Serena Ehrlich - Business Wire
• Jason Falls - Social Media Explorer
• Maggie Fox - Social Media Group
• Jon Gatrell - spatiallyrelevant.org
• Howard Greenstein - HowardGreenstein.com
• Francine Hardaway - Stealthmode
• Josh Hallett - Hyku
• Annie Heckenberger - pikpr.blogspot.com and redspurs.com
• Chuck Hester - iContact
• Chris Heuer - ChrisHeuer.com
• Sherry Heyl - Mind Blogging
• Tara Hunt - HorsePigCow
• Bill Johnston - Forum One Networks Forum and Online Community Report
• Jennifer McClure - Society for New Communications Research
• Mike McGrath - Dogpatch Dispatch
• Jake McKee - CommunityGuy.com and Ant&