Atlanta Bloggers Meetup

Had a great time last night (September 2, 2009) meeting other Atlanta bloggers. The Atlanta Bloggers Meetup at Manuels Tavern was a kick and I enjoyed the conversation.

Here are some of the fun and interesting bloggers who attended:

Chad Rothschild - @chadrothschild - Blog: http://chadrothschild.com/
Marisa Sharpe - @marisasharpe - Blog: http://marisajaffe.com/
Jenny DeVaughn - @JennyDeVaughn - Blog: http://socialprecision.com/
Wendy Parker - @wparker - Blog: http://inkdrainedkvetch.wordpress.com/
Taryn Pisaneschi - @tarynp - Blog: http://tarynp.com/

There were 20+ more who attended as well. Looking forward to the next one I am able to attend. As an FYI - next Meetup is scheduled for Oct. 7.

Green Business Expo 2009

I will be on a Green Business Works 2009 panel on September 2, 2009 in Atlanta, GA titled: When to join the Social Media Conversation and What to Say.


The panel includes:

• Karen Koser, President and CEO of KPK and Company and KPKInteractive


• Steven Piejak, Southeast Sales Manager for LinkedIn


• Hope Dlugozima, Vice President, Director of Community and Social Networking, Mother Nature Network


• Laura Bellinger, Social Media Manager and Communications Consultant, Blogger at CARE: I am Powerful

Should be a fun and interesting social media panel with a how-to-get-started focus that is environmentally friendly.

SXSW 2010 Interactive Panel Proposal Update and Some Of My Favorites

First, I want to provide an update on our SXSW panel submission: Building A Team That Embraces Social Technologies. We have a fantastic lineup of panelists:

Kami Huyse - a 15-year veteran of public relations with an emphasis in social media. She has a thriving practice with primarily corporate clients. She is the principal of My PR Pro. Her blog is Communications Overtones. She is also someone I always enjoy talking to about social media and interactive marketing.

Paull Young - a social media strategist at Converseon. He writes about social media and public relations at Young PR. I have known Paull for almost 2 years now. He and his agency (Converseon) have been guiding the Newell Rubbermaid, Graco Baby brand team on our social media marketing journey. Examples of these efforts include the Graco Baby blog and Facebook fan page. He is also currently assisting our Goody brand in analyzing the social web ecosystem and determining the best strategy to pursue in social media marketing. Paull also wrote a fun and irreverent plea for your vote on Facebook: Begging For Your SXSW Vote. Check it out.

Jeremiah Owyang - a social media, interactive marketer and web strategist who just left Forrester Research, after a fantastic 3 years, to become a Partner at the Altimeter Group. His Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang blog is very popular and a must read for social media marketers. He has been an excellent guide to me over the past couple of years and I sincerely respect his objective perspective and insights on social media marketing, web strategy and interactive marketing.

Lionel Menchaca - is a 15-year Dell veteran and chief blogger at Direct2Dell, Dell’s main corporate blog. Since launching the blog in July 2006, Lionel helped expand it into Chinese, Spanish, Norwegian and Japanese and continues to work to further extend Dell’s global presence. Before launching Dell’s blog, Lionel was one of the main architects behind Dell’s blog monitoring process begun in April 2006.

What is most amazing about this panel is that 4 of us actually were together in September, 2008 attending the University of Georgia, Grady College CONNECT 2008 conference. All 4 of us were speakers at that fantastic conference created and managed by Dr. Karen Russell (Teaching PR blog). If you can make it this year, CONNECT 2009 is being held in Athens, GA on September 19, 2009.

I hope you take the time to both review and vote for our panel: Building A Team That Embraces Social Technologies.

Now, as promised, here are some more exceptional panels to review (in no particular order), consider and vote for:

Inherent Dangers of Real-Time Social Networking by Jennifer Leggio

Finding a Social Media "Expert" Who is Really an Expert by Kami Huyse

Lifestreaming: Its Impact on Blogs, Brands and Beyond by Lionel Menchaca

Open Leadership: The Upside of Giving Up Control by Charlene Li

Unleashing Employees Through Social Media by Lionel Menchaca (Note: I am also a panelist)

Social Media ROI: Results That Measure Up by Kami Huyse

Anatomy of a TEDTalk by Jason Wishnow

Taking Corporate Out Of The Corporate Blog by Chelsea Marti

Results Only Work Environment (ROWE): Why it Works by Nikki Haffey

There are 2265 SXSW panel proposals to consider this year. The energy invested in these proposals is amazing and fantastic. This shows the vibrant nature of interactive and social media marketers and that we are a high octane crowd.

Please do take the time to consider the panel proposals above and the many others I have not mentioned.

Hope to have the opportunity to see you at SXSW 2010 Interactive.

Atlanta PR Camp

I had the pleasure of being a camp counselor/moderator today at the PR Camp Atlanta (press release) event developed by Dan Greenfield of Bernaise Source Media.

The event was held at the Georgia Tech Research Institute Conference Center and there were approximately 200 attendees.

I had the pleasure of moderating the first session for the Green Team. We discussed the following:

• What obstacles have to be overcome to gain executive level trust to support the creation and execution of new media and social web marketing programs?
• What tactics and strategies are off the table?
• What new media and social web marketing programs are much easier to explain and execute? What programs are easier to get executive buy-in?

Team Green had great insights, energy and ideas on how to answer these questions and address these very important topics. The main point of the event was to provide an immersive social media and fast paced experience.

Team Green proposed the following in response to the questions above:

• overcoming executive fear through education
• developing a cohesive and well-thought out strategy
• explaining how social media is another channel to the consumer

It was a fantastic event and I had the pleasure of meeting many new people in Atlanta. Dan Greenfield did a great job arranging and managing the event.

TED Global 2009 Session Starting Videos

Here are some fun, creative, artistic and truly innovative videos that were shown during the opening of a few of the TED Global 2009 sessions. View and enjoy.

Extreme Sheep LED Art


Phillips Carousel Commercial - Adam Berg Commercial of the Year - Stink Digital


The Beatles Rock Band


Coldplay - Strawberry Swing


Bonus Video - Evian Babies

SXSW Panel Proposal: Building a Team That Embraces Social Technologies

I submitted a panel for SXSW - South By Southwest 2010 - titled: Building a Team That Embraces Social Technologies. My co-panelist is Kami Huyse of Communications Overtones. I will add 2 additional panelists if the panel proposal is accepted.

Here is the panel description:

Event: Interactive 2010

Level: Advanced

Type: Panel

Category:

Branding / Marketing / Publicity, Business / Entrepreneurial / Monetization, Career / Work Concerns, Case Study, Social Networking

Organizer:

Bert DuMars, Newell Rubbermaid

Questions:

1. When is the right time to bring in a consultant or agency?
2. How do you determine if a consultant has the required expertise?
3. What does it take for this arrangement to be successful?
4. What approach should the team leader take to keep it working?
5. How can agencies and consultants effectively work alongside internal teams?
6. What is best left to the internal team?
7. What role is best played by the external team?
8. How to avoid infighting among multiple agencies and consultants?
9. How can these blended teams work together to craft strategies to engage?
10. Why do some efforts fail to produce the desired results?

Description:

This session will cover how brands successfully integrate internal and external teams to engage with customers using social technologies. Both agencies and companies will learn how to work together more effectively to serve the customer. It also covers what consultants can do and what is best left to the brand.

If you find this panel of interest and think it would add value to South by Southwest 2010, please go here and vote.

If The Twitter Community Were 100 People

I like the perspective on Twitter provided by the below graphic created by David McCandless from his Information is Beautiful blog. It simplifies the view of the Twitter community by synthsizing it down to 100 people. It also provides an interesting perspective on what people are tweeting about on different days of the week. For instance, real life tweets occur on Saturdays, one of the lowest volume days.

As someone who is very active on Twitter and fits in at the high end of engagement, it is interesting to note how many are not actively engaged. You can also find this graphic on flickr.

Quck-n-Dirty Social Media Podcast

I have the pleasure of being a guest on the Quick-n-Dirty Social Media Podcast this evening, 6 PM Eastern Time, August 13, 2009. The hosts are Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet Blogger and @Mediaphyter, and Aaron Strout, CMO Powered Inc. and @AaronStrout. We will be discussing Newell Rubbermaid's branded social media and community marketing efforts and other related topics.

For those who cannot listen live, the Podcast will be available and archived on BlogTalkRadio.

Added 09/10/09 - A little background on the Quick 'n' Dirty Podcast and the hosts: New Podcast with Jennifer Leggio aka Mediaphyter

Efficient Website Redesigns: 6 Tactics to Guide Your Process

I was interviewed for the MarketingSherpa article: Efficient Website Redesigns: 6 Tactics to Guide Your Process a few weeks back and the article came out very well.

Please read down to the bottom of the article for some great resources for your website redesign efforts.

Here are the 6 Tactics:

1. Get user feedback from online surveys
2. Analyze click-stream data
3. Work from a well-defined brand strategy
4. Assign at least one (Full-Time) in-house person to oversee the project
5. Focus redesign on improving common problems
6. Aim to satisfy the majority of visitors

Voices in the Technology For The Turnaround Conversation

I received the Spring 2009, Pomona College Magazine and was sitting by the pool reading it when I realized the magazine editors had compiled a timely and comprehensive set of articles on the present and future of journalism. The articles were written by Pomona College alumni ranging from Bill Keller, Class of 1970, and New York Times Executive Editor to Molly Goodson (@mollygoodson), Class of 2004, Editorial Creative Director at PopSugar.

The title of this post refers to the University of Georgia, Grady College, New Media Institute, Technology For The Turnaround (my blog post) event I attended April 25, 2009. That event focused on the future of journalism, public relations and mass communications. At the end of the event, all attendees agreed this is an evolving discussion and a critical piece to the future of the social web ecosystem. If you want to review the conversation and discussion that occurred during the event, use the hashtag #tech4turn and do a search on Twitter.

I believe journalism and journalists are very important to researching, analyzing, synthesizing and reporting on local, national and international events. I also believe that bloggers are and will become more like journalists and journalists will become more like bloggers and vloggers. It is the merging of professional and practiced journalism technique with social technologies that will lead to the future of what we currently call newspapers and magazines. Once newspapers, magazines and journalists truly embrace social technologies and become unencumbered by the spatial requirements of paper, they will both deliver far more depth and insights and more concise stories. Journalists must embrace tools like Twitter that enforce a 140 character limitation while also taking advantage of the infinite space afforded to them on websites and blogs to deliver far more background and depth to their stories that were edited out in the past.

There was also an excellent debate last night (July 6, 2009) on #Journchat (@Journchat) about journalism and public relations specifically related to a New York Times story: "Spinning The Web: P.R. In Silicon Valley" and the corresponding arguments about this article on TechCrunch: "The Reality of PR: Smile, Dial, Name Drop, Pray" and Dave Taylor's The Business Blog At Intutive.com: "Mike Arrington Doesn't Understand PR At All..." Both blog posts make strong arguments about the pros and cons of PR today and how integration of traditional and new media approaches are required to be successful.

Below are links to the Pomona College Magazine articles on the present and future of journalism. Read and enjoy.

• Endangered Species: The Future of the News, The Reporter - Richard Perez-Pena (@perezpena), Class of 1984 (full disclosure, I am also a Pomona College alum, Class of 1984)

• Revolution Redux: The Future of the News, The Columnist - Mary Schmich (@MarySchmich), Class of 1975, Chicago-Tribune Columns
  

• Not With A Bang: The Future of the News, The Editor - Bill Keller, Class of 1970

• Holding On & Letting Go: The Future of the News, The Blogger - Teresa Valdez Klein, (bio @tetesagehen) Class of 2005

• Search Your Feelings: Professor Sara Sood's Cyberquest for the Heart of the Blogosphere - This is a very interesting article and research project as Prof. Sood is trying to figure out how to search on emotional context of a word or phrase instead of literal meaning.

• Gossip Girl: Molly Goodson, Class of 2004, Feeds The Endless Cycle of Celebrity News at PopSugar

• A Glimmer of Hope: Tom Redburn, Class of 1972, Sees Hope For Newspapers In New Technology

I hope you enjoy these articles and I look forward to the continuing conversation around this vital topic during the weekly #journchat and #blogchat events or at a future University of Georgia, Grady College CONNECT (CONNECT Blog) or New Media Institute events.

July 8, 2009 Revision - I am adding this blog post: "Thoughts on the Future of Journalism from the Purple List" as another good discussion on the future of journalism.