Social Media Club Phoenix

Blind Kids Make it to the Top Of Kili!

Remember the meeting we had where the Foundation for Blind Children presented the blind kids who were going to climb Mt.Kilimanjaro? And remember how people at the meeting, notably Dave Barnhart (@businessbloggingpros) and Andy Finkle (@A_F) jumped in to help? Well, here's the result, just sent to me by Bob Hubbard: Well, folks, we made it! 25 out of 25 of our team made it to Kilimanjaro’s 19,340 feet. Not only did we make it, we made it together as a team. Our Tanzanian guide, Nickson, was amazed and said in his 200+ ascents, rarely does the whole team make it to the top together. I can only attribute our success to our team’s common goal: to stand at the top of Africa together. It was a daunting task as several of our teammates fought intestinal bacteria, altitude sickness and near frostbite. I struggled for every breath after 18,000 feet, as did others, but I did not want to let my team down. I knew my failure would be theirs. I saw such incredible giving as sighted guides continued to call out the trail to their blind climbers even as they gasped for their own breath; guides picked up climbers’ packs and sang us to the top with their Swahili chants; teammates, so desperate for the top, descended to escort those falling behind. I learned something on Kili: No one walks through life alone. Whether it is a spouse, a parent, a friend, a teacher, or a stranger, we all need someone, sometime. And having 24 incredible teammates to walk this special path with, I am grateful. We are going to meet Tanner Robinson, our last blind climber at Sky Harbor tonight at 6:54 US Airways flight #77 if you’d like to join us. You can see the incredible photos on our blog at http://www.seekiliourway.org/blogs.html. We will have video and additional information very soon. Watch us tomorrow morning on Channel 3 at 7:40. More to come. Marc Ashton Chief Executive Officer Foundation for Blind Children

Great topics this week - SM 101 and Educating Up The Ladder

This Thursday, July 9th, we will be having the first session of Social Medial 101, followed by a panel discussion of Educating Up The Ladder.

Social Media 101 will start at 5:30, an hour before the normal time. Led by local podcaster and general social media sage, Evo Terra, is intended to address any of the general social media questions everyone has when they start working in this space. They tend to come up regularly, so we are looking at setting up a separate time to focus on them.

At the normal 6:30 start time, we will have a panel focused on Educating Up The Ladder - or how to convince your managment, company, or organization that Social Media is a good idea. What tools were easiest to adopt? What "angle" made them easiest to sell?  What roadblocks remain?

Our panelists represent several large companies and non-profits from the Valley, and this promises to be an incredibly valuable session for anyone looking to expand Social Media adoption in their own organization.

• Chad Swaney, Social Learning Strategist
• Chris Rogers, Vice President Communications, Valley of the Sun United Way
• Laurie Buczek, Social Media Program Manager, Intel
• Nina Miller, Graphic Designer Principal, Office of the President, Arizona State University
• Robin Phillips, Online Community Manager, azcentral

If you have any questions or ideas you would like the panel to consider in advance, leave them in the comments below.

This topic was picked based on attendee feedback! If you haven't added your input on which topics you would like to see at future Social Media Clubs, get into the SMC Phoenix Uservoice forum and let us know.

5 Best/Worst Recap & Uservoice forum

Great meeting last night on the 5 Best/Worst of Valley Social Media. We tried a panel format that worked well, and we will definitely try again.  Big thanks to Chris Conrey (@conrey), Roger Williams (@halfacat), Michael Barber (@michaeljbarber), Evo Terra (@evo_terra), and Tyler Hurst (@tdhurst) for their input (although we had some technical difficulty with Tyler).

One change for next time will be "Social Media 101" that will run from 6:00 to 6:30 next month, immediately before the normal SMC meeting. If you or someone you know has questions about Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging software, or other general items - come on down!

I took notes on the comments from the panel, which I am not posting here. If you want to read and comment on them, you need to join the SMCPhoenix Google Group. It allows for a much better discussion than forum comments.

We also had many great ideas for future topics, several of which I've added into our SMCPhoenix Uservoice forum.  Please visit that to vote for your favorite ideas, or add your own.

Thanks to everyone who came and participated!

Top 5 Best & Worst of Valley Social Media

Francine has done a fantastic job starting the local Social Media Club chapter and running it for so long, but while she has handed over the reins to me for the summer I'd like to try a few things to see if we can reinvigorate involvement. My goal is to reach out to people who have not attended in a while, and get in a wider mix of people than the "usual suspects" that often show up.

To start with, we've set up a SMC Phoenix Google Group to allow people to provide input on upcoming topics and follow-up on previous ones.  It is open to join.  You can also now follow @SMCPhoenix on Twitter.

Clarifying the Scope

There is an enormous wealth of SM knowledge and experience in the Valley, yet it tends to collect in small groups (tribes, communities, whichever...) SMC can help cross those groups to share best practices, new ideas, and creative methodologies unique to the different groups.
SMC should support the social media professionals and practitioners in the Valley, to give them a common area to discuss their challenges. People new to SM are welcome to participate and share their ideas and challenges, but introductory questions about SM are better handled in a different forum.

Tweaking the Format

Rather than single speakers, use a panel format where 4-5 topic experts discuss a given topic then open it up to the audience. This provides a wider range of perspectives, and if the presenters are chosen for diverse perspectives we should get some strong discussion.

Limit introductions of the audience to name and role to save time and limit self-promoting. Encourage people to participate in the many-many discussion with the panel and not a one-many discussion during introductions.

Actively solicit topics, and recruit people to set them up.  Have 2-3 months planning at a time, with different people driving the agendas.

Trying it out...

We're giving this a try for the first time tomorrow night at the June meeting, with the topic of 5 Best/Worst in Valley Social Media. If you haven't attended in a while, please come down and give your input on this and future ideas. 

We would love to have your voice as part of the discussion!

~ Jeff Moriarty

The Social Media Bible, ideas, and @SMCPhoenix

Join the Social Media Club this Thursday, May 14th, at Jobing.com offices when our guests will be two of the authors of the Social Media Bible. Steven Groves and Lon Safko will talk about not only the content of the book, but who could use it, and some of the writing process behind it. They will be taking lots of Q&A and giving away a copy of the Social Media Bible, so come on out and get a look at their great new book.

We will also be looking for new topics, and possibly making some changes to the monthly meeting format to really make it as valuable as possible for everyone. What would you like to see from the SMC? How can it not just help you, but do more to help the community and social media usage across the Valley?  Bring your ideas for an open chat the last part of the evening.

We now have a Twitter account up at @SMCPhoenix, and will be tweeting about upcoming SMC topics and valley events. Give us a follow and pass it around!

How Do You Know if Your Social Media Vendor Gets It?

Image via CrunchBase

As major brands get involved with social media, they call upon outside resources who call themselves social media experts. But the social media world today is a lot like the Wild West atmosphere that used to prevail among web site developers in the 90's. Vendors called themselves web developers if they could use Front Page, and charged exorbitant prices for templated efforts. Buyers didn't know the difference between web apps and brochure-ware, and they got caught big time spending big bucks for things that didn't work and didn't accomplish what they wanted to accomplish. That could happen today as major brands begin what should be a slow shift to social media as a means of communicating with customers, clients, and suppliers. How do you know your social media vendor really knows what s/he's talking about? It's simple. Look at his/her portfolio, the same way you would look at a photographer's or a designer's. That portfolio is on the web, and should be easily searchable. Start with Google. Google your vendor's name. No matter how much you don't know about social media, you can do this part. Do you see your vendor on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, other social sites? That's the bare minimum. Read your vendor's blog or his Tumblr, or his comments on the blogs of others. Is s/he a valuable member of his/her community? Engaged? Respected? Thoughtful? Social media is a very quickly evolving space, and new tools come out every day. Does your vendor evaluate them? Write about them? Understand what they do? Only after you're sure your vendor is actually a user of social media do you ask the questions you would ask of any marketing consultant: 1) How would you solve my problem? (You need to know what problem you want to solve) 2)What tools are most appropriate for me? 3_How do I staff this effort? 4_What should I expect as ROI? 5)What time frame are you predicting for this result? 6)How much will it cost? A good vendor will take you through a meeting like this without you asking anything, BTW. #SMCQ3

Social Media at its Very Best

At last months's SMCPhx meeting, a friend named Bob Hubbard who runs a swim school for kids brought a couple of blind children, the father of one, and their neighbor to talk about an ambitious project to take blind children up Mt Kilimanjaro. They were trying to raise money.

The kids wore t-shirts that said "See Kili Our Way."  The Club made many suggestions about how to use social media to help the cause. And Andy Finkle was there.  He had just moved to Phoenix from New York, and I invited him to come to the meeting to meet the community. Honestly, I had no idea what would happen, but Bob wanted me to get involved with the kids, and I just didn't have the bandwidth, so I offered up SMC:-)

Andy volunteered to meet with Bob and the involved kids offline, and I bowed out.  Tonight I was copied on this email:

OK --- I am gonna tell you a story --- Kathy and  i got involved a few weeks ago in helping Max Ashton and his family in their efforts to raise money for a group of 8 blind people (2 kids under the age of 18 --- one of whom is Max --- the rest are in their early 20's) --- they are gonna climb Mt Kilimanjaro in June ---- 19,000 feet

so through another friend Francine Hardaway --- i went to a meeting of Francine's Social Media group --- at the presentation we met Andy --- he is a social networking (twitter, facebook) type of consultant --- lives on camelback mountain -- just moved here with his wife and two teenagers --- soooo this morning I met with Andy, Max's mom Lisa and one of our other former moms, Pam (who along with her family is helping to guide the group) --- so we have coffee and talk about twitter and facebook and Max and the climb

Andy gets going after the meeting --- not sure if the full string of correspondence will follow this but essentially he is getting Max resourses so he can twitter and email with voice recognition software and then he comes up with this guy, Doug, who not only works to make media accessiible to visually impaired BUT got engaged on top of Mt Kilimanjaro five (5) years ago

Now Doug is connected and working to help the Kili Team ---- amazing --- if you do not understand the social media --- you need to do so --- it is uniting the world iin ways we can only begin to imagine

if you want to know more about the climb --- go to my blog --- swimschoolbob.com --- there is a link there to the web pages for Max and other climbers as well as the work of the Foundation for Blind children

To me, this outcome represents not only the power of social media, but the power of community. Thanks, Andy, and welcome to Phoenix.  You have made quite an entrance.

SMC Phoenix Plans Program for 2009, Supports TwestivalPhx

We held a somewhat truncated meeting this month so that we could support @chrislee and #TwestivalPhx, which was conveniently down the street from our meeting.

The speakers were Bob Hubbard from Hubbard Swim School and a child representing the Foundation for Blind Children's initiative to take a group of blind children to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  They are trying to raise funds through a web site, and we are going to help them with our combined talents.

@dbarnart suggested a Twitter site where we could follow the kids up Kilimanjaro, and @A_F, who has just moved to Phoenix, volunteered his time to develop a strategy.

After that touching talk about how the Foundation for Blind Children empowers both parents and children, we crowdsourced the agenda for the next few months:

March: signal v. noise (Brian Roy and JustSignal)
April: SXSW wrap-up and de-brief (Jeff Moriarty, Francine Hardaway, and others who attend SXSWi)
May: The Launch of the Social Media Bible
June: Social media as strategy vs. social media PR - Andy Kaufman

At that point someone suggested we accept suggestions from people who did not attend #SMCPhx because they were at #TwestivalPhx (or anywhere else).

So we are accepting suggestions for the rest of the year's programs. Please add a comment below, or email me at francine@stealthmode.com

We held a somewhat truncated meeting this month so that we could support @chrislee and #TwestivalPhx, which was conveniently down the street from our meeting.

The speakers were Bob Hubbard from Hubbard Swim School and a child representing the Foundation for Blind Children's initiative to take a group of blind children to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  They are trying to raise funds through a web site, and we are going to help them with our combined talents.

@dbarnart suggested a Twitter site where we could follow the kids up Kilimanjaro, and @A_F, who has just moved to Phoenix, volunteered his time to develop a strategy.

After that touching talk about how the Foundation for Blind Children empowers both parents and children, we crowdsourced the agenda for the next few months:

March: signal v. noise (Brian Roy and JustSignal)
April: SXSW wrap-up and de-brief (Jeff Moriarty, Francine Hardaway, and others who attend SXSWi)
May: The Launch of the Social Media Bible
June: Social media as strategy vs. social media PR - Andy Kaufman

At that point someone suggested we accept suggestions from people who did not attend #SMCPhx because they were at #TwestivalPhx (or anywhere else).

So we are accepting suggestions for the rest of the year's programs. Please add a comment below, or email me at francine@stealthmode.com

Last Night's Phoenix Social Media Club

Paul Valach watches as Sally Strebel of Best Party Ever gives a truly useful (and unusualin all the best ways!) presentation at Phoenix Social Media Club last night. As always, thanks to our sponsor, Jobing.com, which provides a wonderful venue.

Enterprise Microsharing Apps: Read All About Em | Pistachio

My friend Pistachio (Laura Fitton) just released this report on enterprise microblogging applications. You would be surprised how many companies are already in this space.

This post officially launches our first research report on the 19* applications vying to bring Twitteresque networking and communications inside the enterprise.Enterprise Microsharing Apps: Read All About Em | Pistachio, Sep 2008

You should read the whole article.