Online Community Case Study: Illinois Park and Recreation Association's IPRA Online

Here's a teaser for you. I've been conducting some interviews for case studies of associations using social media, which will appear as part of the Association Social Technologies Survey, which is coming out very soon.

One of my case studies is the Illinois Parks and Recreation Association, and I recently got a heads up from Dean Comber, Director of Operations at IPRA, with a press release on their new online community which they launched at the end of September.

"ILLINOIS PARK AND RECREATION ASSOCIATION LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE
OAKBROOK TERRACE, ILLINOIS: The Illinois Park and Recreation Association, a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization, with over 2800 members, on Monday, September 22, 2008 will launch its new website IPRAONLINE.COM. The new site will replace IPRA’s current site, ILipra.org, and will provide members with an “online community” to enhance value to membership in the association.

IPRAONLINE.COM is a brand new web site that addresses the challenges of creating a community of park and recreation professionals. IPRAONLINE is the new community home for IPRA members and those interested in parks and recreation.

The new site boasts a fresh new look; combined with easier navigation and useful and relevant tools for the professional. The site has been developed with the mindset of being able to create communities for the members.

Three major advancements have been made to the site. Community Groups members can join; an enhanced resource library that allows members to upload and share documents, and the ability to build a professional profile and network by searching individual members and organizations.

The new site automatically places the member into an online social network on their chosen special interest section. The Member-Only home, known as I-Link, puts the member in control of the member experience. When logging into I-Link the member is connected to every other special interest member that shares similar interests, job responsibilities and committees. A membership can ask questions, share ideas and communicate create ideas and solutions too many other members questions.

The control of content is in the member’s hands 24/7/365. Following the concept of Facebook and Linkedin, members have the ability to search and connect with members “real-time” right from their computer."

Dean added this information:

"As an FYI, our site directly connects to Avectra netForum (via XML) and we incorporated the usage of community groups and the ability to add members to an individual’s network. We did not use a vendor for this initiative…we did it all in house. I know we’re not the first association to connect their website to an AMS and I doubt we’re the first to implement social networking (groups, etc.); however, based on our size we feel it’s a pretty big accomplishment. We figured if we got one member who wasn’t involved to get more involved, one younger member to network with a more seasoned member (and vice-versa), and one member to find the site to be useful in their career, we’ve done our job. In less than a month, we can say “yes” to all those questions.

In less than a month, we’ve had “checkbook” members (about 40% of our membership base) become involved in the association, update their profile, and request to volunteer for association-related events. Each time I login to the site, 15 new people are using it.

I know we’re a small 501c3, but we’re pretty proud of this accomplishment…something that I dreamed about doing 4 years ago and now is a reality. As an FYI, we spent under 10k (intangible costs, no tangible costs) to make this happen."

This is totally rockin' awesome. Whether you do it in-house, with a technology vendor or using free social sites, diving into the social media space can and does add real value. Particularly in these tough economic times, where membership in an association might be something that gets crossed off the list of essential expenses, don't underestimate the "power of social".

I have a lot more good stuff from IPRA and several other associations in my case study interviews - so keep an eye out for the full study. You can pre-order a copy here.

Two Sweet Articles on Social Media from NTEN

Ok, so the first one is by me and Lindy - but it's a good one, I promise. Got Your Ears On? How to Listen to Your Audience Using Social Media. If you like it, please comment or share. And also do check out our live bibliography that goes with it. Got anything you want us to add? Let us know.

The second is by Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Foundation - Generating Buzz: Using Social Media to Drive Website Traffic. It's a really really good case study on how to start listening using social bookmarking sites.

Go on, just get crackin', I always say.

NTEN Office Hours Chat 10/30

Your friendly neighborhood Socialfish will be "IN" the NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST.

Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!

Last week, we talked about Lynn Morton's social media strategy for building online community around the Baltimore theater scene. Part of the discussion was when to use Facebook versus having a home base. We also talked about differentiating voices in a multi-author blog...in Lynn's case, she'll have several critics reviewing theater productions, so you really have to know who's critiquing. We talked about Twitter tools, including Twitter Karma. And spent some time talking about how much we all LUV Twitter. Tw00t!

Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.

Click HERE for the chat room if it's not working well embedded below.

[chat room removed after chat]

Latest and sweetest Twitter Tools and Google Reader Tips

Image via CrunchBaseAlready on Twitter? Add yourself to the JustTweetIt Twitter Directory - or search for Twitterers of interest.

Friend or Follow - self explanatory, see who follows you back or not.

Have a blog or website? Add a TwitThis button to your site to enable anyone to tweet it easily - it automatically converts the url to a tinyurl. Or just drag the bookmarklet up to your toolbar to "Twit" (tweet?) any link to a site you want to share.

More on sharing... here's how you can share any website page in Google Reader.

And... these keyboard shortcuts for Google Reader are awesome.

Plus... have some standard replies that you cut and paste into several emails? Check out Gmail's Canned Responses and other cool stuff at Google Labs.

Hmm, should be enough to keep you busy for a few minutes... : )

Were you at DMAW's Association Day on 10/16?

If you were, and you attended Lindy's and my presentation on New Rules for Engaging Young Professionals, you may remember we promised you a bibliography with lots of links to things we discussed and additional info. Unfortunately the "handouts" (I use the term loosely - who actually finds slide printouts of any use whatsoever???) that were sent out by email did not include this information as we hoped, and of course they quite properly do not share email lists with us speakers, so here is the link for you. Please tweet or share this to anyone you may know who was at the session.

(Note to self: collect cards next time!)

And of course, I can't mention "young professionals" without putting in a plug for YAP - a community to support young association professionals as well as those young to the profession. Our community is growing exponentially. We have a busy YAP CAE Study Area, lots of fun events, a truly awesome blog for anyone to try their hand at blogging, and more. Check it out. You gotta be in it to win it, I always say!

OMG! Clay Shirky's keynoting at DigitalNow!

Here's the scoop.

Thinking of starting an Association Blog?

Here are some good starter-for-ten ideas from Kivi Leroux Miller.

Or, you could come take a class at our School of SocialFish.

Mark your calendars...

... for the ASAE Technology Conference, January 26-28, 2009. Lindy and I will be not only hosting the first YAP-extravaganza party of the year 2009 in conjunction with the conference (details to follow - watch this space), but we'll also be conducting a fun little presentation at the conference: Unleash Your Inner Geek: Shiny New Web 2.0 Objects.

You can't miss THAT, now can you! : )

Lil' Pile o' Links

OK so my workload is currently out of control (this whole "working two full time jobs + studying for my CAE" thing is not working too well for me), so apologies if I'm being a little lax on the blogging front. Here's some links to keep you happy.

- Awesome article in WaPo about young social entrepreneurs - gotta Love Futbol!

- NTEN helps you get started with video.

- Wes on Business Intelligence

- Facebook and Chapter Engagement

- Steve Radick's nine-step playbook for organizations getting into social media

- Jamie's awesome post on Listening and Leadership

- Ira's Tips for Creating an Online Engaging Experience with your Web Seminar

- Twitter and Yahoo Pipes

Ok that's it for now. Enjoy!

Code name: RUTI

I have mentioned the ASAE's Technology Council's beta online community a couple of times here. For you ASAE members who might be interested in updates on what's going on with it, I set up a Code Name: RUTI group within the ASAE directory. Sign up here (login required, probably).

RUTI is just our pet name for this community, and stands for "Really Important Technology Information". A bit like HAL, geddit? Hehehe.

We'll let the community decide it's permanent name at launch time, but in the meantime, we'd love you to join the group. We'll be asking people in due course to be beta-testers and this group will be one of the first places we look for special super-cool interested people to invite! You'll of course also be able to give us your two cents there too, if you have thoughts on things we should be doing in setting this up.

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Introducing School of SocialFish

Want to start blogging? Check out our School of SocialFish. Lindy and I will be running intensive, very small workshops (limited to 8 people) on Personal or Professional Blogging 101. The first two scheduled workshops are in December; we are also able to run one for a group at your location as long as you have 4-8 interested people and a wi-fi-enabled meeting room.

Intro to Personal Blogging

* How to listen like a blogger before you ever write your first post
* Blog set-up basics, from configuring a free blogging platform to optimizing RSS feeds and social bookmarking tools
* Secrets behind great blog writing
* Getting comments and building community
* Personal branding through your blog

Intro to Association Blogging

* Secrets behind great blog writing
* Different types of posts that can add spice to association blogs
* Technology tricks, from optimizing RSS feeds and using social bookmarking tools to syndicating your blog content all over the web
* Getting comments and building community
* How to be authentic and good alternatives to ghostwriting
* Developing voice and personality in single or multi-author association blogs

We'll be offering more workshops on 202 and 303 level blogging, as well as workshops on Twitter and other hot topics. Watch this space and thank you all for spreading the word.

NTEN Office Hours Chat 10/23

Your friendly neighborhood Socialfish will be "IN" the NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST.

Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!

Last week, we were able to get the scoop about Tatango, a sweet group messaging service, from Derek Johnson, their CEO. Check it out. We've set up a SocialFish account, and we'll start using it soon to let our peeps know where we are hanging out. Would love you to join.

Yet another reason Twitter is so awesome, though - we always seem to be able to get really cool people dropping by the chat room just by seeing who happens to be on Twitter at that particular time and pinging them. Brian Solis dropped in to say hi last week, along with a bunch of our association buddies.

Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.

Click HERE for the chat room if it's not working well embedded below.

[chat room removed after chat]

Blog Action Day results

Whoa. Check out what we achieved.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated!

What Associations Must Know About Social Networking - Replay

Catch a SocialFish live at Avectra Academy's Roadshow at ASAE's Ronald Reagan Building location this Thursday, October 23.

It's free! Come hang out with us and get answers to your burning questions.

We did this a couple of weeks ago and had a great crowd. The link to supplemental information is here; take a peek at what's in store and see if your appetite is whetted. (And, speaking of appetite, a complimentary lunch is included). It's a panel, so of course the discussion this time will be tailored to your particular questions.

Register here!

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Twitter tools (advanced)

Looking for a list of Twitter tools? Look no further. Thanks Brian!

You can also subscribe to the Twitter blog for updates from Ev himself, or for a ridiculous number of twitter tools, try Twitterholics. These will give you some sense of the unlimited potential of this tool, though, by the mere fact that there are so many things people can experiment with around it.

NTEN Office Hours Chat 10/16

Your friendly neighborhood Socialfish will be "IN" the NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST.

Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!

Last week, we talked about Drupal vs. Joomla, mainly. (Our take? Drupal is easier to play with. Speaking of which, Lindy and I have a Drupal sandbox we plan to experiment with - we'll let you take a peek in due course. Let us know if there's anything you want us to try setting up in it - like a CMS, blog, wiki space, forum, podcasting, file library etc etc.)

Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.

Click HERE for the chat room if it's not working well embedded below.

[removed after chat]

I'm sharing the NTEN awesome!

Just got this excellent email from NTEN (The Nonprofit Technology Network), after I just renewed last week. So here I am, sharing the NTEN awesome. I do plan to make a donation, although I have something like $27 in the checking account right now so it may have to wait a bit, but if one person joins this really great association because they heard about it here, then I hope that goes a little way.

Oh and I just got my WeAreMedia T-shirt so I am super stoked!



Hi Maddie -

Renewing your NTEN membership lets us know that you think we're awesome. And you know the feeling is mutual - we're excited about providing another year of member resources for you. But NTEN and you aren't in this game just to help our members change the world, we're in it to help the entire sector change the world.

You can help NTEN provide free resources for the entire nonprofit community like:

* Research and reports, like the IT Staffing & Salary Report
* We Are Media project
* Our E-newsletter, NTEN Connect
* NTEN Office Hours
* Jobs board
* and Affinity Groups

Your membership helps us deliver the quality programs you love, like our webinars, the NTC and our Speaker's Directory. Your added support will help us share the NTEN awesome with the larger sector!

Please support your community by making a tax-deductible donation today.

Thank you for your support,

Holly Ross,
Executive Director

Quote of the week: Design Tells You About Possibility

Valerie Casey, designer, in Fast Company, on social responsibility:

"We don't have an economic problem, we don't have an ecological problem, we have a design problem. The environmentalists tell us this problem is about limits. But design tells you about possibility."

Check out the Designers Accord, between 100,000+ designers and firms, design students and corporations, and endorsed by the 22,000 member-strong AIGA (professional designers' association).


Vision

The vision of the Designers Accord is to integrate the principles of sustainable design into all practice and production. Our mission is to catalyze innovation throughout the creative community by collectively building our intelligence around sustainability.


Mission

We advocate inverting the traditional model of competition, and encourage sharing best practices so we can innovate more efficiently. We will:

- Provide collective and individual ways for designers to take action.

- Ask all adopters to engage in conversation about social and environmental impact with every client and customer, and integrate sustainable alternatives in their work.

- Create a web platform to enable the conversation about opportunities and challenges associated with creating products and services that make positive social and environmental impact.

Rock on!

IMPORTANT: Tomorrow is Blog Action Day - changeblogging in action

October 15th is Blog Action Day and the cause this year is helping eradicate poverty.

If you're a blogger, post something on the subject - here's some ideas. And display a badge like the one above.

If you're an individual, here's what you can do.


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Found another totally awesome blog

Check out OnlineMarketerBlog.com.

Here's his current "best of" list:

* Writing Content In A Web 2.0 World
* The Seven Deadly Sins Of Social Media
* Please Ignore This Ad - Features Vs. Benefits
* 21 Considerations Before Your Business Starts A Social Network
* 5 Copywriter Lessons From AC/DC
* Marketing To Latinos - What You Think You Know CAN Hurt You
* ROI Of Social Media For Gen Y Audiences (And How To Convince Your Boss)

And here's my personal favorite so far:

13 Marketing Lessons from Film Noir

If only...

...we could stop having to justify ourselves.

More on the interaction object - and the platform as authority.

Nina Simon of Museum 2.0 has, as always, a really great post about the Future of Authority: Platform Power. In it, she argues that the past is about control, but the future is about expertise and authority. Check out this image:



"When you think of a platform for user-generated content, you may not think of that platform as having power. But the companies that run YouTube, Flickr, and other major Web 2.0 sites have lots of power. There are four main powers that platforms have:

1. the power to set the rules of behavior
2. the power to preserve and exploit user-generated content
3. the power to promote and feature preferred content
4. the power to define the types of interaction available to users

These powers comprise a set of controls which constitutes a real and valuable authority."

She then goes on to discuss each of these in the museum (as platform) context.

So what if we look at this in terms of, for example, the online community we want to set up for ASAE's technology audience?

We (meaning the Tech Council subcommittee charged with working this out) are in general agreement that the community has to be at least partially open. But Nina's example shows that the "authority", ASAE, can still have a lot of power within that space.

1. the power to set the rules of behavior

We can, and should have rules and guidelines governing acceptable behavior. Communities tend to be very self-policing, and while it makes sense to have some written disclaimers and rules about how to avoid anything that might violate anti-trust laws, for example, or jeopardize tax-exempt status, or exclude any comments that might be defamatory, etc etc, we can also feel pretty comfortable that our users are smart and will, on their own, point out (e.g. "flag as inappropriate") things that are unacceptable.

2. the power to preserve and exploit user-generated content

User-generated content is what it's all about, including discussion around official publications or association content. But as platform owner, ASAE can make it quite clear that it can promote itself with that content, and use it in a myriad of ways. As Nina says, users who upload a photo to Flickr or a video to YouTube know that those companies have some ownership rights over those materials.

3. the power to promote and feature preferred content

"One of the greatest powers retained by these platforms is the power to feature content that reflects the values of the platform. [...] This may be the most important platform power when it comes to museums because it is the one that allows the platform to present its values and model preferred behavior."
This one speaks for itself. ASAE can show its best foot forward, and promote itself as the community you want to be in by showcasing the most important discussions, the highest rated articles, whatever. We do this very consciously with YAP - we want people to see how awesome we are and we can select the most fantastic discussions to appear right on the landing page. We're lucky, we have a lot to choose from - but we want you, the random visitor, to see IMMMEDIATELY how much you could get out of it by participating.

4. the power to define the types of interaction available to users

Last but definitely not least. Here's the one that goes back to the object. "This power is so basic that it is often forgotten. On YouTube, you can share videos. On Craigslist, you can buy and sell stuff. On LibraryThing, you can tag and talk about books. Each Web 2.0 platform has a limited feature set and focuses on one or two basic actions that users can take. Museums don't need to offer every kind of interaction under the sun--we just have to pick the few interactions that most support the kind of behavior and content creation that we value. Again, there's a lot of power in the decision of whether visitors will be allowed to contact each other, rate artifacts, or make their own exhibits. As long as you create a platform that is consistent in its values and the interactions provided, you will be able to control the experience as you open up content authority." ASAE needs to define the social objects that are most important for the community to be built around, and that choice will make or break it. We'd love to have it all - but careful selection of core interactions will be key to making it work and giving it longevity. I really like that last phrase, I'll repeat it again:

As long as you create a platform that is consistent in its values and the interactions provided, you will be able to control the experience as you open up content authority.

What do you think? Do you agree that despite what one might fear as "loss of control" in setting up a social network, that there's actually a ton of authoritative power still there?

Twitter for Marketing 101

Attended a fab webinar on Twitter today, presented by Hubspot. In true 2.0 stylee, we followed the conversation and posted questions via Twitter search, and they have kindly shared the presentation which I am reposting below.

This was a good 101 introduction to Twitter, so many of us were left really wanting some more advanced 201 learning. While I am sure Hubspot will not disappoint and will provide that at some point for marketers in general, Lindy and I are also planning on writing a webinar on Twitter, possibly more specific to associations.

I think the basics are clearly spelled out in this one for associations as well as businesses, so for anyone just dipping your toes is this will tell you pretty much all you need to know.

For our advanced one, though, I would love you to give us any higher level questions you may have about Twitter use, in general or for associations specifically - please feel free to post them here in the comments or email me at maddie@socialfish.org. We'll let you know when we're ready to present the webinar.

In the meantime, enjoy this one!

Hire a SocialFish while we're still dirt cheap...

I'm just sayin'.

On new meeting formats.

I've been following this interesting discussion on Acronym about different meeting formats. As you may remember, Jeff de Cagna and I did a Pecha Kucha session at ASAE's annual meeting in San Diego. We were interviewed for the article in Associations Now which sparked the discussion.

As it happens, I just got the evaluation results today for our session, and I thought I'd share some of them. I have taken out anything specifically referring to Jeff and I since I didn't ask him if he minded me doing this (he's on a plane), but I think this is an interesting snapshot.

COMMENTS

You know, this was a great session. It started off a bit awkward. What organically happened in the rest of the session, though, was GREAT, I would have stayed another hour listening to what was reported back, I felt like I got a LOT of "takeaways" from this session.

Would have liked more information on Pecha Kucha. How it can be used, when it's successful and when it's not. When they got to the What did you learn, lots of people left the room. I never got a chance to participate because some people started asking questions and taking the session off track.

Worth trying again. But give others an assignment ahead of meeting and then present together at the end

While it is useful to review (both personally and through others' recollections), I'm not sure this was true learning rather than reviewing.

Waste of time. Left after first 10 minutes.

Very interesting strategy.

Very good session, great ideas shared throughout audience with a lot of good discussion. One thing that would have pushed it higher would have been some helpful hints on how to implement this type of learning

too much emphasis on social media, Best thing about this session was it gave me the opportunity to reflect and put on paper my key learning. I would have liked to learn more about the way to use pecha kucha in more ways. some other examples/techniques.

This is a great concept that could be used at committee meetings our association holds. It was beneficial to reflect on the entire experience of the meeting and what we each take home over and above session content.

The Pecha Kucha method is interesting but the group exercise was not interesting to me.

Loved the experience. Love that it was something new. Great that lots of people felt comfortable sharing.

I was hoping the session would be more about presenting in Pecha Kucha style. I left about 10-15 minutes into the presentation.

I walked out of this with a weird feeling. The session was kind of touchy feely, but upon reflecting on it, it helped shape my experience at this year's event and I realized that I probably took away more from this session as I told my peers back in the office about my experience.

Great program-- enabled me to identify what I had learned and what I could immediately implement for us

good reflection experience, but not sure i took much else away from it.

Experiential learning at its best!

Creative, fresh and fun.

A fun way to wrap up the conference! This session made me realize that I had learned more than I thought.


So I love that some people loved it and some people hated it. That is totally awesome to me. Who wants to be "meh"?

So I guess what I'm saying here is that while not everyone is ready for new meeting formats, many people are willing to try. In my opinion you really need to mix it up in a big conference especially, and try things to appeal to different tastes. I don't know if this is setting the bar too low, but if I leave a conference having been to ONE session that really got me motivated, and thinking about stuff, then I am happy. The rest is all about networking and meeting up with friends and all the other hallway stuff that makes a conference special.

Cool Tool of the week: Addict-O-Matic

Inhale the web.

I love it. Just plug in the name of your association of a key term or whatever et voila! How easy can this get?

Here's ASAE.

Here's SocialFish.

Here's "nonprofit tech"

Here's IEEE.

Here's SHRM.

Those are big - here's a small one - APsaA (American Psychoanalytic Association).

Stop me! I am having too much fun! : )

NTEN Office Hours Chat 10/9

Your friendly neighborhood Socialfish will be "IN" the NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST.

Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!

Last week, we talked about boomers using Facebook, finding "champions" according to the M2M/S2S rule (member to member - staff to staff - yes I am studying for the CAE!) - you must get MEMBERS to encourage other members to participate in social media efforts.

Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.

Click HERE for the chat room.

On Object-centered Sociality

Read this fascinating post by Jyri Engeström. I want to know what you think.

In it, he argues that "the social networking services that really work are the ones that are built around objects." [my bold here and below].

Namely, Flickr is about photos; Youtube is about videos; LinkedIn (when it works) is about jobs, etc. "...the term 'social networking' makes little sense if we leave out the objects that mediate the ties between people. Think about the object as the reason why people affiliate with each specific other and not just anyone. For instance, if the object is a job, it will connect me to one set of people whereas a date will link me to a radically different group. This is common sense but unfortunately it's not included in the image of the network diagram that most people imagine when they hear the term 'social network.' The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They're not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object."

I very much agree with this and I do believe that this is one reason why some social networks fail. They may start off right, namely by inviting a group of people with similar interests to congregate online, but the "relationship" part of it is, it seems to me, just one criteria for who might be interested in checking it out, but NOT something that will keep someone involved just on its own.

I am on the Technology Section Council for ASAE and we are planning on setting up an online community, initially for technology-related ASAE folks. Now, we have the audience (which of course can be divided up into various subgroups with different interests). One reason our audience may want to come and have a look is to meet other association technology people. But that can't be the objective of the community. It sounds like a valid objective - but once these people meet each other, then what? There have to be "objects" within the community that will engender relationships. Maybe the object is "help" - like a helpdesk or discussion forum. Maybe the object is "news" like a one-stop-shop for relevant news feeds, or a blog to discuss particular issues. Maybe the object is a project, or several projects. Or all of the above...

When we're thinking about the functionality we want this community to have, I think it will be crucial to identify what social objects will make our audience want to interact in our community rather than anywhere else.

The other side of this coin is that when you recognize the objects that keep people involved in a network, you realize that it's totally OK and even desirable for people to be equally active elsewhere, for other reasons, and that does not detract from the viability of your social space.

Thoughts?

Come to SocialDev Camp East!

"SocialDevCamp East is the Unconference for Thought Leaders of the Future Social Web

Following up on the successful premiere of SocialDevCampEastSpring2008, held in Baltimore in May, SocialDevCamp East Fall 2008 once again invites east coast developers and technology business leaders to come together for a thoughtful discussion of the ideas and technologies that will drive the future of the social web.

Because of the central location, the event draws from Washington, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston -- the emerging "Amtrak Corridor" technology scene.

Where is the social web going? It's going mobile, to geocentric services, and to open platforms. Join a community of like minded developers, social media gurus and thought leaders for an unconference to discuss the future of the social web.

We're looking for thought leaders from DC to Boston to meet, forge relationships, and envision the future."

Barcamp wiki is here; Facebook info is here. Join Lindy and I at this really fun unconference.

Do associations need Community Managers?

Or, Social Media Managers: Do Associations Need Them? Check out this fantastic discussion on yapstar.org.

Here's your weekend reading assignment.

My pal Brian Solis has a really nice new essay on The State of Social Media 2008.

"Through sociology, anthropology, and ethnography, we’re learning to peel back the layers of our online markets to see the specific groups of people underneath as well as their behavior. As such, we’re starting to figure out that we need to humanize our story and the process of storytelling and engagement. And, through observation, we’re able to find our real customers and those who influence them."

Enjoy.

Need some water cooler distraction?

Check out the Election 2008 Twitterstream for a little while. Updates continuously.

What Associations Must Know About Social Networking

Is your interest piqued? I'm doing a roadshow panel with Andy Steggles, Greg Fine and some other cool peeps for the Avectra Academy.

We're doing one on Wednesday Oct 8 at Hotel Monaco in Alexandria, and another in DC at ASAE on Oct 23.

It's free! Come hang out with us and ask us questions about this hot topic.

Register here!

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• Catch SocialFish live, and see how simple social media really is.
• Know your audience. Know your audience. Know your audience.
• Word of Mouth for Associations

NTEN Office Hours Chat 10/2

Your friendly neighborhood Socialfish will be "IN" the NTEN Office Hours Communications Chat Room every Thursday (that's today!!) at 3 pm EST.

Got burning questions about social media strategy? Or just want to hang out and shoot the breeze and get a break from work? Now's your chance!

Last week, our chat rocked. We discussed generational issues (Lindy having had to defend her X-er self to a room full of unusually unfriendly boomers earlier in the day); we talked about John Palfrey's ideas about Digital Natives, (I am totally going to buy that book btw); we opined about singlehandedly throwing out the broadcast (push) model of traditional marketing and communications, and more specifically finding ways to replace its military terminology - it's full of words like "targeting", "deploying" "campaigns"... - and finding better words; and we took the "what's your internet age?" quiz. All in all, one of our best chats yet, I think!

I am also very happy that we are starting to get some regulars in the room, which clearly means it's worth coming back for more.

Whether the conversation is deep or just a nice break from the dullness of your daily routine, though, we're all about sharing. Pick our brains, we'll tell you our take on things.

[Chat room removed after chat. Check back here every Thursday at 3 pm EST!]

Socialfish Interview on Twitter

Enjoy. (But soon, as I find this quite embarrassing and cringeworthy! Can't help it! Not sure how long I can stand to have this up!)

Here's the link to the Engage Newsletter. My part is in the "Diamond in the Rough" section. There's some other good links as well as the video.

Quote of the Week!

“Content is king, but marketing is queen, and the queen runs the household.”

- Gary Vaynerchuk at Blog World Expo (via Problogger)