Category Archives: Education

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club Panelists: Moderator Chris Heuer, Peter Kim, Jen McClure and Michael Brito

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting at PeopleBrowsr offices on Tuesday, May 17th. in SOMA. It was a conversation that included Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club as Moderator, Peter Kim of Dachis Group, Jen McClure of Thomas Reuters and Michael Brito of Edelman.

There appears to be a shift in the way that companies are messaging themselves; rather than conducting Social Media its preferred to be known as conducting Social Business. Much of the discussion centered around how each of the panelists define social media in terms of their companies and how it relates to social media. All agreed that social media has evolved from when it first came into our consciousnesses around 2004. Brito saw that when it first debuted to companies it was creating chaos but now companies are making sense of it and embracing it. McClure whose company has a large workforce felt that the term itself is being used less and its now more about it becoming part of the social organization and enabling employees to communicate with one another. Kim shared how the social media term is on the “outs” with the story of  how his client, Zappos‘ CEO Tony Hsieh, fined $1 to anyone who even uttered the term social media.

The panelists also shared their own definition of Social Business. Kim saw it similar to how you connect consumers but in the business world. Its how you communicate with employees through technology such as Jive Software that provides social networking, collaboration software, community software and media monitoring. Kim said, it “pains him when people use social business as social media which it is not.” McClure sees social business as a platform to connect and help employers learn from. Brito shared his definition of social business from an infographic that he has created. As he defined it, its the natural evolution that companies go through internally to equip themselves with customers. It starts with the people internally in a company such as the CMO and as a result processes are established within and technology brought on to manage it results.

Google Trend Comparison of Social Media vs. Social Business

A comparison between Social Media and Social Business in terms of search and news interest demonstrated how Social Business is barely a blip, yet its most definitely of importance to those in the enterprise social world. In the end perhaps the discussion was mostly about the semantics of language as it was agreed that social media is the umbrella term, with social business being a niche version of it. Some examples of those companies as seen in the forefront of this focus on Social Busienss were IBM, SAP, Cisco, Intel. Kim though felt at tis time no one is doing Social Business Particularly well but just getting started such as Disney and AT&T. There is still a huge amount of opportunity for companies to join the social world in a business way in the near future.

Join the Conversation with the Social Media Club SF at #SMCSF, view the video and photos from the event.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was attending when I was invited to the 2nd. Swagapalooza at the DNA lounge last Tuesday. It turns out they pretty much invite bloggers and then they reward them with swag by attending and hopefully promoting the event. Most of the bloggers were foodie bloggers as most of the demos were about food. There really was no theme. The food wasn’t anything to write home about, mosty pizza. But it was a fun, excitable, heckling crowd who was happy to be there as were the presenters that were introduced on stage by Alex Krupp, the host and organizer.

First up was Justin Kahn of Justin.TV as the Keynote. He shared the virtues of quitting your day job and going after your dream with the young and impressionable audience who eagerly listened to his “lessons in life”. Fortunately for him, its all working out. Not only has Jason.TV taken off, he has now started his own mens-ware line.

Kristen Slow of Sabateur had Jason model her signature jacket from her mensware line. She demonstrated how any liquid will just roll off the Invincible Man’s Jacket. Although definitely a cool item to own, I was a bit sticker shocked at the price, $600! But she hooked us up with some real swag, a real men’s shirt with real men’s cuff links!

Transcendent Man, the movie about Ray Kurzweil, one of the world’s leading futurists was introduced by its director, Barry Ptolomy. Its going to be released in every conceivable medium that is available – YouTube, Apps, TV. You can even watch it here now! It suggests that computers will have conscience thinking and even cure death in the near future.

Will Hauser of Two Degrees shared with us the virtues of his all-natural, gluten-free bars. Their mission is to feed over 200 million children, one child at the time. The audience though was all a twitter and tweeting how HOT he was.

I never realized how fun recycling could be. John Funk of FlingBins popped up his 13 gallion recyclable bins to show us just how easy it is to whip one out at a party and have a good time with your garbage.

Swipe your credit card with Swipegood and do good by rounding up your transaction to the nearest dollar and then contribute that amoutn to your favorite charity. Steli Efti shared the many reasons why this is something you just automatically CAN do and DO good.

Stunner of the Month shared the cheesiest but entertaining presentation of all. Todd Smith modeled his offerings, quite the deal for $9 a month. You receive a new pair of shades and a funky tape to go with it in the mail. The perfect gift for all occasions!

Tracy Lee and her partner threw out Magic Panties?  Whatever they were, the crowd was going wild to catch a pair.

You would think that the Boom Boom Revolution would be something thumping but rather its a card deck where folks are prompted to do acts of kindness and then share them with a community of do-gooders. Turns out that Mary Beth Campbell, a former teacher was so shocked that her students were into acts of kindness she felt compelled to share it with the world.

Seems there are lots of people seeking to connect with others when they are not digitally connected. Eddie Lu of Grubwith.us and his partner realized this when they moved to Chicago. They set up a community where strangers can eat and meet one another at restaurants around the city.

Danny Grabiner of SourFlour is also creating community through his bread. He made 172 loafs of bread and greeted each and every attendee upon arriving at the event with their very own loaf. It was yummy but such a huge loaf that I gave it to one of the homeless on my way home.

And last of the bunch was Amerilab Technology which when it came down to it, they provided a possible solution to one’s hangover with their product, the Drinkin’Mate, although according to laws, they couldn’t come straight out and say that. Their secret ingredien: guava leaf extract. As part of my goodie bag I was swagged with one of their products so we’ll see if it actually works.

For the real fun follow the event at #swagapalooza. And check out the after party pics and some more pics here.

Alex Krupp, Host of Swagapalooza

Justin Khan of Khan.TV and Kristen Slow of Sabateur

Barry Ptolemy of Transcendent Man

Will Hauser of Two Degrees

Steli Efti of Swipe Good

Todd Smith, Stunner of the Month

Eddie Lu, Grubwith.Us

Tracy Lee and Partner

Chris Biggs and Partner of Ameritabs

By Julie Blaustein

It’s the countdown to the Data 2.0 Conference, Monday, April 4, 2011, at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.  Discover how the online data revolution will shape and transform the world of technology for years to come.

Data 2.0 is about the rise of data accessibility.  Do you know what new innovations are possible with the growing abundance of social, geo, government and advertising data?  Hear speakers from Google, NAVTEQ, and comScore alongside Jay Adelson, CEO of SimpleGeo; Gil Elbaz, CEO of Factual; Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir; and 50 other data companies at the full-day conference. The event will culminate in a data startup pitch contest, judged by Robert Scoble and five Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

The conference will also feature the launch on-stage of the $3 million Heritage Health Prize, the world’s largest data challenge.  At least 6 data companies will be launching new products and features. If interested, send an email to info@data2con.com if you are interested in launching.

Click here to Register for the Data 2.0 Conference

Special for our Bub.blicio.us, USE discount code “data2on11” to get 25% off the standard conference registration. Hurry, tickets are selling fast!

Recruiting Disrupted: What’s Your Online Score?

Finding the needle in a haystack in search for the right talent is getting harder as the traditional recruitment models are being disrupted by social networks and increasing number of online services for professional resumes. True story: While professional social network LinkedIn just passed 100M members, growing at a rate of 1M new members per week, an executive recruiting agency just had a seminar on topics ”What is LinkedIn?” and “The difference between Twitter and a chat?”. They better hurry. The landscape is rapidly moving towards social recruiting services in verticals, good example being the newly launched Careers 2.0 by Stack Overflow, offering programmers create free online resume that weighs in their forum activity.

“No longer will your resume be your own version of your work history; it will also include a data-driven third party’s assessment. You will also be judged by your network, online activity, level of contribution, all adding up to your online score. The next time you look for a job, don’t be surprised if someone asks you for your score.”

“How much are you worth and would you opt-out from social scoring systems?”

Student Competitions Harnessing World’s Top Students

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting Tuesday, March 22nd at the CoTweet offices in SOMA. The title of the event, The Future Role of Community Management, Is It a Dying Role?, provoked stimulating conversation.  The strong panel of Community Guru’s included Moderator Maria Ogneva, Head of Community at Yammer, John Virtes, Head of Community at Flipboard, Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium and Scott Rutherford, Co-Founder at UserVoice.

The Panel with Moderator Maria Ogneva of Yammer, John Virtas of Flipboard, Paul Gilliham of Lithium and Scott Rutherford of UserVoice

The panel opened with the topic of What exactly IS a community manager? It was quickly determined that its hardly on the brink of dying but rather evolving into a critical role at any company whether its small, large, consumer facing or enterprise. As Gilliham stated, “Its not seen as a dead function, just a changing function.” The role is morphing from being focused on customer service to one that is now a key role as an evangelist of the company. Virtes pointed out, “It means something different at different companies. Support should be distinct but it still touches upon so many places in the company.” Rutherford emphasized its essence to a company, “Its become an incredibly important role. A key role, the breadth…the touch point…the positive voice of the company that can be found through blogs writing, marketing and other touch points.”

What makes a GREAT Community Manager? “The great community manager is kind of like your business’s Swiss Army Knife,” Gilliham so aptly put it. Someone who is able to have an agnostic role within the organization and know how to navigate all the different groups within the company, works well with people, is consistent with one’s policies and respectful of those in their community. Meg Clark, Community Manager at CoTweet pointed out, “Its someone who treats others like she would want to be treated.” To focus on the CoTweet brand and not to confuse her CoTweet community, she makes sure to use her handle of @meg_cotweet to refer to anything having to do with CoTweet while keeping her personal handle separate.

What happens when the voice of the company, your community manager who is possibly even seen as a Celebrity Rock Star leaves? You have to set expectations and boundaries with your community from the launch of your community. Most importantly, as Virtes points out, “You have to leave your ego at the door. This isn’t about you, its about the community and you should be able to hand over the role to anyone else in the company if you were to leave.”

A recent graduate from Texas University brought up another great topic. What makes a good community manager and what are the skills and background needed to BECOME a Community Manager? It was pretty much agreed by all on the panel that it takes someone who is not too junior, has a varied background, tremendous writing and communication skills and most importantly, someone who is passionate and perhaps even a“Super User” of the product or service of the company. As Ogneva stated, its someone “oozing with enthusiasm.” How does one actually LAND a job as a community manager? The panel was in agreement that it will almost naturally happen by being a part of your community of interest, networking in person, connecting through events, online blogs, communities and in the communities of social network sites such as LinkedIn, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The Social Media Club is definitely one way to become connected with like-minded, community people. Another way is to join the Facebook group, Social Media Jobs where there are numerous community manager jobs being posted by contacting them at socialmediajob@groups.facebook.com.

A great way to learn more about this topic is through the The Community Roundtable who just released its 2011 State of Community Management. The Commmunity Roundtable is a virtual table where social media, community, and social business practitioners gather to meet, discuss challenges, celebrate successes, and hear from experts and they are also dedicated to furthering the discipline of community management. You can gain more fascinating nuggets discussed about Community by the awesome panel and Social Media’s engaging audience on Twitter at #SFSMC.

Kristie Wells, Founder and President of the Social Media Club

Maria Ogneva, Moderator and Head of Community at Yammer

Paul Gilliham, Director of Customer Marketing at Lithium

John Virtes, Community Manager at Flipboard