Starting at 8:00am Central Time tomorrow morning, we’ll be (fingers crossed) video live streaming, through UStream, a presentation from Tim Walker at Waco’s Social Media Breakfast 7.

We’ll also be testing out the Live Stream Box that Facebook released to publishers and developers last week.

I’ve wrangled together a page that will display the UStream feed and Facebook chat box side by side. To participate in the chat, you’ll need to use Facebook Connect.

To follow the stream and participate in the cat, start by clicking here: UStream/Facebook Live Stream at Waco Social Media Breakfast 7.

(Cross-posted to the Social Media Breakfast blog).

Share This

Can you imagine not having easy access to drinking water in the middle of a brutal summer heat wave?

I certainly can’t, and yet that’s the reality facing hundreds of people who live on the streets of Austin.

Enter Alan Graham and the Austin-based nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes (MLF), which has just kicked off a campaign to distribute cold drinking water to the capital city’s homeless population.

Alan is using social media to get out the word about MLF’s efforts, including Twitter (@MLFNow), blogging, and You Tube, and he’s asking for fundraising support.

Here’s a video from Alan with more details:

(RSS and e-mail readers: You may need to click through to the original post to see the video.)

To support MLF’s work and help #KeepAustinCool, visit http://www.MLFNow.org/water.

In the interest of full disclosure, our Social Media Breakfast Austin group worked with Alan and Mobile Loaves & Fishes to build a social media strategy earlier this year.

Share This

Sonny Gill and I are thrilled to announce that Marshall Kirkpatrick, VP of content development and lead writer at ReadWriteWeb, will join us as a special guest for this Friday’s #CmtyChat on Twitter from 1:00-2:00pm Eastern.

Marshall edited RWW’s recently published Guide to Online Community Management premium report, so we know he’ll have plenty to bring to our weekly conversation. He’s also been covering the implications of today’s announcement by Facebook that it’s opening up status updates to the public–and the search engines–and we’ll kick around what the news might mean for community managers and brands.

If you haven’t yet participated in a #CmtyChat, here’s what you can expect:

#CmtyChat overview and rules of engagement

• Chats are held each Friday from 1:00-2:00pm Eastern/10:00-11:00am Pacific and focus on the business of online communities, including community management and moderation.
• To participate and follow along in the chat, use the #CmtyChat hashtag.
• #CmtyChat will be moderated through the @CmtyChat Twitter account, and the moderator will toss out the main discussion questions throughout the hour.
• To have your question considered for the group, please DM @CmtyChat or send an @ message to @CmtyChat without the hashtag.
• A full range of opinions and healthy debate are encouraged. Personal attacks are not.

Chat with you on Friday!

(Cross-posted to my LiveWorld blog)

Share This

When you return from a conference, how do you decide whether the event was actually worth it?

Here are four questions to consider:

1) What did you learn?

Did you pick up something new, or were the sessions entirely a rehash of material you already knew?

2) Were you inspired to move, act, or create?

In his closing keynote at the IABC 2009 World Conference earlier this month, Sir Ken Robinson called on attendees to find their passion. Last week at Podcasters Across Borders, Mark Blevis encouraged us to stay curious. In the best of cases, speaker exhortations will truly move you to change your behavior.

3)  What was the quality of interactions you had with speakers/organizers/other attendees?

Did you meet or re-connect with people that you’ll continue to stay in touch with, for either business or personal reasons (or both)? If your job depends on a steady generation of leads, did you come away from the conference with any new prospects?

4) What were the tangible business takeaways?

Some conferences offer plenty of theory and high-level discussions–and that’s not necessarily bad–but you may be disappointed if you head home without practical advice that you can implement right away. Where did this conference fit on that sale?

Next: Consider the cost

Weigh each of the four questions above against the cost of attending the event. Cost includes not only dollars shelled out for the event, but also your time. (And for weekend events, don’t forget to factor in the family moments you potentially missed, like Father’s Day)

What’s missing?

I’m thinking about developing a scorecard where I’d assign a numerical value to each conference. If I do, what additonal factors or questions should I consider?

Share This

A good reminder this morning from Chris Brogan that “links are good manners.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Here are two slides that I often include in my blogging presentations:

Link liberally

If you’re writing about another blog post or story in the news it, link to it. If you’re blogging about a cool new website that’s caught your eye, link to it. If you’re writing about your competitors, link to them, too.

Don’t insult your readers by operating under the antiquated notion that they’ll click to another site and never, ever return to yours (Yes, I’m talking to you, mainstream media websites!). Because if they do, then your content just wasn’t very interesting in the first place.

Instead, try this: Be a resource that shares loads of helpful and interesting links and your readers will want to come back to your blog or website again and again. (Ever heard of Google?)

The web is built on links. So use them.

Share This

Creativity and storytelling were the recurring themes at Podcasters Across Borders 2009, the annual community-minded conference on new media in Kingston, Canada that I attended over the weekend.

PAB 2009 featured solid presentations from start to finish that sent me home chock-full of ideas for creating more compelling content.

Here are some expressions from the speakers that stood out for me. I’m listing them as quotes, but depending on the accuracy of my handwritten notes, they could very well be paraphrases:

“Curiosity is a gauge of good mental health” — Mark Blevis

Always the thoughtful man, Mark also laid out his three-point Curiosity Manifesto.

“If it’s audio only, everyone is blind” — Valerie Hunter

Ever wonder how the blind “watch” movies and television? Valerie gave us a glimpse.

“Making money is not the goal; it’s a side effect of being very good at what you do.” — Christopher S. Penn

Chris also referred to money as an “objective measure” of a content creator’s awesomeness.

“Why is there not a healthy cynicism for search-engine results?” — Jay Moonah

We don’t hesitate to challenge Wikipedia, CNN, and our hometown newspaper; why not the top results in Google, too?

“Cameras have no brains.” — Marko Kulik

While a good camera and lens are important, it’s the person behind the camera that really matters.

“With audio, there’s beauty in simplicity” — Tod Maffin

The sound of an immigrant driving golf balls into a field in Manhattan, just moments after the destruction of the Twin Towers on September 11th? Riveting.

PAB 2009 audio wrap-up

In an episode of my Daily Boo podcast earlier this week, I also recap PAB in audio format.

 

 Reflections from PAB 2009 [4:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Direct download

Running time: 4:46

(Flickr photos by Bob Goyetche)

Share This

I’ll be spending the next few days in San Francisco, attending and speaking at the IABC 2009 World Conference at the San Francisco Marriott.

This is a trip I’ve been looking forward to for several months, largely because I’ll be connecting (and re-connecting, in some cases) with professionals whose work I’ve long respected and admired.

Things get rolling tonight with the FIR Listener Dinner. That means seeing Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson in one place (a rare treat!) and trading laughs with the likes of Lee Hopkins and Allan Jenkins, the dynamic roadtripping duo who have been driving down the West Coast this week.

Outta the Gate

If you see me running around the streets and hotel hallways of San Francisco with an audio recorder or Flip camp in hand between now and Wednesday morning, I might just be working on a project for Linda Johannesson’s Outta the Gate website.

Linda originally hails from Canada but now lives in Sydney, Australia. She’s travelled across the Pacific for IABC 2009 and has launched Outta the Gate to document “news, highlights, and ideas” from the conference. I’ll be posting interviews and reflections on the site as I’m able, and some of that content may cross over here and on my Daily Boo podcast, too.

‘Twitter for Communicators’

On Tuesday afternoon at 2:00pm Pacific, IABC outgoing chair, Barb Gibson, and I will be leading an hour-long “Twitter for Communicators” session. Barb and I are looking forward to plenty of questions from communicators who are just getting started in micrblogging.

Saying hello

I’m the goofy guy up and over there (photo taken by my LiveWorld co-worker Jay Bryant during our visit to Minneapolis last month). Particularly if we haven’t met before, please come over and introduce yourself if you spot me at the conference. I’d love to talk shop about your communications challenges and success stories.

Share This

What could be funnier than watching a couple of Grumpy Old (Business)Men get stuck in the mud in off-road vehicles on an Oregon beach? That’s for you to decide, but this video certainly had me in stitches.

(RSS and e-mail readers: You may need to click through to the original post to see the video.)

The vid is the latest in a series chronicling the Pacific Coast road trip of Allan Jenkins and Lee Hopkins, a pair of overseas business communicators (Allan is an expat Yankee living in Denmark; Lee is a red-blooded Aussie bloke) who are trekking from Seattle to San Francisco in advance of the 2009 IABC World Conference, which begins this Sunday.

Allan and Lee co-hosted a business podcast together a few years back, but had never met face-to-face until this week (perhaps not that surprising these days, right?). They’re obviously making up for lost time.

I’ll also be headed out to the IABC conference this weekend–though I guess I’m a bit boring, because I’m flying to San Francisco–and look forward to catching up with Allan and Lee at the FIR Dinner on Sunday night. They haven’t met me face-to-face yet, either, but I don’t suspect that will prevent us from having a few laughs.

To see the latest updates from the Grumpy Old Men Road Trip, follow @AllanJenkins, @LeeHopkins, and the #GOM09 hashtag on Twitter.

Share This

There are already plenty of interesting hashtag chats for communicators taking place on Twitter these days–#JournChat, #PR20Chat, and #HCSM (healthcare) among them–but Sonny Gill and I think there’s room for at least one more.

Beginning tomorrow and then every Friday from 1:00-2:00pm Eastern/10:00-11:00am Pacific, Sonny and I will lead #CmtyChat, a discussion on the business of online communities.

Among the topics we’ll cover each week:

• The role of community managers and their day-to-day challenges
• How brands can tap into the power of online communities
• The build-vs.-join debate for brands and communities
• Real business case studies

The Community Roundtable’s Jim Storer kicks off #CmtyChat

For our inaugural #CmtyChat session, Jim Storer will be joining us to talk about the Community Rountable, a peer network for community managers and social media practitioners that he recently co-founded with Rachel Happe.

#CmtyChat rules of engagement

• Chats are held each Friday from 1:00-2:00pm Eastern/10:00-11:00am Pacific
• Tag all your tweets for the chat with #CmtyChat.
• #CmtyChat will be moderated through the @CmtyChat Twitter account, and the moderator will toss out the main discussion questions throughout the hour.
• To have your question considered for the group, please DM @CmtyChat or send an @ message to @CmtyChat without the hashtag.
• A full range of opinions and healthy debate are encouraged. Personal attacks are not.

If you’re in the business of creating, managing, moderating, or participating in online communities, I hope you’ll join us for the weekly conversations.

I can’t wait to get started.

(Cross-posted to my LiveWorld SocialVoice blog)

Share This

So what’s a podcaster to do when he can’t find the time or organization to produce a weekly or twice-monthly podcast?

Why, create a daily podcast, logically!

Enter The Daily Boo, launched last night just a few days after an epiphany in the shower of a San Diego hotel (hey, don’t tell me you’ve never had a good idea in the shower).

The podcast is recorded using an iPhone application called AudioBoo (recordings are known as “Boos”–hence the title), which is gaining some traction over in the UK and first caught my attention when Neville Hobson tested it out on his blog.

AudioBoo is a drop-dead-simple application for recording and publishing audio files, and the sound quality is outstanding, too. It’s precisely because AudioBoo is so easy to ease that I’ll be able to create a show on a daily basis.

Media, communications, and technology content

Readers who remember New Comm Road, the show podcast I podfaded on in late 2007, might be pleased to know that the The Daily Boo will feature somewhat-similar content. I’ll be focusing on the intersection of communications, online media, and technology, with plenty of discussions about the connection between brands and social media that I dig into in my role at LiveWorld.

Unlike New Comm Road, production values will be kept to a minimum. No music or sound effects, and no editing. It’ll just be me (and guests, when I have them) talking into my iPhone, and then I’ll embed the resulting online AudioBoo file into the Daily Boo site as a blog post.

Expect plenty of interviews on the podcast. I’m on the road regularly for events and meetings (typically a couple of times a month) and bump into all sorts of smart and interesting people along the way. I’ll be sharing their insights as often as I can.

Unless or until there’s a change, AudioBoo has a time limit of 5 minutes per recording, so the episodes will never be longer than that. Plus, brevity can be a blessing. As Ron Ploof reminded me during a conversation over lunch in Carlsbad, California last week, constraints feul creativity. I’m looking forward to that challenge.

Share This