KnowHow Café: Where smart people go to get smarter about the social web

We have the antidote to yesterday’s post on how to learn what you don’t know!
We are launching a new business that is all about training. We’ve helped out clients be incredibly successful on the web over the past 14 years, and we want to share this knowledge with others. We also want to do it for a lower price than our private hourly rates and we want to be able to reach many more people.

Because our phone keeps ringing (and that takes us away from actually building the site!) we are holding some live classes here in Honolulu in the interim.  Please join our mailing list to stay informed of updates and go check out the three classes we are offering in July 2009 for your education and business benefit!

Please use promo code “bfs” and receive a free eBook on Online Identity when you join the list. It’s the first place to start when getting active on the social web. Or as The Week would say, “Boring but Important.”

We can also bring private, targeted classes to your office or association too.

A Reason to Visit Hawaii?
Maybe this would be a good time and reason to book a trip to Hawaii. Airfares and hotel rates are down; I would be happy to connect you with my many tourism colleagues who would be delighted to personally assist you. Here are just a few:

Hawaii-Aloha.com - Ask for Bruce Fisher; or on Twitter
Starwood Hawaii - Ask for Candice Krauto; or on Twitter
Hawaiian Airlines – Follow them on Twitter too
Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio

The Social Web: Learning to Use a New Tool

The social web is full of free information. Many people forego formal training in favor of copying what they see others’ doing. We sometimes do this ourselves—once you have a strong base of knowledge in a specific area, it is quite reasonable to look at others’ tips or code and be able to reverse engineer them quite successfully to meet your own goals.

But when you are new to something? It’s like a child copying their parents: a lot of it sounds right, but fundamentally you don’t want that kid building your house. The best teachers know how to explain to you the logic behind a task as well as the most efficient order of events to launch your project.

Copying (as compared to learning) when you are a newcomer is often not the ideal route to take. Though I know, it is incredibly appealing, especially if you feel like you are in a hurry. But if time is truly an issue, you will be better served to learn it well the first time. It’s worth considering if a penny saved will quickly become a pound foolish.

Copiers are more than likely to: Read more

Hawaii Restaurant Association Links and Resources

The Hawaii Restaurant Association is holding a 90-minute seminar today (at 9 am and repeated at 2 pm) on “Social Networks: What it’s all about” to help its members and other businesses here in Honolulu understand about Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. I will be speaking, along with Mark Johnson of logicspin and menumill. I’d like to give a shout out to Alan Hoki and Chrissy Mitchell of the Hawaii Restaurant Association for pulling this seminar together so quickly and to Morton’s Steakhouse for hosting us all.

I’ll also be moderating a panel of four local restauranteurs who have started using the social web:
Ed Morita: @nctrnlbst, Longhi’s, www.bakershours.com; you can also watch a short video here as Ed explains how he uses Twitter and Flickr to attract customers
Sean Priester: @TopofWaikiki and @pacificsoul, Top of Waikiki
Bill Tobin: @tikisgrill, Tiki’s Grill
Monica Toguchi: @HighwayInn, Highway Inn Restaurant and Catering

Mark (mostly!) and I put together these links for the attendees and all of you readers to be able to explore more. Pull up a chair – there’s a real reading list here. Read more

Join us at Social Media Club Hawaii Chapter

The Social Media Club is an international organization with over 40 active chapters, whose goal is to develop and support best practices in the use of social media. The Hawaii chapter was launched in October 2008, in conjunction with Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii.

The Hawaii chapter meets on the second Friday of each month. The next meeting is June 12th. Be sure to check the web site for details on the upcoming event.
www.smchawaii.org

Please join the mailing list of you would to receive meeting announcements. You can unsubscribe at any time and your email will not be sold or shared.

Hawaii Officially Dips Toes in the Waters of Social Media

Many thanks to the Pacific Business News and the Star Bulletin for covering the recent So Much More Hawaii fam tour with mainland bloggers. I started this writing as a comment on PBN, but I have a rule that when my comments exceed two paragraphs, I move the conversation over to my blog for clarity and for support. (Plus, the Star Bulletin did not allow comments on Ms. Schaefer’s article and PBN does not allow links in their comments – both of which limit the conversation and tend to make me a little grumpy.) As I understand it, this blogger trip is not the first time Hawaii tourism has paid for blogger fam trips – though it is the first official blogger tour and significant campaign of which I am aware. Paying people to come here and write about us has its own issues that I addressed here and here. Read more

Thinking About Having Your Own TV Show?

I sometimes chide my business audiences when I am speaking from the podium with this question:
“Now, why don’t you have your own internet TV show/channel?” When you consider that only a few years ago it was impossible for anyone except the big media outlets to broadcast video content, and now you and I can do it for almost nothing, it is quite mind-boggling. Of course, that is why so few have jumped on board – and why the opportunity for those who do is quite extraordinary.

If you are a “solo-preneur” aka one person band, you can easily have a talking head show filmed from your desktop. If you are a larger company, you have tremendous assets at your fingertips, not to mention stories to be told, brands to be built, and customers to be educated and entertained.

Here is some newly released data to continue the discussion: Read more

Mahalo Mr. Solis

Brian Solis, a truly forward thinking PR professional and co-founder of the Social Media Club, took the time and captured a lot of the same thoughts I had, yet was reluctant to post in detail when I discussed Google, the FTC, and paid links. I too am influenced by my friends and business colleagues, and am trying to influence the discussion of social media practices here in Hawaii as a long time practitioner and also a founding member of the Social Media Club. (Whose tag line is, “If you get it, share it.” sometimes people don’t want to get it though – they are more comfortable doing business in the old ways.)

Please read: This is Not a Sponsored Post by Brian Solis Read more

Rox is LIVE on the Andy Bumatai Show Today

LIVE today, May 19, 2009, at 1pm Hawaii time. That’s
4pm in California and 7pm in New York.

Leave a comment (on the right side of the video window) and they
might read your comments live during the show.

Rox’s appearance broke all previous viewership records! You can watch the archived episode here.