Social Media Workshop Here in Honolulu

Social Media Workshop is an exclusive event for people in organizations who want to learn how to use social media communications. We will have three guest speakers from the mainland, sharing case studies from companies like Dell, Southwest Airlines, and Cisco who are using social communities online for internal and external customers.

We in Hawaii have unique challenges and opportunities for using tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. To use these tools successfully requires more than a casual understanding. Though they are free and quick to sign up for, each service has its own DNA or culture, and understanding how to develop campaigns for each of them is a job for experts. In this program we will share success stories as well as bloopers, and we will help you understand that success has much less to do with your age and much more to do with your willingness to engage.

If you are still marketing and communicating like it's 1999, this program will bring you up to speed and give you a game plan for modernizing how you work and interact with your customers. If you want to be among the first in Hawaii to be a Social Media Expert, this workshop is the place to be. If you want to learn how to use conversation to your advantage, please come join us as we walk the talk and engage with you.

Speakers

• Chris Heuer, the founder of Social Media Club and a digital marketing veteran with 14 years of experience online.
• Kristie Wells, a community evangelist, customer advocate and President of Social Media Club
• Beth Kanter, a leading blogger and consultant helping nonprofits learn to use social media for creating social change.
• Roxanne Darling - yours truly

Continental breakfast and lunch are included. Your fee includes a charter membership in the Honolulu Chapter of the Social Media Club which we are currently forming.

Who Should Attend?
People who want to use the internet more effectively to communicate, who want to be leaders in their industries, who want to learn more about how web 2.0 or the social web works, who want to effectively use the mostly free tools available today. This program is especially relevant to:

• Advertising & Marketing professionals
• PR & Communication professionals
• Airlines and Tourism companies
• Nonprofits
• Government agencies
• Startup Companies
• Business Consultants
• Solo-preneurs

Blog World Expo ‘08: Finding Your New Media Voice

Roxanne is in Las Vegas, Nevada this weekend speaking at Blog World Expo '08. She'll be presenting: "Finding Your New Media Voice: Getting the Right Mix of Tech & Talent" during the Executive Track, today, Friday September 19th, 2008.

Click on the image above to view her presentation online.

Here are a list of sites she'll be covering during her presentation:

Twitter - follow Roxanne and Shane
Beach Walks with Rox
KnowHow Cafe
Viddler
@Neenz & AllTop
@ScottSimpson
Liz Strauss
Toby Bloomberg
Simply Recipes
The Atlantic Monthly
Dishy Mix
Geek News Central
Wine Library TV

Yammer asks: What’s Happening at Your Company?

While watching the streaming video of the TechCrunch50 conference yesterday, I just caught the last couple minutes of the demo for Yammer. Basically, as most people have pointed out in the TechCrunch comments, Yammer is Twitter for companies. But what really caught my eye was the way they use "hash tags" to allow you to automatically "follow" a specific subject. I'm not going to into what a "hash tag" is right now. Suffice it to say, anything you yammer about can instantly become something you can "subscribe to" or "follow" just by adding a "#" in front of the word. Very slick and very useful.

David Sacks, the founder of genealogy site Geni, actually launched Yammer at the very end of his presentation. Of course I immediately signed up!

Now certainly Roxanne and I don't really need Yammer for our little two-person company. But we have a couple projects in the works where I could imagine how having a hosted, private, Twitter-for-business application would be useful.

Yammer has a video of their presentation right on their home page. Their Control Panel is very slick and well designed. Kudos to their design team. Lots of AJAX makes using it a breeze. And they even have a desktop Adobe AIR client, a Blackberry App, and an iPhone App currently in review and that should be available any day.

Check it out and leave a comment with any ideas or questions you have on how your company or organization could use Yammer.

Technorati Tags: yammer, techcrunch50, twitter, geni, david sacks, microblogging

Hawaii Musicians & Film Makers: SXSW Wants You!

I've been trying to help our regional SXSW coordinator, Phil Tripp, get the word out about this. SXSW is the leading annual conference in Austin, TX for music, film, and internet interactive. They are doing special outreach to get more representation for Hawaii creatives, and people this is a great chance!

He is hosting a free event on Monday, September 8, 6 pm, at Sam Choy's on Nimitz. Leave me a comment if you want to get in touch with Phil directly.

Here are some highlights from his recent email:

HAWAIIAN ARTIST SUBMISSIONS TO SHOWCASE-- From now until October 25, we seek contemporary music artists who can submit their music and materials via Sonicbids or directly online at http://www.sxsw.com/music to be considered for a one hour showcase and also additional shows such as parties and private events. The best music styles are rock, pop and indie, but we are also looking at slack key and traditional contemporary Hawaiian from unique artists.

HAWAIIAN FILMS FOR SUBMISSIONS--We also encourage submissions from now until December 12 deadline. Films screen in the following categories: Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Animated Short, Experimental Short, and Music Video with details at http://www.sxsw.com/film

HAWAIIAN WEBSITES FOR AWARDS--From now until December 19 Deadline. For web artists, developers and designers, there are over 20 categories to compete in for the SxSW Web Awards at http://www.sxsw.com/interactive

Shane and I plan to attend SXSW so even if you can't attend the meeting leave a comment so we can connect with you about this event. Last year I was invited to speak at the last minute (literally - 15 minutes before with a text message via Twitter) on the Utterz panel with Chris Heuer, Chris Brogan, and Jeremiah Owyang. You never know what might happen in Austin!