LIVE: PodCamp+WordCamp Hawaii 2008

Aloha and E komo mai (welcome) to PodCamp+WordCamp Hawaii 2008! Read more about what's going on here under the chat window below.

In addition to being the founder and main organizer for PodCamp+WordCamp Hawaii, Roxanne will be speaking both days in several sessions. I also have 2-3 sessions currently scheduled that will be covering WordPress and Video Podcasting. When I'm not speaking in a session, I'll be manning the live streaming station and camera.

Check the schedule for when Rox and I are speaking.

Iphone Users: Use this URL for an iPhone formatted schedule.

Mobile Devices/Phone Users: Use this URL for a mobile device formatted schedule.

Because not everyone could join us in beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii for the first ever PodCamp+WordCamp Hawaii, we have a dedicated "streaming rig" setup in the beautiful Theater of the Hawaii Convention Center. We built a completely custom streaming rig that provides a steady and stable platform for the camera, laptop, and associate cables and power needed to provide a live video stream all day Friday and Saturday. And the best part is that it's portable. So if we want to stream from another room or outside, we just unplug and take our Live Streaming Internet TV Studio with us!

You can chat with us, LIVE, using the chat window above. And if you have questions for the speaker, type them into the chat window and we'll ask the speaker for you. (If you ask a question and we don't acknowledge your question in the chat room, please ask us again until we do acknowledge it.)

In addition to the constant live stream, we'll be posting pics to Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/podcamphawaii throughout the day.

You can also "follow & friend" us on these sites:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/podcamphawaii

Viddler: http://www.viddler.com/explore/podcamphawaii/

uStream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/podcamp-hawaii-2008

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/PodCampHawaii

Hawaii Business: Social Media Workshops for You

There is a short video interview with Charlene Li, the author of Groundswell and a former analyst at Forrester, conducted by Chris Heuer, at the end of this post. But first I would like to answer some of the questions I have been receiving about our upcoming events, Social Media Workshop Hawaii and Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawai.

I am inviting and encouraging Hawaii business and government leaders to attend at least one of two events next week that offer outstanding opportunities to move ourselves forward in the world of social media. If ever there were a time to trust in "a rising tide floats all boats," it is now. Our Hawaii businesses and government have been slow to adopt these powerful business practices, meanwhile we may actually have more to gain, and to contribute, than our counterparts on the mainland.

What is the return on a long term relationship with your customers?
- Charlene Li

What is Social Media?

• This is the term that describes both the content and the functionality that have taken over the internet at this time.
• It encompasses other buzzwords and concepts you may have heard, from social networks like FaceBook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, to conversational marketing, web 2.0, internet TV and YouTube, blogging, Twitter, etc.
• At its core, it is about having internet-enabled conversations and from those conversations, building relationships that can lead to transactions and brand-building.
• Your customers are already participating. Are you?

What is the Social Media Workshop Hawaii?

• A one-day workshop for a limited audience of business and government leaders. Thu, Oct 23, Hawaii Prince Hotel. $125 per person; bring 4 and the 5th attends free.
• We'll have four Featured speakers, and additional experts in the audience to share the basics about what is social media and how it works.
• It will be small, private, conversational and educational.
• Ask your questions and discuss your business ideas over our round tables at lunch.
• Have a web 2.0 experience, in person.
• Breakfast and lunch are included.
• All attendees will also earn a Charter Membership in the Social Media Club's Hawaii Chapter.
• You can read more and register here.
• Sponsored by Chi.mp, HTDC, KnowHow Cafe, and HubSpot.

What is the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club?

• The Social Media Club (SMC) was founded in San Francisco by Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells to develop and share best practices for social media.
• There are over 25 active chapters and their educational non-profit status is in the works.
• The Hawaii chapter will serve as a gathering place for those of us in business who want to be the social media leaders in our state.

We have an incredible opportunity to collaborate in a social web way to move Hawaii to the top of the chart in tourism, in technology, and in green issues. The social web is the fastest, most powerful and least expensive way to accomplish this admittedly strenuous goal. In the workshop though, we will show the steps that have already been taken and give you examples of the big things people are getting accomplished with very small budgets.

Why should I share best practices with my competitors?

• For one, we do it all the time. Traditional publications and groups such as PRSA, IABC, and HAF also hold monthly meetings to educate and inform their members.
• More importantly though, there is a shift in consciousness that has already taken place in terms of how people do business and how customers expect companies to perform. And that is all centered around the social web.
• We have far more to gain by sharing knowledge and collaborating on social media campaigns than we do by staying isolated in our own competitive worlds.
• If for no other reason, participation allows you to know what is going on, in ways that are not possible by staying out of the conversation.

Are these programs meaningful for nonprofits and small businesses too?

• Yes. In many ways, the tools of social media are most useful to you because of their low entry cost and for how they leverage your network of fans and customers to help you.
• We have several speakers who focus on non-profits and cause marketing.

What is Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii?

• This is a free, two-day event open to the public. Fri & Sat, Oct 24 & 25, Hawaii Convention Center.
• Anyone can sign up to speak on blogging, podcasting, social media, and business uses.
• It will be lively, conversational, interactive, with lots of live video streaming, live blogging, and Twittering on the internet.
• You can view an incomplete list of our speakers here.
• You can learn more and register here.

Which one should I attend?

• The Social Media Workshop Hawaii is the 30,000' view: get an overview of what's out there, how is it working, what are the pitfalls, who is doing what.
  • Attend this if you want to be among Hawaii's leaders in social media, the people who will be defining just how our state participates on the social web.
  • Attend this if you want a private experience; we will not be live streaming except for demo purposes. Limited to 60 people, this is an exclusive event.
• Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawai is a free public event with entertainment and hands-on sessions.
  • Attend this if you want to jump right in to the social web.
  • You will learn how to create a blog, start a podcast, use Twitter, etc.
  • There will be lots of media being made, conversations being had and being documented.
  • There are over 350 people already registered.

Watch This Short Video (6:21)
Since Charlene Li, author of Groundswell, isn't going to be able to make it over to PodCamp Hawaii or Social Media Club Workshop Hawaii, Chris Heuer had the pleasure of interviewing her. In this interview, he focused on items more relevant to businesses in Hawaii. Click the image to start the video.

Click to play

+++ Thank you to our many Podcamp Sponsors! +++
Blip.tv
Blue Hawaii Lifestyle
Hawaii-Aloha.com
Hawaii Convention Center
Hawaii Prince Hotel
Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau
High Technology Development Corp.
Johnson & Johnson
KnowHow Cafe
mDialog
Pacific Direct Connect
PacRim Marketing Group
Podcast Connect
Projection Presentation Technology
RawVoice
Road Runner High Speed Internet
Tilzy.tv
UH Center on Disability Studies
Vantage Counsel
Viddler
Wyland Waikiki Hotel

Rox is Named to List of 50 Most Influential Women in Social Media

While lots of people are still figuring out what the heck "social media" even is, our own Roxanne Darling has been busy sharing her knowledge and good energy all across these Interwebs. She share's this listing with manyother awesome women, including our friend and Hawaii neighbor Deborah Micek.

We're currently at a point in our industry that is very similar to the way it was back in 1996. When the web was all new and people were first hearing about this cool thing called email. Back then we were building databases and trying to figure out the best way to connect them to websites, long before most companies even had websites. And Roxanne was already there, at the bleeding edge with her Mac laptop and Apple Newton to send email from a vacation in Thailand in 1997. Fast forward 12 years and she's still living on the bleeding edge of video podcasting, Internet television, and all the new Social Media experiments happening today.

In a methodical post that looks at tangible measures of influence on the web in the arena of social media, Ron Hudson lays it out as he sees it:

In every industry there are a few people who are inarguably outstanding at what they do. In addition to that, they are typically charismatic, energetic, and creative. In an effort to find some of these people I asked my twitter friends to nominate people who they thought were some of the most powerful and influential women in Social Media. It was no surprise that they quickly and enthusiastically responded with the list of ladies below.

Rox landed in the top half, at #24, and this is based on our Bare Feet Blog, and doesn't even include the awesome work she does over at Beach Walks with Rox (we just passed 700 episodes) and the amazing job she has done at organizing the "against all odds" first ever Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii.

We tend to be pretty low key and haven't developed very strong muscles in terms of tooting our own horns. But I'm quite proud of the work that Rox does and the recognition her efforts are starting to receive.

And if you would like to know more about Social Media and internet video, Rox and Beach Walks with Rox has recently been featured in two new books now available:

Dave Evan's "Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day"

And Jennie Bourne's and Dave Burstein's "Web Video: Making It Great, Getting It Noticed"

Finding Social Media Professionals

There is a long-standing concept in the digital space know as "signal vs noise." The social web creates a LOT of noise - it's one of the things that keeps people from participating in it. Oh, to count the times I have heard, "Why do I care what someone ate for lunch today?" On the contrary, finding the signals within the noise is not easy, not obvious, and when it comes to businesses developing social media campaigns, I do support the likes of, "Don't try this yourself. This ad featured a professional driver on a closed course."

Another long-standing metric that I have found to be true and relevant repeatedly, is that of a professional trainer or professor: know 10 times more than you plan to deliver. That enables you to be able to answer questions from left field, imagine ahead of time what the next steps might be, and be able to support your brightest students. This is one ingredient that makes for a wildly popular speaker, such as Lorelle on Wordpress who will be speaking here in Honolulu for several Hawaii Geek Week events.

Social Media Workshop & Launch of the Hawaii Chapter of the Social Media Club
If your business is interested in learning and developing the best practices for Social Media, please join us for this event on Thursday, October 23, at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Honolulu, HI. I'll post more about this next week.

How Do You Find Social Media Pros?

The main point of this post though is to list for you several established agencies who have experience and expertise working on the social web - as businesses for businesses. In the spirit of a Retweet on Twitter (when you forward on someone else's comment to your followers), I am re-posting Colin Brownings list of New Social Media Consultant and Agency Listings. Colin has developed a searchable directory of listings, and also had the kindness (and good web strategy) to pull out from those listings and create a blog post.

A warm welcome to the latest social media agencies and consultants on the Constructing Social Builders listing added over the past week, including:

Social Media Consultants:

A warm welcome to the latest social media agencies and consultants on the Constructing Social Builders listing added over the past week, including:

Social Media Consultants:

• Liquid Wireless: An emerging media consulting company
• Digital Response Marketing Group: A consulting, blogger relations and consulting group.
• Uptown Uncorked: Bringing People and Business Together with New Media
• Digital Voodoo: Digital Voodoo is a social media strategy and intelligence firm with expertise in marketing, advertising, and operations.
• Recipe 31: Recipe 31 creates customers through conversations.
• Janet Fouts: Social Media Coach!
• The Michael Schneider: Social Media technologist and groundswell evangelist.

Social Media Agencies:

• Crayon: A different kind of company that specializes in new marketing - new marketing for a new consumer.
• AboutFaceDigital: A new breed of agency specialized and singularly focused on influencing the social graph
• Harbrook Group: We help customers strategize and implement the correct technologies that help them communicate with their customers or constituencies
• Social Media 404: SocialMedia404 is a brand new organization born of the need to bridge the gap between traditional marketing playbooks, and the explosive use of these new technologies.
• Ignite Social Media: Ignite Social Media, the original social media agency (SM), helps brands set and execute social media strategies
• Bare Feet Studios: We develop social media campaigns and specialize in branded online video projects
• Pistachio Consulting: Micro sharing. Macro results. How Twitter and related platformscan inform, accelerate and amplify your business opportunities.
• Studeo: Studeo is a direct marketing agency who also specializes in Social Media.

Ad & PR Agencies:

• Doe-Anderson: Fifth-oldest brand-building agency in the U.S. and home to recognized innovation in social media strategy.
• Racepoint Group: A global public relations agency with special expertise in digital media relations.
• Shift Communications: SHIFT is a full scope PR agency and a pioneer in the social media space with the world’s first Social Media Release.

Interactive Agencies:

• Cramer: Cramer is a digital marketing and event solutions agency
• Rosetta: Translating customer connections into business results
• Studio:Module: a premier graphic design firm with an award-winning portfolio of groundbreaking work in interactive media, corporate communications, and brand identity.
• Tatu Digital Media: Web design, product demos, Wordpress mods and community management

Aloha Summit Links: Overview of Online Video

I gave a Video Presentation from Honolulu delivered to Boulder today, for the ALoha Summit conference put on by Andy Beal and Dave Taylor. To speed things along, I am going to post the links mentioned and the recorded Skype video. If you want more info or have questions, please leave them in the comments and I am happy to address them!

Here is the 32 minute Video Chat Interview and iTunes Download Version (32:35 | 334 MB):

How I Made This Video

1. I recorded it in Skype using Call Recorder.
2. I edited it in iMovie HD to add music and credits.
3. I exported to iTunes at 640x480, default settings.
4. I edited the ID3 tags in iTunes and added a graphic to travel with the iPod version.
5. I uploaded the iPod version to Viddler's video hosting service.
6. Viddler did the Flash encoding for me.
7. The 32 minute, 640x480 file was 334 MB; the whole process took a couple of hours. Now you know why Beach Walks sticks to 5 mins a day!

Shows I Talked About:
Beach Walks with Rox
Show and Tell of The Gear We Use
Key to professional video quality actually is having good sound. Be sure the camera you buy has "mic input" jack and then use either a lavalier or handheld mic, wired or wireless, depending on your location requirements. We use and love the Sennheiser wireless mic, and it has been a real workhorse in our high-stress windy and salty ocean environment. All we've had to replace are the mic cable after over 2 years of use; they run about $20 each.
Ask a Ninja
JNJ Health Channel
Book Trailers by Sheila English
Robyn Levin at Wharton and Robyn's home page

Web Cam Recording
Conference Recorder - for iChat Video
Call Recorder - for Skype Video
These give you added flexibility to choose the layout of your videos and instantly produce h.264 quality movies at various sizes.
Seesmic - look for user beachwalks to connect there.
Skype Video Chat Tutorial - The business process.

Video Hosting Services
Blip.tv - designed for independently produced, episodic shows; nice player with embed features.
Viddler.com - great for building communities and groups, embedded comments travel with the episodes; developing B2B features and services You can also do web cam recording right in to the browser at Viddler too.
Ooyala - nice interface; elegant features for dynamic ad service; our viewers had some problems with their player not working. They charge for bandwidth also; most of the other services are free.
Vimeo- High Def videos; groups and memes

Mobile Video:
Qik - for Nokia N95 and iPhone
Flixwagon - Nokia N60 series and iPhone

Many of these services will cross post to other social apps, such as Twitter or each other even. My Qik is configured to post a Twitter message and post my videos to Seesmic. Here is the live-stream video from our TV shoot yesterday at the Hawaii Convention Center.

Distribution:
Tube Mogul

Want to know more? Please join our mailing list at KnowHow Cafe, where we are building a learning and sharing community for people who want to know how to create online video, blogs and podcasts, and use the social web. Or join us at Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii, coming soon on October 24 & 25.

BizNet on Podcamp: How to Do a Skype Interview

I was interviewed at 7 am this morning by Shauna Nicholson of BizNet Internet Solutions. You can watch the interview below to learn more about Podcamp Hawaii. Shauna knows her stuff and this process illustrates a number of great examples (and a few opportunities for improvement) for conducting successful interviews using the social web, and Skype in particular.

All of this has taken place in less than 24 hours. Two geeky females, a few social web applications, and the internet produced several media products, numerous links and thousands of impressions.

Background and Set up

1. I posted on Twitter that I was looking for help getting press coverage on our free, all-volunteer event. (We do not have a PR team or budget.) Shauna, who I met a week ago in Detroit at a meetup of Twitter peeps organized by David Damore, replied soon after and offered to interview me for her site. I accepted!
2. Shauna then DM'd me (sent a private message) asking if I preferred email questions or a Skype (internet telephone) interview. I chose Skype, as I find the live interaction more interesting and because I am a terrible typist.
3. We quickly scheduled the date and time via Twitter private message, and exchanged usernames on Skype.
4. Takeaway: Asking for help is a winning strategy in social media. People love giving back and both Shauna and I earned a chance to help each other while promoting our own personal brands/projects.

The Interview Mechanics

1. It was 1 pm in Detroit and 7 am Saturday morning in Hawaii. I was up and showered but frankly was thinking this would be audio, not video. Shauna was set up for video, so we went with it, as in general I prefer video whenever possible.
2. Skype allows video recording now, so we were able to chart for a few minutes before she hit record and the official interview was captured.
3. Shauna also was able to instant message me a list of questions so I could see the text. Skype allows you to have multiple windows open, so this makes for a rich communication interface.
4. After the interview, I was able to message her all of the correct spellings and links to the people we discussed; made it easier for her to do a good job and for me to get excellent coverage!
5. Continuing use of the social web, Shauna posted a perfectly crafted Twitter message. It mentions both @podcamphawaii and me, @roxannedarling, and links to her video post on her website.
6. I then re-tweeted her message to help drive more traffic to Shauna from my network.
7. I also created this post to demonstrate how learning, sharing, and promotion that can be done so seamlessly and powerfully online. I was also able to copy all of the links from the code of Shauna's post so I too can pass on some link love, fairly easily.

The Interview Questions

1. This is where Shauna really excelled. She had done some research in advance, so her questions were tailored directly to me. Saves a lot of time and makes both of us look smarter!
2. She gave me a chance to talk about the many aspects of Podcamp, which in turn gave me a chance to mention several of our sponsors.
3. She also asked me who all was helping on the project. This is a key part of the social conversation online - networking and sharing the spotlight with others who contribute.
4. She then added links to each of the sponsors, speakers, and team members we discussed. This link love takes more time but really is a service to her readers and to the Podcamp team. One of the things we've promised our sponsors is that we will be talking about and linking to them.

Opportunities for Improvement

1. Instead of assuming I could have double-checked with Shauna to see if we were doing audio or video on Skype.
2. I could have taken a few extra moments to set up and get my framing better on the screen. (A little closer to the camera, face higher on screen, close the closet door in background, etc.) Let's chalk that one up to being not quite awake combined with having relaxed so much into the informality and transparency of the social web.

Now that we've had our consciousness raised, please enjoy the video and add your own highlights and suggestions!

UPDATE:! The dates of Podcamp are October 24 & 25; the Social Media Workshop is Oct 23! Thanks to Judi for the correction.

Links Mentioned in the Video Interview:
www.barefeetstudios.com
www.beachwalks.tv

Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii Sponsors:
Hawaii Convention Center
WiFi Vendor: Pacific Direct Connect
Projection Presentation Technology
Road Runner

Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii Speakers
Christine Lu @christinelu thechinabusinessnetwork.com
Eric Nakagawa icanhascheezburger.com
Beth Kanter @kanter

Social Media Club
Social Media Club
Social Media Club Workshop
Social Media Club Hawaii Chapter Launch October 23

Podcamp + Wordcamp Hawaii Team
Shane Robinson @shane
Kyle Nishioka @madmarv
Judi Clark @judico
Todd Cochrane @geeknews