Atlanta Media Bloggers

Don't miss out by delaying

In the first week of taking registrations we already have 25% of the seats filled! Go to www.socon07.com and register before it's too late!

Oh! and don't forget to tell all your friends...

Registration is now open

February 9th and 10th Kennesaw State University will be hosting the premier social media mash up. You can view the jammed packed schedule of events here.

Thanks to the many passionate people who invested their time, energy, and resources, this event will be free, however registration will be limited, so register now!

Other events...

Savannah bloggers are gathering for a mixin' and minglin' on Jan 26 and 27th to discuss ideas, strategies, trends, and such. I will be leading a discussion about how to set effective goals and measure your success when embracing social media. Josh Hallet will be leading a discussion as well, which is not to be missed. Josh was the first person I saw speak in depth about blogging and I guess you can say he inspired me...

This event is also free, so sign on up...

If podcasting is more your thing or you want to learn more about what all the hype is, Atlanta has Podcamp coming to you on March 16th and 18th.

And a little later down the road, CRMA (Customer Relationship Management Association) will be hosting a 2 day conference, April 17th and 18th. I will be on a panel with Jeff Hilimire from Spunlogic and Lisa Aloisio from AutoTrader.com titled "Embracing Web 2.0 – The New Way to Interact With Customers." More details to follow soon.

SoCon07 - Connect Because You Can

We had a very productive planning meeting last night! Here are some of the highlights...

In attendance:
James Harris
Sherry Heyl
Jeff Haynie
Leonard Witt
Raghu Kakarala

Name: SoCon07

Tagline: Connect Because You Can

Message: The Premiere Social Media Mashup in the South
Shape the future of social media in the south

Date and Time: February 10, 2007 8:30 am - 3:30 pm (with a little after conference get together)

Venue: Kennesaw State University

The format will follow along the guidelines in
http://www.bloggercon.org/iv/format

Schedule:
Opening Introduction by Sherry Heyl
Featured Discussion Leaders
Leonard Witt
Chris Klaus

Lunch

Break out Sessions with:
James Harris
Josh Hallet
Jeff Haynie
Jonas Luster

Registration will be limited! We should have the registration site up soon, now that we have a name ;)

Contact me about press releases, podcasting schedules, and video production.
sherryheyl[@]gmail.com

Still seeking a name

We had a successful white boarding session on Friday for the conference.

But we still need a name. The goal of the conference is to show how all of these components (blogs, wikis, open source, social networks, video, podcasting, RSS, community building) are interrelated and how they affect each and every one of our lives. The bulk of trusted information is no longer coming from journalist and advertising, but from consumer generated content and ongoing online conversations.

For businesses, when we listed the roles/departments of those who should come we came up with PR, Marketing, Advertising, Management, HR, Legal, IR, CRM, Sales...you get the point I hope.

The next question was how do we tie all these different roles together so they each walk away from the conference with relevant information. The answer came with the fact that each of these roles work together as a team to protect and/or enhance the company's reputation both internally and externally. Each of these departments are also always looking for knowledge, which the collaborative,  open nature of these tools increase the ability to effectively gain knowledge if leveraged appropriately.

The conference is on a Saturday, Feb 10, 2007 and will be free to attend, though there will be pre-registration. The goal is to get the conversation started or turn up the volume about what these trends mean in our lives and how to start embracing them.

Ideas for names needed please!

Reminder about meeting tomorrow night

We are meeting at Buffalo's on Mansell at 7:00 PM (just east of 400 on the right) - to go over some of the creative details of the conference.

Look forward to seeing everyone there.

Savannah is having a conference!

www.blogsavannah.com

Drew is putting a conference together in Savannah is January. Sounds like an opportunity for another Road Trip!

Shout Out to HiddenMarket

Scott Burkett has recently launched the public beta version of HiddenMarket which is the first "social business intelligence network."

Scott has graciously agreed to be a sponsor of the February Conference. We are moving right along!

Confirmed!

I am excited to announce that we have confirmed 2 discussion leaders

James Harris, CEO and Chief Story Teller from ListenShare will lead a discussion on podcasting, "Storytelling in an Open Media World"

Leonard Witt, Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University
will lead a discussion around Reinventing Journalism * A Do It Yourself Guide For Independents or for Mainstream Media.

AND WE HAVE AS OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER....

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me (no just kidding)

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Chris Klaus from Kaneva!

Let's have a virtual meeting this month!

Hey y'all!

Yeah, it's been cooooollld out, and rainy enough to curl your hair. And yeah, a whole bunch of us have conflicts up the wazoo, preventing us from making a goodly quorum for our monthly mind meld.

And yeeeaaah, SOME of us got to go on a cool road trip, and they need to be telling the rest of us who didn't go some wacky stories, amazing anecdotes, and tortured theories about Web 2.0 and unConferences (what the hell is an unConference, anyway? I'm asking this on behalf of the peanut gallery. There are no stupid questions around here).

The topic for our meeting, if we had been able to hold it, was going to be Online Communities, and the intangible something that makes them hold together, that gives them power, that structures cyberspace perhaps more strongly than in some of our real lives.

What is it? One friend once told me that online communities were fake, no more real than the people who gather at around the piano in the lounge at an airport bar. He said there's nothing that really ties the people together, no strong ties, no obligations. People come, and they go.

And some of us actually like communities that have that kind of freedom, the freedom from guilt and obligation, the knowledge that the people who are present are there because they want to be, not because anyone is making them. That was one of the beautiful things I discovered in my online ethnography of the very strong communities of the Xenaverse, the fandom groups centered around the TV show "Xena: Warrior Princess."

I think of it like gravity, the so-called "strength of weak ties." Of all the forces in physics (electromagnetic, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force), gravity appears to be the weakest, the easiest to overcome (don't believe me? Jump!). But gravity is like a prevailing wind. You can stand against it, but it ends up shaping everything (even the shape of the cellulite in our legs!). Gravity holds entire solar systems in orbit, and more. I think the weakest force field can actually be the strongest.

Businesses look at the blogosphere and social media as an opportunity, but often they see it as a top-down opportunity for them, rather than a chance to harness real bottom-up grassroots force.

But is that a real force? Or is it like herding cats?

Or maybe the mindset is all wrong. Maybe its wrong to even think that cats should be herded in the first place.

Soooo, what are we doing here? Do you want to be here? Are you obligated to be here? Do you get something of value out of being here? Is this a cool community to be a part of?

If so, I hope some more of you will chime in in this space. It's been a while since I sent out invitations on how to use this site, but I am happy to resend any invitations that got lost or misplaced. Just zap me a note.

If you have a blog or blogs, a good blog promotion strategy is to get hooked in with an existing community, so that people start reading your blog, and folks comment back and forth on each others' blogs, and we can spread some link love around.

I SURE WOULD LIKE TO BE SPREADING SOME MORE LINK LOVE AROUND!

So if you've got a blog, post up a little introduction to it here on this site, with your link. Tell us why we should peek in, check your blog out. Maybe you're feeling shy, just getting your blog legs. We'll hold your hand. That's what link love is all about.

We're Atlanta Media Bloggers. We're into blogs. We have blogs. OK, all together now:

Send us your links, your huddled URLs longing to breathe free...

Ahhh. Isn't that better?

Let the virtual meeting commence.

All in flavor? Up hosed?

respectfully submitted,

Chris Boese

Lunch is served!

Lunch will be provided by PayPerPost.

Big thank you to Art Hall for making the introduction to Ted Murphy.

BTW they are looking for a VP of Business Dev. I have the job description posted at my site.