Social Media Jungle Boston
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending and speaking at Social Media Jungle hosted by Jeff Pulver here in Boston (well, Waltham actually, but close enough). It was a great day with a lot of amazing speakers. The format was casual, which I’ve come to expect at social media conferences and events. Each presenter had 20 minutes to present their thoughts/ideas with no PowerPoint slides. Jeff encouraged all the speakers (and the audience) to think of each session like a blog post–floating ideas out there for people to interact with and comment on. Some sessions were more interactive than others, Laura @Pistachio Fitton had us raising our hands for polling purposes, Steve Garfield had us uploading pictures to the web real-time and Christopher Penn has us shouting out what numbers matter to us like a game show. Lots of other amazing people presented that day and I highly suggest checking out the assembly of blog posts that came out of the day. And don’t forget to check out the Twitter stream from the day too.
A few of my take-aways from the day:
- Be human, be real, be vulnerable — we are people talking to people. Not brands talking to brands or companies talking to companies.
- One email can make all the difference (of course this is one of my take-aways, it was mine and Alexa’s session ;-)
- We need to stop talking about social media in social media. Time to spread the gospel. Or time to just use the tools without always talking about the tools.
- Be HELPful - Hustle, Engage, Listen, be Passionate
- Engage each generation, utilize each one of the generations’ specific talents. No one is irrelevant, no one is too inexperienced. Each generation brings a unique perspective to the table. Be cognizant of that and use it to your advantage.
- Numbers matter. But don’t let them matter too much. (CC Chapman first spoke about how the numbers don’t matter, then later in the day CS Penn rebutted with how certain numbers do matter, and matter a lot. The balance of the two points of view was perfection.)
- The influencer doesn’t matter. The message matters. If you say something good, and say it for long enough, people will hear. You don’t necessarily need a loud speaker. And having one doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to pay attention.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to passion. BE PASSIONATE about what you do. Excitement can be found in the most mundane of details and tasks if you look hard enough. And in this crazy world we live in, with the economy spiraling out of control, my one little piece of advice–keep breathing.
SocComm Wrap Up
You never know what you’re going to get at a social media conference. Sometimes you get fired up, excited, empowered. Other times, you end up feeling like you’re trapped in the echo chamber, hearing the same stuff, with itsy bitsy differences.
SocComm had a pleasant mix of the 101 sort of speakers and higher level, philosophical content. There were speakers that got us riled up (a la @garyvee), and there were speakers or panels that rehashed the usual topics on privacy, work/life separation, and the history of the ‘Net. Also, there were speakers looking at social media usage in sectors I hadn’t heard discussed before–social media for actors, legislation that may effect the industry (i.e. privacy law), and mobile social (a topic that people love to talk about but not usually in too much detail).
The best part of the conference, per usual at these types of events, was in the hallway. Aside from the bathroom signs, which were entertaining, the conversations where fantastic.
In the hallway, nursing a cup of joe, I met Jordan Epstein, founder of VolunteerBIG.com. An awesome idea, though not up and running yet, VolunteerBIG is (or will be) a collaboration network complete with tools to help organizations do more for the community.
Also, I ran into a man I knew from a past life, Larry Weinberg from Israel21C. When I was in college, I was heavily involved in the cause of the Israelis–still feel strongly about the issue, but I would say I’m less of an activist now (out of necessity). That said, I met Larry at a summit his organization put together to teach us college activists about positive discourse. “A Focus Beyond the Conflict” is their tagline and scope of work–there’s so much more to the entire area than war, violence and terror, and Israel21C really emphasizes bringing the positives to light. Great, powerful work.
Back in the theatre, @GaryVee energized the crowd. “If you’re not doing what you’re passionate about you’re an idiot,” he said, then dropped a few f-bombs for emphasis. Brilliant, hilarious and incite-ful. @GaryVee was certainly a highlight.
Can We Make it Better?
All in all it was a great event, but a few of us have some thoughts for next time:
- Move the basics to the front: establish a baseline for those who are newer and allow those who know what’s up to catch a few more Z’s.
- Get an egg-timer: the real challenge at an event like this is getting people to stop talking when their alloted time is up. An egg-timer says stop like no real person can. It’s simple and there’s no one to get mad at when the egg-timer says to stop talking.
- Make the cheerleaders the end caps: GaryVee and Chris Brogan got us pumped up and energized, but before there was time to digest there was already another presentation getting started. Put the heavy hitters before breaks and they’ll be the topic of conversation through lunch, coffee, snacks, etc.
With that said, I’m already looking forward to the next one! See you soon at the next #SocComm.
BlogHer Comes to Boston! FTW
I was really bummed this summer when I couldn’t make it out to San Francisco for the annual BlogHer Conference. Lucky for me (and you!), the Outreach Tour is coming to Boston this weekend - Saturday 10/11! As I’ve been sharing my glee with everyone who will listen, I’ve been getting a mixed bag of reactions (I find that I often get mixed reactions from people whenever I talk about an event/conference/anything that has “women” “her” “female” etc in the title. These “mixed” (read: usually negative) reactions are often, if not always, from men).
I was talking to one of my guy friends about BlogHer a few days after getting back from BlogWorld Expo in Vegas, and he said he didn’t get it — why, if I had just gone to a major conference about blogging, was a conference for women bloggers necessary? I sputtered for a moment, I mean, DUH. But then I stopped to really think about it. Why is it important?
My guy friend said he understands that women have not reached equal standing in many aspects, but that new media seems to be a field where the playing has been leveled. This made me pause again. It’s true, there are a lot of prominent women in the field. So, if the field is leveled, why does the idea of a community for women seem so darn important?!
I have been extremely fortunate in that my life has rarely been limited by my gender (I’m a girl…in case you were wondering *wink*). But, I know this isn’t true for all women. So, is this why it is important? So that women have a place to feel equal? Is it because tech is usually a sphere reserved for guys and diving in can be daunting? It is for the camaraderie?
Since I obviously don’t have the answer (I think it is a combo of a lot of things), I went a-hunting. One of the first thing I noticed while scouring the BlogHer website is that the answer wasn’t there. Their mission statement gave me a starting point
BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment
but somehow that isn’t enough (no offense!). I read that and think “yea! right on!” but there is something more than that that is triggering a reaction in me (and others - for good or bad).
I’m still trying to figure it out. So, in the mean time… What is your reaction (positive or negative) to BlogHer? Why do YOU think BlogHer Conferences are or aren’t important?
Regardless, I’m SUPER psyched for BlogHer Boston this Saturday. If you are there, please say hi!!
