You can send your resume to me (abaker at navstar-inc.com). All new job postings are listed on our website. I am also pleased to announce that starting this new year, we offer health, dental, and vision coverage for domestic partnerships.

Navstar, Inc Job Order #1327

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Since I am the Vice President of Social Media Club – DC, I thought it fitting I post my most recent findings in a blog post.

I have no knowledge of these positions other than I have found them on various sites. Please do not email me to apply. I am not responsible for expired links or job posting.  However, if I happen to know you in real life and have worked with you in some capacity, I will be happy to provide a reference.

• Social Media Coordinator

• Social Media Manager

• Social Media and Community Outreach Manager

• Social Media Manager at Rosetta Stone

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I believe I was born to be a community manager. At some level at least. When I was younger, I used to be the one on my street that organized all the kids together in the games we would play. If I had my scanner and photo album here with me, I would be sharing pictures with you of a bunch of kids rein-acting the Beatles “Help” in her grandmother’s front yard.

In high school, I wasn’t a loner, I was a connector. I didn’t belong to one specific group (grits, yo’s, preps, or jocks). I had friends in all these circles, but I didn’t associate with any specifically. However, I was able to work with all of them to get things done. I learned how to produce videos from the ideas in my head, using my associations to get the finished product to air on local television.

In the Army, while stationed in Germany, I used the old spaces in our barracks basement to throw parties. We would have themes and the parties kept the soldiers on the base safe and without having to drink and drive.

After the Army I created my own music promotions company, Emerging Sounds. In which I helped bands connect with their fans and get noticed by major record labels. Which, I can proudly say, several of the acts I worked with did go on to get signed. Some with big successes.

In recent years, as a Government Contractor with Navstar, Inc, I have been a community manager in a real sense being able to work on the Intellipedia project.

Taking my life lessons learned, I have been able to observe how people interact with each other in person and online in much of the same way. My talk today is a glimpse into that world and the dance of the community manager.

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I have been blogging in some shape or form since 1999. I started blogging about concerts I attended and the occasional hi-jinks that ensued with my work as a music promoter. Over the years, I have transitioned to community management and supporting the Federal Government with Enterprise 2.0 best practices. Part of being a good community manager is to have a voice that can be heard above the rest of the noise of discussion in regards to presenting policy and guidelines, as well as mitigating wiki edit wars.

As such, I leverage my blog internally in my company and with the customers I support to organize the chaos. Blogs are an effective way to place a conversation or announcement you would normally send to a large email recipient list and can prevent those long chains of “reply all”.

This workshop is a follow-up to my previous talk at the last Potomac Forum I spoke at in August 2009, Hints for Communicating in Social Media.

To see the steps I have covered in my talk, please check out the wiki on GovCollab.

Blogs I contribute to on the open internet aside from this one:

• navstar-inc.com/blog – @navstar
• smcdc.wordpress.com – @smcdc
• Capital Beltway – @thebeltway

I am also a guest blogger for ZDNet and Social Computing Journal on topics of Enterprise 2.0 and Government 2.0. Occasionally, I am also asked to guest post on blogs, which I consider an honor and will link on my website. If you would like me to be a guest blogger on your site you can contact me via twitter (@immunity) to connect for more details.

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During my talk, I will be asking the following questions to those in the audience to think about:

• What is your mission?
• Who is your target audience?
• How do you communicate now?
• What social media tools are right for you?

What is the Difference in all this 2.0 Stuff?

Internal vs. External Communication

Excusing my crappy excuse for drawing on a flipchart, you can see from my “illustration” above what the difference with all the buzzwords that are floating around. This is the main focus of my talk that I give when talking to people who are interested in knowing more, have heard the buzz and think they need “Facebook” or “Twitter” as their answer. But it may not be that simple. I previously discussed this back in April on a guest post on ZDNet, “You Were Never 1.0, but Get Ready for Enterprise 2.0“. Fortunately what I wrote then still holds true months later.

My aim is to prepare organizations, be it business or Government to make a knowledgeable transition into effective communication and workflow using Software as a Service or other Web 2.0 applications in an Enterprise manner. While there is much good being done by Social Media/Web evangelists — myself included, those intrigued should not get caught in the glamour and glitz of something new for new sake, but strategically plan around what the problem is that an organization is trying to solve. The “Jeopardy Method”, of giving the answer then ask the question/dilemma seems to be how things are getting done now. When the case should be — the question/dilemma is “Our Organization is Having a Problem Communicating externally, internally, capturing workflow, answering requests for information, etc… and we need to fix that by?” Identifying the problems, in detail before you have a solution in mind will help you choose the right tool for the job.

Sounds a little old school right? It should — using social media is just a new way of doing old business. Now project costs are lower because the software is not dependent of End User Licenses and pricey volume purchases. Now, you can find the best fit to solve the problem and then customize it yourself, or with a company that specializes in customization of known solution like Mantech and Jive’s software. For example, Jive Software develops and provides the software  platform that Mantech customizes and supports onsite for their customers. The result, “A-Space”, a social networking and productivity site for the US Intelligence Community.

So I am sorry for the late night post, but I was just told tonight that C-Span will be recording and covering live the conference at the Reagan Building, I am a little nervous and definitely will be coloring my hair tonight. After my presentation, I will publish my slides (which I normally don’t do slides), for review. Addtionally, I will add, I do have a finished White Paper on “Enterprise 2.0 for Government” available by request.

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Finals in Washington DC

NBC had some great coverage about the event I judged as a preview for tonight’s finals. Take a look, I show up in the video at the end showing my love for STD!!

And Mitt Umlaut, I will be looking for you tonight

Full-screen

930
815 V St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 393-0930

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] at Bar Louie in Chinatown, Washington, DC.

Larissa Fair – President

Twitter – @lyf108

Andrea Baker – Executive Vice President and Programming Director

@immunity

Anna Gabert and Travis Mason- Vice President & Sponsorship Directors

@annagabert @tgmason

Sarah Wurrey – Vice President & Promotions Director

@sarahwurrey

Nisha Chittal, Meg Roberts, Sara Burson – Event Managers

@nishachittal, @megmroberts, @saraburson

Maia Kotlus-Gates and Beth McNamee – Membership Managers

@maiakg, @bethmcnamee

Gabriel Key – Digital Scribe/Content Organizer

@gabrielmkey

Event Logistics:

Wednesday, July 29
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Bar Louie
701 7th Street NW #D
Washington, DC 20001
202-638-2460

Connect with SMC-DC

Washington DC has its own wiki-in-progress. Please visit: http://socialmediaclubdc.pbwiki.com/ for more details.

Washington DC Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/smcdc

Hashtag: #smcdc

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2419741913

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1820071&trk=hb_side_g

Friendfeed: http://www.friendfeed.com/smcdc

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When one does consultant work, especially in the Federal Government, as I do, you tend to rotate to new contracts on occasion. I’ve been on some contracts for years, others for months depending on the work. Sometimes I have been on a contract from inception, others I have taken to a close. But with each one, I learn so much and gain new friends and colleagues.

In fact, since I have been consulting in the same field since I left the Army in 1998, I keep running into the same familiar names and faces. Some even go back to those days when I wore BDUs.  I have worked with several kinds of contracting companies, from Small to Medium to Large. So now, with all this time under my belt, I can tell you my best experience so far has been with the small female owned company by Joanna Alexis, Navstar, Inc.

With Navstar, I have been growing up a lot. When I first joined I was still doing work as a billable employee as a Developer (I even learned a bit of Ruby on Rails). Even though I had previously done work as a Project Manager and even a small venture as an Independent Contractor. Over my time here at Navstar, I have pulled away from being just a developer and back into Project Management and Business Development.

As my mission to continuously grow the Enterprise 2.0 division of work, I have been scouting fine talent inside and outside of the Federal Government to work towards and more Open and Transparent ethos inside and out. Not only have I been recruiting great minds to our team, but I have been growing this business in the same breaths. Which brings me to where I am today and the subject of this post.

A few weeks ago now, back fresh from a mini beach vacation in Ocean City, I started back with the organization I was formerly a developer, in an Agile project management role. The team I join has a stellar background in delivering innovative work with the use of new technologies and agile business development.

Yesterday I spent some time in an Agile Refresher “talk” that was tailored to my work I will be doing with the team as a Project Manager. While in the “talk”, I realized that Agile falls right into some of the rethinking your mind and fits into what I am trying to evangelize when I am talking Enterprise 2.o to my customers. My role now as a PM is not only to be a liaison between the developers and the website owner and stakeholders, but it is also to innovate an agency, if not a community into bigger and better ways to achieve our over all mission. Because, its the mission that is the focus, not just the tools.

So today, I am opening my mind even more by attending Blog Potomac #blogpotomac in Falls Church, right down the street from Navstar Headquarters. And in two weeks, I am looking forward to meeting some of the Enterprise 2.0 luminaries at Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. #e2conf

But no matter what the case, I promise I will still be a rockstar, realist, and edgerider to deliver quality work to my Government customers.

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