Continuation on Communicating With Social Media

Last Week, I spoke at the Potomac Forum’s session on “How to” in Social Media in Government. My presentation was on How to Write a Blog Post: The first steps of organizational blogging.

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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Communicating Through Social Media

Occasionally, I will speak in public, in groups at happy hours, or with customers in the office about Social Media and how to effectively use social software, specifically free and open sourced software when applicable. At the Potomac Forum Government Leadership event at the Reagan Building, I will be semi-formalizing this talk to suggest “Hints for Communicating through Social Media”

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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Social Media Club DC – Mid-Summer Happy Hour (Tonight)

I am pleased to announce that my company Navstar, Inc. will be sponsoring tonight’s Social Media Club DC – Mid-Summer Happy Hour [July 29, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM (ET)] 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

Sphere: Related Content

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She’s Geeky Northern Virginia is Less Than a Month Away

The Girls of Shes Geeky NoVA at SxSWi

Update: This event has been postponed until Fall 2009

In honor of Ada Lovelace Day.

INVITATION TO ALL WOMEN!!

She’s Geeky is coming to Northern Virginia – the DC Area.
April 18th McLean Virginia (Tyson’s Corner).
http://www.shesgeeky.org/

Early bird admission is $40 until April 1 – $45 regular until April 11 and $50 after that.
Student admission is $20

We are inviting women from a divers range of industries together for a day of interactive learning and industry cross pollination.

To us Geekiness is self defined – from those with advanced degrees in mathematics, science and engineering. To skilled programmers who are in large enterprises, government or startups. To women who have taught themselves how to code the PHP on their side bars on their blog or just super enthusiastic users of technology.

Each city has a different mix of technologies – DC has a variety of fields
* the nonprofit and advocacy sectors,
* government, defense, aerospace, and intelligence
* Web portals – like AOL
* startups innovating

The range of topics discussed is diverse – in California you can see the list of sessions.
http://shesgeeky.org/wiki/Sg2009wc:Notes

————-
How does the unconference day work?

The sessions are put forward by the women who attend the event – and are diverse. They include expert topics about their particular expertise, hosting conversations about issues of interest both technical and personal (like how to balance work and family), exploring start-up ideas, introductions or deep dives to different programming languages or frameworks, sharing stories about what it was like to work in the early days of the industry, introduction to public speaking and many others.

Beginning at 9 AM each day, we start with a blank wall and, in less than an hour, through a highly participative process, create a full day, multi-track conference agenda that is relevant and inspiring to everyone there.

From there, we go to separate areas or rooms assigned to each topic. The session can be a presentation, inquiry about a question or discussion about an issue or technical field. or. One participant volunteers to record the proceedings.

The notes from each session are collected in the newsroom, then a book is compiled with all the notes from the conference and distributed to everyone who attended.

For this event, we have the pleasure of guest moderator, Jean Russell. This event is co-hosted by Amy Senger of LMI and myself, Andrea Baker, of Navstar, Inc.

—————–

Sponsorship opportunities for both small and large companies are available too.

If you have questions you can e-mail us at info@shesgeeky.org

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Almost Done But Not Quite, SxSWi

Someone caught me speaking at Amy's Salon on Friday night. Thanks to Luc Van Braekel

Its day 4 for me here now at SxSW interactive in Austin, Texas. Its been an amazing conference so far for this no longer a SWirgin. I came here with the tech expirement that I would attend and participate using only my blackberry, my flip, and my camera.

For the most part this has worked. I have been able to capture notes, tweet, and take pictures to capture this experience.

I have also luckily been able to stop in on occasion to the connection centers (this is where I am now), where laptops are available for short quick use, if you are ok with standing. Which, on day four… I am really not. I have learned that good shoes, hydration, and mental and physical rest are keys to survival for a productive conference.

This blog post is a quick teaser to the epic one that will follow with complete links to my media output and thoughts on sessions I attended. This will be posted later in the week when I return to DC.

I will say, this trip has been more geared to listening and participating in discussions on women’s issues, especially ones in tech. I have met many great people and have been able to also connect with my twitter friends who were only virtual creatures before this point. I am also greatful to the new friendships of people back home whom I’ve only seen a few times, bond over the experience.

Quick takeaways until the big post:

• Yes, this was worth it to be physically here.
• Networking and meeting people in real life alone is valuable.
• First person I saw at the convention center was Kevin Marks
• I am admittedly a google reader fan
• Gary V. still brings the Thunder
• Next year I am doing Cogaoke
• So many efforts out there to elevate woman’s issues in tech
• The Austin Convention center is “teh suck” in architectural design and layout – can’t find $h!7
• I wish I could stay for the music, but it already feels like I have been here too long.
• Tara Hunt first in real life impression awesome, while Julia Allison’s rude and inconsiderate.
• Even though I didn’t go to the sessions, I know what “making whuffie” is about
• @wefollow – so far maybe the biggest thing out of the conference
• The Keynotes were mostly unimpressive.
• Giving out your twitter handle and posting a specific hashtag for sessions makes the session more connected.
• The events I picked before hand online, are not necessarily the events I ended going to.
• Parties are fun. But don’t overdo it.

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