Teaching from the sidelines and watching them FLY!

I've been on vacation. Well to be exact I've been on the very trendy much sought after "staycation". But of course that means I have access to the web and besides playing mass quantities of WoW I've also been more in-touch with work then I probably should be for someone "on vacation".

Why stay in touch?

For a very simple reason. I've been asked to be the co-advisor, along with my colleague Asst. Prof. Megan Frenzen, of a group of Marketing, e-Business and Education majors as they work on a very exciting project for the UN. Yep, the United Nations. Champlain College is the recipient of a grant from the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) to create a game prototype to help change behaviors around violence against women in South Africa. There is a large team of students comprised of e-game design, art and animation, e-game programing, software engineering, marketing, e-business and education majors who will be working through December on creating this game prototype.

I was asked to recommend a group of students for the project and as a Professor this is perhaps one of the most rewarding and most challenging things I can be asked. I considered this request for some time actually, thinking about the many different students I have had the pleasure of working with, the demands of the work that must be done and the fact that this work has the potential to have an amazing impact on others lives. In the end I recommended ten students. Then it was out of my hands.

Now the students who were interested and were selected by the project team are scrambling to get everything in order before they head out on the first part of their research -- travelling to Cape Town, South Africa the week prior to the beginning of classes to conduct on the ground research.

It's an amazing thing watching them struggle to find direction, to figure out what they should be doing and how to approach it ... and to provide advice and recommendations ... but not tell them what to do (smile).

I won't be going on the trip with them. Meg gets that honor (with my blessing). However I will be following their progress and providing my advice from afar using the methods of communication that seem to work depending on where they are at the time.

They have much to consider. Research areas, asking good questions, listening and working together as a team. They have already started thinking about branding, logo, etc.

We have much to consider. How to advise, yet let them lead, how to encourage but not let them go down the wrong path, how to empower but keep them grounded.

Keep up on our progress by reading some of the different blogs and other social networking sites that have been started by the students and by the folks at our Emergent Media Center.

1. Perpetual Reflection by Nicole Magoon
2. Persnickety Creative by Amanda Jones
3. Champlain's United Nations South Africa Project at Facebook (a open group)

Or, follow me on Twitter or Plurk to find out things as they happen!

The socially redeeming value of "Twitter" and teaching social media

Whew! Note to self: Don't take a "fast trip" to the West Coast!

I returned from the Internet Strategy Forum in Portland, OR on Saturday morning and promptly slept until Sunday morning. Jet lag, lack of sleep and information processing all took their toll for sure.

Biggest wins at the conference?

1. Meeting, sitting with and "friending" Geoff Ramsey the CEO of e-Marketer
2. Meeting and chatting with Mike Moran who writes an SEO blog I follow
3. Not only watching, but participating in a full conference Twitter stream via my crackberry
4. Several new case studies from speakers from Forester and Intel
5. A free book: Groundswell by Charlene Li

The biggest disappointments?

1. Nothing really new from a content perspective
2. Lack of conference organizers focus on the use of Twitter
3. Poor choices for several of speakers -- this was a high expectation crowd so the speakers had to be "spot on" to be successful
4. No educators

Would I go again? Probably not unless they really push out the envelope on what's coming next.

So overall Twitter was the big winner for me. To actually take what I've read about and put it into practice and follow the Tweets to see the thoughts behind the scenes was great. It really emphasizes that post from Rohit Bhargava on Twitter and conferences. Nice to live the experience.

It certainly helps having had this experience now that I'm in the process of teaching social media tools and techniques to K12 educators from several Vermont school districts today and tomorrow. I'll be bringing Twitter into the classroom to play with it so hopefully this time it will work!

Finally in the same focus about connection and social media, my colleague Peter Straube who is program director for our Hospitality and our Event Planning programs sent me an email today with some great links to some things that are being used in the conference arena:

Hi Elaine,

Thought you might find this interesting: http://www.crowdvine.com/conferences and a specific example from the MPI conference I got this from in Houston last winter: http://mpi.crowdvine.com/

Oh, and while I’m at it, you might enjoy seeing some sample work that a team of our e-Gaming students produced in real time during the conference: http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/pec2008/peccommon.aspx?id=13996

- P

P.S. Does this get me somewhere on your blog today?

Yes, Peter...it does!

The Internet Strategy Forum

I'll be attending the Internet Strategy Forum's West Summit: The Titan's of E on Thursday the 17th in Portland, OR.

I'm pretty excited about it.

First of all, I found out about it because I read the Biznology blog by Mike Moran, and he did a post about speaking at the summit and that if we mentioned him in our registration we got 15% off. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I of course checked it out and after seeing the line-up was convinced that this was a great conference for me to attend, so I registered and got the 15% discount! Thanks Mike!

Here's that line up:

Geoffrey Ramsey, Co-founder & CEO, eMarketer
Nancy Bhagat, VP of Sales and Marketing Group, Intel
Daniel Stickel, new CEO, WebTrends (formerly with Google)
Charlene Li, VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
Chris Shimojima, VP, Global Digital Commerce, Nike
David Placier, VP, Consumer Insights, Disney Online
Shane O'Neill, Chief Technology Officer, Fandango
Mike Moran, Distinguished Engineer, IBM, author (highest-rated speaker at 2007 Summit)

So why would I select this conference? Well, the timing is right. I'm not in the middle of classes right now -- but I am in the beginning process of re-creating my course in Internet-based Marketing (yes, I actually do recreate my courses, often...this ain't Shakespeare ya know!). I've always wanted to see Portland, OR, and well, I enjoy getting a chance to meet in person the bloggers/writers I follow and use in my classes!

(Note that I got that chance earlier this summer when I met Avinash Kaushik in person!)

Here's the YouTube Promo Video:

And there's a Facebook Group and a Twitter Feed. Neither of these are very active. I wonder if it will pick up during the conference?

Anyway, here's an opportunity for me to get really pumped so I can keep my class current and fresh.

As always, I'll be Twittering from the conference. I can't seem to find if they've set up a TWEME, but you can always look for updates from "Summize" (just aquired by Twitter) to see who is Twittering about the conference.

BBA presentation recap

Based on general feedback the presentation for the BBA went well today and I already have several social media mentions:

1. Executive Editor of the Burlington Free Press, Mike Townsend was there, along with a gaggle or would it be plethora of BFP representation -- seriously, they practically took up half the room! Mike posted a good recap of the meeting in his blog entry and even directed people to my Twitter and my Plurk accounts! Thanks Mike for sending me the link! By the way, if you haven't subscribed to the BFP Twitter updates, you should, it's a great way to stay on top of news items locally.
   
2. Jackie Kazil, the Digital Developer at the BFP Twittered during the presentation. (found that through Summize).

Very cool. Hope to see more of these types of posts -- not for my own personal gratification (seriously!), but more to see the businesses who were there begin to participate and use social media.

Much thanks go out to Dave Gibson from Propeller for mentioning "Google Alerts" as a way to monitor. Great catch Dave!

Next presentation will be on July 22 and 23 to middle and high school educators from CVU and surrounding areas on social media use for the classroom -- the good, the bad and the ugly. Lot's to talk about there.

Summer Presentation Series Part 3: Web 2.0 for the Burlington Business Association

I'll be presenting on "Web 2.0: What is it and Why you need to know" tomorrow (Thursday, July 10) to the members of the Burlington Business Association.

Even though I'll be using PowerPoint...I'm posting the outline and links here.

1. What is Web 2.0? Peter Rivera, SVP of Interactive Design & Development at AOL has this nifty little graph that provides a great visual. You might actually remember this from an old posting of mine from the iDMAa conference in Nov. 2007. Basically the old model is the one website with everything focused on that site. The intermediate model is still having that one website, but also including a blog or social networking sites but it all still points back to the main site (pretty much what we are seeing right now with the 2008 political campaign). The new model is more about creating a "brand web" that encompasses the informational site, all the social media including blogs and social networking and recommenders plus many micro-sites that fulfill needs of specific customer segments. Whew! Yep. That's Web 2.0!
   
   While I won't have time in the presentation tomorrow to show a video, I certainly can embed it here. This is a social anthropologists view of Web 2.0 and frankly I love it. It really gets at the behind the scenes and shows a great deal of the functionality of what these tools are bringing us all.
   
   
   
   
2. Some Interesting Examples (mostly localized):
   
   Social Networking -- MySpace, Facebook. Think applications (you control, consumers pass on). My link is to my Facebook page where I'll show the new Coldwell Banker "Housestrology" application that was sent to me by our local CBHB Reality folks.
   
   Online Video: YouTube, Google Video: Think video for the masses (consumers control, consumers pass on). At this link is a list of the top YouTube Videos about Burlington, VT. Notice that the visit of "Where the Hell is Matt?" is in the top 6 viewed videos!
   
   Blogging: Journalist, citizen, CEO and individual: Think new news and PR paradigm. Check out the links to our own 7Days Blurt, iBrattleboro, Jeff Hollander's blog at Seventh Generation and of course, my blog!
   
   Community Recommendations: Amazon, Trip Advisor, FindandGoSeek: Think user generated advice/recommendations (you and consumers control different pieces). The links are to Trip Advisor for Burlington -- I wonder how many of the BBA members are on that site? And the second one is to local startup Find and Go Seek. Great and powerful local recommender for family stuff to do.
   
   
3. What does all of this mean for your business?
   
   The tried and true still works!
   –Know your customer
   –Stay true to your brand
   –Don’t lose site of your goals
   
   BUT! Be ready to GIVE UP CONTROL!
   –User Generated Content is here to stay
   –Turn your customers into your message boards
   –Take the risk, but monitor, monitor, monitor
   
   
4. Pitfalls to avoid
   
   1. Ignoring the inevitable.
   2. Just jumping on the bandwagon without thinking it through.
   3. Assuming the “younger generation” has all the answers! (They don’t)
   4. Not putting resources into “Social Media”.
   5. Only focusing on one marketing channel.
   
   
5. Getting Started
   
   1. Educate yourself. What are the tools? What do they do? Play with them.
   2. Know your audience. Which tools make the best sense for your business?
   3. Talk about it. What are other small businesses doing? Locally, regionally, nationally?
   4. Take action. Select a tool and commit to using it for a period of time.
   5. Track your ROI. Did it convert based on your goals?
   
   
6. Resources to Help
   
   Education: CommonCraft: http://www.commoncraft.com/ and WEB 2.0 for Business Advantage (pdf): http://tinyurl.com/553r5l
   
   Talking: Seminars like this one!, Local mixers and special sub-committees to share ideas and resources.
   
   Planning and Action: Expert Resources and Interns for specific projects to help with planning and strategy, local Vendors such as Epik, Propeller, and KSV to help with implementation, hire new positions responsible for this type of marketing.
   

And there you have it. That's the nuts and bolts of my presentation -- all to be given in 35 minutes tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. They promise the breakfast will be good!

Social Media and the Presidency: Site evolution, playing games and contrasting messages

Sen. McCain's site has gone through another evolution. It's tighter, even easier to navigate, less cluttered and right to the point. A little "straight talk design" maybe? Notice the emphasis on energy policy?


My earlier post on this shows some of the evolution as the campaign moved from dark to light and made things easier to find. At the same time, they continue to focus on trying to maintain control -- there's the McCain Space (vs. MySpace) and that nifty push to get people to post on blogs and how to do it (I like this). Hard to find the social networks and as I wrote in the earlier post they are still focusing on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

I like the evolution. The site packs more power. They've done an excellent job using design, images and text to make their point without making people wade through so much information they don't know where to go.

But...what's really fun is the new game that has been posted on his site. It's called "Pork Invaders". To be honest I'm not sure if McCain is the first to do this (probably not) but what I like here is not just the fact that the game is on the site, but you can grab the code and put it on your site AND you can add it to your Facebook. So now they begin to see how to create synergy between the main site and the social media sites.

Wanna play? (notice how you can "join the team" with one click)






It's like the McCain Campaign has a sense of humor or something. Hmmm....

By the way it was a big fundraising deadline last night (June 30th) and you would certainly know it this morning (July 1) by looking at both candidates blogs:

Obama: Deadline Closing In
by Amanda Scott Monday, June 30, 2008 at 11:43 PM
Remember, the deadline for June fundraising is midnight local time. Help the campaign build our 50 State strategy and bring change to Washington. Every donation counts!

McCain: Posted at 9:43 AM on 6/30/2008 by matt_lira
Travel with John McCain Every person who makes a contribution, of any amount, by midnight tonight will be entered in a drawing to join John McCain on the Straight Talk Express for a day. Click here to participate.

Um...it is the July 1st now folks. Where's the update? Do I ask for too much? It's almost 9:00 a.m. EST Time. Both of these blogs should provide some info. Anyway, just by this much of a posting can you see the contrast in the two campaigns? McCain will let you win a ride with him on his straight talk bus if you contribut...Obama is earnest and wants us to help him bring change to Washington (think intrinsic reward).

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't provide equal time and one thing I don't think I've talked about at the Obama site yet is the Mobile Text with really cool ring tones -- in a mix of musical genres. Wish I had any sense of musical ability so I could list them, but I distinctly got hip-hop, techno, country and I think marching band (grin).

Not sure how I feel about the whole ring tone thing -- and yet, it is a great and subtle way to get people to spread the word for sure. I wonder how this one is doing for the campaign.

Next post will be a blog analysis. Why? Because I'm noticing that the blogs are becoming less and less about information and more and more about showing off a video or begging for money. What is the roll of a blog in a political campaign when you have a website to provide information on issues? Um...commentary maybe?

On a final note, some recent buzz on the social media series here at my blog:

1. Tracking Obama's, McCain's Use of Social Media at AppScout (from PCMagazine)
2. Aggregate blog Social GaGA links to the AppScout Story