So...What's Next?!?

Catching Up

Wow - come back for vacation and hit the ground running!

Monday I spent the day working on a video script for a new client. It is really something I would like to see more organizations doing. They have tasked me with taking the legalese language of their social media policies and guidelines and creating a fun video that will show the importance of thinking before posting. We shot the video yesterday and one of the producers was holding back his laughter at one point.

Tuesday I got to meet with a peer I have not connected with in awhile and told him about a new business model I was working on. He completely understood the concept and added so many new ideas and resources. I will discuss this new idea in more detail as we launch, but it is very exciting.

After that I had a great meeting with a potential new client and was then off to the Digitainment board meeting. The momentum of Digitainment is growing by leaps and bounds and I feel incredibly lucky to be involved in this early stage. I am the social media director for the group and right now I am working on designing our social media road map as well as recruiting interns, which we will need on an ongoing basis. From there I headed over to the TAG Enterprise 2.0 meeting that we partnered with the Workplace Learning Society for. It was a packed room with many people taking lots of notes on how social software can be used for ongoing knowledge transfer and collaboration. There was the standard question about the ROI of using social media which got me to thinking...people who ask that question are thinking about the wrong thing. The ROI is on the project or the goal and social media or social software is implemented as a way to effectively and efficiently reach that goal - if it is leveraged correctly.

Wednesday I found myself having coffee with another peer I have not connected with in a long time and then I went over to the offices of our newest client, Creative Loafing to discuss our project. From there I had a wonderful lunch with a gentlemen whose company develops software solutions in the Healthcare and Government space. We explored many various ways we could work together and then I headed down to StudioPlex for their monthly ArtWalk, which Daddy-O was Djing for. I met my friend "Cocktails", founder of STIR. We discussed his new gig at Big Brothers Big Sisters as well as the new business model I mentioned earlier.

Thursday I spent much of the day with Public Broadcasting of Atlanta and Friday my day was split between being in the studio shooting the video for Grizzard and hanging out at the Atlanta Children's Shelter working on their social media plan.

There are also a number of really exciting things coming up.

This Wednesday I am running a social media workshop for CRMA

The 24th through the 26th of this month I am going on a FAM tour with the ACVB which includes my own hotel room in town - a little vacation spot, and visits to the Georgia Terrace Hotel, Dinner at Dogwood, Drinks at Pitty Pat's Porch,  Breakfast at Highland Bakery, a Bicycle Tour of Atlanta, the Oakland and Civil War Tour,  Lunch at Livingston Atlanta, a visit to Stone Mountain including Antebellum Plantation and dinner at Miss Katies Sideboard Restaurant. Friday we will start with breakfast at Cafe Mims and then head over to the Margaret Mitchell House. We will also vist the Atlanta History Center, Tullie Smith Farm, and conclude with lunch at Swan Coach House.

I have been in Atlanta for over 10 years and have only experienced a few of these attractions so I am excited to be able to be part of this. During those days I will be posting on my blog at the ATL Insider and on the Forums over there as well as posting pictures in their photo gallery and posting on thier Twitter account.

On June 30th is the Digitainment Mixer and Mashup hosted by Concept Hub and Fuzebox. Daddy-O will be DJing and we will have lots of presentations as well as will be shooting video shout outs up at our studio.

Looking out a little further, I am going to be in Birmingham, AL for a 2 day IAEE conference I will be presenting at. I am also presenting to a group of executives on Aug 28th re: Mapping Corporate Goals with Social Media Technologies and Trends

So, yep - looking forward to a fun, productive and very busy summer.

My Team Likes to Party All the Time

I still have not gotten my voice back from last night.

Last night we extended our online street team project for Atlanta.net (which I will discuss in more detail on the corp blog this weekend) to the physical world. In partnership with USDM and NetParty, we hosted over 700 people at the Tongue & Groove at Lindberg.

Grayson Daughters and Amani Channel were both wonderful enough to help me guide my incredibly talented and social interns in the world of citizen journalism. They also shot some great video of the crowd.

We also hired Mark Fienberg to produce some high def video and a professional photographer.

Grayson and Amani were twittering throughout the night and Grayson, apparently more able to bounce back after such a night than me, has already written a blog post.

A few highlights;

• Meeting Jeff Strank, Founder/President of Net Party - someone who has an incredibly fun job, and definitely deserves it.
• Stumbled into a gentleman who wants a million friends on Myspace - apparently he called me for advice and I did not return his call, and he remembered that! sorry...
• When my client asked how I found my interns, I got to answer...Twitter.
• Working with some of my favorite creative friends...
• Watching my most shy intern come out of her shell.
• All of us looking at each other saying - wow! this is cool.

Oh Atlanta!

Today I attended the Atlanta Conventions and Visitors Bureau Industry Briefing and sat in the audience with immense pride. One I love the city of Atlanta. Two I love the direction I have seen it going in and
Three they are a client and during the presentation about the social media site they gave me and my team a very complimentary shout out!

So here are some notes from the briefing;

We have about 38 million visitors a year which generates about $12 billion in revenue,

ACVB is passionate about customer service and our southern hospitality. As Mark Vaughn, EVP Sales & Marketing put it, we will never have a beach (of course we never know what global warming may bring us...) but what we do have is our southern hospitality and that is the strength we each need to play to - to be the best and most hospitable city in the world.

I learned from Andrew Wilson, COO of Brand Atlanta that hits to the Atlanta.net site increased by 12% from 2006 to 2007 and is currently the second highest ranking COB site in traffic with Vegas being the first.

They talked about the wonderful blogging team that has volunteered to be the Ambassadors of this city. They also unveiled the desktop widget that was created, which I must say is quite useful You will be able to set you preferences based on what you like to do - eat, go to concerts, sports...and the ACVB events calendar will then push information to your desktop. Pretty Cool.

I have to say this project has been the most enjoyable one to date...and so for tonight's quote - I leave you all with a song by Alison Krauss

Roaming around, oh Lord
I've got all this and Heaven above

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

I get a feeling in me
When I remember all those
Crazy days and crazier nights
Can't you hear the music playing?
You must have heard them saying
We're gonna rip 'em up
And light up the night

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Same old place
It's the same old city
What can I do?
I'm falling in love

I'm just an old hound dog
Roaming around, Lord, Lord
I've got all this and Heaven above

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Oh, Atlanta
Hear me calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day, hey
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia