New Media

First DC Changebloggers Meetup

Some of DC’s leading changebloggers decided to celebrate Blog Action Day, October 15th, by hosting a meetup of like-minded locals. Organized by Alex Rampy, along with Qui Diaz and others, the occasion was taken as an opportunity to celebrate and discuss the use of new media to further social action. It was a great excuse to meet some of DC’s smartest social entrepreneurs as well.

In addition to the usual name tags, Alex provided chalk and construction paper for each attendee to write about their top cause — Poverty appeared to be the crowd favorite. While there, I had the opportunity to hear some feedback on Contribune, in addition to hearing about some other interesting projects. It is really an extrodionarily stimulating experience speaking with some of these people. Exchanging ideas with this crowd always leads me to new creative concepts, one of which has turned into a Knight Foundation application. Speaking of which, if you haven’t heard yet, there is still time to submit – $5 million for local news.

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Solutions Stars Video Conference Wrap Up

Network Solutions‘ Solutions Stars Video Conference just finished and I have to admit, it was a pretty intense experience.  The event was primarily driven by a series of videos, each on a different topic relating to social media strategy.  The videos themselves were each composed of short bursts of insight from various web personalities.  These clips moved at a rather rapid pace.  Below the video player, the site offered participants a live chat box, which was quickly filled with a lively discussion.  Between the videos and the chat, along with a separate “ask a question” box and the parallel conversation on Twitter, it was quite a lot of information to digest.

Each video clip contained some useful insight, though some more obvious than others (a chat participant noted he would have to “write that one down” when a video clip mentioned adding keywords to your website).  I particularly enjoyed the comments made by Guy Kawasaki, Tim Ferriss, Tony Hsieh, Chris Brogan and Mari Smith.  In general, I was most intrigued by the discussion on the integration of offline business and marketing efforts with those being made online.

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Solution Stars Video Conference Today

This afternoon, Network Solutions will be hosting a video conference with some of the brightest minds in new media strategy. The list of speakers includes Guy Kawasaki and Chris Brogan along with about two dozen others. The conference is free to attend and will be help from 1 p.m. until approximately 3:30 p.m. EST. The following topic areas will be covered:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

Learn more at the Solution Stars website.