Entries Tagged 'Meetups' ↓

So it just goes to show that if you can’t go to St. Louis, the people will still come out.  That’s right, our second Tweetup in St. Charles county area was a success.  Before you read my take on it though, I’d like you to read Jeff’’s Tweetup post.

Back? Great.

As Tweetups go, this was a great crowd.  We had both techies and non-techies, men and women, and the mix worked well.  The conversation wasn’t just stuck on the latest Twitter tool or tech tip.

Lisa, @StL4Closeures, talked to us about real estate and politics.  Karen, @KarenStL, talked about her recent networking experience at BarCampStL.  Sharon, my wife, jump in and talked about being a parent and bus driver.  It was one busy table.

The location turned out to be busy but well liked.  Trailhead Brewery is located on the St. Charles waterfront area, in the historic area of town.  Trailhead provides a fun and warm atmosphere for getting together, as well as a great selection of microbrew beers.

All these elements made this an above average experience.  How do I judge that? I judge it by the relationship impact.  Huh? Yes, it’s about relationships.

Out of this Tweetup, Jeff, @jpickell, met, Chris, @idonotes, and others that he’d only known via Twitter.  They really hit it off, and I see collaboration coming for those two.  That’s just one example of how real face to face time can be a plus.

What did I learn? On a practical level, I learned to plan the location better, but knowing what circumstance might affect it.  It turned out they were packed due to activities on Main Street.

On a social networking level, I learned that word of Twitter, though fast, isn’t always efficient. I used simple broadcasting to my followers to alert folks of the Tweetup.  This proved less than fully effective.  Where I saw the response was in people that follow me and few others right now.  The more active involved folks on my stream missed the message altogether.

Feedback I received indicates that a more direct and targeted approach would work better.  This would include as much advance notification as possible with an effort to reach as many relevant individuals as possible. Aiding this would be the fact that I keep a group column in Tweetdeck just for tweets by locals.

Another lesson was that not everyone is equally interested.  Some will respond online and honestly be fully committed. Others will reply and not really plan on turning up.  The rest will ignore the offer like it was never heard.   The key is to not worry about the head count but about encouraging folks to come with the intent to add value.

On that last point, and my final one, adding value isn’t about being the most knowledgeable about Twitter, social networks, or Web 2.0.  Bringing value to the table is about your willingness to join the conversation, form relationships, and get over your fears.

Luckily the best way to get practice at these things is to show up to more and more similar functions.  Cheers to those that do.

I look forward to seeing you at an event near you in the future.

Focus on Chris Brogan

We held a Tweetup in O’Fallon Missouri.  Attendance was good.  There was a guest celebrity.  Out-of-towners showed up.  Heck, the food and the beer were even good.  But it’s a miracle it worked out so well. I totally goofed up the part about having a guest out.

Here’s how not to successfully have a guest at your Tweetup

• Give the guest a one day notice about the Tweetup.
• Only plan the Tweetup two days ahead of time.
• Don’t guarantee a ride out to the Tweetup for the guest.
• Expect the guest to find a restaurant almost 40 miles down the highway from their motel.
• Don’t remember to treat your guest.
• Introduce your guest as if everyone there actually knows him or her.
• Don’t even offer the guy a beer.
• Oh yeah, and take pictures of your guest eating. That’s always a winner.

The first ever St. Charles County Tweetup is upon us.  Conceived on the spur of the moment, and driven by a desire to not drive across the Missouri River, it’s happening this week.

Where:

Mc Gurks Public House
108 S Main St, O Fallon, MO
(636) 978-9640
Google Map

When:

6 PM, Wednesday, October 1

Bring what?

Yourself and your smile and a friend if you’d like.

No special topics to include, but how about we agree that politics should be off limits. That never works out well for me.

If you bring a camera, and post pics to Flickr, be sure to tag them, stchaztweetup.

DM me on Twitter to confirm or comment here. Feel free to steal this post.

Readers of this blog will already know how I spent part of my Canada visit engaged in social networking. But it didn’t stop there.

My wife and I had the chance to meet Glenda Watson-Hyatt in person as well. Glenda and her husband Darrell hosted us for lunch in Surrey, BC. We met at the City Center Brewery.

Glenda is both an author and professional blogger. I came to know her first though through Twitter. Yep, Twitter. She’s a social media maven like me.

Glenda welcomed us with open arms and a smile. I immediately felt like a real friend. As she led my wife and I into the restaurant though, I had to race to keep up. She’s no slow poke.

This lunch proved to be one that Sharon and I were loath to end. The time was one of good food, good stories, and good friends. But it also brought home some lessons for life and social networking about meeting in person.

People are so much more than a few characters in a Twitter message. Sure, people tell you their favorite color or drink, or where they like to eat, or mention their struggles. But until you sit across the table from them at their favorite restaurant, you don’t know the why’s and real what’s of those things. And you begin to understand why sometimes you didn’t get the jokes before.

Hugs and handshakes cement a relationship like few things in life. Yes, you can share your profile, and pictures of your kids and dogs, but that’s all superficial stuff. Stuff your neighbors know and maybe your kids’ friends even. But how many times have you hugged those folks? Hugs, even among gents, are considered a hallmark sign of friendship. Hugs welcome someone closer than any stranger has a right to be.

Appreciation happens. Yes, we say we appreciate each other. But when was the last time you didn’t gripe about picking up your kids, and they’re only ten minutes away. How good does it feel then to have someone travel hundreds of miles to meet in person. Or how much more do you appreciate someone and time with them when you’ve traveled far to share a few minutes with them.

Glenda has cerebral palsy. You’d never know it from her online presence if you didn’t read her blog. She’s feisty and full of more energy than most of us. Her blog is constantly updated, she’s authoring another book, and she’s extremely active on Twitter, other folks’ blogs and more.

She’s the same in person, but wheelchair bound and each syllable a struggle to get out. Meeting her made me feel really humble. I thought I understood the effort she was putting into having such an active life online and off, and now I’m struggling to express myself without feeling to shameful. She wouldn’t want that for me I know.

Glenda hugged me like she meant it. Wow. We’d only ever chatted online with no video sessions and no audio. She’d only heard I was a nice guy, and hopefully thought so from my online presence. But she made me feel welcomed with that hug. Like we were long separated friends. And she had so much energy, it’s hard to tell you that.

Each word was a struggle, yet she shared how happy she was to meet in person. I realized how much our relationship meant to her as well. Not only did she put up with me catching on to her lingo, but Darrell and her had to trek across town in their wheelchairs just to dine with us. Talk about feeling appreciated. To top it off, she gave us a personal copy of her book, I’ll Do It Myself.

Sharing lunch with Glenda was a highlight of my week and vacation. Yeah, we’d exchanged dozens of messages, and postcards even, but wow did I so not know her. Nor did I realize how enjoyable her company would be. Darrell was an added bonus. He not only played translator but was a great lunch companion. Not afraid to make recommendations, nor to put back a cold one with us. You know what I say, the best way to share with friends is over a good meal.

So yeah, chat yourself up, have a thousand friends on Facebook or whatever, but don’t count yourself lucky until you’ve taken that relationship offline as well. This year has been a fantastic series of meeting online contacts in the flesh. There was the MidWest Media Conference, the St. Louis Blogger meet ups, and the Social Media Club St. Louis meet. Then how about the trip to Austin with tweetups, lunches, and breakfast tacos. Oh yeah, and how about the Lo-Fi St. Louis Restart party at the Mad Art Gallery!

To think, the year is just now about half over. I can’t wait to take social networking to the pub, diner, or dance floor next. Where are you meeting your contacts?

My vacation plans started off ordinarily enough, time away from work and visiting with family. In this case, the family is my daughter-in-law and granddaughters up in Washington State. The plan was one week up there, visiting and perhaps drifting up to Seattle for a day or two. Well, things changed!

In my searching around for things to do, I came across some folks that sent me to a link on Jeff Pulver’s next breakfasts. Guess where? Seattle and Vancouver on back to back days! Yeah. We’d thought already about heading into Seattle, Vancouver, or both, so I was excited about this.

As it turned out, Seattle was too hard to make, so we changed plans to make a week day trip to British Columbia and have breakfast the next day. That travel adventure is fodder for another post.

The breakfast was held in down town Vancouver at the Subeez Cafe. Sharon and I arrived about 8:30, and the meet-up portion was already in full swing. There was Jeff, live and in person, elbow deep in schmoozing with the locals. It seems folks from all over the area were interested in this get together.

Minutes after getting there, we were handed our personal social networking tool kits. If you’ve never seen one, then please check out this Facebook video. Jeff explains it all.

Kit in hand, we quickly put on our name tags and gave ourselves tag lines. I labeled myself as a social media gadabout. Sharon chose the oh so true social media widow. This made a great intro for discussions folks had with her. Moments later, someone handed us each some other tags to label ourselves with. Tagging is a big part of these breakfasts.

We spent some moments looking around this rather unique restaurant, but most of the time after our tagging was spent in deep conversations, and there was plenty to talk about. Conversations obviously included social media and networking as topics, but also strayed into all kinds of areas. Sharon ended up talking about our travels, where we’re from and learned plenty about Canada from Ian Hood and Roland Tangloa. These gents made us feel the more like friends than strangers. Of course my wife is like that with folks anyway. Ha.

Everyone was talking and there was a wealth of interesting folks to engage there. Jeff Pulver was going to be my primary target but once I got settled, I found there were others just as interesting. And just so much I couldn’t take it all in. If you get a chance to go, do talk with Jeff, but don’t ignore all the wonderful people like yourself that showed up as well.

Conversation didn’t come to an end even when breakfast arrived. The breakfast was a treat and a nice surprise. Originally this was going to be a continental breakfast. In most places that means bagels, fruit, cereal etc. Not so here.

The Subeez Cafe apparently doesn’t serve breakfast regularly. So for us they whipped special up. Check out this picture.

The first thing to catch my eye was the fresh fruit. Strawberries and apples fresh cut and colorful sat nicely on each plate. This was the first time though I’d had fresh fruit and toast though. Turkey sausage and baked beans nestled nicely with fluffy scrambled eggs between the fruit and toast. To top off the toast, there was a side of peanut butter on each plate. Needless to say, the breakfast drew much of the immediate conversation.

Interesting things besides breakfast included that I’ve been a much busier Twitter user than most in attendance. Most folks there used other social networking tools, though no one had heard of Plurk yet. Facebook seemed popular though, and several folks had full blown websites and blogs. Photography seemed popular as well, with several folks having cameras and video going.

What did I take away from this? What value added did it have in my life? The biggest thing for me was getting face time with folks I’d normally only meet online. In a world where many of us will communicate but never shake hands, this is even more important. Being there in person also allows for more intimate communication, including other forms of personal communication, such as body language and expressions. There’s nothing quite like a real life wink to cement meaning in a message.

Documenting this with words isn’t doing this event justice, so I took some pictures as well. Please check out my pictures of the Vancouver Jeff Pulver breakfast. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to check out the event page. Please feel free to tag the pictures, and leave comments if you know anyone in them.

Now what? Now I start planning on joining Jeff Pulver for breakfast in St. Louis. How about you?

The MidWest Media Conference was a success. What was it you ask?

IF YOU TWITTER, POWNCE, BLOG, SEESMIC OR UTTERZ - THIS IS THE CONFERENCE FOR MEDIA RELATED ISSUES.
HOSTED BY WORKING PROFESSIONALS, IT’S DIRECTED TO EVERYONE INTERESTED IN IMPROVING ONLINE MEDIA PRODUCTION.

The conference was the brainchild of Duane Myers, aka PreppyDude. Seeing the strong interest in St. Louis and having connections, he went forward with his plan. He brought together a diverse set of panelists to help out.

Byron Sletten of Mindactive, headed up the technical side of the conference. His company provided the site, as well as the equipment to live broadcast the conference. Byron himself bookended the row of panelists. He provided valuable insight about site design and purpose for businesses and artists.

Steph Stockman, geologist and science educator, brought her expertise as a developer/implementer of education and outreach programs for NASA to the panel. Not content with mere drawings and a few pictures, Steph has strived to use online media in her education efforts. She’s now quite familiar with online networking and media, for both professional and personal use.

Dana Loesch, professional blogger and talk radio host, has been online and sharing writing and media for decades. An experienced hand at online media from blogs to broadcasting, she shared her experience in getting it right online.

Bill Streeter, a video blogger, blogger and more, is the man behind LO-FI Saint Louis. He brought a strong background in online media publishing as well as production to the table. A good portion of his work has been with local St. Louis musicians and artists.

Frank Ireton, Ph. D., a retired educator and public outreach professional, turned those years of experience to becoming a social media and virtual world expert. He’s created numerous things for clients and private projects in Second Life, including a representation of Belfast Ireland, including a pub that streams live music from Belfast.

Michelle Havens, professional photographer and stylist, worked on both the panel and as technical support for the evening. Her expertise in creating and publishing digital works was a welcome addition to the group.

David Myers, radio host and voice over talent, came with 14 years of radio industry experience. He’s now acting as Operations Coordinator for CBS Radio’s Kidstream Internet station. David played cohost and spurred on the panel.

These people came together to share their expertise and experiences in putting media online and making it work. They handled questions from privacy to investment to get something online.

One of those most interesting things to surface was the panels agreement that up and coming artists, especially musicians, should get their art online and put up an interactive site at the earliest opportunity. Also, the panel made clear that interactive doesn’t mean just a few news updates now and then, but a two way communication, between artists and fans.

Cost to get involved was a big topic. The answer? It’s cheap, just do it. They key is to focus on the quality of the content in general, and not on the gear. There’s no need to invest in $1000 plus camera or recording gear to get started. The panel talked about even using a cell phone to get initial things online.

Though the panel had limited time for questions but also managed to talk about privacy concerns, some pet projects, and what other first steps an artist should take.

The turn out was small for this initial conference but the attendees and panel enjoyed themselves. After the conference proper broke up, the entire group of folks retired to another section of the Roadhouse for dinner and drinks.

Lessons learned:
1. You can put a conference on with no in person meetings.
2. You can put a conference on without tens of people.
3. You can put a conference on in just about any place, even a noisy restaurant.
4. You can put a conference on and have a good time.

5. Noisy restaurants aren’t the best venue.
6. Get their early to set up.
7. Have questions prepared for the panel.
8. Advertise the hell out of it; you’ll get more attendees online and in person.

The biggest success about this conference was that it happened. It’s hopefully a gateway event for St. Louis and a sign of more to come. It’s also a great lead in for the upcoming St. Louis Interactive Festival.

I’m already excited about the next event. What’s great is that you don’t have to be an expert to get involved, just have the urge and energy. Do you have an idea for a one evening conference? One afternoon? Target audience 20 folks or less? Let’s make it happen!

     Nanna J and I are taking the big bird out to Seattle on June 10th.  We’ll be flying out of Lambert Int’l Airport in St. Louis in the evening.  We are headed there to see our son’s family, at Ft. Lewis, Wa.  Mostly we are going because of the three granddaughters.

     While we’re there, our plan is not just to visit with the girls but get out and see a few things.  We’d really enjoy hooking up with folks in the area and seeing something we’ve not seen before.  During out last visit a few years ago, we saw the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, and the Sci-fi museum.  We also visited the Pike St. Market and took the underground tour.

     Looking for ideas in or around Seattle of course but considering the drive to Portland, Or or up to British Columbia. (Would be my wife’s first out of country visit if so.)  We are also open to meeting up with folks one of the days a photowalk, to hang out for drinks, or something in between.

     Drop a comment here, send me a tweet, an email, or call and leave me something here 636-486-4723.  Oh yes, please include links if you’ve got them.

     The Guild’s first open meeting will be held on Saturday, May 10th at 1 p.m. at Benton Park Cafe, who is generously hosting our meetings. They have fantastic coffees and I’ve eaten and loved everything on their menu.
     All members of the Guild are highly encouraged to attend this first meeting - please RSVP within either the comments or on the appropriate thread in the forums. The Guild will discuss its first big project slated for this fall, among other issues.
     The meeting is open to non-members for a $5 admission fee. If you’re considering joining, this would be a perfect opportunity to see what we’re all about. We’ll also be accepting and registering new members before and after the meeting.

     See the original post on St. Louis Bloggers Guild to confirm your attendance.

You can read more about the story on the St. Louis Bloggers’ Guild site, but I wanted to write a bit here as well.  I’ll be plugging more of the guild’s events and get togethers as well.

This party didn’t wait for your’s truly to show.  Bloggers had already snagged us the best corner in the place, right by the DJ.  Lights hadn’t even dimmed and folks were already getting into groups, with conversation flowing like water.

Raquita and I cornered Jason Wall at one end for a while, while Bill Streeter and Dana held court at the other end.  It was packed house as names you know and love in St. Louis blogging piled in.  Soon there were beers, and burgers and appetizers in the mix, and then it got loud.

As it got dark, the lighting of the place really kicked in.  Even the disco ball was lit up.  The noise and music picked up at the same and folks had to huddle close to be heard.  This made it seems even more like friends gathered together. Of course there were heated discussions, lazy chats, and plan hatching.  Rumors of future events were heard as well.

Me? I’ve picked up some new viewpoints on religion, photography, and video blogging. I’m sure other’s got some interesting tidbits as well.  And then there were cameras.

I’d brought mine and several others brought their’s. I know Rebeccas, Raquita, Jason, Dana, and more had cameras in hand.  Bill even snagged some shots with his iPhone.  We grabbed a couple of us manly man together as well.

Atomic Cowboy is a great venue for a get together, but the evening wasn’t without incident. One of our bloggers had their car broken in to.  A few things were stolen but thankfully no one was hurt.  The police showed up after the fact.  It really puts a damper on things.

To sum up, I had a great time, even being a wall flower sort myself.  I took a few photos, which you’ll see on my Flickr stream first but some will be here and a few over at St. Louis Bloggers Guild.

Blog much? Well then you need to hear about this. St. Louis bloggers are joining together to form a first of it’s kind guild.  Writers have a guild, directors have guilds, so why not bloggers?

St. Louis Bloggers Guild is already drawing attention, with write ups in the local media, as well as a swarm of bloggers looking to join.  Why a guild? What’s it got to offer over something like a blog carnival or an online only blogging community?

The St. Louis bloggers Guild is not just about posting all on the same topic, or giving each other a pat on the back, though it can do that too.  It’s about informing, promoting, protecting, and yes, connecting.  Sound interesting yet?

The guild isn’t just about putting fingers to keys, and putting up the posts, it’s about forming a real community.  Not just faceless nicknames anymore, but folks you get to know in a real way.  There will be parties, conferences, blogging fests and more.  Yes even beer on occassion.  I mean heck, we are St. Louis, home of Budweieser!

St. Louis bloggers won’t be hemmed in either.  This isn’t about corralling folks and making them get in line.  It’s about a community hub, and it will take all types.  There’ll be blogs about St. Louis involved, and blogs about parenting, blogs about tech, and blogs about camping, even blogs about cupcakes.

So what’s stopping you from signing up today?  Hey, you can go visit the main page here, or go right to joining up here.

Want just a bit more incentive? How about joining several of us for a little mixer this Saturday night?  Yep, come meet some of us face to face and share a drink or an appetizer.  It’s a party at Atomic Cowboy in St. Louis.  The short story is be there at 6:30 PM. We’ll be the ones chatting it up and acting like bloggers.

Please come out and show your support or if you can’t make it, do drop by the guild website and visit.

See you around the net!