Social Media Club Workshop: Starting the Conversation



Click To Play

For those of you that want to follow along on the video…

This is from the Social Media Workshop on Monday June 11, 2007 at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, CA. Many thanks to Hugh Macleod for his great cartoon which captured the simple idea so elegantly.

This video was originally shared on blip.tv by chrisheuer with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Communications Professionals Learn to Start the Conversation with Customers at Latest Social Media Club Workshop featuring Shel Israel and Other Leading Professionals

With thanks to Hugh Macleod, GapingVoidThe Social Media Club is pleased to announce, “Starting the Conversation,” a day-long workshop for corporate managers, communications professionals and agency executives. The workshop is specifically designed to share actionable strategies for succeeding in corporate environments with blogs, podcasts, video and other forms of ‘social’ software for corporate communications.

The first workshop in the series will be held in Palo Alto, on June 11, 2007, hosted and co-presented by SAP and sponsored in part by Society for New Communications Research, Technorati and Shift Communications.

Shel Israel, consultant and co-author of Naked Conversations, will serve as host-moderator of each event. He will be joined by Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang, social software & marketing strategist Deborah Schultz, Social Media Club founder, Chris Heuer, Social Media evangelist Howard Greenstein and PR 2.0 evangelist Brian Solis.

Key Facts

  • Social Media Club is presenting a day-long workshop called “Starting the Conversation.” It is designed for professionals wanting to launch social media programs in corporate environments.
  • Participants will leave understanding the business strategies of social media. More importantly, they will understand how to launch successful programs that are right for their organization’s unique situation.
  • Participants will learn how to use a simple new framework for Starting the Conversation from Chris Heuer called “Listen. Join. Start.”
  • The workshop addresses how social media can improve marketing, communications, recruiting, support and customer relationships.
  • Participants will understand how Social Media can improve the bottom line by using effective and cost efficient tools for communications. They will learn why conversations with customers are less expensive and more effective than traditional PR or advertising.
  • Learn how Social Media can humanize your company and your brand.
  • The first, “Starting the Conversation”, a Social Media Club Workshop will be held June 11, 2007 in Palo Alto, CA, hosted by SAP and sponsored in part by Technorati, the Society for New Communications Research and Shift Communications. Shel Israel will serve as host-moderator. Other workshop leaders include: Chris Heuer, Deborah Schultz, Jeremiah Owyang, Howard Greenstein and Brian Solis
  • “Starting the Conversation”, a Social Media Club Workshop will be offered in many different cities across the United States and Canada beginning in the late summer/early fall including New York, Boston, Austin, Portland, Vancouver and Toronto.
  • The workshop is priced at $695, with early registration discounts being offered through the Web site and additional discounts for Professional Social Media Club Members, students, teams/groups and organizational affiliates. For group discounts and non-profits registrations, please contact workshop@socialmediaclub.com

Quotes

Attributed to Chris Heuer, Founder of Social Media Club:

  • “Social Media has proven itself to be more than just a fad. It is a cost saving and highly effective communications channel, but it is more than just another tool, it is changing how organizations of all sizes relate to their customers and employees. Companies are finally ready to move beyond their fears and start real conversations. This workshop will teach them how to listen, join and start conversations that matter.”
  • “This is going to be fun and quite valuable for all participants. We designed the workshop curriculum based on our unique insights into existing best practices, opportunities for innovation and existing obstacles that have been preventing widespread adoption across the enterprise. “
  • “If you can join us for this Social Media Club Workshop, you will be able to go back to work the next day and confidently deliver a presentation for a Social Media strategy that will have you “Starting the Conversation” successfully.”
  • “These workshops are designed by and lead by some of the very best thinkers and practitioners I have had the good fortune to meet. I am tickled pink to have this chance to work with and continue to learn from them all.”

Attributed to Shel Israel, author, Naked Conversations, how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers

  • “I’ve spoken to a lot of corporate audiences in the past 18 months. The #1 question remains: ‘How do I bring social media home? How do I take it into my corporate culture? How do I use it in a way that helps my company hit it out of the park? At last, I’m part of a talented team who can give real and actionable answers and help companies succeed.”
  • “These workshops are designed for social media enthusiasts who want actionable and effective ways to get their companies headed in the right direction painlessly and effectively.”

Attributed to Jeremiah Owyang, Director of Corporate Media Strategy at Podtech.Net

  • “As many Fortune 1000 companies are embracing social media, roles are emerging, teams are forming, and budgets are getting funded. But the key challenge remains; how to use these non-traditional tools in a way that works both for the corporation and its’ customers. We hope to answer those challenges and more at the Social Media Workshop”
  • “The Social Media Workshop tells you that you’re not alone. You’re with your peers in this new era of disruption. Together we can help answer questions on how to deal with internal political pushback, as well as provide innovative case studies on how other companies are delighting customers through conversation. At the end of the day, you will have new knowledge, actionable takeaways and a stronger professional network.”

Multimedia

[display_podcast]

Related Links

About The Social Media Club
Social Media Club is the largest organization of Social Media practitioners and corporate champions in the world (at least it seems that way to us). The Club was organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and for promoting media literacy, which it accomplishes through its blog, real world discussions, workshops and conferences. This is the a real and virtual community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share and learn. Membership includes industry leading executives, professional communicators, agencies, bloggers, podcasters, non-profits and Fortune 500 companies.

Contact Info

Chris Heuer
Social Media Club
625 Second Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94107
Phone: 408.834.0884
Email: ch_pr@socialmediaclub.com

Technorati Tags:

This workshop series has been a long time in the making - really going back to our event in October of 2006 called “From Social Media to Corporate Media“. Many, many deep thanks are due Shel Israel for not only agreeing to be the host for the day long adventure, but also for sharing his experience and wisdom around how to do this right rather than just right away. I have learned a great deal about teaching Social Media concepts and skills over the past two years, but every day continue to learn something new.

We had originally thought to pack 7 workshops into one month, but in reality that was a bit too aggressive - even trying to get 4 together was overly optimistic, though we were close and are now set up with workshop leaders all around the country for expanding this series. At the moment though, we thought it best to put all our energy into making sure the first workshop in the series is the best it can possibly be and will be visiting Boston, Autin, New York and several other cities in the fall, in early to mid September.

There are so many great people who have contributed here to making this happen, I would be remiss without thanking them all. In addition to Shel Israel we will be joined in Silicon Valley by Deborah Schultz, Howard Greenstein, Brian Solis and me, Chris Heuer. We will spend the day sharing our insights and helping your company start conversations that matter with your customers, partners and employees. We are also very fortunate that Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void was kind enough to help us explain what we are doing with one of his great cartoons - powerfully simple ideas expressed visually are very tough to come by, but Hugh always seems to do it with ease and is at the heart of many great case studies in my library.

Of course, we would not be able to make this happen without the generous support of SAP Labs, who are hosting us once again at their gorgeous Palo Alto Conference Center. In addition to SAP, Technorati, Society for New Communications Research and even Alice 97.3 Radio are helping us to get the word out and make this workshop a huge success. If you are interested in sponsoring this event too, please contact us for further details.

Additional thanks are due to the following wonderful friends and colleagues who have been helping to share this workshop and will be co-leading sessions in the fall with us.

  • David Parmet
  • Connie Reece
  • Joseph Thornley
  • Todd Van Hoosear
  • Brian Oberkirch
  • So now, it is time for us to start the conversation here about ’starting the conversation’, we hope you will be able to join us in Silicon Valley, but if you are not able to be there in person, we hope you can at least join the conversation here on our blog. Over the coming weeks, we will be talking a lot about creating an environment within companies that will create successfull social media strategies and shift from marketing at people to talking with them…

    [Technorati Tags: ]