This past Wednesday, Bellingham Washington had its first Social Media Breakfast meeting. Never heard of us? Well, we have a beautiful community of approximately 80,000 residents, about 1 1/2 hours north of Seattle and an hour south of Vancouver BC. We’ve got gorgeous Bellingham Bay, beautiful scenic mountains great for skiing and snowboarding, bountiful parks and hiking trails strewn across the city, and a very close-knit community that fiercely supports its local businesses.

Being in between two major cities has both advantages and disadvantages. We have quick access to two very different, very tech-laden communities. However, because of that we often get forgotten when conferences and speakers come to this part of the country. Well – we’re looking to change that!

Just within our city, we have many special interest groups that utilize and embrace social technologies: groups like the Bellingham .NET Users Group, Refresh Bellingham, and TAG – which is putting on a Social Media Conference on March 25th that I highly encourage you to attend if you live within a reasonable driving distance. Bellingham has a lot of very talented social media enthusiasts, as was demonstrated by our inaugural presenters, John Raasch and Maya Belka from Mindfly Website Design Studio. John and Maya presented on a great kick-off topic: finding your voice in social media. John discussed marketing and promotion concepts pre-social technology, while Maya discussed thoughts and best practices for being authentic through social channels both personally and professionally. Their presentation is available here – we certainly appreciate John and Maya taking the time to speak to our group and get the ball rolling for us. An attendee shared, “Loved the topic. Thought this was a great way to kick off the group and a great topic to get us talking about social media and our place in it.”

We had 35 attendees for our first meeting which was graciously hosted by Boundary Bay Brewery. Our morning was not without its glitches though, like any meeting! We had arranged for a continental breakfast of pastries, fruit, juice, and coffee to be brought in, but by 7:15am our caterer was nowhere to be seen. Our lovely Boundary Bay host Amy Jones left to try to find some last-minute solutions for this, and while she was out getting food some of the employees were kind enough to brew and put out some coffee and tea options. While it wasn’t exactly what had been planned, we are most appreciative of Amy and the Boundary Bay crew for doing what they could to ensure we at least had something to eat and drink. Thanks you guys! Lessons learned for future get-togethers for sure!

We have a special (surprise) guest presenter lined up for March and are really looking forward to pressing on with our meetings, whether they’re early in the morning or after-hours. Our community is excited about these learning opportunities and we hope to see even more folks at the next one!