There are plenty of events designed to foster startups and help entrepreneurs find money, but there are very few events that focus on “The Big Splash:” how do you get the attention your company needs to grow and reach its business goals?

This event is perfect for entrepreneurial organizations–especially bootstrapped, angel-funded and early-stage venture-funded businesses–looking to accelerate their growth and sales using Digital Marketing and Social Media Strategies and  Techniques.

In association with Social Media Club Boston and Microsoft, Social Media Breakfast Boston is proud to announce – LaunchCamp – Boston.

The event is designed to help entrepreneurs make the essential decisions needed to launch their brand, product or service. It is organized by PR, marketing, social media and business professionals looking to identify and replicate some of the best practices in the market for moving entrepreneurial organizations along the growth curve.

LaunchCamp takes a fresh look at PR, marketing, social media and management–and the strategies and technologies that have evolved around these areas — and attempts to identify the challenges that organizations face through out the launch process.

Audience

This event is perfect for entrepreneurial organizations–especially bootstrapped, angel-funded and early-stage venture-funded businesses–looking to accelerate their growth using social tools and techniques. It is for both skeptics and those who need to convince the skeptics. It’s also perfect for “intrapraneurs”: innovators within larger organizations who are trying to create change.

Timing
LaunchCamp 2010 takes place on the afternoon of February 4th, 2010.  It is being held in conjucntion with a Social Media Breakfast event on the morning of February 4th.

Social Media Breakfast Bootcamp

• Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010
• Time: 8:00AM – 11:30AM
• Location: Microsoft NERD Center
• REGISTRATION REQUIRED

The Social Media Bootcamp is designed to help entrepreneurs understand the basics of how “social” has evolved from a communications tool to a full-fledged marketing and business management philosophy. It sets the tone for the afternoon sessions, providing a common vocabulary for everyone attending the more in-depth afternoon LaunchCamp sessions.

The Social Media Bootcamp is for both skeptics and those who need to convince the skeptics. It’s also perfect for “intrapraneurs”: innovators within larger organizations who are trying to create change. While many of today’s entrepreneurs understand social well, this is also an excellent chance to make sure you have all your bases covered before your launch.

Schedule

8:00AM: Registration Opens, Breakfast

8:30AM: Opening Keynote

9:00AM: Social Media 101
In many ways, social media is simply the logical evolution of communication tools that were originally developed in decades past. In other ways, it’s very different. This session goes over the history and evolution of social media from the Web 1.0 days and before.

9:15AM: The Implications of Social
Social is changing how companies are doing business, not just how they’re marketing themselves. Understand the full spectrum of applications and ramifications of social media on your organization, and what this might mean for your communications policies.

9:45AM:Morning Break

10:00AM: The 3 Cs of Social, Part 1: Content
It’s all about the content, but how do you create it and distribute it efficiently?

10:30AM: The 3 Cs of Social, Part 2: Community

11:00AM: The 3 Cs of Social, Part 3: Conversation

Organized By: Social Media Breakfast
Hosted By: Microsoft
In Association With: LaunchCamp 2010

Social Media Breakfast Bootcamp is an educational event more than a networking event–the idea being to attract some new folks to the Social Media Breakfast. There is a cost associated with this: $7.00, or included in $25.00 price for the All Event Pass).

Boston’s next Social Media Breakfast is set for Friday,
August  7th, from 8:30-10:45am, and we’ll be returning to
the offices of Communispace Corporation, Watertown, MA

SMB 15: The Power & Peril of Online Communities

The rapid growth of online communities, from the open networks of Facebook, Twitter & blogs to private and branded communities, there is great opportunity for engaging, learning and building a closer relationship with your customers and groups.  But one should not enter Community engagement programs will out a plan -  honest research of their interests, needs and a strong understanding of how much the online chatter is truly representative of your customer’s voice.

SMB15 will feature presentations by some of the country’s most advanced thinkers in community engagement programs – bringing a fresh and wide variety of first hand experiences and case studies.

The Presenters

• Bryan Person, Social media evangelist at LiveWorld
  

• Rachel Happe, Principal at The Community Roundtable
  

• Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace Corporation

Sponsor

Social Media Breakfast 15 is sponsored by LiveWorld, a social media marketing agency that works with leading brands to build, manage, and moderate online communities.

Registration:

Please visit the SMB15 registration page.  
Update: As of August 1st, there are 36 seats available – I recommend signing up ASAP – for these last spots tend to go quickly.

If you have any questions, please feel to contact Bob Collins  – Bob – @ – CollinsDNA – com or on Twitter: RobertCollins

Online Resources

• Directions to the the Communispace office in Watertown.
    
  • 100 Talcott Avenue
  • Watertown, MA 02472
    

• Official Social Media Breakfast website

• SMB FriendFeed room

Creating Content / Making Media?

• Please use the tags #SMB15

Questions?

Please contact Bob Collins at bob @ CollinsDNA.com

The main presenters were Dan Schawbel, best-selling author of Me 2.0, Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success; George Grattan, marketing specialist with EarthWatch; Roger Wu, president of Klickable.TV; and C.C. Chapman, media maven and partner of The Advance Guard.

Video: ‘Passion is contagious.’

In this video interview recorded shortly after C.C.’s presentation, he talks about the opportunities for brands to better connect with their fans online.

Video: Bob Collins puts a wrap on SMB13

As the breakfast wound down, I asked SMB Boston organizer Bob Collins for his thoughts on the event.

Additional online coverage

(Steve Garfield Flickr photo)

• Steve Garfield: Social Media Breakfast at PUMA City Boston
• limeduck: Puma, Thoreau, Twitter, Earthwatch and more at Social Media Breakfast
• Art + Science: Social Media Breakfast at PUMA City
• Twitter: Tweets with #SMB13 hashtag.
• Sarah Merion: [video] Interview with Dan Schawbel on Personal Branding
• Flickr: Photos with SMB13 tag.

Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 13 was organized by Bob Collins and sponsored by PUMA, which is also sponsoring the worldwide Volvo Ocean Race.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world.  Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”  – Margaret Mead

In case you hadn’t heard, this week’s Social Media Breakfast in Boston (SMB11) was pretty special.  In keeping with the season, the theme was “Social Media for Social Change,” with three outstanding presentations by some of Boston’s most active Social Media Community leaders’ involved with educating, training and supporting fund raising efforts for non-profits and charitable organizations.

The Presenters

• Gradon Tripp, Social Media, Design Aficionado and Founder of SM4SC
• Frank Days, Soccer Dad, SocialMedia Gadfly and COO of Firstgiving
• Beth Kanter, World Recognized Trainer, Blogger and Consultant to Non-Profits in Effective Use of Social Media

As part of the Social Good themed breakfast – we wanted to showcase in real-time the power of rallying and engaging a networked community. The amazing Beth Kanter introduced Ed Nicholson, director of community & PR at Tyson Foods, into the mix and presented a challenge to Boston’s Social Media Breakfast community.

The Challenge: Tyson Foods will donate 100 lbs. of food (up to a truckload full with 35,000 pounds) to The Greater Boston Food Bank for every single comment left on their Hunger Relief website.  We needed 350 community driven comments to fill the full truck donation. Tyson has been involved in similar such campaign drive in the Austin and Bay Area SMBs.  We just wanted to see if Boston could do a li’l better!

Within 3 hours of launching the social media experiment   during the breakfast our local community had rallied their online pals to generate over 550 comments on Tyson’s Hunger Relief website.

Due to the dramatic first wave of comments, which did indeed outpaced the Austin and Bay Area drives, Tyson decided to double-down on their support.  In the end, Tyson Foods has pledged to provide 70,000 lbs. of food — the equivalent of approximately 54,000 meals — to the food bank.

All this Re-Tweeting and blog posting was happening behind the scenes at the breakfast as people mixed, mingled, networked and Gradon Tripp, Frank Days and Beth Kanter delivered some great insights and experienced in building communities, igniting passions and support through social media for social change.

Here are some of the videos, slide decks and blog post recaps coming out of
SMB11.

• Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – Social Media Breakfast Leverages Two Truckloads of Tyson Food Donation for Boston Food Bank!
• Diane Scimone – Makin’ A List
• Just Kate – Social Media Breakfast
• Season of Light – Talking Versus Doing
• Steve Garfield, Your Comment Generates 100 Pounds of Food
• Future Visions: Tyson Foods – Getting By Giving
• Yankee 2.0: More to give, and a challenge to ‘mainstream media’ – including me
• Jon Burg’s Future Visions Tyson Foods: Getting by Giving
• Gerritson’s Blog The Evolving Marketer – More Transparent or Better Concealed

PHOTOS from SMB11

TWEETS from SMB11

And the Icing on the Cake at SMB11 – Walking in a Twitter Wonderland by @repcor @cmajor @tibbon

Check it out:

The theme for SMB 11 is social media for social change and features three of Boston’s most active social-media community leaders. From presentations on aiding women’s shelters in downtown Boston to raising money to support Cambodian orphans, SMB 11 will focus on the new ways social media can be used to make a difference in people’s lives.

The Presenters

• Gradon Tripp – social media and design aficionado, and founder of SM4SC
• Beth Kanter – world-recognized trainer, blogger and consultant to non-profits in effective uses of social media
• Frank Days – soccer dad, social media gadfly, and COO of Firstgiving.

Food Drive at SMB 11

Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 11 will include a food drive to support The Greater Boston Food Bank.

Attendees are encouraged to bring canned goods and non-perishable foods to the Wednesday morning breakfast. Here are the Greater Boston Food Bank’s donation guidelines and donation recommendations (PDF)

Sponsors

The breakfast is sponsored by FirstGiving and Marketwire.

FirstGiving is a leading social platform for fundraising for nonprofit causes, giving everyday people tools and resources to raise money for causes that matter to them. Since 2003, Firstgiving has helped 17,000 nonprofit organizations and 1.4 million donors and fundraisers raise over $77 million for their causes.

Marketwire is a leading newswire service offering press release distribution, media-contact management, multimedia, media monitoring services and other workflow solutions for public relations, investor relations, journalists and other communications professionals.

Registration waiting list

Please visit the SMB 11 registration page. At the time of this posting, SMB 11 is already sold out. To add your name to the waiting list, please e-mail Bob Collins at Bob – AT – SHIFTComm – DOT – com

Online resources

• Directions to the Ryles Jazz Club Free and metered parking is available. Nearest T stops: Central Square and Harvard Square on the Red Line.
• Social Media Breakfast FriendFeed room

Making media?

Please use the tag SMB11, or #SMB11 on Twitter.

—> Register here.

SMB10 Theme: Getting ROI Out of Social Media

SMB10 will feature three, eight-minute presentations on examining new ways to evaluate and measure the success of social media engagements and community building programs.

The hard line ROI analysis that have traditionally been used in Marketing – sales leads, conversion rates and reach metrics – don’t easily translate to social media engagement driven programs – where you’re no longer buying your way into the conversation to influence potential customers.

Today’s visionary companies are engaging their customers directly – realistically, authentically and transparently – sharing ideas, spurring conversations, responding to industry trends and developing valuable digital content that helps propel their brand as an engaged trusted source.  This strategy can also dramatically improve SEO rankings and inbound marketing efforts leading to great findability and sales opportunities.

The Presenters

Brian Halligan, Founder and CEO at HubSpot

Andrew McAfee, Associate Professor with Harvard Business School

Matt Cutler, Vice President, Marketing & Analytics at Visible Measures

Sponsor
Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 10 is sponsored by HubSpot, an Internet marketing system that helps your company get found online, generate more inbound leads and convert a higher percentage of them into paying customers.

As a Sponsor, HubSpot has offered to provide the attendees of SMB10 with a Website Grader analysis that measures the SEO and marketing effectiveness of your website or blog.  If you would like an analysis conducted – please just include the URL of your site as part of the Eventbrite registration.   HubSpot will also have a few Internet Marketing Consultant available to answer questions about your Website Grader reports.

Links

* Directions to the Ryles Jazz Club (Nearest T stops: Central Square and Harvard Square on the Red Line). Free and metered parking is available.

* Official Social Media Breakfast website

* SMB FriendFeed room

Creating Content / Making Media?

* Please use the tags #SMB10.

Questions?

Boston’s Social Media Breakfast is organized by Bob Collins and brings together social media experts and newbies alike for a morning of eating, meeting, sharing and learning.  It is free to attend.

Please contact Bob Collins at Bob – AT – SHIFTComm – DOT – com.

The theme for the October 16th breakfast was “Starting Community Building Programs with a Reluctant Executive” and brought together Jaime Pappas of EMC, David Alston of Radian 6, and Peter Kim of the stealth Dachis Corporation to share some of their experiences dealing with executives and community building programs.

Thanks to EMC for sponsoring the event and keeping us all fed!

(Left to Right: Jaime Pappas, David Alston, Peter Kim and Bob Collins)

(Left to Right: Jaime Pappas, David Alston and Peter Kim)

Via Steve Garfield

While I have always been very impressed by the lineup of speakers that Bryan Person, and now Bob Collins, puts together for these events, it is connecting with familiar faces in the crowd that makes these events so popular and successful.

Via Steve Garfield

There is yours truly hanging out right in the front row during the presentations.

The two things that stuck with me most were from David Alston and Peter Kim.

David talked about relating to executives by asking them what they would do if someone was on the street outside of your company’s building yelling into a megaphone “This Company Sucks!” How long would it take for your PR guy (or security) to come down and deal with them?  Ignoring the online community is just like ignoring the guy on your lawn, except when online, your megaphone is a whole lot bigger and louder.   David also reminded us that Google was everyone’s new home page – and that when people search for a Company – the first or most interesting search result may no longer be the Company website.

Peter Kim talked a lot about making business sense of social media and the short lifespan of CMOs. CMO tenure is down to almost 23 months, about half that of an average CEO’s tenure.   He also talked about the extra pressure on CMOs to justify the results of their spending and prove that marketing is actually delivering value to the business.

To check out other’s reactions to the event and what they got from it, check out the twitter stream for #smb9 or check out these posts from Peter Kim, Bryan Person, Gina, and Tangyslice.

Summer Tuesday Tweetup with Bryan Person: Coffee and Conversation at Peet’s (Upcoming.org listing)

• Day/date/time: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 8:00-10:30am
• Location: Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Harvard Square
• Address: 100 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (Google Map)
• Cost: Pay for your own food/drink

There’s nothing formal here, but if you can make it, please do stop by for a few minutes or an hour to grab some coffee and say hello.

The traditional Social Media Breakfasts in Boston should resume in September.

There was another great turnout at last week’s Social Media Breakfast 8, with around 90-plus people joining us at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. SMB8 was all about video and using video to engage and build communities.

The lineup for the panel discussion part of the breakfast gathering was:

• Emily Belyea and Ben Grossman, principal at The Plenary Group
• Jeff Glasson, director of social media & technology at PerkettPR
• Larry Lawfer, YourStorys founder and president
• Rob Lane, CEO/co-founder of Overlay.TV

The presenters repeatedly mentioned authenticity when discussing why video is one of the fastest-growing media used in social media community building. It’s hard to fake being genuine and transparent when trying to connect through a visual medium. People can see through scripted, over-produced, and controlled messaging. They want to be engaged through raw, honest, passionate and creatively captured and shared moments on issues that they connect with and interest them. It’s important to remember, first and foremost, that consumers and communities are not demographics, markets or influence groups – they’re people.

Thanks again to Rob Lane and Overlay.TV for sponsoring the breakfast. (Want to create your own overlay for a video? Here’s how you do it.)

For a nice synopsis for each of the presentations, please check out Just Kate’s blog post.

Video Presentations

Ben Grossman & Emily Belyea Presenting at SMB8 from Bob Collins on Vimeo.

For more information and videos on their Social Media program for AOL – check out www.talktorunningman.com.

Rob Lane Presents at Social Media Breakfast 8 from Bob Collins on Vimeo.

Rob even developed a special Overlay.TV demo based on last months Social Media Breakfast 7.

Links to online conversations and mentions of SMB8

Also, Len Edgerly, one of New England’s finest podcasters, featured SMB8 in the most recent episode of his Audio Pod Chronicles podcast: “Breakfast of Videos.”

What’s next?
We’d like to keep the conversation going. How are you using or seeing video used to engage and building communities? Share examples of great works and good deeds in this area with us.

And of course, independent of the tools or media, what other community-building initiatives are you seeing that inspire and interest you? There are enough examples and time spent on programs gone wrong, so let’s focus on sharing initiatives done right.

Share your examples in the comments section below.

—> Register here.

Speaking program: Making the business case for video
SMB8 will feature four 5-minute presentations on the use of video in social media campaigns and in ongoing community building. The presenters:

• Larry Lawfer, YourStorys founder and president
• Jeff Glasson, director of social media & technology at PerkettPR
• Rob Lane, CEO/co-founder of Overlay.TV
• Emily Belyea and Ben Grossman, principal at The Plenary Group

Sponsor
SMB8 is being sponsored by Overlay.TV, an Ottawa, Canada-based interactive media company that enables users to “overlay” contextual information onto online videos.

SMB8 event details

• Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
• Time: 8:00 – 11:00am
• Venue: Ryles Jazz Club
• Address: 212 Hampshire Street, Inman Square, Cambridge, MA 02139 (Google Map)
• Directions to the Ryles Jazz Club (Nearest T stops: Central Square and Harvard Square on the Red Line). Free and metered parking is also available.
• Cost: Free

—> Register here.

Making media?
Please use the tags SMB8 and Social Media Breakfast.

Questions?
Please contact Bryan Person by e-mail at bperson – AT – gmail – DOT – com, or Bob Collins at bob – AT – shiftcomm – DOT – com