OK so I like the whole Social Media Breakfast idea so much that I decided to try and put one together with less than a week’s notice during a recent trip to the Phoenix area.
These types of events are hidden gold mines for marketers looking to get an understanding of these new technologies. The reason why they are like finding gold is they end up being conversations among peers some with excellent experience and depth, others with just plenty of curiosity about doing something new and challenges to address. They are usually the marketing types that have the capability to match the technology to the challenge in a business or non-profit setting.
Just to re-cap the March 14 event, Heather Herr otherwise known as MsHerr on Twitter and Miles Comer a.k.a. Tankilo on twitter shared their projects, ideas, and yes, frustrations about social media.
Miles is a tech support employee for a wireless company helping keep their computer networks in the retail stores running. He is also trying to get greater participation in his company’s wiki related to service and trouble shooting issues. My take is the key to his challenge is getting just a couple of examples where someone found a solution to a problem on the wiki that saved hours and you’ve got the makings for a Wiki advocate. Yes it is a catch-22, you need contributions in order to get solutions, so I’ve put some ideas for greater wiki participation on the Provident Partners social media blog.
Heather has an interesting story. She is a partner in Experience Studio a branding firm in Arizona. She is also using Twitter to facilitate conversation for the Phoenix Art Museum using http://twitter.com/PhxArtYC While the main objective is to stimulate interest in the arts among potential young collectors our breakfast conversation led to the idea of not limiting the geography. Art is enjoyed the world over, Phoenix is a popular travel destination, and greater conversation on the web has limitless potential across geographies so tap into the topic at all levels. You can hear part of our breakfast conversation with Albert Maruggi reporting on the social media breakfast in Scottsdale March 14, 2008
This post is by Albert Maruggi (yes, same guy that does the Marketing Edge podcast).