Social Media Conferences, Panels and Tweetups

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be traveling for several conferences and presentations relating to social media. Some of these are open for additional registrations; if you can attend, I’d love to meet you. Otherwise, if you see I’m going to be in your area and would like to Tweetup, you know how to reach me.

  • On Monday, April 27, I will be in Philadelphia for a presentation on integrating social media with mass media at the annual meeting of the National Cancer Institute Public Affairs and Marketing Network.
  • Then I head to New York for some meetings on the 28th and for BlogWell on the 29th – (Registration is still open, and if you use the discount code “friendofmayo” when you register, you’ll get a $25 discount.) I got to present at BlogWell in Chicago in January, so I look forward to hearing these case studies. The Blog Council member meeting and unconference is on the 30th, also in New York City.
  • On May 7, I’ll be part of a panel at the National Press Club with Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post, George Strait of the FDA, Robin Foster of HealthDay and Bridget DeSimone of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Right after that, I’ll be heading to Chicago for an afternoon presentation/workshop on social networking, and then on May 8 I will be presenting at the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference.
  • On May 12, I’ll be in San Francisco to present at the Community 2.0 Conference.

I’ll be tweeting and blogging from all of these, and would love to get to meet SMUGgles (or even just casual readers) either at one of these events or via impromtu Tweetup. (Although I guess it’s not really “impromptu” if I’m giving you more than a week’s notice, is it?)

At any rate, I look forward to these events and the connections I’ll be making.

Tweetcamp: Twitter 150

Update: Tweetcamp was a success, and here’s a post on Sharing Mayo Clinic that includes a link to the related story that ran on ABC’s Good Morning America. I’ll be doing a recap post about the whole experience, hopefully later tonight.

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The slides below accompany a crash course, a Twitter bootcamp we’re calling Tweetcamp – I’m leading for some colleagues at work today. The course will be live at 2:30 p.m. CDT, April 15, 2009, and we’re inviting a limited number of external participants to join via phone conference. See below the slide deck for details on how to join.

Tweetcamp: Twitter 150   

View more presentations from Lee Aase.
  1. Anyone can participate, whether live or not, by going through the slides and tweeting comments or questions using the #tweetcamp hashtag. Please begin by introducing yourself and where you’re tweeting from.
  2. We will have a group of participants going through this together at 2:30 p.m. in Rochester, but can accommodate a limited number joining us by phone conference. If you are interested in this, please send an email to me, and my assistant will let you know if we are able to accommodate you live on the call.
  3. Please re-tweet this event invitation to your followers. I hope to use this event as another illustration (besides what you see in the slides above) of Twitter’s power to make connections rapidly.
  4. The beauty of the #tweetcamp hashtag is that the discussion can continue even after the one-hour live session is done, and hopefully you’ll make connections through the introductions with other people who have common interests in social media and/or health care.
  5. See the rest of the Twitter curriculum.

Twitter 105: Tweeting by Text Message

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While I love using my iPhone for Twitter interactions, the old-school mobile way to post updates to Twitter is via SMS text messages.

The steps are simple:

  1. Connect your cell phone to your Twitter account through the Devices settings. (You do have a Twitter account, right?) You will enter your cell phone number, and Twitter will send you a validation code. Once you receive that on your cell phone, enter it on the Twitter Devices page to show that you got the message.
  2. Create a new entry in your cell phone contacts list, and call it Twitter. Give it the number 40404.
  3. From then on, all you need to do to send an update to Twitter is choose it in your cell phone contacts and send a text message. You can send a message of up to 140 characters.

That’s all there is to it. If you have a mobile device that includes email you also can use that function to send your tweets via Twittermail, instead of using SMS.

The smart clients for iPhone (and I assume for Android or Blackberry, though I haven’t used them) enable you to have much more interactivity with Twitter than you can with an old-school wireless phone.

But if old-school is what you have, SMS or Twittermail are good options for mobile tweeting.

Twitter 107: Twitter Clients for iPhone

I had originally planned to do this post in the Twitter curriculum to examine the various options for iPhone Twitter clients. Then I got the idea of the Chancellor’s Choice awards, and presented the coveted prize to Tweetie.

So check out that post for an overview of clients and features, but if you want a free client for Twitter, just to get started, I had a good experience with the free version of Twitterific.

So this post is mostly housekeeping, to fill out the proposed Twitter curriculum.

Chancellor’s Choice Award: Flip Video Camera

This award will be no surprise to long-term SMUGgles (especially those who have completed Blogging 130), but the Chancellor’s Choice award for low-cost video cameras goes to: The Flip.

Among its Advantages:

Strong video quality, particularly in relatively low-light conditions. 

Speed. Using a camera with miniDV or other tape, you have to play the tape to feed into your computer for digitizing, which takes just as long as the original shoot did. The Flip, by contrast, creates a digital file directly and saves to its memory card, and with the built-in USB connector that flips out (hence the name), you can transfer the video file to your computer for editing and/or upload to YouTube, Facebook or another video sharing service within seconds after shooting. 

Simplicity. It’s literally a point and shoot device, with a single red button to start and stop recording. So easy, even a caveman… (er…uh…sorry guys)

Savings. Ranging from about $70 for 30 minute standard definition to $230 or so for an hour of HD, these cameras are quite affordable. (More details on that below.) I’ve purchased miniDV cameras previously for $400 or so, and for many uses the Flip quality is just as good.

Situational (OK…that’s stretching the alliteration too far.) There’s an old saying in video that you can’t edit what you don’t shoot. Because the Flip fits easily in your pocket, purse or laptop bag, you can have it with you in virtually any situation. This enables you to catch those moments you’d miss if you had to remember to bring your video camera bag. I carry my Flip almost everywhere I go.
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