Social Media Club Events Canberra, Gold Coast and Brisbane

January 15, 2009 By

Looks like Social Media Club is on the move in Australia.

I’m so excited!

In March last year I asked whether Brisbane, an hour and a half drive north of where I live on Australi’s east coast, was ready for a Social Media Club.  .

Entering 2009 it is clear that Brisbane was ready: Social Media Club Brisbane has an event scheduled for next week (see below). But not just Brisbane.

Gold Coast, the region where I live, and the Australian National Capital city of Canberra are not just ready but launchingt their own Social Media Clubs.

My guess is that other Australian cities, including the major conurbations of Sydney and Melbourne, will join in sooner rather than later.

Social Media Club Canberra, with the leadership of social media expert Stephen Collins (@trib on Twitter), kicks off tomorrow morning, Friday Jan 16, with a breakfast at Cafe CREAM in Bunda St, Civic, 8 am to 10 am. I noticed at least a couple of Twitter-savvy politicians have been pinged on Twitter to come. On Friday, in Canberra? Well, you never know. You can join SMC Canberra at the Facebook site. And you can RSVP (please, so Steve and the cafe have an idea) at the event site also on FB.

Social Media Club Gold Coast has a committee let by Associate Professor Michael Rees – a social media enthusiast par excellence – from Bond University and we have our inaugural event at Bond on Thursday January 29, at 6 pm. We also have a Facebook site. If you would like to join and get all the info about events, use the contact form on this site.

The inaugural event for the year for Social Media Club Brisbane is next week, on Tuesday January 20, commencing at 5.30 pm. This will be at what looks to me from the website as being rather more stylish than your average pub, the Melbourne Hotel in West End, Brisbane.  Co-hosting this event with SMC Brisbane, and generously covering venue costs and providing refreshments, is the blogger advertising network Nuffnang, established recently in Australia. Nuffnang Co-Founder, Cheo Ming Shen is flying in from Singapore that afternoon and will be at the function, explaining for 15 minutes or so how interested bloggers might be able to benefit from being part of the Nuffnang network. Should be great fun as well as informative.  RSVP (please) at the Facebook site for this event.

So much for the idea of us all lazing around on the beach in mid-summer. It’s not even Australia Day yet and it looks as if Social Media Club in Australia is Going Off!

By the way, you don’t have to be in a city to have or be part of a Social Media Club. Whether you are in Sydney or the Back of Bourke, and want to know more, please contact me via the contact page, or go to the top via the main Social Media Club site.

Filed Under: Blogging, Events, Social Media, Social networking, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Social Media Club Brisbane is Growing

November 4, 2008 By

Back in March this year, I asked the question “Is Brisbane ready for a Social Media Club?”.

The answer proved to be in the affirmative. We had a preliminary gathering of interested people and then launched Social Media Club Brisbane on July 11th.

I take responsibility for the fact that in the enthusiasm of the moment we did not have an agreed plan for next steps. So until a couple of weeks ago nothing much happened.

Then we were able at short notice to put together an informal meetup at the State Library to get some indication of where we were at and where we were going.

At the same time, so as to facilitate communication, I set up a Social Media Club Brisbane group on Facebook , which has already proved to be very helpful. Without any fanfare, the group there has now grown to 74 and I believe it will at least double once the word gets out and we are having more regular gatherings.

Membership of the group is currently by invitation or with the approval of one of the administrators. We are not being restrictive but, until the details of how we are going to operate are articulated, we need to have it so that people apply or are invited.

Social Media Club Brisbane Facebook group

There is a lot of background on Social Media Clubs at the main blog site and on the Social Media Club wiki.

For SMC Brisbane we now have a TWitter hashtag #smcb (go to http://search.twitter.com and enter smcb in the search box).

A computer crash some time ago meant that I lost some of the addresses of people who wanted to be kept informed about the development of SMC Brisbane, so if you or anyone you know is wondering why I haven’t been in touch, that is probably the explanation. Please hook up with us again, either by leaving a message on the Contact page on this site, or applying to join the group on Facebook.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New Project to Help Explain Social Media

August 9, 2008 By

Social Media Club badge

It was good to be invited to be a member of the Interim Advisory Board for the Social Media Club.

And now we get serious.

After a short burst of behind-the-scenes tossing around of ideas on priorities for our attention, Social Media Club Co-Founder Chris Heuer has posted a work program structured as 4 Missions, 4 Projects.

As a colleague of mine, formerly in the military, used to say, we’ve been “tasked”.

Albeit with more personal flexibility than would have obtained in the military.

The 4 Missions are:

  1. Expand Media Literacy
  2. Share Lessons Learned Among Practitioners
  3. Encourage Adoption of Industry Standards
  4. Promote Ethical Practices through Discussion and Actions

I’ve put my hand up to be part of the group working on Mission 1 – Expand Media Literacy. Under this heading, my fellow member of the interim advisory board Michael Brito is leading a push “to find and organize all the best Introduction to Social Media presentations, classes, discussions, cartoons, videos, blog posts etc”.

I’m excited about this project and see it as providing a much-needed resource, especially for people whose job or consulting role requires them to understand and explain clearly the rapidly moving, shape-shifting, color-changing phenomenon we call “social media”.

But it’s not just the members of the interim advisory board who are being invited and challenged to work on the “expand media literacy” item or other missions/projects. The invitation is open to anyone who wants to participate: so if you are inclined to help, just head on over to the Social Media Club wiki and get into it.

Incidentally, the interim advisory board is now being referred to as the interim advisory “group” (so as not to get embroiled in discussions about “boards”) – good move, in my opinion.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Is Brisbane, Australia Ready for a Social Media Club?

March 14, 2008 By

Social Media Club logo

Q. What’s the difference between Boston, Massachusetts and Brisbane, Queensland?

A. A lot.

At opposite ends of the earth, for one thing. Different climates and time zones.

I could go on.

But the point of this post is really that Boston has an obviously thriving Social Media Club and Brisbane doesn’t have one at all.

Well, not just yet, but I’m working on it.

Actually, I’ve been working (or rather, not working) on it since Social Media Club (SMC) Co-founder Chris Heuer prompted (challenged?) me, at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas last November, to get one going.

What Social Media Club is about

The SMC website explains what the organization is about:

Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and for promoting media literacy. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share and learn.

The Brisbane initiative

Recently, as suggested by Chris, I set up a Brisbane page on the SMC wiki, as a way of testing the waters.

And now I’ve been stirred to more immediate action by reading today that the wiki page for Boston’s SMC gathering for this month carries a notice that would disappoint some but gladden the heart of any organizer:

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED! THE EVENT HAS SOLD OUT. EVERYONE ON THE WAITING LIST HAS BEEN ADDED.

Time for action.

We might not get a full house straight away for Brisbane gatherings, but there is no question that there are plenty of dedicated users of various social media networks and tools in Brisbane, more generally in South East Queensland and even just over the border in northern New South Wales at the southern edge of the Gold Coast, where I live (Tweed Heads). How keen they would be to gather offline on a regular or irregular basis is an interesting question.

A challenge

And here’s a challenge I expect will appeal to at least some true Queenslanders: this would be the first SMC in Australia, unless of course some of those Southern smarties get wind of this and try to upstage us (Note: Sydney is too far for me now to commute for a monthly meeting and anyway my Sydney friends think I’ve moved to Queensland – some even make rude remarks about white shoes – so I might as well nail my newly red colours to the mast of the northern state).

I’m going to be in Brisbane on Friday, March 28, so hope to meet with a few people then who would be interested in taking this idea forward. In the meantime, if you have an interest in knowing more about this venture – better still, participating – please check out the wiki site and get in touch.

As the wiki page says:

Are you interested in helping to form a Social Media Club Brisbane Chapter? Send an email to [SMCBrisbane (at) gmail.com]. Include your name, title, area of expertise, company (if appropriate), address, email and phone number.

Pass it on.

It would also be great to hear from colleagues in other parts of the world who are active in Social Media Club local teams – if that’s you and you leave a comment here it might help us to get a sense of what the experience and benefits can be.

I know we all live a lot online, but the Australian Blogging Conference last year in Brisbane and BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas reminded me that getting together face to face with other social media enthusiasts has its own special attraction – and the beer tastes better than when it’s virtual.

Filed Under: General, Social Media, Social networking, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,