Tweetworks

The Metro-West Chamber of Commerce invited me to speak at one of its Nearly Noontime Lunch events. They also asked if I knew any other local leaders in the field of social media who could share their expertise with local business people looking to undersand how this relatively new series of tools can benefit their ventures.

I used this opportunity to invite three incredibly smart and talented gentlemen to join me on the panel:

• Cappy Popp of Thought Labs
• Eric Guerin of SmartMarket Media
• Jeff Cutler of JeffCutler.com

Mass Innovation Nights continue to rock. Last week was another successful event with great attendance and very exciting companies participating as you’ll see in the six that I interviewed for this episode. As I said last month, I urge you to plan to attend one of the next MIN events and if you live in another area of the country or world consider starting your own innovation night series.

Join the MassInnovation group on Tweetworks.

People, Companies and/or Products Featured in this Episode:

• ChatterBox – Todd Clayton, a member of the founding team, gave me a nice demo of this incredible engagement tool for Twitter. Be sure to contact Todd if you’d like to get a private beta account. Also, stop by and join the ChatterBox group on Tweetworks.
• Popkins – Karen Jarostchuk and her team came decked out and looking the part to show off their super “cool” idea for keeping your kid’s iced treats from dripping all over theirr clean clothes.
• ThingMagic – Yael Maguire, PhD and a team of other people way smarter than me have developed RFID technology that will change the way we interact with just about everything.
• PaperShow – Kaitlyn Siner demonstrated this 21st century colaboration tool developed by a 500 year old French paper company Canson. Innovation at it’s finest.
• NaviSite – William Toll shares how this monster, enterprise hosting company is now serving the small to mid-size business segment.
• MyRoar - Kate McDonough, President & Founder, has created a natural language search engine that enables users to search terabytes of information by asking simple questions in plain english.

Three Things:

1. I’ll be on Permission TV on June 4th at 2 pm ET. Swing by and watch Matthew Mamet and me chat it up about Tweetworks and online video.
2. Vote for Tweetworks to be added to Seesmic Desktop. Loic Le Meur put out the call to Twitter applications in a response to the news that Tweetdeck will now charge $50,000 for implementation.
3. I told you so. And here’s the big reason why Loic and the Seesmic team should include Tweetworks on Seesmic Desktop. 90% of people who have a Twitter handle, don’t tweet. The platform that figures out how to get these people tweeting wins.

I spoke at a Nashoba Valley Chamber of Commerce event yesterday on the topic of using social media in a local business. The event was hosted at the Devens Common Center which is on part of the old Fort Devens. It’s a very cool place.

Huge thanks to Melissa Fetterhoff for inviting me to speak. It was a great honor.

Feel free to email me or tweet me at @MikeLangford if you like me to speak at your event.

Notes:

• Ed Manzi of Fidelity Bank (event sponsor) introduced me.
• I mentioned my post about creepy Twitter listening in response to a question from an audience member.
• If you need help customizing your Facebook presence for your business you should consider contacting Cappy Popp and John Maver of Thought Labs.
• Check out Gary Vaynerchuk’s interview on CNN. I used his “virtual cocktail party” analogy during my presentation. Gary offers a few other answers to the “Why use social media?” question.
• If you hate to write, don’t have the time to write or feel your writing needs some work, hire a professional writer like Jeff Cutler. Jeff can help you create robust content for your blog and other social media platforms.
• Attend social media events lke: Social Media Breakfast, PodCamp, and Tweetups. They’re not just for geeks and PR professionals. They are the perfect venues for you to meet other people interested in the topic.

Be sure to swing by the MassInnovation group on Tweetworks to let Bobbie know what you think and connect with other attendees and presenters.

Featured Entrepreneurs & Companies:

• Mike Sachleben of BlitzTime
• LotusLive
• Amy Patten of MassHighTech 
• Prasad Thammineni of Pixily

This panel discussion features Mike Langford of Tweetworks, Cappy Popp of Thought Labs, Karen Rubin of Hubspot, and Rachel Happe of The Community Roundtable.

Case Study Featured in this Video: Shoestring Magazine as presented by Meghan Udell.

The event was produced by Girls in Tech and moderated by Kate Brodock of The Other Side Group.

Huge thanks go out to Microsoft for hosting the event in their amazing space in Cambridge, MA.

BBQ, Beer, Pool, Live Music and Great Friends

Thursday night people from all over New England decended upon Firefly’s BBQ restaurant in Marlborough, MA for a great night with friends. The evening proved that people will travel for a cool event and that it is absolutely possible to host a big tweetup in the burbs.

A huge thank you to Hung Pham for bringing his musical coolness to the evening. He was fantastic. I highly recommend you consider him for your event. I know we’ll have him back.

Lessons Learned About Hosting a Successful Tweetup

• Venue – Choose a venue where you can have exclusive access to the space if possible. It was real nice having the private room where everyone knew that the people they were mingling with were there for the same purpose.
• Do More Than Drink – Enjoying some recreational beverages is great but that will only bring out so many people. Having an interesting dining experience, an activity (pool) and even some entertainment (live music) really helps to bring people out and keep them engaged. It will also get people talking about the event and help you bring a big crowd to your next event.
• Watch the Noise Level – Having live music or a DJ is cool but remember, people are there to network and socialize so be sure they can hear each other.
• Promote the Event – Use a service like Eventbrite to encourage people to register ahead of time. It also gives people an opportunity to see who else is coming, get detailed information about the event (like directions), and gives them a website to share with others. I also used Twitter (through Tweetworks), Facebook and LinkedIN to get the word out. Luckily, Eventbrite has a built in feature to cross promote your event on all these tools.
• Take Pictures and Video – People like to see how the event went. Be sure to take pictures and video.
• Cell Signal & WiFi – If you are hosting a tweetup it helps to make sure the venue has a good cell signal and maybe WiFi available. While it can be a good thing to have people not staring at their iPhones, people have grown to expect to be able to live tweet, Twitpic and Qik from Tweetups.
• Holidays – I completely forgot that April 9th was Passover. Whoops! We missed out on a good sized Jewish crowd.
• Late Hours – The venue closed at 10:30 and while in the grand scheme of things this was fine I got the feeling that some people would have liked to stay longer. Next time I’ll look for a place open until midnight.