Friday, October 30, 2009

New Media Breakfast Glasgow - Notes

The New Media Breakfast today in Glasgow had over 90 people in attendance, very encouraging to see so many people at 8am on a late October morning, thank you all for coming and, for the overwhelming support for what we are trying to do in the emails we have received today.

I must say, it was a relief to get home in one piece - explaining the Little Miss Matched socks to the assembled audience was one thing, explaining it to a couple of paramedics may have been another!

As promised, I have listed below some of the links to the various books I mentioned this morning for those not technically savvy enough to have picked them up from Iain Murray's Twitter posts = thanks Iain for posting them and, for letting us know that Neville Hobson sent us a message.

I would also like to thank No.29 again for their continued support of the event.

Here we go...

SIX PIXELS OF SEPARATION - This is a link to the blog where you can get details of the podcast and Mitch Joel's Book.
PURPLE COW - Link to the book on Amazon
SETH GODIN - Link to Seth's blog
THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO - BOOK - Link to Amazon.co.uk
THE CLUETRAIN MANIFESTO - Link to the Cluetrain web site
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BLOG - Link to the Hobson & Holtz report blog
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Link to the podcast on iTunes
SOCIAL MEDIA PODCAST - Link to the Podcastmatters Social Media Podcast
LITTLE MISS MATCHED SOCKS - Link to web site. Go on get with the craze!

NEXT EVENT and GUEST SPEAKERS

The next New Media Breakfast Glasgow will be on the 27th November in No.29 and you can book your place now at http://www.tinyurl.com/newmediabreakfast

This breakfast is the morning after the Entrepreneurial Exchange Annual Awards Dinner which is normally a late night with lots of "networking" so, it's probably a good time to introduce guest speakers to the New Media Breakfast. We already have some volunteers but we are looking for more so that we can twin topics. The idea being that we will have two speaker per event with approximately 25 mins each including Q&A's. So, if you would like to take part in the future, or indeed on the 27th Nov, please email me (Gordon) with details of your area of expertise and availability.

We like to try and keep the content of Glasgow and Edinburgh the same each month so it would be good if guest speakers can take part in both events.

We are trying to do something positive - New Media Breakfast Glasgow 30/10/09

We've just got back from the 2nd Glasgow New Media Breakfast and what a great event. Over 90 people turned up and so far we've had lots of great feedback on Twitter, Facebook and via email, it's nice when people appreciate what you're trying to do and the effort you've put in to something.

There was one comment on Iain Hepburn's AudioBoo.fm, "Boo Media Breakfast" that I tried to respond to on the AudioBoo site but couldn't. I don't know if Iain doesn't allow comments or if the comment function is not working so, I thought I would post it here on our own blog. First, you should listen to Iain's AudioBoo comment.

Link to Iain M Hepburn's AudioBoo

Just listened to Iain's AudioBoo comment and, yet again I despair. This was always promoted as an event for business people who are beginners in New Media; nowhere have we ever claimed it to be anything else, Iain seems to be having a problem grasping this. Yes, experienced New Media people turn up and we're happy to have them but the primary intended audience has always been business people who want to find out about new media.

There were 91 people in attendance and everybody that myself and my team spoke to afterwards claim to have learned something from it, I'm happy with that.

There also seems to be some confusion about the Dubai network site. Craig did touch on the use of competitions as a "hook” that is exactly why we use them. The competitions help us get the word out about the network, if a member has joined there is a good chance other people he or she knows will also be interested because they are in his address book or, "community". At know time did I claim that 47,000 people were interested in going to Dubai. In fact, a very very small proportion of that 47k will accept the invitation to join but the ones that do will opt in because they are interested in that niche topic.

Reference to our clients is surely understandable; they're the ones we have live experience with therefore the most knowledgeable about.

Showing this morning's audience how to set up a Ning site would have been a total waste of their time, even if every single person in the room decided they must have one of these today, only a handful (if that) would actually do it themselves. However, I concede that I know more about the attendees and their positions than you or Craig so this is perhaps more obvious to me.

Iain, you also posted the following on Twitter, "Gordon White admits he's not even looked at the Kingsmill confessional campaign. How the hell can he cite it as a good example then”. Were you in the same room as me? I specifically said I couldn't comment on whether it was a good campaign or not because I hadn't looked at it. Kingsmill was raised to highlight an example of how companies are engaging with customers and I made that very clear. If you don't agree, I invite you to come to our office and watch the video footage of what I said.

How can encouraging people to engage on other people’s networks be considered spam? The whole point of these social networks is to engage.

In summary, I am happy that you comment via Audio Boo, your blog and Twitter, all I ask is that when you do so you consider everything in it's proper context. The people this is intended for are giving us great feedback and the numbers have risen from 72 at the first one to 91 at today's event, it might only be 20 at the next one, who knows and, who cares as long as the intended audience is learning something.

Lastly, the comments about "a lack of engagement with the audience", you didn't ask any questions or contribute to any part of the conversations that went on, is there a reason that you dont speak up at the time?

We are trying to create something good for a specific audience and we are fully aware that people will have their own opinion about our motives but, the fact is there is a lot of work has to go into the organisation and presentation, It would be nice if you at the very least acknowledged that fact.

Gordon White
Podcastmatters

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

NEW MEDIA BREAKFAST - TOPIC

A few people have been asking about the topic for the next new media breakfasts in Glasgow and Edinburgh (Glasgow 30th October, Edinburgh 13 November), this has been more difficult to decide than you might think. There's a large cross section of people attending the events and we want to keep them as interesting as possible for everyone present.

For the next event we will featuring one main topic: Niche Networking and Developing Your Online Community.

We will look at examples of how some of our clients are using Niche Networks to engage and communicate with existing and potential customers. This will include B2B, B2C and Non Profit organisations. We will look at open and closed networks and the various ways that companies are growing their communities.

We will also try to feature some news items (suggestions are very welcome) and maybe throw in the odd light-hearted look at social media. There will of course be a Q&A session and some good old fashioned networking.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

New Media Breakfast Edinburgh

We launched the New Media Breakfast Edinburgh yesterday in Amicus Apple and all seemed to go well

On Wednesday Kyle and I went to Amicus Apple to check the AV set up and make final arrangements with Calum Mackinnon, owner of Amicus, I must admit we were worried about the choice of venue and whether it was going to work, it was certainly going to be intimate!

Thursday saw a late run of bookings which meant we had to add an additional presentation form 10am - 11am, Fiona got on the phone and managed to speak to around 15 people who were happy to switch to the later time. All in all, I think the layout and venue worked really well, a much different feel to the Glasgow Event which attracted over 70 people but, it was equally good.

I'll leave it to others to comment on the content however, thank you to Calum and his team - we got lots of positive feedback about the bacon rolls - and we were very well looked after. We are all looking forward to the next event on the 13th November.

You can also enter the Amicus Apple competition to win a Christmas Meal for you and 10 friends, go to the Amicus site for more details.