Archive for December, 2008
Gettin’ Social in 2009
Charlotte, NC Social Media events coming in 2009
- BarCamp Charlotte (http://barcampcharlotte.com) January 23-24th – The first big event of 2009 will be BarCamp Charlotte. BarCamp is a user generated conference, find out more here. They are using a Google Group for some of the planning of the event and they just recently jumped onto Twitter, with their website coming soon.
- Social Fresh Social Media Conference Late August – As the first Social Media Conference in Charlotte, Social Fresh aims to bring big name speakers, already to include NPR Social Media Director Andy Carvin, big attendance, and a wide variety of quality content focused on how Social Media is changing the world. We are also playing with allowing everyone to vote on who the speakers are outside of the keynote speakers.
- Better Tweetups – Of course we hope the Twitter Meetups continue to grow in size and quality, but we also plan to build on the every-other-Friday success of #BtynBiz, holding more regular University Tweetups and quarterly City Wide Tweetups Uptwon.
- Possible PodCamp – This is in the brainstorming stage. If interested, let @Charlotte_SEO know.
- Startup Weekends – There are a few people talking about getting together early in the Spring and trying to kick off some entrepenureal projects over a weekend or two. If you are interested, attend the next Tweetup and ask around.
- What Happened In 2008? – Be sure to check out the year in review for what happened in 2008.
If you are interested in staying in the loop on the 3 events above, please let me know by filling out the below form:
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Anything else happening on the 2009 Social Media Calendar? Enlighten me in the comments section.
Social Media in Charlotte 2008, Year in Review
The Social Media scene in Charlotte, NC is starting to pick up in a major way. Before we prepare to rollover into a new year of events and networking, I wanted to review all of 2008’s Social Media happenings. Together, Social Media types have been growing a rich internet technology community in Charlotte, something that has been greatly needed.
- Guy Kawasaki Event – Network Solutions put on a great event in Uptown Charlotte, by bringing the Apple Evangelist and Entrepenuer, Guy Kawasaki, to speak free for 100 people. @93octane helped put together a post event dinner/Tweetup that is still impacting some of the attendees today. (Me pretending I know what I am talking about with Guy)
- Tweetups Take Over – Southend, University, Lake Norman, Uptown Charlotte, or #BtynBiz (Ballantyne Business Lunch Meetups every other Wednesday) – Twitter Meetups have solidified themselves as the sounding board, planning meetings, and brainstorming sessions for Charlotte’s Social Media community as a whole. There are usually 3 to 4 a month now, if not more. Some cool photos of past Tweetups (thanks to @93octane).
- SEO Meetup Group – Meetup.com is allowing people all over the world to come together in an organic online organization. One of the best examples of this in Charlotte is the SEO Meetup Group who has seen increasing attendance and group members. They have started to step up their events with regional speakers, panels, and a broad Social Media agenda of content. Many of their recent events have been webcast live as well.
- Social Media Club Charlotte – The genesis our very own local Social Media Club took place a couple months ago. We have had 2 official meetings/events so far. The Ning site we set up is gathering members fast and quickly becoming a hub for Social Media events across town.
- Charlotte Jelly – Trying desperately to drag Charlotte into the coworking space trend is tough, but Catalyst 704 has had a couple initial successes so far and hopes to step things up in 2009.
- Pecha Kucha #1 – This unique, fly-by-presentation event is just one of many that is producing “group content” in a social atmosphere around Charlotte. I was not able to attend, but I heard it was very successful and entertaining.
- Charlotte WordCamp – As one of the first events of it’s kind in content and scope, WordCamp gained over 120 attendees and showed how hungry Charlotte’s online community is for more events and conferences. The event was a great success with support of the Charlotte Observer, Realty.com, HostGator, and of course most of the marketing was word of mouth through Twitter.
- Kirtsy Meetup – The founders of the Female Digg (I hope they don’t hate that name) got together with the some of the more social of Charlotte’s Social Media crew.
- Drive By Consulting Meetup – While small in size, the content and concept of this meetup was very cool.
- PBRDrinkOff Tweetup - Thanks to @93octane or reminding me of one of the most successful Tweetups of the year. I believe #PBRDrinkOff was the first late night Tweetup and most attended Tweetup in Charlotte. Some photos of the event.
- See the 2009 Event Preview – There are a lot of cool events in the works for 2009.
Got something to add that I forgot or want to correct something I badly screwed up? Leave a comment and I will add your details.
Wordpress 2.7 is Here, Merry Christmas
That is right, 2.7 has arrived. Better late than never. From what I have seen in demos and with the Wordpress.com implementation, the feature set is sweet and one of the largest improvements on Wordpress in quite a while, if not ever.
