CopyDiva

Last night’s Mile High Social Media Club at The Whisky Bar in Denver was quite a happening. It’s great to see repeat attendees, plus many new ones as well. And, to top it off, the panel was terrific too.

Bryan Person did a great job of moderating the conversation about community. The focus of the evening was understanding community from the perspective of a community manager of a public community (not a private branded community). TIm Poindexter, from Disaboom, and Tiffany Childs from Denver’s Yelp community gave some interesting perspectives on:

• growing a young community and making it vibrant and engaging enough for members and others to want to participate
• managing a member who is trying to hijack a discussion
• dealing with people who violate the terms of service
• how companies can stay authentic within these communities (by being honest about who you are, good advice for anyone in a community)

It’s always interesting to hear what questions people have. Being as there were many PR people in the crowd, they got a number of questions about how to handle bad reviews (on Yelp), how to pitch story ideas to community bloggers and the community managers, and how to sponsor or advertise in the community without offending the members.

Thanks to the people at Flock for the T-shirts we were able to give to each of our speakers.

Our December event is in the process of being finalized, and is expected to be a breakfast in Broomfield, possible at Sun Microsystem’s offices at Interlocken - close enough to Boulder for those of you who find driving all the way to Denver just too much.

Stay tuned for details within the next week.

Though I am really sick of the whole #Motrinmoms controversy, here’s what I will say about it: Brands have treated women and moms the same way for a while - Motrin isn’t doing anything different than the folks at Mr. Clean, Swiffer, Fruit Loops or many others have done and continue to do. I wrote a post about this in August, after David Alston fumed about an ad pushing Fruit Loops as nutritious.

The reality is that brand perceptions of women consumers hasn’t progressed.

The suggested responses seem to me dull at best. What if Motrin served up a little self-deprecating humor? How quickly could a video be pulled together where the people at Motrin maybe stop taking themselves so seriously and poke fun at their own mistake?

Humor can be the best medicine.

November’s Mile High SMC promises to be fun, entertaining and educational:

What: Mile High SMC: Its all about Community - a panel of community managers on how to build community

When: November 19th, 2008, 5:30pm (preso starts at 6pm)

Where: Whiskey Bar in Denver

Featuring a converation with:

Moderator: Bryan Person

Panelists:

Tim Poindexter, Community Manager for Disaboom

Tiffany Childs, Yelp Denver Community Manager

Visit our Ning site to RSVP, or you can also access the Facebook event page if you prefer.

Great post today on copyblogger about the effects of social influence on the value of messages online - specifically, in social media. The gist of it, is, how you say it (your message) ends up being your message, so make sure to frame your initial message carefully. Read more, its worth the read: How to Change the World Using Social Media

Image via Wikipedia

The campaign is over. There are no more doors to knock on, no more registered voters to call. The sense of hope and accomplishment felt by the team I worked with at 372 Main Street in Longmont, Colorado, was very moving. It’s clear that our work in Longmont made a difference, not just for Barack Obama but for the congressional race as well. We helped sway the tide to enormous numbers of mail-in ballots and early voters, so the lines were sporadic at every polling place in Longmont. We got more people activated and out to vote.

Volunteering

Working with these dedicated volunteers was an absolute pleasure, and it reminded me how critical volunteerism is to the future of our country. In other efforts where I volunteer, it has become more and more of a struggle, in the past 5 years or so, to get people to commit time to volunteering, leaving fewer people to shoulder the work that would be more fun and rewarding if shared by more people. I truly hope that many of you who volunteered for the campaign will now spend time volunteering again in your local communities, helping out causes you believe in. Try it. You might be surprised at how it changes your outlook on life.

We live in a country where more and more people are unhappy and feel disconnected. Taking part in your local community is a good way to counter that disconnection.

The campaign

From the first day I volunteered with the Obama campaign, it felt different. The philosophy of voter activation was built on respect of people’s ideas. We were asked to never argue with people about their beliefs. The goal being that even if we disagree, its ok, and we can still be friendly and respectful. This worked well, as I was even thanked by some McCain supporters who just wanted to talk to someone about what they believed.

We were never to use any scare tactics, but try to engage people in a discussion on issues that were important to them. I have to say, even though there were some angry people we spoke to — yesterday, one of our canvassers got chased by a woman swatting a broom around — generally speaking, the experience was worthwhile, and made an impact for Obama. Even on nights where I would have a few people hang-up on me, others on the phone bank would tell heartening stories from their night, so we’d all leave feeling good about what we were doing, whether we had a good or a bad night.

What I learned

Sure, everything didn’t go smoothly. I’d get 5 reminder calls to come in and volunteer for shifts I didn’t sign up for. We ran out of literature. The data entry forms were prone to errors. But, the efforts were organized and created opportunities for a lot of people to help, like:

• Shawna, the school teacher who ran 3 canvass trainings a day every weekend, then went out and canvassed too
• Will, the Brit who came here on his own dime months ago to volunteer for the campaign and spent every day there
• the anonymous guy who’d drop off bags of Burger King hamburgers at lunch and dinner time
• Padma, who quit her job to volunteer full time for the campaign, running phone banks and being the resident trouble shooter
• the woman who coordinated all the food, providing us with delicious, home-cooked meals for lunch and dinner every day during the last weeks of the campaign
• all the people who canvassed, phone banked, did lit drops, drove people to the polls. Some did one shift, some did one shift a day, one shift a week
• June and the rest of the people who came from California last week to help with whatever was needed

It’s a testament to the inclusiveness of the campaign that this was a very diverse group of people - white and black, immigrants, English and Spanish speaking, gay and straight, high school and college students, young families, retirees, doctors, tech workers, single parents, people who work 2 jobs and people who don’t have a job.

The campaign is over, but the hard work is really just beginning. Don’t forget what Obama said last night — that we have to do this together. That means we all have to stop thinking about ourselves. Reach out and help others. Some can do the heavy lifting, some can do the smaller stuff (like buying the hamburgers). But everyone has to pitch in.

Rohit Bhargava shares his experiences as one of the 25 — and his take on its effectiveness - plus, there’s some good conversation in the comments as well:

Influential Marketing Blog: Unpacking The “Pepsi 25″ Social Media Rebranding Campaign.

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