I was interviewed by Scott Parent of MediaTrust’s Relevantly Speaking program about my views on building online community. This interview was in High def, so it may look funny on this blog page.

From Jennifer Kushell of Your Success Network, comes a fun article and video from Huffington post called
What People Were Packing at BlogWorld Expo ‘09 (Technology, You Dirty Buggers!) all about the different tech we blogger types include in our packing for a show.

Then there were the hard core journalists and bloggers like Howard Greenstein from Inc.com , and Don Lemon, social media savoir from CNN who, god bless him, spent an exhausting day working the expo to promote a big breakthrough Twitter campaign called #beatcancer, which is a new model for charities to leverage social media to raise money. (Click here to learn more.)

Admittedly, I’m not as “hard core” as CNN anchor Don Lemon, but I think I did ok so far as tech was concerned.

Hope you enjoy these videos.

(*Disclosure, I was a guest of the show’s agency, Porter Novelli, for whom I consult, but I paid my own airfare and expenses for the week. I was also covering this for my Inc.com Startup Toolkit column).

Disclaimer: The event is called a “SmackDown” because there will be “Trash Talk,” defined by the Urban Dictionary as: “In the course of a competitive situation putting down your opponent verbally or saying how good you think you are. Often involving talk of moms or sisters” ie: “Your momma’s computer is so slow, she can’t even use Facebook.”

I have no intent to personally insult or harm anyone, make them feel bad or send them crying home. This is all in good fun. And we’ll all watch the “Your momma” references. My mom reads the blog. Enough said.

Full Disclosure part: The contest is sponsored by PayPal and Tech Reporting blog Mashable (Disclosure – I’ve recently been working on an article to be published in Mashable – non-compensated).

The contest money raising will be done via PayPal – and the organizers assured me that aside from the usual transaction fees (2% or so for Non-Profits) that the full money goes right into those charity controlled accounts.

I was asked to participate by my friends at Weber Shandwick (I’ve consulted for Weber in the past, but not recently), who first introduced me to Stand Up 2 Cancer last summer. SU2C  is

“a new initiative created to accelerate groundbreaking cancer research that will get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives. SU2C’s goal is to bring together the best and the brightest in the cancer community, encouraging collaboration instead of competition. SU2C utilizes the entertainment industry to create awareness and to build broad public support for this effort.”

SU2C supports AACR.org – which states in its financials that “88 cents of every dollar spent supports research grants, fellowships and scientific education for AACR member scientists, as well as public education. ”

A few folks on the net have recently complained about these kind of online fund raising events – even saying this promote the corporate interests over the charities. I disagree. Having worked on the 9-11 relief efforts as part of the Twin Towers Fund from 2001-2003, I can tell you some of the largest companies in the world made huge donations that, while they may have hit the newspapers or news wires for the day, helped the lives of people for years to come.

I sense this long term awareness and effort to help is the intention in this event, and I’m supporting it. Kudos to Pete and the Mashable team for stepping up for this event.

If I can help raise money for my cause, for any of the great causes, if I can raise awareness about these causes, then I will have done something useful and valuable during this week. I’m going to be asking you, my friends and readers, to pass along messages, support the cause (any one you choose) and enjoy the playful smack talk that goes with this ’smackdown.’

The widget below (to be inserted when it goes live) will allow you to donate to SU2C and the “promote” page for Team Corbin will allow you to add a badge to your blog, MySpace, website,  or other site in order to spread the word.

Please help me promote this fun online event, and please donate what you can. Thank you.

We discuss the Clue Train 10 years later, and how much of what was predicted actually came true.

In my session on “Twitter: Are we all just drinking the Kool Aid?” we explored the strawman notion that Twitter, even with about 2MM users, is only an early adopter tool that isn’t really worth the time people and brands are investing in it. Through discussion (with a very Twitter-heavy crowd) we helped several non-twitter users discover the potential value they’d find using Twitter. We heard stories of people finding answers, getting brand feedback, and we even had 2 people who had courted, and gotten engaged over Twitter.

In my discussion on “What Old Media can teach New Media” (which I usually run with Dean Landsman like we did at Social Media Camp NY), I had a great question and insight – As we discussed how one media tends not to replace the next one, but to cause it to change (as TV did to radio), someone asked about Enterprise 2.0. He noted that he’s trying to get people to adopt some of the new Enterprise 2.0 tech, but that they’re not replacing, say, Email, as the way people share information. We discussed how companies like Lotus added SameTime and MS has enterprise IM because of this. We discussed a few ways about how to get people to understand this “one doesn’t replace the other” situation and how to introduce things slowly and get adoption.

Finally, from Twitter: @KaraLaFleur: @howardgr talking about how web teams are the unrecognized rockstsrs if ad firms – & how that needs to change based on how pol use media.

Yes, we discussed how, if you’re going to talk Social Media with Advertisers, you have to know how they buy traditional media, because you may be teaching them a new paradigm (“ROI=Return on Influence vs. Reach and Frequency buy, for example). Speak to them in their language, and help them understand.

The event was well run, and the crowd was good as well. Thanks, Philly.

Course Details | New York University – SCPS

Using Social Networks and New Media Technologies in Your Nonprofit
X39.9211 / Continuing Education / $400
FALL 2008

Donors, volunteers and staff are using technologies, from Facebook to Weblogs, to connect, communicate, learn and inform. What are these new social media tools, and how can your organization use them most effectively? How can you leverage social networks to build community, photo and video sharing to promote your cause, or blogging to keep your constituents informed? The course gives practical examples, and features guests including Tom Watson, author of the forthcoming Causewired and co-founder of Changing Our World.

Chances are, if you’re not an early adopter type, you may not have heard of Twitter, the online community that is a kind of instant-messaging social network. Users send updates of up to 140 character (about 2 sentences) out to their followers–people who choose to receive their messages–and read the messages of those they follow.

Read the rest at INC’s Startup Blog.

After a great drive out to Eindhoven, (thanks Martin), and some initial networking, I met Tom Paffen and Tom De Bryune who spoke on Venture Capital raising and on “Freaks and Geeks” as the leading indicators of where social media and social networking tech are heading as cultural and technical phenomenon.

The photo set is on Flickr.

Bill and I spoke after the break. Bill did an excellent job talking about the “3 screen world” where TV, Computers and Smart Phones are the locations that people are using when they view and interact with content, all to different extents, of course. I chimed in afterward about how media companies are using Social Web tools to create new kinds of stories (like the Heroes show and related content), and also about how, as seems to come up in conversations a lot lately – destination sites are not the future. Having content everywhere, via syndication, mashup, widgets, and basically where your viewer, user, customer wants it, will be the future. The panel finished with questions and more networking.

I know the slides and information on the panel, as well as the full video will soon be posted on Efactor.com and I’ll update with a link to that when it’s available.

BTW, Mashable did a brief review of the E.factor here.