Sunday, February 22, 2009

Shovel-Ready Social Media Strategy for the SC09 Conference
Social Media offers us a great opportunity to get the word out and grow the Supercomputing conference community. Learn all about it here.
Summary:

The SC conference has a strong community made up of thousands of people who come back to the show year after year. As a new initiative of the SC09 Communications Committee, this blog describes a strategy to connect and grow the Supercomputing community using Social Media tools.

Agenda:
  • What is Social Media?
  • Why Social Media for SC?
  • What Social Media Tools are already in place for SC09?
  • SC on Twitter
  • SC blog
  • SC on Facebook
  • SC Linked In
  • How do I engage?
What is Social Media?

Social media tools use the Internet for sharing and discussing information among human beings.

The following video is a great introduction to Social Media.

Why Social Media for SC?

Every year at the SCxx conferences, thousands of us get together for a week and then we go on our separate ways. With Social Media tools like this blog, we hope to grow the SC community in a whole new way.

Many companies are already using Social Media to engage with their customers. They are getting measurable results. We can do that with SC. And with your help, we will be the first conference to do so effectively.

What is the Social Media Strategy?

Our strategy is quite simple:
Engage the Supercomputing community members who are already using the most popular Social Media tools and get them to participate. Through their participation, we will leverage their networks to grow the community.
What Social Media Tools are already in place for SC09?
Many people have their favorites, so we have four tools now in place: Twitter, SC09 Blog, Facebook Group, and a Linked In page.

SC09 on Twitter

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Twitter is one of the easiest Social Media tools to use.

You can follow our Supercomputing Twitter page at: http://twitter.com/supercomputing.

SC09 Blog


A
Blog is a website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

You are now reading the Supercomputing blog. While the SC show has a wonderful conference site that tells you pretty much everything you need to know, until now we haven't had is a place for us share our stories as a community.

Unlike a newletter or other "one-way" media, blogs let users comment to encourage discussion and sharing of useful information. Blogs are also great aggregators for other Social Media tools. For example, on the right column of this blog you can see relevant SC09 links, Twitter entries (tweets), and more.


Facebook


Facebook is a popular free-access social networking website. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves.

The SC Conference on Facebook Group is a great place to get to know your fellow attendees of the SC conference.

Linked In


Linked In is a business-oriented social networking site mainly used for professional networking. As of February 2009, it had more than 35 million registered users, spanning 170 industries.

In our troubled economy, Linked In gets a lot of traffic.

How do I engage with Social Medial for SC?

Like driving a car, Social Media is not something you "get" just by reading about it--you have to learn by doing. Here's how:

Photo mosaic of SC09 Followers on Twitter

Our SC09 twitter page already has a few good followers. Join in the fun.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Coming to Portland? Twitter Connects you with the Locals



Portland has become the first U.S. city to launch an official "Twisitor Center." Much like traditional walk-in visitor centers, the new system uses Twitter technology to connect travelers with those who can answer their questions and help plan their trips.

"Other cities are connecting with visitors through Twitter," explained Martin Stoll, CEO of GoSeeTell Network, the company that created Portland's Twisitor Center concept. "But Portland is the first city to set up a virtual visitor center to which people can direct travel questions just by adding a simple tag to their tweets [messages]."

Twitter-users seeking information on Portland can add #inpdx to their questions. Tweets tagged with this code (also called a "hash tag") are sought out by Twisitor Center staff members who then send back suggestions. But the beauty of Twitter is that other users who aren't affiliated with Travel Portland can also chime in with additional tips. So, if a traveler tweets "Need a good BBQ place in Portland #inpdx," she could end up with suggestions from not only the Twisitor Center but also from anyone else - Portland residents, foodies, fellow travelers - in the Twitter community. Full Story

If you don't really get what Twitter is all about, this video should help: