It’s been a while since we last saw each other outside of the early morning hours, as our evening meetings – better known to us as Twilight Camps – have gone by the wayside a bit in the past couple of months. But on October 21 they make a comeback at our usual location, Davis Kidd Bookseller’s Bronte Bistro on Perkins Extended. Meet us there at 5:30 for good food and a catch-up session. There’s no structure or formal presentations, just free-form conversation, mixing, mingling and the chance to share ideas.
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Social Media Expedition’s TwilightCamp is no longer a new part of our regular event schedule. It has graduated to simply being a regular event. That hasn’t stopped it from being a refreshing catalyst for burgeoning relationships and ideas.
Gary Duke shares his Social Media Yay
We were happy to see new faces and familiar friends at the Bronte Bistro in Davis-Kidd Bookstore this past Thursday doing exactly what Social Media is meant for… socializing.
We had a lot of good conversation about our individual Social Media “yays” and “boos” for the past few weeks. People shared their big wins with the group and some of the things that they were struggling with in the social realms. We had a lot of awesome yays from the group and by the end of the dinner, many people had helpful suggestions on how to fix some of their boos.
Here’s some of what we heard from the group:
Yays –
- New Facebook Public Profile
- General social well-being
- New social opportunities
- Fun community involvement from Social Networks
- New Facebook widget
- Posterous
- A successful campaign
- A start up realizing that Social Media is an integral part of its strategy
Boos -
- Facebook app trouble
- WordPress struggles
- The Need for a Facebook Public Profile
- Needing to learn more about social
- Lack of motivation for blogging
- Ignored reccomendations
- Sleazy marketing links on Facebook walls
- Social media regulations and policies (social buzzkills)
- Always having LOTS to learn
Thanks to everyone who came out! We’ll see you at the breakfast on August 5th.
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A word of gracious appreciation goes out to Arts Memphis for hosting at their wonderful offices next to Folk’s Folly.
Being a gathering without an agenda, June’s Twilight Camp provided a great opportunity to learn of more regularly-scheduled agenda-free gatherings. A couple that were mentioned include the weekly Mercury Tech Coffee meeting, which happens Mondays at 7:30 am at Republic Coffee on Walnut Grove; and the First Thursdays meeting of the Sierra Club, which takes place each month at Otherlands Coffee Bar on Cooper Street in Midtown, from 5-7:30 pm.
We also talked about how consumers are gaining more and more social equity with service providers. Though businesses like Google and Facebook keep adding features to their social networks, they aren’t forcing anyone to use the new features.
It’s increasingly all about choice now. With growing frequency, when new features are added to a service, it’s up to the user whether or not they get used. The user’s power is so great that networks would rather wait for the right customer to begin using a new tool than risk turning anyone off.
This is one of the reasons why our discussion also found itself mentioning the idea of an Early Adopter tax credit – the people who jump into new services, tools, and devices frequently pay a premium for the opportunity to figure out how best to use things (like the new iPhone, the Palm Pre, or even netbooks).
One interesting point we drug up while talking about that is whether early adopters are being productive, or whether they’re really being progressive.
Both “productive” and “progressive” seem like – and are – positive adjectives, but there are subtleties there that have really nothing to do with anyone’s political views. “Progressive,” in this case, can be equated with “experimental.” If early adopters are being progressive, they’re experimenting with a new device or new software, trying to figure out how to be productive with them.
Those who wish to be “productive” will eye these technological progressives for new ideas, techniques, and uses. Without the progressives, we would likely not know how to be productive. It seems that the proper term for those of us who wait for those instructions would be “pragmatic.”
There was also interesting discussion of Google Latitude and social currency. There’s more room in those topics than it would be fruitful to discuss here, so keep your eyes peeled for a couple posts here later this week.
Again, a hearty thanks to Arts Memphis for their magnificent hospitality.
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A shot from April's Twilight Camp
This month’s Twilight Camp will be switched up a little from the usual pattern. Rather than holding the event at an area restaurant, we’ll be gathering at ArtsMemphis.
The same habits remain, however – we get together for food, networking, and informal conversations about how we use social media in our day-to-day lives. (ArtsMemphis itself has a solid social presence, as we learned from Lindsay Coates at our last Breakfast; check them out on Twitter and Facebook.)
ArtsMemphis is located at 575 South Mendenhall. The event is free, and the mingling starts at 5:30 p.m. Parking is available at Holt Tire on Mendenhall or on Black Street (same street as Brown Dog Lodge). As usual, RSVP is preferred.
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