Third Tuesday PR Meetup With Shel Israel

It was a packed house at the  Pour House last night as 50+ PR and marketing folks gathered for the inaugarul ThirdTuesday Social Media and PR meetup. Shel Israel and Mark Evans took the stage and kicked off what turned into a very lively conversation. There's a very detailed summary over at ProPR.

Shel is the author of Naked Conversations and is currently working on his next book about global neighbourhoods. He spoke at an AIMS event back in February and it was nice to see him back in the T dot last night.

I was sitting near the back and it was a little hard to hear. But as the organizers (I think it was Joe) pointed out, it was totally apropos that our conversation was happening in the midst of a sea of conversations. The tidbits I walked away with:

• Geography is no longer relevant. The result is many people bringing their own culture and perspective to the conversation.
• Listening is as important as talking when participating in the conversation. As we push messages out we need to listen to what's coming back.
• We're still very early days in the social media scene. This point has been reinforced for me over the last couple of weeks. In the weeks leading up to our event with Shel Holtz last week I spoke to a lot of marketing folks about social media and the impact it's having. During many of these conversations it became clear that the term, social media just isn't well understood yet.

A casual environment and a great group of people meant lots of interesting conversations. After sharing a pizza with Jim Courtney from Skype Journal I caught up with AIMS volunteer Michelle Tampoya. It was great to spend some face time with Michelle as she cochairs the marketing and promotions committee for AIMS events and we've had many online chats.

Oh, and I met Michael O'Connor Clarke, the first person I've met who not only works for his first life client in Second Life but is compensated in Linden dollars. The lines continue to blur...

Comments

[Brian Moran]

Sounds like a very interesting event. I'd like to attend the next meeting.

(And yes, I love the wings, pizza and nachos at The Pour House.)

Can you add me to your email invite list?

thx,

Brian Moran