Dave Barger and Roundtable Attendees

Dave was able to share his insight into Social Media, not as something that can be broken down into check boxes with “power tips,” but as a philosophy and a conscious decision made by a business organization to provide transparency where there were once barriers. He discussed the tendency by Social snake oil peddlers to oversimplify and invent formulas for something that should never be reduced to mindlessly executed tasks, but should be a sincere attempt to create relationships with your customer base.

He mentioned that businesses must consider the time investment that it takes to do Social Media well, and start small by finding out where their customers are and creating a presence there instead of trying to do everything at once.

It was a great turnout and plenty of excellent questions from the crowd after the presentation. You can look for the full audio and video to be posted on the Society of Entrepreneurs site in the near future.

Dave Barger of LunaWeb does a great job showing us exactly how these new additions may change the way you use Facebook:

This upgrade, along with Facebook’s recent acquisition of social aggregator FriendFeed (made up of several former Google employees), seems to foreshadow big news in the upcoming months for the site’s search feature and who knows what else…

"Stormy Weather: Lightning" by Sabrina Campagna on Flickr."

EDIT: A direct message from MLGW on Twitter requested that we change the headline to reflect that they weren’t aiming for attention, but rather that they were just trying to help. That’s the main point of this story, so we’re happy to comply. (Once again, thanks for the good work, MLGW!)

Severe weather tore through Memphis Friday, June 12.  The weather knocked out the transmitter for the local public radio station, and the digital television switch ensured that anyone left without a converter box couldn’t rely on local television for breaking weather news (and several thousand Memphians were left without power anyway). So where did people turn for the news?

They turned to cell phone-friendly microblogging service Twitter.

When the storms hit, even local news turned to Twitter for information about how people were faring. The Commercial Appeal was the only news source actively tweeting during the event, though its news was scant at first  (it’s hard to tweet from a cell phone in a basement with neither WiFi nor cell service), but once they got out of the basement, the main source that the CA was using was the suddenly very active Twitter stream of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water.

MLGW, over the course of about 72 hours from early Friday evening to mid-morning Monday, sent out over 880 tweets, mostly either @replies or information directly relating to the outages. Only the people at MLGW know how many direct messages they sent, but judging from how many times they told people to check their DMs, it’s up there around that 880 mark.

And though their followers have drastically increased (1,265, up from around 400 early Friday evening), what really sets their tweeting apart is that they haven’t changed their tactic: responding to every customer question possible.

For any business to pull this off in a time of emergency is remarkable – and admirable. With Memphis’ summer heat kicking in, a lack of power for fans and air conditioning really is an emergency situation, and MLGW’s willingness to connect with customers through social media (especially via a service that can function as SMS text messages) has truly shown their respect for their community, and their eagerness to help that community get back to normal as quickly as possible.

That respect extends all the way up MLGW’s totem pole, too. Jerry Collins, president of MLGW, took a few minutes to answer customer questions, in what amounts to a grassroots press conference.

It wasn’t just homes without power, either. Many local businesses (ourselves included) were affected by the outages as well. Our own Dave Barger, who had been following MLGW for the better part of a year, noticed on Friday how their updates begin showing up more and more.

It started with some updates about the service status, letting their customers know how many people were without power and how long it would be out. Then they posted some phone numbers, both for emergencies and simple outage reporting. Barger immediately took advantage of the phone numbers.

“I called the number,” he said. “I don’t think the automatic system gave me an option for business, so then I tweeted my report. I got a pretty quick response. They were very responsive.”

Susan Mealer, of Answering Advantage, found a similar situation. Because she is not the building manager at her office, she wasn’t sure if she had the appropriate information for reporting an outage over the phone. So she tweeted it. She too, got a very quick response. Though MLGW said they passed the information on, Mealer said that she was pleased just “knowing that [report] was heard.”

Having that online communication with her local power company was convenient for Mealer, too – she was on vacation at Disneyland when the storms hit. When she found out about the storms, she was naturally concerned about her employees and customers. She said it was comforting to know that MLGW was there and taking care of the electricity situation.

Which is exactly what MLGW wanted. Richard Thompson, who runs the MLGW Twitter account, says that the real focus this weekend has been “getting people information about what’s going on and when power can be restored. That’s what’s most important to us right now.”

For Thompson, the decision to tweet MLGW updates was merely a practical one. “Hopefully we’ll continue to integrate Twitter into our communications, but we’re not there yet.”

Mealer had kind words for MLGW’s use of Twitter during the outages. “The buzzword here is ‘transparency,’” she said. “We can all see how they respond to everyone. It really allowed them to shine. It really showed that they heard their customers and that they were responding.”

Barger had high compliments for the sense of community that MLGW’s transparency instilled in him. “You definitely feel part of a community which is going through the same sort of problems. There’s this camaraderie sort of thing that kicks in. You know that the guy across the street has limbs down, that his power’s out.”

For the record, chances are quickly diminishing that you or the guy across the street have their power out. MLGW is working around the clock to get power restored, and as of 4 p.m. Monday, only 32,285 customers are still affected by outages. This is down from a peak of over 130,000 Friday evening.

One bright spot in the midst of this gathering, was the serendipitous and spontaneous creation of several unconference-like core conversations.  Dave was lucky enough to be a part of one of these conversation, when several SXSW attendees converged on a session that had reached max capacity.  These 50+ rejects went on to form there own conversation group, “The Rejected Connected”.

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TweetHall – Rejected Connected from LunaWeb on Vimeo.

The discussion became a valuable mindshare of best practices for Twitter.  The group ranged from people brand new to Twitter, to Twitter application developers.  Everyone was able to contribute, and everyone walked away with a headful of new ideas to ponder.  The key takeaways for the session from Dave’s blog were:

- Using a good photo of only your face.
- Share your twitter handle everywhere.
- Don’t use the profile URL to merely link back to your twitter page.
- Multiple users of one org’s twitter account can end tweets in “/fl” that being /(first initial)(last initial) or state the person tweeting in the profile description.
- Be genuine and don’t be uptight about tweeting, just get out there.
- Don’t protect your tweets and still try and seek out people to follow (the analogy of “going to a cocktail party and locking yourself in the bathroom” was shared).

There was great discussion on the best way to manage a corporate identity on Twitter. Deceptively tricky questions like, “How much of myself do I put into my corporate Twitter account?” and “If I choose to have multiple Twitter accounts, what’s the best way to keep up with them?” were debated at length.

Tiffany Winman, one of the attendees, did a great job of nailing down the rationale behind marketers using Twitter. “Awareness/traffic; viral buzz; lead generation; increased customer satisfaction and loyalty via increased community networking, identifying and fostering relationships among employees and customers; generally decreases in costs and resources from traditional marketing methods; research on brand image, public sentiment, hot topics to improve messaging and product/service development.”

Otis Maxwell also had some valuable insight into how a previous session at SXSW provided further illumination on the spontaneous hallway discussion.

If you’d like to see the twitter conversation that resulted from this ad hoc gathering, search for #tweethall on twitter.

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The LaunchMemphis group has been hosting these networking evenings as part of its ongoing effort to bring focus to entrepreneurial activities in Memphis, TN, and to deliver new technology business startups to the economy.  The organization was very successful in making progress towards this goal last year.  In that spirit, they have designed a schedule of events for 2009 that will continue moving Memphis to the forefront of the business community.

Upcoming on the LaunchMemphis Calendar are:

SocialCamp Memphis – March 6 & 7
Location: Memphis College of Art
SocialCamp Memphis is an unconference focusing on Social Media and Social Networking.  Just imagine a conference where the morning is comprised of designated speakers/topics, and the afternoon is comprised of focused discussions and impromptu presentations that are decided on by the attendees.  There will be a networking event the evening of March 6th, and the main event during the day on March 7.  See more information at the SocialCamp site and Facebook page.  Register early!

Startup Weekend Memphis 2: Back by Popular Demand – May 29, 30, & 31
Location: EmergeMemphis and Mercury Launchpad
Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of technologists and entrepreneurs to build a community and new business ventures in a weekend in a short 54 hours.  These motivated individuals come together form teams and decide what to make. Attendees are responsible for bringing the ideas, desire, and passion and walk out of the room with a brand new businesses launched or started.  Startup Weekend is a national program that has once again selected Memphis, TN as one of the cities that it will visit this year.  See more information and don’t forget to register.

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We kicked off the night at Rain, a new sushi bar in Cordova, TN, where we experienced beautiful food, and a great atmosphere. There was a lot of enjoyable conversation, and several of us had the opportunity to meet some folks we had only known from twitter.

We left Rain just in time to have wine and hors d’oeuvres provided by the friendly people at GPAC. We spent the hour before the show chatting in the green room and looking at photographs of some of GPAC’s most memorable performers.

The Universe of Dreams performance was the highlight and centerpiece of our Tweetup. An incredible performance (as always) put on by GPAC, that feautured NPR’s Neal Conan, Ensemble Galilei, and giant projected images from the Hubble Telescope. Conan read excerpts from some the greatest minds of the past several centuries, expressing their awe at the scope of the night sky, while beautifully displayed images gave meaning to his words. Thanks to all this and an incredible score of Celtic music, the evening proved to be a wonderful multimedia event, that was truly expeditionary.

Thanks to all who participated and made it such an enjoyable night. Join our Facebook Page to stay updated on future Expedition Tweetups.

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The best news, however, comes from a recently published LaunchMemphis financial report for 2008.  The program, since its inception, has taken $16k in investment capital and produced nearly $500k in economic impact, all right here in Memphis.

This success is attributed to a host of factors.  Among them is a very dedicated group of founders dedicated to the growth of Memphis’ entrepreneurial community. Eric Mathews, Dave Barger, Harry Brown, Sridhar Sunkara, Chris Allen, Anna Ivey, Gwin Scott, Douglas Scarboro, Marc Diaz, and Lori Turner have all dedicated immense time and effort into seeing this program accomplish all that it has.

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LaunchMemphis also owes a great deal of success to its sponsorship base which has consistently provided funding and resources that have helped maximize the programs potential.  FedEx Institute of Technology, Bosco’s Brewing Company, Memphis Regional Chamber, Center City Commission, Sun Microsystems, JumpBox, Cadre5, Flying Circle, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell, & Berkowitz, Naked Lion Brewing Company, Starbucks Coffee, Domino’s Pizza, Neely’s Bar-B-Que, Innova, Mercury Technology Labs, Impact Memphis, Red Bull, Open Road Technologies, Small Business Chamber, Red Bull, LunaWeb, and Rendezvous BBQ, all played a crucial role in events over the past year.

Visit the 2009 schedule for upcoming LaunchMemphis events and links to more information.

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The Courthouse

The Social Media Expedition’s journey to historic Money, MS was nothing short of eye opening.  This MLK Jr. Day, several expedition members traveled deep into delta territory to explore the events surrounding the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-Year-Old African-American youth from Chicago.

Emmett’s murder is often overlooked as one of the great catalysts to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s.  Our mission was to visit the sites that were significant leading up to and shortly following Till’s death, and hopefully, through Web 2.0 coverage, give this tragedy some well deserved exposure.  We left even more resolute to our goal than we came.

Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market

Our first stop on the journey was the Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, now vacant and derelict, where Till allegedly whistled at the white store owner, Carolyn Bryant.  This kind of action was considered extremely taboo in a racially divided culture and raised the ire of Carolyn’s husband Roy Bryant, and his half brother, J.W. Milam.

We also made a brief stop at the remains of J.W. Milam’s former home.  His property served as the primary location for most of the actions surrounding Till’s murder.

Very nearby, was possibly the most impacting site on our journey.  It was the cotton barn at J.W. Milam’s plantation where Emmett Till was taken to be beaten, maimed, and killed.  It was easy to look into the shed outside the barn, and wonder what might have happened there.  Eventually a fan was taken from the cotton gin and tied to Till with barbed wire before dumping him into the Tallahatchie River.   The barn itself has been turned into a makeshift museum dedicated to Emmett Till and blues musician “Sonny Boy” Williamson.

Near the end of our exploration, we visited the courthouse where the, very brief, trial took place for Emmett’s murder, and the remnants of the hotel where the jury, who acquitted Milam and Bryant in less than an hour, stayed.

Thanks to those who encouraged us to make this trip. Special thanks to Joe Spake for his participation, many insights about The Delta along the way, and his Emmett Till blog post.

This is just the first of many Expeditionary trips.  The next event is our Tweetup this Friday at GPAC.  Find us on Facebook, and we’ll keep you informed on developing details.  We hope to see you in the conversation.

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Kerry Hayes Presents

We had two presentations this month. The first, was a remote presentation by Connie Bensen from Minnesota. She spoke about Techrigy, a powerful social media monitoring tool with a lot of exciting features. She will also be hosting a webinar on January 15, talking about Social Media ROI. Please see webinar registration info here. Follow Connie on Twitter.

Our second speaker was Kerry Hayes from Mid-South Community Organizers and the Stax Museum of American Soul. He gave us a lot of great insight into lessons learned in Social Media and community organizing from the presidential election. Follow on Twitter. Checkout their meeting on Thursday night.

Core Conversations were a success again this time around, as tables broke off to discuss Social Media 101, Corporate Blogging, Web Video, Twitter, and Beyond Facebook. There were lots of interesting conversations and action as people moved from table to table trying to glean all the information they could. Keep watching the Social Media Expedition Blog, as we’ll post MP3′s of these conversations online!

Upcoming January Events

Here’s a quick recap of upcoming events for the Social Media Expedition.

• January 9 – Anybody for caravaning to Nashville to join in on their Geek Breakfast? This is usually a valuable networking opportunity and a good chance to learn from the people around you. Contact Dave Barger for more info.
• January 19 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day is this month. The Expedition is planning on taking a caravan to Money, MS to give 2.0 coverage to the events surrounding the murder of Emmit Till, an event that is credited with sparking the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950′s.
• January 23 – LunaWeb is sponsoring the Universe of Dreams show at Germantown Performing Arts Centre. There will be a massive Tweetup beforehand and special discount tickets for Expedition members.

There was also a brief overview of The Kindness Revolution. If you’re interested in making a personal commitment to being kind (a great New Year’s resolution), you should consider looking them up on Twitter and Facebook.

If you were at this month’s breakfast or are interested in attending the next one, you can already RSVP on our Meetup page.

Are you an Online Marketer?
There’s also a meeting, Memphis E-Marketing Group, being put on by some very web savvy people from St. Jude’s. Check them out here. Thursday, February 26th from 6-8

Thanks again to all who came out. We hope to see you all again before next month, along with some new faces, to talk about everything social.

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