All Entries Tagged With: "boston"

Eat, Drink and Be Social- The Thank You Edition.

Dennis Crowley, Mike Schneider and Alexa Andrzejeweski (photo by Derek Wilmot)

By now you may have heard about an event held in Cambridge earlier this week combining the best minds in Social Media and Restaurants/Foodies/bloggers and more. I won’t recap the event for you because many others did (see below). Thanks everyone!

http://blogs.a-g.com/wp/?p=6152
http://sarahwallace.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/my-take-away-from-eat-drink-be-social/
http://thebostonfoodie.blogspot.com/2010/05/foodies-and-social-media.html
http://sierratierra.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/business-advice-tapas-from-food-and-social-media-conference/
http://bostinnovation.com/2010/05/24/eat-drink-and-be-social-bringing-together-local-and-national-tech-foodies/
http://www.grangehallmedia.com/2010/05/eat-drink-be-social-wrap-up/#more-75

But what I WILL do is thank the people that made it possible.

Eric Schwarz over at Grange Hall Media- he created the logo and the catchy name. The next version of this event won’t be called “Eat, Drink and Be Social” because well, Eric has other plans for the name. So stay tuned for a new name for a similar event announced in the next week or so. If you’d like the chance to pick the new name (and get 5 comp tickets to the next event- head on over here.)

Derek Wilmot. Pictures tell a thousand words, and well- take a look at these pictures that he took. If you are ever interested in hiring a top notch photographer for your event- he gets it.

Lindsay Pollard from Arrangements. Did you notice the flowers? Hope you did, and hope you hire her for your next event.

Ellie O’Keefe from Nestle Waters. During the event we didn’t drink from your standard plastic bottle of Poland Spring. We enjoyed Pelligrino and Aqua Panna in bottles. After all, we’re foodies.

Dante De Magistris. On Sunday night, the panelists were treated to a custom-designed dinner for us, a 6-course feast that took us about 2 hours to eat. A BIG Thank you goes to Jessica and Dante over in Cambridge for opening up their hearts, their kitchen, and their restaurant to us.

Joselin Mane and Boston Tweetup. Great promotional video, great publicity for the event, and stay tuned because Joselin is going to share some video excerpts from the panel with Mike Schneider, Alexa and Dennis.

Christine Major and Awareness. Remember that food you had on Sunday night at Dante? That was Awareness. Thank you Christine!

John Pepper and Boloco: For the inspired burritos on Monday afternoon. We were dying to have John attend, but he was out of town. Next time John, next time.

B. Good. This was my first time meeting Jon Olinto face to face AND tasting one of his burgers. Jon tells a great story, has a fantastic restaurant business, and I’m happy to be part of his family. (I just don’t want to run a marathon in a burger suit)…

Below are some sample pictures from the event- more of them can be found here.

Mike Schneider and Alexa Andrzejewski (photo by Derek Wilmot)

The program (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Alexa Andrzejeweski and Dennis Crowley (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Leighann Farrelly: Yelp, Aaron Cohen, @eatboston (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Jody Adams: Rialto, Barbara Lynch, BLGruppo (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Mary Catherine Deibel , Naomi Kooker, Amy Traverso, Leighann Farrelly (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Justin Levy (photo by Derek Wilmot)

(photo by Derek Wilmot)

Derek Wilmot and Dennis Crowley

Flowers by Arrangements (photo by Derek Wilmot)

Jon Olinto: B Good, Naomi Kooker (photo by Derek Wilmot)

The Menu from Sunday night at Restaurant Dante

Eat, Drink, and Be Social….

The best way to teach social media is to find a topic that a person has a passion for. Adam Cohen of Rosetta spells this out perfectly in a recent (ok- a year ago) blog post.

So I thought to myself, I LOVE food (my waistline will prove it). Why not bring together other passionate foodies (restaurants owners, chefs, caterers and food bloggers) and help them learn even more about how to combine their love of food with social media.

Sure, there’s Twitter and Facebook, but there’s much, much more out there….

Foodspotting: A terrific new application. Find dishes, not just restaurants. Let’s say you’ve just arrived in Maine and are looking for the BEST Lobster Roll. It may be at a roadside shack,a food truck, or (gasp) Red Lobster. Why not go to Foodspotting first, take a look at some pictures (with user-generated “Noms” or Likes) and find yourself the best Lobster Roll in Maine..

FourSquare: Geolocation meets retail. Let’s say you’re a frequent customer at a local restaurant. Use your mobile phone to “check in” at this restaurant. If you’re a regular there, wouldn’t it be nice to be recognized as the “mayor” of the establishment? If you’ve checked in more than anyone else, bingo, you’re the “mayor”, and if you are a smart/savvy restaurateur, you’d reward them with something, right? Starbucks is doing it, Harvard is doing it, and a local establishment here in Boston, Boloco is doing it. And doing it very well actually. They’ve actually turned this into a cause-related marketing campaign to reward the mayor AND a local non-profit.

Video: Bring your food/dining experience to your customer. If they haven’t been to your restaurant yet, why not bring it to them? Create a video, interview your chef, highlight your special of the day. Heck, take a picture of it and upload it to Foodspotting..

So much more to talk about it here, but if you’re a foodie and you live in the Boston area, I’d love to meet a fellow foodie at my May 24th Event

Some of the best social media minds in Boston (and fellow foodies) will be there to guide you through it all. They are: Mike Langford, Jeff Cutler, Justin Levy, Mike Schneider, Aaron Cohen

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- CC Chapman!

As we all take our collective breaths from  an eventful SXSW, let’s get back into the “ 7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” Series.

Next up is CC Chapman.

I honestly can’t think of a friendlier, more approachable guy in the business of social media. When he’s not creating terrific content online, he’s probably snapping a photo of you and popping it up on Flickr…. (NOTE- a few of my favorite collections are here and here)

About CC
C.C. Chapman is a Boston based family first entrepreneur, freelance photographer and digital storyteller. He is a Creative Director at Campfire and the Founder of Digital Dads.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I was raised with a strong work ethic and while it frustrated me more then once growing up, I’m very thankful that my parents instilled it in me. Growing up in a blue collar family I think grounded me in the reality of the world and constantly pushes me to do the work rather then just talking about it.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Pour a cup of coffee and sit down on the couch with the laptop. It is the first thing I do every morning before the kids go to school to do my morning surf of Twitter, E-mail and Google Wave.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I’ve never found a single productivity methodology that worked for me. What I know I couldn’t live without and keeps me on task is Spaces on the Mac. It allows me to have multiple desktops with different programs opened in each. I recently moved from 9 to 12 and it has made all the difference. I don’t know how I got so much done before this.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
Just one? Wow, that is a tough one. There are three that have made huge impacts on my career directly and those would be:

First, Break All the Rules
Made to Stick
The Dip

Each of them has caused a seismic shift in the way I thought and approached business.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
Those are two VERY different questions, so I’ll answer both.

On my desk:
My Canon S90 camera
A signed copy of Freedom by Daniel Suarez
Navy blue Nalgene water bottle (that I should refill)

Can’t live without:
Notebooks to jot down ideas (I go back and forth between Field Notes & Moleskines)
a camera (can be any of the many I own)
a device to connect to the internet.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Being highly distractible. With so much going on it is very easy for me to jump from one screen to the next and suddenly find myself deep in a rabbit hole and not being productive. I hate this, so I deemed 2010 the year of FOCUS for me and so far it is working pretty good but it is a constant struggle. Sometimes I feel like Doug the Dog in the movie Up! Squirrel!

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Becoming a disciplined writer. I’ve got a goal to write at least a real book proposal, if not the full book this year and in order to do that I’ve got to learn to set aside time and make it a priority.

BONUS: Picture of CC’s Office!

Christine Perkett Joins Dialogue Advisory Board

There’s a new member joining the Dialogue team. I’m very pleased to announce that Christine Perkett has joined Aaron Strout, Melanie Notkin, Carol Cone and others as a member of the Dialogue Advisory Board.

It’s not very often that you find a PR practitioner that really “gets” social media. Christine is one of the few CEO’s out there actively engaged on Twitter, who blogs on a regular basis, all while managing a crack staff of senior-level marketing pros at the company she founded in 1998.

Don’t take my word for it, here is a list of a few of her accolades.

Inclusion two years in a row by BusinessWeek as a social-media savvy CEO (keeping company with notable CEOs from Federated Media, Mashable, Sun Microsystems, Zappos, Digg, TechCrunch and more).

Published author and subject matter expert in the following books:

• New York Times and WSJ current bestseller, “Will Work From Home,” by Tory Johnson, Workplace Contributor on ABC’s Good Morning America
• “Twitter Means Business” by Julio Ojeda-Zapata
• “Inside the Minds:Public Relations Best Practices” by Aspatore Books
• “Entrepreneurial Small Business” by McGraw Hill (January 2008)

While not running her company, she somehow finds time to train for a marathon. This year, she’s running the Boston Marathon. Interested in following/supporting her cause? Take a look at her progress here

Christine Perkett, Founder and CEO, Perkett PR
Christine Perkett founded PerkettPR on the heels of a diversified career in corporate and agency public relations in both the high technology and non-profit arenas. She holds specialized expertise in social media relations, business and high-technology media and the promotion of early stage, venture-backed companies. She has extensive experience in public relations and branding, new media strategies, issues management, marketing communications, community relations, promotional writing and events.

“25 Entrepreneurs and Businesses You Should Be Following on Twitter”

One of the “30 Experts You Should Follow on Twitter”

One of the “Top 25 Authorities Moving PR Forward” by Traackr:

One of the “100 PR People Worth Following on Twitter” by Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent:

Hometown – Marshfield, MA

Favorite Book/Recommended Reading- ah, there are so many! Professionally,”Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do“ is a great book as is The World is Flat. On a personal note, I am a fan of non-fiction like Into Thin Air, Beautiful Boy, Black Mass. I have a thing for learning about how people overcome tragedy or extreme challenges.

How I relax: reading (non-work/mindless stuff!), boating, jewelry design, playing with my sons (coloring and Legos are very relaxing!), date night with my husband, TV. Also, whenever I can get around to it – massages at the spa!

Words to Live By/words of wisdom – Trust yourself first, listen to your intuition. Also, life’s short – be colorful.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Phil Johnson

To end the week in our “7 Habits Series” , let’s have a chat with Phil Johnson, one of the best creative minds out there. When he’s not jetting around the country with clients, friends and other marketing luminaries he’s at home in his Cambridge office, just steps away from Harvard Square. And if you have the time on a Thursday afternoon, take a moment to listen to his agency’s weekly radio show on Social Media with Mike O’Toole and  Hugh Kennedy – There’s alway something interesting happening over there.

About Phil
I’m the CEO of PJA Advertising + Marketing. We call ourselves an ad agency, but we’re really interested in all the ways that people communicate with each other, and especially how new technologies are changing our experiences and behaviors.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I’m a talent groupie. Nothing gets me excited like meeting someone with a great mind, a wonderful imagination, and better ideas than me. Sometimes I can’t sleep until I recruit them.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
Well at PJA, we all punch a time clock. Just kidding. I don’t know exactly when the workday starts. After I drop my son at school, I start thinking about business. But once I get to the office, I’ve got to check to see if there are any donuts in the kitchen, then put on some music, and play around with Tweet Deck. Next thing I know I’m writing stuff, going to meetings, and talking on the phone. I think that’s work.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
It’s sad, but I’m just not efficient, but I’ve learned a couple of tricks. Every day, I jot down three things I absolutely want to get done. I’m always happy if I do two of them.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I’m not a huge fan of traditional business books, but here are three books that I really like, and they are kind of about business:

Fast Company, How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds – and Always Win, by Jon Bradshaw. These stories reveal tons about entrepreneurship and human nature.

Stumbling On Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert. Understanding how we pursue happiness is very helpful if you’re in the business of influencing people.

Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. This book helps explain how all these cool web 2.0 technologies that we love are redefining society.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Diet Dr Pepper
PJA note pads
My tiny Bose speakers.

Those things, and my MacBook, are all I need.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
I think I’ll start with trans fats and then move on to butter, sugar, excessive amounts of empty carbohydrates, and alcohol.

7. Habit you’d like to form  for 2010
I wish that all of us at PJA would connect to each other on a delicious network and get disciplined about tagging the content that fires up our imaginations. We’ve got a collection of really interesting people, and their collective knowledge is very powerful. I’d like to do a better job of harnessing it.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- Mike Schneider

Many of you may not recognize this photo of Mike Schneider because he spent the better half of the fall growing a moustache for “Movember“. Now that he’s clean shaven, he is setting his sites on bigger aspirations, like being one of the Top 20 Karaoke singers at SXSW’s “Cog’aoke 2“. While he’s not mastering the art of social marketing and more, he’s QUITE the entertainer, and likes to “sing in the shower and in the car and on stage and at the mall and in meetings and on the phone”. If any of you are reading this and heading to SXSW, please vote for him.

On to interview # 17 of the “7 Habits Series“…

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Fearlessness. I am just not smart enough to understand that there are things that cannot be done and that I should not be able to do them. I rarely shy away from a challenge and do not accept “no” or “can’t”. I heard those a lot growing up in the Midwest. I wanted to learn Chinese as a kid and I remember people telling me “that’s impossible”. One day I just decided that that line of reasoning was something that I could not tolerate and that if I wanted something, it would be better to take a risk and make it happen.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
I think. I start in the shower. I also think in the car, preferably with some new modern rock blaring. I let my schedule whirl around in my head a little bit and usually a few good ideas fall out from between the dates and times.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Efficiency. The bar is set very high for me. My efficiency role model is my best friend, Gregory Ng I’ve never seen anyone ideate, create and deliver like that guy. Assuming I’m somewhat efficient: devices, gadgets and software help me attain efficiency. I love the shiny. Evernote, a tool that syncs thoughts, notes and audio clips between devices is one of my favorites. I am using it now because I suspect I won’t finish this task before I have to move on to the next. If I cannot, maybe I will bang out a few questions from my iPhone later. DropBox is brilliant for sharing. Heaven forbid I ever forget my machine at work (power cord is another story), but if I do, the most important files are accessible via DropBox from any machine. As a look-ahead guy, I am aching for a tablet. I can imagine a bunch of ways that will make me more productive, particularly in sharing concepts in groups and in content consumption.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
That’s like asking my favorite song of all time. I will not be able to answer with just one.

The Art of War.
Groundswell has a few good points.
Wisdom of Crowds and Black Swan are also highly worthwhile for any measurement / experiment junkie. Empirical thinking for the win!
And of course I enjoyed #Crushit by Gary VAY NER CHUK.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Flip/Zi8
iPhone
moleskine

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
If I can do something, one of my tendencies is to go ahead and assign the task to me. That’s not always good.

7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
Balance. A little less work. A little more family, friends, beer and modern rock. Oh. Flossing. I need to floss regularly.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- John Jantsch

If you are a small business on a shoe-string budget, look no further than Duct Tape Marketing. Today’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” continues with
the 7 Habits of John Jantsch.

About John
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Paying attention to what’s going on around me and writing about it daily

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Coffee – I have a routine of sites, email, engagement, Twitter, etc that I run through – I guess it’s part of my overall systems approach

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
GTD and Central Desktop – I’ve always been a list maker

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Practice of Management – Peter Drucker – although it may not seem like it, it’s the best marketing book I’ve ever read

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
24″ Monitor, Moleskin notebook, Jug of green tea

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Coffee

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Increase Yoga and running practices

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Colin Browning

Colin Browning- Photo Credit Jim Storer

He’s # 15 in your scorecards, and number one in your hearts, ladies and gentleman, THE Colin Browning…..

About Colin
Colin had recently left New Marketing Labs to join IDG. He now designs marketing programs for leading technology brands as a part of IDG’s Strategic Marketing Services team.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I started as a photographer. I learned from the beginning that to stand out, I needed to see things differently and to make others see things differently.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
My work day starts when my eyes first open in the morning. I do some of my best creative thinking as I make my cup of coffee and take those first sips as I am thinking about the day ahead. My morning coffee ritual and day mapping is a critical part of my successful days.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep the night before, followed by a morning workout – then no matter what the day throws at me – I am can take it head on!

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I have to say, I have been much more inspired by reading the bios of great artists lately like Arthur Danto’s bio of Robert Mapplethorpe or a biography of Andrew Wyeth (can’t recall the author). These have inspired me with their singularity of focus, dedication, and talent.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
I am going to cheat and write things in multiples (I hate rules):

Photos of my family & friends (iRoadtrip!)
iPhone
notepad & pen

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Evening TV – like many, I do tend to get sucked in.

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Spending more of my evenings playing with the kids and then reading a wider range of material: fiction, non-fiction (not just the social media stuff) and biographies.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Paul Gillin

Ok, Interview #10 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Today’s interview is with Paul Gillin, author of the
New Influencers and Social Media Speaker, Trainer, and  Content Marketing Consultant. One of my favorite “products” that Paul Gillin produces is his website “Newspaper Death Watch“. As a journalist with 25+ years of experience, he is especially tuned in to the evolving space around journalism and publishing.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I suppose I have a knack for seeing where the puck is going, at least as far as media is concerned. I was trained as a journalist but quickly got out of general assignment work and into specialization in information technology, which was a pretty geeky field of the time. The timing turned out to be good, because in the early 1980s the technology went mainstream and I went along with it.

I got my first demonstration of the Internet in 1993, before there was even such a thing as a web browser. I knew immediately that this was the future of publishing and moved my interest and career in that direction years before that became fashionable. I also caught on to the idea that social media was going to revolutionize not just publishing but the way people communicate and was able to get a book into the market on that subject before the feeding frenzy began.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
I have a carefully tended list of RSS feeds from sources I respect on subjects relating to new media. I try to spend one or two hours at the beginning of each day browsing through new entries. I tweet a lot of those recommendations, which generates other conversations and awareness on Twitter. I also bookmark a great deal of stuff that may be useful to me later. It’s difficult for me to start a day without knowing what my most trusted sources are saying about my field.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I use the Google suite of applications for mail, calendaring and many of my documents. This means that nearly everything I write is searchable, which saves me from fumbling around for stuff. I also reuse a great deal of content so that letter writing is more a matter of assembling than creating new content.

My most productive tool, however, is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It’s a voice recognition program that enables me to speak rather than type. I probably work two to three times faster and am able to write considerably more by speaking than I would if I had to type everything.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Two of them are computers. I flip back and forth between them so I am constantly working even while waiting for a website to load. The third most useful item is the microphone I use to dictate into Dragon.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Well, I would sure like to make it through the year without a cigarette, but I’ve already blown that one. From a business perspective, it’s a tendency to take on more than I can handle and then having to work 16-hour days to meet my obligations.

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Doing a better job of following up and staying in contact with people. I value relationships but I’m so busy that I tend to let them lie fallow until I have a reason to contact someone. I would also like to get back into playing the trombone regularly. I was an avid musician through high school and college but put the instrument aside many years ago. It beckons to me but my ability has deteriorated so badly that it’s frustrating even to try.

Dialogue in New York- a quick recap

Last week, I went to the city for several new business, client and partner meetings. Now, when I say the “city” I mean New York City. Growing up outside Manhattan for 14 years there really is only ONE city- and it’s New York. As a Bostonian and now suburbanite, when I head into Boston, I head into “town”, but I digress…

Some quick thoughts to share:

• Don’t bother bringing your iPhone. Seriously, it’s dead weight in your pocket, the AT&T network is simply too overloaded
• Be sure to visit the new “underground” Apple Store on Fifth Avenue- across from the old Plaza
• To save a few dollars, and to get some much needed exercise, I walked most of my way through Manhattan. Grand Central to 90th and 2nd. 90th and 2nd to 86 and Lex (through park), Wall Street to 16th and 6th. Best decision I made.  You simply can’t spend time in taxicabs or the subway when you’re in the city, you “feel’ the city by walking through each neighborhood.
• The site of the Twin Towers is still very much an empty space. Hard to believe it happened 9 years ago.
• Can’t wait to bring the family there next week, next month, or very very soon!
• Interesting fact of the day: I traveled to NY from the Greenwich train station. More people go IN to Greenwich to work, then go OUT of Greenwich to head to the big Apple- who knew?
• If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, seriously consider switching over to Apple.  While your iPhone doesn’t work, you can still do lots at the Apple Store (there are five of them in Manhattan) While at one of their stores, I was able to get an hour of training on some new company software, recharge my latpop, warm up (it was 29 degrees out) and enjoy the company of some genuinely nice, friendly people. It’s practically like having a remote office in every city.