Social Media Conference 2010

Michele Morgan is the Marketing Manager for the Washington State Dept of Commerce. She was at the Social Media Conference NW 2010 talking with Aaron Booker of http://www.varvid.com. She works recruiting businesses to come to Washington State. She came to understand how to use social media to engage an audience and be more effective for the state of Washington.

http://www.choosewashington.com

Paula Johnson, assistant professor from Western Washington University speaks with Drew Graham from http://www.varvid.com at the Social Media Conference 2010. She feels that since social media is much more interactive and communcation is now two-way instead of one, it is now much more effective for students.

Todd Elsworth from SPIE speaks with Drew Graham from http://www.varvid.com at the Social Media Conference 2010. He works with the student market which mostly entails working with facebook. He also uses twitter for onsite live events.
SPIE: http://www.spie.org

Andy Vander Meulen from Camp Firwood speaks with Drew Graham from http://www.varvid.com at the Social Media Conference NW 2010. He mostly communicates with his campers through their facebook fan page. He is limiting print advertising and moving things online and by promoting their facebook page. He learned to start using a plan to make his business more effective.

Camp Firwood: http://campfirwood.org/

It really does take a village to put on a conference of this magnitude and some people need to publicly thanked and recognized.

A huge thank you to all of our terrific speakers that took time out of their busy schedules to be here and help us all learn more about how we can use social media in our businesses and organizations. Their participation has made this an awesome event!

And we want to thank all our in-kind and financial sponsors. Without their participation, the registration fee would have been much, much higher. Many were seen today serving as staff.

Also, we want to acknowledge some of our partners that have gone “above and beyond” what they originally promised to make things work because things don’t always work out easily the first time:

• Dave Fisher with Fidalgo Networking installed the Wi-fi today in the theater and the classrooms

• Mark Knittel and crew with Data Doctors provided the IT support

• Matt Barnhart and Shari Burk with Pivot Lab created our image, branding, and design of the website and all of the collateral and a special branding strategy session.

• Amybeth Hale, Suzi Tonini, Heather Dalberg, and Tenzing Kernan helped us to create and execute the social media interactive activities today

• Emily Salle worked on website and helped in the social media bunker today

However, there are two individuals that not only helped us with the 2008 conference but are really responsible for raising the bar on this one. And that is Matthew Dunn and Aaron Booker.

Matthew came to us in 2008 when the first conference was just an idea and offered to help. And help we needed. As he guided us through the content stage, we quickly learned he really knew this stuff and asked him to be the dinner keynote speaker. Matthew mentored us, again on this conference. And even though he is extremely busy with his new start-up, he still found time to answer lots of questions and point us toward out-of-the-box thinking.

Aaron volunteered to video blog before and during the 2008 conference. As a result, Aaron and his crew’s activities in 2008 put this conference on the social media conference map and made promotion for this conference much easier. This year Aaron challenged us to create the social media interactive activities and the concept of a social media bunker.

And last, but not least, if we had a Most Valuable Player Award this year, it would go to Raksha Rathnam.

Raksha has been our social media voice on Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin for the last three months. She was also responsible for the organizing and managing all the social media interactive activities in addition to a multitude of other tasks. Raksha picked up the work of three people in the last three weeks and much of it as a volunteer on her own time just to make sure things got done.

And finally this conference has been a team effort of TAG and the CEV utilizing the strengths of both organizations. It has been a great partnership!

On behalf of TAG and Western Washington University’s College of Business and Economics,’ Center for Economic Vitality, we want to thank our village and everyone for attending.

Joy Gilfilen is an Author, Speaker, and Entrepreneur from Whatcom County. She is the inventor of the Joy Triangle Model and founder of the new website “Uniting Creatives.” She is interested in intentional social change through grassroots movements and creating momentum to make the world a better place. People in social media are in on the cutting edge of change.

Joy’s Websites:

http://www.joygilfilen.com

http://www.unitingcreatives.com

http://www.flippingthejoyswitch.com

http://www.intentionalmediaproductions.com

Jan Hersey from Biz Point Communications speaks with Drew Graham from Varvid at the Social Media Conference 2010 NW. She is a writer and member of the Anacortes Chamber of Commerce. She knows that social media is important and came out to learn more about how it can help the city of Anacortes. The city has already started its branding process and is attempting to get more involved with twitter, facebook, etc.

Varvid: http://www.varvid.com

Becky Raney from Print & Copy Factory speaks with Drew Graham from http://www.varvid.com at the Social Media Conference 2010.

Lorne Craig from Green Briefs chats with Drew Graham from Varvid at Social Media Conference NW 2010.

Lorne learned about strategy for his business, and to ask “Why are we doing this?” He found the presentations valuable and discovered that focusing on the written business plan is important to help figure out why. Its important to figure out how to reach a critical mass and move beyond your local social network into thousands of fans and followers.

Green Briefs: http://www.greenbriefs.ca
Varvid: http://www.varvid.com

Thomas is the Director of Marketing for this major northwest casino and spa. He shares his insight and experience of the surprising trend of people beyond not the ages of 20’s and 30’s using Social Media to connect with entertainment opportunities.

He also views this conference as crucial to keeping up with the medium and looks forward to utilizing Online Video in Silver Reef’s Social Media in the near future.

Silver Reef Casino & Spa: http://www.silverreefcasino.com/