Eggs and Social Media

Jeff Pulver, who doesn't even live in Boston, has emerged as one of the prime movers behind creating a high-tech community here. After bringing the VON conference here, and hosting several evening events, Jeff shifted to the morning hours with a Mashup of Social Media and Eggs at the venerable ("Have some more eggs, Hon") S&S Restaurant in Inman Square in Cambridge.  In addition to the expected talking and eating, Jeff encouraged the 50 or so participants to engage in a real-world form of social networking.  While writing our names on the stick-on badges, we were asked to write a line that would encourage further conversation.  Jeff handed out little labels that could be used for tagging (literally, by sticking a label on a friend) and yellow Post-Its that were the meatspace version of the Facebook Wall.  (Aaron Strout's said "Social Media Guy").

The badges worked.  I was intrigued by Len Edgerly's line "Tech Evangelist to the Arts" and wound up learning about how artists promote their work with Podcasts and sell virtual paintings in Second Life's Artropolis.  Also talked to Aaron Strout and Michelle Heath about the state of the mobile phone industry, the strength of brands (especially Apple), the implications of renaming companies (Shared Insights -> Mzinga, Convoq -> Zingdom), and the importance of opt-in for on-line marketing (Facebook's Beacon vs. MatchKey.)

Jeff, please do this again soon.

Comments

[Len Edgerly]

Chris, thanks for the link, and I have to say that I found you to be the best listener in the room yesterday, a good model for how to get the most out of such gatherings. I hope your wife does experiment with podcasting as an extension of her art. Here's a link to the podcast of one artist, Jennifer Lycke, that I think shows how much we gain by hearing a real voice talking about her own artwork: http://www.podcast.net/show/66333 . Her web site is here: http://jenniferlycke.blogspot.com/ . If she's interested, a video of my talk, "The Arts 2.0" at PodCamp Boston is here: http://lenedgerlydotcom.blogspot.com/2007/10/blogtv-archive-of-my-pod.html and Grazr Reading list of sites I mentioned is here: http://grazr.com/read/LenEdgerly/b869a26 . Onward!