Anyone who’s been paying attention to this space knows that among my other obsessions, local government / politics and how technology has an impact have been an ongoing theme here. In addition to being a candidate myself, I’m Webmaster of the Pound Ridge Democratic Committee, and I put together social media strategies for another Town Board race. I’ve also worked on Take19 – a group blog which helped elect our very own John Hall to Congress in 2006.

On Sunday, at SXSW, I’ll be joining Advomatic’s Julie Blitzer in a conversation about Web2.0, technology and local campaigns. We are calling the session “Not Just for Obama” because we both believe from our own experiences that the aggressive use of cutting edge social media tools has a place in the most local of political races and movements.

I’m going to talk about how campaigns have changed from the good old days of smoke filled party clubhouses to today’s iPhone empowered field teams. I’m also going to highlight a few great examples from my own experience here in New York State – movements and organizations using the Web to create change in their own backyards. Julie will talk about the technologies themselves and how they are being used.

I hope you can join us on Sunday in Austin. It promises to be an interesting and educational conversation.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How to Use Social Media as a Politician: Local Results (ricksrss.com)
• That Time Of Year Again (parmet.net)
• How Local Politicians Are Using Social Media (mashable.com)

Random Posts

• Whine Country
• PR People as Car Dealers
• Words on Paper

From the chatter on Twitter it’s obvious that SXSW is here again. This year I’ll be dropping in on Saturday night and staying through Monday evening. I did the ’staying all the way through’ thing two years ago and I’m still recovering.

On Sunday I’ll be participating in a session on how the Internet and Web2.0 is impacting local political races and issues. My partner in this endeavor is Julie Blitzer from Advomatic. I’ll have more to say about our presentation in a post soon, so stay tuned.

In general, SXSW can be a giant messy mass of bloggers and this year it looks like it’s going to be bigger than ever. I’m planning to try and see as many old friends as I can and you’ll be able to follow my adventures on Foursquare or Twitter.

I’m also planning on doing as many video interviews as I can, so if you have something interesting to say (or if you are in PR and your client has something interesting to say), please let me know and I’ll try and connect with you in Austin.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is This Foursquare’s Coming Out Party? (markevanstech.com)
• Find Me At SXSW (cc-chapman.com)
• Location at SXSW (jessicaknows.com)
• It’s Location, Location, Location at SXSW Interactive (austinist.com)

Random Posts

• London
• That was fast…
• And we’re live

I’m a bit late to all the SXSW panel picker self promotion this year, but that doesn’t mean I’m trying for my third trip back to Austin. This year I have two panels up for your kind consideration. Both are a bit of a change for me.

Jocks Online: the Future of Sports Fandom came about from my work with NBC Sports and the USOC on the upcoming Winter Olympic Games. We’ll be covering everything from how bloggers are making the back pages irrelevant to how minor league and amateur athletes are leveling the playing field (pun intended) with big league athletes.

Not Just For Obama: New Media Gets Local was inspired by my involvement in local politics here in Pound Ridge, both as a candidate and as an activist. Noel Hidalgo put me in touch with Julie Blitzer of Advomatic and this panel was born. We’ll be covering how social media tools are being used at the local level.

If any of this interests you at all, or if you just want to give me an excuse to go to Austin next March, please vote!

Related Posts:

• I Won’t Be At SXSW This Year
• It’s Almost SXSW Time Again
• More good vibes

The brilliant minds behind the Bad Pitch Blog are offering Bad Pitch Night School (during the day). For only $49,

[C]all attendees will learn a smart, step by step approach to pitching that goes well beyond a simple email. From looking at the whole pitch lifecycle, including the truth about pitching bloggers and using social media in the pitch to tips to improve your news habits and the keys to pitch inspiration, we’ll help you improve your game.

Seriously, Kevin and Richard know their stuff. If you can be there. You’ll be all the smarter for it.

Details here (Best. URL. Ever)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Go To Bad Pitch Night School (socialmedia.biz)

Related Posts:

• A SHIFT in New York
• Social Media Angels
• A Bit Of Self Promotion

Hugh being denied entry to the first venue, or

Finding out that Jason Korman is Nevel Papperman’s uncle.

Random Posts

• It’s here!
• More Dinosaurs
• Who needs marketing when you have a grandfather?

So if you are around Stamford, CT on the morning of July 14, please join us. It promises to be a fun event.

Details.

Related Posts:

• Public Relations For Start Ups
• Assembla in WebWorkerDaily
• The New News Release

Albany, NY was my hometown from 1987 through the end of 1989. I worked in the New York State Assembly and took classes towards an as-still-unfinished Masters degree in Public Administration.

I loved that town and still miss it. It’s one of the oldest established cities in the US and proudly reflects it’s Dutch heritage. The State Capital building and Empire State Plaza sit proudly over the city like jewels in a crown. And it sits close enough to urban (New York, Boston, Montreal) and outdoor (the Adirondacks) recreations. The time I spent there was mostly a blur of catching bands at the QE2, studying for classes, showing up late to work and road trips to Montreal.

I’m still heavily involved in politics of the local and state variety but I really don’t get up to Albany often. So I’m really thrilled to find out that a hard core social media scene is cropping up in my old stomping grounds. Tomorrow is Capital Camp, sponsored by the NY State Senate’s CIO’s office.  And later this month is the very first Tech Valley Social Media Breakfast.

I’ll be going to the Breakfast on June 19. I only found out about Capital Camp this week so I’m too late to attend. But I’m very impressed with what the CIO’s office has come up with (NYSenate.gov should be a model for open government everywhere) and I’m looking forward to following the Twitter feed tomorrow.

Related Posts:

• A SHIFT in New York
• Social Media Club New York
• Anatham

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by david parmet.

I’m at Social Media Camp in a discussion on using social media for your business. There is a wide range of knowledge and experience and I have to hand it to Howard and Chris for being so comprehensive.

Related Posts:

• Social Media Club New York
• Social Media Club New York

There is still a huge gap / void / disconnect between agencies and start-ups. This was most clearly illustrated by Sabrina Horn’s comment on seeking clients who have passed Round A and are bearing down on Round B, and Charlie O’Donnell’s reaction, best summed up as “WTF?!?” Most start ups aren’t getting to Round A these days. Some of this is due to the economy. Also, it’s just much cheaper to do business now than it was in the 90s when you needed VC money to even get your idea off of the envelope. So given that, who’s going to take a risk on the next AOL or Netscape or Twitter? Not any agency that sets a $15K limit in retainers.

Honestly, I can empathize with Sabrina. It’s brutally hard to even hold a conversation with someone if they have a great idea but no money now and no money for at least the first few months. Which is why most start-ups should take the best bit of advice offered by the panel which is to bring someone in-house who is clued to marketing and willing to work like a dog for the glory and infamy.

And frankly a lot of start ups do think it’s all about press and getting into TechCrunch and don’t understand (or don’t care about) the finer points of positioning and messaging.

On another note, I honestly had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting this thought out, but finally Peter Himler talked about knowing who your audience is and where they go for information. Too many people have great ideas for new products or services but no clue who they are trying to reach. This is one of my biggest jobs, to ask the obvious question of clients. Who is going to buy this and why do they need it?

To be blunt, the PR agency model of sucking down 10-15K a month in retainer is going to have to change or the industry will see even greater disintermediation than it has already. Most folks at start ups are pretty hip to using Twitter or whatever these days and can get themselves noticed a lot faster than in the past. And most reporters covering this space are already hunting for the next big thing on Twitter and the usual spots.

So what’s an agency to offer? Sure all that experience and perspective is a good thing (in fact a necessary thing), but not at those prices.

If we can get around all that, there seems to be a bright future developing. With media savvy CEOs of nimble start ups and smart PR people who can help them navigate the seas of a changing media.

Overall, it was a very good event with a very smart panel. In addition to Sabrina and Peter, Adam Isserlis of Rubenstein and Jonathan Kolbe of Weber Shandwick, as well as Chantelle Karl from Yelp! held up the PR side of the equation and did us all proud. Gillian Reagan of the Observer, MK Flynn of The Deal and Rose Gordon of PR Week rounded out the panel, representing the media. Also in the audience were Lee Odden, Allen Stern of Centernetworks and Jason Chupick of PR Newser.

And finally a big KUDOS to Kristin Maverick for throwing this all together.

Bonus Link: a recap of the evening from The Deal’s Flynn.

Related Posts:

• My Visit to Social Media Hour
• The New News Release
• A Bit Of Self Promotion

The Boy Genius and I just had the official Best Weekend Ever. For a pair of geeks that is.

We started out on Saturday night at the Westchester Amateur Astronomers‘ monthly star party. Details are here but do allow me to brag about finally hitting my own personal White Whale – the Leo Triplet – without any computerized or motorized means. Plus we saw that rarest late evening site – the planet Mercury hanging low over the horizon.

Yesterday we headed up to Duchess County for the Mount Beacon Amateur Radio Club’s hamfest. We spent an hour or so rummaging through boxes of vacuum tubes and diodes and lusting over old radios and finally settled on a copy of the ARRL’s license manual and test guide for the technician class license. So if the boy gets his technician class I definitely have to upgrade to general. Time to relearn everything I forgot.

Pictures from the hamfest (with appropriate snarky comments for the Hamsexy crowd) are here.

Since we were already up north and not far from the Newburg Beacon Bridge, we headed to the other side of the Hudson after lunch and drifted south on 9W, past Storm King Mountain and West Point and ending up at Bear Mountain. We spent some time taking note of glacial marks on the rock outcroppings up on top of the mountain, took some pictures and admired the view.

And to top it all off, since he’s finished The Fellowship of the Ring, we’ve been watching the movie in bits and pieces (and it’s much better than I remembered it and I remembered it being pretty good).

Now back to work.

Related Posts:

• Tap Across The Tappan Zee
• Lost In The Stars
• Coming In Like A Lion