Ellen Foley, (Madison College) Image by wendysoucie via Flickr

Our next Social Media Club educational effort is well – at an academic facility.  Madison College to be exact. Madison College has started a Social Media Marketing Certificate course this fall.  In speaking with Ellen Foley an educator, administrator, and yes a blogger (@foshowmom), we decided a joint effort for our next meeting was just in time.

I had a great meeting with Madison College (previously Madison Area Technical College) faculty members Steve Noll, Pamela Cremer, Lisa Wilbur to discuss what they were doing with students in the program. We wanted to make sure this meeting was an opportunity to hear about the certificate program, network with current members of Social Media Club and the greater social business community, and hear about how Outrigger3 Madison-based agency has been doing event promotion and outsourcing using social media channels.

RSVP to the event at http://oct2010madisonsmc.eventbrite.com.

The Speakers

John Holcomb, CEO and founder of Outrigger3 is our featured speaker for the event.  Outrigger3

John Holcomb, CEO/Founder Outrigger3

(@outrigger3) is an emerging media company helping organizations understand and effectively leverage the unique opportunities presented to them by new media. John’s expertise is in tailoring and implementing emerging media campaigns and forecasting the next wave of new media opportunities for his clients. Whether it’s connecting with a consumer on a hyper local level or mass collaborating with audiences on a global level, Outrigger3 outfits its clients with the tools, knowledge and strategy necessary to connect with their targets and build sustainable, actionable relationships. Some of John’s work has included setting digital strategy for a national restaurant chain, a global biotech company, a film festival, and a US Senatorial campaign. Some of their local clients include Madison College, State Bank of Cross Plains, Famous Dave’s, Promega, and Porchlight.

We can also expect to hear from Steve Noll, faculty at Madison College about the Social Media Marketing Certificate program in its first semester of existence. Notable, many students will be attending the presentation, likely in a sponge like state, to have as many key takeaways as possible.

Event Promotion

Madison Social Media Club has promoted all of our events using social media tools and word of mouth.  After the Chris Brogan event in June, this author even wrote up what we learned about timing and effort in the 6 weeks we had to promote that event. I personally used what I learned after Chris Brogan graced our fair city of Madison,  as a leap frog event for promoting Disney Institute when they came to Madison in August. Disney Institute is the educational arm of Disney Company and the professional development day long seminar was  a more traditional event that has used only email marketing in the past. Both types of events brought together where traditional marketing, email and social mix, support and amplify the buzz.

I hope to learn a bit more strategy and choice making to apply to an even bigger project management event  coming up in February, Social Media Tools Week, a global virtual event on social media tools, application, and case studies. Madison will have its own Meetup for that event and planning is in the works.

Crowdsourcing

According to Wikipedia:

Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.

For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design^[1] and distributed participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see human-based computation), or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).

The term has become popular with businesses, authors, and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticisms.

Turkeys in a crowd

Several unique projects will be discussed that used crowdsourcing as part of the strategy for business goal achievement.

One such crowdsourcing effort is www.futureofmadison.org.

The website says:

In a historic effort to stir up “Big Ideas” about the future we’re asking students, leaders, citizens and you to “send” your big ideas to the year 2112 through a futuristic time capsule.

Neighbors and friends of the 12-county Madison area will choose the best ideas for the next century by voting at the Future of Madison website. More than $10,000 in scholarships and other awards will be presented for exceptional ideas. Madison College will tuck all ideas into the 2112 Time Capsule that will be designed by creative friends of the College. UW Credit Union will award $6,000 in scholarships to three “Big Idea” winners.

Please come and join us at this next cooperative event with Madison College and  Social Media Club.

RSVP to the event at http://oct2010madisonsmc.eventbrite.com.

The program starts at 5;30 PM at the Madison College Mitby Theater located at the Truax Campus.  It will be Open parking night so no permit will be required in the ungated areas of the student parking.

Related articles

• 5 Reasons Your Business Should be Sponsoring Social Media Events (customerthink.com)
• Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Madison (readwriteweb.com)