Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: SMBmsp

Quick Video of My Pix from ‘Social Media Breakfast’ Today

August 28, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Just created another Animoto video from the photos I shot at this morning’s “Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities” at the Minnesota State Fair. What a hoot it was! I didn’t shoot all that many pix. I couldn’t — I had so many people wantin’ to schmooze! But, hey, that’s the best part. Sometimes I think, if it weren’t for SMB, I’d never break away from my computer….

For this video, I decided to use music from one of my own iTunes tracks. (Again, Animoto is a free service if you’re just creating 30-second videos, like this one, but you can buy an annual pass to create longer vids.) This video starts out with a shot of me in my cowboy duds on my deck before I left…

This was the 18th consecutive monthly SMB event here, which makes ours the longest continuous such group in the country! The day started out on a questionable note, with light rain falling as we all converged on the fairgrounds in St. Paul — in grid-lock traffic — for the 8:00 am start. But, thankfully, we had a big tent reserved for us in the Blue Ribbon Picnic Area, just on the north side of the Midway, so no one really got too wet. And the sun broke out by about 9:00 am, making it a gorgeous day at “the Great Minnesota Get Together.” Many of those attending the event hung around to spend the rest of the day at the fair…

Thanks to the Minnesota State Fair folks (@minnstatefair on Twitter) for hosting us, to Fox-9 (@myfox9) for the TV crew (watch tonight at 9:00 pm!) — and, especially, to my buddies Rick Mahn (@rickmahn) and Mykl Roventine (@myklroventine) and their crew for organizing such a fun event!

The highlight for me was the reading of the winning entries in the “Bacon Haiku” contest — one of which was mine! Myself and the rest of the 10 winners each got a cupful of chocolate-dipped bacon strips… mmmmm! And another nice touch at the event was Chris Lower (@MrChristopherL) getting our famous local No Name meat company folks (@NoNameSteaks) to show up and hand out free coupons for a package of their great bacon! Hey, now that’s social media word-of-mouth at its finest, huh?

A Quick ‘Blogwell-Minneapolis’ Video (My First One Ever Created with Animoto)

August 26, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Just for the heck of it, I decided to try a service called Animoto, which promises to lets you create videos in minutes from your own photos, letting you add music you select from their site, or you can use your own track. It’s free for creating 30-second videos (like the one here), or, if you want longer videos, it’s just $30 for a full annual pass, to create as many as you want.

I just uploaded a selection of my Flickr set from the Blogwell event, which I attended a couple of weeks ago (see previous post), chose an instrumental track, and — sure enough — I got the end-result in minutes. Pretty cool. Kind of a poor-man’s way to do video… 🙂 Especially if you’re like me and shoot a ton of stills at events of all kinds. Man, do I have the archive.

Hey, I just might make another video with the pix I shoot this Friday, August 28th, at our next Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities — it’s at the Minnesota State Fair. That’s right, “Social Media on a Stick!” I just might wear my cowboy boots and hat…

Wonder what music track should I use for that one? Hmm, the possibilities boggle the mind…

David Meerman Scott to Speak at ‘Social Media Breakfast’ in Twin Cities October 31

October 11, 2008 / / 1 Comment

I’m really happy to report that I successfully convinced one of my famous-author friends to speak to our next Social Media Breakfast here in the Twin Cities. We call it "SMBMSP" for short, and this is our eighth monthly event. Smbmsplogo
David Meerman Scott, a very well-traveled and popular speaker, is the author of the top-selling book, The New Rules for Marketing and PR. Davidmscott_2

He told me back in August that he’d be coming to MInneapolis for a seminar on October 30, so I asked him if he would consider staying over another night if we could schedule one of our breakfast meetings on the 31st. Newrulesbookcover_2
He was gracious enough to say yes, so we got some sponsors, and now we have it all scheduled. It will be held at Deluxe Corp’s headquarters in Shoreview, MN, thanks to my friend Steve Neilsen, whose company, PartnerUp.com, was recently acquired by Deluxe. The meeting is scheduled for 8:00 to 10:30 am on Friday, October 31. Attendance is free, open to anyone interested in social media, and the first 100 attendees will receive a free copy of David’s book. (By the way, David blogs here.)
To register, go to our group’s social network site at smbmsp.ning.com (clip shown here), click on the "Events" tab, then click on "SMB-Twin Cities 8," and then look for the "Order Now" button. Smbmspningpage_2
Or, just go directly to our RSVP page. Look forward to seeing you there!  Oh — and costumes are optional…  🙂

What I’ve Been Blogging and Tweeting Lately

October 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Just a post to catch you up to what I’ve been doing elsewhere online recently, on venues other than this.  First of all, my volunteer/pastime blogging thing over at Minnov8.com included a post a couple days ago on a bigtime conference held here in the Twin Cities last week called the MIMA Summit. Mimasummitpost_3  It was sponsored by, you guessed it, MIMA (the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association). Here’s a partial screen clip of that post, and the whole post is here.

Then, just yesterday, I participated again in the weekly Minnov8 Gang Podcast, this one Episode 9 already. (Wow, time flies when you’re having fun.)  You can grab it off the Minnov8 home page via the link at top center there, as you can see on the second screen clip. Minnov8podcastlinks We talked about a number of topics, including recent confabs in the Twin Cities, the economic times, social media (of course), and, hey, even wine.

Finally, I continue to Twitter all the while — that just never stops! 🙂  I’m including here a recent screenshot of my Twitterstream. But please do follow the whole dang shebang here.  Graemetwitter1008
One cool thing that happened recently is this: I received a rating for my Twitter account of 91 out of 100 from twitter.grader.com.  Wow, that means my Twitter presence is rated higher than 91% of all the other accounts they’ve graded! Nice to know I’m doing something right..

UPDATE 10/6/08:  Meant to say that social media is a part of everything I do now for my clients, and also that I’m quite active in our local Social Media Breakfast organization. Be sure to keep the morning on Oct 31 open, because we have an exciting, nationally known speaker coming to town. [Actually, he was already here for a private gig, and I convinced him to stay over a night…  🙂 ] Watch the "SMBMSP" site above for the announcement later today.

UPDATE 10/9/08:  I see our local media site MinnPost picked up my story on the MIMA Summit.

© 2024 Graeme Thickins on Tech

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑