On Wednesday, June 30, Atlanta’s social media community will be joining other cities around the world to celebrate Social Media Day. It’s not an official holiday yet, but we’ve gotta start somewhere, right?  Social media geeks round the globe are encouraged to organize meetups in their local communities using Mashable’s Meetup Everywhere page. What better way to celebrate social media than connecting with other enthusiasts in your area? Come join in the discussion and make some new friends!

“Social media has changed our lives. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but the way we connect with one another, consume our news, conduct our work, organize our lives, and much more. So why not celebrate?” –Mashable

RSVP for Social Media Day Atlanta

The Atlanta event will be held at Hub Atlanta June 30th at 8PM EST.

For more details, visit the Facebook event page and read the Mashable article.

Steve Blank is on a mission to change business education for entrepreneurs.  He is a visionary in the world of startups and is an evangelist for e-school (teaching courses for entrepreneurs) over B-school (traditional big company business skills).  This is a must see overview of Steve’s theories on “Why Accountants Don’t Run Startups“.  You can check out more on the Steve Blank blog.

Chick-fil-A’s largest product launch in company history is the new Spicy Chicken Sandwich.  This company invented the chicken sandwich and now is spicing it up with a viral giveaway of its newest menu item.  The giveaway is being powered by Wildfire Platform, a technology developed by Mobilization Labs (Disclaimer: I’m currently on the executive team and serve as VP of Marketing & Business Development).

The site was launch in the early hours on Friday morning and has just exceeded 500,000 spicy reservations in the first day and a half.  Unlike any other product giveaway in history, this program goes out of its way to provide a personalized experience.  First, the guest selects the restaurant nearest to their location.  Then, they can choose a date and time to visit the restaurant based on availability.  After registering for a free sandwich, the guest receives a personalized email from the local operator welcoming them into their unique store location.  This provides a personalized experience and a direct feeling of connection and engagement with their local Chick-fil-A restaurant.  The guest can print their ticket from home and take it into the store location for redemption where they will be greeted by the local operator.

Each operator has a dashboard where they can see in real time the number of sandwiches given away, who will be coming into their location, and the time of their visit (ie Monday, May 31st from 5-7PM EST).   This allows each store operator to plan appropriately for the increased number of visitors and ensure that each person has an unexpectedly pleasant experience.  This ties in with Chick-fil-A’s vision of creating raving fans.

You see, many large scale giveways that go viral result in unexpected problems.  One example of this was Denny’s Grand Slam Giveaway in 2009 as reported by AdAge. These problems can do more to tarnish a brand rather than elevate it to drive more business.  First, the technology platforms and websites used to drive these giveaways are not scalable enough to handle the increased load on the servers.  The second problem is that the store owners and operators have no visibility into what is coming and are often overwhelmed with people coming into the location to redeem the offer.  To date, most companies and organizations have to take a best guess, but the Wildfire Platform allows the company to know exactly what is coming so that they can be well prepared. 

Since 2004, Mobilization Labs has been developing technology that pioneers an entirely new genre of technology called “social mobilization”.  The Wildfire Platform combines the viral power of social networking with real-world grassroots action to mobilize large teams of supporters into action on behalf of brands, causes, and even political candidates.  Our software has been used by Presidential campaigns, Fortune 500 companies, international non-profits, major motion pictures, and multi-platinum artists to advance the passion of volunteers and fans worldwide.

The company is currently hiring for several intern positions this summer (sales, new media marketing, training/implementation) and also looking for partners to resell the Wildfire Platform and build service offerings around the technology.  Please feel free to contact us at sales @ mobilizationlabs dot com.

Will Diaspora give Facebook a run for the money?  I’m keeping a close eye on this project.  If you’ve seen the video of the Diaspora team, you’ve already fallen in love with this story.  These students are developing an open source competitor to Facebook.  An alternative social network where the users have full control and ownership of their information. This is an example of a real life David and Goliath struggle, only this time fought for the privacy of the people.  Gotta love it!  They set out to raise $10k for a summer project and at the time of this post they had raised over $173,000 or 1730% of their fundraising goal. And I expect this number to continue to rise as people around the world begin to learn of the project.

Check out the Diaspora project‘s page on Kickstarter!

10NTC Overview

We’re one week away from the biggest nonprofit technology gathering of the year: 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference.  For the first time, this event will be held in Atlanta, GA at the Omni CNN Center.  In years past, the conference has been held in San Francisco, but this year NTEN is teaming up with the Georgia Center for Nonprofits to promote technology within nonprofit organizations on the east coast.

Nonprofit Techies

Nonprofit techies from across the country (and around the world) will be descending upon Atlanta next week to learn about the latest trends in nonprofit technology and share best practices.  In a time where many nonprofits are feeling the squeeze of the economic downturn, finding ways to leverage technology is more important than ever.  In a downturn, many nonprofits experience increased demand for their services while at the same time they often feel the pinch when donors can no longer maintain their previous levels of giving.  Nonprofit executives are constantly looking for new ways that technology can help their organizations raise awareness, increase supporter activity, raise money, and improve operational efficiencies. Nonprofit techies are the heroes of this movement and are paving the way for nonprofit growth in the future.

The Nonprofit Technology Community

If you’re attending the conference this year, be sure to spend some extra time building new relationships.  One of the main benefits of this conference is the ability to make new connections with others in the nonprofit technology space and discover new ideas.  You will most likely be introduced to others that are trying to solve similar problems and happy to share their experience with you.  One of the best ways to do this is to attend the unofficial meetups surrounding the conference.  Many of these you can attend even without a conference badge.  So if you’re in Atlanta next week, be sure to register for the 10NTC unofficial events.  For anyone who might be interested, I will be hosting “10NTC – The Non-Profit Technology Rooftop Mixer” atop The Glenn Hotel on Friday, April 9th.  If you’re there, be sure to find me and say hello!

Since 2005, WeTheCitizens has been dedicated to helping political campaigns and non-profits mobilize their supporters into action…and actually measure the results.  You may have heard of the company’s patent pending Wildfire Platform.

In a few days, we’ll be announcing the official rebranding to Mobilization Labs.  The Wildfire Platform will stay the same, we’re just changing the name of the company behind it.  What was the reason for the change?  Well, our customer base has grown beyond the political arena so we feel that this name is more appropriate as we serve our customers in the non-profit, for profit, and entertainment space.  You heard it here first;)

If you haven’t already seen it, check out the Wildfire Platform.  Mobilize supporters and measure the impact of each individual in real-time.

I’ve been spending more time on Twitter recently and studying how different people use the service. If I had celebrity status like Ashton, it would be much easier to build an audience, but most of us don’t have that luxury. So to build an audience, we have to give followers something they find interesting. That means we should focus on fresh tasty content. Mmmmm…..tasty. Think of some ways you can spice up your own twitter feed with more interesting content. Here are some ideas below of my own. After reading, I hope that you will share your own Twitter content strategy with me.

1)Ask Questions?
Everyone likes to feel needed and that includes your audience. Why not ask your followers engaging questions to start a conversation? Barbara De Lollis is great at doing this. You can find her on Twitter @barbdelollis. Be sure to reply and thank your followers who took the time to answer.

2)Share Something Funny
We all know the power of humor so bring a smile to someone’s face today by sharing a laugh and a smile. But don’t be vulgar as clean humor will appeal to a larger audience. As a matter of fact, I need a laugh right now so please send me something funny!

3)News
You’re followers are most likely very busy people. If you’re not adding value to their lives, then they will most likely stop following. So become a curator of news and information on topics that interest you. If you’ve already done the work of finding good news, that is valuable to those who follow you.

4)Engage Across Mediums
When you find a great piece of content in another medium (magazine article, news clipping, press release, or blog article) you should find the author on twitter and let them know that you liked it. Everyone likes to be appreciated:) I appreciate this blog from Alana Marie Edmunds.

Snow in Atlanta!

5)Movies and Pics
Add personality to your stream by sharing a picture or movie from your life that your followers will enjoy. Leo Laporte broadcasted live from CES 2010 using UStream. You can download the iPhone app and broadcast from anywhere. Use the tools and have some fun.

6)Retweet
When you’re followers have good content, be sure to retweet it to your own followers. They will love you for it! And when they love you, they’ll be more likely to tell their followers about you.

7)Making it Personal
Share something personal so your followers can get to know the real you. Don’t be afraid to become a little vulnerable. John Mayer‘s New Year’s resolution is a good example:

“@johncmayer I will not use texting as a form of reaching out for superficial attention/affection at all hours of the night.”

Wow! We can relate to it and also appreciate his level of honesty.

I look forward to reading your new tasty content! Please tweet me yours @brohamm on Twitter.

This is a brief review of Ken Blanchard’s Book “Raving Fans.” Its not enough to have customers. To grow your business, you need raving fans! Raving fans are customers with a story to tell and they are ready to tell it. This means satisfied customers and more business for your company through word of mouth advertising. We all know that the bar has been set low on customer service. You could be doing more for your customers. Surprise them with a higher level of service. Chick-fil-a is a wonderful example of a company dedicated to turning their customers into raving fans. Visit their restaurants and you’ll notice a difference in their food, people, and values.

A special thanks to Caleb Clark, founder and CEO of Mobilization Labs for giving me this book. Mobilization Labs specializes in social mobilization and embraces the raving fans strategy.

View my video review of Raving Fans here:
Ken Blanchard – Raving Fans Book Review

With Thanksgiving approaching this week and Christmas just around the corner, I thought I’d share with you a cool site that allows you to spruce up your holiday photos and videos. Animoto is a great site that spikes the punch and brings some oooomph to your otherwise boring holiday photos.

Not a great photographer? I’ll give you a tip. The key to taking great photos is to take LOTS of them. Then, delete all of the bad ones before anyone else has a chance to see them. Be sure to have plenty of lighting and don’t be afraid to experiment. Try new things such as different angles, candid shots, unique backgrounds, etc. Don’t forget to charge up that camera!

If you want a tip on a great little video camera, I own a Flip cam. I saw John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems using one of these and fell in love with it. He liked the product so much that he bought the company. Any video you see on this site is taken with my Flip cam. I bought the UltraHD, but considering that most of the content I produce is being embedded in websites, the HD quality is not needed. In other words, save your money and buy the regular version unless you plan to watch your videos on a 50″ plasma;)

Content on the web is being created at ever increasing rates. Technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and WordPress make it easy for the masses to produce unique web content. They also allow traditional content creators to engage their readers more frequently…even in real time. Subscribing to RSS feeds have become very popular and many folks use tools such as Google Reader as their primary method for aggregating and consuming this content.

In addition, users of social networking tools rush to build their networks only to find themselves drowning in a flood of information overload. For example, my information feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn fly by so fast that they have little value as an information source. This creates a great opportunity for startups who are able to solve this problem.

Over the next two years, everyone will be looking for the best solution to present only relevant information in the stream. This will be a unique crossbreed that is half newspaper and half real-time feed. The hard part will be getting the “relevance” right. Based on what I do, what I read, what I watch, etc. give me a stream that matches my interests. This will obviously be unique for each user. The advertising industry will be able to benefit as well because they will be able to better target users who will want to buy their products. The consumers will in turn only see ads for things they would want to buy.

This is a great (although lengthy) panel discussion on the subject:

Roundtable: Filtering The Stream. Getting Rid of the Noise