While I have a lot of people to thank from this past weekend’s Northern Voice in Vancouver, I especially wanted to make sure I gave a big thanks to Kris Krug and Kimberly for their most welcome and warm hospitality (everyone was so cool). Not only did we have a great time just hanging out with them, but Kris taught me a few more tricks to get more love out of my lenses on that Canon SLR…

He shot this photo of me when I was visiting up there in December 2006, which he was kind enough to let me use on a few Web sites and for other publicity photos for speaking gigs etc… Given the current weight situation, its about as good as it gets! Then again, that situation should be improving shortly - I start with a personal trainer in about 9 hours - better get some sleep and start again early…

As I sit here and look around the room at the number of people who have paid good money to be here at Content Week, where I am serving as Conference Chair at the moment, it just occurred to me how we can get more of these wonderful, smart, caring people into conversations with us at unconferences. We will likely do this with a future Social Media Club Workshop - if you try it, please let me know how it works.

The idea is similar to what I was talking about with Chris Carfi regarding how we might be able to fully realize our spirit of social entrepreneurism in the software industry - by providing one free license to a 501(c)3 for every licensed copy sold to corporations. Perhaps even create a buddy system, or just enable the corporate purchaser to choose from a list of those non-profits who have shown sufficient interest.  In fact, some non-profits who really want the software in question, would become evangelists, trying to find others who would also benefit from the software.
So what we could do with increasing corporate participation in unconferences is charge a lot of money for corporate attendees to participate - perhaps $1,500 each for a 2 day event. Each corporate participant would have ’sponsored’ the another under-funded, but highly valued contributor to the conversation, paying for their travel expenses, and perhaps even providing a small stipend. We would need to use a few hundred dollars to offset hard costs, but the end goal is the same - to get the right people in the room, to get the costs covered and to enrich our ability to learn from each other.  Perhaps we can do this with the Informl Learning Unconference we have been speaking about with Jay Cross - or perhaps use this technique to help Nancy White bring her incredibly talented crew of facilitators together.

Just an idea at this point - wonder if it has legs to run?

One of the most important things I have been talking to people about over the last year is how organizations with similar values should support one another but don’t because of their egos or fear of losing mindshare or donor dollars. Instead of really working towards what is best for the community, they work on what is best for their own self-interest, in the name of the community. As I noted in my post on the Importance of Social Media, this is one of the key reasons many of us left the work world - to leave the political BS behind and do the right thing, that is in the best interest of the community.

That sort of political BS is in stark contrast to the wonderful relationships we are building with the Society for New Communications Research and the National Coalition for Deliberation and Dialogue. Where we are constantly looking for ways to expand the conversations, to include more people and to work together towards our common interests. This is one of the core premises of Social Media Club - to support other organizations that are doing good work - not excluding those organizations that are serving similar interests within the community out of fear.

This is why I am excited to see the Portland Social Media Association rise up from the Portland Podcasting Group. Social Media Club will support them, instead of worrying about them competing with us - we will both be the better for it. We need to find people who are doing the right things and support them so that more of that good work is put out into the world and that other people can connect with them. This is very much in line with the work of The Uplift Academy - another organization we want to support in every way possible and with which we share common values.

I guess I should explain where this is coming from - it is a bit about something I have been holding onto for a while and also about the fact that a few ‘community leaders’ have chosen not to support the Web 2point2 unconference we are organizing, and are, according to what some have told me, actively working against it. (This is not, BTW, something between the 2 conferences going on this week - we have nothing against Tim O’Reilly or the Web 2.0 Conference and as far as I know, they are probably just annoyed with us by the contrast and/or laughing about how hard we work for no money.)

The Web 2point2 Unconference is providing an alternative to the expensive Web 2.0 Conference.  Web 2point2 is more accessible and more about the people interested in the Web 2.0 era and working hard to make it real. Chris Pirillo really nailed the difference on the head - there most certainly is value in the networking, and the amenities offered at a big hotel are really very expensive, but a lot of that is superfluous to what really matters. We are doing this event because it is the right thing to do for the community and it is representative of our core values. We are doing this because it helps us build the community we want to belong to. We are investing our time and energy because we are passionate about doing so and hope to make a living doing what we love.

I’m not speaking against any individual, but I am calling for everyone in the community to be supportive of efforts like the Web 2point2 Unconference and/or to call out the effort’s shortcomings publicly and fairly - to participate in the community. It is FOR the people, FOR the community, and FOR improving the dialogue around social media and Web 2.0 for everyone’s benefit. Those who have said negative things about these efforts wihtout engaging us in conversation about how it could be improved are really doing a disservice to the community. But as all bloggers know, nothing stays secret forever. Those people who serve their own interests over that of the community will be found out. Those who support the community with their hearts, minds and deeds will be the ones who shape the dialogue of the future.

Don’t raise the torch for a participatory democracy when you’re only really marketing yourself as the one who should be put in charge of who gets to speak and who can belong. From my perspective, that looks a lot like a Stalinist view of the world dressed up in Kennedy rhetoric. That is beyond hypocritical - it is like the atheists battling each other in the most recent South Park episode. We don’t need to tear down the walls of a communtiy or organization only to erect new ones, we need to build better doors between communities and bridges across them.

Some people get it and others don’t.  If you don’t know what you are talking about stop talking - it dimishes your reputation and shows a lack of respect for those you are speaking to.  As Lorraine from Credit Suisse whispered to me at the Office 2.0 Conference this morning, “There sure are a lot of BS degrees here today”…

More than she knew at the time apparently.

I have some interesting stories to share on my brief experience with the conference, which seems to have made a boat load of money (good for them) and exposed the ‘me2′ problem of lemmings marching to their death with 80 variations on running MS Office in the browser in addition to the ‘cautious exuberance’ that will hopefully be a halmark for our time.  Time for bed now though - lots of work to do tomorrow, so much so, I won’t be able to get there until later in the day.

I have talked with several of y’all about sponsoring and/or attending the upcoming Web 2point2 unconference (tag is web22 btw) happening on November 9 and 10, so now is the time to do something about it.  If you are still interested in sponsoring, please send me a note and a logo to one of my email addresses so I can include your support in the launched version of the site which I will most definitely be completing on Sunday.

You can also register for $32.95 (plus a small service charge) which includes a t-shirt, 2 lunches and access to the Web 2point2 Release Party, which will be a blowout on Thursday night November 9. Special thanks to Dave Winer who unbeknownst to me was on an email thread circulated by the lovely Miss Grace and who blogged about it on Scripting News, also becoming the first paying participant.  Nice.

His quote was perfect, embodying the true spirit of the event

“Like all the cool kids, I’ll be at Web 2.2, November 9-10 in San Francisco. Like the web, it’s open to everyone”

More details coming very soon, but please do know that space is limited, nothing I can do about physics…

I had hoped to be writing a lot more here and on the Social Media Club site, but being in the real world with so many wonderful people has really made it difficult to do so. Today I have been helping my best friend with his business, Trust Event Solutions, as he tries to make some important improvements in the way his company operates as well as 3 of my other clients, which I will be writing about separately. (1 is at DEMO today, so I am really bummed to not be there with them, but glad I can really start talking about the cool things they are doing once their pitch is over)

Well, gramps and I had a great time hanging out with our good friends from Blog Orlando on Saturday at Disney World. There is an entire set of photos I took of Disney World on Flickr - and another set of photos of the Blog Orlando conference. The greatest one for me personally though was this one of my grandfather. All day long I was concerned about him not having any real fun because even I found some of my favorite rides pretty boring now as an adult, but I was wrong as you can tell from this photo on hte Jungle Cruise that was taken late in the day. He was really smiling like that throughout most of the day, but I did not really notice until I was editing the photos last night because I was so concerned.

Josh Hallet did a great job organizing the BlogOrlando event and it seemed that everyone left having learned something and having made some new friendships. I certainly did and have much more to say about finally meeting Andrea Weckerle and David Parmet, who are both extremely insightful communications professionals who ‘get it’ and have a lot to share. Of course, I also got to hang out with Josh, Dave Coustan, Jeremey Harrington, Vlad Mazek, Andrew Odom, Mark Jaquith, Judson Collier and Disney expert John Frost (who gave us some great insider stories as we toured the kingdom on Saturday). I was also psyched to meet Tommy Duncan from Sticks of Fire, John from the Orlando Sentinnel and Gavin Hall from Emurse, but did not get enough time to really get to know them.

Tonight we are having our first Social Media Club meeting in Miami, with much thanks to Jason Baptiste of The Web Log Wire for hosting and helping organize the conversation. Since I need to leave shortly to get down to Coral Gables before traffic gets bad this afternoon, I need to cut this short and tell you the rest of the stories at another time. So much has happened that I have not written about, I am very excited to share these stories with you…