Scott Porad at SXSWi 2009

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While asking random people at SXSW what two words described their experience at the conference, I ran into Scott Porad, Cheezburger Technology Officer for I Can Has Cheezburger – a website well known for its cat pictures with hilarious captions that has been going strong since January 2007. I just had to speak with Scott about the site that is currently attracting five million page views a day and closing in on hitting two billion (BILLION) page views this year. See what Scott has to say about I Can Has Cheezburger.

Jason Falls at SXSWi 2009

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Before venturing into the Blogger Lounge at SXSW, I was not privy to all that was Jason Falls until I was encouraged to sit down and have a chat with him to find out just what makes his blog, Social Media Explorer so successful and how Twitter has added to his fame. Along with his successful blog and being one of the nicest guys I’ve ever shared BBQ with (at Stubb’s in Austin, Texas), Jason is director of social media for Doe-Anderson, a brand-building agency in Louisville, KY and co-founder of the Social Media Club in Louisville.

Justin Levy at SXSWi 2009

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Justin Levy is the newest pirate to join Chris Brogan over at New Marketing Labs – a new media marketing agency, as well as the home of the New Marketing Summit conferences and New Marketing Bootcamp educational events. If you have ever seen Justin speak publicly or just hung out with him, you know he isn’t shy about sharing his thoughts and opinions, no matter how different they may be from the norm. I think this is why people like the guy so much (or perhaps that is why I like him so much).

Check out his response to my question “what makes a social media expert.”

David Meerman Scott at SXSWi 2009

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I ran into David Meerman Scott , author, speaker and marketing strategist during SXSW and asked him a few questions about his newly released book – World Wide Rave and his thoughts around what to look for when hiring a PR (or advertising) agency to handle social media projects. Be sure to download World Wide Rave onto your Kindle or get a hardcopy for yourself. I got mine!

Social Media – How Personal is Too Personal?

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When I spoke recently at the Ragan Social Media for Communicators Conference, I had some great discussions with business and marketing executives about social media. Some folks were using it, some were just exploring and many – more than I would have anticipated – were still very far removed from it.

I’m an advocate of social media – I enjoy it personally and I get very excited about its application for businesses. But one question that kept popping up was “How do you balance the personal side with the business side?”

I have thoughts and advice on this – watch for more news about our upcoming Social Media Bootcamp program to find out more. In the meantime, let’s start with Facebook. I personally find it one of the most challenging communities for balancing. I have both friends, family and business connections there – and for me, that can get interesting.

So how do you use Facebook? Please take our poll and let us know – we’ll be writing more on this topic, and sharing the results, soon.

25 SXSW Attendees Explain Why You Should Attend Next Year…Oh and they did it in two words…

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Inspired by Steve Garfield’s video montage “27 People, One Question” I thought it would be fun to do something similar during my trip to SXSW Interactive. Throughout my time there, I had some lighthearted fun with attendees and asked 25 people to give me two words that describe their experience at the event. Some of the responses, both serious and entertaining, came from folks like Jeff Pulver, Chris Brogan, Justin Levy, Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Jason Falls, Aaron Strout, and many others. Using my handy Kodak Zi6 HD camera I captured some great footage that hopefully encapsulates what SXSW Interactive is all about and in some cases, just made me go “huh?”

So without further ado, for your viewing pleasure check out what some of this year’s SXSW Interactive attendees had to say for themselves. I am sure you will recognize a few of your friends and hopefully have a few laughs along the way.

A special thanks to everyone who participated and shared their two (and sometimes more) words and thanks for all the memories. See y’all next year – SXSWi 2010!

Disclaimer: The video quality and lighting varies slightly due to the ‘extreme’ shooting conditions of SXSW. 🙂

Translation: This was my first attempt and I didn’t lug around all the lighting and sound equipment with me for these impromptu shots, so some responses were a little more difficult to see/hear, but you get the point.

Music: Dan Tharp, Guitar Suite I – Movement I and II
Camera: Kodak Zi6 HD

Social Media Jungle: Boston – Session Videos

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Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle: Boston event on March 10th brought together a diverse group of professionals to engage in a day of “Powerpoint Free” sessions given by some of Boston’s well known entrepreneurs, marketers, technologists and social media evangelists. Each “blog post” style presentation kept the attendees engaged, and there was plenty of conversations sparked by the wide variety of topics such as “The human side of social media” with C.C Chapman, “New media tools you can use to tell your story RIGHT NOW!” with Steve Garfield, “How small business can use inbound marketing/social media to help increase their business” with Justin Levy and “Thinking about what numbers actually matter” with Christopher S. Penn.

Please note that each session clocked in between 20 and 30 minutes each, so be sure to make some popcorn before you hit play! I’ll be publishing all the videos over the course of the next week, and each new post will automatically appear in the video widget below. Alternatively, you can find them via the “SMJBOS09” tag on Viddler.

I’ll also tweet on the PerkettPR Twitter stream to share each video as they are published. Let’s start with Jeff Pulver’s Session. Enjoy!

South by Southwest or Bust!

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SXSW 2009PerkettPR is heading to Austin, Texas this week to attend one of the most anticipated events of the year – SXSW 2009 Interactive! Heather Mosley (@mosleyppr) and I both served as panel liaisons for this year’s festival and we are looking forward to meeting with all the social media movers and shakers at the event.

Along with attending the many sessions the conference has to offer, we will be conducting several informal video interviews from the event to share on this blog. We have already confirmed some great interviews with David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan, Justin Levy, Peter Kim, Steve Garfield, Michael Langford, Mike Lewis and others, and we are looking for more! If you are a tech blogger/reporter, entrepreneur, social media enthusiast or just a big thinker who would like to speak with us at the show and tell us about your innovative spirit, please let us know – we’d love to connect in Austin to learn and share more.

If you are not attending but would like us to try and catch someone specific for an interview, please send us a note or post some suggestions here – we’ll do our best to catch those folks on video. Also, send us your suggestions on the “must see” events, parties, and activities we should plan on attending. We don’t want to miss anything!

Here’s what we’re looking forward to:

  • The Accelerator, in which about two dozen startups will demo their services or products before a panel of judges; venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki and tech journalist Brad King will emcee the event
  • Core Conversation: Why Gen Y Won’t Friend Your Brand
  • Guy Kawasaki’s Keynote Interview with “The Long Tail” writer Chris Anderson
  • Core Conversation: How to Create a Great Company Culture
  • Opening Remarks by Tony Hsieh of Zappos
  • Core Conversation: Advertising is Entertaining – Who’s Selling Out?

And so much more! We look forward to seeing you at SXSWi!

Contact/follow us at:
Christine Major – cmajor [at] perkettpr [dot] com or DM at @cmajor
Heather Mosley – hmosley [at] perketpr [dot] com or DM at @mosleyppr