Wikibrands Book Launch at Mill Street Pub, #smwto begins
Its 8pm, Monday Feb 7th 2011 at the Mill St Pub in the distillery district in Toronto. I’m there as @Smojoe and I’m taking a lot of photos. There are a lot of friends in the crowd, and I’ll enjoy posting their pictures.
Sean Moffitt is speaking about Wikibrands, a book that he and Mike Dover wrote that’s ‘…both visionary and pragmatic, delivering a framework for understanding the pervasively connected consumer.’
The subtitle reads, ‘Reinventing Your Company In A Customer-Driven Marketplace’
The reviews are good, and include a common refrain, “A must read for business leaders’. It was an exciting event. Very well attended, there were people of all ages and from many parts of the industry , all united in an appreciation of ‘social business’, and of media making and marketing. Pretty much everyone has an interesting story – it was fun to mingle and be provocative.
There were debates and Keri Blog, Casie Stewart, Michael Nus and Jeremy? and Heather T from the beef marketing board, and myself entertained the crowd with gentle banter and verbal diathermy on subjects relating to social networking and individuals making media for money.
I first met Sean Moffitt in the summer of 2008 at a pub in High Park. He arranged the meeting. But when I think back on the event, I remember it only came about because I emailed him and dropped another friend’s name and then called him up on the telephone. It came about because we lived close to each other and it was a hot summer day and the idea of having a beer with a stranger wasn’t so tedious – plus I made it clear I wasn’t looking for a job, and so I think Sean obliged me more out of curiosity than anything else.
We met, and sat in the window as it started to rain outside, then lightning and thunderstorm. Against that backdrop I showed him my ideas for a ‘relevance builder’, although I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. We looked over my communities, which were drawn out on bits of coloured paper. The whole recipe for how I build social relevance today was laid out in front of him, and he encouraged me to continue, which I have… Anyway, satisfied that it wasn’t a waste of time, he paid for the beers – he felt sorry for me probably. We talked and he spoke in a digital marketing tongue with clever words and phrases that I didn’t really understand at the time. He spoke a new language and I didn’t take much away except that I had a lot to learn. I had a role to fill and I knew it was more than ‘managed services’, and now I know today that it’s called being a relevance producer.
Anyway Sean Moffitt said to me ‘be that guy’ as more of a question no doubt because he didnt know how to sort me, and tonight when he introduced me he still couldnt quite remember my brand, because it does get confusing. Is this Roberrific? or Smojoe? Rob Campbell is the prime innovator of Lenzr photo contests and specializes in building relevance – I make social media for improved search engine rankings.
I wrote a story for the Kickass League of Business People around this time last year. I wrote the piece exclusively for that site, just a few hours after having the experience. The story is called I watched a Social Media Boxing Match. Tonight’s event was very similar and so is my behavior; hours after the event I’m about to hit publish on this blog post.
