Hello friends. We are hosting an all day social media event at which several things are happening between noon and 8 p.m. The order or content might change between now and then, and it’s all pretty informal. Keep checking back to see if there are changes to the parts that interest you.
Noon – 1:30 p.m.: Social Media Lunch and Discussion for agency or organization representatives and those involved in social media. Bring your own lunch or grab something from one of the great restaurants in our Collingwood neighbourhood and join us to talk about various kinds of social media that you’re using and liking (or not).
– Jules Andre-Brown will warm us up with a presentation about a recent event at “The Hive” where he learned more about the work of Capulet. The Capulet folks were kind enough to send him the slides from their presentation and they have a lots of great ideas. He might also talk about Google Analytics.
– We’d like to talk about what people are doing to promote the presence of folks with disabilities in social media, what’s working and what’s not, and how to ensure that we’ve got presence, internet citizenship and the right image. Maybe we’ll even agree on an overarching social media plan together and some milestones with which we could judge our success? We want to hear what you’re doing. If you are an agency, advocacy group or related to our field (or not), just let me know if you’re attending and I’ll add your name and site to this blog entry so people know you’ll be here. There will be lots of time and an internet connection so we can check out your site and what you’re doing and see what you’re proudest of.
– We’re looking for Space Cowboy partners for a summer workshop. We’d like to be part of an interagency day long summer workshop on social media with Lee Ann Ragan, who says (in a tweet from @LeeAnnRagan), “lovely! that would be great – am committed to taking back social media fr mktg folk & using it creatively for training” This is a great introduction to her thinking and work around social media (and her blog is wonderful for trainers and everyone else too).
The rest of the day is open to all community members.
1:30 – 2:30 p.m. Welcome to our new website! We’ve just redesigned our website as part of a branding process, which was part of our strategic plan, which was the product of 11 different groups of stakeholders using 8 different facilitation methods, including staff, folks we support, families, funders, professionals and colleagues. It now runs on solar power, communicates telepathically and if you look at it and click your heels three times your wishes come true. Um, well, not really. But it does get our message across in ways that are more clear and congruent, and it’s very very pretty, and it connects with most of the other ways in which we communicate using social media. Come and take a virtual stroll with us, ask questions, tweet tweets, upload photos and talk about better ways of connecting with people who have similar interests and ideas.
2:30 – 3 Danielle Kelliher from B.C.A.C.L. “Communication Plans and Social Media: a work in progress” As well as talking about how she’s drafting a plan that incorporates social media, the new Self Advocacy Foundation website is a model of excellence in how self advocates can communicate with each other and the world, and she might be able to talk a bit about it 
3 – 4 Jule Hopkins from Community Living B.C. talking about connecting with community through social media and their recent ”I can be safe online” campaign.
4 – 5 p.m. What is branding and why does it matter? Our friend Design Strategist and Creative Director Elena Rivera MacGregor (recently named one of Canada’s top ten most influential Hispanic-Canadians) led us through a number of processes to find out what people thought about our agency (thanks for all the kind words!) and then showed us how what we were presenting could be more congruent with the messages we were giving, and the messages we hoped to give about folks we care about. It was a great process for us, more involving than we expected, and more interesting. Come and learn about what Elena does with companies and how she does it.
5 – 6 p.m. Norman Kunc and Emma van Der Kleft, on the verge of opening their new narrative therapy practice in New Westminster, talk about how they’ve used social media for education and training. Their videos, and videos based on their works, have profoundly affected a new generation.
6 – 7 We’re going to watch and discuss TEDxVictoria Alexandra Samuel Ten Reasons to Stop Apologizing for your Online Life TEDxVictoria We don’t need to apologize? Why is Social Media the hottest thing around? How amazing is the Playing For Change movement? Have you seen the new L’Arche iBelong! website about making friends and having conversationist that matter? How about Noah’s Dad’s blog? Or is it all just a distraction leading to weak connections that aren’t much invested, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests. Is he right? Or wrong? And are you to up to the A-Z Blogging challenge starting in April?
7 – 8 p.m. Family friendly “Welcome to our new website” We’ve got two rooms. Jules will be in one for young people and they’ll go as fast as they want to go and talk about things we don’t understand. We might even buy them some red bull. In another room, we’ll go as slow as you want to go and listen to your feedback. And we have coffee
How about you? RSVP Judy at judy@spectrumsociety.org just so we can keep track of numbers…