dc’s pillsbury law sponsored the entire event and brought along some of the startups from their own incubator program - euraeka, fela, fitfeud, counterpoint and cyncz. the end of the evening came too fast, but of course there will be another tech cocktail this coming june.

see more pictures here. are you on my mailing list? if not, sign up today.

the main sponsor of tech cocktail dc 5 was when.com – a local search engine that helps you discover things to do locally. when.com helped make it possible for a record number of startups to show their stuff, including: diditz, earth aid, fitfeud, messagepub, inside job, mpowerplayer , pointabout, wegora, tweetmart, buddycast, and consumer healthcare advisers inc.  to learn more about each of these startups here, check out this great overview done by jimmy gardner on techcocktail.com.

see more images from the event here.

Social Media from the Corporation to the Scrappy Startup

My history is working in product development. I’ve worked on building social media/community tools but also leveraged social media for other products I’ve worked on.

Story:

In 2006 I was mananging RSS products at AOL, trying to advise others on syndicating content and beginning to build out a new myAOL product.

• We had an innovative team, including a new hire who was already known in the blogosphere
• Our team was at the forefront; we charged forward and asked for forgiveness later if we needed to (with great support from our direct management)
• We started with blogs – our own and participating with others – getting involved in the space well before the launch. We did the Facebook page, videos on YouTube, got great coverage across the blogosphere, which then led to traditional media coverage such as the Washington Post. It was great for awareness and trial and internally it led to more friends in CorpComm and across other product teams within the company.

I left AOL at the end of last year to start work on Shiny Heart Ventures as well as some photography and writing projects. The variety of tools out there has made this transition very successful and comfortable for me:

• Linked In and Plaxo were like announcement to the world of the changes in my job status
• My personal blog is where I showcase my various projects and make myself accessible to others
• Through Facebook and Twitter I’ve been able to stay in touch with all my old coworkers and industry friends
• I’ve slowly introduced SHV to my network to begin building supporters and advocates
• We just launched the SHV blog and are planning to use it for communication about our company but also to start a dialog about building a company with great values. We want to use it to highlight other companies we admire, share our discoveries and challenges and hopefully get some good input from the community.

Takeaways:

• Important not to just charge into conversations but to observe, introduce yourself and then join into relevant conversations
• Excitement can lead to dozens of accounts across social media tools – and the downside can be lack of follow-through and ownership. Abandoned blogs and conversations.
• In a large company it’s easy for those details (which sites are we on, account access, etc) to get lost but if it’s your business, you must own all the accounts and be responsible for them.
• Don’t begin to build a community area and then leave it. Bad bad bad – but very easy to let happen.
• As a company you must decide how transparent you want to be.
• Within a company, if the boundaries aren’t clearly defined, people are left to make up their own rules
• Have seen some companies empower their people on Twitter to use it for promotions (like Kodak, Starbucks, and several others)
• There’s always a challenge between the “brand” and the “individual” – what’s right for you?
• Just like a door to door salesperson, every online social media interaction is real human to human contact. Powerful opportunity – people always remember how you make them feel. We’ve seen brands erode because people don’t feel connected anymore. The opportunities to make people feel heard, important, appreciated are endless! Be responsible for your interactions and how you treat them online. Figure out where you need to be, how often, develop your plan and follow through – make it part of your daily operations.
• Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO who has been all over the media lately, has talked about the importance of having greater purpose in life (person and company) and ultimately tying it all back to happiness (my favorite topic!). Zappos interactions with customers have a goal: to make the best impression possible. You can watch him in action here.

i ended on the happiness note because i truly believe when your motivations are right and paired with a great business, you can’t go wrong.  my talk was live-streamed – here’s the video if you missed it!

you can find my fellow panelists at their sites – make sure to follow them on twitter too.

• Beth J Bates at BethJBates.com @bethjbates
• Jill Foster at Women Grow Business @jillfoster
• Terri Holley at Creative Blog Solutions @creativeblogs
• Mayra Ruiz-McPherson at MayraRuiz.com @marketingMisfit

owners and operators blair zervos and ricardo vergara (also co-owners of the red and the black, a popular bar on h street) are making sure the business has a strong social media presence as well. visit the website to join their facebook fanpage, get on their mailing list or follow them on twitter so you can see photos and videos of their progress, and get updates about their opening. check out some of the artsy details below, all hand-crafted by the talented local artist lee wheeler – see more photos here.  congrats to everyone involved (so proud of you guys!!!) – lots of long, hard work getting there but what a great addition to washington dc.

i forgot my camera and took these with my iphone… not the clearest but not bad. glad i had it. maybe santa will bring me the new canon 5d mark ii this year! happy holidays.