This past week sure has been a busy one. Nothing like being back in the swing of both school and work. I’m sure It’ll all pay off with that diploma in December though.
Wednesday I had a great time visiting my dream school (MIT) for their eConnectors meetup. This was all part of an initiate by David Zhou whose in the midst of creating Boston’s best entrepreneurship hub dubbed ePowerhouse. It’s still in alpha phase, but in meeting David and hearing about his vision, I’m sure that this site will take off once it goes live. I think the idea of aggregating entrepreneurs, investors, startups, people looking for work and events is wonderful. I know I would use instead of checking numerous calenders each week for events.
The insights from the panel were golden nuggets of wisdom from some very successful businessmen. I got a lot out of the meeting and hopefully can apply some of the knowledge in my own career. I’d highly recommend that anyone in business check out the next meetup in about a month.
Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, is conducting a one-hour interview with Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper of The Rockley Group on September 22. They are the authors of the book eBooks 101: The Digital Content Strategy for Reaching Customers Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device. Here’s the summary description from Scott’s email:
“eBooks are hot! In fact, they’re one of the primary growth areas in the publishing industry. But, it’s not just traditional publishers who are taking note. As more and more consumers embrace mobile computing, organizations are trying to figure out how to leverage eBooks and their digital cousins – “apps” – in meaningful ways. Unfortunately, most organizations lack a digital content strategy optimized for eBooks.”
Several members of the TRA360 team have published eBooks and many customers are looking at them as a way of extending their reach into new markets. I’m going to attend this session and will pass on what I learn next week.
A longtime client contacted me today and asked: “Do you guys do any B2B social media? Do you know of any articles or white papers that you have found helpful depicting some solid strategies and best practices for developing a B2B social media strategy?”
I answered with an emphatic “YES” to both questions. Here are three of my favorite articles on the topic of B2B social media strategy:
I spent the first few days volunteering to work at the International Symposium on Nanotechnology at the Westin Hotel and man was it cool. I got to sit in on presentations and discussions about nanotechnology on the cutting edge with some of the world’s leaders in the field. I bet I could school >95% of all business majors on the topic now. I find it so fascinating sometimes I wish I had been a science major. To see gold nanoparticles buzzing around though a high powered microscope was incredible. It is certainly an uphill battle for scientists to catalog all of the new particles being created, especially given the fact that their properties change based on size, structure and relative disparity. The periodic table doesn’t work on the nano sale.
Speaking of awesomeness, I got invited to a Gala atCitizen Schools thanks to John Werner. It was great event filled with tons of people doing interesting things. I made some new friends and had some very interesting conversations about physics and even marketing. I was recommended to read the book Predictably Irrational by Dan Airely and after reading just the first chapter I would pass on that recommendation to anyone. MIT is great at assembling bright minds (Duh) and though it may not be possible, I’m seriously considering making a run at it for my Master’s degree. Sure my GPA isn’t so hot, but
Citizen Schools Gala
I think they’re looking for things that cannot be quantified so easily. Being around bright minds is like light to my eyes and I want to seek out the best from hereon in.
Speaking of the best, I’ve got to give a shoutout to Hubspot and Brian Halligan. They sent me a free pass to the Inbound Marketing Summit coming up this September which is epic considering it costs $700. I couldn’t thank you guys enough, but I will certainly try. Thanks to me being a student, I also get to attend the entire Future M (Future of Marketing) week for free. Hence my tweet about it with the hashtag #Winning. Sorry professors, but I will not be in class that week. Hopefully they will understand.
It was nice seeing some old friends at the Venture Cafe this week. I realized for my schedule I made months ago that it would overlap with VC’s this fall. Epic fail on my part and I’m doing my best to change it. I find the cafes to be some of the best networking events I’ve attended, and highly recommend it. Today I got to attend a Innovation Breakfast with an intimate group in Waltham. Chatting about social media is always a good time and since I don’t know it all, I like to learn. Like my twitter says, I’m a social media expert in training. I’ll surely be a lot closer after these next few month, but can anyone really be an expert in such a new field? I didn’t think so either…
