Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

This is a small reminder of our tweet up that will take place on Wednesday, June 23!

During the teet up you will meet with the Porter Novelli digital experts including:

Gary Stockman, Porter Novelli CEO
John Havens, VP, Social Media at Porter Novelli and the author of the book, Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media To Maximize Value and Build Their Brand
Marta Majewska, Digital Expert
+ me

and discuss social media in a lovely atmosphere – with snacks and bubbles!

The tweet up will start at 4:45 pm and last till 6.30!

Location:
Porter Novelli Office
Louis Mettewielaan 272
1080 Brussels

Tweet me @dannydevriendt or @pnbr5 if you wanna join!

I just love booths that attract the eye. Grabbing attention at a massive congress as #SXSW is a must if you want to get in the charts. Most booths #fail miserably though… and seem to be competing in sheer boredom.

One of the ones that caught my eye was this “Monkey Wrench”. A Panamarenko- meets-special-mushrooms type of clock-activated red monkeys. Still haven’t figured out what the link with the company’s day-to-day business is, but it looks kinda cool, no?

#SXSW in Austin took off in style (and with a bang). The first Blogger Lounge Tweet-up was brutally interrupted by a massive fire-alarm. Elvis had to leave the building! Stunning sight to see a couple of thousand Social Media enthusiasts on the Texan pavements, hammering away on their i-phones. Must doubtless be the most tweeted fire alarm in history. Luckily it was a false alarm. Last time I checked, most of the building was still there…

Arrived in Austin, Texas, after a stormy, bumby and hellish journey of just under 20 hours. Bit broken, bit beat, bit grumpy, way tired but nothing a Texan stake and some Mexican Tequila-enhanced beer can’t cure.

Arriving on Austins friendly airport always makes me smile: deep-rolling Texan accents and real-blue jeans. A cabdriver with a Stetson reassures me: I really made it to Texas, spending the next days and nights on and around #SXSW (Social Media Wonderland). I’ll keep you all posted!

I must say that this weekend’s Social Media stream on natural disasters triggered very mixed feelings. I followed both the devastating earthquake in Chile, and the brutal storm over France live on social media. Twitter and YouTube proved to be way faster than CNN and even the local French news desk. The social media warrior in me had a glorious “told you so” moment, the journalist in me felt fundamentally and completely by-passed. Simply no way in covering news any faster than this live-stream… you can follow the ripples of the news as they unfold.

What is astonishing is the near real time experience. The constant stream fully local tweets gives a hallucinating vivid image of what is happening. Multiple channels (more people tweeting on the same event) and location tracking filter out hoaxes and disinformation. Direct links to online pictures, videos and text-content give this crowd-journalism a cross-media and very visual impact.

As Social Media can be done on most mobile phones these days, the technical barrier to use it is extremely low. Anyone armed with an 89 dollar phone can cover, edit, shoot, post and share news-as-it-is-happening and will probably have hours of head start before a traditional journalist can work on the premises.

But as the stream of abhorrent news kept on flooding my trackers and feeds, the big difference between this unfolding disaster covered by people who are involved (even committed) and the more distant approach of the traditional channels became very clear.

It is not all about speed, and volume of data. TV gives you a filtered, selected story based on information that is carefully put in a context. It is calibrated for a normal audience. Too shocking or disturbing facts and images will be polished, or left out.

The news will be packed in an item that is tailor made for understanding and assimilating.

Social Media feeds are unfiltered, un-blurred, and raw. It puts you right at the receiving end of a fire hose of pure emotion and drama that is happening right now. You are simultaneously voyeur, analyst, journalist, editor and news anchor.

My question is: can you handle it?