But, as last year’s event drew to a close I made the decision that I should be where the tech and interactive minds are as much as possible. Especially because I’m looked to as an expert in this field and I enjoy me some networking with the Twitterati. So, here’s the 3rd-person sharing of my steps, in a calendarized build-up, for this year’s event along with a quick (first-person) “what I expect to get out of SXSWi 2012. Enjoy.

March 2011 – Jeff wails loudly that he should be in Austin. He smiles because he saved $2487, but he still misses spending time with fun tech and social media folks. He also misses the barbecue and beer that is prevalent in Austin during SXSW.

Late March 2011 – Jeff reserves a room in downtown Austin for 21 days from March 2 through March 23, 2012. He doesn’t know what dates SXSW will fall on in the coming year, so he decides to take chance out of the equation.

April 2011 – Jeff calls his hotel – reserved for 21 days – and whittles down his stay to a mere seven nights. He still enjoys the smart rate of $249 per night at a top-notch hotel, instead of the prevailing $400-700 per night that is more common when you reserve a room anytime after August for the following year.

May 2011 – Mike Langford moves to Texas. This ensures that Mike and Jeff won’t be sharing the same room at SXSW and will therefore not kill each other. *The prevailing belief here is that Mike would have killed Jeff for his snoring. It’s a win-win for everyone.

June – Sept. 2011 – Jeff waits for JetBlue to put their March flights on sale.

Sept. 2011 – March JetBlue flights go on sale and Jeff buys a seat next to Steve Garfield on NerdBird 1.

Oct. 2011 – Nothing happens other than multiple conferences, speaking gigs, teaching sessions and other real-life ingredients. But we’re discussing the fairy tale land of SXSW, so these things don’t count.

Nov. 2011 – Jeff contacts the SXSW offices and asks them if he can use the pass he got in 2011 but didn’t use, for admission to the 2012 festival. They say YES! Jeff is ecstatic – and in his joyous response offers up his liaison services to the conference committee (thinking they’ll say, “no, that’s OK, we don’t need you” and he’ll get a free badge). That DOESN’T happen. They say they could use Jeff’s help and he is pressed into service, rendering his ‘free’ badge really not free as he has to work for it again.

Dec. 2011 – Feb. 2012 – Jeff works like a dog as a panel liaison. He starts prepping his liver for SXSW. And he contacts people like Aaron Strout, Peter Kim and Chis Anderson to arrange to see and hug them while in Austin.

March 2012 – The festival approaches quickly. Jeff joins Derek Peplau and John Refford in getting strategy together for their assault on Austin. Jeff also joins folks on a Google Hangout to discuss different events throughout the week. Finally, Jeff rents a banjo so he can practice during his downtime at SXSWi.

Goals and Aspirations…

For this year’s SXSWi, I’m looking to do five things. Yes, this is more than the three things your high-school English teacher said you should start with when writing an essay. Deal with it. SXSWi is a big event and three would be too few when it comes to goals. Therefore, I plan to…

1 – …collect and create and share content. Lots of it. I’m bringing a DSLR that I expect to have with me all the time. I plan to share photos to my Flickr site, videos to my YouTube channel and assorted content to Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and maybe some of my blogs.

2 – …take in at least a few educational sessions and actually learn something about technology, the world around me and the people who are making things happen in the aforementioned world. This will likely require me to be at the Convention Center during the day, so that will also happen. Look for me there. I’ll be the one who looks like me and I’ll be wearing an Adam Cohen name badge.

3 – …enjoy some seriously good food. The BBQ, Mexican fare and other dishes in Austin are great. I expect that some of the people mentioned in this post will also join me for a meal or two. I will be sharing information about the food I eat via my Boston Food Fan blog and various social media sites.

4 – …film an episode of NomX3 with Mike Langford. The chemistry, the humor and the intelligence in this show is unrivaled and we’ve come up with a plan to continue the series. Join us in Austin for a live lunch taping of the critically acclaimed NomX3. To see any of our existing shows, visit NomX3.com where you’ll find 45 episodes of genius and good taste.

5 – …discover some new technologies, meet some new people, and do some things I’ve never tried before. I’d like to experience some bluegrass music. I’d like to run into Lance Armstrong. I’d enjoy talking about new tech gadgets with companies that are there to unveil their latest products and services. These things will be details here, over at The Gadget Reporter, or in video interviews that I’ll post to YouTube.

That’s about it in a nutshell. How do you plan to capitalize on your SXSWi visit? What, if anything, would you want me to search out and report on if you’re not going to be there?

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Post tags: #sxsw, Austin, festival, food, mike langford, nomx3, technology, travel

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This shot taken by Derek Peplau at Nogup3 - a Boston Tweetup - you can find more of Derek's shots at http://www.flickr.com/photos/peplau

The title is self-explanatory. If you don’t know how to host a tweetup, this is the book for you. Just click on the link below and it will download for you. You will know how to host a tweetup and you’ll be the envy of all your friends and business colleagues. This is really Tweetups made easy, and the mystery of successful Tweetups will be solved.

I welcome your comments and ideas for future books. Enjoy!

How To Host A Tweetup

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book, Boston, boston tweetup, ebook, fun, how to host a tweetup, parties made easy, social media, tweetups made easy

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Well, if it were that simple, everyone would be doing it. But I’ve had a series of clients find some value in the light, easy-to-create skits and I’ve also taken to doing a few myself – see my YouTube channel for an example or two.

The reason I mention XtraNormal is because 2012 looks to be the year of content strategy for a lot of companies. No matter what channel you operate or with whom you communicate (B2B, B2C, public sector, media), the use of content to achieve your goals has never been more important. You want eyeballs, audiences want information. The sticking point is finding the best way to deliver that content so everyone emerges from the content orgy satisfied.

Suffice it to say, there’s no silver bullet. This is still the misunderstood world of social media where everyone things content is free on the Internet and that social tools and engagement are also low- or no-cost. At the end of 2011, that belief took a hit as some agencies jettisoned their smoke-and-mirrors social media practitioners and went back to the hard work and clear communication that had proved successful in the past.

I expect more of this happen in the early part of 2012 and then I think Q2 will be the golden age of content strategy. Companies will be working toward establishing new channels in which to engage their audiences and they’ll require great writers, interviewers and communicators to help them do that.

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll do a few posts on how content strategy works and how anyone can use it to reach their target market. Until then, take a look around your office and see who’s just faking it until they get lucky. The trick isn’t knowing how to schedule a status update, sent an e-press release or host a tweetup, it’s knowing how to identify audiences, craft messages and then communicate those messages in the appropriate channels.

What are your thoughts on how social media will shake out in 2012?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2012, content strategy, jason falls, social media, xtranormal, youtube

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But what you might not have known is that my car already gets 33MPG and I seriously considered a Smart car a while back to even improve on that.

So, when I saw (and actually drove) the Nissan Leaf in Las Vegas in January I had a feeling it might be my next car. Trouble is, after pinging them on Twitter and getting them to agree to call me to set up the purchase of a car here in Boston, all communication stopped.

I don’t know about you, but if you were buying a TV and asked for salespeople to give you a call, you’d be pretty irked if they didn’t. For something larger – that requires a bit more of an investment in time and energy (ironically) – you’d think the company would be more receptive.

Especially as our society has become one where communication can be done anywhere and with any device. In fact, today I’ve written 11 blog posts – half of which were done on my iPhone using a BlueTooth keyboard. So if you can’t reach me with the technology that’s around today, there’s probably another reason I haven’t heard from you. What about it Nissan?

Nothing about Nissan and nothing against the car. I just wonder if the reason they haven’t contacted me is because the car isn’t ready to survive a winter in the Boston area. I’ll wait and see what happens.

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Post tags: Boston, communication, customer service, nissan, scooter, twitter

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Experience 1
Arlington Starbucks. Friday night, August 5. Two women. Jeff eavesdropping. Topic – writing, copyright and the world or publishing.

The conversation went something like this – and I missed a little because I was loudly slurping my Trenta iced tea lemonade to keep from figuratively slapping both women with real information.

W1 – I want to send my article off to a magazine, but I’m worried they might steal it.

W2 – Then use the poor person’s copyright and send a copy to yourself.

W1 – That’s a great idea. I’ll do that!

JEFF (in his head) – Go ahead and do that, but you’re only wasting $.44 and paper and the environment. If you were not aware – and you’re not – any creative work, once put in a fixed format (like these electrons on this blog post or a sentence on a piece of paper) is immediately copyrighted. You own it. Done. Finished. No need to send money to the US Copyright Office unless you have serious concerns that you will make a fortune off the article or that someone else will deprive you of massive payments by stealing it. FYI – the BEST paying magazines dish out $2 per word to the BEST writers in the world. Unless you’ve written a 10,000-word article for one of these magazines, you’re likely closer to being out $.30 or less a word for your 2000-word article. That is about $600 and would put you in the fairly well paid writer realm. Freelance newspaper scribes get about $30 to $50 per story for weeklies and $150 per story for features in a daily. If you put barriers in the process, an editor is going with someone else. Just send the story in and hope they call you.

The Lessons – Publishing professionals are busy. Writing doesn’t pay well. Copyright is misunderstood.

Experience 2
Boston Media Makers. Sunday August 7. Doyle’s in Jamaica Plain. John Cass and Jeff Cutler talking. Topic – what is going on with publishers these days…we have great ideas and would like acquisitions editors to take note.

The conversation went something like this…

John – I didn’t know you wrote a book. How many is that for you?

Jeff – It’s my first published, but I’ve written others. I just haven’t worked hard enough to get editors or publishers to take note of my other stuff.

John – What have you done? Do you have names? We know a bunch of people who have written books in Social Media. Have you asked them?

Jeff – I have. I’ve emailed folks and hear nothing back. It’s a buyer’s market. Everyone wants to have a book. And everyone thinks their idea is great – even though mine is genius.

John – I’m sure it is. Maybe if we do some agile marketing and content strategy we can get these publishing folks to take note of our plight and make first contact.

Jeff – That’s a great idea. I’m on it. Let’s both write posts, link to everyone and then sit back and count our riches.

Around that point John made a sign like I was insane and walked away. But he was kind enough to write the post we agreed on. Here’s his link and below is an excerpt.

I’d like to use this post, and Jeff is going to write one on his blog on the same topic, to query social media authors about their recommendations for book publishers. Quotes can be anonymous or credited. Tell me what you found to be positive about your publisher, and please give insights on the three areas I’ve discussed above; 1) advance, 2) support, and 3) marketing.

So, how ’bout it Wiley or Inc. or whoever is helping with David Meerman Scott’s next book…do you want my proposal? I’ve got the book fleshed out and can finish it by Thanksgiving (maybe by Halloween). It’s applicable to a large audience (about 260Million people), and I’m already doing speaking gigs using information that would appear in the book. Doesn’t that sound like a pretty good, if upside-down, outreach and marketing campaign for the book?

Let’s talk. And by the way, if you have recently written a book and love your agent and/or editor, send their information along. I was serious when I said publishing folks are busy. There’s no guarantee that anyone will have alerts set up on their company name and will take the initiative to reach out to me.

If this works, I’ll use it as a case study in the book AFTER the one I’m currently pitching. How’s that for social?

© Jeff Cutler for Jeff Cutler - columns, essays and opinions, 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: boston media makers, john cass, publishing, starbucks, wiley

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