The Heartland Regional Conference Programs Committee has selected the speakers/presentations for the 2012 conference in Cleveland.  Speakers are being notified and info will be posted on the HRC website soon - http://smps-heartland.org/. 

The Opening Keynote Speaker will be Jack Plunkett, author of The Next Boom | What You Absolutely, Positively Have to Know about the World Between Now and 2025. An engaging presenter from Houston, Texas, Plunkett will help us understand how the global economy will effect our businesses.

"The book serves as a guide to understanding how best to position any business, investment or career to benefit from the expected growth. "
- BizTimes.com

http://www.plunkettresearch.com/nextboom/

I hope to see you all in Cleveland, Ohio April 25-27.

Heartland Regional Conference

Call for Presenters

The 2012 Heartland Regional Conference Programs Committee:

Ray Stokes, PE - Co-chair
Business Development Leader
Burgess & Niple, Inc.
Office: 614.459.7272, Ext.1209
Cell: 614.214.9228
ray.stokes@burgessniple.com

Liz Zimmer - Co-chair
Marketing Manager / Principal
THP Limited, Inc.
Office: 513.241.3222
Cell: 513.518.3953
liz@thpltd.com

Megan Gilbride
Business Development Manager
Scheeser Buckley Mayfield LLC
614.623.8934
mgilbride@sbmce.com

Adam Kilbourne
Associate - Director of Marketing
Tec Inc.
440.953.8760
akilbourne@tecinc1.com

Ted Orr
Marketing Coordinator
Korda
614.487.1650
Ted.Orr@korda.com

Have you hung out in Google+ yet?

So far I haven't spent a lot of time in the Google+ environment. The one piece I love and have put to use a number of times is the Hangout feature.  Hangout is a free group video chat.  You don't have to use video, but that's what makes it fun.

The screen layout for a Hangout is really slick.  A hangout can be started by anyone with a Gmail account and the Hangout can be public or limited to specific circles. Participants may see the Hangout in their stream or be invited to join the Hangout. The participants, yourself and up to nine others, show up as live video thumbnails across the bottom of the screen. Using the audio feed, Google figures out who is talking and switches their video to a large view at the top. It's not always perfect, but is pretty good. The interface also allows for typing into a chat window, named Hangouts, shared notes, sketchpad, screensharing and Google docs integration. Currently, Google+ and Hangouts are not available to Google Apps for Business users, only standard Gmail accounts. Hangouts are just starting to roll out to mobile devices (phones and tablets). One new feature in limited release, selected by Google, is Hangouts on Air.  This feature will record and broadcast your Hangout publicly. The first nine people can join, all others can watch.

The SoMegos (myself, Holly Bolton & Dana Galvin) tried a Hangout the first week it was available.  The timing of the release could not have been more perfect.  We were just getting to the point where we had to discuss key points and begin practicing our presentation for Build Business. Living in three different cities, with the most central location being about 3 hours +/- for each of us, we needed a way to effectively collaborate from a distance. Each of us had the necessary webcam and Gmail account. Login, start a Hangout, send an invite, join and the three of us can see each other. During one of practice sessions we invited our liaison, Scott Butcher, to join us. He was able to watch our presentation and provide valuable feedback from a fourth, more distant location. We didn't use all the tools as part of Google+, but at various times we did also use GChat and Google Docs to complete our white paper and presentation.  

Another way I have used Hangout is to video conference with our branch office.  I'm at the company headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, along with the principals in our firms. Our Director of Lighting Design and Mike Totsch, our Director of Client Development are in the office in Columbus, Ohio. During our weekly scheduling meetings we had been using Skype to bring Ardra and Mike in. Last week I switched to Hangout and it worked as well or better than Skype.  I think the video quality is better in the Google product. Just as it did with our group project, Hangout would allow multiple offices to connect through video.

A few ways SMPS chapters and committees might use Hangouts

Many chapters cover a very large geographic area, like an entire state, or even several states. To include people who may not be able to make an event due to distance, you can setup a Hangout and invite those members to attend virtually. Obviously there are some logistics to deal with - internet availability at the site, permission from the presenter(s) to use video, etc. But with some planning, this would be a excellent way to include geographically distant members. 

CPSM study groups can be coordinated within chapters, or even among multiple chapters. Virtual "team Jeopardy" anyone?  

Board member stuck at the office, include them via Hangout. 

National committees currently meet via teleconference.  You can see who's talking with Hangout. Maybe the technology committee can try it out this year. 

Do you have other uses?  Share your ideas.

If you would like to try it, I'd be happy to Hangout with you. Send me a Hangout invite, if I'm near my computer I'll fire up the webcam. Find me at Adam Kilbourne on Google+.

Below is a standard Hangout window. Invite button at lower left.

Below is Hangout with Extras. The layout is different, invite button in upper right (red box with +), above the video thumbnail.

As part of our CPSM Day Presentation the Three SoMegos along with the infamous El Guapo put together a movie to get the audience introduced to us. 

If you missed it, or just really liked it, you can check out the silent movie (it's not really silent) about the Three SoMegos and El Guapo. 

http://youtu.be/RBEtocZw0Kg

Thank you to the SMPS Foundation and Kevin Doyle for letting us work outside the box.

We made it through, our white paper has been turned in.  Now we have our sights set on a the presentation for CPSM Day at Build Business.  As we neared completion of the paper, we had to prepare an outline of our presentation. The powerpoint is 95% complete and today was our first practice session.  

As SoMegos we've been known to blaze new trails, trying new ideas while incorporating technology. In order to practice "live", we used the new Google+ Hangout feature that facilitates group video chat. The audio and video quality were fantastic for our needs.  Mini images of the participants are lined up on the bottom of the screen while the person "with the floor" is expanded to a large image at the top. Google switches the images when somebody begins talking. The links below have screenshots of our video chat.

http://twitpic.com/5xqh7o 

http://twitpic.com/5xqhm8

No spoilers here, but we are working on some unique aspects to our presentation, including a fun introduction. Stay tuned.

We are nearing the end of this journey that was probably much more involved than any of us thought. Through conference calls, 100's of emails, trips to non-exotic locales, and a few beverages, we are just about complete with our draft.  And on schedule, thanks to an extension by the White Paper Taskforce.  

Our first draft—we thought was pretty good—then we got the notes back; not as good as we thought.  Time for a team meeting in Columbus.  Although Dana and I were fighting head colds, we regrouped and adjusted our plan.  I think we got back on the right track.  Just a few final tweaks, some editing for Chicago Style, and we can turn it into the copy editor.

As authors living 3-5 hours away from each other, we had to take advantage of technology to accomplish our tasks and meet the deadlines set by the White Paper Taskforce.  Google Docs carried the heavy load.  We were able to store and share our working files, as well as, edit simultaneously.  There were several nights that Holly and I were working at the same time and had a Google Chat window open, asking questions and providing feedback. 

Next step - presentation for the national conference.

I recently had the opportunity to work with several of the planning committee members of the Build Business 2011 conference.  We were together in Houston volunteering as judges for the MCAs. The idea came up to create a couple videos to promote the national conference.  

The participants of these videos would like to ask you to share these videos with your chapters in whatever creative ways you can. Maybe you can share the YouTube links in your chapter newsletters or download the videos and show them at your chapter events.  The message in these clips can help a member get buy-in from their bosses when asking to attend the conference.

The first video required some trial and error on location, and several takes to get the content recorded. But in the end, it all came together.  Programs Chair Jenifer Johnson, Conference Co-Chair Mitch Levitt, and National Board President Carolyn Ferguson take turns speaking about the sessions at the conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FRrv1zJRdQ

In the second video, the three National Board presidents - Immediate Past President, Tom Smith; National Board President, Carolyn Ferguson; and National Board President-elect, Frank Lippert speak of the benefits of attending the national conference.  They provide some great ideas to take back to your boss when asking to go to the conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqhur4Cd_FA

Thank you to the "cast" for doing an outstanding job, off the cuff. Special thanks to Mike Totsch for being the "Producer".  Mike organized the cast and helped develop the content. 

Hope to see you all at the conference in Chicago, August 24-26th.  It's going to great!

The Build Business promotional videos are available for download at:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10809804/BB2011_1.MOV

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10809804/BB2011_2.MOV

After much effort, a few phone calls, a gazillion e-mails, and a survey, our very rough draft has been turned in to our incredible liaison, Scott Butcher.  

Being light on content is not going to be an issue, I think we are going to struggle to keep it under the maximum.  We turned in a solid draft, but there are a few areas that are still in skeleton form, or not completely edited by us yet.  For the draft, we cited our sources, but haven't structured them to the format required by the Foundation.

The hardest part is mostly done. The survey is complete and we finished the analysis, we just have to create the associated charts.  Case studies have been researched and written.  All they need is some fine-tuning for consistency.

As we wait for Scott to read and comment we are planning our next step - meet in person to work out some of the bigger items.  Much can be, and has been accomplished via teleconference and e-mail, but the in-person work is critical to get a polished paper.

Working on a team that is spread across the country is fun but has its challenges.  Obviously, we don't see each other on a regular basis, so we have to make do with conference calls and lots of e-mails. I don't know how teams have collaborated in the past.  In order to share our documents we have a used a creative combination of free (or borrowed) tools to gather information and share our working documents.  Here's a little rundown of what we are using.

• In MySMPS.org  we created a community and use that to store web links and articles that we may use as part of our secondary research.  The library here is great for storage.  We tried the Wiki for a working document, but it lacked some needed functionality.
• Google Docs provides the functionality we need for our working documents.  We use this for the outline and draft of our paper, as well as, a spreadsheet for a to-do list.  One team member sets up the document and sets the share permissions for the other team members.
• Zoomerang was used to conduct our survey. SMPS National allowed us to use their account, which isn't free to them.  So this is our borrowed tool.
• LinkedIn is our secondary distribution method, e-mail was the primary.  In order to get our survey out to as many relevant people as possible, we incorporated LinkedIn Groups for distribution. By joining groups relative to the demographics we wanted in our survey (AEC industry related owners and consultants), we were able to post a link to the survey in new discussions.  Direct communication with other organizations provided little assistance with our survey distribution, so we pushed through on our own through LinkedIn.

According to the schedule, we are somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 done with our white paper. It feels like we are making progress, but also feels like we have a long way to go.  

We certainly wouldn't be where we are without a little help from our friends.  Scott Butcher, Frank Lippert, and Barbara Shuck all provided useful contacts for interviews and survey distribution. Michele Santiago at the National office has helped us with publicizing and distributing the survey. Not to mention the general support of the Foundation White Paper Task Force.

For those of you who haven't had much experience with SMPS members outside of your Chapter, understand you are surrounded by almost 6000 people who are friendly and willing to help whenever they can.  

If you haven't participated in the survey yet, please take 5-10 minutes to complete it.  We're also asking all of our friends to help distribute the survey to up to three non-SMPS clients you have. In the end, the information we gather is for you.

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22BLXVJ5R3A/ 

A big thank you to all who have supported us so far.   

-- This is Part 2 of an article about our white paper process that will be updated between now and June 2011. The topic is The Client’s Viewpoint on SocialNetworking/Media --

We have a plan, we have some resources, still in need of some interviewees.  

We are hoping to interview about a dozen people and we are trying to provide broad demographic - we are in need of interviewees. Do you know of a client of the A/E/C industry who is using social media or has a strong opinion against it? The type of client we are looking for is someone who hires A/E/C professionals, but works for an outside entity such as a hospital, school, hotel, or public works to name a few. Our online survey will cover the majority of the architect, engineering and construction firms. Our plan for the interview is to call and spend about 15 minutes asking questions about how they are using social media. 

In addition to our secondary research, we are planning to do primary research in the form of a zoomerang survey to as many people in A/E/C related organizations as possible. In addition, as stated above, we would like to interview a dozen or so people to create case studies relevant to the topic.

We are truly grateful for all of the support we have received to this point. And we are looking forward to getting the data we need to begin analyzing and writing the rest of the white paper. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

If you know of a person who is willing to be interviewed please contact:

Adam Kilbourne (akilbourne@tecinc1.com), Holly Bolton (hrbolton@cesolutionsinc.com) or Dana Galvin (dana.galvin@bartonmalow.com)

This is Part 1 of an article that will be updated over the next 10 months.

I have the tremendous opportunity to work with two marketing colleagues, Holly Bolton from Indianapolis and Dana Galvin from Detroit. We were selected by SMPS Foundation to write a White Paper titled “Client’s Viewpoint on Social Media.” This was our first attempt at applying to the Foundation, and we were one of six selected, out of fourteen applications. Last week we had our first official work session when we met in Chicago. There is a lot of work involved in writing a White Paper. Much more than anything I remember doing in college. Having motivated co-authors will make the experience interesting and fun. We each have our tasks to work on and will meet regularly, usually via telephone, but we’ll meet in-person when we can arrange it.

Officially, this experience started in July at the SMPS National Conference in Boston, when National Board Member Barbara Shuck suggested we apply to the Foundation White Paper Committee. Holly, Dana and I had been working on a series of TweetChats that have been produced for a national audience, and garnered the attentional of the National Board. Here’s a little background on how all this began.

Holly and I met almost three years ago in Atlanta while judging the Marketing Communications Awards entries. We found a common interest in social media and started bouncing ideas off each other. Eventually we participated in SMPS TweetChat organized by Michelle Yates of the St. Louis Chapter and we were inspired to create a TweetChat to follow-up the Heartland Regional Conference. Dana spoke at Heartland, and has been developing the social media program at her firm, so we recruited her to join us. The Heartland TweetChat was marginally successful, but was a great learning experience.

The three of us attended the SMPS National Conference in Boston, and wanted to do another TweetChat that followed up the conference. Planning ahead we advertised on Twitter, on the National calender, with local chapters, and even created a commercial that was played at the conference. The TweetChat was a great success with over 100 participants from across the country.

Time to innovate. Our next goal was to add value to the TweetChat. We did that by developing an educational format that allowed us to offer a CEU to those who participated. We recruited a panel of highly respected marketers to present a topic and run a Q & A segment. Although the format was different, it was mostly well received and accomplished the goal we had set from the start.

About the same time as this educational TweetChat, we were completing our application to write the White Paper. We each collected the requested information and I compiled it into a final document that was submitted to the Foundation. Holly, Dana and I are very grateful to Barbara Shuck for her guidance and support through the application process.

So here we are, back to today, time to do some research.

P.S. You may wonder about our name - SoMegos. Holly originally penned the name Social Media (SoMe) Nerd Club. Our White Paper liaison, Scott Butcher, thought we needed a more creative name that was less self-deprecating. A few names were suggested and we were drawn to a play on “the Three Amigos.” Now we unofficially have our official name. We are SoMegos!

The Twitter Trio of Holly Bolton, Dana Galvin and Adam Kilbourne have finalized the details of the next TweetChat to be held on September 30th at 1pm EST.  We're breaking new ground with this TweetChat - CPSMs will be able to receive a CEU for participating, however, you don't have to be a CPSM to participate.  Follow the hashtag #smpschat

Topic: "The Future is Now: Adapting to What’s New." We'll hear from visionary architectural principal Craig Galati , skilled marketer Erin McCarthy Orr & past national SMPS president/environmental firm president Tom Smith. 

Here's the plan.  Our three presenters - Craig Galati, Tom Smith and Erin Orr - will each present for 10 minutes followed by a 10 minute Q & A session.  After the TweetChat we will post a document with a few questions on it, this is your quiz (similar to the CEU for Marketer articles).  You will have to answer the questions and turn in the form with your CPSM renewal paperwork.

If you use Twitter or a Twitter Client, such as TweetDeck, please remember to include the hashtag #smpschat.  Or follow through http://tweetchat.com/room/smpschat.