School is not out for summer. But, I can promise you there will be no pop quizzes on Wednesday, June 25, as I will be speaking at the Social Media Business School event in NYC. The event is located at the Chinatown Brasserie on 380 Lafayette St and will begin at 9 am (but get there early as I am sure registration will fill up fast). I will be speaking on the panel designated for Social Media Marketing, however the day will include panel discussions and presentations on Analytics, App Hosting Options, Media API’s, Brand Advertising, Performance Advertising and Social Media Business Modeling. Social Media Business School, hosted by SocialMedia Networks, is sure to bring about great networking opportunities and great insight into the Business of Social Media, and I encourage anyone out there in the field of Social Media, in the NYC area or simply interested in the ins-and-outs of the Social Media business world to attend this great event.

I will be attending the Numenta HTM Workshop in Palo Alto, CA this June! The workshop explores Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) and the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC). Not only will I be soaking up the newest developments on HTM and NuPIC, soaking up the summer Cali sun, but I have also been asked to discuss “Neuro Computation in the Cloud” during the Lightning Talks on June 24 at the workshop. This is a result of the 2nd place finish Christopher Laan and I received from this year’s Numenta Game Challenge.

If anyone else is going to be at the workshop, please let me know so we can meet up!

The Carrot Crew consisting of Bobby, Andrew and I just got back from day one of the Podcamp NYC 2.0 unconference. Its always an interesting experience attending these conferences as there is always a great mix of people merely there to sell their “revolutionary New Media” idea and those people genuinely invested in important conversation about the future of the New Media industry. However, we do thank everyone that did present in the variety of seminars we attended as each seminar offered the space to talk about the industry. Check out Andrew and I discussing the impact of Twitter and other new Media outlets (around 4:00 into the video), and of course we thank Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting for posting the video on Qik. Lastly, we would like to thank the Polytechnic University and everyone else that made Podcamp NYC 2.0 possible. We can not wait till 3.0!

Mike was recently confirmed as a speaker at this year’s NY Digital Basins Software Forum. This two day conference, May 22-23, is presented by Concerted Networks and will be located at the Auburn Public Theater in Auburn, New York. Mike will be speaking on day two of the conference on the topic of “Creating Award Winning User Interfaces for Web 2.0 Sites.” This speaking engagement adds to the already impressive list of engagements held by Mike within the past year, including Graphing Social Patterns and Social Media 2007.

Today I will be part of a speaking panel at Web Community Forum. The panel will comprised of Teresa Valdez Klein and Dave McClure, and we will be discussing Facebook as a professional tool. Notes will be provided later on in the week, as it will be a collaborative effort of the entire Carrot Crew to summarize the events of this week’s forum for all of you.

Facebook for Professionals: A Session for the Community Building in the Age of Facebook Conference.
December 5, 2007 • 11:30 am
Presented by Mike Germano, Dave McClure, Teresa Valdez Klein

Now that Facebook has announced that it plans to include granular permissioning for different types of friends, the question on everyone’s minds is, “What does this mean for Linkedin?”

Linkedin has long been the social network of choice for professionals. But its dominance in this space has been under attack as more professionals spend their time networking on Facebook. This growth has been limited somewhat by the fact that Facebook does not currently have a system for designating how well a “friend” is known to you, or by what means.

This limitation has meant that some content — photos of a Saturday evening spent singing semi-inebriated karoke, for example — might be better suited to an e-mail among friends than a dedicated Facebook album. The restoration of the personal-professional barrier on Facebook is a boon to twenty-somethings like me — who have been on the site since college.

With this type of content permissioning firmly in place, all kinds of people are free to start using Facebook as a professional network as well as a place for friends to congregate. This imbues a number of old questions with new importance:

• How do I manage my professional relationships on Facebook?
• What is the proper etiquette for a friend request?
• What are the special concerns for professional women on Facebook?
• How will these granular permissions play out?
• What features would make Facebook an even better place for professionals to network in the future?

We’ll be asking and discussing these questions and more in a session at the upcoming Web Community Forum conference in a session entitled “Facebook for Professionals.”

What do you guys think? How are you using the site to network professionally? Personally? Where does the divide create conflict?

Jason and I will be out in Seattle this week to meet with clients and attend the Web Community Forum. We are both looking forward to speaking engagements at the Forum as well as getting to know the Seattle Tech Culture. We both feel honored to be in the land of Microsoft and Starbucks. (Although Starbucks is becoming ever more important to the Tech scene and Carrot Crew than Microsoft). If you happen to be attending the Forum, shoot me an email. By the way, does anyone know of some great places to eat in Seattle?

Check out our interview with Rodney Rumford of FaceReview fame.
At this year’s Graphing Social Patterns, the buzz over the LOTTO application translated to many bloggings and media supporting our “rising star” of an application. And while we appreciate all the accolades, we are especially thankful and proud to be among the ranks of the most appealing applications detailed in FaceReview, receiving three and a half stars out of five. (more…)

First off, I want to send out a huge hello to all the great people I had the opportunity to meet in San Jose last week at Graphing Social Patterns. Graphing Social Patterns: The Business & Technology of Facebook, is a conference designed for both technical developers and business professionals to better understand the current landscape of Facebook and discuss best practices in utilizing and distributing Facebook applications. The conference had a variety of panel discussions, including a panel featuring Carrot Creative’s own Jason Beckerman. Jason discussed Application Viral Marketing, and his panel discussion can be seen HERE. (more…)