Last night I had the privilege of being a panel member for the Social Media and Presidential Elections Conference at the Samsung Experience on Columbus Circle. I wanted to thank the organizers: NY:MIEG, E.Factor and CBSAC/NY for putting on a smart and engaging affair. I liked seeing how all the different panel members were using social media to influence and inform everyday people about important political issues.

Ellis Henican did a great job moderating the event, everything flowed smoothly and the packed audience was interested from start to finish. It was interesting to see how the folks at 23/6 are using humor to offer an alternative view on the political scene.

I also really enjoyed the Samsung experience, which, for someone with ADD was the most visually stimulating experience of my life.

I was happy to see a spirited Q&A session and loved hearing how Rachel Sterne was using citizen journalism to combat the major news outlets. I was also interested to hear what Howard Greenstein is doing to advise influential organizations on the wonders of social media.

Thanks again to all the event organizers, I encourage more people to participate in the next panel and look forward to participating in the next event.

Photo Credits: Howard Greenstein

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

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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?

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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?

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In reviewing LOTTO, FaceReview has stated that “These are some sharp N.Y. Guys… This is a very smart application that has tons of monetization opportunities. I like the fact that they share the revenue with their users. Sweet!”
The LOTTO has had continued success growing the userbase well over 200,000 and jackpots consistently over $500 a week! And, as we promised before, there will be some extremely exciting news in the next few weeks. Be on the lookout.

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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 a friend of Carrot Creative, Jason Beckerman. Jason discussed Application Viral Marketing, and his panel discussion can be seen HERE.
Also, The LOTTO, along with ten other applications, was presented at the conference and judged accordingly. Our presentation was strong and sparked intrigue and laughter as we love keeping these conferences light-hearted. And although we did not win the highest honors at the conference, our application received the most installs, so I would like to think we were the “peoples’ champ.”
Check out the full wrap-up and pictures for more on the conference.

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We recently designed a sweet logo for his upcoming presentations. Take a look at it, and tell us what you think. We think it adequately depicts the topics Mike discusses (and it kind of looks like him too).

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Director of the Conference Robert Chiarito contacted us today
with the reviews of Mike’s speech on “The Perception Makers.” Mike received one of the highest scores of the conference with a 4.7 out of 5. We also received some interesting comments about his speech:

“Wow! Seemed like a ‘know-it-all’ teenager on speed. Clearly knows a lot
about Web 2.0″
- Paula Berg, Southwest Airlines

“Great energy, more than makes up for somewhat disjointed content. Where
will he be in 10 years?”
- Maggie Fox, Social Media Group

“Great!”
- unsigned evaluation

“Thoroughly educational and entertaining! Great speaker to end the day with”
- Eric Tatro, Cohn & Wolfe

Mike and Bobby are catching up on everything and will have posts on
the blog shortly (slackers). Mike is lucky he got over a 4.5 or we
would have razzed him for at least a week.

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