Social media karma

It’s time to make a few deposits in the social media karma bank.

The past few weeks, I have been consumed with Blog with Integrity, my book proposal and getting ready for my vacation to Africa next month. In the process, a number of interesting projects and initiatives from my marketing, PR and social media friends have piled up in my “must blog about that” pile.

Former Bostonian Aaron Strout was kind enough to ask me to be a guest on his podcast, along with Brian Morrissey of AdWeek and Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, to talk about Facebook Connect. Take a listen. Enteprise web and community managers, you should definitely check out Aaron’s company Powered. They are doing some neat things with enterprise level communities and Facebook Connect.

In my role as an SNCR Fellow, I was privileged to conduct a social media workshop for Goodwill Industries International at their summer national learning conference in Grand Rapids Michigan. The students were great, and really invested in figuring out how to make social media work for their communities. I was already impressed with what the Goodwills were doing with social media, and am looking forward to even greater things in the future.

If you have old clothes and other goods, please consider making the effort to donate them to Goodwill. Your donation doesn’t just fund charitable programs, it funds programs devoted to putting people to work. In these economic times, that literally doubles your money.

My SNCR colleagues Don Bulmer of SAP and Vanessa DiMauro of Leader Networks are conducting a research study called  The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks. They are interested in the the use of social networks as a tool in the enterprise and part of the decision making process. Please check out the website for more information and if you fit the profile, please consider taking the survey.

Janey Bishoff and the team at Bishoff Communications are helping Boston ad exec Jeff Freedman’s non-profit Small Army for  a Cause raise funds for cancer research in memory of Jeff’s late partner Mike Connell. They are holding a fundraising event on September 17th called Be Bold Be Bald!

Participants will wear bald caps on the 17th to raise funds and awareness of a major challenge faced by cancer patients, losing their hair. More information at beboldbebald.org

Chris Brogan’s book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, co-authored with Julien Smith, went on sale at Amazon today to a very positive reception. Congratulations Chris! I promise to read it when things slow down.

Finally the SXSW Panel Picker went live today. Once I sort out all the various panels from friends and colleagues, I’ll let you know. Right now, I’m cross-eyed trying to figure it all out from the tweets. If enough panels from people I know make the cut, I might even make the effort to go this year.