Calgary joins the Third Tuesday community

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A good discussion beginsLast month, while Brendan Hodgson, Kate Trgovac and I were in Calgary for a Canadian Institute Conference on Social Media, we pulled together an informal Third Tuesday meetup. About a dozen Calgarians interested in social media turned out for an enjoyable evening of discussion.

Now, the group has decided to move forward on their own to establish monthly Third Tuesday Calgary meetups.

The first formal Third Tuesday Calgary will feature a presentation by Jacob George, the City of Calgary‘s Manager of Corporate Marketing and Communication. I saw Jacob talk about the City of Calgary’s social media activities at the Canadian Institute Conference and I was impressed with how progressive their approach is. This first formal Third Tuesday Calgary session will begin with a presentation by Jacob at the City of Calgary Municipal Building, following which the Third Tuesdayers will move to a pub for an evening of discussion and making new friends.

Third Tuesday social media meetupSo, if you’re in or near Calgary, join Third Tuesday Calgary on meetup.com to be informed of each meetup when it’s scheduled. We also have a Third Tuesday FriendFeed room that you can join if you’d like to suggest future speakers or volunteer to help organize an upcoming event near you.

Once again, as in other cities, the good folks at CNW Group have stepped up to make this possible. In the case of Calgary, CNW’s Doug Lacombe first suggested this group last summer and now Sheldon Bailey has taken on the key organizers role. Thank you Doug and Sheldon for your community spirit. I hope I’ll be able to join you at a session in February when I am visiting Banff.

Niall Cook is speaking at Third Tuesday Toronto and Ottawa

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Third TuesdayNiall Cook, author of Enterprise 2.0 and Hill and Knowlton‘s Worldwide Director of Marketing Technology, will speak at both Third Tuesday Toronto on October 7 and Third Tuesday Ottawa on October 8.

Here’s the description from the Third Tuesday sites:

Enterprise 2.0: How social media will change the future of work

Social media has taken the Internet by storm, generating an unprecedented level of audience participation in corporate communications and marketing that were previously tightly controlled.

Niall Cook is Hill & Knowlton’s worldwide director of marketing technology and author of Enterprise 2.0, one of the first books to explain the impact that social software will have inside companies.

Join Niall as he introduces this emerging landscape and the key concepts that make up ‘Enterprise 2.0’. Using examples from well known companies in different industry sectors, he will illustrate how to apply enterprise 2.0 thinking to encourage communication, cooperation, collaboration and connections between employees and stakeholders in your own company.

This will be a rare chance to meet and talk with a social media expert from the U.K. You can register online to attend Third Tuesday Toronto on October 7 or to attend Third Tuesday Ottawa on October 8.

(Thank you David Jones and Brendan Hodgson for booking Niall for us.)

Join the conversation in the Third Tuesday FriendFeed Room

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FriendfeedI’ve set up a FriendFeed Room for the Third Tuesday social media meetups. I hope that this will be a place where Third Tuesday participants will gather to discuss the topics explored at each event, speakers you’d like to hear from, things you’d like to learn more about, and offer feedback and suggestions regarding the events themselves.

Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson have had great success in building a community engaged in sharing and discussion in their FIR Room on FriendFeed.

I’ve attempted to do the same thing with a Third Tuesday Facebook group. But frankly, I’ve found it to be an uphill battle to stimulate content in the Facebook group.

So, it’s time to try FriendFeed. I’ve already found that it’s easy to get a discussion going with my first question on the FriendFeed room. On Friday, I asked about possible speakers and topics. Within the next couple hours I heard from three Third Tuesday members Dave Fleet (yes, we work together), David Alston (yes, I use his product) and Eden Spodek (yes, I love her site.)

Third Tuesday Room discussion on FriendFeed

We’ll continue to announce the Third Tuesday Toronto and Third Tuesday Ottawa events on Meetup.com. Meetup has the tools necessary to easily and quickly organize and manage meetings. However, it’s conversation tools are not strong.

So, if you haven’t done so already, click over to the Third Tuesday FriendFeed Room and join the conversation.