Making A Difference

I gotta say that Thursday was a great day. And, believe it or not, Empower Media Marketing (@EmpowerMM) had a huge roll to play in this. First, I serve as director for a local chapter of HOPE worldwide here in Cincinnati. The great folks at Empower held a fund raiser and food drive to help HOPE worldwide Cincinnati Chapter feed needy families over the holidays. In one hour they raised enough to provide holiday dinners for 8 families. Awesome. Then Empower hosted Cincy Social Media that evening and really hit a home run with Jory Des Jardins (@JoryDJ).

Frankly, after hearing some of the reports from this year’s BlogHer, I was not expecting any earth-shattering presentation from Jory. I was looking more forward to meeting some of the folks I’ve seen on twitter. That said, Jory, well, shattered all my expectations. In fact, she referenced the BlogHer feedback, addressed it directly, and explained the dynamics in a way that benefits any blogger who had the chance to listen to her. Jory pretty much laid out a framework of how to build a successful audience and business case for potential partners as well as describe the grass-roots nature of cultivating a following. I was on the edge of my seat from beginning to end.

And I was not disappointed with the conversations either. Neil Fairweather (@neilfairweather), Stacy Cole (@stacyacole), Suzanne Deatherage (@sdeatheragepr), and I discovered that, believe it or not, St. Louis is more Catholic than the West Side. I know, I know. Then Daniel Lally (@DanielLally) introduced Stacy as the newest member of the Cincy Social Media board. Daniel let us in on the fact that Stacy graduated from law school Cum Laude, which was better than, well, Laude. Congratulations Stacy, and thank you for the hard work you’ll be putting in to continue to make Cincy Social Media a great organization!

After trying for about 3 weeks to connect in person, Joe Kikta (@joekikta) and I finally met face-to-face on the elevator. Between floors 1 and 4 I was sort of re-introducing myself to Debba Haupert (@DebbaHaupert) of girlfriendology (@girlfriendology) fame when I said my name – not knowing the guy standing next to me was Joe. He just smiled and then introduced himself. Serendipity.

I got a few minutes with Elizabeth Edwards (@EEdwards) after the talk. She was kind enough to introduce me to J.B. Kropp (@JBKropp) and Tim Schigel (@schigel) of ShareThis. If you don’t have the ShareThis widget on your blog, go get it and support a premier Cincinnati startup. It was great having them there with us, and they were kind enough to help me out with some things I’m working on at the UC Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Information Technology. Let me say I’m grateful for the insight from a couple of experienced entrepreneurs.

I also got to meet Keara Schwartz (@ShareSomeSugar) in person. When I first read about her new company Share Some Sugar a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help think about my suburban neighborhood where we’ve all dropped $1,400 on our riding lawnmowers when we could have combined all our money, spent $200 apiece, and purchased a really high-end mower that we could share. In any case, if you live in Cincinnati go sign up for the beta of Share Some Sugar.

Of course, I also caught up with good friend and college buddy, Daniel Johnson Jr (@danieljohnsonjr). It’s always good to talk to you, Dan!

This entry was posted Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 11:14 pm and is filed under Cincinnati, Entrepreneurship, Social Media, UC Center of Innovation. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.