Message: 4 Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 06:37:10 -0800 (PST) From: "Joshua D. Zapin, PMP" Subject: Reminder Tues, January 10 RMIUG mtg - Blogs, Podcasts, and Newsfeeds Oh, My: How to Capture the Online Conversation. Additional Speaker added! Just a quick reminder that the Tuesday, January 10th meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group (RMIUG) will discuss "Websites, Podcasts, and Blogs Oh, My: How to Capture the Online Conversation." When the Internet first became a popular medium, business communication seemed really simple: Build a website with engaging content, register it with a search engine or two, and customers will come. The advent of cheap rich media technologies in conjunction with (seemingly) unlimited bandwidth means that we have many more choices when businesses want to communicate online. For example, you could do any of the following: * Create a radio station (Podcast) * Build an online conversation (Blog) * Deliver news items directly to your customers (RSS Newsfeeds) * Blast them with an email And you can still build "old fashioned" Website. The big question is which one? Some of them can be really "scary" to businesses. Dialogs, like blogs and podcasts, allow customers to tell you what they really think. Is there a combination of them that we should use? To explore this topic, RMIUG will bring in the following speaker: James Clark (jclark@room214.com) is a Founding Partner of Room 214, an Internet marketing and public relations firm. James has over 10 years of experience creating, managing and implementing successful communications campaigns for consumer product and high-tech companies. His core skill is to help teams rapidly examine and refine their market strategy, align communications and business goals, and establish communications priorities. James will talk to us about how to analyze an audience determine the best communication strategy to target them. Derek Scruggs (derek@escalan.com) is founder and CEO of Escalan, an agency that helps overworked marketing departments get things done online, including strategy, web site design, copy, email marketing, search engine marketing and custom applications. Derek is also the co-founder of Click Thru Stats, a "brain-dead simple" click-tracking service useful in everything from email marketing to searching engine advertising to web site traffic analysis. He also is a co-founder of the Enthusiast Group, a seed stage company that is doing lots of currently super-secret stuff with Really Simple Syndication (RSS), blogs and podcasting. Derek will talk about the latest in RSS and related technologies and what to expect from them in the future. We are still looking for additional speakers. If you think you might have some interesting experience on the topic, please contact josh@rmiug.org. Links: Room 214: http://www.room214.com Escalan: http://www.escalan.com The meeting is Tuesday, January 10th from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional 6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at 1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills. NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions, go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila! Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the hat to help defray expenses. Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into the auditorium after all seats are filled. Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen: --------------------------------------------------------------- MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages for RMIUG meetings. ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG meeting minutes. Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project management, marketing communications consulting, and web content development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG. Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be displayed on an information table. There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm@rmiug.org. Our web site is at http://www.rmiug.org/ *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead read the minutes after the meeting. Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed: 1. No weapons. 2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name. 3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested. 4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when dealing with NCAR staff. If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please contact me directly. Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh@rmiug.org). *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=