Social Media
CityClub Live!
Submitted by saraneppl on Wed, 07/07/2010 - 2:29pmDid you know CityClub updates Twitter live from our programs? 
If you're interested in a program but unable to attend, you can follow the conversation at CityClubLive - our Twitter feed dedicated to real-time information about what's being discussed by our panels. (Our other feed, SeattleCityClub, is where you'll find daily updates - and reminders of when we're live-tweeting from CityClubLive!)
Visit today to see our tweets from today's program, "Redesigning the Delivery of Care: A Conversation with Health Care CEOs".
Both The Seattle Channel and TVW were at today's program - so full video of the entire discussion will be available soon!
2009 Year in Review predictions already coming true!
Submitted by saraneppl on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 11:35amWell, I have to say, sometimes it's hard not knowing much about sports - especially when the first Year in Review prediction to come true is very much about sports!
On Friday at our Year in Review program, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna predicted that UW football player Jake Locker would return for his senior year with the Huskies. In that moment, I had the opportunity to put that prediction out on our Twitter stream - which would enable me, now, to point that stream and say "You heard it here first, folks!" Instead, I tweeted this: "McKenna - by the latter part of 2010 we'll see actual economy growth, and something about sports? (Sorry, I know nothing about sports!)"
Ouch! Today, The Seattle Times reports it's true.
Technically, if you were at Year in Review or have seen the video, you did still hear it here first. With no help from our Twitter feed, alas! (Now, if that prediction has been about the Rat City Rollergirls, then we would have been in business!)
Stay tuned for more possible prediction fulfillment as 2010 progresses. In the meantime, we'll have video and more photos from Year in Review up soon!
- Sara @ CityClub
On Friday at our Year in Review program, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna predicted that UW football player Jake Locker would return for his senior year with the Huskies. In that moment, I had the opportunity to put that prediction out on our Twitter stream - which would enable me, now, to point that stream and say "You heard it here first, folks!" Instead, I tweeted this: "McKenna - by the latter part of 2010 we'll see actual economy growth, and something about sports? (Sorry, I know nothing about sports!)"
Ouch! Today, The Seattle Times reports it's true.
Technically, if you were at Year in Review or have seen the video, you did still hear it here first. With no help from our Twitter feed, alas! (Now, if that prediction has been about the Rat City Rollergirls, then we would have been in business!)
Stay tuned for more possible prediction fulfillment as 2010 progresses. In the meantime, we'll have video and more photos from Year in Review up soon!
- Sara @ CityClub
Twitter Insta-poll!
Submitted by saraneppl on Tue, 11/17/2009 - 4:46pmWe recently moved our live-tweeting from events over to a new Twitter feed, @CityClubLive. We'd gotten some feedback that having event-tweets in our main feed could be a bit spammy, but we still wanted to make that kind of live feed available for people who were interested in the topic but unable to attend. Because of the potential spam factor, we understand that we may not have a ton of official followers over @CityClubLive - but we're curious to see how many folks are tuning into those tweets. Have you ever "watched" our @CityClubLive feed? Answer the insta-poll here!
Have ideas or tips on how we could improve our Twitter presence? Please leave them in the comments - we're all ears!
In other blog-housekeeping news, you may notice CityBlog has moved up in the world! As of today, blog posts will be featured on the front page of CityClub's website. Here's to putting our best foot forward!
Have ideas or tips on how we could improve our Twitter presence? Please leave them in the comments - we're all ears!
In other blog-housekeeping news, you may notice CityBlog has moved up in the world! As of today, blog posts will be featured on the front page of CityClub's website. Here's to putting our best foot forward!
Viewing Parties! Participate from home in "Seattle Speaks: Youth Violence"
Submitted by saraneppl on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 4:52pmYes, the rumor is true: our Youth Violence program with Seattle Channel at Town Hall tonight is sold out. The interactivity of the event involves electronic voting machines - and there are only so many to go around.
However, not being in the live audience does not mean you can't participate. We've heard of several "viewing parties" - organizations getting youth together in a place where they can participate online.
All of the questions our host, C.R. Douglas, asks our live audience, will also be posed to online participants as well. This program is being broadcast live and online - meaning you can stream it real-time at www.SeattleChannel.org or on Cable 21.
This program is called "Seattle Speaks" for a reason. Your thought counts! We want to know what you think about youth violence in Seattle. The Seattle Channel can also take questions from online participants - check their website to find out how. ("Youth Violence" is on the front page of their website.) Please join us! (And, since it'll probably be raining, you can go home, snuggle up in your pajamas with a hot beverage, and still be engaged online!)
7:00 p.m. is our start time, and as always, we'll see what we can tweet over at @CityClubLive.
However, not being in the live audience does not mean you can't participate. We've heard of several "viewing parties" - organizations getting youth together in a place where they can participate online.
All of the questions our host, C.R. Douglas, asks our live audience, will also be posed to online participants as well. This program is being broadcast live and online - meaning you can stream it real-time at www.SeattleChannel.org or on Cable 21.
This program is called "Seattle Speaks" for a reason. Your thought counts! We want to know what you think about youth violence in Seattle. The Seattle Channel can also take questions from online participants - check their website to find out how. ("Youth Violence" is on the front page of their website.) Please join us! (And, since it'll probably be raining, you can go home, snuggle up in your pajamas with a hot beverage, and still be engaged online!)
7:00 p.m. is our start time, and as always, we'll see what we can tweet over at @CityClubLive.
Watching the Election Returns Roll In
Submitted by saraneppl on Tue, 11/03/2009 - 12:18pm
Considering the nature of Twitter - that it provides a way to be the most updated to-the-second source of information and is constantly changing - it can be a great place to watch the election returns roll in. If you're not sure who to follow, we recommend checking out the Seattle News and Government&Politics listing's in The Big Blog's working list of Who's on Twitter in Seattle. If not Twitter - where will you be going for your election day information?
Feedback Wanted! How are you feeling about Twitter?
Submitted by saraneppl on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 9:31amWhen we first started talking about using Twitter at CityClub, much of our conversation was about tweeting from events. We'd been brainstorming ideas about how to reach more people, how to extend program content and impact beyond those folks who could actually physically attend the program.
It was also a response to the common question of whether we accepted questions for panelists in advance, or just in absentia. With the technology for livestreaming not quite available to us just yet, Twitter seemed like a good option: we could tweet snippets and quotes from the programs, and if people following the stream had questions, we could try to sneak them into the audience question period.
As our group of followers grew, we realized via feedback from followers that the tweeting from events was a little too much - it was a bit spammy. "There's a limit to what you can say in a 140 character bursts," one user responded. And it's true. I was trying to catch everything - not only the question but all of the panelist responses. It's actually an extension of a difficulty I've always had - I think everything is important. In school, the most excruciating part of a paper for me was cutting parts out. I get long-winded.
We also realized that people were following our stream for different reasons - some want info about events, links to online video, etc. Others did want that live stream from events. We tried taking some of the Twitter-from-events content and doing a sort of liveblog, but weren't happy driving traffic away from Twitter. We started to suggest Twitter Snooze so that people who didn't want our event tweets could just turn us off temporarily instead of un-following us.
Now, we're trying something new. During yesterday's "Education Series: Getting Ahead - Educating for Today's Job Market" program, we transmitted our event tweets from a new account: @CityClubLive. I peppered our original Twitter feed with just the occasional quote and a link to the new account. It has a handful of followers now (although because of our name I'm never quite sure if they think we are a rock club or a health club or civic engagement club).
Social networking is very new, and as it keeps shifting, we'll keep trying to adapt. We'd love to hear from you: How are you feeling about Twitter? In lieu of livestreaming video (we'll get there someday) how do you prefer to remotely participate? Is a liveblog a better option? Will you follow both CityClub Twitter accounts? Or will you only access it when the topic is of interest to you? If the live tweets are from a different account, do we still need to cut down on the amount of tweeting?
You tell us! -- READ MORE --
It was also a response to the common question of whether we accepted questions for panelists in advance, or just in absentia. With the technology for livestreaming not quite available to us just yet, Twitter seemed like a good option: we could tweet snippets and quotes from the programs, and if people following the stream had questions, we could try to sneak them into the audience question period.
As our group of followers grew, we realized via feedback from followers that the tweeting from events was a little too much - it was a bit spammy. "There's a limit to what you can say in a 140 character bursts," one user responded. And it's true. I was trying to catch everything - not only the question but all of the panelist responses. It's actually an extension of a difficulty I've always had - I think everything is important. In school, the most excruciating part of a paper for me was cutting parts out. I get long-winded.
We also realized that people were following our stream for different reasons - some want info about events, links to online video, etc. Others did want that live stream from events. We tried taking some of the Twitter-from-events content and doing a sort of liveblog, but weren't happy driving traffic away from Twitter. We started to suggest Twitter Snooze so that people who didn't want our event tweets could just turn us off temporarily instead of un-following us.
Now, we're trying something new. During yesterday's "Education Series: Getting Ahead - Educating for Today's Job Market" program, we transmitted our event tweets from a new account: @CityClubLive. I peppered our original Twitter feed with just the occasional quote and a link to the new account. It has a handful of followers now (although because of our name I'm never quite sure if they think we are a rock club or a health club or civic engagement club).
Social networking is very new, and as it keeps shifting, we'll keep trying to adapt. We'd love to hear from you: How are you feeling about Twitter? In lieu of livestreaming video (we'll get there someday) how do you prefer to remotely participate? Is a liveblog a better option? Will you follow both CityClub Twitter accounts? Or will you only access it when the topic is of interest to you? If the live tweets are from a different account, do we still need to cut down on the amount of tweeting?
You tell us! -- READ MORE --
Liveblog: The Art of Living Well at Any Age
Submitted by saraneppl on Tue, 08/18/2009 - 9:23amCasual liveblogging - some quotes that don't fit in the Twitter feed! (Short, but sweet. Check back at our website at the end of the week for video from The Seattle Channel.)
"If you do not age deliberately, things aren't going to be as good for you as they could be." (Klein)
"The way we have control is we think about what things that are going to be bumps in the road. There always are." (Fordyce)
"What is important is if they have a plan for their lives about what to do in any of those situations with any disability including dementias, and they share that plan with their families and friends, when those crises happen they are able to bounce back from them to the extent that they can." (Fordyce)
-- Fordyce points out that in some circumstances it is significantly cheaper for someone over 75 to take a cab every single day than to pay for a car and insurance. (Based on distance, of course)
"I don't take taxis I have a driver, and the drivers on I-5 said thank god!" (Smart)
Schorr asking about "an operating system" for aging. Klein: "For me, personally, I'm a planner. But I can't adequately prepare for everything that can happen to me, so I have to do a little more work on my attitude of openness to whatever it is that's going to happen."
"The people are saying they look in the mirror and feel no different than they did when they were 20 - they aren't in touch with the ways they have changed." (Klein)
"How Social Media is Changing Change"
Submitted by saraneppl on Thu, 08/13/2009 - 10:55amYesterday, this little nugget popped up in our Twitter feed:
@socialactions: "How Social Media is Changing Change" #SoCap09 LIVE Twitter Chat http://bit.ly/3q2Lyz
As a bit of a translation for those who perhaps aren't yet fluent in Twitter-speak: "@socialactions" indicates the Twitter user who posted this message; #SoCap09 is a "hash tag", which allows users to mark their tweets as part of the converation and allows for searching; and the link is a shortened version of a longer link. The longer link lead to the webpage of an upcoming conference, SOCAP09, hosted by Social Capital Markets.
Social Capital Markets had a moderator and a designated hash tag - and lots of people willing to join the conversation. A live Twitter chat is a challenging thing to follow - the very nature of Twitter being the speed at which a short message is shared with a large amount of people. (Websites like Twitterfall can help.)
Curious, I started following the conversation. Here are a few tweets that kept reappearing (i.e. being "retweeted"):
@socialactions: "How Social Media is Changing Change" #SoCap09 LIVE Twitter Chat http://bit.ly/3q2Lyz
As a bit of a translation for those who perhaps aren't yet fluent in Twitter-speak: "@socialactions" indicates the Twitter user who posted this message; #SoCap09 is a "hash tag", which allows users to mark their tweets as part of the converation and allows for searching; and the link is a shortened version of a longer link. The longer link lead to the webpage of an upcoming conference, SOCAP09, hosted by Social Capital Markets.
Social Capital Markets had a moderator and a designated hash tag - and lots of people willing to join the conversation. A live Twitter chat is a challenging thing to follow - the very nature of Twitter being the speed at which a short message is shared with a large amount of people. (Websites like Twitterfall can help.)
Curious, I started following the conversation. Here are a few tweets that kept reappearing (i.e. being "retweeted"):
- Awareness is now paid for with personal capital, relevant voices. These budgets don't dry up, they build up.
- Social media eliminates the line between change supporter and change activist.
- Social capital = where money meets meaning. Room for all. Game changes. New people at the table. Listen.
- Focus on how to turn awareness via social media into tangible change on the ground, therein lies real value.
- Mix of grassroots social media w/institutional big dogs is important but not easy.
- Social Media is forum for people communicating a new perception of value more broadly&being affirmed in that difference.
- 'Affirmation' an important word - relates to sense of connection, community - lubricant to action.
- A savvy social media practitioner can convert their time into the purchasing power of money, re: attention, interests, awareness.
- Social media can add legitimacy (for social capital investors) to a change-maker's efforts by helping build a core audience of constituents.
- Re-evaluation about collaboration vs. competition is important to figure how a social economy can be profitable&meaningful.
- Marketers will spend less time on promotion and more money on product, executions, directly adding value for consumer, donors, etc.
More questions came up as part of the conversation:
- For people to get behind a cause, its value must be tangible. Does social media create tangible value or allow people to access it?
- Should markets embrace social media, or will social media invent whole new markets? How?
You can sift through all of the conversation by clicking here. Although CityClub didn't participate (we were happy to sit back and watch Twitterfall bring the responses to us) but we're happy the conversation took place. It illustrates a lot of things: great questions being asked, and great conversations happening that are made more accessible by having them on Twitter, where anyone can watch, and anyone with an account can participate.
Food Sustainability: Resources and Thoughts from Panelist David Granatstein
Submitted by saraneppl on Fri, 07/24/2009 - 11:14amHave you joined our Facebook group to receive notices of CityClub events in your Facebook inbox? If you have, you received a message yesterday about our upcoming program, "Local? Sustainable? Equitable? Having Your Values and Eating Them Too!" In it, I mentioned the popularity of Michael Pollan's books as an indicator of public interest in this topic.
Turns out, I was right on the mark. David Granatstein, Sustainable Agriculture Specialist at the Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, also recommends Pollan - specifically, In Defense of Food - as a resource for learning more about this topic.
"There is no simple answer to sustainability in our food system," Granatstein says in our pre-event questionnaire. "It took many years for the current system to evolve, and it will take time to evolve to another system that we hope will be more sustainable. Sustainability is a goal, one best judged by hindsight. We take actions today to improve sustainability based on the best information we have. But that doesn’t guarantee we will be right, and we must be willing to change our minds."
Granatstein provided for us an article he's written titled "Sustainable Horticulture in Food Production", published in Acta Horticulturae. You can find it at the bottom of this post, downloadable in PDF form!
Other books Granatstein recommends:
Try these online resources as well!
Turns out, I was right on the mark. David Granatstein, Sustainable Agriculture Specialist at the Washington State University Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, also recommends Pollan - specifically, In Defense of Food - as a resource for learning more about this topic.
"There is no simple answer to sustainability in our food system," Granatstein says in our pre-event questionnaire. "It took many years for the current system to evolve, and it will take time to evolve to another system that we hope will be more sustainable. Sustainability is a goal, one best judged by hindsight. We take actions today to improve sustainability based on the best information we have. But that doesn’t guarantee we will be right, and we must be willing to change our minds."
Granatstein provided for us an article he's written titled "Sustainable Horticulture in Food Production", published in Acta Horticulturae. You can find it at the bottom of this post, downloadable in PDF form!
Other books Granatstein recommends:
Agrarian Dreams by Julie Guthman
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
The New American Farmer by USDA Sustainable Agriculture Network
Try these online resources as well!
Articles on Organic and Sustainale Fruit ProductionGranastein offers these as thoughts to chew on (and discuss!) before next Thursday's panel: Can we have a sustainable food system if the culture as a whole is an unsustainable model? Where do “limits” fit in to sustainability and how do they work in a growth oriented economy?
Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources: Organic Agriculture
Profile of Organic Crops in Washington State – 2008
(Click here to sign up!)
Facebook: Negotiation Continues
Submitted by cityclub on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 4:21pmI'll be honest: Facebook is not exactly a topic about which I ever expected to have quite so many meetings. As someone who uses social networking for maintaining entirely personal connections, I'd never really had a concept of using it in a professional setting, up until creating the CityClub Facebook account.
As we've said before, the challenge we've encountered is keeping it dynamic and utilizing it to our best advantage. Up until now we've had two was to connect with CityClub via Facebook. There is, of course, the standard profile page, of which you can become a friend! For those who wanted to show their support without directly connecting their profiles to ours, we created the Fan page.
One common suggestion we heard as feedback was that we could better utilize Facebook by having a CityClub group - which enables us to send a mass message to all the folks in our group about upcoming programs. This falls somewhere between the profile and the Fan page - the group will have far more activity than the Fan page but still not connect your profile directly to ours.
So join the group! (We've already got 6 members and I clicked the "create" button less than 5 minutes ago!)
As always, we are open to suggestions from those more savvy than we. Comments and ideas are encouraged around here!
CityClub events: