The announcement came today that the Social Media Club has named an interim Board of Directors to help determine the organizations strategic direction and advance its goals. Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells, two of my favorite people in the world, have asked me, along with 41 others, to be a part of this direction-setting body. I am honored and hope to contribute something meaningful to the national body as it becomes more whole and well-defined.

From the establishment of the SMC chapter in Louisville, I can attest to the amount of work and organization that goes into a local club. Chris and Kristie and several others have had to try and pull together a national organization over the past couple of years. It’s a daunting task but now they have a fair amount of help.

My hope is that Social Media Club continues to grow and educate businesses, the general public, the marketing and advertising industires and more on the practice and craft of social media. Being asked to take part in that is an honor.

Here’s the official SMC announcement from SocialMediaClub.org:

Social Media Club Forms Interim Board To Chart Strategic Direction and Advance Its Goals

• Posted by Chris Heuer

The Social Media Club (SMC), a new media and advocacy organization focused on social media, today announced that 42 well-regarded industry leaders have volunteered to form an interim Board of Directors.

The new interim board has been charted to address several key organizational and strategic deliverables, including development of membership goals, acceleration of local chapter development, increase in adoption of industry standards and implementation of a new legal structure to enhance future growth.

New interim Board Member and Adjunct Professor of Social Media at University of Miami Alex de Carvalho said “Social Media Club is an important industry organization that has been working to establish social media standards and ethics. The voluntary participation of such noted industry leaders to further its mission is a clear indication of the Social Media Club’s value and contributions. I look forward to collaborating with the new interim board to progress the Social Media Club from being a ‘big idea’ to serving the community as a prominent agent of change.”

According to Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club and Partner at The Conversation Group, “The Social Media Club is honored to have so many accomplished and well-regarded industry evangelists come forward to lead the organization. While the interim board will focus on charting the organization’s future direction, our core mission will remain the same: promotion of media literacy; support of industry standards efforts such as Creative Commons licensing, Microformats, Data Portability and OpenID; discussion and promotion of ethical behavior; and sharing our knowledge among our members and the industry community at large.”

Co-Founder and Social Media Club President Kristie Wells added, “We are grateful to have received so much support from around the world over the past two years. With nearly 200 paying members and over 500 open members - we are deeply appreciative of the volunteer efforts to make the Social Media Club a success. With leading corporate members, such as Business Wire and SHIFT Communications, as well as dedicated individual professionals, the Social Media Club will continue to gain momentum and serve the greater needs of the industry while sharing our lessons learned along the way.”

The board will also focus on increasing its research efforts and strengthening relationships with other organizations such as the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and the International Association for Business Communicators (IABC). The interim board’s work will be completed once the club reorganizes as a new entity, and holds an election amongst its members for a formal Board of Directors.

The newly named/appointed members of the interim board are leading social media analysts, bloggers and business leaders, and are as follows:

• Lee Aase - Social Media University, Global
• Rohit Bhargava - Influential Marketing Blog and Personality Not Included
• Richard Binhammer - RichardatDell
• Michael Brito - Britopian and Conversations Matter
• Chris Brogan - ChrisBrogan.com
• Mike Chapman - Austin Social Media Club and Every Dot Connects
• Megan Cole - MeganCole.org
• Alex de Carvalho - alexdc.org and Social Object
• Todd Defren - SHIFT Communications and www.pr-squared.com
• Serena Ehrlich - Business Wire
• Jason Falls - Social Media Explorer
• Maggie Fox - Social Media Group
• Jon Gatrell - spatiallyrelevant.org
• Howard Greenstein - HowardGreenstein.com
• Francine Hardaway - Stealthmode
• Josh Hallett - Hyku
• Annie Heckenberger - pikpr.blogspot.com and redspurs.com
• Chuck Hester - iContact
• Chris Heuer - ChrisHeuer.com
• Sherry Heyl - Mind Blogging
• Tara Hunt - HorsePigCow
• Bill Johnston - Forum One Networks Forum and Online Community Report
• Jennifer McClure - Society for New Communications Research
• Mike McGrath - Dogpatch Dispatch
• Jake McKee - CommunityGuy.com and Ant’s Eye View
• Gregory Narain - SocialTwister
• Lee Odden - Online Marketing Blog and TopRank
• Erica OGrady - ReinventingErica.com and Peanut Butter Media
• Jeremiah Owyang - Web Strategist
• David Parmet - Marketing Begins At Home, LLC and PerkettPR
• Jackie Peters - heavyBlog
• Doug Pollei - pollei.com
• Pierre-Yves Platini - Yoono
• Douglas Pollei - Pollei.com
• Connie Reece - Every Dot Connects and Austin Social Media Club
• Chris Saad - ChrisSaad.com
• Andy Sernovitz - Word of Mouth Marketing and GasPedal
• Brian Solis - PR2.0
• J.J. Toothman - jjtoothman.net and Red Pill
• Todd Van Hoosear - Tech PR Gems
• Des Walsh - Des Walsh dot Com
• Kristie Wells - KristieWells.com

About the Social Media Club

The Social Media Club centers on the sharing of best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy with a focus on the emerging discipline of Social Media. The Social Media Club brings together journalists, publishers, communication professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators who create and consume media and have an interest in seeing the industry improve and evolve. The Social Media Club provides a forum for diverse groups and individuals to discover, connect, share and learn about social media and to play a role in its future evolution.

To find out more about the opportunities in social media and connect with other practitioners, visit: http://www.socialmediaclub.org

* Photo by Fabrizio Sciami, Creative Commons  Attribution-Share Alike License

NOTE: This post is cross-posted here and on the Social Media Club Louisville site.

In January, Todd Earwood and I officially founded the Social Media Club’s Louisville chapter. We had about 35 people show up for our first meeting. Since then, we’ve met monthly and had a great time learning and growing our networks together.

What ensued was a vibrant and involved discussion from some amazing people, some new to social media wanting to learn, others deeply nested in the web social computing can tangle you in. I told them the informal steering committee I’d put together for the club was challenged with coming up with programs for a wide net of folks. Our audience ranges from complete noobs who would struggle to even define social media, to experts in the field; and from developers, programmers and software engineers to marketers, PR folks, to small business owners and venture capitalists. Bottom line: It’s hard to figure out what’s best to cover.

But last night opened our eyes to a great deal of clarity. We have a mission. We have a purpose. And our group, I think, defined it.

The Social Media Club Louisville’s mission is to educate the community about social media and social media tools to improve and enhance its member’s productivity, connectivity and online experience. In doing so, we also evangelize the use of social media for both business and personal success.

That is what I heard last night. Those in attendance (below) can certainly chime in via the comments to ensure we all contribute to that definition, but evangelizing social media seemed to be the consensus. And, even if you are trying to look at SMC involvement as a business opportunity, it makes sense. If more people adopt social media, there’s more of an audience to reach, more potential clients to recruit and the like.

And what a convenient time to get this message from the members! Social media enthusiasts in Indianapolis and Charlotte have contacted me recently wanting to know what I did to start SMC Louisville. Andre Natta, Ike Pigott and my former peeps in Birmingham are dreaming up un-conferences and WordCamps and the discipline is growing elsewhere also.

As we sit here today, we are all on the forefront of what I believe will be an explosion for the social web in the next five years. More and more case studies are going to come down the pike to give even the most fearful and conservative of businesses the value proposition they need to say, “yes,” to what we are recommending. As social media thinkers, enthusiasts or even just interested parties, the time is now. But that time is what we make of it.

Today you should show someone how to use RSS feeds. You should explain the usefulness of Twitter. You should illustrate the value in sharing bookmarks socially to someone who still uses browser favorites. You should help someone find their ideal blog topic.

Teaching social media benefits you. It gives you a broader network of individuals to choose from, brings expertise in areas outside the bounds of our own to our friends lists, our communities. It provides greater depth and breadth to conversations. It might even connect or reconnect you to old friends, classmates and even family members.

And for those of you in the social media business, it puts you in the position of expert to people who might one day be in need of more experienced thinking or strategic planning for social media programs.

Part of our discussion led us to wonder what nursing homes would be like if we could teach all those patients who go through life with a sense of loneliness how to use social media to connect with each other or their families. Imagine how impactful we could be!

But we only can be if we stop talking to each other and start showing the rest of the world what social media is. Get out of the echo chamber and show your mother how to find you using tweets and “@” signs. Find a friend and show them how to cut down on surf time by subscribing to RSS feeds.

More importantly, join the Social Media Club in your area. If there isn’t one, start one. If you want to know how, ask. Or check out the national organization’s blog or wiki.

Educate + Evangelize

It’s going to take an army of us to push this ball up the hill. But there is a summit and the other side is going to be fun to see.

Those in attendance in Louisville last night included:

Out of town guests Kathy Isenberg of the National PreCast Concrete Association; Jim Brown of EverEffect, Josh Mitchell of Riakt Studios and Kelli McLemore, Jacob Leffler and Brian Phillips of The Basement Design + Motion, all of whom were from Indianapolis; Mainstay Doug Petch from Winchester, Ky.; Ashley Cecil of the Louisville Visual Art Association; Beth Blakely of VibrantNation.com; Nick Moorman, an intern at CNET and his lady friend Kyle; Holly Johnson and Peter Stone of the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival; Michelle Jones of ConsumingLouisville.com; Aaron Marshall of ChurchSMO and TechSMO, Mike Foster, Clay Marshall and D.B Wright of DBS, Veronica Combs of MedTrackAlert; John Hicks, a local web developer working with Brick House; Rande Swann of the Fund for the Arts who graciously provided us with ArtSpace as a venue; and Brad Sidio, Heather O’Mara and Sarah Bevin from the Kentucky Opera and Louisville Orchestra. (Brad and Heather also helped us set up and tear down the space and served as hosts … much appreciated!) Kentucky Opera and Louisville Orchestra.

NOTE: This is a combination post for Social Media Explorer and smclouisville.wordpress.com.

The precedent for inaugural gatherings of local Social Media Club chapters, at least from my anecdotal gatherings, is to invite a bunch of people, open the doors and see who shows up. Last night, my friend Todd Earwood and I did that in Louisville. We emailed several folks in the market we thought might be interested, started a Facebook group, posted a few blog entries talking about it and crossed our fingers.

To our delight and despite the imposing potential winter weather, 33 folks joined us at Greater Louisville, Inc., to attend the first social media gathering ever in Louisville. (Unless you count our friend Ben Thomas’s Louisville Geek Dinner, which while very cool, isn’t quite the same thing. And yes, Ben was there last night.)

Keep in mind a lot of the folks in the room (10 or so raised their hands when we asked who was there to learn and didn’t really feel like they were actively using or promoting social media programs) had no earthly idea what we would say or what we would get into. Frankly, neither did we. In addition to the 33, we have several others who couldn’t make it but want to be involved. We have 59 people on the list and I’ve only forced five of them there!

What we discovered was our suspicions were correct: Louisville has a vibrant and healthy community of digital talent thirsting to discuss, learn and share the world of social media.

A variety of topics and directions were thrown out as suggestions for what we want to learn (dare I say, “explore”) and how we’d like to do it. The popular need on everyone’s mind seemed to be just knowing who the others were and their specialties so we could perhaps develop a pool of resources from which to pull when we need web talents.

The dumb guy in the room (read: me) sent around a note pad of paper for folks to jot down contact info and specialties. Then a couple people much smarter than me (read: that’s not altogether that hard) suggested we go around the room and introduce ourselves. Despite the sometimes corny nature of that approach, it seemed to be just what everyone wanted.

The gang from CNet (yes, that CNet with main offices in the Bay area and … oh, yeah … Louisville) suggested we develop a Basecamp project management site. By the time I got home, Shawn Morton had it set up and ready to roll. (Members: We’ve turned off the auto email function due to the volume of emails you’d get if we didn’t. Subscribe to the RSS feed or just keep coming to the blog.)

WebProNews was there to cover the event. We can’t wait to see the videos as they also took the time to interview several individuals about their businesses and projects including Shawn and the Profilactic gang, Aaron Marshall from ChurchSMO and Brian Wallace of NowSourcing.com. (If they interviewed you, too, I’m sorry. Those are who I saw.) Earwood and I pimped a bit. He more so since he talked about Daily Idea while I talked about Social Media Club mostly.

WebProNews also snapped some pictures. As did Michelle Jones from Consuming Louisville, which is one of the best city interest blogs I’ve ever seen, Louisville or not. I tried to get Flickr’s tag badge based on our universal “smclouisville” tag, but it says there aren’t any with that tag, despite the fact it also shows this page, containing the 13 pictures WebProNews and Michelle tagged with it. (Come on Flickr. You’re better than that.)

I know, Photrade, I know. You were going to come, then give me hell for using Flickr and this is my penance. Everyone go check out Photrade. They’re up the road in Cincinnati and have promised to show up at a future meeting.

As you can tell, I’m excited. Several of the folks I talked to, some of which into the wee hours while staring down the barrel of a frothy lager, are as well. We have a start. Now let’s see where it takes us.

Other Postgame Posts From The Evening (If I miss any, please let me know!):

1. “New Shows, Brands and Bands” A pop from Rick Redding at TheVilleVoice
2. “Social Media Club Louisville A Success” Actually my Utterz posted on new digital friend tojosan’s blog, The Broad Brush, out of St. Louis.
3. “Inaugural Gathering Wrap-Up; Thanks To All” My post last night before finally getting sleep.
4. “Profilactic Participating In Social Media Club Louisville” from Shawn Morton and the Profilactic gang.

As others roll in, we’ll refresh.

To anyone in the group, tag posts, images and videos “smclouisville” and thank you, so much, for the enthusiasm and interest.

IMAGE: The backs of everyone’s heads but a good shot of one half the room from WebProNews on Flickr.

Technorati Tags: smclouisville, Social Media Club Louisville, Social Media Club, events