“Startups, small shops and bootstrappers: the real value in social media and digital PR for small business”

Next step is for us to find speakers. If you have anyone in mind who you have heard speak before, or perhaps has a really interesting story to tell, please let us know. We are especially keen to get speakers from outside of the normal pool, and perhaps a couple of people who have had bad experiences with social media and digital PR.

Thank You

Firstly, as you know we canvassed for donations last night. And are delighted to announce that last night we raised $640 from the attendees.

Humble is a word which comes to mind when we wrote that number.

We thank you wholeheartedly for generously donating almost $1000 over two events. And we want to be sure you are aware about what we are doing with those donations.

Thanks to those who took the time to come and see us afterwards to discuss opportunities for investing those donations in worthwhile causes. We’ll be following up with you in the next few days to plan our strategies. Once we do that, we’ll be updating you all with the details of where your donations are working.

The Future

When we first asked for donations at Social Media for Social Good, our rationale was partly to ensure we weren’t out of pocket and partly to share your potential generosity with those less fortunate than us. As we felt we were hosting these events for everyones benefit, we felt sure we could cover our minimal costs from those donations and, depending on your generosity, make substantial donations to charity on your behalf.

We realise, however, the arbitrary nature of how we have asked for those donations can’t continue. So for future events we want to change tack.

Partners for Social Good

We would like to ask you and any other interested parties to suggest charities or NFPs we should consider partnering with at each event. Remembering, we would like to reserve some of the donations for Kiva, as we talked about last night.

There is a forum topic on the subject so we can canvas your opinions. Once we get your feedback we’ll add a poll here so you can decide who you think we should partner with in advance of each event.

Partners for Successful Events

Secondly, and while we would love to continue to put our hands in our pockets ourselves and/or ask for donations at the door, we are asking now for sponsors to cover costs of events.

We suggest that sponsorship could be in kind. For example, generously providing Lighting and Video services as the wonderful @bluntnate has done for each of the first three events. Or in Dollars. For example, supporting the panellists and other contributors with food and drink for the evening.

Areas of opportunity to partner with Digital Citizens events we currently see are;

• Sponsor the Panellists
• Sponsor the Bar
• Sponsor Food
• Sponsor the Venue (bearing in mind we love the Burdekin!)
• Sponsor the networking
• Sponsor the streaming feed
• other suggestions

Pay your own way

Alternatively, you might think we should just ask for a small fee at the door. We then use that money to pay for some of the above with the remainder to go to charity. The facts are though, for us to do that involves setting up bank accounts. To set up bank accounts we need to register as some sort of organisation with the ATO/ASIC/etc. and each one of those registrations costs money.

Keep in Touch

Everyone who attends our events is a stakeholder and we’d love your views on the above. You are always free to get in touch with us individually or by commenting on this or any other post or topic.

Again, many thanks for your support up to now and if we don’t talk to you in the next few weeks, make sure you come and say hello on the 15th of June when we do it all over again

We have setup a uStream account so that we can livestream the event. Not sure what the picture or sound quality will be like for the first time, but we shall give it a go.

You can either watch the stream on the uStream site (http://www.ustream.tv/channel/social-media-for-social-good-digital-citizens) or below (and I believe they even have apps for android and iPhones….).

Look forward to hearing what you think about the stream.

• a space for you to talk about the questions raised at previous events (or ask your own),
• a place for you to start the discussion regarding upcoming events, and
• an opportunity for you to tell us what event topics you want to hear about and from who.

If you are unsure of how to use the forum, or update your profile, please just let us know.

So get involved, and tell us what you really think.

We’d like your input to help us plan future events:

(While the event is now closed we would love to hear from you regarding future event/speakers)

• Format; the format may change depending on the subject under discussion, but the intention is always to enable free, frank and respectful debate

• We will invite subject matter experts to share their case studies and experience with an emphasis on the exchange of views, rather than a one-to-many format

• The organisers will suggest topics for future events but we encourage the community to submit subjects for discussion, to be selected democratically

• Digital Citizens is agency-neutral, transparent and open. We’d love your feedback and input.