Archive for the ‘Community Building’ Category

Posted on April 2, 2012 - by Wayne Sutton

Video: Community, Basketball Legends and the Lower 9th Ward During the 2012 NCAA Final Four in New Orleans

While attending the 2012 NCAA Final Four in New Orleans with Buick, Hajj Flemings and myself wanted to visit the Lower 9th Ward to reflect on life, community and New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Just five miles down the road there was an entire community that was dealing with life after one of the nation’s worst national disasters Hurricane Katrina that took place seven years ago. Buick captured our thoughts as we visited the area.

We felt strongly about telling this story from an outsiders perspective on the weekend of college basketball’s biggest stage. Because telling this story draws the connection between those who are fortunate and those less fortunate; while communicating the importance of giving back when given the opportunity.

During our trip to New Orleans and working with Buick, we also spent time at Dr. Martin Luther King Charter school participating in the Samaritan’s Feet shoe donation that included the “Barefoot Movement”. Samaritans Feet is a non-profit, humanitarian aid organization with a community over 70,000 volunteers. Their mission is to make a difference in the lives of young people by washing their feet, providing them with a new pair of shoes, and inspiring them with a message of hope.

Other activities we took part in along with enjoying the final four games includes: Buick’s Bracket Town, co-hosting the first ever Buick Final Four Social Media Meetup and meeting basketball legends: “The Big O” Oscar Robinson, Howard Garfinkel, Bill Raftery, Shaquille ‘Shaq’ O’Neal and Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Check out some of the photos form our 2012 NCAA Final Four trip so far.

Bill Raftery

legend Howard Garfinkel

Coach Mike Krzyzewski

A big thanks to Tom Shea @tomshea for recording the video.

Posted on November 1, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Clean shaved for Movember! The video and how you can support.

It’s November 1st and thus Movember has begun, meaning I’m shaving off my beard and mustache for the first time in 20yrs. I’m 35 so that means since I was 15 or ever since my little stache started to grow back in the day I have a clean face. Why the moustache? To raise awareness for men’s health. So last night, I did it. I cut it all off for Movmeber but I’m not alone. Thousands of men across the world are also participating and I’m on TeamRDU lead by the awesome GreggoryNG. You can see our entire team here: http://www.movemberrdu.com. It’s not to late to join the Movember movement but if you’re not up for shaving you can still support by helping me raise money here or to teamRDU here.

It was a painful process but I did it. Here’s short video of the process.

About Movember from Movember.com

The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men. Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days.

The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia. The plan was simple – to bring the moustache back as a bit of a joke and do something for men’s health. No money was raised in 2003, but the guys behind the Mo realized the potential a moustache had in generating conversations about men’s health. Inspired by the women around them and all they had done for breast cancer, the Mo Bros set themselves on a course to create a global men’s health movement.

In 2004 the campaign evolved and focused on raising awareness and funds for the number one cancer affecting men – prostate cancer. 432 Mo Bros joined the movement that year, raising $55,000 for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia – representing the single largest donation they had ever received.

The Movember moustache has continued to grow year after year, expanding to the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and Finland.

In 2009, global participation of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas climbed to 255,755, with over one million donors raising $42 Million US equivalent dollars for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.

Want to see more? Check out our Mo-Intro video by clicking on the image below:

Posted on July 11, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Social Media brings Dinosaurs back to life at the Museum of Life and Science

Today I attended the Dinosaur Trail exclusive Blogger/Tweeple Preview at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC.

The event was organized by Beck Tench, who manages the Museum Life and Science Twitter account (@lifeandscience). Beck reached out to the local Triangle, NC blogging and Twitter community, which is strong, for the exclusive preview event. And if you think bloggers and tweeple are not interested in dinosaurs, then you’re wrong. Before the event began, tweets were tweeted, asking who’s going, and everyone was excited to preview the new dinosaur trail.

Joining me was fellow OurHashtag partner, Jeff Cohen (Digital Papercuts). As we arrived, we were welcomed by Beck and other Museum of Life and Science employees to receive our V.I.P wrist band, and name badge. Then we were on our way to the Dinosaur Trail.

As we walked the trail we met fellow tweeple @SmallJones, @clubjuggler, @GregoryNG, @dburr10085 and blogger Kevin Davis of Bull City Rising. We also met a few other local Triangle Tweeple for the first time. Despite it being a little humid, the weather was perfect and Jeff and I started our Dinosaur photo-blogging, tweeting, brightkite-ing, Facebooking tour.

Take a look at my photos below:

A few years ago, or even a few months ago, if you would have said that a museum was having a special exhibit preview for bloggers and twitter users, some may have looked at you like you’re crazy and just laughed. But with the explosion of social media and a strong tech community in the area, having an exclusive Blogger/Tweeple preview at the Museum of Life and Science made perfect sense. Why? I would say for marketing and community engagement. Was the event a success? I would say, yes. The @lifeandscience twitter account sent out a tweet saying they had over 100 tweeple and bloggers attend the event.

The event was not only a success because of the attendance, but also for continued awareness for the Museum of Life and Science. As I walked around, I saw families on the dinosaur trail taking a lot of pictures. Adding local bloggers and tweeple to an already scheduled member preview is a great idea. It can only build excitement and generate awareness of the new exhibit. My hat’s off to Beck and the entire team for coming up with the idea. Will this work for every company looking to engage with the local community using social media? Maybe, but let’s take a look at the process of what the Museum of Life and Science did to have a successful event.

1. Hire someone who’s connected in the community.

2. Engage with the community using social media.

Their twitter account has over 1,700 followers and they have accounts on various social networks.

3. Think outside the box and be creative. Instead of trying to just pull bloggers/tweeple away from their computers and iPhones, they welcomed them with open doors, saying join us.

4. They made us feel special by including us in a sneak preview. The exhibit doesn’t open to the public until July 25th.

5. Have an engagement dinosaur. Unlike Raleigh’s Lego store. The museum had one open dinosaur for everyone to climb on. The kids were happy to play and the parents got better pictures. It was clearly the most popular dinosaur there.

6. They planned for success. They passed out Moo cards with the url http://lifeandscience.org/dinosaurs on it. The url is for collecting blog post such as this one, flickr photos and youtube videos. And not only from today, but from future attendees.

Again, great job to the Museum of Life and Science. Today was my first time visiting and I’ll be back in the near future.

PS. All of my photos and videos where taken with the iPhone 3Gs.

No dinosaurs where brought back to life during today’s event, but this one is cool and I would love to have it as an pet.

Posted on May 15, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Your Friday Fix: 3 Reasons to use a location based social network (Brightkite)

I just returned from a trip to Atlanta, GA for the Mashable/Regator Mixer along with my one of my business partners Jeff Cohen (@dgtlpapercuts http://digitalpapercuts.com).  It was one of those “Social Media Hustle Road trips and we used Brightkite to track our journey. While on the way back we stopped in Charlotte, NC to catch the end of REbarcamp (Real Estate Barcamp ) and had a mini conversation about how realtors could use location based social networks like Brightkite. Part of my response was an example of how realtors could take pictures of houses for sale and let their contacts on other social networks see what properties are available now that Brightkite integrates with Facebook, flickr, fireeagle and twitter all with one simple update (check-in).

Also here’s 3 reasons to use Brightkite from a guest post that Kipp Bodnar (@kbodnar32 and I wrote for Louis Gray @louisgray about Brightkite.

1. Building Your Digital Footprint
2. Integration with Your Existing Social Media Workflow
3. Facilitate Face-to-Face Communications

You can read the full post here: BrightKite: If You Think Your Life Is Boring, You’re Missing The Point

If you’re a Brightkite user how do you use it?

Posted on May 11, 2009 - by Wayne Sutton

Social Networking Etiquette feedback from the community: the good, the bad and the just stop it!

Today I was interviewed by Fox News 8 ( Bob Buckly & Stewart Pittman @Lenslinger out of Greensboro, NC about Social Networking Etiquette. I was recommended to discuss the topic by Jennifer Ruggiero a long time twitter follower and friend who I recently met in real life at a Tweetup in Greensboro. As I prepared for the interview I made a few notes and asked via ping.fm the following question: What are some good & bad examples of Social Networking Etiquette that you have seen?

Below are my notes, a few other blog post on the same subject and some feedback I received from Brighkite,  Twitter & Friendfeed.
Brightkite Feedback:

ocell: “Bad: anything automatic. Auto followback, autoresponders, autoDM… dilutes real social interaction and relationships.”

ninanord: “Having a hard time understanding why some people constantly use ie Facebook and Twitter to tell others how ill they are and what kind of bad mood they´re in… Easily turns into oversharing in a sphere where so many people talk, not knowing eachother personally.”

Twitter Feedback:
Bad:

Good: