Why I love wa.ag and you should too (and a discount code)
What I dislike (if you know me you can feel the restraint in that word) about most networking events is the lack of humanity. I understand that everyone has something to sell (their startup, their service, themselves). The problem is unless I know you, I’m really (really, really, really) not interested in your 30 second elevator pitch from hell and I believe that to be true for most people. People want to know you, not your business card or your resume.
Enter wa.ag, a startup run by my buddy Dave Gise (@davegise). wa.ag does a few things well; they provide exposure and real value for an restaurant or event space, they create a great pop-up gathering. The one that captured my attention is the way they turn networking on it’s head.
I was lucky enough to attend the first wa.ag at the Irish Exit (great fries!). Instead of just sticking people together and encouraging ‘networking’, Dave features a startup or small business and all the attendees are given information about the business as they walk in. They are then asked to examine that information and offer them tips and assistance according to their expertise. If you’ve ever been to one of our LITweetUps, it creates a very similar atmosphere of smart people working together (wa.ag stands for ‘work as a group’) towards a common goal. In my opinion, there is no better way to get to know someone professionally than to watch them think and work and apply their knowledge and talent, selflessly, to help someone else.
Keep your elevator pitches. Grab a beer, connect your mind and your creativity to your mouth and help somebody else’s business out a little bit while we shoot the breeze. Now I’ve had a chance to see and hear your capabilities (the real ones, not the ones you tell everybody about) and I’ve seen you as a human being helping someone else. That tells me way more about what you’re really capable of and if I want to do business with you.
The next wa.ag will be in Long Island tonite, Tuesday 9/13 and here’s a VERY generous discount code: discountatrookies.
If you’re free (I’ve got PTA, sorry) you should check it out or at least register to get informed about the next one.
I’d love to hear what you think.
Incredible impact, impossible deadline
So I’ve been blessed to be part of an amazing collective of some of the most talented people in Long Island, NY (@LITweetUP) for the past 2 years or so. One of the things that has made that experience amazing is that we do things, as oppossed to just talking about them all the time. In fact, the most amazing things we’ve done together so far, most people would’ve said we shouldn’t have tried. Shouldn’t have tried for a lot of reasons (distributed team, no command and control, etc) but the one that comes to mind right now is this:
we never had enough time.
Why bring this up? Because I read about something yesterday that could really help our community, if only we could put some legs behind it, and then I dismissed it because we have no time to get it done. I just realized that was stupid, better to try something and improve on it next time, than to do nothing at all.
So here’s the deal:
- I have an idea that could make an impact on our communities (focusing on the small businesses), help build your brand as a social media / marketing / PR professional and make you feel really good.
- It will be in my favorite style: inexpensive, we can do it anywhere, easy to do (if not plan), and fun & social.
- We’ll have to pull it together in 1 week or less to make it effective.
That’s it, that’s all I’m giving you for now. Wanna find out more, reply in the comments, shoot me a tweet (@namnum) or call me at 516-882-7712. I’ll be releasing all the details this weekend to those who ask.
If there’s enough interest, we’ll do it, if not, I’ll do it myself in a smaller way and then we’ll do it again & bigger next year, when there’s more time.
But come on, do we really need more time?
LITweetup Helps 2010 Planning Meetings
Hey folks, looking forward to our conversations tonite (9/27) at 10pm and tomorrow morning at 8am. If you’re trying to figure out how to join the video conference, just click on Join Chat on the right side of the toolbar at the bottom of the screen.
Here’s the conference call info:
Dial-in Number: 1-219-509-8111 (East Coast)
Participant Access Code: 6627316
Talk to you soon!
Pictures from Social Media Camp Long Island 2010
What to Expect on Friday at 10am – Social Media Camp Long Island Update
Lots of folks are new to the whole camp, unconference style event and have been asking what in the world Friday was going to be like. Here’s a real quick walk-thru of the day just to give you a feel for it. You might also want to check out some of the photos on Flickr and maybe even this video of a BarCamp. SocialMediaCamp is not a techie event like BarCamp is, but it’ll give you some idea.
Can’t wait to see you there!
Talks with smaller audiences – Social Media Camp Long Island Update
I wanted to quickly address a question I’ve been getting a lot in the last couple of days, what to do if you have a topic idea that may not draw 20, 30, 50 people. Since time is tight and typing takes longer I’ll try and release a couple of video updates to respond to questions as they come up. (I’ll try to remember to carry my Zi-8 to avoid the seasick effect of the cell phone vid)
