This past Friday I had the opportunity to host the first episode of “New Stuff” on TheMESH.tv.

The MESH is a new media online network, designed to produce and deliver unique content to computers, mobile phones, iPods, iPads, and any other device connected to the Internet.  Just like a traditional television network, The MESH has a series of programs and “shows” on a variety of topics… the difference is you can watch or listen to what you want, when you want, and where you want.

On this episode of New Stuff Chad Austin of Chad Austin Marketing and Media Design (www.chadaustin.com), Terry Bledsoe, Chief Information Officer for Catawba County, North Carolina (www.catawbacountync.gov), and Alan Jackson with Jackson Group Interactive(www.jginteractive.com) joined me to talk about social media, technology, mobile devices and other gadgets!  The topics for this first episode include the current status of Google+, recent Facebook announcements, iPhone 5 rumors, and Google Wallet.+

Listen to the first episode here:

• iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/new-stuff/id467909880
• RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/new-stuff
• The Mesh – New Stuff Page: http://themesh.tv/new-stuff/

Tune in on 9/19-22/2011 at 1:pm EDT for the second annual Social Good Summit presented by Mashable, 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation, and sponsored by Ericsson.

Make sure to keep up with the latest developments at the event by following #socialgood on Twitter.

Twitter handles for partners and the sponsor of the event include:

@mashable
@unfoundation
@92y
@ericsson

[UPDATE] Agenda for Sessions: http://mashable.com/sgs/agenda/

I recently had the opportunity to speak about leveraging social media at the NCARD conference in Boone, NC.  This presentation was a mixture of how to create content in different social media channels as well as how Catawba County, NC is using social media to connect with citizens and visitors.  Enjoy!

I live in in the foothills of North Carolina, Newton to be specific.  Recently, like much of the Southeastern United States have been struck with destructive severe weather in the form of high winds, hail, and tornadoes.  While many of you know that I monitor the weather and post watches/warnings as they come into Catawba County, I thought I would share some of my resources so that you can be better prepared as well, here they are:

Facebook - I post updates, links, etc. on my personal facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/leeyount

Twitter – I created a Twitter list named NCemergency (http://twitter.com/list/LeeYount/ncemergency) with several people, organizations, news, and government officials that tweet about emergency related items.

Hootsuite / Tweetdeck – I use both of these tools (depending on where I am and what device I am using) to follow different columns of Twitter and Facebook.  These are also great tools to use to search for hashtags.

Twitter Hashtags - Here are several (but not all) hashtags that I search when there is a severe weather event in North Carolina
(if you do not want to download or use Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, you can always do searches directly on Twitter at http://search.twitter.com/ although it is not the most effective way to use Twitter search)

• #ncwx – north carolina weather
• #nctornado – north carolina tornado
• #tornado – tornado
• #damage – damage
• #tornadowarning – tornado warnings
• #smem – social media emergency management

You can also combine search terms in Twitter like this:

• #NCTornado OR #tornado OR #damage OR #tornadowarning OR #shelter OR #wind OR tornado
• twitpic OR yfrog OR plixi OR twitgoo OR picktor OR mobypicture OR twitxr OR posterous #tornado

If you find yourself in need of assistance here are a couple of good resources:

• 911 – Always call 911 if you have an emergency.
• Find a Red Cross Shelter – If you need to leave your home because of an evacuation or if your home is damaged, find Red Cross shelter openings here.
• Red Cross Safe and Well – After a distster, let your family and loved ones know that you are OK by registering on this site.  You can also search for family or loved ones here.

How to be prepared / receive National Weather Service emergency alerts:

• TV/Local Radio – As long as you have power, stay tuned to your local news outlets / radio stations for National Weather Service emergency information.
• Weather Radio – Weather radios are a great tool to have to wake you up in the middle of the night when there is the threat of severe weather of an emergency situation in your area.
• SMS/Text Message – The Weather Channel provides text message emergency alerts for your area.  You can also choose what you want to be alerted of.
• There’s an app for that – Weather Alert USA is the name of the iPhone/iPad/iPod touch app that will alert you of emergency alerts in your area.  Here is the iTunes link: http://ow.ly/4IAcs web link:http://ow.ly/4IAct
• Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Store – Find and purchase several products including, but not limited to Weather radios, first aid kits, preparedness guides, and more.
• National Weather Service Severe Awareness Page – This is a great page with a lot of useful information, especially the Preparedness Guide.

The bottom line is stay safe and use common sense.  When severe weather is eminent, take the proper precautions to protect yourself and your family / loved ones.  Stay safe out there!

I recently had the opportunity to facilitate a session at the 2011 North Carolina City & County Communicators Conference in Fayetteville, NC.  The name of my session was Social Media – Shock and Awwww Awe.  This was the first time that I facilitated a team/workshop style session and it went great!  I was alloted 2 hours for my session so I wanted it to be fun as well as applicable.  Below is the presentation that we were working from.  Here are the note slides if you would like to download them: Note Slides

I had the opportunity to speak at the CIO Forum & Executive IT Summit in Raleigh, NC today.  The topic of my session was Social Media in an Emergency.  I discussed different tools used to monitor social media, as well as 3 different case studies where social media was used in an emergency; Haiti, Hurricane Earl, and Tornadoes in Catawba County, NC.

Here are the slides from today’s presentation with the speaker’s notes: click here

Below is the presentation on Slideshare:

What is Twitter?

Mini-bloging giant Twitter is continuing to gain momentum in the social media realm.  Are you tweeting, retweeting, following, being followed, on someone’s list, contributing with a hashtag,  direct messaging, shorting URL’s, or attending tweetups?  If You just skipped over that last sentence because you were lost with the Twitter terminology, you are not necessarily alone.  Twitter has made some sense of all the lingo with a simple Twitter101 tutorial and you can find it here: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/learning.

So now that you know what Twitter is, ask yourself how can you use it to fit in your portfolio of social media tools.  Here is a short video from the Common Craft Show (@commoncraft) that might spark some ideas about how you can use Twitter.

Twitter for the Masses

I attended the 2009 O’reilly Web2.0 Expo conference in NYC and Twitter was used and accepted as a major form of communication among conference attendees.  On of the ways they used Twitter was with a Twitter wall.  Basically how this worked was when someone tweeted with the hashtag #w2e it would show up in a search and displayed on the screen in front of a couple 1000 people.  Also with the use of the hashtag #w2e people would share quotes from the sessions they were attending, plans they were making with others, and a number of other uses…all within 140 characters or less.  If you would like to see the #w2e hashtag in a twitter search, you can find it here: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23w2e.  Remember to leave a little room in your tweet for folks to share (re-tweet) your tweet with others.

Make it Easier – With Tools

Sometimes http://twitter.com can become over loaded and not let you log in to tweet your “super important tweet”…What to do?  Use a 3rd-Party tool.  On the desktop, my fav. is Tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck also has an iPhone app for when you are on the go!  So why use Tweetdeck?  You can tweet, retweet, follow, direct message, shorten urls, and the best part, the search feature.  You can set up several columns to search hashtags, or terms and see the results in almost real-time.  One last thing, you can also connect with your Facebook, Google Buzz, Myspace, Linkedin, and Foursquare accounts.

RSS to Twitter

Want to feed your Twitter account with your RSS feed?  I recommend Twitterfeed to accomplish this very thing.  Without getting in to the inner workings of Twitterfeed, you can push your RSS feed items to several services including  Twitter, Facebook, and a few others.

Your 140 Characters

I hope this post has given you some understanding as to what Twitter is and sparked some ideas about how you can use it in your personal and business life.  So sign up for a Twitter account and get started!  What will your 140 characters be?  Let me know how you are using Twitter or if you have any questions.

Follow Me!

You can find me on Twitter here: @leeyount