Sometimes we need to expand our intellectual capital. Today I decided to do it “Mastermind” style. This morning I drove 100 miles roundtrip from San Diego to Orange County to attend @SMMOC – Social Media Mastermind Orange County. This was my first experience of the Mastermind format. Click photo to have a peek.
That’s @BobWatson, the group’s founder. Here’s a quick rundown on why I found today’s session so valuable:
1. Free fresh coffee (!)
2. A group of about 30 people of all ages with a variety of interests (i.e. real estate, the automotive industry, K-12 education, public relations, TV/entertainment industry, memory improvement, government, non-profits, technology).
3. All participants are engaged with Social Media in their industry and range from novice to expert. I immediately observed the camaraderie. The mindset was, “We’re all here to share and get smarter together.”
4. As people arrived, they put up topics they wanted to discuss on a whiteboard.
5. Everyone put their Twitter handle and Facebook name on a second whiteboard.
6. Twitterchat was encouraged and projected up on the wall in real-time.
7. After brief introductions and a reminder of the no-pitch rule, @BobWatson skillfully facilitated the range of discussions and kept people on-topic.
8. A lively 2-hour ask-and-share dialogue kept everyone engaged.
All in all, over a dozen topics were discussed in this session. As is often the case, my personal discussion after the event proved valuable as well. Thanks to @Oscarstech, I learned about NameChk.com. NameChk is so cool! In less than 10 seconds it checks 160 different popular social media sites to see if your personal username or vanity URL is available. Here’s what it looks like:
(Click image to enlarge).
I’ve been busy expanding my professional brand across several social media channels, and it makes perfect sense to register my vanity URLs quickly, before someone else grabs what I want. It makes sense for you too — NameChk gives you valuable information on 160 popular social tools in under a minute.
If you want to see all my newly branded channels, go to the Contact Me tab above. Please feel free to comment, like and follow my WordPress blog, and show some FB love here too: @iSocialimpressions. Thanks!
