Announcing New Clients at @chalkboarder

Chalkboarder is pleased to announce two new clients joining our village this past week. We’d like to share a little about them with you..

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SMALL BUSINESS SOCIAL

In our SMALL BUSINESS SOCIAL category, we’re pleased to welcome United Kingdom based SkillSetG.

SkillSetG is a startup dedicated to providing relevant employment tips/skills to college graduates internationally.

Our mission?

Chalkboarder is tasked with building out and managing an aggressive social media optimization of the client, across world cultures, targeting soon-to-be or recent college graduates. Welcome aboard, SkillSetG!

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STRATEGIC BRAND & CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

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In our STRATEGIC BRAND & CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT category, we’re very excited about working with Jabriel Donohue, an award-winning bartender and mixologist based in Portland, Oregon USA.

Jabriel has been actively involved in helping create the dynamic reputation of several Oregon based cocktail and bartending events, including Cocktail Week.

Our mission?

Assist Jabriel with creating and opening his own unique lounge and cafe in SE Portland. Tasks include preparing the business plan, identifying partners, project management during buildout and launch, and social media optimization. We’re particularly enthused with this project as it blends two core competencies of Chalkboarder: brand/concept development and social media optimization.

Are you seeking an effective solution for your organization? Check out what Chalkboarder can do…

 

Social Media Profession Saturation?

Is the profession of social media becoming competitively saturated?

Early adoption of social media led to great communicators becoming industry leaders as social media professionals.

Communicational icons, such as Amber Naslund, Brian Solis, Paul Barron and Chris Brogan sprinted out of the gate, blazing a new industry called social media.

As the growth of social media has exploded, giving rise to official professional associations such as Social Media Club and educational programs such as “boot camps” and Portland State University’s Digital Marketing Strategies Certificate, leaders in this industry – the true professionals – have eschewed monikers such as “guru”, distancing themselves from too-narrowly focused “ninjas” and those out for a quick buck.

In a conversation last week with a significant franchisee of Papa Murphy’s Pizza brand (with tens of locations and direct corporate HQ relationship), it was shared that they are approached three or more times a week by so-called social media professionals, offering to “build them a Facebook fanpage”. The franchisee laughed in frustration, stating they had established a strong gate-keeper, because nearly all of these approaches were unable to provide the metrics ability businesses require.

On another front, the critique of traditional public relations and marketing firms was heavy over the last few years – that they didn’t “get” social media. With these traditional communication providers unable to advantage social media for their clients, the clients turned to either outsourcing or handling it themselves. As recently as December 2010, I was approached by a national public relations firm seeking a statement of Chalkboarder’s social media abilities – that they could subcontract for the benefit of their clients. Many of these communication firms have now put serious investment into gaining that social media knowledge in the last 18 months.

My question is this: as traditional public relations and marketing firms increasingly offer skilled social media services to their clients, does this reduct the opportunities for other talented communication/social media professionals? Are brands going to return to their public relations/marketing firms that they have had prior relationships with and eschew social media professionals that “got it” early on? Is the industry becoming crowded? Is there value to membership in a social media professional association like Social Media Club versus more traditional associations like the American Marketing Association or Public Relations Society of America?

An additional question would be – how can brands determine the true reach and effectiveness of social media service providers?

Jeffrey J Kingman, CEO – Chalkboarder

Tap Me On The Shoulder – Building Village

This past weekend Chalkboarder produced broad-path Social Media On Demand for our client Coffee Fest Tradeshow in Seattle. Over 8000 attendees and exhibitors gathered together at the Washington State Convention Center Friday through Sunday, making it one of the most successful shows Coffee Fest has produced in their 59 shows.

On the Friday of each Coffee Fest (there are three to four a year around the USA), Coffee Fest hosts a happy hour for exhibitors and attendees. These happy hours are crowded and very lively.

Friday night at the happy hour, I received a tap on my shoulder. Here is the dialogue:

Tap: Are you Jeff that gave the seminar on social media last fall here at Coffee Fest?

Me: Yes, I am.

Tap: I want to thank you! I wasn’t in social media and sat in on your seminar a year ago. Because of your presentation, I got into social media. You are responsible for adding $9000 a month revenue over the last nine months to my business!

Me: (genuine surprise and pleasure)

Tap: Do you want me to sell Chalkboarder for you in Los Angeles?

You can imagine my reply to this gentleman. I am truly humbled that a simple (and now I know, relatively uneducated) presentation on my part, impacted this gentleman’s business so positively. I’m pretty satisfied to hear this news, that my simple words and demonstration could bring such change to a small business.

By the way, if you are doing business in Southern California and thinking about social media, I can provide a reference to you.

Nurturing Village

Cross posted on Kitchen Dances.

Zulu Tribal Dance

Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Paul Barron’s Tribe concept. Paul spoke about this at People Report’s Summer Camp in Dallas this past June. Here’s a small recap of what he said:

“What will your tribe mean to your brand, to your industry and to your future. Learn why now is so important to build your tribe why others will try to do it before you.”

And here’s a quick video from Paul that outlines what “Tribe” meant to us there at #PRSCamp (the hashtag you can find our tribe on in Twitter).

I’ve been talking with Paul about One Tribe since late in 2009. I’d like to share the evolution of what One Tribe means to me – that it is all about nurturing villages.

Maalula Village

We, as humans, live in diverse villages. There’s the village of our family and friends, the village of our peers, the village of our customers/clients and the broader villages of our associations, churches, charitable organizations, towns, cities and regions.

My thoughts have centered on nurturing my villages. Taking time to care for and nurture my connections; giving what I am able of my resources to further the dreams, goals and objectives of villagers in my communities.

Village Interconnectedness

I figure by doing so, I’m strengthening and developing to greater sustainability and stability all of the people and organizations in my communities, in my world. By focusing on this, I’m helping to develop strong and healthy communities and relationships.

Further, by focusing on nurturing my villages, I bring people together, weaving deeper connections and relationships between my villages, creating community.

Flower of Life

This theory is not new in human experience. Theologists and spiritualists have talked about this for generations.

Nicaraguan Village

This.. focusing on my villages as my One Tribe, is responsibility.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this..  Jeff

Chalkboarder’s New Look..

We launched a new look to Chalkboarder yesterday, reformatting our main site (here) and re-launching another site Chalkboarder News.

Chalkboarder News is our company and client newswire service. We’re sharing everything we post for our clients (and for us) there as it happens. We’d love for you to check it out and if you wish to stay abreast of current developments, please subscribe or RSS feed.

We’re using our main site here to discuss relationship engineering, social media, the evolution of the social web, customer service, organizational sustainability, brand concept and development and my favorite topic – building and nurturing organizational villages.

Our relationship engineering team includes Bill Bridgmon (VP Sales), Matthew Vitorla (NE Reg Sales), Jennifer Collins (SE Reg Sales), Judith Smith (Editor) and myself. I anticipate you’ll see an noticeable uptick in activity here at Chalkboarder.

Jeffrey

One Year And Growing

It was a year ago that Chalkboarder was created. My partner Judith and I spent eight weeks writing a business plan and meeting with Paul Speer of SCORE (a former CTO managing 5000 internationally in Web 3.0 development). Of course, not all has gone according to that plan and we’ve grown in unanticipated directions.

We’d like to take this moment to thank current and past clients:

Coffee Fest
Rewarding Feedback
Social Grub
Angela Tunner Brand
World Twang
Jenee Halstead
Dessert Professional Magazine
Oak Grove Coffeehouse

We’d also like to thank the following individuals for great conversations and dialogue over the past year:

Paul Barron, Carri Bugbee, Marsha Collier, Kerry Finstead, Matt Milletto, Zachary Cohen, Traca Savadago, Michael Atkinson, Amanda Hite, Joni Doolin, Jill McFarland, Brie Nadal, Kat Cole, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Eric Qualman, Chris Guillebeau, Ola Ayeni, Justin Levy, Ron Ruggles, Dan Schwabel, Amber Naslund, Sonya Schweitzer, Pia Proal, the crew at Evergreen DynamicsSo and so many, many others.

I personally would like to thank Judith Smith (VP/Co-Founder), Jennifer Kingman (Partner), Bill Bridgmon (Partner and VP Sales), David Rogers, Roger LeClerc, David Hiler, Cecilia Kingman-Miller and James Kingman. Your encouragement and support is greatly valued.

As part of our One Year Birthday, we’re very pleased to announce reaching a milestone. We’ve partnered with two outstanding individuals to empower deeper and more aggressive growth, based in Southern California and New York/New Jersey.

Southern California
We’re very excited to partner with Chef Sandra Mallut, an extremely accomplished professional pastry chef with deep connections world-wide, including Disney. Sandra will spearhead relational connections and socialmedia client development in California, Nevada and the Southwest, in addition to the dessert industry. Welcome aboard, Chef!

New York/New Jersey
We’re also very excited to partner with Matthew Vitrola, a double major honors student at Brown University, majoring in economics and linguistics, with a focus on new media and the social web and a professional interest in the hospitality industry. Matthew’s extrovert and analytic skills will be a valuable addition to Chalkboarder in pursuing new business in the Northeast. Welcome aboard, Matt!

We’re very appreciative of all the support, dialogue and encouragement we’ve received, especially from Social Media Club PDX here in Oregon. We’re excited to serve the community and our clients with greater knowledge and skill as we all move forward together.

Where’s the cake? Anyone want a slice? Ice cream too? The Vueve Clicquot is over at the bar 🙂

Jeffrey J Kingman
CEO/Founder

Client Case Study: Coffee Fest

This past weekend Chalkboarder headed over to Meadowlands NJ to provide social media coverage of Coffee Fest’s first of three 2010 tradeshows. We were fortunate to meet some truly outstanding people within the specialty coffee and tea industry, from growers and suppliers, to roasters, coffee/tea shop owners and baristas. There seemed to be a fair number of folks attending who were planning to open a coffee/tea house.

Coffee Fest NYC Barista Competitor Megan's Signature Drink

Our mission at the Show was to journalize – to capture as much of the activity as we could to share with the friends of Coffee Fest and hopefully – that they would then share the high energy of Coffee Fest with their communities.

We’ve got some blogging to do – some retrospectives of the show. We were able to capture a large number of videos, create a Youtube Channel for Coffee Fest and engage a lot of the attendees and exhibitors through Twitter.

You can find all the videos over here at Coffee Fest Youtube, search the Twitter archives by using the hashtag #coffeefest, and stay tuned for the blog postings over here on Jeffrey Kingman’s Leaf & Berry Blog.