SMCHI events have increasing value for the community. Our speakers and topics are better than ever. And as anyone who has ever been to one of our events can attest, they also come with the added benefit of being very fun. Get a bunch of “social” people in the room and watch the magic happen.  In addition, one of SMCHI’s goals in 2012 is to be able to host other high caliber speakers, like last year’s Mari Smith event, for an affordable cost.

But SMCHI does more than host events, we maintain a website with a blog which features custom content by our professional members. We manage numerous social media profiles and try to keep everyone in the loop about social media and digital literacy events throughout the islands. While all activities are 100% volunteer driven, SMCHI still incurs administrative costs for items like web hosting, equipment, live-streaming, and communication management.

Traditionally our events have been free. With this month’s event we’re announcing a slight change: we’ll begin charging a small fee for our events to cover SMCHI’s ongoing administrative costs. We know this might come as a surprise to some, but rest assured in the spirit of inclusion, our events will remain high value at a very affordable price; in fact, much more affordable than public events for other professional and educational organizations. Due to our ever generous event venue sponsor, Hagadone Printing, our nonprofit rental cost at Amuse is covered, so due to their generosity, we’re able to keep the price of our events down significantly.  We hope that some of these fees can also help SMCHI begin to bring in some knowledgeable social media leaders from around the country. We want to continue our reputation as one of the most dynamic Social Media Clubs in the world by leading our community with top-notch events and speakers. We want to continue to find ways to support our neighbor island professionals.  As a side note, SMCHI events will remain free to all Professional, Small Business, Nonprofit and Educational members.  

We continue to invite all members of the social media community to be part of SMCHI and its events, regardless of their experience with social media. We know that more than ever, people are curious about social media and want answers from reliable sources like those that SMCHI is able to bring to you. We’re committed to bringing you more and better quality information.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support of SMCHI. And we look forward to seeing you at our next event on May 14th, where we’ll show you time saving tools for managing social media.

Around the same time  CityCamp, created quite a stir. A hackathon, supported by the city and sponsored by private business, CityCamp introduces geeks to open data from the city enable citizens to create applications which make the content more accessible to the larger community.  Jane Zang and Andy Yip created an Iphone app, DaBus, that tracked bus locations (using GPS) and identified nearby bus stops and routes. In a city with a high bus ridership, this was a welcomed

Using DaBus App to figure out our timing.

application to many.

There was a movement afoot: government and citizens were collaborating in unique ways.

Before the fellows departed Honolulu, Sheba Najmi  invited me to meet with her, Burt Lum (planner of CityCamp, and Honolulu tech advocate and SMCHI Professional Member)  and the City of Honolulu’s communications director, Jim Fulton to discuss the use of social media for some of the technical development the city is either supporting or developing. While there was internal support for the use of social media and the city has an active social media presence, Fulton was skeptical that social media could be used to engage the community. Before the meeting was over, Lum and I had committed to creating a pilot program – a tweetup to celebrate the launch of the DaBus App, with a Geeks on the DaBus tweetup with Najmi cheering us on and offering support.

What is so incredible about this particular event is the citizen collaboration that occurred.  The first meeting about Geeks on DaBus took place at GreenHouse Hawaii, a co-working location which has developed into a collaboration and innovation hub.  John Garcia is GreenHouse’s owner and he’s also a SMCHI Pro Member, he immediately agreed to develop a website for the event and as quickly  Derek Gabriel (SMCHI Pro and Board Member) jumped into assist.  Lum, myself and Forest Frizell, Deputy Director of IT at the City and County of Honolulu sat down to hash out our plan. We agreed to start identifying social media aficionados who also took the bus. The first tweet wasn’t 30 seconds old before social media bus riders were self identifying, then social media enthusiasts who weren’t bus riders were asking if they could participate too! How could we say no? We made one rule: to get free lunch, you had to show evidence that you took the bus and tweeted or posted on Facebook  - that was the price of admission.

Energy was building. Despite the fact that the tweetup was scheduled for lunch time on a Thursday, it sold out! Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle agreed to attend the event along with key stakeholders from the City and County of Honolulu. The app developers, Zane and Yip agreed to attend as well.

Mayor Peter Carlisle and myself, celebrating our successful use of DaBus app!

On the day of the event, KITV Morning news show hosted Frizell to discuss the event and to discuss the DaBus App, meanwhile  geeks and  busriders started tweeting early!  Gabriel even agreed to escort this bus neophyte to the day’s multiple locations; shout out my personal DaBus app! As the morning went on, about 15 people (in addition to his entourage) joined the Mayor at Honolulu Hale (City Hall) as he himself jumped on the bus to tweet along side geeks and unsuspecting bus riders. Jana Pierce, SMCHI Pro and Board Member who is the city’s archivist was a member of the Mayors entourage and acting host of the city’s twitter discussion on @HNL_Info. At the GreenHouse, there was a flow of over 40 people throughout lunch. There was an impromptu Q&A with Roger Morton, President of Oahu Transportation who wowed attendees and the tweet stream with fun bus stats.

In the end, our tweetup created a sustained conversation about Honolulu’s bus system and #DaBusHNL app, for over 10 hours on a single day and the hashtag lives on.   People have adopted it to use throughout the bus experience. New people took the bus and experienced bus riders embraced the app.  Over 92 unique people participated and dozens more followed the journey of geeks all the way through Honolulu on an interactive map. In the days surrounding the event, there were 762 downloads of the app from Itunes. The app and the event were featured on Hawaii Public Radio and two television stations, but the heart of the energy came from those who participated either by taking the time to write an app, create a website, design a campaign or tweet along with the rest of #DaBusHNL geeks.

MAHALO to all who contributed in anyway!

Get highlights from the day’s activities on Storify.

Sandy Carter has the chops to write a book on “social business” she’s the VP of IBM’s Social Business Evangelism. As a daughter of an “IBM’er” I’ve watched with fascination as IBM has transformed itself in the past 25 years. But perhaps the most fascinating shift for this “traditional” big business is its ability to embrace social media to accomplish its business objectives. If Sandy Carter can create a path for a behemoth like IBM to embrace the new way of business, “Social Business” then surely business owners of all sizes can learn from her insight. Carter’s story is so similar to other thought leaders in the social space, they began by using social tools personally and as a result, the business began paying attention.  She finds that successful social businesses have three characteristics, they are Engaged, Transparent and Nimble. Again, if a business the size of IBM can incorporate these characteristics into its business model, imagine how smaller companies who are significantly more nimble can incorporate the other two to stand out in this social space.

Carter sets forth 6 key steps for developing a social strategy for your business. The AGENDA Model is a flexible and smart, step by step process. Supported by a wide variety of case studies, readers get to see how “Social Business” is implemented in the real world.

A – Align organizational goals and culture: “Culture eats strategy for lunch,” says Carter. This means leadership has to be not involved, but supportive of its employees who can act as brand ambassadors.
G- Gain Social Trust: Forming an audience and more importantly, friends, clients and other stakeholders.
E – Engage through experiences like gaming and interactive platforms. Carter says that “Experience will be King (and Queen) in the coming years.” in otherwords, it won’t be about content, it will be about how your audience interacts with your company and its product through experiences that create emotional connections.
N – “Social” Network your processes and making social media work for your business objectives. “Socially enabling your processes is a key competitive weapon.” – Jeremiah Owyang
D – Design for reputation & risk management speaks to developing a way to respond quickly when there brand or product emergencies. A major part of this design, is listening and responding quickly.
A – Analyze data. Carter says analytics are the new black and I couldn’t agree with her more.

So does it apply to small and medium businesses?

Not every business has the resources that IBM has, so will this book help them too? The short answer is “yes, if you are willing to take risk.” A recurring theme throughout is that for exciting (Bold) results, there has to be an inherent willingness to take a risk.  In fact, although the case studies are larger organizations, the take aways for businesses of all sizes are the same, including willingness to create exciting change. Social Business really starts with culture and that’s something that all businesses have. What’s so fascinating about  Get Bold is that it proves that social media DOES scale.  In fact, one of Carter’s key take aways is to incorporate all disciplines of an organization within social media strategy and implementation. Using this model, we see that businesses don’t have to hire a single person for social media, but can spread out the work among several, this is particularly helpful for small and medium size businesses. For larger businesses, this may seem scary at first, but Carter does a great job of explaining how to lay the ground work for such implementation.

What stood out for me when I look at businesses in Hawaii, was the “N”, Social Networking Processes. By creating or modifying internal processes to reflect the use of social media, businesses can take full advantage of the opportunities while saving themselves time in the social engagement process. This really means creating communication paths and empowering other departments such as HR and Customer Service to utilize social media to achieve departmental and overall business goals.

For those who joined SMCHI for the Creating a Social Media Policy Event on February 21, Carter has some succinct advice for how to create an internal policy; her 1o steps address business culture and expectations while keeping the policy itself clear and to the point. With her 10 recommendations, she also provides links to additional policy samples. She also references the differences between “social employees” and traditional employees, much of which we also discussed at our last event. In other words, social employees are coming, ready or not. Its time to think about ways to encourage social employees in your business rather than hinder them; they can do much more for your business when they are empowered.

Most exciting for small and medium businesses is the ROI considerations that Carter considers. She understands that social media impacts all parts of a business; Carter even gives examples of how social media can impact specific goals for businesses. No matter what size business you are – creating goals and measuring against them is the only way to measure ROI. But Carter also points to cost savings such as YouTube videos which are less expensive than advertising. Carter even references some affordable tracking programs that businesses of all sizes can use.

Overall, this is a great read for businesses of any size, no matter where they are in “socializing” their business. There are actionable insights in Get Bold that can take you to the next level. Period. Get your copy here (non affiliate link)

Our panelists covered some many angles of consideration when creating a social media policy including internal culture, employee relations and the all important legal perspective. We covered considerations and decisions about social media from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the implications of their findings. We had some great conversation about ownership of social media accounts in light of last year’s PhoneDog case as well as hiring employees who already have a significant social media presence.  In the end, all the panelists agreed every company should have a social media policy that empowers the use of social media that is consistent with your internal cultural, have clear expectations, have a policy with teeth but also make the discipline progressive and consistent with a variety of factors and finally include good ‘ole common sense into your policy.

During our meeting several resources were mentioned that we promised to share with our audience and those who couldn’t make it live and in person:

US Chamber of Commerce – Social Media Policies Before the NLRB

Altres Social Media in HR Whitepaper (free) 

Policy Recommendations from Connye Harper Page 1, Page 2
Social Media Policy Examples:

Sample Social Media Policy Courtesy of ManPower

Airforce Social Media Policies

Army Social Media Handbook 

Navy Social Media Policies

Navy Social Media Posting Policies

Federal Agency Social Media Usage Guidelines

Catch the recording of this very insightful discussion

Again, a special “thanks” to our brilliant panelists for their fantastic insight and guidance.

I wanted to give you a little run down on our meeting and the general direction of SMCHI this year.

State of the Club

• Through growth in membership, a special event and collaborative partnerships, I’m proud to announce that our 2012 BOD voted to full reimburse those members who paid for things like live streaming, web hosting and more last year, this is the first time we have been able to fully fund our operations and its a big deal.
• Our membership 2011 growth last year was tremendous, the largest majority coming from neighbor islands.

How DO forward thinking employers create policies that empower employees in the social media space while at the same time protecting the company’s many legal and branding considerations?

For our next event on February 21, 2012 we’re going to discuss exactly that challenge.  We have a power-punch panel (say that 3 times fast) who each bring a unique perspective to the challenges companies face when creating a policy. After leaving our event, we want you to feel empowered to create a social media policy for YOUR company and its employees.

Our panel of social media and technology experts:

Ryan K. Hew, Attorney at Law
Ryan focuses his practice on assisting small businesses in Hawai with a passion for technology and intellectual property issues. He sits on the Technology Committee Member at Hawaii State Bar Association is a graduate of Gonzaga University School of Law. Ryan also holds an MBA. Ryan also blogs about current issues and trends in the technology and legal sphere.

 David Bower, Director of Business Development, Altres 
In 2010, Altres issued a white paper on the topic of creating a social media policy. David will speak to what’s changed since that paper was issued and how he is seeing employers create policies that work for them.

Sylvia Dahlby, Rainmaker, Smart Search
Sylvia is a technology early adopter, having worked in the technology and recruiting industries since 1978, she’s seen it all. Since the advent of social media, she’s seen lots of businesses use social media for recruiting and communication. She’s the organizer of Social Media in HR Bootcamp, a member of SHRM-Hawaii and a PRO member of SMCHI.

Connye Harper, Consultant, Mediator, Investigator at Harper Strategies, LLC
With over 35 years experience in labor and employment law Connye has helped many different businesses implement policies, practices and programs which comply with federal and state laws and regulations. She is on the Board of Directors of Society of Human Resource Management-Hawaii and a PRO member of SMCHI. Since 1976, she has been a member of good standing with the State Bar of Michigan.

Tuesday, Feb 21st, 2012
6 – 7:30 pm
Amuse Wine Bar, Honolulu Design Center
Lots of free, covered parking, enter off Piikoi, just mauka of Kapiolani Blvd.

Yep. We got that. PubCon, one of the nation’s premier digital optimization conferences is coming to Honolulu February 13-15. Along with them they’ve got an exciting group of speakers , and as importantly, the topics are timely and relevant, from SEO to Google+ and of course, the 800 lb gorilla: Facebook.  We’re really excited to have this level of professional development here in Honolulu. Frankly, its very expensive to do events like this in Honolulu, so its unusual for us to get this opportunity. We get to network, get insight, and we get to do it all without having to leave our beautiful state of Hawaii. Lucky us. Again. Plus, we know where to drop in for a good nosh…even without checking out Yelp or Foursquare.  See? Its nice to be home.

I hope to see many of you there! Don’t forget to take advantage of the promo code for 15% off the registration price we sent out in the last SMCHI email and support this important event. Professional members have an even better discount of 25%! Let’s show PubCon Aloha for doing all the hard work and bringing a high quality professional development event right to our doorsteps.

Follow the #PubCon hashtag and connect with people before they get here!

A hui hou!

This is our Second Annual celebration of your work and success in social media, the Hawaii Social Media Year in Review (#HSMYIR).

True to the commitment of our global Social Media Club – If you get it, share it!, we’re opening it up for everyone to share their social media accomplishments in 2011, the end result will be a digital “brag board” of sorts. We’re inviting you to tell us about your social media activities, so we can tell the world! Whatever your social media accomplishment for 2011, we want to hear about it and help you celebrate it!  Nothing is too large or small. From opening social accounts to creating campaigns, everyone is growing in the social media sphere and we’d like to celebrate it all!

This year we talked a lot about video and how it can be used in the social media sphere, so in the spirit of that topic, this year’s submissions be via video. We think video will create an impactful and unique presentation for this year’s #HSMYIR at the year end party on December 13, and  the best part is, you’ll also have an asset for you to use on your site! We’ll be giving tips on how easy this can be to do – so not to worry if you have never done video before.

Our guidelines for submission are simple:

• All entries must be based on the tools and concepts of social media.
• Each person is limited to a maximum of three entries (In the event of more than three submissions, we will ignore all but the first three.)
• Submissions must be your own work, not the work of others. They may be on behalf of a client.
• Submission is by video, uploaded to www.vimeo.com and an accompanying form submission (below.)
• Videos must be a maximum of one minute in length.
• Accomplishments can be large or small – all are welcome so long as the above criteria are met!
• Open to ALL based in Hawaii (not required to be a SMCHI member).
• All entries must be received by the deadline (UPDATED AGAIN): NOON December 13th.

Here are several ideas for how to create your social media accomplishment video:

• Make a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation and export as a movie file.
• Make a talking head video right from your computer webcam.
• Make a video from your iPhone and interview your client or colleagues and show us the business location.
• Take pictures and make a moving slideshow from them.

PSSST:

We are seeking prize sponsors. If you or your client are looking to get in front of a digitally connected crowd, this is a great opportunity for you! Please complete our sponsorship form here! For more information on sponsoring particular elements of the event, please fill out the form as well!

For More Info: 

Save the Date: Hawaii Social Media Year in Review

Register for Hawaii Social Media Year in Review

About Vimeo
This is a free web hosting site that allows you to create a free account and upload HD videos. We will be able to curate a list of all valid entries and it will create one place online where we can watch and discuss all of the entries.

HSMYIR Submission Form

Feeling stumped about how to make your video submission? Roxanne Darling is giving a 30-minute webinar on Sunday night to give you several ideas!

WHEN: Dec 11, 2011 at 8:00 PM HST.

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/join/209352446

Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) – a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.

Dial +1 (510) 443-0603
Access Code: 209-352-446
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting

Meeting ID: 209-352-446

Here’s the scoop:

Date: October 18th 6:00-7:30PM 

Event: Understanding Social Media Measuremt
Produced by SMCHI #SMCHI
Cost: Free; seating is limited.
Read more and register here for this free event.

Date: October 19th 9AM-4PM

Event: Hawaii Social Media Summit #SMSHI
Produced by Tech News Bytes
Cost: $90 with Promo Code: SMCHI ($110 without promo code)

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

This fall’s Hawaii Social Media summit will also be part of two larger tech-related conferences taking place at the same time, which means the Hawaii Convention Center is going to be positively buzzing with marketers, techies and business owners. The fantastic Mari Smith will be the keynote speaker. If you aren’t already familiar with Mari, she’s written several books about social media, she’s considered a Facebook expert and is a social media source for publications including The New York Times, Fast Company, Inc., and the Wall Street Journal. She’s a fantastically popular speaker on the mainland and always draws a crowd.

In addition to Mari Smith, the education line up includes John Heckathorn of Honolulu magazine, local social media and community builder, LP Neenz Faleafine and several SMCHI Pro’s such as Linda Sherman, Laura Kinoshita and panels including Peter Liu, Roxanne Darling, Hal Wilkerson, Rob Bertholf, Tara Coomans and Bill Sodeman. This is definitely an action packed day you aren’t going to want to miss!

Register here:  Psst: Don’t forget that promo code: SMCHI.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

Date: October 20th 3PM-5PM

Event: Event Relationship Marketing with Mari Smith #HIMari
co- produced by Bare Feet Studios and SMCHI

Cost: $35

An intimate afternoon with Mari Smith. Mari Smith shares her secrets about building a circle of influence in social media. Having built a career as one of the country’s most highly respected social media experts using the very techniques she’ll share with you during this session, you’ll get to hear first-hand advice and recommendations. Mari’s followers are wildly passionate about her and her dance card is always full. This is a great way to connect with Mari in an intimate setting. Don’t wait to get your tickets until you see her on the 19th: it’s sure to be sold out by then!

Learn more and Register Here.

UPDATE 2011-10-26: Member Peter Liu created a Tweetdoc with all the tweets from this event. Available for download here.

As the author of this book, Marshall Sponder points out, unlike other forms of media, there is no single, widely accepted methodology for social media analytics. As an industry, we just haven’t settled on that. Indeed, its quickly becoming the holy grail. But the other camp has a valid, if purist argument: measuring the value of conversation in itself is impossible. Its true that there are numerous qualitative benefits to social media that don’t fit nicely on a spreadsheet.

But for those who have clients or stakeholders who are in need of results-oriented information, the book Social Media Analytics (affiliate link) is a fantastic place to start. Sponder begins his book reminding readers that setting up social media analytics requires significant time and research to implement. There are several areas that can be researched before determining what KPI’s will be applied. As someone who works with clients regularly on this issue, I particularly appreciated the way the author values the set-up process and identifies tools that are available for various tracking types. Included in these tools is a complete range of options with some case studies and practical advice about which tool may work best for you. From Radian6 to other lesser known options. There are not many measurement recommendations which have palatable price points for small business, although some do exist.  Understanding that it isn’t always practical, its worth stating that starting out with a quality measurement tool from the beginning will enable you to have baselines from which to compare future growth. If businesses aren’t measuring from the very beginning, measuring mid-stream will present its own set of challenges. Using a solid measurement tool from the very beginning also enables businesses to help identify the KPI’s that will be part of the social media growth. I’m in the camp of if you’re going to do social media right, it will at the very least require an investment in time and its worth it for businesses to understand how to measure and refine the efforts. I find that many businesses don’t know what to track in social media and investing in analytics software from the beginning will help in determining what is important to track depending on business’ objectives.

Another portion of the book I particularly appreciated was acknowledgement of debate over how to measure the value of a Facebook Fan or a Tweet. In addressing this topic, Sponder uses several case studies and quotes several “thought leaders” on the topic. What we see is that there is no one true value of a Facebook Fan or a Tweet, determining those values is dependent on a number of factors and if that’s a number that you or your client wish to track, then there are a multitude of considerations to take into account.

While there are numerous choices for methodology identified in the book,  the author gave an example in weighting different types of content and responses. I use a weighting model similarly when measure social media results and it was great to see another weighting strategy that might be employed.  The book sticks strictly to measuring social media, which I find slightly limiting because social media effects multiple areas of business including PR, Marketing, Customer Service and even Product Development. That said, by using a weighted scale of value, you could extend the benefits of social media to these other areas and this book gives markerters a good baseline from which to start.

Further along in the book, Sponder makes recommendations and gives examples on creating social media and implementation scorecards. Again, while the exact scorecard for a particular business or project may vary, the examples put forth are practical and useful. Included in the book are example scorecards from such well known companies as Ogilvy PR which measures what they call Conversation Impact. Essentially Conversation Impact seeks to quantify the value of particular messaging using 15 different metrics, but while its great information, as Sponder points out, its a benchmarking rather than analytics tool. Other models are presented as well including one for Share of Voice and Social Influence.

What the reader learns from this book is that they will have to choose which type of measurement will work best for the specific client or company and that there are a variety of options. No matter what phase of social media you or  your client is in, from beginning to strategic, something can be learned from reading this book. Its offerings and case studies are thoughtful and useful and the book itself is easy to read for data geeks as well as the uninitiated.  I suspect this book could be rewritten every 6 months as social media is a dynamic field, but much of what is contained in the book will continue to be useful for many years regardless of tools or changing philosophies of measuring the effects of social media.

SMCHI will be giving away a copy at our October 18th event on Social Media Analytics. In addition to my presentation on the topic, we’ll hear from some insight from the other camp of social media ROI presented by Gwen Woltz of Wahine Media and possibly even some others that we are working on! It should be a great evening! SMCHI is also in the midst of planning a panel on the topic for the Social Media Summit Hawaii, please use promo code SMCHI when you register for a $20 discount on ticket price.  So, if you’re interested in this valid discussion of social media analytics and ROI, please join us for any and all of these events for insight, lively discussion and different viewpoints on this very hotly debated topic.

PSSST: If you are a member of SMCHI, you are invited to attend a free webinar hosted by the Author of Social Media Analytics, Marshall Sponder. Register here: SMC Book Club Social Media Analytics

For more conversation on this topic, please follow” @smanalyticsbook on Twitter

I know. We’ve all been there. In fact, the more time we spend in front of our computers, even being social on Twitter or Facebook or now..Google+, the more we really need it. It does seem kind of ironic. With all the technology why event meet at all? The answer is clear: No matter how much I love Twitter (and boy, oh boy do I loooooove Twitter), the more I find myself seeking ways to engage in person. Being together creates an uplifting energy that’s undeniable.

SMCHI always has the most interesting group of people at these meetings from such different backgrounds. Some of us have marketing backgrounds, some have advertising backgrounds, some people have advanced tech experience. Some people have been using social media for years, some just started and some, well, they what we’ll call them social-curious. Everyone is welcome, because everyone has something to add to the conversation. Because of this,  when we come together, we always find a way to solve one another’s challenges and help one another reach our goals. Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter reinforce those relationships, but its that person-to-person connection that we still need. Every single time I leave a SMCHI meeting, my creative juices are cranking. I’m always inspired by the group of people who gather.

Where do my ideas come from? Always from a conversation. When we meet in person, we exchange ideas in a collaborative way that we just can’t do any other way. That’s why SMCHI continues to have community public meetings. Not only that, but seriously, have you SEEN the wine list at Amuse? I mean, it weren’t for the wine bar, we’d have a harder time putting the “Inc. into Drink”. But that’s what we do, sip-discuss rinse repeat. After all, creating solutions can be the best time ever!

So no matter what your looking for, a recommendation for a project your working on. A little free advice. Some fresh ideas. Or maybe you just want to meet people in the community, I encourage you to stop by SMCHI. We’ll be doing our public meetings only 3 more times this year. July 20th (register here), October (date TBD) and our annual Christmas party. If you’ve been craving some truly social engagement, then there is no more social crowd than SMCHI. Our gatherings are vital for not just the social media marketing and digital communities, but especially for those not in those communities. Why? Because this is how you learn just enough to go forward and bring ideas and concepts back to your business and when your ideas come to fruition, you’ll have the resources to make it happen.

If you’re on a neighbor island, you can connect with our members there. We have members on Big Island, Maui and Kauai.  On Kauai, they are meeting to participate in the live stream, together. It’s open to everyone who wants to join or is curious about using social media.  They meet. They eat. They talk. Its the greatest combination of IRL (in real life) and digital collaboration. Its truly cool. I need to get over there and go to one of their meetings too!

C’mon down and join us. We promise to be friendly and not use acronyms like “IRL” or “LOL” in real life. We’re human too. Come see for yourself.

The informal structure worked well and in keeping with the Social Media Club’s mantra of “If you get it, share it” supported both social media professionals and businesses seeking to learn about social media. Last year, however, the parent organization received official 501c6 status, making them a n IRS-approved educational nonprofit organization. Our local chapter, SMCHI, was offered the opportunity to become an official chapter operating under the parent organization.  Committed members of SMCHI felt this would offer the club several advantages. However, in addition to the perks offered by nonprofit status, SMCHI was also required to elect an official Board of Directors and conform to organizational requirements and a Code of Ethics.

On May 7th, all current paying members were invited to a planning retreat where one of the topics of discussion included nominating volunteers to official board leadership positions and the definition of those positions. Those nominations were put to a vote to all current paying members and we are proud to announce our first elected Board of Directors for 2011:

Chairman/Founder:
Roxanne Darling, Bare Feet Studios (honorary position)

President (2011):
Tara Coomans, Akamai Marketing

Events and Sponsorship Chair:
Tyler Stratton, Hard Rock Cafe Honolulu

Awareness Co-Chairs:
Roxanne Darling, Bare Feet Studios and Tammi Hitchcock, 3 Peas Media

Technology Chair:
Peter Liu, Kaiscapes Consulting

We congratulate all new BOD members and thank them in advance for their commitment to advancing social media best practices and helping educate the community about SMC throughout all of Hawaii.

If you are interested in getting more involved with SMCHI or perhaps running for a BOD position in 2012, please contact us for ways to get more involved with the leadership of SMCHI. We are an entirely volunteer-run organization and immensely appreciate those who can assist with events, communication and resources! Next year we hope to fill even more board positions.

Steve Garfield has some pretty heavy production chops, but his new book Get Seen (not an affiliate link) removes all the fear and stigma from using video for business. While he covers a lot of technical elements, he does so in an easy, step by step manner that includes photos. But perhaps Steve’s most helpful advice is reminding users not to get too hung up on purchasing expensive equipment or worrying about production perfection. Throughout the chapters, he shows users how to use sites like Vimeo and YouTube and interviews video masters who provide insight into how businesses are using video for content. He even throws in some fun sites that you’ve probably never heard of, like Xtranormal.com where I made this fun video in less than 15 minutes.

While I was making my own video for this book review, I took to heart Steve’s advice and “just did it.” A couple perhaps more obvious lessons are available in the out takes of this video. I’d call myself a novice video producer, in other words, I’ve made some for fun and I even made one for the famous Best Job in the World Application in Australia a couple of years ago. But while I can navigate Imovie and a point-and-shoot video camera I haven’t utilized the format much for business. I mean, after all, we can’t all be Roxanne Darling and have a hit YouTube series. Or can we? Steve Garfield is all about encouraging you to take a stab at it. Whether you use video for your blog or as a citizen journalist with CNN’s Ireport or as a product demo video is a tool that people love to see – and its easier to produce than you probably thought. Steve even has a series of recommendations for creating video content without having to star in your own video. Perhaps the most fun I had was playing with a site Xtranormal.com, you can see the results of my test here, it took 15 minutes to produce and it was free. So have it at! Let your imagination run wild…I know my own brainstorming gears were grinding!

Now, you can see from my video, I didn’t do anything fancy. I wasn’t trying to showcase my video chops, I wanted you to see how easy it can be. Even from your desk. I chose to use Vimeo to share the video with you for lots of reasons. I think Vimeo is a great resource for professionals and its just as easy to use as YouTube, without the clutter. It doesn’t have the built in audience that YouTube has, but it I think its viewers are more targeted Also, our own blog has a 20MB limit on uploads, so it was easier to post it on Vimeo without giving up any of the production value. I did have some wonky challenges with embedding the video into this blog post, most specifically that after adding in the embed code, the site didn’t want it to stick. I solved that by adding the code right before the “save”. But just in case there is another issue, check it out here.

So what are you waiting for? Give it a shot!

And if you’d like your own copy of Steve Garfield’s book “Get Seen” then be sure to join SMCHI for our July 20th event. But even if you can’t be there, tweet @smchi with the hashtag #getseenhawaii to be entered into the drawing!

Thanks for watching. And reading!

May’s SMCHI meeting featured two guest speakers, who joined us via Skype for an open-ended Q & A session. Even the best Social Media plans have hiccups and need a little improvising. The SMCHI Q&A live stream event is case in point. Before the meeting started a few of us arrived at the Stage meeting room early (oh, so conveniently located next to Amuse Wine Bar) to set up the computers and equipment & make sure everything ran smoothly. Okay, I’ll admit it… we were only temporarily sidetracked from technical duties while selecting “social” wines (and coining the phrase putting “INC.” into “Drink”) but then it was back to work!

The impromptu “tech team,” Tara Coomans, Shiloh Swanson and Roxanne Darling connected then tested a MacBook, video camera, microphones, Skype, UStream, and the venue sound system. All systems were go during the test phase, but once the meeting started we couldn’t hear our Skype guests and they couldn’t hear us! After a few minutes of awkwardness Tara figured out that holding the plug into the Mac jack just at the right spot everything would work. The only problem… well, Tara had to stand and hold that plug the whole meeting! (Just thankful there was a solution!) After a few awkward giggles and much patience from our guests and a solution, quit literally “in hand”, the meeting continued.

Our first guest, Phyllis Khare (@phylliskhare), is a co-author with Amy Porterfield (@amyporterfield) and Andrea Vhal (@andreavahl) of the new book, Facebook Marketing All-In-One For Dummies. Generously joining us via Skype from Iowa (which means it was about 11 PM her time when the meeting started in Hawaii). Phyllis fielded some great questions from our audience including Facebook for business and strategies for identifying your customers expectations for Facebook. She also recommended Mari Smith’s Facebook page as an excellent resource for Facebook apps. Phyllis also recommended embedding videos into Facebook so visitors can watch them immediately (vyou.com <http://vyou.com> )

Our second guest, Peter Liu (@peterliu47) of Kaiscapes Consulting joined us on the hot seat from Maui. Peter is a technologist, an Internet/computer industry veteran, and founder of Kaiscapes.com. Peter consults with businesses on bringing computer and Internet technologies into workflows and strategies. Peter fielded questions on best practices including cross posting and dealing with the challenges that can occur in social media campaigns. Peter is also an advocate for corporate blogging, so he also addressed how using a blog can establish credibility and relationships with your customers.

The energy in the room was fantastic, attendees were eating up the pau hana treats available from Amuse and having a great time asking all kinds of questions to our guests. Some lively discourse that followed only served to highlight that social media is a growing field and that in many cases, there can be many “right” answers. Questions came in from the live stream and from Twitter, enabling members from all the islands to participate.  Much to our excitement, a group of about 10 people, organized by professional member Chuck Lasker got together on Kauai to participate in the live stream and have a social media discussion as well.

So in the end, even with the little technical glitches, the SMCHI team felt it was a success.

Many Mahalos to Phyllis Khare and Peter Liu for joining us online and fielding questions and thanks Tara for coercing the plug and developing claw hand from holding the audio connection for over  an hour! (We have her cramped claw hand captured in a photo to prove it!)

If you missed the live stream, or if you’d like to watch it again, you can find the recording  on the SMCHI UStream page.

Event photos by @jtfreezeframe at the SMCHI Flicker page.

This post was a collaboration of SMCHI Professional Members: Tammi Hitchcock and Tara Coomans

Once our responsibilities are finalized, we’ll offer our professional and small business membership an opportunity to vote and even nominate themselves for open positions, of which there are several.  There are only a couple of requirements for nomination:
1) agree to the code of ethics for the board members
2) be a Professional or Small Business member of Social Media Club.

If you are a social media professional who would like to become more involved in the social media community, please feel free to nominate yourself or submit your interest and qualifications to the nomination board here. Voting will be closed on June 30th, 2011 and board members will initially server through the remainder of 2011.

Other changes are in the works as well:

• SMCHI is now holding our free educational community meetings quarterly: July, October, December (our now annual year-end party)
• Interactive Tweet-Ups will be held in the months of August and September. These are designed to support local businesses and organizations.
• Informal Tweet-ups may be additional scheduled as “needed.”
• Periodic Go-To meetings for our paid Professional and Business members to discuss topics of particular relevance to social media practitioners. They are currently scheduled for June and November; existing members will receive notification.

Along with our change in schedule, we’ll also be formalizing sponsorship opportunities for events and Tweet-ups, so if you are a business who wants to engage a wired and social community, please contact usfor more info! Sponsorship opportunities may include opportunities to host Tweet-Ups for the social media community – what a great way to kick off your social media campaign!

Our motto for the global Social Media Club organization is “If you get it, share it.” In that spirit, here is a copy of the notes of from the Professional and Business Member Retreat, available for download here

Local Klout Rankings

Imagine, a dark room crowded with bubbling bunson burners and other methodical devices. A lone man snickering to himself as he drips one sinister-looking fluid into a previously innocent solution which leads to a wild explosion followed by  the cry of “EUREKA!” The image of the mad scientist isn’t so different from another near and dear to the Social Media Club of Hawaii: the mad coder. The mad coder, fueled only on inspiration and Mountain Dew stays up all hours of the night faced with multiple eerily glowing screens and the lonely sound of keyboard clicks. The mad coder who performs digital experiment after digital experiment until he finds one that’s a hit.

Hawaii has its share of mad coders but none who so specifically resembles the mad scientist as Rob Bertholf. Affable and open, Rob hardly seems like the frantic image described, but those of us who know him, know this image isn’t too far off. Talking to Rob about his latest digital experiments is akin to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through Social API’s, WorldPress Plugins, SEO and an array of Social Media Assets. Long a leader in Hawaii’s digital scene as as one of the very first Professional Members of Social Media Club Hawaii, Rob  continues to grow the digital community by uniting mad coders and marketers together to create exciting results.

Rob Bertholf

Rob says his inspiration is based in creating the assets and the tools that enable strategists to create programs or identify opportunities within social media. Now it seems as though the recent launch of HawaiiKlout.com was merely the proof of concept in a larger vision of localized Klout rankings or kLokal. “Having a localized leaderboard segmented into Brands, Celebrities and Influencers helps put the Klout data into perspective.”  After creating HawaiiKlout.com, Rob reached out to Klout CEO Joe Fernandez to inform him that he was using Klout’s API in this way and also to ensure that his use of the brand name Klout wouldn’t land him in any legal hot water. Fernandez was quick on the response, not only endorsing Rob’s vision, but asking him to implement it using some features of Klout Connect which allows more data to be analyzed ensuring relevant online influencers. Klout.com CEO Joe Fernandez endorses Rob’s vision by saying “Here at Klout, we love to see original ways to use our data and kLokal is a great example of localizing Klout.”

Hawaii social media users looking to connect with like-minded influencers will find kLokal.com a welcome tool, as will visitors to Hawaii and businesses looking for experts in relevant fields with a social media presence. As Rob himself says: “After reviewing HawaiiKlout, there were a number of influencers who I had not crossed paths with previously, I’m now following them and having engaged conversations,  thank you for uncovering them Klout!”

From a marketing perspective, savvy Hawaii businesses and nonprofits can create their own #hashtags as well, giving life to viral campaigns and making tracking the campaigns and mentions easier. But one of the disadvantages of using a Twitter search to look for a hashtag is that it doesn’t really give you a view of what’s happening in a specific area.

That’s why the development of  HiTopics is so exciting. Born from a brainstorming meeting between Professional SMCHI member Rob Bertholf along with John Garcia, Doc Rock and John LeBlanc during #HIGeek last weekend, the website is a mashup of Hawaii’s trending topics and images.

Hawaii businesses monitoring #hashtags can add to conversations that are trending (no promotional tweets, please) and ride the #hashtag wave or they can start their own #hashtags in conjunction with campaigns and monitor how the word spreads. Ahhh…the depth of the simple #hashtag.

But our local brainiac geeks developers  didn’t stop there, what makes HiTopics.com unique from other trending topic sites, is that businesses will soon be able to claim a hashtag and brand the subdomain to their business, event or topic, giving Hawaii businesses another reason to jump on the hashtag bandwagon!

Many Mahalos to Hawaii’s creative social media techies who are always coming up with solutions to our unique Hawaii needs!

But WikiBrands by Mike Dover and Sean Moffit ties all the necessary components into a social media strategy together with some helpful tactics.  Where WikiBrands differs is that it incorporates all those key subjects and more while also discussing the often ignored role of the brand. Branding is particularly relevant for small and medium sized businesses or start-ups who are looking to start or increase their social media voice. While most the examples within the book are of enterprise-sized businesses, the mini-case studies of numerous different types of brands ranging from WD-40 to Lunapads (a feminine protection product) to the oft-cited Zappos, Wikibrands proves that no matter the product, engagement can happen with a strong and willing brand. Businesses of all sizes can learn something from these examples and by implementing the FLIRT model that is roadmap to Wikibrand success, even the smallest entrepreneur can create a place for themselves in social media.

But before we get started: what exactly is a Wikibrand? According to the authors:

Wikibrand(s): noun

A progressive set of organizations, products, service, ideas and causes that tap the powers of customer participation, social influence and collaboration to drive business value.

It seems like a simple enough description, but the devil is indeed in the details of a successful Wikibrand.  The book begins with some branding 101 and then provides examples of the benefits of Wikibranding. Now, here comes the beef: it transitions nicely from the philosophical to the action plan with a concise roadmap called FLIRT, an apropos acronym according to the authors since flirting is “pulse raising, human and engineered to impress.” The other reason this acronym works is that each section represented is not only in order of steps, but importance. Each element has its own chapter: Focus, Language and Content, Incentives & Motivations & Outreach, Rules Guidelines & Rituals, Tools. I particularly appreciated the process of the FLIRT model. By encouraging businesses to start out with their focus and strategy and then move through to the other elements, the authors Dover and Moffit support what so many marketers know, but what so many companies ignore in their rush to create a program.

But understanding how to begin your social media presence is the first phase, building community then analyzing and measure the community and Wikibrands includes those very important topics as well. The community development chapter may seem intimidating to smaller businesses, but the chapter is a worthy read still since it articulates some of the motivations that people have for being part of a community. Understanding the needs of humans, rather than computers is the essence of Wikibrand success. Wikibrands even spends a chapter on personal brand development. I did wish that Wikibrands spent more time on measurement, but the authors do articulate some common measurement mistakes and make recommendations for measuring success based on your goals rather than more common tactics.

As you move through the FLIRT model, you’ll have lots of statistics that are worthy of your next powerpoint presentation along with research that is hard to get your hands on. While the road map of FLIRT doesn’t go into specific tactics, its a good brainstorming exercise for any marketer. Frankly, Wikibrands should be required reading for any business or marketing professional considering or executing a social media presence. For consultants Wikibrands offers an organized way to help your clients navigate through the complex choices in social media. I plan on giving a copy to my clients.

Please join SMCHI as we discuss Wikibrands on March 15. We’ll do a 20 minute review and then have some time for brainstorming and discussing the book in further detail, together! Hope to see you there!

Over 80 people and companies submitted their social media achievements from 2010. Ranging from joining Twitter to complete brand & political campaigns. Aloha was on-tap as one social media professional, L.P. Neenz even submitted over 20 campaigns on behalf of others! If you get it, share it and that’s what happened as the collective toast went up to celebrate each step Hawaii took in social media this year.

But it wasn’t just a slide show and some drinks, there were tons of prizes given away through a Twitter raffle. Rather than interrupt the crowd, who is VERY good at being social, SMCHI notified winners through Twitter using the #HSMYIR hashtag. Those without Twitter accounts were notified via text messaging.  Grand Prize winner of 2 round-trip interisland tickets courtesy of Hawaiian Airlines was first-time SMCHI attendee @juliamyerz! We know she’ll be back because she’s got some fun social media programs cooking at Chaminade University we expect to see them listed with a LONG line of accomplishments at next year’s SMCHI #HSMYIR.

A very special “MAHALO” to those local companies who supported SMCHI and the social media community with raffles drawings. See who won each prize below! Please consider supporting these local businesses who are supporting nonprofit organizations like SMCHI:

Hawaii Food Bank: 2 Screen Saver Movie Passes (Consolidated Theatres). Help us thank them @hawaiifoodbank. WINNER: @waynekaro

Rackspace: An hour of consultation with either the Rackspace Social Media Team, or our engineering team to discuss Cloud Computing/hosting options/issues/technologies, etc. And a swag-bag with top-secret contents. Help us thank them @rackspace. WINNER: @unkle_krustry

Hynosis Audio Store: $100 gift certificate for Hynosis Audio Series. Got a New Year’s resolution? Stop smoking? Lose weight? Maybe you just want to sleep better? Hypnosis is a powerful tool that can help you with all these things! Say “thanks” by stopping by their Facebook page!

Elements Spa and Salon: (2) $50 dollar gift certificates. Elements Salon is your in-town oasis. Treat yourself with a massage or make-up application. How about a snazzy new hair cut? Elements does it all with an eye towards calming stressed nerves. Send some good karma to Elements for supporting SMCHI: @elementshawaii

BestBuy Hawaii: $50 gift certificate. Calling all gearheads! Bet you can think of a million ways to spend this gift certificate! We can too!  Let them know you appreciate their support of SMCHI by stopping by their Facebook page!

Hawaiian Airlines: (2) Inter-island Roundtrip Tickets (HawaiianMiles): Gotta get away? Here’s your excuse! We see the chance to play tourist in your future! Say “Mahalo” to Hawaiian: @hawaiianair or on Facebook! WINNER: @juliamyerz

Pacific Roller Derby Two tickets and a T-Shirt for 3rd Annual SK808 Tournament- Pacific Roller Derby fest at Pipeline Cafe! This world class tournament features skaters from Hawaii, the mainland, and beyond in a day of hard hitting live roller derby action. Follow them on Twitter and find them on Facebook. Value $50. Donated by Sylvia Flores.

A World of Thanks – A $50.00 coupon to be used for a single purchase on A World of Thanks – The World’s Largest Thank You Card (coupon will allow the user to increase the size of the thumbnail image being posted on the card when posting a thank you message). Follow them @aWorldofThanks. Value: $50. Donated by Nick Mann. WINNER: @TessStaadecker

Custom Facebook Tab from New Nector – A custom Facebook tab featuring FBML, FBJS and dynamic content from your website. Also included: a free consultation on how to increase fan count and engagement. Follow them @NewNectarMedia. Value: $1600. Donated by Philippe Tassin. WINNER: @HowzitHawaii

Career Changers TV Spot - We’ll do a 2-3 minute television segment about a local venture that has successfully used social media to increase business in the past year. Must have a tangible product or service we can show on TV. The piece will air daily for one month on OC16 at different times each day. Visit our website and click on the YouTube link to see videos from past shows. Follow them @richfigel. Value: $1000. Donated by Rich Figel. WINNER: @VBrown

One Hour Massage with Zorka – Gift Certificate for one hour Massage Service. Follow her @fimase. Value: $60. Donated by Zorka. WINNER: @aWorldofThanks

Dating Pack from Safe Day Events – Holiday Dating 2-Pack contains: (1) a Drink Detective to protect you and your date from drink spiking; and (2) a Drug Kop to protect you from any other form of unwanted hard drugs. Only ingredient not tested by this tester is THC plus coupon for additional products. Follow them @safedayevents. Value” $25. Donated by Marilyn Rogers. WINNER: @YanceyU

Empowered Presentations Consultation – A complimentary 1hr presentation consultation. Valued at $250.00. We will take apart any current presentation of yours and will assist you with next steps in redesign so your presentations will be clean, clear, and concise and most of all Empower you to present with passion and enthusiasm! Follow him at @coryjim. Value: $250. Donated by Cory Jim. (Jim did our lovely Accomplishments Slide Show!) WINNER: @madmarv

Gift Certificate from 10K Web Design - Gift certificate (e-code) for any item from CSNStores.com – hundreds of categories like shoes, bags, luggage, pet products, patio and garden accessories, and furniture. US and Canada only. *Please use by January 31, 2011. Follow her at @monicadear. Value: $75. Donated by Monica S. Flores. WINNER: @colin800.

Fine Art Print on Aluminum by Shane Robinson – “Ginger #4″ fine art photograph from my Awaphui Series, reproduced at 12″ x 18″ infused on aluminum. Follow him @shane. Value: $250. Donated by Shane Robinson. WINNER: @GenePark

1-Hour Personal Fitness Training by Kahala Fitness: Kick off your 2011 resolutions with help from a fitness professional! WINNER: @dsghi -who should also win a prize for the most tweets from #HSMYIR

CD’s from Marian Call (@mariancall): Social Media Guitar Extraordinare! WINNERS: @safedayevents, @hnlmark and Maria Lilly

White t-shirts with the phrase “”I LIKE KITV4″” written across the front of the chest. Follow her @lorenawire. Value: $100. Donated by Lorena Wire of KITV.@KITV4 t-shirt WINNERS: Jana Staggs, @halwilkerson @lalalinzy @IllumifiLLC @ @shane @NewNectarMedia @hawaiitalk @mariancall Matt Eagle, Dion Dizon Get them at the front door!

We’re so excited for our Nov. 9th meeting at KA restaurant. The format for this session is going to be a little different, we’ll be putting our collective energies together to create a social media strategy. You’ll have the chance to work together, moderated by some of Hawaii’s most experienced social media experts.

We have some handouts available for the meeting tomorrow, available for your download. Please bring them with you as you see fit. We think they will energize the brainstorming and provide you with some resources to boot!

See you there!

Tara Coomans

Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Strategy

Social Media Strategy – Modified from Jay Baer

ABC’s of Facebook Groups vs. Pages

Who Participates Online (using Forrester Categories)

Art of Listening (infographic)

Age Distribution for Social Sites

UPDATES:Here’s the interactive link to Forrester’s Demographic analysis of online users that I mentioned last night at the SMCHI meeting. (click here) (Thanks to everyone who came! It was great to see such great energy!)

Download the slides PDF here.

Plus Roxanne Darling wrote a review of the SMCHI event over on Bare Feet Blog with many more links.

Overwhelmingly, Hawaii’s social media practitioners expressed an interest in growing the club and attaining nonprofit status, which will allow SMCHI to focus on giving back to the business community in Hawaii. This comes by having at least 10 paying members to the parent organization, thereby awarding us “official” chapter status and all the benefits contained therein.

“Getting it” and “Sharing it” are two Social Media Club mantras. Its time to “share it.” Building a strong club that supports our Hawaii community as practitioners, social media fans and businesses takes action on part of the members.  As members need to get together to share it. Both public and members-only meetings are important – SMCHI would like to hold meetings for each group every other month. SMCHI needs volunteer members to help us keep up with our commitment to share it. For example we need members who will:

• Develop a topic and arrange for a relevant speaker.
• Develop meeting structure, planning and outreach.
• Each meeting needs a location and on-site details.

Once we get into the meeting groove again, we’d like to take that energy and consider planning a larger conference for Hawaii-based businesses, but first, we need to get our systems down for monthly meetings.

SMCHI belongs to its members. There is nothing we can’t do. Together.

Many members have expressed an interest in participation, but few have taken action. Let’s “Get it” together so we can continue to “share it.” WE, the members, are the passionate ones. WE have the opportunity to improve the state of social media in Hawaii. WE can help one another and businesses in Hawaii.

Consider this your personal invitation to shape the future of SMCHI.

No matter what island you are on, please tell us how you can contribute to SMCHI.  Regardless of your interests, we can probably use your talents! From monthly meetings to e-blasts to sponsorship for the club, all of these items are important to grow the club. We know each of you have talents in one area or another. Let us know what YOU’D like to do to become more involved with the club.

As an engaged volunteer, you can count on the team at SMCHI to actively look for ways to support you and your business in reaching its goals. There are many possibilities open to engaged members. Increasing SMCHI’s presence in Hawaii will only continue to open doors to SMCHI members and volunteers, as well as supporting our nonprofit and for profit organizations.

What Can YOU Do?
We are building our executive team right now. Please contact SMCHI via email, Twitter, Facebook or courier pigeon (if your really old school) and let us know how you can help SMCHI with its training and meetings.

WE can get it. Together. Please share your time with SMCHI.

We’re very excited about the future of SMCHI and can’t wait to hear from each of you of how you’d like to participate. No one’s talents will be wasted! Looking forward to hearing from you!

P.S. - Don’t forget that there are several levels of membership available. Membership has its benefits, but most importantly, it helps SMCHI attain its nonprofit status so we can continue our programs, most of which are free of charge!