photo credit: BuzzShift

Last year at BlogWorld & New Media Expo (this year’s iteration is October 14-16 in Las Vegas and I’ll be there), I led a panel titled “Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly” with Amber Naslund, Robert Scoble and Wayne Sutton.

On the panel, we talked about trends in social media that concerned us and that we felt could harm the growth of the medium as a whole. These are also trends that could harm your brand, scare people away and damage your reputation. We highlighted six trends in all.

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In May, I spoke in Raleigh, North Carolina at WordCamp Raleigh and led a session titled “Building Community Around Your WordPress Blog.” That talk became the basis of the three part series I did here on building community around your blog.

The SitePoint Podcast, which I co-host, held it’s first ever live show at the conference. It all went really well and was a great experience. A big thank you to everyone who made it so.

If you were looking for or are interested in reading the full recap, it has now been posted over my on personal blog.

As previously announced, I will be speaking at WordCamp Raleigh in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event will be held from May 22 and 23 and I’ll be speaking at 9:30 AM on May 23. On May 22, I’ll be co-hosting a special, first ever live edition of the SitePoint Podcast, in person with prizes and special guests.

I will be leading a session on “Building Community Around Your WordPress Blog.” I see it as a strategy talk with some tools mixed it. We’ll talk about encouraging and stimulation community within the blog and outside of it. Tickets are available now.

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I only have a couple hours left on this day, April 28, but I wanted to write a post to thank everyone for their support of “Managing Online Forums” over the past two years. Today marks two years since it’s official publication date.

Thank you to everyone who has mentioned the book line and everyone who has reviewed it. I really appreciate every mention I receive. It’s like a special gift every time I get a Google Alert. So, thank you.

It’s a wonderful thing to see your knowledge and experience be well received and for it to help others. I care a lot about online community and I hope that comes through whenever I talk about it.

Thank you.

I’ve been working on booking speaking engagements for 2010. I’m talking to a number of different parties and hope to have more announced soon, but as I have a pair that are fast approaching, I thought I’d mention them as I always like to meet people at the events I attend. Not only will I speak at the events below, but I will be attending them each and every day.

On March 13 at 12:30 PM CT, I will be co-leading a Core Conversation at South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive with Twanna A. Hines. It’s called “Shameless Self Promotion Without Looking Like an @#$%^&!” Here’s the short description:

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At last year’s South by Southwest Interactive (see my recap), I gave a solo presentation titled “The Art of Responding to Feedback From Your Community.” The basis of this talk was a blog post made on this site in January of 2009.

The presentation is based around my three steps for responding to feedback. In short, they are: appreciate, acknowledge and consider. Be appreciative that someone contacted you, acknowledge their perspective and what they are saying and then consider it and how applicable it may or may not be.

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Just a few days after getting home from Blog World & New Media Expo in Las Vegas, it was time to hit the road for Durham, North Carolina, in order to attend the first ever Social Media Business Forum, organized by OurHashtag and held on October 23. Specifically, the men behind the event were Jeff Cohen, Kipp Bodnar, Ryan Boyles and Wayne Sutton.

Wayne is a good friend, so I really wanted to do the event, if I could, to support it. I’d met Kipp before and spent some time with him, as well. I hadn’t met Jeff or Ryan, but by the end of the event, I’d spent some quality time with all four and they’re a great group of guys.

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For the second consecutive year, I made the pilgrimage to the holy land that is Las Vegas for Blog World & New Media Expo, which ran from October 15-17.

Attending conferences like this is always a reunion of sorts where I hang out with people I already know and meet people face to face for the first time. Of course, there are plenty of new people, too, and opportunities to learn, share and have fun. I spoke on a panel and at a booth and had a book signing, as well.

One reason that this conference was different from every one that I have gone to before was because it was the first one attended by my brother Sean, a college student. It was great to have him with me during the event. For a majority of the time, I hung out with him and my friends Brandon Eley, Chrispian Burks, Stephan Segraves and Wayne Sutton.

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On October 23 in Durham, North Carolina, I’ll be speaking at Social Media Business Forum. I’m featured on a pair of panels during the first half of the day’s programming.

From 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, I’ll be participating in the “Advertising and the Social Web: Can it Work?” session with Gregory Ng, the Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive and other panelists to be determined. With my articles relating to the Sports Legends Challenge spam marketing practices, I’ve talked about how not to penetrate the social web, as an advertiser or a marketer. So, this should be a lot of fun.

The “Building and Managing an Online Community” panel will be my next stop, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM. For this one, I’ll be joined by Angela Benton, the Publisher of BlackWeb20.com; Ryan Boyles, an Advisory Software Engineer for IBM and Laurie Smithwick, Founder and Creative Director of LEAP Design and Founder of Kirtsy.

Social Media Business Forum is shaping up to be quite an event with an excellent speaker lineup. If you are within 5 hours of Durham and you are involved or have an interest in business, social media, web development, marketing, online community or any related subjects, it is definitely worth checking out. You can register online. If you’re coming, please let me know!

Shortly after I get back from Blog World Expo 2009, I’ll be heading to Durham, North Carolina for the Social Media Business Forum at the North Carolina Central University School of Education. It’s being organized by Kipp Bodnar of Howard, Merrell & Partners, Wayne Sutton of OurHashtag, Ryan Boyles of IBM and Jeff Cohen of OurHashtag.

My specific presentation(s) are not yet set, but the speaking lineup looks really cool and includes people like Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Wayne, Kipp, Jason Keath of Social Fresh, Angela Benton of BlackWeb20.com, Laurie Smithwick of kirtsy and others.

If you’re interested in attending, the early bird registration of $125 runs through September 18. After that, it’ll be $250. I look forward to seeing you there.