photo credit: Dell’s Official Flickr Page

The third annual Community Manager Appreciation Day, originally started by Jeremiah Owyang, will be celebrated on January 23.

In honor of this event, Dell will be hosting an hour long Google+ Hangout on their Google+ profile, starting at 1 PM ET (UTC/GMT -5). During the hour, there will be a set of three live panels, organized by Connie Bensen, a Senior Community Strategist at Dell.

I will be featured on the first panel, “Chief Company Pinata & Cat Herder: Beyond a Day in the Life of a Community Manager,” alongside Amy Muller, Co-Founder and Chief Community Offer at Get Satisfaction and Mark Harrison, Community Manager for Google Earth and Google SketchUp. Following this session, others will speak, including Bill Johnston, Director of Global Online Community at Dell, who will be featured on the final panel with Owyang.

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After taking a speaking break for a few months, it is time to get back on the road.

This fall, I am joining the Social Media Masters tour from Social Media Club. The conference series bills itself as “an advanced level conference for marketing and communications professionals.” It’ll hit five cities and I’ll be speaking at the Atlanta and Los Angeles and stops.

The Atlanta event is on August 26 and Los Angeles is on September 9. With the coupon code SMMPO30, you can received 30% the ticket price.

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South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive 2011 is just around the corner: March 11 through 15 in Austin, Texas.

Not only will I be in town for the entire event, but I’m happy to say that I’ll be presenting “27 (Fun!) Ways to Kill Your Online Community” on March 13 at 5 PM in Salon K at the Hilton.

The inspiration for the session came from a post I wrote here, titled “10 (Super Fun!) Ways You Can Kill Your Online Community.”

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A few weeks ago, I had the honor of appearing on David Garland’s awesome web video show for entrepreneurs, The Rise To The Top. We chatted about my background, the power of online community and how to pick a niche and be successful. We also talked about how I built my brand and how I market my sites without a marketing budget.

I thought I would share it here as we definitely talked about some subjects related to this website. You can watch the video below and he also has an audio only version available on his website. A big thank you to David for having me.

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I am definitely excited about what is about to take place at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Not just about what I am doing individually, but what I am doing in collaboration with others, as part of a team.

Not only my fellow panelists, but also The A Team (Brandon Eley, Wayne Sutton and me – we’re featured on 5 panels in all, with 2 book signings) and the SitePoint Podcast crew (Brad Williams, Kevin Yank, Stephan Segraves and me). This will mark the first time that the entire podcast team has been in one place at the same time, with Kevin coming all the way from Australia.

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I’m happy to announce that I have booked my first keynote presentation. It’ll be at Podcamp Topeka in Topeka, Kansas on November 6. The event will be held at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. It’s an “unconference” where everyone is welcome to lead a breakout session – in essence, a discussion on a particular topic. I’ll be leading at least one myself, following the keynote.

The event is being organized by a team led by David Lee King, an acquaintance of mine, that also includes Brandon Sheley, Alissa Sheley, Lisa Coble-Krings, Bill Ludwig and Joe Cheray. I have been so impressed by the organization of the event and David’s leadership. I believe it will be a great unconference and it is a tremendous value, as well. For the day, including lunch and perhaps even a small breakfast, the cost is only $6.11. You can register online.

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BlogWorld & New Media Expo is less than a month away. For the third consecutive year (read my 2008 and 2009 recaps), I’ll be speaking at the event, but I will have more going on at the conference than ever before.

I’ll be speaking on three panels, two of which I developed and will moderate (note: it’s not the typical moderator format, I will contribute equally). So, that’s pretty crazy.

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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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