A fellow Western MA business person sent me an automated response via direct message on Twitter yesterday. This is a practice that I really dislike and shared my opinion with the person.
It got me to thinking, I wonder what other people think of automated DM’s?
Well, what do you think?
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“We are smart, AND we have boobs.”
THAT was my favorite part of Pod Camp Boston 5.
I love un-conferences, I love the energy, the opportunity and the people. I love hearing smart people share their wit and wisdom and I especially love the opportunity to share some of what I know.
This conference was especially good for several reasons.
#1- I got to go with my sweetie, Morriss Partee.
#2- I got to teach advanced Twitter to rockstars.
#3- I met some extremely smart people who happen to have boobs.
I want to spend some time with the third item on my list: the #smartboobs.
On Saturday morning I saw a tweet in the #pcb5 stream from Rakiesha Chase @rawrmeans143 who said she wanted to put together a “Girl Power” session during lunch. I was intrigued enough to commit and after lunch I wandered out to the patio to meet the other women who were curious, too. It was a small, but wonderful gathering of about 7 women and our conversation was stimulating and fun, but far too brief. We decided that we would re-convene the following day, but start earlier and allow time to really broaden our conversations. Rakiesha had initiated a conversation about a Twitter article about women that she had seen and we all agreed was insulting and limiting.
The following day we started to gather, and gather and gather. People just kept coming in (men and women alike) until the room was full with both our original group plus lots and lots more. This lively and intelligent conversation was by far the highlight of #pcb5 for me. How invigorating to be in a room with so many intelligent, caring, forward thinking people! They gave me the opportunity to tell the #TwitterQueens story (xox), too! We didn’t all agree (which is part of the fun), but everyone was respectful and open. This engaging conversation was both enlightening and entertaining and has given me many things to consider and work on. If you want to meet these power house PodCampers you can go on Twitter and search the hashtag: #smartboobs…designated by Tamsen McMahon. After someone commented in the session that we are smart and just happen to have boobs, this hashtag was quickly adopted by the crowd.
While I did attend sessions and learned lots from soooooo many brilliant and generous minds, my favorite parts of Pod Camp Boston 5 happened out of the sessions. In addition to “girl power”, there was dinner with a small, but special group of people and lots of fabulous hallway chats. I made real friends with several people who I found exciting and wonderful and I can’t wait to grow our little seedling friendship into one big, giant, social media tree.
A final thought. At the opening of the camp Chris Brogan and Chris Penn challenged us to ask for the help we needed and to give help where we could. This isn’t just a good Pod Camp thought, this is a great way of being. So I will close by telling my Pod Camp friends and readers of this blog that I am here for you. I know a lot about real estate, quite a bit about social media, I can teach dance and am a terrific listener. Let me know if you need me and I will do the same.
The real energy of a camp is the opportunity to meet new people (and revisit old friends) who share a common interest and a goal of sharing their knowledge with other attendees. The meetings started pre-camp for me via Twitter and the #pcb5 hashtag and was further facilitated by Chris Penn’s “Follow Friday” list today (I followed all of you!), but I really can’t wait to meet you in person!
As a REALTOR in Western Massachusetts, I have been exploring the use of social media for business and personal growth for a few years now. I love the fact that this journey is never-ending as the new media space expands, changes and adapts to the needs of the users. I have had an amazing journey with social media and am ever grateful for the gifts it has brought me.
I look forward to facilitating a discussion on “All Things Twitter” on Sunday. I love to discuss how I have utilized Twitter to meet people in my area who have become my friends and clients (and a boyfriend). I especially enjoy talking about “Taking Twitter Face to Face” and how to move off the online world and into a real meeting.
The thing I most look forward to is sharing discussions on things like Twitter with others who embrace the same ideals of networking and learning something new from them. If you are going to be there, be sure to say hello!
Many of you know that I am not only a real estate agent at Park Square Realty in Westfield, MA, but a total geek girl and that I love using social media for developing friendships in real life. I have been blessed with so many wonderful new friends and clients and even an amazing boyfriend because of my use of social media that I can’t help but share my success stories and encourage others to try using social media to grow their business and personal lives, too.
Recently I wrote a post for my column at Agent Genius Magazine that shared the truth, that most of my closed real estate transactions in 2010 came to me through social media in one form or another. The post got some attention within real estate circles, but I was floored last week when out of the blue Mike Myatt of N2Growth sent this tweet:
The link provided led to a blog post about people who have social media influence and included the likes of Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuck and Dell Computers. Within the post was a video which included a highlighted quote from the Agent Genius post mentioned above. Watch this short and entertaining video which highlights Social Media Influence and includes yours truly:
This week I was featured in another blog about QR (quick read) Codes. The post was describing the multitude of applications for using a QR Code and featured this video about my use of QR Codes for marketing real estate in Western MA made for me by my talented and wonderful boyfriend, Morriss Partee. I learned about QR code technology at PodCamp Western MA and have been incorporating it into the marketing of my homes for sale in Westfield, Ma and the surrounding Pioneer Valley towns. This video crafted by Morriss explains what a QR code is and how I am using it to help my homes for sale stand out and get homes sold.
I am proud, excited and thrilled to see that my use of social media isn’t just improving my life, but I am able to share some of my hard earned knowledge to help other people working to use these tools.
If you are a fellow real estate agent looking to use social media as a tool in your marketing and prospecting you can read my contributions to Agent Genius Magazine.
If you are a consumer looking for real estate news and advice you can visit:
Once upon a time (in March of 2009) there was a PodCamp Western MA. I attended and have already written about my eye opening experience. A long time user of social media, I had only recently begun blogging and using other new media to try to grow my real estate career. PodCamp Western MA spurred me along with great new ideas, hands on techniques and friends who would bolster me along as I attempted new things.
A lot happens in a year (or ten months) and since that first un-conference experience I have attended several other camp style events and hosted TwitterQueens Social Media Bootcamp in NYC. With all of that crammed into the past year, I wondered how PodCamp Western MA 2 would be for me.
I knew it would be a ton of fun, I knew I would see friends that I made last year and have fostered in the months since. The day began early for me as I arrived at Westfield State College before 8am to assist with the set up and registration desk. I was very excited to greet so many members of the #twitterqueens at the registration table. 
I enjoyed myself as the attendees poured in and I encouraged everyone to fill in their tag stickers: three descriptive words about themselves that could be conversation starters during the course of the day. I chose “REALTOR”, “MOM”, and “DANCER” for my tags. Almost instantly a conversation started with Stephanie Oats about yoga dance, which I plan on investigating. As the day progressed I was engaged in other conversations about real estate in Western Massachusetts, dance and parenting that were a delightful part of the event.
After Morriss Partee, one of the organizers (and my boyfriend) explained how the camp would work, the campers filtered toward the schedule board to fill in the sessions that were still available and make their selections for the first hour.
I started with Christine Pilch’s advanced LinkedIn, which is the social media platform where I can most improve. Some of the great information and reminders that I took from her teachings were: create your custom profile URL, use only a photo that represents you as a professional, fill your bio brief with skill descriptions and keywords, create and participate in groups and use the Answers section to display your knowledge in your field.
Next up was the session I had been most looking forward to: Steve Garfield speaking on video. I found his session to be filled with a lot of easily implemented changes and additions that I can use to improve my use of video. I had already been somewhat frustrated with the limitations of my Flip camera and will take his advisement for the Kodak Zi8 into serious consideration. He shared preferred accessories and websites such as www.animoto.com, www.blip.tv and www.iodapromonet.com. An hour wasn’t nearly enough time to glean all of his expertise, so I purchased his book, “Get Seen”, to continue my learning in this medium.
Lunch was a great opportunity to bring the social into social media. I enjoyed a very interesting conversation with Bill Weye about a real estate blog blowout on Agent Genius (where I am a featured writer) that happened last week and was surprised to learn that the topic had bled out of real estate circles. I cut my lunch a bit short to prepare for the third session, of which I was leading “Tweetdeck to the Rescue”
I had a great time leading this session which was filled with lots of great new faces and interesting questions. Last year I was a strict observer and it was exciting for me to be able to bring a topic to the camp to share and help others to grow in their use of social media.
Following my Tweetdeck session was a panel, which included me alongside my good friends, Christine Pilch, Jason Turcotte, Kelly Galanis, Val Nelson and Jaclyn Stevenson. We were given the task of sharing some real life examples of how social media has impacted our lives, both professionally and personally. Kelly Galanis, went just before me and graciously shared the story of how I met her husband and she at the first PodCamp WesternMA and how they went on to hire me as their real estate agent and become friends of mine. I mentioned a blog post that I write last year “The Gifts that Social Media Brought Me” and before we even left the session my friend, Jason Turcotte had tweeted the link for me. While each of us on the panel spoke of different experiences our message was unified in the positive growth we have all found through our use of new media tools.
The day wouldn’t be complete without an after party and so we left Westfield State College and headed to The Tavern in downtown Westfield. I was excited to be able to extend the conversations with many people that I hadn’t had the opportunity to chat with during the Camp, including many members of the TwitterQueens network.
I spent today, the day after PodCamp, basking in a bit of R&R with my family and collecting my thoughts for this post. PodCamp Western MA 2 was just as exciting, educational and energizing as the first PodCamp WesternMA and reinforced my pride in being a member of this amazing group of Western Massachusetts social media rockstars!
Heartfelt thanks to Morriss Partee, Jaclyn Stevenson and Kelly Galanis for putting on this most excellent event!
