The SQUARED Root

Posts Tagged ‘Interactive Austin 2009’

Austin Interactive Initiative

Posted by Mike Chapman on May 27th, 2009

Following up on the highly successful Interactive Austin 2009 conference, FG SQUARED’s Steve Golab and other community leaders are reaching out to the interactive and creative communities of Central Texas to start the Austin Interactive Initiative.

The goal of the Austin Interactive Initiative, or Aii, is to spur economic development in Central Texas by galvanizing the tremendous talent and technological expertise among the people who live and work here.

S Collective, in conjunction with FG SQUARED and Visual Innovations produced this video to introduce the subject.

Aii is an economic development movement in the Central Texas region. Community leaders who are interested in supporting Austin as a center for social media and creative technology are invited to join this effort on Twitter. In case you have trouble linking from here, the address is http://twitter.com/atxii.

The Austin area has long been a destination for members of the creative class from around the world. Let’s turn this tremendous resource of people into an economic force that will benefit the entire community.

Over the coming months, the SQUARED Root will feature key individuals in the Austin interactive and creative scenes. Let us know if there is someone you feel is an important member of our community who should be featured. We want to meet them and you and then work together to make Austin the hub for social media and creative technology.

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Scavenger Hunt 2.0

Posted by Courtney Steen on April 22nd, 2009

We know you did them as a kid. Wow. Scavenger hunts. Come on, everyone did one as a kid. Whether it was finding the bouncy balls and Frisbees in the backyard or following your big brother’s random Pig Latin clues all over the middle school grounds to find your birthday present (only to find that some enterprising young squirrel had already gotten to your candy stash), scavenger hunts were surely an interesting diversion for most of us at some point in time.

For my 8th birthday party, we organized one. How else were my folks supposed to entertain a dozen energetic boys and girls? We broke up into pairs and went off in the neighborhood to find what we needed to win the prize. One of the items on our list was a license plate, so my big sister and I got my dad’s screwdriver and took off with the plate from the family mini-van. When our dad found out he was pretty mad, but thought it was too funny to punish us. As I recall, we were the only ones who found the license plate, too. Good times.

No one does scavenger hunts anymore. I guess people consider them passé, what with Wiis and PlayStations and bouncy castles around. Well, we at FG SQUARED feel that it’s a shame to let such a wonderful tradition go by the wayside, so we decided to revamp the rules a bit and apply them to the Internet. And today, Wednesday, April 22, 2009, we will kick off our first Web 2.0 Scavenger Hunt! The rules are simple:

1) Sign up to follow FG SQUARED on Twitter (fgsquared) sometime before Wednesday at 3 PM CDT. (You will need to sign up for a Twitter account if you do not already have one.)
2) At 3 PM CDT on Wednesday, April 22, we will Tweet the first hint. Follow the clue to the next website/URL/whatever, to receive the next instruction. Each step will include both a clue and instructions on how to find the next clue.
3) If you think you know the answer, let us know through direct message on Twitter. The person with the first correct answer wins the grand prize, with runner-up prizes going to the second and third people to send us the correct answer. When we have our 3 winners, we will Tweet the answer and the names of the winners to officially end the game.

HOW TO WIN: When you think you know what we are thinking, DIRECT MESSAGE FG SQUARED on Twitter. The FIRST person to do so with the correct answer wins the free Interactive Austin 2009 ticket.

There are, naturally, some restrictions and guidelines to make things as fair as possible:

1) The game begins Wednesday, April 22, at 3 PM CDT.
2) Each person only gets 1 answer. If you Direct Message us on Twitter and guess incorrectly, you are no longer eligible to win.
3) If you decide to participate, please clear your schedule for Monday, April 27, 2009, to attend the event!

And, in the grand tradition of Scavenger Hunts, we have some pretty nifty prizes to give away:

1) Grand Prize Winner: One FREE ticket to Interactive Austin 2009 ($163 value)
2) First Runner-up: Discount code for Interactive Austin 2009 ($25 value), plus some cool FG SQUARED swag
3) Second Runner-up: Some cool FG SQUARED swag

So come and Hunt with us! Come on, you know you want to, even if it’s just an experiment in how truly confused we can make you. (And I daresay that we are able to make you well and truly dumbfounded.) Hey, it’s the Internet; if you run into trouble, just Google all the clues and see what pops up. It might even work! What have you got to lose?

See you ‘round the Internets this afternoon! Happy Hunting!

Oh, and here’s a little something about Interactive Austin 2009:
Austin is a hub for many and varied cultures and activities, not the least of which is social media interactivity. It is only fitting, then, that Austin is the home to several conferences and events that focus on the Social Web or Web 2.0. Enter Interactive Austin 2009, a conference that offers a relaxed atmosphere in which you can learn about and discuss the many aspects of social media and the ways in which social media can benefit your business. The Social Web is an unknown quantity to a lot of people, and the thought of jumping in without knowing the consequences—or worse, making huge mistakes—can be more than daunting, especially with your bottom line riding on the outcome. So if you need to know “how to strategically and tactically integrate the many aspects of social media initiatives into your business and marketing strategies, with a view towards using these new tools to enhance revenue streams and profitability,” Interactive Austin 2009 is the place to go!

PLAY NOW to win a FREE TICKET to IA2009!

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Cynthia Baker: Public Relations 2.0

Posted by Mike Chapman on April 3rd, 2009

If you are attempting to understand the convergence of social media and traditional marketing and communications, you need to know Cynthia Baker, founder of Accolades Public Relations. Cynthia, an early adopter of  social media here in Austin, Texas,  seamlessly navigates the worlds of tight deadlines, precise and well written copy, and accurately sourced information that are standard in the traditional public relations field, with the anything-goes, crowd-sourced, and seemingly impulsive nature of communications on the social web.

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Cynthia is an original co-founder of the Social Media Club and its Austin chapter and she provides invaluable  leadership for the Austin PR and social media communities.  In her role at Accolades, she is extremely effective in bringing public relations to the social web and incorporating social media channels which utilize conversational and relationship-based communications models into her clients’ business practices. Hers’ is one of those “rubber meets the road” PR firms who actually join the conversation. If you’re wondering what I mean by that, you really need to meet her.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Cynthia Baker in various capacities during past several years. In that time I’ve observed that she is particularly effective in bringing the two sometimes divergent worlds of the corporate C-suite and the rough and tumble world of social media together  in an understandable and  manner that produces results for all sides involved.

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Cynthia Baker will be leading a session during Interactive Austin 2009 on exactly what she knows best – public relations in the 2.0 environment. Her very powerful panel includes Bob Pearson, Vice President for Communications and Communities at Dell; Christi Day, Online Spokesperson and Emerging Media Specialist for Southwest Airlines; and, Paul Walker, President of  Cohn & Wolfe Digital. Any member of this panel could easily lead a session or day of sessions. Combined, the panel is a wealth of information on the social web and public relations.

Interactive Austin 2009 is scheduled for April 27th, at the Norris Center. Cynthia Baker and her panel will complete the leadership track during the afternoon sessions and will be held at 4 pm.

Be sure to follow @IA09 on Twitter for regular updates on Interactive Austin 2009 and look for #IA09 to follow the conversation.

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