Social Media Unconference Makes Participants Active Learners

WATERLOO REGION - As many as 200 people will gather at the All Day Breakfast being held by Social Media Breakfast: Waterloo Region on May 29 at 8:30 a.m. at the Walper Terrace Hotel in downtown Kitchener. The diverse group at the UNconference will include people new to social media through to those who are fully immersed in the social media world. They will come from large companies, charities, the public sector, small business and tech firms. Some will be in the early stages of their career and others at senior levels. They will gather to learn more about how to enhance their personal use of social media and how they can make better use of it professionally. The day features four UNconference periods that will each have six options for participants. “Something we’ve emphasized from the beginning is that people attending Social Media Breakfast have as much to learn from each other as they do from our speakers and panelists,” said James Howe, founder of the Waterloo Region organization. “We’re now taking it a step further and having an all day UNconference to give participants a chance to set the topics they want to explore and select the sessions that best suit their personal agenda for learning. By making participants active learners, All Day Breakfast sets itself apart from other social media conferences.” The day also features three speakers—including two from Waterloo Region and a third with a history of launching start ups—who each have a wealth of knowledge to share with participants. • Natalie MacNeil is an EMMY Award-winning media entrepreneur, influential blogger, and thought leader in the sphere of entrepreneurship and personal branding. She Takes On The World is one of the top blogs in the world for entrepreneurial women. It appeared on the Forbes list, “Top 10 Entrepreneurial Sites for Women” and on the ForbesWoman list, “Top 100 Websites for Women.” It is also the 2010 winner of Blog of the Year at the Stevie Awards, dubbed “the Oscar’s of business awards.” Natalie will be speaking on how to build a killer personal brand through blogging and how she turned her blog into an influential brand and now a book. • Jeremy Wright is CEO of 23press.com and the author of Blog Marketing, a business book on blogging. He will speak about “Simplifying Your Social Media to Save REAL Time and Be More Effective.” These days there a plethora of platforms we feel we need to be active on. Creating content for these platforms, discovering new content and ultimately managing the content and the platforms themselves takes way too much time. He will explore helping social media folk save time so you can get back to the SOCIAL part of social, while still being authentic and productive online! Learn tips, trick, tools, software and techniques to help you be not only more social but probably cooler too--actual coolness not guaranteed. • Shaminda (Shum) Attygalle is an emerging digital marketer who will speak about “The Impact of Foursquare.” Foursquare is no longer just a game played with four people and a ball. It's a location-based service that has the potential to revolutionize our experiences at various locations around the world and even in our own city. The goal of this talk is for you to gain a better understanding of what exactly Foursquare is and why it has the potential to be so valuable in our city. You may even hear a story or two about how Foursquare has impacted people sitting around you. Registration for the All Day Breakfast and additional information is available at alldaybreakfast.eventbrite.ca. - 30 - Contact: James Howe, 519-589-9597, james@communicateandhowe.com, @smbWR