SoCon 09 - Still searching ...

"In Search of the Southeast’s Social Media Niche" was the theme for SoCon 09 at Kennesaw State University ...

My motivation for going to SoCon 009 was to figure out how best to use social media tools to further community organizing for social justice and civil rights. And, how to apply new concepts of communicating within diverse communities - in terms of race, gender, socio-economic background, issues of interest, level of participation, etc. In that respect, I felt a little out of place.

The Friday night Big Eating Big Networking Dinner was a nice way to kick off the conference, and I appreciated there being tables for Social Media for Social Good. Unfortunately the $50 price tag for dinner was a bit steep for the typically underfunded "social good" sector. Saturday was reasonably priced, but the distance from public transportation was still a challenge for some.

The good stuff was meeting some cool people, having interesting conversations, learning about twitter basics, and being inspired to start blogging again. One of the most memorable lessons was provided by Jeff Haynie - who bluntly declared "your idea sucks," encouraging everyone to execute rather than hoard ideas.

As a community organizer, however, I was surprised that discussions seemed to begin and end with communicating for communication sake. Only once during the plenary sessions did I hear a term like "social responsibility" and it was by a participant sharing her story about being genuine when joining groups and contributing to them without just expecting to get something back. The more generic communication lessons were certainly applicable to social justice work, such as the recommendation to have a credible consistent champion of a topic, and to engage the community beyond one person.

The low point for me was definitely the "brand Atlanta" presentation that in less than an hour managed to dis Hip-Hop and rap music, ignore the civil rights legacy (that has consistently drawn more visitors than the new aquarium), make a weak joke that accentuated the black-white divide (trying to "balance" the Black Arts Festival with the Dogwood Festival), and insult those who believe that social media is somehow "accountable." Also disappointing was the lack of diversity among the keynote speakers.

As for social media accountability, I found myself agreeing though for different reasons than the speaker intended. To me, the self-regulating aspect of social media as it now stands suffers the similar problems that mainstream media suffers - the over participation by dominant culture and the lack of awareness of who is not speaking or who is not in the room. For example, a more inclusive approach would have listed MySpace (which has far more minority participation) as well as Facebook and LinkedIn when referring to social networks.

Overall, it was fun to step into another world of people passionate about the power of communication. SoCon 09 was a great motivator and helped open a world of viral communications I'm hoping to put to good use. As for the "southeast's social media niche," only time will tell. Maybe next year, SoCon can take on the diversity challenge by reaching out to to more communities and moving ITP to Georgia State or the AUC.... Hope to see you there!

See AJC article HERE. Visit Twitter room #socon09.