Ted Nguyen meets social media guru Brian Solis at a special evening organized by Bryan Elliott of LinkedOC. Photo courtesy of Calvin Lee of Mayhem Studios in Los Angeles who shot the photo with a new iPhone app.
I was fortunate to be invited by Brian Elliott of LinkedOC to attend a special event with 200 other social media practitioners from throughout Southern California.
It was a unique opportunity to meet and hear one of the world’s leading professionals in social media — Brian Solis, a best-selling author of several social media books.
The event brought out many familiar friends from the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn communities, but also there were many new people to meet, demonstrating that 2010 indeed may be the tipping-point year where people are joining social media.
Today’s story on CNN and many other news outlets make the point clear with a Pew Research Center report that reveals social media use has nearly doubled among Americans 50 and over. This really is becoming your grandfather’s or grandmother’s social networking.
The sold-out event brings together 200 people from Southern California to network and to hear one of the nation's leading expert on social media -- Brian Solis. Facebook photo courtesy of Nancy Ramos.
Located in Costa Mesa’s SoBeCa district — short for south on Bristol Entertainment — The Camp was the perfect setting for the Thursday evening event. The urban hip oasis perfectly complemented the social networking event where I caught up with friends and associates and met many new people while enjoying delicious gourmet pizzas, sandwiches and salads from z pizza in Irvine, custom-made dessert from BoardWalk Ice Cream and other tasty foods from businesses utilizing Facebook and Twitter to connect with their customers.
But the biggest treat was listening to the power and passion of Brian Solis, author of “Engage!” which I rushed out to buy at Barnes and Noble today. And of course I had to sit on the front row to Flip video his presentation. As you will see in the videos, Brian Solis’ energy is evident as he moves around quite a bit during his more than one-hour presentation.
After his brilliant remarks, I had a chance to thank him and ask him a question on whether professional communicators and marketers are getting the power of social media. As you will see from the iPhone video by Neal Schaffer, I’ve got Brian’s name on my head — and so did the 200 people who are still pondering his powerful message from that evening.
I am still uploading eight segments of the presentation. In keeping my promise to many people who saw me Flip video the entire speech, I’ll post them to this website as soon as YouTube completes the uploads.
Were you at the event? What did you think? Did you have many “ah-ha” moments as I did? And what do you think of Brian Solis’ new book? And please join me in thanking Bryan Elliott for organizing the wonderful educational evening.
Indeed a great event. Learned a lot and I am starting to practice what I learned. By the way, thank you for posting the pics on your blog. Nancy Ramos
Ted,
Thank you for creating this blog post and sharing the wonderful thoughts of Brain Solis with the world! I was wondering if that video came out OK…glad to see that it came out OK and that Brian’s voice was recognizable. The photos by @Nancy_Ramos, combined with your text, added a wonderful addition to last night’s memory. Wish I could have gone over to Havana and spent more time with the crew, but I suppose that will have to wait until #ConnectOC
- Neal
Ted, I love your new website and thanks for sharing the details on the Brian Solis event! Hope to see you soon.
Thanks for ccing me on the recap! It was, indeed, a wonderful event. And, of course, a pleasure to finally meet YOU!
Bryan Elliott has done something very special in bringing such amazing networking opportunities to Orange County. As for Brian Solis, that man knows his analytics and research! And, his PowerPoint!
Look forward to seeing you at the next event, Ted!
Hiya Ted! Thanks for cc’ing me in your latest Twitter post. It was great to FINALLY connect with you IRL after all this time on Twitter. I agree that the #LinkedOC event with @BrianSolis was indeed a TOP NOTCH event & @BryanElliott did a stellar job of putting together an excellent event. I look forward to seeing you all again soon.
Great post Ted! This was a great event with many takeaway themes to drill down on and put into practice. Thanks for sharing your insights!
Ted it was great to finally meet you. Heard many great things about you from Joel and Sven. I went to Brian’s booksigning at SxSW last year and bought his book. It blew me away. It’s a fantastic reference book and sits on my desk at work. Brian is just genuine great guy who knows his stuff well–that’s what I love about him. My aha moment was when he said, “I’m not a guru, an expert, etc., ..I’m a “student” of social media.” So true, because after all social media is in its infancy when you really think about it.
Thanks to Brian Elliott for a wonderful event. Look forward to catching up with all of you social media buddies at the next event!
For starters, I love your blog Ted!
Unfortunately, I had a staff meeting and was unable to attend this event. As you know, I’m very excited to see the videos to find out first hand what EVERYONE is talking about.
Thanks Ted for keeping me (us) in the loop!
Thanks for writing this Ted, always great to see you at events. I couldn’t be happier with the traction we’re getting in Orange County to put OC on the map as a destination for quality social media and local business networking. What’s the value of being part of a passionate community like Linked OC? I think it is the people.
-Bryan
Founder, Linked Orange County.
Ted,
It was nice meeting you finally at the pre-party get together before the Brian Solis Engage event. Thanks for doing the blog post. Brian certainly gave me a great deal of things to think about that evening. I will now certainly read the Engage book. The setting for the event was certainly unique. And it was great seeing many of the familiar OC social media people there and at the pre-party get together. Bryan Elliott is to be commended for bringing Seth Godin, Brian Solis and now Chris Brogan (in Oct.) to Orange County. There is a positive energy at these events and such great people at them. Take care and I’ll see you at the next event, probably ConnectOC on 9/9.
Jim (@jwalery)