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The SEC loves Social Media…

May 28, 2010 By Roohi Moolla 1 Comment

SEC LogoIf you still think that Social Media is hype, a fad, on the fringe and has little value, take a look at the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and what they’re doing in Social Media.  Emily Molitor interviewed Mark Story, the Director of New Media at the SEC and wrote a great piece on how the SEC made the decision to embrace Twitter and Blogs in a major effort to reach investors, the media and job-seekers.

Since President Obama issued the Open Government Initiative as part of an effort to “… harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public.”, it’s become much easier for federal agencies to be engaged in social media.

And with a following on Twitter of over 46,000, the SEC is doing an incredible job of reaching people where they already are – the socialsphere. Read the full article here on SmartBrief…

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media, Technology, Twitter Tagged With: Mark Story, Open Government Initiative, SEC, Social Media, Twitter

What does it really take to be an Entrepreneur? No, I mean really?

May 27, 2010 By Roohi Moolla 2 Comments

Climber on the edge.Starting a business takes a lot more than skill, experience and knowledge.

But what does it really take? Yes, the usual stuff – hard work, commitment, a willingness to go out on your own etc. – but there are a whole lot of things people don’t usually talk about – truly difficult questions like:

  • I am willing to lose everything.
  • I embrace failure.
  • I am always willing to do tedious work.
  • I can handle watching my dreams fall apart.
  • Even if I am puking my guts out with the flu and my mother passed away last week, there is nothing that will keep me from being ready to work.

Seth Kravitz posted these and 15 more of the best questions I’ve ever seen about the real costs and questions to ask about entrepreneurship on his blog, SecondCityCEO, re-published on the Harvard Business Review.

An absolutely gut-wrenchingly honest list…

Filed Under: Business, Entrepreneurship

Connections…

May 25, 2010 By Roohi Moolla Leave a Comment

SocialBizFor those of you who attended the SocialBiz 2010 conference in April, a huge thank-you for making the event such a success. What some of you may not know is that from start to finish, we produced the entire conference in a space of 63 days – from the moment the idea came to mind in late February to the day of the event.

This would have been unheard of in the past. To put on a conference of this magnitude, with speakers and presenters from all over the country, and to bring in close to 200 attendees from all the entire San Francisco Bay area was somewhat ambitious, apparently. As a first-time conference producer, little did I know that this was not the norm. But we had an advantage – with technology. The idea for the conference came to me on a Thursday, and by utilizing WordPress (and some sweat), the majority of the website was up by the end of the weekend. Within days, we were heavily using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to publicize the event and reach out for speakers and presenters. Within a few days, we had a tremendous response and were selling tickets using an online ticketing system, Eventbrite.

In the following weeks, we continued to heavily use Social Media to promote and market the conference, as did our speakers, presenters,  and many of our potential attendees. It was amazing to see the word spread across the blogsphere and socialsphere.

This conference would never have been possible in such a remarkably short space of time  without the people involved and their use of social media.

So in the end,  it was ultimately the people who were willing to reach out and make a connection, through the use of technology, that made this event such a success. And that’s what it was really all about – bringing people together, to exchange information and knowledge, share ideas, have conversations and make connections.

To all of you who took a leap of faith to participate, share and learn – we thank you.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Conference Producer, Eventbrite, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Social Media Conference, SocialBiz, Technology, Twitter, WordPress