The holiday season is here and I wanted to take a moment to wish you Happy Holidays!

Thank you to everyone who has supported the iFroggy Network or me in 2009. I really appreciate it.

I wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2010!

Thank you for reading.

On October 23 in Durham, North Carolina, I’ll be speaking at Social Media Business Forum. I’m featured on a pair of panels during the first half of the day’s programming.

From 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, I’ll be participating in the “Advertising and the Social Web: Can it Work?” session with Gregory Ng, the Creative Director at Brooks Bell Interactive and other panelists to be determined. With my articles relating to the Sports Legends Challenge spam marketing practices, I’ve talked about how not to penetrate the social web, as an advertiser or a marketer. So, this should be a lot of fun.

The “Building and Managing an Online Community” panel will be my next stop, from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM. For this one, I’ll be joined by Angela Benton, the Publisher of BlackWeb20.com; Ryan Boyles, an Advisory Software Engineer for IBM and Laurie Smithwick, Founder and Creative Director of LEAP Design and Founder of Kirtsy.

Social Media Business Forum is shaping up to be quite an event with an excellent speaker lineup. If you are within 5 hours of Durham and you are involved or have an interest in business, social media, web development, marketing, online community or any related subjects, it is definitely worth checking out. You can register online. If you’re coming, please let me know!

Last October, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Independent Blogging Conference at Greensboro. I spoke on both the opening panel for the day and gave a solo presentation on “Promoting Your Blog Through Social Media.” It’s taken me a while to process any video from this event, but I finally am able to share the panel and it’s been posted over at ManagingCommunities.com.

The panel was titled “The Blogging Revolution” and we discussed blogging in general, the responsibility of it, where we saw the medium going and more. We had a great Q&A and discussion with the group that attended. Thank you to Kelby Carr and Dave Slusher for having me.

What’s up with October? I don’t attend any conferences since South by Southwest Interactive in March and now, all of a sudden, I’m going to three in the month of October. I’ve already mentioned that I’ll be attending Blog World Expo (Las Vegas, October 15-17) and Social Media Business Forum (Durham, NC, October 23). Now, I’ll also be attending IZEAFest in Orlando from October 1-4.

It’s a single track conference with a solid lineup of speakers including Chris Brogan, Wendy Piersall and others. The last day of the conference is a day at SeaWorld, as well. Coupled with the friends in attendance, it should be a fun experience. I managed to win a pass from Elizabeth Edwards of Table for Five, so a big thank you to her.

If you’re planning to attend and would like to meet up, please let me know. I’ll see you there!

Shortly after I get back from Blog World Expo 2009, I’ll be heading to Durham, North Carolina for the Social Media Business Forum at the North Carolina Central University School of Education. It’s being organized by Kipp Bodnar of Howard, Merrell & Partners, Wayne Sutton of OurHashtag, Ryan Boyles of IBM and Jeff Cohen of OurHashtag.

My specific presentation(s) are not yet set, but the speaking lineup looks really cool and includes people like Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Wayne, Kipp, Jason Keath of Social Fresh, Angela Benton of BlackWeb20.com, Laurie Smithwick of kirtsy and others.

If you’re interested in attending, the early bird registration of $125 runs through September 18. After that, it’ll be $250. I look forward to seeing you there.

It’s that time of the year again! The SXSW 2010 PanelPicker has opened and, with it, 2,219 proposals are up for consideration for the Interactive portion of the conference. I am on 7 (yes, feel free to giggle) of these.

Online voting accounts for 30% of the decision making process (30% goes to the SXSW staff and 40% to an advisory board). Anyone can vote and registration is required. I would appreciate any and all consideration and, if you feel any of my sessions are worthy, your vote. I have spoken at South by Southwest twice, but both were solo book based presentations. I’ve never been on a panel or done a normal solo presentation. I’m hoping this is the year I can break in, with your help and I appreciate your support.

Here are the proposed sessions that I am a part of, along with a description and my fellow panelists on each (click on the title to vote):

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Back in June, I mentioned how I had submitted or was included in a few proposals for Blog World Expo 2009. Today, they released the schedule and I’m happy to say that I will be speaking at the even (I’ll be doing a book signing for “Managing Online Forums,” as well, but that is not yet scheduled).

On Friday, October 16 at 5 PM in Room 288, I’ll be participating in the “Social Media: What’s Not to Like” panel, which also features Amber Naslund; Director of Community at Radian6 and blogger at Altitude Branding, Wayne Sutton; Partner at OurHashtag and blogger at SocialWayne.com and Robert Scoble; Managing Director at Building43.com at Rackspace and blogger at Scobleizer.

Here is the description we came up with: We love social media. It’s helped us meet new people, to further our careers and even to speak at this conference. But, that doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and roses, either. There are tactics and social trends that, frankly, worry us because we want social media to grow and for more people and companies to participate.

Beyond just worrying us, though, they can hurt your brand, scare people away and damage your relationships. From the mob mentality to self entitlement, we’ll tackle some of the most troubling and how you can avoid them.

And the takeaway: A better understanding of the social media landscape and how to participate with respect toward others, while also having a beneficial experience, both personally and professionally.

A big thank you to everyone at Blog World (Rick Calvert, Dave Cynkin, Jim Turner, others) for having me. It should be a ton of fun. If you want to come, you can use the discount code IFROGGYVIP for 20% off. I look forward to seeing you there.

A few days ago, I mentioned that I would be attending Blog World Expo 2009 in Las Vegas from October 15-17. I’m happy to say that I’ve got a coupon code to share that will save you 20% off of the current rate. When purchasing through their site, use the coupon code IFROGGYVIP. Their rates increase on July 1 (though the coupon will still be good after that), so if you are thinking of coming, now would be the best time to buy the ticket for the least amount of money. I hope to see you there!

Last year, I attended Blog World Expo (in it’s second year) for the first time (see my recap) and participated in two panels: “How to Deal with Trolls, Spammers & Sock Puppets” and “Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media.” It was a lot of fun and a great experience.

I’m happy to say that I’ll be back at this year’s edition, which runs from October 15-17 in Las Vegas. I’m on four panel proposals, so I am hoping to speak, as well as do another book signing this year, if they’ll have me. I’m working with them to promote the conference on the iFroggy Network. Here are the panel proposals that I’m on:

• “Social Media: What’s Not to Like” with Amber Naslund, Wayne Sutton and Robert Scoble
• “”Shameless Self Promotion” Without Looking Like an @#$%^&!” with Brandon Eley, Twanna Hines and Darren Rowse
• “Saving Newspapers Through Community” with Julia Thompson, Nathan T. Wright and Jason Falls
• “Preventing Copyright Infringement on Your Blog and Community” with Jonathan Bailey (and two panelists, to be determined)

So, we’ll see if any of them get accepted, but it’ll be a fun event no matter what happens! On July 1, pricing will go up, so if you are interested in coming, now might be a good time to take a look. Hope to see you there.

In the past four months, since I posted my last book coverage update, I’ve been honored by all sorts of coverage for “Managing Online Forums” and I wanted to take a moment to share the interest that has been shown in this period and thank those that were behind it.

One of the biggest things to happen was the Slashdot review, written by JR Peck of GeekBook. It propelled the book into the top 1,500 books on Amazon.com and kept it in the top 10,000 for a number of days. The Slashdot review was mentioned on the AMACOM Books Blog.

There were also reviews by Michelle L. Rodriguez of Mequoda Daily, Rich Villalobos of Cisco Systems, Dr. Natalie T. Wood in the Journal of Consumer Marketing and Richard Millington of FeverBee. The book received it’s first review on Amazon.co.jp, thanks to Kushi-book-reviews and it’s first review on Amazon.fr, thanks to Dominique.

I participated in text based interviews with Commania, AdminQuest, Des Walsh dot Com (also posted on the International Blogging & New Media Association website and Mr. Walsh was kind enough to mention the book favorably on his blog, as well) and sparkBB. There were new podcast interviews on Podcaster Training and WordCast. A previously recorded interview on PerfCast was mentioned on the Splashpress Media blog.

I attended South by Southwest Interactive 2009 from March 13 through 17 and I gave a book reading (really a presentation around a theme in the book) called “The Art of Responding to Feedback from Your Community”. I also had a book signing at the conference’s bookstore. I spent the signing next to Thom Singer, the author of “Some Assembly Required” and “Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women,” who was kind enough to mention the book, and some kind words, on his blog.

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