Getting to know you…

While con­nect­ing online is a great thing, con­nect­ing in per­son is even better.

There will be plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties over the next few months to get some face-to-face time with the folks who are mak­ing Social Media hap­pen in San Anto­nio.  In addi­tion to the monthly gath­er­ings, there are sev­eral Camp, Startup and Work­shop oppor­tu­ni­ties com­ing up. The best way to become involved with the com­mu­nity is to par­tic­i­pate. Stay tuned or bet­ter yet, show up to any and all upcom­ing events.

You may ask your­self, “What are these face-to-face meet­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties?” Well, here are just a few of the events I’m involved in:
Pod­Camp San Anto­nio 3.0 May 16th El Trop­i­cano Hotel 9am-5pm: This is the event that started the whole UnCon­fer­ence move­ment in San Anto­nio. Orga­nized by the San Anto­nio Pod­cast­ing Group, this event cov­ers: Blog­ging, Pod­cast­ing, Online Video, Vir­tual Worlds & Social Media. Reg­is­tra­tion is open now.

Startup Week­end San Anto­nio II May 29-31st If you’re inter­ested in the Startup Scene, then this is the event for you. This 2 1/2 day event will take you from the con­cept on Fri­day night to a fully launched busi­ness on Sun­day evening.  Reg­is­tra­tion opens on May 1st.

Tweet­Camp San Anto­nio July 18th If you love every­thing Twit­ter, but want to know more then this is the event for you. Or if you don’t know what Twit­ter is but keep hear­ing about it on the Tonight Show and CNN then get ready to get immersed in the Twitter-sphere! From ter­mi­nol­ogy to third party apps to  mobile tweet­ing, you won’t want to miss a minute of this micro-blogging event. Reg­is­tra­tion is open now.

For those of you who are early birds and like to get your Social Media fix in with a hearty break­fast and a strong cup of Joe, then Social Media Break­fast is the event for you. Every third Wednes­day of the month you’ll find top­ics rang­ing from Jour­nal­ism and Social Media to Social Media 101. Reg­is­tra­tion is ongoing.

There is also the group that attracts the tech and early adopter crowd, Social Media Club San Anto­nio. We think it might have some­thing to do with the fact that most of the tech-centric crowd can more closely relate to the night owl than they can to the early bird.  Meet­ings are every sec­ond Thurs­day of the month from 6:00–8:00pm. Feel free to join the com­mu­nity site where we’re able to con­nect in between monthly meetings.

There are also impromptu gath­er­ings which allow fans of the micro-blogging ser­vice Twit­ter to con­gre­gate for some face-to-face net­work­ing. These events are called Twee­t­ups and can be orga­nized and attended by any­one who is either part of Twit­ter or at least Twiter-curious. The best way to find out more about these events is to stay tuned into the Twit­ter stream or at least have a friend who keeps track of such things.

This is by no means a com­pre­hen­sive list of the events in town. I hap­pen to know for a fact that every first Fri­day of the month, Susan Price hosts a First Fri­day Co-Working at Fire­cat Stu­dio. This monthly event recently cel­e­brated it’s one year anniver­sary. It has grown in pop­u­lar­ity with each pass­ing month. One rea­son is the highly inter­ac­tive Brown Bag Lunch which is based around cur­rent points of inter­est in busi­ness, mar­ket­ing and social media. There are addi­tional Co-Working spaces around town such as T-14 in the San Anto­nio Tech­nol­ogy Cen­ter as well as C4 to name a few. Find out more on the Co-Working San Anto­nio Blog.

These events are just the tip of the ice­burg. Every day it seems I’m hear­ing about folks in the com­mu­nity com­ing up with new and inno­v­a­tive ways to con­nect. There has never been a bet­ter time to be involved. Jump in. The water is not only fine, your friends have already joined the fun.

Cheers!

Tags: first friday coworking, pcsa3.0, podcamp san antonio, social media, startup weekend, swsa2, tweetcamp, tweetcampsa, tweetups