September 21, 2010

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Social Media Week in LA

This week is Social Media Week in Los Angeles, as well as in Mexico City, Milan, Bogota, and Buenos Aires. What does that mean, exactly? Social Media Week is a multi-city global conference connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media.

By Jason G. Goldman

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


This week is Social Media Week in Los Angeles, as well as in Mexico City, Milan, Bogota, and Buenos Aires.

What does that mean, exactly?

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Social Media Week is a multi-city global conference connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media. Dozens of free events hosted at locations all over the city will bring together CEO's, entrepreneurs, journalists, bloggers, brand managers, CMO's, social media strategists, artists, activists and the technology/media digerati. Across a wide range of topics, industries and causes and with nearly 70 events scheduled, the momentum for the LA conference has been incredible. We've tied the entire conference together with the Twelethon, a creative fundraising platform in support of Inner-City Arts.

As part of Social Media Week LA, on Thursday afternoon at 2pm (Pacific time), I'll be participating in an event at USC called Biomimicry: Science and Social Media, which I'll be livetweeting (from my twitter account: @jgold85) and for which I'll be "official live-blogger", right here on The Thoughtful Animal. In addition to tweeting/blogging the event, I'll be streaming a live video feed of the event, through ustream, on this blog.

A small group of USC scientists, engineers, science writers and students play improvisation games based on biomimicry to explore productive paths for science communication in a networked world. At the Viterbi School of Engineering and the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

For some portion of the event, we will be on a teleconference with a board meeting of the new Center for Communicating Science at Stonybrook University in New York, with Alan Alda and others.

The event is being organized by Annenberg Professor and former Editor of Discover Magazine (and former science writing professor of mine) K.C. Cole, and will be run by Mike Bonifer, founder of Gamechangers.

For even more about Social Media Week LA, you can follow @SMWLA on twitter and on Thursday, you can check out the hashtag #SMWUSC.

The entire schedule for the week can be found here. I want to specifically highlight one event at 7pm tonight, which will include my friend (and LAist editor) Zach Behrens as a panelist - Social Media for Social Good: Community Building in a Digital World.

Jason G. Goldman is a science journalist based in Los Angeles. He has written about animal behavior, wildlife biology, conservation, and ecology for Scientific American, Los Angeles magazine, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the BBC, Conservation magazine, and elsewhere. He contributes to Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast, and is co-editor of Science Blogging: The Essential Guide (Yale University Press). He enjoys sharing his wildlife knowledge on television and on the radio, and often speaks to the public about wildlife and science communication.

More by Jason G. Goldman

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