You know about social media. You know that you’ve got to get on board with it for your organization, or for your own activist work. You may have even signed up for Twitter or Facebook already, but you don’t know where to start. What are the right tools to use? What do I say? Why are other people doing this? And, perhaps, most importantly: how the hell do I know if it’s working?!

View the full event page for the whole description and pricing information, and to register. We’re also offering scholarships for those in need.

WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FUN.

Oh, and speaking of need, I should mention how this idea came about– a lot of people come to Jen Angel (of Aid & Abet) and I looking for a hands-on workshop, but can’t afford to bring me into their organization or event. This workshop will get folks who need it the most, working on the front lines, the skills they need without emptying their budgets.

Based on how things go in SF, I’ll be offering this boot camp in other cities (likely next up will be NYC and DC), and possibly online. If you’re interested helping to host one in other cities, please let us know– leave a comment below or send me an email. And, if you’re interested in bringing me to your organization for a group training or strategy session, drop Jen a line.

Here’s some links to the presentations and workshops that I led and co-led all week; thanks to the participants who took killer notes. There’s tons of incredible info on, and being added to, this wiki, so check back often:

• Inspiration: Social Networks (midway down the page). Day one was all about showing our participants the myriad of tools at their disposal and some successes that others have had. [PowerPoint preso here]
• Measure THIS! Social Media ROI. How to think about metrics for social media work. [No session notes yet, but PowerPoint preso here.]
• Engaging business leaders and decision-makers through social media, led with Eric Squair.
• Twitter for Individuals and Organizations. (shocker, right?)

I wanted to share with you an amazing worldwide conference that I’m participating in next week. It’s called “Women Who Tech,” and it brings together hundreds of women who leverage their technology savvy to inspire change and transform the world. And it takes place all online and on the phone!

Women Who Tech
When: May 12, 2009. Panels are 50 min long and run from 11AM EDT to 6PM EDT.
Where: Everywhere via phone and web
http://womenwhotech.com/
A mere $10 for a whole day of goodness

I participated last year, and at first I thought the distance thing was going to be strange– but it’s absolutely incredible, and I highly recommend joining in the fun. What’s great is that this is really not just for women who currently tech– if you’re interested social media, launching a startup, learning about new tools… this is *the* place to be.

I’ll be moderating this panel:

What Shirky Didn’t Tell Us – 4PM EDT
This panel will look at problems that are arising along gender, class and race lines within the new paradigms of Web 2.0, 3.0 and beyond. When we remove explicit structure from the organizing and tech equation, inherent structure arises– illustrating through technology just how far we have to go for social equality. But we don’t want to just kvetch about the problems: this panel will present and brainstorm solutions together. Panelists: Allison Fine, techPresident and Personal Democracy Forum, Tanya Tarr, AFSCME.

Thennnnn, there are parties that evening in major cities for participants to get together and socialize. Shockingly, I’m throwing the NYC party. Details:

NYC Women Who Tech After-Party
6:30pm – 9:00pm
Donnybrook
35 Clinton St (corner of Stanton)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=73623154033
Drink specials and noshy things galore!

Feel free to come by and say “hi” even if you’re not attending the conference. Other parties are scheduled for DC, San Francisco, London and Atlanta, too.

I can’t express enough how excited I am to be part of this gang. Please feel free to forward on, and if you’re one of those journalist types and you want to write about the events or women in technology in general, drop me a line!

In short, every woman I know should apply for this program. The deadline for applications to get into the next round of classes is coming soon: March 10. Women from all disciplines, backgrounds and identities are strongly encouraged to apply! Don’t let geography or other constraints prevent you from applying — the staff is more than willing to work with candidates that get accepted. This is one of the most brilliant programs for empowering women with real skills that I’ve ever seen– get your application in today.

One of the questions I get asked most about Twitter and other social media — whether from friends or from people I’m training– is, “Okay, I understand how it technically works now, but how do you handle that flood of information coming your way? It would drive me crazy to try and keep track of x number of people!”

Yes! I agree!

If I actually tried to stay on top of the 200+ people and conversations I’m following on Twitter, I would: (a) never get any work done, (b) go slightly bonkers, and thus (c) be rendered homeless quite fast. The trick is that I’m not actually paying that much attention to all those people. (Sorry, people I follow.)

The paradigm of email being our main form of digital communication for the past 10+ years (at least in the mainstream) has created this sense that every message appearing in front of our faces is significantly important enough to demand our attention. As social media expands, nothing could be further from the truth. We are presented with the opportunity to reach numbers of people that previously was technologically impossible. That doesn’t mean we have to pay attention to them all.

In the case of Twitter, I like to think of it as my personal water cooler in the break room– when I’m bored or otherwise off on an ADD jaunt, I stop by here and listen to what other people are talking about at the moment. If something interesting or funny just happened, I pop my head into the group and tell them. (“A guy wearing boxers on the outside of his pants carrying a 1984 boombox blaring Michael Jackson just danced with me on Houston St.”)

There are some decisions I’ve made about my Twitter use that have helped me to keep enjoying it as a helpful tool:

• I don’t try to figure out all the conversations that were happening before I stopped by. Unless there’s some heated, heavy-duty discussion happening, I don’t go back in time and try to find out what everyone’s said since I last checked.
• I’ve accepted that there will be some things that I miss. I generally rely on “retweets” — denoted by RT or rtwt — to keep me abreast of really important news or funnies.
• I search for my username to look for people replying or referring to me. I want to be polite and respond to people talking to me as much as possible. You can save an RSS feed of the search results so you don’t have to keep checking the webpage.
• I’m selective about who I follow and unfollow. I don’t follow everyone that follows me, and I unfollow people who overwhelm my stream. This comes across to some as rude or unkind in the new paradigm, but I don’t subscribe to that belief. I don’t expect everyone that follows me to stay interested in my tweets about just how hilarious and weird my friends and dog are. I don’t expect them to be interested in every meeting or conference that I decide to live-tweet. Like most relationships, we need to work on our expectation management and boundaries in the social media sphere. I wrote a post about this last year.

The biggest thing I like to stress to people who ask me these things is that Twitter (and other tools like it) are tools for enhancing your communication and relationships — not destroying your sanity trying to keep up with everything. You should use them how you see fit, and not be afraid to make your own rules for your relationships– just as you would offline, so can you online.