This weekend I participated in Social Media Camp Miami, a one-day event on Miami Beach as part of Mashable’s US Summer Tour 2008. If you’re unfamiliar with the “un-conference” format, the agenda is set by the attendees and they follow these four basic rules:

1. 1. There are no rules.
   2. Everyone is equal.
   3. Give back to the conference by participating actively.
   4. All sessions must obey the law of two feet. If you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else.
      

I was very curious to see who would be in attendance and why, since I am still trying to assess the level of activity, interest and participation in new media, social media and 2.0 in Miami. There were a lot of familiar faces, but far more unfamiliar ones, which was encouraging.

 

On the spur of the moment, I decided to present about the issues I sometimes face with clients in trying to measure the success of a social media strategy. You’re only allotted 15 minutes, but I tried to get information from the attendees as to who they were, what they did and why they had decided to attend this particular event. My feeling is, if I just get up there and drone on about myself, my company and my services, then it becomes a conference like any other, and there would be nothing “un-” about it. Not sure if my presentation added any value, but I did feel a little let down by two things I saw at this particular event (and I have been to many of them).

First, I felt that the some of the sessions turned into product pitches which did little to adhere to the stated goal of having “the brightest minds…share what they know with the world.” There were some pretty shameless sales pitches going on when what was needed, which I TRIED to provide (not making any claims of success), were some tales of experiences in working with social media. I think the South Florida market is still very young as it pertains to social media adoption on the enterprise level. I understand that not every single person in attendance was there because they find themselves in the SM business. But, if the goal is to build awareness and understanding and try and inform people about what is going on in the space, then I think the event may have fallen a little short.

Second, it strikes me that if you’re going to talk about what you know, it is critical to know to whom you are talking. If I am in front of a convention of plumbers, I better not bring my speech geared to the Greater Minneapolis Association of Travel Professionals. Not sure how to tackle this problem since the point of these events is to cast a wide net and, getting back to the law of two feet, if someone sticks with your presentation, presumably they are interested in what you have to say. An issue that goes hand in hand with “know your audience” has to do with promotion of the events themselves. True to its calling, the promotional efforts for this social media camp were done using strictly social media tools (as far as I could tell). I found out about it through both Facebook and an RSS feed I subscribe to. What this produces, however, is a choir of converts who already get it. Again, what’s needed, in my opinion, is a forum to explain to the curious but uninitiated segment of the population who want to learn more about the power of SM but don’t know where to turn. Informal gatherings like these are the perfect, low pressure venue. But it’s not even a matter of all of us preaching to the choir. We need to get a whole new set of people into the church.

Miami’s 2.0 community continues to grow and there are encouraging signs of life in terms of the network of developers, PR people, producers and visionaries. That Miami was even on Mashable’s list of tour stops is hopefully more than just a signal that the event’s organizers wanted to hang out on South Beach for a weekend.

[Yoono.com deserves special mention for their efforts in organizing and keeping things flowing.]