As a part of a community, how can we ensure that we avoid becoming a big hegemonious community where we all do more of the same?
From where it stands things are looking good. In our Toronto social media community we have folks of all types:
- Social change
- Marketing
- PR
- Entrepreneurs
- Start-ups
- Students
- Agencies
- Developers
- and more…
Well wait a second, that list looks pretty good, and these are only people from the community mind you. We already have here a diverse group of people. The problem is that when we come together, what are we talking about?
All the same thing usually. Social media this, or social media that. And we’re talking about it as if it’s the first time we’ve ever chatted about social media, using simple metaphors, and failing to dive into real substance.
What would happen if we took the best minds from each category we could come up with, and held different events themed around their industry? Not more events just to chat about mildly interesting social media things that each has experienced, but as an opportunity to teach others some forward thinking, and critical ideas from their industries.
Social media could still be the thread that connects and relates concepts between PR professionals and developers but I see there being so much more we could learn from each others professions, straight from the experts, that in the end could broaden our overall understanding of things like social media. We are not diving deep enough as it is right now, sessions have the risk of becoming repetitive because of it.
Both RedWire and Refresh Events has done a good job with different themed events, trying to touch on different issues at each event. Though I’ll say stop short at saying that they’ve been perfect because more than a couple of the presenters there have did nothing more than pitch their businesses.
To further understand where I think our real strength as a local community lies, re-watch this video by Chris Anderson, curator of TED, where he lays out his vision for what the TED conferences could be. We completely have the same opportunity on our hands.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

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