Citizen Marketer 2.1

Aaron Strout

Location-based Services: Best Practices from Texas State University [video]

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Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on location-based services during Texas State University’s Mass Communication Week. I was lucky enought o be joined on the panel with the likes of Simon Salt, CEO of Incslingers and author of upcoming book, Geolocation Marketing, Jonathan Carroll, community manager at Gowalla and Tony Alvarado of OneTaco. We covered a range of topics including:

  • Why one might use location-based services (LBS) as an individual
  • Use cases of LBS for small businesses AND big businesses
  • A case study from Tony about One Taco’s partnership with Gowalla during SXSW 2010
  • Benefits of using LBS
  • Risks (including privacy) and much much more…
VIDEO 1

[ustream vid=0 hid=0 w=480 h=386]

Big thank you to Dara (which is pronounced like “Sarah” but with a “D”) Quackenbush and Cindy Royal for inviting us all to participate.

Looking at the Future: Onstar’s Live On

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It’s an OnStar kinda night at Stubbs — Austin, TX

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a fabulous event at Stubb’s BBQ here in Austin. The host of the party was OnStar (a Powered client) and the purpose of the shin dig was to announce OnStar’s latest and greatest in mobile technology called Live On. Without getting into too much of a marketing pitch, the crux of what VP of Planning and business development at OnStar, Nick Pudar, walked us last night through focused on these four areas:

  1. Innovative technology
  2. 9th generation hardware
  3. Enhanced safety features
  4. New marketing campaign
Rewinding a little bit, I had a chance to try out some of OnStar’s technology a few months back when my colleague, Joe Jaffe, and I were in Detroit for the Future Midwest conference. Friend and director of social media at GM, Christopher Barger, was kind enough to lend us a Cadillac Escalade. In addition to it being a REALLY sweet ride, it was equipped with OnStar technology. What I loved about the technology (in addition to coveting the ability to remotely unlock my doors) was the fact that everything is done via voice. As someone that is married to their iPhone, I can tell you that I know how dangerous it is to try and text or tweet while driving. I also know how aggravating it is to not be able to enter an address into my GPS en route.

Joseph Jaffe, Powered and Christopher Barger, GM
Back to last night… what I like about OnStar’s thinking is that they are working hard to keep drivers safe on a lot of different fronts. Considering the fact that over 6,000 people died last year in texting or other smartphone related accidents — a number that’s destined to go up dramatically — allowing people to do the thing that they will inevitably do in a safer, smarter fashion makes a ton of sense to me. In fact, OnStar President, Chris Preuss said it best in yesterday’s announcement:

Giving our customers control of their vehicles with smart phone application technology is a key advantage of OnStar’s in-vehicle connectivity. This technology empowers drivers to make decisions about their travels well before they enter the vehicle,  meaning their full attention can stay where it needs to be – on the road ahead.

To that end, allowing for the ability to use your smartphone’s bluetooth capability to to perform text to voice OR using OnStar to be able to update your Facebook status (and listen to recent updates) is huge.

Inside a Chevy giving commands to Facebook via OnStar

The live updates coming from our car as we update from OnStar

On the “room for improvement” side of things, it does take a little doing to coordinate the Facebook updates. And once you do an update, it results in a voice >> text >> automated voice update on Facebook itself. However, this is OnStar’s first shot of the gate with this stuff so I imagine that the technology and capabilities will smooth out soon. I’m also envisioning that services like Twitter and location-based applications will be included in subsequent releases of this technology.

One other thing to note is the ability to go to OnStar’s site, enter in a location and then send it to your car is VERY cool and something that is a no-brainer. As I noted earlier, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve gotten into my car, forgotten to enter my destination into the GPS and ended up having to pull over onto the side of the road.

So a big kudos to OnStar last night for pulling off a fun and informative evening (something they replicated across the country). Also, a great big thank you to my friend, Kameya Shows, who was kind enough to invite me to last night’s soiree. You can see other pictures from the event over on Flickr.

Simon Salt, Incslingers, Aaron Strout (that’s me) and Wayne Sutton, TriOut & OurHashTag

Three Worthy Causes/Events

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As an individual, one of the things that comes with influence and reach is social responsibility. I’ve tried to use mine wisely although I probably could be accused of not doing enough of it. To that end, I’ve got a triple shot of social causes on my plate right now that I’d like you to consider supporting — either monetarily, via your social networks/blogs or through your time.

I know, I know… we get pounded a dozen times a day to support a variety of causes. And please understand that I’m not asking you to support all of these causes (although that wouldn’t suck if you did). Just to think about doing something little or big for any of the three. Here are the details:

Race for the Cure Tweetup (November 1)
This one comes courtesy of Simon Salt who will be participating in the 12th Annual Komen Austin Race for the Cure®. I hope to get down and walk with Simon but if not, you can bet that I’ll be sending some cash his way (and some tweets of support. I hope that you will join me.

To get involved, please consider registering as part of Simon’s team or through a donation. The money raised through the Race will fund vital education, screening and treatment programs for underserved women in Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties and support the national search for the cures.

If you prefer, mail your donation today to:
Komen Austin P.O. Box 2164 Austin, TX 78768.
Please make your check payable to:
Susan G. Komen for the Cure and add “Simon Salt” in the memo

Austin Non Profit Camp (November 14)
Austin Non Profit Camp is a free, facilitated and participant driven conference that will be the place in Austin for non profits to learn and troubleshoot their technology problems in a supportive, collaborative setting. The event is being spearheaded by David J. Neff, Jon Lebkowsky, Maggie Duval and Matt Glazer. Their goal is to take the successful Bar Camp model and apply it to expand understanding and awareness of free and Open Source technology within the non-profit community in Central Texas.

How It Works
Non profits and technology folks come together to have conversations about the issues that they face in a no sales, no cost environment. They bring tech experts together with nonprofits in a context that will facilitate mutual understanding.

In addition to scheduled speakers, attendees will have the option to sign up to speak about issues and solutions they know best. [Note from Aaron – my goal is to drop by to run one of the unconference sessions]

Nonprofit attendees collaboratively problem solve issues they face with running and promoting their organizations, workshopping with local technologists about the latest and most effective technologies and methodologies. These conversations will help nonprofits filter what’s useful from what’s not and keep their organizations humming and on track.

Topics
Google Apps, Data Exchange/Salesforce, Google Grants, Social Media, Marketing, Cloud Computing, Email Marketing, Fundraising in Social Media, ZERO COST Infrastructure, ROI of The Cloud

Event Details 
Date: November 14th
Time: 10:00 a.m. – :00 p.m.
Location: ACC Eastview Campus
3401 Webberville Road

Register here

Movember (month of November)
What could be better than growing mustaches, a healthy competition and raising money for men’s health (and in particular, prostate/testicular cancer). Check out the Movember home page here. There are three ways you can help us out:

  1. Join our team and help us raise money.
  2. Donate to our team
  3. Pass the good word along about what we’re doing via tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts.

More details will unfold in a separate blog post but I’ll be joining forces with some of my Austin peeps Kyle Flaherty, Tim Walker, Tim Hayden, David Armano, Chris Carter, Doug Wick, Chris Anderson, David Neff, Wesley Faulkner, Tim Schmelter, Heather Strout and Simon Salt. Hopefully we’ll get Bryan Person, William Hurley, Peter Kim along with some other Austin studs (and/or studettes) to battle with the boys in Boston.

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