When: Thursday, February 26th
5:30 – 6:00 informal networking
6 – 7:30 Panel Discussion
7:30 – 8:00 question and answer session
Where: Media Education Foundation (MEF) Community Room, 60 Masonic Street, Northampton, Massachusetts
Refreshments: Snack provided, drinks and sandwiches can be purchased from Woodstar Cafe
Investment: $10
Registration preferred: You can register

Join us on February 26 for an interactive panel discussion of “How Hidden-Tech Businesses are Using Social Media.” The panel will focus on the real-life success stories and lessons learned from local businesses who have used social media to improve their business model- and their bottom line. Moderated by Tish Grier, a frequent speaker on these topics, this panel should provide us all with tips we can apply – in any economy.

About Our Moderator:
Tish Grier is a social media strategist for startups seeking to develop online communities. She is currently at work as community developer for Placeblogger.com and on a new crowdsourcing project. She has worked in community development at NewsTrust.net, a journalism review site, and Assignment Zero, the first crowdsourced journalism project. She speaks frequently on social media in journalism, and blogs at the Constant Observer spap-oop.blogspot.com on media and technology.

About Our Panel:
Panelists include Morris Partee, founder and Chief Experience Officer at EverythingCU, a central hub for connecting credit union executives across the country. Morris seamlessly combines both the personal and professional in his use of social media. He is also active in organizing several BarCampBank unconference events. He blogs at EverythingCU everythingcu.wordpress.com and is very active on Twitter and Facebook.

Ron Miller is a freelance writer and member of Hidden Tech. Ron has been blogging since 2003, and has recently begun to leverage new forms of social media such as Twitter to further his personal brand, mine new sources of information, and connect with other Hidden Techies. He blogs at “by Ron Miller byronmiller.typepad.com is a regular columnist at DaniWeb, and is also on Twitter.

Ann Kingman is a sales manager with Random House, Inc. She works primarily with independent booksellers, and understands the challenges of brick-and-mortar stores in an e-commerce era. She sees the value of social media for brick and mortar businesses who are challenged by online competition. Ann blogs at Bookseller’s Blog and does both blog and podcast with colleague Michael Kindness at Books on the Nightstand www.booksonthenightstand.com