Join me for a lively conversation with SM Gurus!

On June 30 2010, I will have the honor of moderating a Social Media panel presented by the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s -NSHMBA New York Chapter- at Monroe College, New York. I will be sharing my passion about community building on the ground and online with Social Media Gurus. This is exciting for me because I have been learning and experimenting with new media for over a decade using technology to connect and interact. From virtual classrooms to virtual teams, friendships and business relationships are formed and nurtured.

My experience over the years has been positive. In 1998, I was with a nonprofit group organizing and drafting bylaws, the committee members were from NY, CA, TX, OR, and NJ. We were not meeting face to face or on a conference call, we were using a chat room in AOL. In 1999, I was invited to  participate in a conference titled “Connecting to the Future” held in El Salvador. We shared how technology helped us organize across geographies and time zones. In 2009, my consulting project team conducted market entry research for eight countries, the documents were updated through Google Docs and project progress was communicated online through a team site. Today I'm still connected with my colleagues through blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn.

As a management consultant, I often ask my clients: Are you using SM? and the answers vary depending on the person and the type of business, from “I couldn’t do without it” to “why would I want to lose my privacy to a bunch of teenagers?” which exemplifies the various views on SM, its uses and purposes.

Manny Velasquez of NSHMBA-NY http://nshmbanewyork.blogspot.com/ has lined up three experts:

• Michael Margolis of Get Storied http://www.getstoried.com/
• Louis Pagan of Latino Rebranded http://www.louispagan.com/ and Latinos in Social Media http://www.latism.org/ 
• Mauricio Godoy, IBM Analyst Relations/Social Media. 

Please help me pick their brains!. Submit your questions via Twitter to @NSHMBA_NY. The panel will help us understand the phenomenon, the advantages and disadvantages of using Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Blogs, and other platforms for personal branding, networking, and business development. Social Media tools are our disposal to communicate with real people and build valuable relationships. What you do is up to you and how you use them is entirely in your hands, literally!

Thanks for reading my agenda!

Reina