Pemaquid Communications

Just a little reminder about our soiree Tuesday…

Open House/Social

May 19th 5:30 – 8:30pm – Free pizza, beer and wine provided by Portland Pie (our landlords; they run their business out of the ground-floor space. We’re up on the top – 3rd – floor). Map »

Staff writer Avery Yale Kamila has a great piece on coworking in the Maine Switch featuring Pemaquid Communications and our endeavor to create a coworking space at 28 Maple Street, what we sometimes jokingly refer to as the “Fab Lab”.

Coworking Links

Photos of 28 Maple Street (Flickr) – taken recently when it was occupied by the previous tenant, a Portland ad agency.

Coworking Survey – Take our quick survey and let us know what you’d like to see in a coworking space here in Portland, Maine.
Coworking Wiki – share ideas on coworking with people who are operating similar spaces in other cities.

There’s a lot of twittering going on about social media lately (pun intended). I’m going to be weighing in on the subject April 7 with a presentation I’ll be giving at the Harrasekett Inn, co-sponsored by the Freeport Merchants Association and the Maine Merchants Association.

Here are the particulars:

We’ll talk about a few Web sites you may have heard of – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube – as well as a few others, with an eye towards harnessing them to develop a sensible strategy for extending your organization’s brand or mission online.

Why me?

Good question indeed. I’ve built my business not on social media, but on the smart Web site design, usability, accessibility and content management, and that’s what I do best.

On the other hand, I also feel passionately about taking a no-nonsense approach to whatever it is you’re doing online, and that includes social media. I also know as much about social stuff as anyone in Maine.

I first bumped into Twitter in March 2007 while attending the South by Southwest interactive conference in Austin, Texas (which I call the Superbowl of Web Design). I twitter up a storm as @portlandhead and maintain @pemaquid (for the biz) and @Bluezberry_Jam (for my band; I play bass in my “spare time”).

I’m also the first (and to my knowledge, still the only) Maine Web designer to have developed Facebook apps. Pemaquid has done four: Bluezberry Jam, Portland Diner, Jenny’s Cards and Lost on Liftoff.

Editor’s note, 3/28/09: since creating this post, I’ve learned of another Mainer who’s created Facebook apps.

Fun Facts

Here are a couple fun facts about social media, to help you understand why it’s so important to use them effectively:

• 5 of the 10 most popular Web sites are social networks
• 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day
• 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

All that and more coming up April 7. See you there!

In the meantime, there’s a comment box below. You can use it. So give me your questions. What would you like to learn?