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Put together by the Society for New Communications Research, the NewComm Forum is now in its fourth year. After last year’s rocking event in Vegas, this year’s event in Sonoma County should offer a more relaxing–but equally stimulating–experience. Check out our top 5 “must sees” at the year’s event:

5. Opening Keynote with Joseph Jaffe

We’re big fans of Joseph’s Jaffe Juice and its fully-integrated approach to social media. By Looking at conversations with consumers through all media and across the marketing and advertising departments, Joseph helps us understand the true impact of our campaigns. We also like his sense of humor.

Session Mood: Let’s give ‘em something to blog about…

4. Detour Ahead: Closing the Road to PR 3.0 featuring Darren Barefoot, Constantin Basturea and Brian Solis.

Always ahead of the curve, Constantin’s New PR Wiki has been a staple since 2004. We hear he’s also doing some pretty cool things at Converseon. If you don’t know, Brian Solis is on the forefront of fighting for “2.0.’ His man-on-the-scene bub.blicio.us blog, combined with PR 2.0, might make you think he spends all his time at his computer, but somehow he manages to be EVERYWHERE.

Session Mood: Futurama

3. A Conversation With Jim Long, Tom Foremski, and Shel Isreal

Brilliant. New media. Line-up. Mad props to Jenn McClure and crew for getting NBC to let go of Jim (aka newmediajim) long enough to appear on stage with these two pioneers of the new media space. Tom gave us some valuable insight last fall when he appeared on socialTNT’s “3Q’s in 3Min,” and Shel is such an icon, he has people lampooning him with puppets. Expect nothing but an interesting discussion on the state of the media.

Session Mood: Eureka in the Tweet

2. Building Your Brand With Conversational Media featuring Kami Watson Huyse and Geoff Livingston

Kami Huyse and Geoff Livingston are some of the top feeds in our Google Readers. Check out Kami’s recent case study examining the ROI on social media and the launch of a new roller coaster at Sea World. She’s a stickler for tracking and measurement, and is therefore an important voice in the progression of social media PR and marketing. Geoff’s Buzz Bin is like a workbook for new media marketers and PR peeps–and don’t forget his book!

Session Mood: Energized

1. Perspectives on the Social Media Release featuring Todd Defren and Maggie Fox

This, to us, is without a doubt, the social media PR Thilla in Manila of 2008. That makes Jenn McClure into Don King, and we’ll let you decide who is Muhammad Ali. Todd Defren is the inventor of the social media news release. He’s also our colleague at SHIFT. Maggie Fox from Social Media Group has worked on Multimedia Releases for Ford Motors (See our analysis of one of her campaigns here). It will be interesting to see what Maggie thinks of Todd’s SMR version 1.5, just released last week.

Session Mood: CATFIGHT!

These are just a sampling of the amazing sessions in store in Sonoma. We also hear there will be some great research released this year, with topics including new media influencers and implications for PR, customer care and brand reputation in the social media age, and how to measure progress in communities.

Sadly, socialTNT will not be able to make it this year. Due to client work, we will both be at Web 2.0 Expo. You can, however, catch us at the Social Media Club Tweet-up tonight at Adobe. Geoff Livingston and Brian Solis will be there to talk about their book. Hope to see you there!

Don’t miss a post: Drop socialTNT into your RSS reader [what’s that?]. Better yet, subscribe to socialTNT by email!

For those of you not familiar with our regular Thursday feature, “3Q’s in 3 Min” follows in the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. In addition to helping PR peeps pitch these individuals more effectively, the videos are meant to encourage dialog between reporters, communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

Our first clip features Forrester Research Senior Analyst Charlene Li. Charlene researches social media/web 2.0 technology and relates its uses to the marketing professional. In this clip, Charlene explains that by interacting with a brand–on even the most minute level–the consumer starts to build a relationship with the brand. See the full post and 3 minute interview here.

At last month’s Web 2.0 Summit, socialTNT was lucky enough to meet with Business Week Media Columnist Jon Fine. In his column, Jon focuses on the convergence of media and advertising. Check out the clip below to hear Jon’s opinion about social media and PR. For the full post and 3 minute interview with Jon, click here.

Our final clip for the day features Silicon Valley Watcher’s Tom Foremski. Tom has played a crucial part in PR’s evolution by declaring “Die Press Release! Die! Die! Die!” Below, Tom shares his ideas on the future of PR and stresses the importance of change. To see the full post and 3 minute interview with Tom, click here.

That was just a sampling of a few of the great interviews we’ve had on socialTNT’s “3sday’s 3Q’s in 3 Min.” To see all of the interviews to date, please check out this page. We’ve got some great interviews lined up, so stick around.

Once again, thank you Charlene, Jon, Tom and all of our guests for sharing your insight.

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Once again, it’s time for our regular Thursday feature, “3Q’s in 3 Min.” In the spirit of citizen journalism, SocialTNT puts bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. In addition to helping PR peeps pitch these individuals more effectively, the videos are meant to encourage dialog between reporters and PR practitioners on the future of media .

This week, Silicon Valley Watcher‘s Tom Foremski discusses the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, the changing media landscape, and the state of PR in the new ecosystem. For those two of you not familiar with Tom, he was the first (on record) to call for the end of the traditional press release.

More about Tom and the video after the jump…

Tom’s blog post from February 27, 2006, entitled “Die Press Release! Die! Die! Die!” called for a deconstructed press release to include these elements:

• a brief description of the key elements of the story
• quotes from CEO, C-Level spokespeople, customers, and analysts
• financial data
• links to other news stories or references

His sentiments were echoed through the community, inspiring Todd Defren to post a template for a Social Media News Release (SMNR) on May 23, 2006. (Rest of the history of the SMNR can be found here.)

Tom moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1984 and founded the international news agency, West Coast News. Fifteen years later, in 1999, Tom joined the Financial Times as a US Technology Correspondent and Columnist. In 2004, Tom jumped the print ship to try his hand at blogging full time. According to compete.com, Tom’s Silicon Valley Watcher received roughly 18,000 unique visitors in the month of August. Besides calling for the death of the press release, Tom is also notorious for uncovering the real life identity of LonelyGirl15′s Jessica Rose.

I had the opportunity to meet with Tom in his San Francisco flat earlier this week. Before the on-camera interview, we sat in Tom’s living room and chatted a little about recent industry news. A book case full of art books lines one wall, its shelves populated by miniature robots ranging from the 1950′s to a recent purchase from Kid Robot. On the top shelf sits a pair of vintage dioramas with scenes from the comic book Superman and some Doctor Who figurines. Children’s art and family pictures are scattered throughout the room, but my eye is drawn to a brightly colored poster hanging above the bookcase promoting The Haight-Ashbury Street Festival. Tom says he knows the artist personally–not surprising since he once published the neighborhood newspaper for the famous SF neighborhood.

Fun Facts About Tom:

• He has a pet bearded dragon
• He’s on Facebook and LinkedIn
• He has two children

After our warm-up chat, we go outside to Tom’s backyard patio for the shoot. Please forgive the shakiness of the camera. I promise to have a tri-pod soon. At SocialTNT, we like to go above expectations; instead of three questions, this week’s video features a whopping FOUR questions! The fourth question is the meatiest!

Check it out:

Do you agree with Tom? Is PR really in a state where change is an added bonus, not a necessity? Will PR ever be forced to evolve? If so, when?

Please feel free to comment on these questions or anything else Tom touched on in the remarks below.

Once again, thank you Tom for taking the time to share your insight with the SocialTNT audience!

Tomorrow, we continue with Part 2 of yesterday’s post,”It’s a Conversation, Stupid!”

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