PR meets the WWW / Constantin Basturea’s weblog

• Name: Christin Eubanks
• College: Auburn University, 2007
• Social media activities: blog (see also), flickr, twitter, portfolio
• Highest recommendations: from her professor, Robert French
• Smart: absolutely
• Passionate: you bet
• Sense of humor: healthy (just ask the Aussie Boy)

Welcome to Converseon, Christi!

Read more:

• Christi’s announcement
• Our CEO, Rob Key, welcomes Christi
• A bogan’s tale
• (PR) Bloggers in NY (or: how we met in real life)

Who: You, gentle reader

What: Vote for a project that could get funded by American Express’s Members Project to plant 1 million trees and to use Second Life to educate people about environment and what we can do to preserve it. Or - just go to vote for any project you find worthy of your support; American Express is donating $1 for each member who is registering to vote.

Where: At http://www.membersproject.com/Environment_Wildlife/991 (or look for the project titled “The Virtual Forest Project. 1 million trees. Easy.” on MembersProjects.com)

When: Until Sunday, July 15

Why: Because…

• you care about environment
• it’s a cool idea
• it brings together real life and Second Life in a meaningful way
• it’s the only AmEx MembersProject program that is using social media

Background & disclosure: American Express’s Members Project is an initiative that will allocate between 1 and 5 million dolars to 5 projects that were suggested and voted by AmEx cardholders. Plant-It 2020, a non-profit organization, has been selected as the ‘fulfiling organizations’ for one of the top 50 projects. The project, called The Virtual Forest, is linking Second Life and real life in a simple way: for every (virtual) tree planted in SL, a tree is planted in the real world to combat deforestation. The project is already up and running in SL; my company, Converseon, has built the Second Chance Trees island; the funds are used by Plant-It 2020, our partner, to plant the trees in RL.

More information:

• My friend and colleague Paull Young has an in-depth post about the project and our approach on his blog and on our corporate blog
• Watch our machinima video on YouTube to learn more about the project
• Visit the Second Chance Trees Island (SLurl)
• Take a look at the photos took on our island
• Visit the project’s website.

Thank you.

No, I’m not planning to write only about my day job on this blog, but until we’ll have our corporate blog up and running (about a week or so) I thought I’ll let you know about a couple of events where you can find the Converseon team — just in case you might want to participate, or come by and say hi :)

So here they are:

• I’ll be at the Search Engines Strategies conference in New York, on April 9, where my boss Rob Key is going to join Nan Dawkins from RedBoots on a panel called Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy
• Rob is going to present our first Second Life community project, done in partnership with Plant-It 2020, at WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Basic Training conference in New Orleans, on April 18. If you plan to attend the event (which is highly recommended!), you can use guestofconverseon for a $75 discount when you register. (Disclaimer: Converseon is currently a WOMMA governing member)
• Finally, I’ll be at the Authentic Communications event organized by the Business Development Institute in New York, on April 24, where Rob will join a panel of top communicators from Porter Novelli, Hewlett-Packard, AARP and Community Connect to discuss about social media’s impact on corporate communications and branding. Please drop me an e-mail if you’re interested in getting a discounted pass.

Hope to see you there!

Hey, the headline says it all! :)

I’m really happy to announce that, starting today, Paull Young is joining Converseon as Senior Account Executive, and that we’ll work together to create social media strategies for our clients (here’s the official press release, including an audio message from Paull).

Paull needs no introduction. He built a unique profile for himself in the PR blogosphere, as a blogger and director of podcasting for Forward, and as a leader for the anti-astroturfing campaign. And, of course, he’s that one lucky guy who traveled around the world to meet in “meat space” the friends made on the internet :)

Welcome aboard, mate! It’s a thrill to be your colleague!

Update: Here’s Paull’s entry on the announcement.