‘SoCon07’, Atlanta’s First Social Media unConference Scheduled for February 10, 2007

Atlanta, GA – The Atlanta Media Bloggers Group and Kennesaw State University announced today that they will host SoCon07, Atlanta’s first, city-wide social media ‘unconference’ on February 9 and10, 2007. Named SoCon07, it will be the first official social media ‘mash-up’ of the south.

SoCon07 plans to bring together bloggers, new media pros, academics, and people from across the spectrum of marketing, public relations, human resources, and the executive ranks to discuss new media – including Web 2.0, social networking and open source – how they are evolving, who the local pioneers have been and are, what results have been achieved, and what new media promises for all of us.

Conference chair Sherry Heyl, CEO of the Internet consulting firm ‘What a Concept!’ explains, “New media, including the use of blogs, wikis, social networks, video and podcasting, is very much in its infancy here in the south. SoCon07 expects to galvanize and inspire all of the people and organizations that are using, or getting ready to use, new media resources in their business and personal ventures.”

Conference co-chair, Leonard Witt, Kennesaw University’s Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication explains, “We believe there is a lot of information to be shared, networking to be done, and topics and techniques to debate and discuss, both between the experts and within in the local business community. SoCon07 represents an outstanding opportunity to begin to ‘connect the dots’ between all of the unexpected and interesting activities people have initiated in the Web 2.0 world.”

SoCon07’s theme, ‘Connect Because You Can’, intends to provide the needed venue for everyone with an interest or stake in new media to get together for the first time in Atlanta to talk, network, debate and discuss the opportunities that new media presents for all of us here in the south.

This unconference will be held at Kennesaw State University on Saturday, Feb 10, 2007 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Attendance is free of charge, although pre-registration is required and can be done over the website: www.socon07.com. Selected SoCon07 speakers include:

• Chris Klaus, founder & CEO of Kaneva, and founder of Internet Security Services (ISS)
• James Harris, CEO & co-founder of Atlanta-based ListenShare
• Jeff Haynie, previous co-founder and CTO of Vocalocity and current CEO of Hakano,
• Jonas Luster of Socialtext
• Josh Hallet, founder of Hyku
• Leonard Witt, Distinguished Chair in Communication, Kennesaw State University

Attendance is limited. Please register early.