Last night was the latest Media Leaders event to take place here in Raleigh. This one was a bit more casual, mostly because it was a late decision to hold it at all during the holiday season.
It took place at the best neighborhood tavern in downtown Raleigh – Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern on one of the coldest nights of the year! By 6:30 Lisa Jeffries had dropped off a gigantic tray of delicious huspuppies and about 8 gallons of sweet tea from Smithfield’s Chicken n’ BBQ to go along with the awesome snack trays that award winning owner/bartender Zack provided for us.
My friend John Lewis set up a small table to accept donations for Stop Hunger Now, which is a local organization that can feed 100 people on each $25 donation.
We eventually had about 100 people show up to chat and meet new people. I love the fact that every time we get together for a Media Leaders event, there are new faces in the crowd.
About 8pm we picked our prize winners! The prize is a chance for 3 attendees to have lunch with a group of local leaders who aren’t always easy to connect with. The prize group this time is:
Aaron Houghton:
Aaron is Co-Founder and Chairman of Board of Directors at iContact Corporation as well as President & CEO at Preation. Aaron is one of those guys that looks at business from a unique perspective. He has a nice collection of war stories of what has worked and what hasn’t, but even better he knows why. Follow Aaron on Twitter.
Jennifer is the Public Information Officer at North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. That’s a long title, but I first became aware of Jen when she and her team spoke at a Social Media Breakfast event a couple years ago. But this year she and her crew pulled out all the stops to make the 2010 NC State Fair the most successful ever. Jen gets to work with a whole different side of PR and social media and she’s the best I’ve ever seen at making the NC Agriculture Department relevant and interesting even for non-farmers.
Cord Silverstein:
Cord is the Executive Vice President of Interactive and Social Media at Capstrat. You can see some of Cord’s best ideas at his Marketing Hipster blog, or you can pay his company and hear his brilliance in person. If you’re not following Cord on Twitter, you should be reassessing why your on Twitter and who you’re following.
The winners last night were picked at random from the check-in list. The lucky winners were Caitlin V. Smith who recently left her position as a Marketing Communication Specialist to become an Interactive Media graduate student at Elon, Cyn Mallard who is well-known in the Triangle from PechaKucha as well as her beautiful artistry at Cynergie Studio and my old co-worker Christine Seib who is a Senior Online Strategist at Responsology.
Thanks to everyone who attended and of course the Raleigh Media Leaders team – Morgan Siem, Meg Crawford, Karl Sakas and Brian McDonald!
How does April sound for the next one?
Great evening. Thanks for organizing. Looking forward to April!
Thank you, Phil. It promises to be a great lunch with media rock stars. I’m honored. Media Leaders was a great event, despite the short notice. We all appreciate all the work the team put into making it happen.