POSTED BY Suzi Craig

Mar 30, 2010

CT TweetCrawl: The Evolution

What do you do when an experiment goes right, yet you suddenly don’t have the muscle to take it to the next level?

Don’t go into your hole. Get help.

If you naysay the value of building a strong online community that believes in what you do, here’s a story that I hope will change your mind:

CT TweetCrawl: The Evolution

I started CT TweetCrawl to mess things up. I was looking for a networking event where I could meet people outside of my geographical footprint and beyond my comfort zone. And, I wanted to talk about social media’s next evolution with people from all industries. I wanted to meet other people who liked to mess things up. That happened, and pretty quickly.

When I started the TweetCrawl in early 2009, I lived a double life. I was running group88, a meeting and office space for independent professionals, and working at Fathom, the sugar daddy company of this blog (a.k.a., awesome brand and creative firm). I have since left group88 to put more of my eggs into the Fathom basket (so to speak). While I shifted my energy into Fathom, the TweetCrawl evolved and began to take on a life of its own. I thought, “success!” and I convinced my Fathomites that CT TweetCrawl should be a Fathom-endorsed event. They supported the effort and my enthusiasm.

We went from 6 people in a room together sharing a six pack to up to 70 people from all walks of life, making connections and becoming friends. The most successful part of the event is that we consistently have 30% new faces each time. To me, the most intriguing thing about CT TweetCrawl was our ability to connect people who normally wouldn’t get in a room together. Naysayers kept telling me that small businesses only want to make connections in their backyard. I say we need to redefine the backyard. The online world is your playground. Why not mimic what’s happening online so successfully, in the form of making connections that break geographic barriers?

We hold the event about once per month and take it all over Connecticut. So far, we’ve been to Hartford to New Haven, Farmington to Fairfield and Middletown to New London and most recently to West Hartford. The majority of Crawlers are small business folks interested in social media. Other folks from the broadcasting, nonprofit, corporate and education worlds round out the cast.

We ended the year with the grandaddy of all Crawls was Operation Home for the Holidays where we raised over $14,000 in two events, and the only reason it was a great success was because of the networks Fathom, Crawlers and our other sponsors built online and via the Crawl.

Now, we’re very much into 2010 and I’ve only been able to organize one Crawl. It’s beyond me and Fathom now that we’re really heating up with client work, speaking gigs and all kinds of stuff. I talked about the Crawl with Fathomites and asked them if we should do something else with this event that would align it with our market space more. They said, “Why, when that’s not why you started it? And it would kill a good thing if you try and make it into something it’s not.” True. Also, the event is not Fathom’s. It belongs to the Crawlers who make it happen, as it did when it began.

I ran a survey with the very awesome help of @KatieHoke (a.k.a. Kathy Hokunson) of Site Seeker. A lot of ideas were kicked around about what the Crawl’s next evolution could be — speakers, brainstorm sessions, more fundraisers — but one thing was clear: keep the fun. Keep the networking. Just make sure there’s more of it.

At the last Crawl, Diana Bartollota (@blawllc), had an awesome idea. She said, “Hey, if people want the Crawl to come to their town, why don’t they make it happen?” The thought of this was really intriguing. But, could we pull that off if lots of people were running the show? I think we can if we put a process in place that can be supported by many.

I put an email out to the regulars and asked for help. I suggested that we form a group of Producers who can help make sure the Crawl happens. They raised their hand with enthusiasm. We kicked around a bunch of ideas about how this could happen but it was clear that we needed to get in a room together to brainstorm, as well as start a Google Group to share ideas online. And, that is where we’re sit.

The Crawl has evolved but it’s ready for the next iteration. But, the people involved are the only reason it’s ready to grow.

Want to be a Producer for CT TweetCrawl? You must live in Connecticut and be ready to help host a Crawl (at a local venue) or help others to host. We’re not sure if this will be divided by geography or how it will work, and that’s where you will come in. We need your ideas, enthusiasm and willingness to keep the Crawl crawling. To come to our brainstorm session,  post a note on the CT TweetCrawl Facebook group or Tweet us at @cttweetcrawl. And, if you have ideas for us to kick around but don’t want to be a Producer, be sure to post them here.

Posted by: Suzi Craig
Email the author: suzi@fathom.net