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Tag Archives: education

ieSonoma | Innovate and Educate Conference

Posted on May, 14, 2013 by - 0 Comments

I am honored to be asked to speak at the ieSonoma conference at the Sonoma Country Day School on June 10, 2013. The panel of speakers are: Sir Ken Robinson, Darius Anderson, Doug Barry, Dale Dougherty, Jim Glasheen, and Kerry Rego (me!). Sir Ken Robinson, the keynote, is a leader in education, development and innovation. He also gave the most watched TED talk of all time. Darius Anderson is amongst the group of partners to purchase the Press Democrat in November 2012. Doug Barry is an innovator in technology, media, and entertainment. Dale Dougherty, president of Maker Media (produces MAKE) a former division of O’Reilly Media. Jim Glasheen is a leader in the field of biotech and consumer medicine. I am an author and social media consultant. I’m also the only female speaker.

ieSonoma is an emerging partnership between public and private educational institutions and the larger community to innovate and educate for a brighter future. From their website, “We face great challenges and great opportunity as we together prepare all children for the opportunities of the 21st Century. The world has changed greatly due to increased access to technology tools for communication, collaboration and global interconnectedness. The schools we know of the 20th century can’t prepare our kids for the demands of the 21st Century.”

I look forward to speaking my mind and telling educators what they need to know in regards to technology of today and tomorrow, how this effects our students, and how to help them prepare for their lives ahead. I’ve been trying for years to get people to listen and I’m so excited to have the right audience to hear the drum I’ve been beating.

Event Flier

Why I wrote a book

Posted on January, 23, 2013 by - 0 Comments
What you don't know about social media can hurt you cover

I know it sounds odd, a social media consultant writing a dead tree book.

As long as I’ve been working in social media, I have received requests for DVDs or other recorded materials from my clients and seminar attendees. Social media changes from minute to minute, day by day, so I took my time in selecting a subject that would stand the test of time.

Watching people, listening to their concerns, and tracking trends for years gave me my answer. Technologies change and brands get sold. What stays the same is us, for our whole lives. What I know to be true is that you spend your whole life developing your character and reputation and today, one post, one video, one stupid mistake, can be your ruin when it’s online. While many of my client requests are for Facebook page building, LinkedIn understanding, social media strategies, and measuring marketing channels, I knew they needed more.  When I started adding reputation management and personal branding to my services, my clients were shocked at what we found. They felt uneducated and helpless to change what others saw on search engines.

There’s a ton of marketing and business focused social media resources available. What I don’t see much of is easy to understand information for business owners, schools, parents, children, and people of all walks of life on how to navigate the web, understand what’s happening, stay safe, and build a positive route for success. This book is a start.

This is my higher calling:

  1. Educate people on the truth of the situation and how it affects them.
  2. Assure them there are ways to be proactive and assertive.
  3. Empower them with action items they can perform to protect themselves and their loved ones.

This book is not about social media strategy specifically, though I do cover it. This book is for everyone to use, understand, and learn what tools are available to control how they are seen online when they aren’t around to speak for themselves.

I know not everyone likes social media or wants to use it. Many aren’t ready yet and may never be but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the information should they desire it. I wrote a paperback book because I want to reach as many people as possible, particularly those that aren’t constantly attached to technological devices, this book is first and foremost for them. And for those that prefer digital books,  it’s also available in Kindle format and soon in iBook. You can get your copy here.

Plain and simple, this subject is too important to neglect. Knowledge is power.

Kerry Rego Consulting Named County of Sonoma Social Media Staff Trainer

Posted on June, 10, 2012 by - 5 Comments

Kerry Rego Consulting  County of Sonoma
Kerry Rego Consulting Named

County of Sonoma Social Media Staff Trainer

SANTA ROSA, CA — 5/16/2012 – Kerry Rego Consulting has been chosen by the County of Sonoma to provide training to county department staff. The County of Sonoma Board of Supervisors approved the County’s Social Media Policy on June 15, 2010 and personnel are required to undergo social media training prior to the implementation of a social media program.

We are proud to be named a staff trainer for the County of Sonoma. We have been providing service to the County for several years in a variety of projects for the Economic Development Board, Film Office, Green Business Program, Web Services, and as a subcontractor to First 5. We will be providing training over an 18 month period and providing the following services:

Phase 1: Pre-classes.
Review of current County social media channels for adherence to County Social Media Policy. Map out timeline of in person classes and design flow of information to follow a natural cycle of participant understanding. Information in classes to be covered (but is not limited to):

    • Definition of social media
    • Review County Social Media Policy
    • Review department guidelines
    • Main categories of social media usage
    • Inform on current technology trends in general use with appropriate industry statistics and user behavior trends
    • Instruct on how to complete an Assessment of Need within an organization for social media
    • Establish desired outcome of use for individual departments and set social media goals for successful engagement
    • Inform on user behavior, online culture variations in digital communities, best practices, psychographics, and quirks of individual systems
    • Demonstrate critical thinking necessary to evaluate tools by ownership, vendor relationship and affiliate positioning, ease of use, user experience, trendiness vs. valuable, community engagement, and stability for long term use
    • How to manage a social media campaign including tools for management, compliance with records retention, creating documentation for department cross training, rules for local governments, and management of public comments
    • How to measure success of a social media campaign including varying ways to view success that go beyond easy to gauge numbers, collection of metrics, and determining which metrics are appropriate desired performance
    • Compare social media practices of public sector vs. private sector business
    • Address changes from beginning of course schedule to end and provide overview of what has occurred in tech marketplace over the lifecycle

Design support materials and documentation that align with classes. Assist in preparation of online courses to be offered by County of Sonoma, if requested.

Phase 2: Classes. Consultant will deliver instructor led courses of one 3-4 hour length course per quarter. Estimated time for completion is March 2014.

Kerry Rego Consulting County of Sonoma Trainer Press Release

Social Good: Social Media for the Non-Profit World [SLIDESHOW]

Posted on January, 28, 2012 by - 0 Comments

Kerry Rego presented to the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Santa Rosa, CA on January 25, 2012.  Providing the definition of social media, current statistics, categories of use, basic strategy, statistics specific for non profits and fundraising, obstacles, and case studies.

Social Good: Social Media for the Non-Profit World

View more presentations from Kerry Rego
Excerpts:
Slide 2 - Why is Social Media Important?
  • Facebook 800 million users
  • Twitter 100 million users
  • YouTube 4billion + views per day
  • LinkedIn 135 million users
  • Google+ 90 million users
Slide 3 – Unique Visitors December 2011 , Comscore

Slide 4 - Social Media, A Definition: Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues. -Wikipedia

Slide 5 - The 7 C’s of Social Media – Dose of Digital

Slide 7 – Categories of Social Media Tools

  • Blogs, microblogs, RSS feeds
  • Multimedia – audio, video, pictures
  • Social Networks
  • Events
  • Mobile, texting, ads
  • Location based services, check in
  • Share & review
  • Bookmarking
  • Email marketing
  • Document sharing
  • PR tools
  • Monitoring

Slide 8 – Simple Social Media Strategy

  • Goal
  • Tools, Research
  • Routine
  • Measure
  • Adjust
  • Persist

Slide 9 – Market Research

  • WHO is the audience?
  • WHAT is their preference?
  • WHEN do they want to hear from you?
  • WHERE are they?
  • WHY are you there?
Slide 10 Realistic expectations. It’s just like going to the gym, it takes 6 months + to have a good showing in social media just like getting a 6 pack. Setting your expectations in a realistic space will help eliminate disappointment.
Slide 11 – Social Media Use by Non Profits
  • 92% of nonprofits use at least one social network – Blackbaud
  • There has been a 61% increase in online giving from 2001 to 2011. The average donation was $226 now $73. – Network for Good
  • 33% of online donations come from email appeals while only 7% come from Facebook. – Razoo
  • Four out of five nonprofits agree that social networking is valuable to their growth and community engagement. – Nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com

Slide 12 – Nonprofit’s Social Media Use (image on Frogloop)

Slide 13 – Where the Money is Coming From, WePay [sorry the original link was lost :( ]

  • 36% Facebook
  • 9% Email
  • 5% Blog
  • 4% Twitter
Slide 14 – How to Fail at Social Media Fundraising
  • Don’t have a budget
  • Don’t dedicate staff
  • Don’t have a focus
Slide 15 – Social Media Budgets (image on Frogloop)
  • Hire or assign a current staff member
  • Allocate Budget
  • Add social media to your fundraising appeals
Slide 17 – Pay Attention to Mobile!
Slide 18 – Case Study, Human Rights Campaign

Human Rights Campaign recruited an additional 30,000 new supporters through timely action alerts and petitions on the Care2 network ’09-’10. HRC developed an integrated multichannel marketing approach that sought to connect, engage, and convert warm recruits through telemarketing, direct mail, email and text messaging.

Slide 19 – Case Study, Text to Haiti

  • Contributions were often spur of the moment decisions that spread virally through friend networks
  • 73% contributed via phones on the same day they heard about the campaign
  • 76% say they often make text donations without doing much research
  • 43% of these donors encouraged their friends or family members to give to the campaign as well
  • 56% have continued to give to more recent disaster relief efforts via mobile
Slide 20 – Resources

 

You can contact Kerry Rego to book her to speak to your group by contacting kerry [at] kerryregoconsulting.com

LinkedIn Privacy Settings You Should Know About

Posted on December, 30, 2011 by - 2 Comments

I spend much of my time either researching or training. I love to dive into settings for my clients. I like to quickly take care of the most nefarious and get their settings optimized right away. This is where I find many people run out of steam and give up because it’s simply too much and generally confusing. I found a few privacy settings I think you should know about on LinkedIn.

  • Log in to LinkedIn
  • Hover over your name in the upper right hand corner and Settings shows up on the drop down list, select
  • At bottom left, look for Groups, Associations, and Applications, select it
  • Under Privacy Controls, there is “Turn on/off data sharing with 3rd party applications”. Select or deselect at will.
  • Again under Privacy Controls, there is “Manage settings for LinkedIn plugins on third party sites”
  • This one is important: on the Account tab, there is “Manage Social Advertising”. This is where you select whether or not LinkedIn may use your name and photo in social advertising.

I recommend you read each of these carefully but I would bet money that you don’t know these settings are even there. Make sure you know where your data is going. I actually chose to keep the first two I mentioned but I opted out of social advertising. Be educated. Knowledge is power.

Our Workforce is Digitally Illiterate

Posted on November, 05, 2011 by - 1 Comment

My first directive as a social media and technology trainer is education. I help people understand what’s going on, who’s talking, where they are, how to make it happen, and when they should participate. What has become painfully obvious to me is our absence of opportunities to learn and a lack of technological education. I am guiding increasing generations of the digitally illiterate. Let me show you what I mean.

Quick Quiz:

  • How old are you?
  • How far back can you remember that technology was included in your curriculum?
  • Did they teach typing or computers in your junior or high school?
  • Did the internet even exist when you were in school?
  • Assuming you use a computer now, how did you learn to use it?
Can you see where I’m going with this? Unless you have recently been unemployed and gone through a job training course, I’ll bet you learned how to use computers after you got out of school. You probably learned how to use a word processing program or spreadsheet but do you really know how to use a computer? The majority of the people I work with and personally know are just barely functioning with the tools that run their lives. The business world is actively adopting and using new tools and media to advance. Our workforce is being left behind without enough opportunities to become educated and enhance their skill set.
People assume that I’m young enough to have been surrounded with computers my whole life. I really wasn’t but I was actively encouraged to use it. I had to come to the realization on my own that a technology education was imperative to my survival in the job world. All schools have some kind of computers but there’s a difference between possessing the equipment and providing a strategy to use them to your best advantage. I had to go out of my way to get and act on that information.
I’m worried. Very worried. I’m concerned about adults as well as kids. If the technology isn’t in the classrooms, if the teachers aren’t using it, if the kids don’t get to use tech except for their parents mobile phones/iPads/or laptops, how do you think we will be competitive in the workplace?
We won’t. It’s that simple.
If you don’t have a job now, good luck with that. You will not be employable until you learn how to read the language of the business world that is evolving every day. You know how to read the written word but we all know what’s happened to penmanship, letter writing, and spelling. The new frontier is not on paper, it’s on the screen.


We Are Failing Our Kids

Posted on July, 13, 2011 by - 3 Comments

I dare you to give a 16 year old a car but don’t give them any information about the rules of the road or a map. Tell ‘em to just wing it. Teach yourself, kid. How well do you think that would work out? Just think about the damage that could do. So why do we think that kids (not to mention adults) and computers will just “figure it out”?

I get really worked up when I think about the state of technology in our schools. How can we expect that our children will be prepared to face the hi-tech world outside of their school walls? When they graduate from high school, will the be adept at the tools they will find in the workplace? Are they able to speak the language, navigate data, and keep themselves safe? Will they even be able to find jobs? No No No No No and No. They have no opportunities in which to be prepared. If the teachers don’t know, then how can they arm our future breadwinners with the skills they’ll need to survive in this increasingly digital world? The more I think about it, the more upset I get.

I wish I could go door to door and teach the teachers. Get them up to speed on what’s available (see Social Media in the Classroom), work them through their fears so that they can figure out ways that they can use these amazing tools in their classrooms. Essays in blogs, language learning via video conference, literary discussions in collaborative digital classrooms, higher math assistance available on streaming video, mobile applications that allow you to “adopt a creek” and report statistical data regarding the biosphere, architectural designs tested via augmented reality and 3D rendering software. All available. All begging to be played with. All limited only by our imaginations.

We need to teach them them how to research, develop, communicate, program, build, compute, be productive and stay safe. These skills are only going to become more necessary. There simply has to be a way to gear up and get these people they skills they need. Our financial livelihoods and economy depends on it. You wouldn’t dream of handing a kid keys to a vehicle and not training him how to use it. Carnage will follow.

Social Media for Tomorrow Presentation, Resources for Sonoma State University Executive MBA

Posted on January, 21, 2011 by - 0 Comments

These are articles of reference in relation to the talk I gave EMBA students at Sonoma State University on 1/28/11.

Return on Investment (ROI):

Social Good and Corporate Responsibility:

New Frontiers:

Other Resources:

Social Media in the Classroom

Posted on February, 08, 2010 by - 1 Comment

Teachers’ Tools:

 

Technology in Schools:

Studies:

Science and Health:

History:

English, Writing, Expression:

Critical Thinking:

Emergency Preparedness: