EGC has put together a fantastic lineup of speakers for this half day summit and have managed to keep the cost very reasonable at $55. On top of that they've offered a 10% discount for LITweetup-ers, so be sure to get your ticket now if you still haven't and use discount code litweetup2012.

LI Digital Summit Tickets

LITweetup is honored to host an "afterparty" for Long Island Digital Summit at Major's Steakhouse. This will be a tweetup in our usual style, no real agenda except for great conversation with incredible people who are working on exciting things. Since it's lunchtime, we 'll walk next door to Majors Steakhouse and grab some lunch (and maybe a drink if you're not headed back to the office) and we'll try to entice one or two of the speakers to join us. I'd really appreciate it if you could register here and let us know you're coming so I can try to give Majors a heads up.

They're bringing in some impressive speakers:

Keynote
Joanna O'Connell - Senior Analyst, Forrester Group

Morning Digital Panel Discussion

• Chris McCann - President, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM
• Michael Stromer - VP Customer Connections, JetBlue Airways
• Lance Ulanoff - Editor-in-Chief, Mashable
• Elliot Nix - mSearch Head of Industry, Google
• Tony Valado - Digital Strategist, The EGC Group

In case you're wondering, I'm going. Based on the Tony and Jackie's description, this is the type of event that fits my vision of what we need more of on Long Island; quality information, relevant speakers, value for our community and a potential to shine a light on our region nationally.

If you're able to come, use this discount code for a 10% discount: litweetup2012
LI Digital Summit

In 2012 we kick off the year by putting our money where our mouth is. We've spoken often about Long Island having too many silos and how that prevents the sharing of great ideas.  To kick off the year we'll be doing a combined tweetup with Social Media Club of Long Island (SMC-LI) and the folks over at DBMEI (Digital Brand Marketing Education).

And that's not even the cool part yet!  Thanks to a great connection made by Hilary Topper (@hilary25), Walt Whitman Mall will be hosting us! For Free! UPDATE: Our Food Sponsors Are: California Pizza Kitchen (@calpizzakitchen), Panera Bread (@panerabread) and Legal Sea Foods (@legalseafoods)!

Register Now - Walt Whiman Winter Tweetup

Should I Come?

If you're a social media /  marketing / PR nerd, this will be heaven for you, trust me.

If you've been to an LITweetup before, then duh. See you there.

If you 're a small business owner, journalist, artist, educator, parent, police officer, doctor, student or anybody else who's interested in how the world is changing because of these crazy new social communications technologies, this would be a smart place for you to be. You'll have a chance to meet real people who work and think about this stuff all the time without having to worry about being attacked by 'business card in your face' style networkers (more here).

Agenda, sort of

We tend to be really loose as far as agendas go, but this is what's on my mind right now:

• Social Media Camp Long Island 2012
• LITweetup Helps and the new partnership with LI Restaurant Week
• The future of LITweetup - how can we tighten the tribe and do more important work together?
• Smarter not better (Pete Shelly's great new years post)
• Path
• Pinterest
• Best recipe for barbecued anything

Holding hands around the campfire singing songs

I can't over-stress how excited I am that this is a combined event with SMC-LI and DBMEI. I'm excited Hilary came up with this great idea; the more often we can bring together smart passionate people who give a crap, the better.

Can't wait to see you all there!

Register Now - Walt Whiman Winter Tweetup

I'll (@namnum) be there helping out a bit, so hope to see you there if you can make it. RSVP on Facebook here.

In keeping with the theme, please enjoy the dramatic subtitles

Of Tragic Loss

So you would think the tragic loss would be our much lower results this year than in previous years but that's not really it at all. I am disappointed that Helps didn't collect as much food to feed our neighbors as we historically have, but really this was a totally new direction for the campaign with awesome brand new partners, so it makes some sense that there'd be growing pains.

The tragic loss in this case was me (@namnum). And not in the "Oh whoa is me, I'm such a moron" kind of way but in the "if only I had remembered what makes LITweetup work so well" kind of way. I forgot that what has always made our endeavors succeed is the community coming together. We each do a little part or add a little bit and that makes the event/project wholly amazing.

So if the time machine I started work on was finished, I'd go back to August-Septemberish when I realized I was way over-committed and one of a couple dozen LITweetup leaders or, even better, just email the LITweetup Helps coordinators from previous years. Then I would comfort myself that the process of curated crowd-sourcing that we've refined over the past few years would do it's work.

For anyone that was disappointed, I am sorry that I didn't do that. But for the record, I am not sorry that we went ahead with Helps even though I knew I was starting too late to do it the right way. I still believe that some help given to Island Harvest is better than no help.

Of Epic Wins

The much more funner-er section of the post to write. There are many wins from this years Helps: among them, we helped Island Harvest feed some people, some smart restaurants got some great pr by doing a good thing, a few of us were able to get together and great conversations happened. But I count 2 Epic Wins.

1. The Community Still Came Together. Despite the last minute craziness, despite the many challenges in the way and despite the short time frame to get the word out, when LITweetup-ers found out Helps was happening, they got to work. In order to feed people, many leveraged their networks, used their personal and professional resources and sacrificed their time and treasure to make sure that Island Harvest would get as much support as possible to feed our hungry neighbors. Maybe I should be used to it by now, but I am truly in awe of what you all are able to make happen. It is remarkable what concerned individuals can do when they work together to help people in need. You guys rock!

2. We Have An Amazing New Partnership. Again, thanks to an LITweetup-er we have an opportunity to multiply our efforts to help Island Harvest in 2012. Lindsey Myers (@LindseyeMyers) of Word Hampton PR created a partnership between the LITweetup Helps campaign and this year's Long Island Restaurant Week. Not only did they feature our efforts to help Island Harvest on the home page but Lindsey & crew found 5 participating restaurants to serve as food collection spots and to host impromptu LITweetup Happy Hours, and it was all done in less than 2 weeks!

Of Kicking Butt in 2012

As a community we have talent, passion, love, compassion and a shared interest in improving our little corner of the world. The big lesson that I walk away from the 2011 Helps campaign with is this: we have made a difference in Island Harvest's mission to end hunger on Long Island, in 2012 by learning from the awesome and the less than awesome, we will make an even bigger difference.

I would love to hear your comments, thoughts, questions and criticisms so please hit me up in the comments below.

I'll see you guys at the Social Media Club Holiday Party this week or at the upcoming free LITweetup event with SMCLI in January (info to come but save the date, it's on January 25th). You can count on the January event to be back to a traditional LITweetup, very loose in format and very tight in terms of quality conversations with passionate talented Long Islanders.

Hey gang, Hilary Topper (@hilary25) has invited the #LITweetup crew to join Social Media Club for their Holiday Party. For those of you who haven't yet had a chance to get to one of the SMCLI monthly breakfasts, I hope you'll take my word for it; this is a great group of people, worth getting to know better.

Here's more about the event, copied from the eventbrite page:

Join us on Tuesday, December 6 from 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm for the Social Media Club of Long Island's Holiday Party at Frank's Steakhouse in Jericho. Meet and mingle with other social media enthusiasts. Tweet the night away as you enjoy wine, beer and soft drinks and a full array of delicious appetizers. You won't leave hungry!

In case you're thinking 'I'm not sure, $50 is a lot right now'... how about this? If this is your first SMCLI thing, and you decide to come, just come up to me at the party and say hi and for the next year (2012) you've got a permanent 10% discount off of any event I (@namnum) run, and I've got a few new things in the works. Fair enough?

We live in one of the most amazing places in the country, surrounded by some of the most remarkable and generous people but we still have neighbors, and their children, going hungry. That has to stop and that's why we've been doing LITweetup Helps the last few years.

The Big Announcement

This year, thanks to the amazing network that is LITweetup, we will actually be partnering with Long Island Restaurant Week (LIRW) to feed the most people we've ever been able to! WordHamptonPR is the remarkable agency behind LIRW and they worked out all the specifics to make this happen. Not only will there be 5 restaurants serving as collection points for the duration of LIRW (November 6th-13th), but each restaurant has agreed to host an LITweetup.

What We Can Do

The press release is below, but the bottom line is we have an opportunity to make a significant dent against hunger on Long Island in two ways; first by the donations we're able to collect and second by using our positions of influence as marketers, business people, consultants, journalists, writers, friends, family, executives, etc, to raise awareness of Island Harvest's very honorable mission using this campaign as a centerpiece.

-----
WHO: LITweetup Helps and Sixth Annual Fall Long Island Restaurant Week
WHAT: Island Harvest Food Drive and Local TweetUps
WHERE: Participating Restaurants across Long Island, NY
WHEN: November 6 – November 13, 2011

LITWEETUP HELPS WITH HUNGER ACROSS LONG ISLAND
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LONG ISLAND RESTAURANT WEEK
Benefiting Island Harvest

(Long Island, NY . . . October 2011) LITweetup Helps www.litweetup.com has teamed up with Long Island Restaurant Week (LIRW) to offer food drive locations at restaurants across Long Island to benefit Island Harvest, Long Island’s leading hunger relief organization. The food drive will take place during the Sixth Annual Fall Long Island Restaurant Week from Sunday, November 6 to Sunday, November 13. Participating restaurants will be collecting non-perishable food items and cash to be donated to Island Harvest. Long Islanders are encouraged to donate non-perishable foods, supermarket gift cards or cash funds to help Island Harvest in its mission to end hunger on Long Island. To date we've been able to collect over 1200-pounds of food. Each participating restaurant will host a Tweetup, a face-to-face gathering of people who enjoy social networking and are connected on Twitter, for one evening during Long Island Restaurant Week.

LITweetup founder, Jeff Namnum explains, “The LITweetUp Helps campaign grew from a desire to use our skills to help feed our neighbors in need. This year, thanks to the partnership with Long Island Restaurant Week, we're confident that we will be able to help Island Harvest feed many more of our neighbors."

Participating Restaurants

Vittorio’s Restaurant & Wine Bar

: 184 Broadway, Amityville, NY 11701 (631) 264-3333 www.vittorios.biz
Tweetup will be hosted at this location on Monday, November 7 at 5 p.m.
Donation Drop-Off is available Monday through Thursday from 12 to 10 p.m., Friday from 12 to 11 p.m., Saturday from 3 to 11 p.m., and Sunday from 3 to 9 p.m.

HONU Kitchen & Cocktails

: 363 New York Ave., Huntington, NY 11743, 631-421-6900 www.honukitchen.com
Tweetup will be hosted at this location on Tuesday, November 8 at 5 p.m.
Donation Drop-Off is available Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Grasso’s

: 134 Main Street, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11743 (631) 367-6060 www.grassosrestaurant.com
Tweetup will be hosted at this location on Tuesday, November 9 at 5:30 p.m.
Donation Drop-Off is available Daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Thyme Restaurant & Café Bar

: 8 Tower Place, Roslyn, NY 11576 (516) 625-2566 www.thymenewyork.com
Tweetup will be hosted on Wednesday, November 9 at 5:30 p.m.
Donation Drop-Off is available Tuesday through Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Nick & Toni’s

: 136 N. Main St., East Hampton, [631] 324-3550, www.nickandtonis.com
Tweetup will be hosted on Wednesday, November, 9 at 6 p.m.
Donation Drop-Off is available from Wednesday to Sunday from 6 to 10 p.m.

LITweetup Helps is a group of many of Long Island's most talented and creative professionals in fields ranging from Advertising and PR to Digital and Traditional Media to Journalism and Literature. They are passionate and skillful in their professions and use those talents to help fellow Long Islanders. "'Long Island is a great place to live and Long Islanders are great people. It's not okay with us that so many go hungry. These beliefs combined with our admiration of the great work Island Harvest does is what led to the creation of LITweetup Helps,” says founder, Jeff Namnum.

ABOUT LITWEETUP:
LITweetup was founded as a local social gathering of Twitter users. Tweetups are held on a regular basis all over Long Island and tweeted about using hashtag #LITweetup. Follow the group on Twitter @LITweetup.

ABOUT LONG ISLAND RESTAURANT WEEK:
Long Island Restaurant Week is presented by WordHampton Public Relations, the creators of Hamptons Restaurant Week and is sponsored by Long Island Restaurant News and OpenTable. Media sponsors include Newsday, EastofNYC.com, Trends, Long Island Pulse, News 12, NewYorkCorkReport.com, WALK Radio 97.5 and WEHM 92.9 & 96.9. The First Annual Long Island Restaurant Week won the SABRE Gold Award Certificate of Excellence and was recognized for its superior achievement in branding and reputation by the leading public relations industry analyst, The Holmes Group. The Second Annual Long Island Restaurant Week garnered the prestigious Big Apple Award in the Marketing Consumer Services, Travel and Tourism/Hospitality sector by the New York Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for excellence in research and situation analysis, planning, execution, results and evaluation.
If your Long Island restaurant would like to participate in this year’s event or to view a current list of participating restaurants, visit www.longislandrestaurantweek.com. For more information about Long Island Restaurant Week, please call (631) 329-0050 x108. For press inquiries, contact at WordHampton Public Relations at (631) 329-0050.

If for some reason you can't make it to #FMCCD, still stop by if you can. Lot's to talk about, especially this years LITweetup Helps campaign!!

Never been to an LITweetup? Ask around at #FMCCD, you'll find it's a pretty remarkable group of folks doing amazing things on Long Island who get together occasionally to have fun and do good. Or feel free to call Jeff (@namnum) at 516-882-7712 or grab him at the event.

edit: We have a snack sponsor, woo-hoo! Scroll down to check them out.

How'd That Happen?

John Doyle (@14str8) has become a good friend to me and certainly is a good friend to the Long Island Social Media scene (most recently he spoke at FMC's Summer Social Media Boot Camp and 140conf Long Island). So when we decided to have coffee and chat recently I thought it was kind of weird to do it at his showroom, but hey I'm flexible.

It was actually really cool when I got there. It was like someone took the most comfortable part of a bunch of people' homes and stitched them together and put them in one building. It was remarkably comfortable. So when John told me Alure would be interested in hosting a meetup there I was very excited.

Agenda

As promised we will talk about Idea Sex, in particular we will talk about the future of LITweetUP and we'll put together our ideas and see what they do with each other. Other things we might or might not talk about:

• Nassau Coliseum vote, disaster or meh
• Google+, Social Media Nerd Playground or Revolution
• Social Media Camp 2.0, not happening until 2012 (here we go)
• Somebody's recipe for something delicious

We've Got Food!

A big thank you to the good folks at Roast Sandwich House in Melville for providing snacks for this event.  I would personally appreciate it if you'd go to their Facebook page and give them a like.

Pictures of Alure's Showroom