It's summer state-fair time: the perfect opportunity to feast on all foods that have evolved onto a stick! Our very own Minnesota State Fair on Twitter and on Facebook claims to offer more than 60 skewered delights this year, including these mouth-watering newcomers: deep-fried bacon cheddar mashed potatoes on-a-stick; deep-fried bologna on-a-stick; rainbow trout on-a-stick; chicken chipotle pizza on-a- stick. (Hungry for more? Check out this video of 56 savory sensations!)

But there is one missing: social media on-a-stick.

Could that be as tempting, as creative, as ridiculous?

Though we don't have a booth at the MN State Fair and we haven't created an app for these yet, here's our starter list of possibilities ...

+ pics of your FB friends on-a-stick (could be cool: the bigger the pic, the more active they are)

+ nothing on-a-stick (symbolic, you see, of the open invitation to all voices to create something new)

+ pics of frowning attorneys on-a-stick

+ transparent stick (maybe not that exciting at first, but transparency is a core social media value)

+ multi-port stick

+ real-time chat on-a-stick (need carpenters and programmers to work this one out)

+ big, red, foam microphone on-a-stick (social media is all about amplified voice, right?)

+ smörgåsbord of all 60 food-on-a-stick samples at this year's MN State Fair (the ultimate mashed-up, deep-fried, global, co-creation taste sensation!)

+ new from elissa@areyoufrank.com: social graph on-a-stick (courtesy of http://hci.stanford.edu/jheer/projects/vizster/)

Got more? Send 'em this way. We'll keep updating the list with the zestiest community concoctions.

Bon appetit!

- john

We kicked in at 4 pm on June 30th, so you know the people in these pics are serious social media geeks. Thanks to Julie Sturek for the awesome photography. (You made us all look really smart, social and very sophisticated!) And of course, mere hours ticked off before someone said, "Hell, Social Media Day was amazing – let's party again soon!"

Click here to stay close to the mid-July parties brewing in and around Minneapolis.

Check out the pics from our Minneapolis Social Media Day Party!

Thanks to Dan and Ed at Star Collaborative for being such cool party partners. Thank you to Kelley at frank for orchestrating the entire event so elegantly. Thanks to all who joined and amped the "social" in Mashable's first-ever, 2010 International Social Media Day!

- john

Ya, ya – we know: we just had frankfest2! But Mashable's Global Social Media Day on June 30th is reason enough to throw another party – a pre-party actually.

The official Minneapolis party starts at 6:30 at Chino Latino ... and since we're always eager to hang with with cool people passionate about social media, we're hosting a warm-up party at the frankosphere – along with our good friends at Star Collaborative.

Join us June 30th at the frankosphere for cool conversations and primo pre-party prizes!

We'll have beverages on hand (bring your own favorites, too!) and we'll dish these local prizes to celebrate our local vibe:

$30 gift certificate to Bob's Java Hut
$30 gift certificate to Uptown Tattoo
$30 gift certificate to Moxie Hair Salon

Let's get vocal & viral about showing the world the size of our Minneapolis social media community!

Right now, we're #35 on the global list of Social Media Day parties. Not bad, but c'mon – Hamilton, Ontario is #15 (I've been there: it's a steel town, not a hip tech town like we are!) NYC's #1 right now, but hell, everyone knows New Yorker's are lame at keeping commitments.

So mark your calendars, check back with this blog for pre-party & prize updates ... and most importantly, help prove that Minneapolis is one kick-ass social media community – by joining the party and sharing this invite with friends, colleagues and your mom.

Here are a few places to do that:

Mashable Minneapolis Meetup site: http://www.meetup.com/Mashable/7485

Official Social Media Day Tweet stream: http://twitter.com/mashsmday

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123671887672313&index=1

See you June 30th!

– your pre-party partners from Star Collaborative & frank

Seems like every frankfest has it's own texture & tone: frankfest2 drew the more serious, analytical-type crowd, with Rob "ROI" Silas leading the way with his great presentation on social media measurement. (Click here to download it on SlideShare.)

Thanks to Nick Kapanke, here are the video highlights from frankfest2 with some great comments – as you'd expect ! – from our frank friends, new & old. enjoy!

Talk about a solid ROI: frankfest2 delivered on all levels! Thanks to all who joined the fun. And thanks to Rob "ROI" Silas who brought business bite to the night with his presentation on social media measurement – inside and outside of organizations. (Guy's a busy dude but we'll get his PPT up on SlideShare asap!)

Click here for frankfest2 pics.

Video highlights coming from Nick Kapanke soon!

and frankfest3? we're looking at dates in Sept so stay tuned for more details – and if you're interested in being a cool, guest speaker, contact john@areyoufrank.com

see you in Sept – if not at the @Mashable global Social Media Day in Minneapolis on June 30th! (we're trying to host it at the frankosphere.)

– your frank friends,
   elissa, jacqueline, jody and john

Determined to keep your frankFEST attendance-streak alive? Ready to join us for the first time? Either way, we’re eager to catch up & hang out at frankFEST2! We’ll have plenty of summer beverages on hand, plus a very cool guest speaker, Rob “ROI” Silas, who’ll cover one hot topic: social media measurement.

Rob will present innovative methods and tools to measure + quantify the value of online conversations on social nets – inside and outside of your organization. Bottom line: Rob will prove that social means business.

 

COOL GUEST SPEAKER @ 6 pm, Rob “ROI” Silas: “How To Measure Online Conversations About Your Brand”

 

Rob has more than 20 years of experience in business and marketing strategy & research. Prior to founding Rob Silas Consulting in 2009, he was President/COO at Ciceron for five years, and has been focused on interactive for the past seven years. Rob’s brand experience includes Capella, Medtronic, Jostens, General Mills, Home Depot and Lifetime Fitness.

 

Join us Weds. June 16, starting @ 4 pm at the frankosphere.

 

No RSVP needed – even if you want to bring a friend or two or more: everyone's welcome!

So click here to share this invite with others & join our Twitter convo at #frankfest.

(Bonus dimension: Stay ‘til midnight and you can help ring in Elissa’s birthday!)

 

– your frank friends,
    jacqueline, jody, john and elissa

It's the best way to plug into frankFEST1 if you weren't there ... and a lot of fun to watch if you were. Scroll down to check out more photos, too. Enjoy!

Remember: frankFEST2 happens June 16! So save the date and watch for more details coming soon.
 

Click here to see rock-star pics of many of our guests!

Thanks to everyone who joined us for frankFEST1: you made it such an amazing night of conversation, community and collaboration! Sun was shining ... beverages were flowing ... energy was surging ... Social Street Teams were kickin' – thank you Steve & Jim from Spooc!

Our man Nick's working on a frankFEST1 video that we'll share soon ...

In the meantime, watch for your invite to frankFEST2 in mid June: just talked to Rob Silas today who agreed to be our special guest speaker. This dude will blow your mind with his ability to measure + quantify the value of online conversations on social nets. Bottom line: Rob will prove that social means business.

'til frankFEST2 ... BUBIA! BUBIA! (Be Unreasonable. Be In Action!)

– your frank friends,
   elissa, jacqueline, jody and john

Join us for the first-ever frankFEST on Thursday, April 8, starting @ 4 pm at the frankosphere.

COOL GUEST SPEAKERS: Steve Gill & Jim Poulter on Spooc Social Media Street Teams

In case you need another reason to stop by, Steve & Jim will share awesome insights about the mash-up of street marketing, consumer engagement and social media. They're on @ 6 pm, so don't miss them.

Mark your calendar for Thursday, April 8 ... please share this invite with others  ... we'll see you at the frankosphere soon!

– your frank friends,
   elissa, jacqueline, jody and john

 

Enterprise 2.0 Conference is coming up in Boston this June. In true 2.0 spirit, conference organizers are using Spigit's software to tap into the collective intelligence of the community and transform it into actionable, predictive information. In other words, they polled people to pick conference presenters.

So ... based on my unofficial tally last night, just before the voting ended at midnight, here are the top 9 out of 84 submissions in the "Driving Adoption / Organizational Change" category (sorry #10: I lost the post-it with your final number of spigs!):

1. 124 spigs – "Hitchhikers guide to ROI: Is the answer 42 or did we forget the question?"

2. 102 spigs – "Re-org!? Organic Organizational Transformation"

3. 60 spigs – "How to Demonstrate ROI for Enterprise 2.0"

4. 53 spigs – "Viral in The Enterprise"

5. 53 spigs – "Social Engineering in a Not-So-Social Envrionment: How One Champion Brought 2.0 to Nobel Biocare"

6. 48 spigs – "The Year of Visualization in the Enterprise"

7. 30 spigs – "10.5 Reasons No One's Using Your Sweet Enterprise 2.0 Technology" (frank's submission: thanks to everyone who spigged us!)

8. 28 spigs – "Straight Talk: How Buzzwords Are Putting the Brakes on Adoption"

9. 25 spigs – "The Cloud Over IT Departments: How End-User Behavior is Driving IT Practices"

Lots of measurement interest, as you might expect. First-person, case-studies are always fascinating – and therapeutic. And of course, never underestimate the pull of a great headline and a supportive online community.

Based on today's tag cloud on the e2conf site on the right, we can also clearly see what everyone's reaching for through the promise of the technology: Collaboration ... that drives business results. (Ya ok, that pesky point about successful "adoption" still comes through pretty strongly as well!)

The Top 100 Community Selected proposals are here. (Happy to see frank's submission among them!)

But what's missing? Based on my experience at e2conf, I believe a lot of the same people are still talking to themselves. As an HR, Org Dev, or Internal Communications leader who may never have heard of enterprise 2.0, I'd love to hear what you think we should be talking about.

Let it rip!