Kate O’Neill from Nashville Entrepreneur Center on Vimeo.

When women throughout the country were advertising their bra colors for breast cancer awareness on Facebook last week, posting single-word status updates such as “yellow,” “chartreuse” and “none,” local marketing exec Kate O’Neill had this status update retort:

“Kate O’Neill doesn’t see the point of the bra color meme. But if you want to do something useful for cancer, donate a few bucks or see how you can get involved at the link below. I just did, and it only took a few seconds longer than it would have for me to type “black.”

That link was a donate button for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and it inspired several of her friends to make donations.

“That was encouraging to me,” O’Neill said a few days later. “I didn’t expect anyone to take me at a word and make a donation. I was just trying to make a point. … Maybe it is the marketer in me, but if someone is going to have awareness of something, I want an action associated with it. I want them to know what’s next.”

There’s more at the link. It’s a good article. If you do any cause marketing at all, there are good tips from a variety of sources about using social networks to raise funds and awareness. And of course, even if your marketing is less for a cause and more for a company, many of the concepts still apply.

via Rob Cottingham.

Oh, I’ve totally done this.

Don’t be surprised if this is the next trend everyone can’t stop talking about.

Have you started thinking about your mobile strategy yet?

You can also access the handout I gave attendees to help them plan their social media presence:

Hope this is helpful to you!

See, I was a finalist alongside Rex Hammock of Hammock Inc. and SmallBusiness.com (don’t you wish you’d thought to register that domain?), who is a longtime blogger and who is simply @r on Twitter, and Dave Delaney of Griffin Technologies, who is also co-founder of BarCamp Nashville, founder of Nashville’s PodCamp, and the originator of Geek Breakfast.

Honestly, these guys are two incredible examples of why I am proud to call Nashville home. They’re super-smart, inventive, community-minded, and always hip to the latest and greatest social media trends. Besides that, they seem to be motivated by a desire to make Nashville an even better place, and to help us inhabit a larger area on the digital map.

And they’re also just good dudes. Here’s some of what Rex had to say on his blog today:

Therefore, I was happy to see that along with big corporate type awards like CIO of the Year and Technology Organization of the Year both won by HCA and “Green” innovator of the year Nissan USA, among the ten awards, there were categories for students won by Hank Carter, a student at Belmont University and startups won by CredenceHealth and, interestingly, for a blogger/social media person.

And, more interestingly still, the recipient was me. Two friends, Kate O’Neill of [meta]marketer and Dave Delaney, social media wrangler at Griffin Technology and creator of such things as Geek Breakfast were also finalists and either should have won.

I feel incredibly honored to win. But more than a little surprised.

Rex might have been surprised, but I don’t think either Dave or I really were. I have a tremendous amount of respect for both Rex and Dave, but given Rex’s tenure in the social media scene, it just felt right when the emcee called Rex’s name last night. Clearly, Dave felt that way too:

I had the thrill of being nominated as Nashville’s Social Media / Blogger of the year. I shared the honor of the nomination with Kate O’Neill of [meta]marketer and Rex Hammock of Hammock Inc., both people I really like and admire.

When Rex’s name was called I was so happy for him. Many people don’t realize that Rex has been blogging about news and social media, community and technology since before we called it blogging.

Congratulations, Rex, and kudos to the Nashville Technology Council for pulling off such a wonderful awards ceremony the first time out.

However, I also came here with a background in e-commerce and software project management, as well as skills in various aspects of the Web, both broad and deep. I knew that would be my stable source of income, but I didn’t realize it would become more of a passion for me than songwriting, and that I would eventually start a company to further the web capabilities around me. Yet here we are.

So it still comes as a bit of a surprise when I find that my long-held passions for music and for online user experiences come together in a new way. Yesterday that happened when the news broke around Google’s forthcoming music service. I received a call from a friend at The Tennessean asking for input, and the more I got to thinking about it, the more interesting the Google story seemed to me.

Her article appears in this morning’s paper, and I’m quoted at the end of the piece:

Kate O’Neill, founder and CEO of Nashville-based [meta]marketer, said it’s another reason for users to stay on Google and not leave it for other sites.

“What Google is smartly capitalizing on is this desire for global access that people have,” she said. “That’s what users really want: continuous access to whatever they want, whenever they want it.”

What I think is even more interesting, from the standpoint of a meta-marketer, is the way this further positions Google as the champion of user experience. Structured semantic search results are going to continue to emerge, and they will put relevant answers in the path of the searcher, not just options for a possible destination.

If your business has historically provided stock quotes, then you already experienced this when Google (and other engines) put stock quotes at the top of search results for a ticker symbol.

If you’re a music content provider, you’re about to experience this.

If your business hasn’t been affected yet, it probably will soon.

It’s important to know what your strategy is for providing a relevant experience beyond the search results page. What value does your site add after the searcher’s questions are answered? What experience can you provide that Google can’t or won’t replicate?

Content has very often been said to be king, but the truth is experience is king. Content is only part of the overall experience, and only part of a typical site’s value proposition. It’s an important part, to be sure, and in the landscape of structured semantic search results pages, deeper, richer content will probably win. But it’s going to take planning and careful consideration of the overall user experience and of measurable success factors to be sure you’re keeping up.

I also helped organize a panel called “State of the Community: The ‘Venn Diagram’ of Nashville’s Tech Organizations” which thankfully David Ledgerwood agreed to moderate, and we got J. Tod Fetherling from the NTC, Joe Kustelski on behalf of the Entrepreneur Center, Elin Mulron from Digital Nashville, and Dave Delaney representing the various technology groups and events he’s founded and co-founded, including Geek Breakfast, BarCamp Nashville, and PodCamp Nashville. With only 25 minutes for that discussion, it was hard to tell if we really got anywhere useful with the discussion, but the feedback on Twitter was generally positive, constructive, and responsive:

jeff_goins Listening to David Ledgerwood about the state of the tech community in Nashville. Didn’t know Nashvegas was becoming a tech city. #bcn09venn

melaniemoran Where we’re not doing well re: Nashville tech: need a front door, need more education, need more regional collaboration #bcn09 #bcn09venn

TChed Sitting in the #bcn09venn, talking abt what’s lacking in the tech community to make it grow. No 1 has mentioned the lack of local tech news

JoBrad Really good discussion on Nashville Tech Community with several community leaders in #bcn09venn

melaniemoran @davedelaney suggests shared calendar for Nashville tech organizations / events to increase and facilitate communication. #bcn09 #bcn09venn

JoBrad Good ? n #bcn09venn: How to survive if you’re not a geek? A: We’re all geeks about something; talk about what interests you.

TChed The center of my tech community would have @davedelaney’s avatar in it #bcn09venn

stahnma #bcn09venn we need caligator

By the way, the hashtags for the other sessions I mentioned are: #bcn09optimize for my “Evolution Not Revolution” session; #bcn09notking for Freeman’s “The (Content) King is Dead, Long Live the King” SEO session; #bcn09netnash for Courtenay’s and my Networking in Nashvegas session; and #bcn09analytics for Bayard, Michael and me on analytics.

I can’t emphasize enough how important I feel this event is to our community. Marcus Whitney and Dave Delaney get major credit in my book from having brought the format to Nashville in 2007, and it just gets better each year. I floated from room to room during several of the sessions this year as I did last year, and while the content last year was already good, this year’s content is proof that Nashville is the up-and-coming place to be for technology and innovation. We have got it going on, folks.

Several of those who weren’t able to attend my morning session on “Evolution Not Revolution: Why Optimizing Beats Redesigning” asked if there would be video posted, and knowing that we had video streaming to Ustream, I said yes. Unfortunately, the setup didn’t work properly and the video feed of my presentation has no audio. Luckily, Gavin Richardson was up front with his own video setup and got the whole thing. So thanks to Gavin, I’m happy to share with you the video from my presentation, and the slides are below.

Kate O’Neill : Evolution not Revolution, Why Optimization Beats Redesiging : BarCamp Nashville 2009
from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

Slides for ‘Evolution Not Revolution: Why Optimizing Beats Redesigning’ from BarCamp Nashville 2009

Once again, let me just say how proud we are to have been associated with this high-quality event. And let me also offer thanks to all the rest of the crew, all the other sponsors, all the other speakers, and all the attendees who made this such a fantastic event.

Nashville is such an amazing place — there’s nowhere else I’d rather have launched this business.

@kateo on stage, @metamarketer sponsor poster

photo credit: Josh Oakes

Kate O’Neill did not launch a business based on last year’s Nashville Startup Weekend, but she said participating in the event helped give her the confidence to become an entrepreneur. In February, she launched Meta Marketer [sic], which provides Web-based services like analytics and optimization.

“To see over the course of the weekend a lot of different angles of business discussed, it’s good exposure to the process of building a business in a microcosm way,” she said.

In her article, Erin also quoted a part of the conversation she and I had about an idea I may pitch tonight:

O’Neill said she likely won’t be able to attend the event for the entire weekend this time, but she may pitch an idea for a business that would create an online system or iPhone application for placing advance restaurant orders. It would be geared toward eateries like Baja Burrito, where customers can get stacked up in line placing customized orders.

“I get very frustrated at Baja Burrito,” O’Neill said. “This would let you jump the line when you get there.”

If you’ve ever thought about starting a business, you should definitely check out Nashville Startup Weekend (and if you’re not in Nashville, there may be one near you). It’s a real confidence booster, and I do think a sense of confidence is one of the ingredients to being ready to start a business.

That and a sense of anxiety that you may be making a huge mistake.

But that’s OK! Because when they’re in balance, they work together to create just enough friction and just enough momentum to make things work.

Hope to see you there tonight!

And if you do go, you can see at least two [meta]marketer folks speaking: I’ll be doing a talk on “Evolution, not Revolution: Why Optimizing Beats Redesigning” and Matthew Freeman, who heads up acquisition optimization here (think SEO, social, and more), will be presenting a session called “The (Content) King is Dead, Long Live the King.”

I’ll also be joining my fellow “feek” (Female Geek) friend Courtenay Rogers from Primarily Rye for a fun panel called “Networking in Nashvegas.” Don’t miss that one — it’s going to be a blast!

There are a whole lot more great sessions where those came from, too. Be sure to sign up to attend, and if you’ve got something you want to speak about, sign up for that too! I look forward to seeing you there.

The Nashville Technology Council today announced the finalists for the 2009 “Feel the Beat” Technology Awards.  The awards recognize those individuals and companies whose success has helped grow Nashville and the surrounding areas into a hub for technology.  The event will highlight outstanding achievements from the 2008-2009 year.

I share the nomination with two very deserving fellow finalists:

Dave Delaney of Griffin Technology (who is also @davedelaney on Twitter), and

Rex Hammock of Hammock, Inc. (who is simply @r on Twitter).

Congratulations, guys! See you at the award ceremony on October 27th. I trust none of us will pull a Kanye-West-like stunt by interrupting the winner’s acceptance speech with “I’m happy for you, I’ma let you finish, but so-and-so has one of the best blogs of ALL TIME!” Although now that I’ve put the idea into your heads, you KNOW everyone’s going to be waiting for it to happen.