I had a fantastic trip downtown to the MaRS Centre last week. It was an evening where NetChange Week and the Social Tech Training 2009 conference merged. I attended STT 2008 conference and as mentioned in other posts, this experience led to my decision to reinvent myself as a social media consultant for non profits.

When I received a notice from the STT 2009 conference organizers (World of Change) that the NetChange Week was partnering with Wired Wednesday to feature keynote speakers from STT 2009, I dropped my other commitments and took the better way into the “big smoke”. I enjoyed all the presenters, plus the great networking and catching up with my STT 2008 colleagues.

Beka Economopoulus, from Fission Strategy, one of the keynote speakers, told a very insightful story about how her organization at the time, Greenpeace USA , took on Steve Jobs and Apple Computers on the issue of building more environmentally safe computers and electronic devices.

Beka and her team at Greenpeace, devised a social media strategy that used numerous innovative tools to engage Apple customers and had them deliver the message to Steve Jobs that Apple must go green.

I hope that NetChange week, Wired Wednesday or STT 2009 post the full video of her presentation. Beka’s story has many lessons that non profits can use as they think through designing their social media strategy. Beka also talks about the challenges of helping her fairly conservation Greenpeace organization understand and adopt social media tools in large scale international campaigns.

In the mean time, here is a teaser of the 3 presentations. I also posted a few pictures of the wonderful posters that promoted the conference. Have a look here.

Net Change Week: Wired Wednesdays from SiG @ MaRS on Vimeo.