Join #SMCA for the February Meeting at our home at KLRU in the Historic Austin City Limits Soundstage.

Winning Audiences’ Hearts With Infographics and Visualizations: This

month's Social Media Club Austin panel focuses on a form of media that has become increasingly popular online as a way to present data and information in a captivating way that is both easier to understand and aesthetically pleasing. Our panelists will share strategies and best practices involved with designing and placing/promoting infographics, and visualizations, and they will also share more about the inspiration and creativity that goes into leveraging this form of media for business purposes.

We will also be joined by the Austin Toros Mascot and Cheerleaders to tell us more about next month's Social Media Day at the Toros which Social Media Club Austin will be hosting including a panel before the game.

Forecast will also be there with a special offer and prize for #SMCA. To celebrate the release of version 2.0, the team at Forecast is hosting a pub crawl on February 24th and you are invited! Just download Forecast from the App Store (it's free!) and Forecast your attendance to the #SMCA meeting on Tuesday, February 21st. Forecast will draw a winner at random who will recieve $50 in free drinks reedeemable on the night of the pub crawl. So download, Forecast and see you at the meeting and the pubcrawl!
 

Special Thanks for our sponsors:

2012 Corporate Sponsor: AT&T. Connecting you to your world, everywhere you live and work. 

2012 Refreshment Sponsor: Austin's Pizza For those of you who have been attending our meetings for some time, you know what a great friend Austin's Pizza has been to SMCAustin. Austin's Pizza uses only pure, whole ingredients and has the best delivery network in town with 11 Austin area locations: Westlake, South Austin, UT area, Downtown, Central Austin, North Austin, Cedar Park, and Round Rock. Fresh-made sauces, no preservatives and 29 different toppings and cheeses are just some of the reasons Austin's Pizza is known and loved by Austinites.

Sodas provided by Big Red Soda. Delicious and Different since 1937! Be sure to try Retro Big Red sweetened with good old-fashioned sugar instead of corn syrup. Give the all natural SANS soda and Big Blue a try too!

Thanks to Build-a-Sign for sponsoring signs and the career table. Design, Proof, Buy a Custom Sign Online in under five minutes. Creating signs has never been easier!

Panel Lineup:

MODERATOR: John McElhenney (@jmacofearth)

A passionate thought leader for social marketing, John has been teaching and crafting online strategy for 10 years. For the last 3 years, Fortune 500’s to start-ups have generated business value with John’s social campaigns and strategic planning. Previously, John served Dell Global Online as a social media early adopter. John also led teams at Austin interactive agencies: Tocquigny, AxiomFire, and SicolaMartin. He has a BA English from The University of Texas at Austin. http://uber.la

Roberto Villalpando (@StatesmanGrafix)
Austin American Statesman Interactive Graphics / MultimediaProducer
Roberto joined the Austin American-Statesman in 1998 as a Sunday Page One designer and copy editor; however, the role also involved creating photo illustrations and building standalone infographics. In the interest of continuing to improve the Statesman’s online capabilities, when the opportunity arose, Roberto proposed turning his role into a hybrid print/online graphics position to take print graphics and turn them into interactive features. Since then, he has worked on developing methods to produce labor-intensive interactive graphics on the fly and on producing new forms of multimedia including motion graphics and audio slideshows. With increasing demand for mobile content, Roberto produces more interactive graphics using only browser-based technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and the JQuery javascript library.

Statesman Latest Interactiveshttp://statesman.com/multimedia/latest-interactives-84970.html
Roberto on Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/roberto.villalpando

Melissa Ek(@ekmedia)
ekMEDIA
Melissa has been the owner and graphic designer of ekMEDIA since 1999. As an art/graphic design major, her segue into web and social media design came naturally and now includes creating eye-catching infographics, Facebook landing page designs, Twitter backgrounds and YouTube channel customization. When not using social media to stalk…err, pre-screen potential online dates, Melissa enjoys strolling South Congress, running Town Lake and streaming bad movies on Netflix. http://ekmedia.com

ek MEDIA on Facebook - fb.com/ekmediafanpage
Social Media Portfolio - http://bit.ly/xGRNGF

Diego Martinez-Moncada (@diegomm90)
Daily Infographic (@the_infographic)
Diego is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in government. He has worked as director of digital content for Daily Infographic for the past two years. Daily Infographic delivers new infographics every day -- from personal finance to bacon consumption. Diego has written articles for the website covering topics ranging from Bill Murray to Chinese economics. http://dailyinfographic.com/about

Christine Fish (@Fishco_Studios)
Fishco Studios, LLC
Christine is the founder and President of Fishco Studios, LLC, a small business that provides technical writing and instructional design services to the high tech community. As a senior technical communicator and instructional designer with 15 years of experience, Christine has produced numerous manuals and elearning tutorials that use graphics and screencasts to communicate essential concepts and processes. Recently, she expanded her service offerings to include infographics, an adventure that has taken her on a deeper dive into the creative process of communicating effectively with images. http://www.linkedin.com/in/fishco

Here's directions to KLRU in the UT Communications Complex and where to find parking nearby: