Media and Speaking

Here is where you can see raincoaster and raincoaster media other than, you know, the coffee shop, the pub, and the beer garden at the track. You’re welcome, stalkers!

Potted Bio:

Lorraine “raincoaster” Murphy is founder of raincoaster media, specializing in transformative social media training, as well as President Emeritus of Social Media Club of Vancouver, and has been a professional blogger and social media trainer since 2002. She specializes in teaching beginners and those with barriers to internet use, and in social media for social change. She was in charge of Web and Social Media training for the Fearless City project, and her students there included citizen journalist April Smith and poet Henry Doyle.

Her flagship blog, raincoaster.com, has been studied as part of the New Media curriculum in three universities, and the comments thread on her Mummified Fairy post has been called “one of the most beautiful things on the internet.” She once got into a flamewar with the nation of Albania, and won. She conducts workshops in the transformative use of social media on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and blogs regularly to many different sites, including:

http://raincoaster.com: 49 degrees latitude, 360 degrees attitude!

http://thedailydot.com The internet’s hometown paper

http://trueslant.com/lorrainemurphy The Celebrity Industrial Complex

http://raincoastermedia.com Transformative Social Media Training

http://theshebeenclub.com Vancouver’s Practicing Literati (practice makes perfect, right?)

http://lolebrity.net Mai Lak Uv Dignitty: Let Me Show U It

http://ayyyy.com Gently Making Fun of the Famous

http://manolofood.com Eat! Drink! Be Merry!

http://www.offsitedatabackup.com/blog/ Simple. Fast. Secure.

Guest Posts:

• The Challenge of Housing and Homelessness on the blog of Boris Johnson, Mayor of London
• Peaches Geldof, Marked Down on CelebrityBeehive
• Dear Diane on Pivot Legal Society’s HomelessnessIsOver blog

In the Media:

• Chosen Best of the Web: The Guardian newspaper, January 3, 2007
• Breakfast Television: Blogging segment June 12, 2007
• Quote of the Day: the value of social media on Jan Karlsbjerg, Apr 30, 2008
• Vancouver Blogger Profile: Lorraine Murphy on Miss604.com, August 18, 2008
• Making Meaningful Blog Connections on The Art of the Biz, Sept 28, 2008
• Twitlight: Who Are You, raincoaster? on carocat, Aug 14, 2009
• New shared workspace opens in Vancouver’s inner city in the Vancouver Sun, Dec 21, 2009
• The Power of Social Media for Writers on BooksOnTheRadio Dec 30, 2009
• Co-workspaces: No colleagues? Why you should consider renting some in Canadian Business Magazine, Apr 26, 2010
• Beware the Social Media Guru with More Guile than Knowledge in CanWest News Service 2010
• Defining Value in Social Media: Make the Offline Time in Wildfire Effect December 2011
• Laptop Hobos Face Crackdown in the Vancouver Sun, January 8, 2012

Upcoming Engagements:

WordCamp Victoria, January 14, 2012

WordPress for Activism

Using WordPress for a mulit-user activist/organization site. How to maintain security while maximizing ease of use. Learn how to safely accept submissions from the public, and how to curate them and your own posts to make the most effective website for your organization. Examples from Occupy Vancouver Media Blog and other recent activist sites.

EatDrinkTweet, February 17-19, Penticton, BC

Blogger Panel, WordPress Bootcamp, Social Media Case Study: Xi Shi Launch with CathyBrowne

Ongoing Engagements:

The Shebeen Club, monthly (Third Monday of each month)

As founder of the Shebeen Club, I bring together professionals from every corner of the literary world for dinner, drinks, and a little learning: writers, book binders, designers, publishers, editors, agents, students, journalists, spoken word artists, and even a few readers! The Shebeen Club is a place we can all come together monthly to discuss the sometimes murky, sometimes magical world of writing. Join us on Facebook or read our Shebeen Club blog to keep informed and get invited!

Past Speaking Engagements:

Yellowknife Rotary Meeting: September 8, 5:30-6:30, Top Knight

Just a lightning introduction to who I am and what I do.

Social Media Week Vancouver: September 18-26, Various Locations

An international event with a wide variety of different talks, presentations, round table discussions, and more!

Social Media Camp Victoria, October 3:

11am-11:50 Social Media for Beginners

What do you need to know before you know what you need in social media? How do you master Facebook so you don’t end up a sad, starving Farmville sharecropper? Want to avoid looking like a twit on Twitter? This session is for you.

Lorraine Murphy is the president of Social Media Club Vancouver and has been teaching and consulting in the social media field since the days when it was called New Media. She’ll explain the common pitfalls and pratfalls of social media, and give you easily-implementable advice about which platforms, apps, programs and gizmos are useful, effective, and practical, along with tips on how to use them most efficiently.

Simple. Straightforward. Social.

Social Media Camp Okanagan, January/February 2011

Details still in the works, but this will be a solid Unconference introduction to social media with Beginner, Business, and Tech streams of workshops. Talks include: Social Media for Wineries presented by Bradley Cooper of Township 7 and Black Cloud Wines; Social Media for Tourist Attractions presented by Chris Mathieson of the Vancouver Police Museum. Bring a laptop and an open mind!

NetSquaredCamp, August 14th

Social Media for Absolute Beginners

Social Media is perceived as a minefield for nonprofit organizations; how do they use these new tools for outreach and communications without upsetting their existing stakeholders, or sending the wrong message? Learn guidelines for professional use of social media platforms on behalf of your nonprofit.

Summer Dreams Literary Festival, August 13:

5:10-5:50 Panel Discussion: Panel Discussion: New Media: Surfing the Tsunami

Ready to catch the curl of New Media like Facebook, Twitter, & ______? Will you ride the wave, drown in indecision, or just get left behind in the backwash?  Explore the currents and calamities of an ocean of marketing potential.

Moderator: Sylvia Taylor. Panelists: Trevor Battye, Dennis E. Bolen, SR Duncan, Lorraine Murphy. (why am I the only one on this panel with a website?)

WordCamp Victoria, May 15th

Comments and Community Management

You’re not just a blogger: you’re also a cat wrangler, a teacher, a babysitter, an executioner, and a troop leader. What do you do now? Learn creative, accessible ways to interact with your audience and turn them from readers into fans and from fans into evangelists. If we have time, we’ll also cover how to terrify and intimidate trolls while actually improving your reputation. Yes, it IS possible.

Registration is open now, and you can find all the details in this post.

Federation of BC Writers Annual General Meeting May 13th

Keynote: Social Media Marketing for Writing

Social Media: you’ve heard about it, you’ve probably used it without even knowing; now learn how to make it work for you. Social Media is the most effective, most affordable way for a professional writer to promote her self and her works, develop a following, and gain experience in the public eye if she knows what she’s doing. Canada was the birthplace of that truly revolutionary social media device, the telephone, and as the heirs of Bell and Watson, Canadian writers have every reason to put themselves at the forefront of this increasingly-critical, literary communications platform.

Full Fed workshop June 19th

Northern Voice, May 7th

Social Media Speed Dating: Dealing with Negative Online Interactions
(I believe my original title was something more like Flamewars for Fun and Profit, but whatever)

Join us for Social Media Speed Dating where you can ask the experts every social media question under the sun.For an hour-and-half on Friday afternoon, experts are setting up shop in the atrium. Choose from topics that interest you most and get 20 minutes to ask questions and glean top tips before moving on to your next session of choice. Over the course of the afternoon you’ll get a chance to attend four “speed dating” sessions.

See the full list on their website.

WordPress Genius Bar

I’ll be staffing the WP Genius Bar at some point on Saturday, so bring all your questions except the one about why WordPress.com doesn’t allow Adsense, okay? See you there!

Sorry, the list only goes back till May 2010. What can I say: I’m lazy.