Members of The Injury Board recently joined ROI2013 conference attendees and other local volunteers in Austin to help kick off the 2013 Radius of Influence Conference with an incredible Fight Hunger! local event.

More than 25 volunteers (representing 14 cities) met up at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas on the Weds., May 8 before the conference’s opening reception to hear a briefing on local hunger issues and to gain first-hand experience on what it means to give back.

Kathy Green, public policy director for the food bank, began with a short group briefing where she shared that awareness is often the biggest hurdle when it comes to local hunger.

“Most of us don’t realize the impact of not having enough to eat, especially on young children,” said Green. “Others are surprised to learn how broad hunger issue is, affecting not just the homeless or unemployed but often the working poor.”

After the briefing, the team then went to work, spending the afternoon processing donated food into boxes that would be distributed to local hunger programs, soup kitchens, smaller food pantries and other nonprofits.

The volunteers were divided into groups that helped sort donations, weed out expired or damaged food, pack distribution boxes full of good food and keep the work area clean and ready.

At the end of the day, the food bank weighed out the work and found that in just a few hours this motivated team had processed 6,750 pounds of food, translating into 5,635 meals.

To learn more about our Fight Hunger! Food Drive campaign and what you can do to get connected locally, visit 60forSafety.org or contact Mason@60forSafety.org.

Do you have friends or follow people on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin? Have you ever considered using those contacts in real life to help build your firm?

ROI2013 speaker and social media expert Haley Odom is the perfect person to help you tackle your social media contacts and turn them into the relationships and referrals you need to help build a successful firm.

Her insightful, energetic, educational session will take you away from just linking to or following someone on social media. The practical tips and techniques she will provide will help move you beyond the computer screen and focus you more on converting your social media contacts into real-life relationships.

For the past nine years, Odom has worked as a paralegal. In this relatively short time, she has built a career based on a wide range of experience – from large to boutique firms in California and Texas, and multiple practice areas that include toxic torts, insurance, personal injury and aviation.

Through it all, Odom has focused on technology and efficiency. Her first passion is streamlining processes to encourage and increase the retention of firm knowledge. In recent years, she also has explored social media issues as they relate to attorneys.

Odom writes a blog for legal professionals called Haley Lobs Law Bomb, which you can find at www.haleyodom.com. You can also follow her on Twitter at @HaleyOdom.

For more information about ROI2013, visit radiusofinfluence.com.

Do you like to share stories? Do you enjoy listening to others tell stories? Did you know the stories you share can be used as a marketing tool and a way to build your firm’s brand?

ROI2013 speaker and word-of-mouth marketing expert Leslie Hancock has a passion for building brands through the power of successful storytelling. Let her provide you with the tools you need for telling powerful stories that can help build your firm’s reputation and develop a distinctive online voice.

In her interactive, hands-on session, you will learn how to take an interesting anecdote and weave it into something that is instructive, personalized and shareable. Having a variety of stories that are metaphorical and broadly applicable to your brand messaging is a powerful tool to have in your word-of-mouth marketing toolkit.

Please come to this session ready with a story or two from your personal or professional life in mind so that you can apply your learning immediately to something you can use in your marketing today.

Leslie Hancock is a digital content strategist and professional speaker with 20 years of word-crafting experience. She has developed effective marketing messaging for a wide variety of industries including health care, higher education, software, real estate and others.

She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband of 18 years and their two children. For fun, she sculpts small abstract figures out of polymer clay and begins writing novels that she never finishes.

For more information about ROI2013, visit radiusofinfluence.com. Also, be sure to check out the great networking events scheduled for ROI2013.

Are you headed to Austin for ROI2013? Be sure to make plans to arrive early on Wednesday for a great community activity event!

As part of our FIGHT HUNGER! campaign, we are partnering with the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas in an effort to help out at its local facility.

There, we’ll be involved in a fun and interactive experience:

• Gaining some expert information on local hunger issues,
• Learning how we can make a difference in our own communities, and
• Doing some hands-on work (including food sorting and can stacking) to leave our host city a little better than we found it!

We’ve been able to reserve a spot from 1:00-4:00 p.m. on Wed., May 8.

The Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, a nonprofit, is the largest hunger-relief charity in Central Texas providing food and grocery products, nutrition education and social services outreach through a network of 300 nonprofit partner agencies in 21 Central Texas counties.

The CAFB service area covers 19,064 square miles in Central Texas and provides more than 22 million pounds of food each year. The mission of the Capital Area Food Bank is to nourish hungry people and lead the community in ending hunger.

We are very excited about our work with the food bank and hope you can attend! If you haven’t registered for ROI2013, click here or visit radiusofinfluence.com.

 To participate in this community activity you must RSVP. Please email Stephanie Andre (sandre@clarislaw.com) or Brittany Monbarren (bmonbarren@clarislaw.com) to RSVP today!

Kick back and relax as we enjoy a night of great food, music and a down-home atmosphere at The Salt Lick in Texas’ Hill Country.

The Roberts family recipes have roots back to the wagon trains in the mid-1800s. Scott Roberts, the current owner of the Salt Lick, had a great-grandmother, Bettie Howard, who came to this land from Desoto, Miss. in 1867. James Howard was a surveyor passing through Desoto. Bettie was a 14-year-old orphan looking for a way to survive. She told James that she couldn’t promise she would ever love him. But she said that if he would marry her and take her to Texas, she would bear and raise all his children.

James took Bettie up on her offer. After crossing the gulf from Biloxi with their wagon in pieces on a boat, they landed in Indianola, Texas and reassembled their wagon.

On the trip by wagon train to Driftwood, Bettie barbequed meat by searing it and then slow cooking it over coals – the same method the family uses today. When Bettie arrived in Central Texas, she proved to be a woman of her word. She populated her new hometown of Driftwood with nine Howard children.

Roxanna, one of Bettie’s daughters, raised Scott’s father, Thurman, in Driftwood. But Uncle Sam recruited him for service in the Navy. The Texas boy wound up stationed in Kauai. There he met his wife Hisako who was born on Kauai of Japanese descent.

In 1956, Scott’s mother and father moved with their two young sons to Driftwood. But his father had to travel constantly across the state working for a bridge construction company. Thurman dreamed of spending every day where his family had put down generations of roots.

One day he and Hisako took out a yellow legal pad and wrote down 54 things the family could do and stay in Driftwood. The idea for the Salt Lick was 14th on the list. At first, they irrigated a field and truck farmed, selling produce to local grocery stores. They also made candies, raised pecan trees and had a shelling business.

But in 1967, Thurman, who was known for his delicious barbeque at family reunions, decided he would cook meat for paying customers. Thurman and his two sons built a huge barbeque pit. Thurman would go to the pit on Thursday night and start cooking. He stayed for the weekend, sleeping on a cot, until all the meat sold. He kept coming home earlier and earlier. After a few months, the boys and Thurman built a little screen porch around the pit. The Salt Lick has grown from there. The Roberts family now serves mouthwatering barbeque to thousands of folks each week.

We want you to enjoy the same warm atmosphere and delicious barbeque they savored around the campfire. But rather than tell you why we think you should join us,read some of what the nation’s best have to say about this Texas institution.

Cost for this event is $125. We look forward to seeing you there!

Unsure of what “influence” really means? Or the true definition of community? Or why people share things online? Do you understand who you really are or what you stand for?

ROI2013 speaker and WOM expert Spike Jones—co-author of the book, “Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable Word of Mouth Movements”—knows exactly what to do to cut through the clutter of social media and get down to the important facts of your social presence.

This entertaining, thought-provoking, relevant session begins by demystifying social media and reveals the deluge of false information that is being thrown at us at a daily basis. Jones will answer the important questions that influence social media, community and your firm’s social presence.

With more than 15 years of experience, Jones is a results-proven expert in digital and offline word-of-mouth marketing. His career path began at Brains on Fire—a WOM company. Later, he became the SVP of the Customer Experience team at Fleishman-Hillard. Currently, he is group director of engagement at WCG.

His background includes contributing strategic development—of online and offline WOM programs for companies including: BMW, USAA, AT&T, General Motors, Dagger Kayaks, Verizon, Fiskars Brands, Rage Against the Haze (South Carolina’s youth-led anti-tobacco movement) and Best Buy.

Jones served on the board of directors of the WOMMA and private events and at national conferences such as SocialFresh, the Public Relations Society of America events, GasPedal’s WOM Supergenius Summit and the Association of National Advertiser’s Senior Think Tank Committee.

After his session, you will walk away with actionable items you can use to begin building or enhance your firm’s marketing programs for long-term success.

For more information about ROI2013, visit www.radiusofinfluence.com/register.

Are you overwhelmed trying to keep up with all of the options social media has to offer? Ready to take a minute and slow it down so you are able to take advantage of all that social media has to offer?

ROI2013 speaker Chris Treadaway recognizes that social media has a wide range of options and, at times, can be daunting as it seems that every month, a new, hot social network comes online. But, don’t worry, he’s here to help.

During his session, Treadaway will cut through the noise, explain the various ways you can take advantage of today’s best options, and walk through a worksheet that will build your social marketing plan based on your specific needs, strengths and limitations.

Treadaway is the founder and CEO of Polygraph Media, a social data mining and analytics agency that has worked with major corporations, such as Wiley Publishing, Microsoft, A.H. Belo, Demand Media, Land Rover, and the PGA Tour. He co-authored two editions of the bestselling book, “Facebook Marketing An Hour a Day,” with Mari Smith in 2010 and 2012.

Additionally, Treadaway is a frequent speaker on social advertising and has been published in major publications such as Forbes, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, and Social Media Examiner. Previously, he was Group Product Manager of Web & Social Strategy at Microsoft and was a co-founder of Stratfor. He received an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA from Louisiana State University.

You won’t want to miss this educational opportunity to have Treadaway walk you through the decisions and commitments you’ll need to make to execute a successful social marketing plan.

For more information about Chris Treadaway, visit linkedin.com/in/christreadaway.

To register for ROI2013, set for May 8-11 in Austin, Texas, visit www.radiusofinfluence.com/register.

When using social media sites for word-of-mouth marketing, do you ever think about the underlying ethical guidelines? Have there always been some sort of ethical guidelines in social media?

ROI2013 speaker and WOMM practitioner and board chairman Virginia Miracle has the answers to those questions.

Join Miracle for an engaging session on the evolution of word-of-mouth marketing, powered through the worlds of social media. She’ll share some inspiring stories of creative ways to build your reputation as well as some immediate practical tips of stepping into or stepping up your social media presence in a powerful, sustainable way.

Miracle will also share how to spread the word while staying within ethical guidelines.

Miracle leads the customer success team at Spredfast, a leading social media management software company located in Austin. In her role, she works with large enterprises as they socialize their organizations.

Miracle is also proud to serve as the 2013 chairman of the board of directors of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Prior to Spredfast, Miracle was EVP of digital strategy at Ogilvy PR Worldwide, where she led the North American footprint of the agency’s social media and word of mouth marketing practice – 360° Digital Influence. She also led WOMM at Brains on Fire and served in multiple positions at Dell, Inc., where she is believed to be the first person to hold a Word of Mouth Marketing title at a Fortune 50 company. She earned a B.A. in English from Princeton University and was named as one of PR Week’s 40 Under 40 in 2008.

You won’t want to miss this great session with word-of-mouth expert Virginia Miracle.

For more information about Virginia Miracle, visit www.virginiamiracle.com.

To register for ROI2013, set for May 8-11 in Austin, Texas, visit www.radiusofinfluence.com/register.

Having trouble creating engaging content for your blog? Do you know the best ways to promote your blog or how to increase your online visibility and reputation?

At ROI2013, author, speaker and digital strategist Simon Salt will take you beyond the blogging basics. In this session, Salt will open your eyes to a new and creative way of spreading your word-of-mouth via blogging.

The tips and techniques he teaches will help you make the most use of your blog, editorial calendars, sharing the workload among staff members and ways to promote your blog.

Also, he will discuss ways in which you can have your audience help you create content through the creation of “shareable moments,” which can lead to more traffic for your blog.

Simon Salt is an author, speaker and digital strategist. He speaks around the world on digital marketing and advises companies from startups to Fortune 500s on digital strategy. He has been published in numerous print and online sources including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and many others. In his spare time, Salt is an avid amateur photographer and Harley rider.

If you’re looking to create engaging content that will help increase your blog’s visibility and reputation, you definitely will not want to miss out on this session! Register now for ROI2013.

For more information on Simon Salt, visit his website at www.theincslingers.com.