Lunch 2.0 at LinkedIn was incredible

May 23rd, 2007 | Category: Walkthrough, Community Marketing, Events

(Left: LinkedIn provided each guest a 4 square ball, the latest rage in the valley)

There were hundreds present at the community event at LinkedIn in Mountain View. Even the fSan Francisco Chronicle, Justin TV, , Ustreamers, Business Week, and bloggers were there covering the event.

LinkedIn provided Armadillo Willy’s BBQ lunch for all, four square balls as gifts, and gave the four founders of Lunch 2.0 lunch box gifts. My role? Founder Mark Jenn nominates me as the “promoter” of Lunch 2.0. Mario Sundar, Kay, and others at LinkedIn did a great job with this community event. No demos, not pitches, just a friendly welcome and invite to talk further.

I was asked, “What’s the ROI of Lunch 2.0?” Well I would guess that hiring a PR firm, an event company to manage an event to get so many ‘viral’ social media folks (even Guy Kawasaki was present) would cost over $100,000. On top of that, to get the media buzz of such an event (hundreds of pictures were taken, lots of video and press) would be quite a bit. For example a quarter page ad in a newspaper would cost about.

The cost of this event is just a few thousand dollars for food and giveaways. The net net? Well if Markets are conversations It was worth it to LinkedIn to embrace the community.

I did my usual walk through using Viddler, (my longest one yet) so if you weren’t able to attend you can live through me.

I hope to see you at next week’s Lunch 2.0 at NetGear in Santa Clara, I’ll be there, along with the PodTech video crew.

Was this event as large as the Hitachi Blowout I held last year? Maybe, you be the judge.

Above Video: My walk through of the event, something was strange with the sound, not sure what it is.

Below Images of the event

8 Comments so far

Mario Sundar May 23rd, 2007 4:11 pm

Thanks, bud, for being there.

You’re so quick to blog… Very cool. I love the picture w/ the LinkedIn four-square balls!
virtualomni.com » 4 Square is hot in Silicon Valley? May 23rd, 2007 4:34 pm

[…] Reading, reading, reading… always reading. In one of my blog feeds today there was a link to a story by Jeremiah that talked about a cool sounding tech lunch that was sponsored in part by PodTech (or at least orchestrated by them) and LinkedIn. It was well covered by the press and the thing that really struck me was the give away… a 4 square ball. Jeremia says it’s all the rage in the valley right now… that just strikes me as strange. Even as a kid I never really found the game all that challenging or enthralling.. whatever. […]
jeremiah_owyang May 23rd, 2007 7:11 pm

Virtualomni,

I can’t leave comments on your blog without ‘loggin in’.

I learned about 4 square taking off from Jessica and the SF Chronicle

She said Meebo is doing it too, as well as others.

Proof here
http://blog.meebo.com/?p=248
When LinkedIn met Lunch 2.0... « Marketing Nirvana May 24th, 2007 4:52 am

[…] Check out a more descriptive Lunch 2.0 post that I crafted for our corporate blog. You can also access Jeremiah’s Lunch 2.0 post (w/ video) and some archived footage from Justin.tv. […]
hollyster May 25th, 2007 11:57 am

I’m sorry I missed this one… looked like a lot of fun! Will be at the next one!! Awesome video walkthrough!!!

Holly
Lunch 2.0 » LunchedIn 2.0 - what a party! May 29th, 2007 5:23 pm

[…] Lastly, check out this video Jeremiah shot for us at the event. Great stuff all around! […]
Bill Compton June 4th, 2007 2:43 pm

Hi Jim. Photos i received. Thanks
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