NASA’s Mission Possible: Tweeting thru Space
With 110 twitter accounts, 20 tweeting astronauts, an Image of the day posted to Facebook and more, NASA's social media strategy is all about extending the space "experience". For the last shuttle launch of Atlantis, 150 lucky individuals were invited to attend the official NASA Tweetup to experience the lift-off first-hand, with exclusive behind the scenes access to astronauts, facilities, lectures and more. Hear from Erik Sowa, NASA Tweetup attendee and director of engineering at ExactTarget's Social Media Lab, and Stephanie Schierholz, NASA's head of social media, as they discuss the process behind this groundbreaking event.
Presenters
Erik Sowa is the Director of Engineering at the ExactTarget Social Medial Lab in San Francisco. He has over 20 years of experience leading software development teams. His current team is responsible for building and operating social media products at ExactTarget including CoTweet. NASA is one of CoTweet's customers and Erik attended the final shuttle launch as part of the NASA Tweetup.
Erik earned his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and began his career as a computational physicist in the National Laboratories. He soon moved on to commercial software development and has worked in several domains ranging from e-learning to predictive analytics to interactive marketing.
Stephanie L. Schierholz is the manager of Social Media for Raytheon Company. As a member of the Corporate Affairs and Communications team, Schierholz is the day-to-day liaison between Raytheon and its external, online communities, including Twitter, Facebook and more.
She provides strategic communications guidance to Raytheon’s senior management and is an advocate for incorporating emerging communications technologies into its public outreach activities.
Before joining Raytheon in February 2012, Schierholz spent five years at NASA. She was an agency spokesperson then NASA’s first social media manager. At NASA, she led the agency’s social media activities, including the flagship Twitter account, @NASA, and Facebook page. She was the architect of social media partnerships with Foursquare and SlideShare and was instrumental in creating and leading NASA Tweetup events to bring NASA’s online followers to in-person gatherings at agency locations.
Schierholz has been recognized with three of NASA’s highest awards: the Space Flight Awareness Award, NASA Exceptional Service Medal, and Group Achievement Award. Additionally, the Space Foundation awarded NASA’s social media team its Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for significant contributions to public awareness of, and support for, space programs.
Sunday, March 11
