This morning I attended the inaugural East Bay Social Media Breakfast at Cesar’s, a delightful little restaurant in Oakland’s Piedmont District. We were thrilled to have about 35 people attend. That’s Sallie Goetsch (rhymes with “sketch”) in the white labcoat in the picture below.

The journey to Cesar’s was a fairly long one that started when I tweeted my interest in an East Bay event. Kenny Lauer responded and took the bull by the horns. We also got terrific support from Bryan Person, who kicked off the whole concept in Boston and now serves as a resource to those who want to duplicate that success in their own neighborhoods. Some 18 cities around the world now play host to social media breakfasts.

Bryan also got his employer, JD Lasica—one of the founders of OurMedia and author of DarkNet (as well as a fellow AdHocnium catalyst)—was the speaker. I managed to capture audio of JD’s talk just by setting my digital recorder on a table near the spot from which he was speaking. I also grabbed just a bit of video with my RCA Small Wonder, which I like better than the Flip in all regards except audio. I hope their next-generation camera offer improved sound. Still, it’ll give you a taste of the breakfast.

JD also just today relaunched SocialMedia.biz. It’s definitely worth a look.

As for the audio, it came up pretty well considering all the background noise, thanks in large part to Levelator. It’s about 18 minutes long. Listen using the player below or download it here. The first voice you’ll hear is Kenny’s.

The hashtag for the breakfast is #smbeb1 (that’s Social Media Breakfast East Bay 1). Some good discussion so far. It also looks like there will be more. We’ve already had offers from companies that want to host and sponsor upcoming breakfasts. I’ll have a mailing list set up shortly for notification of upcoming breakfasts; we’ll also use Twitter and our various other channels to get the word out.

Thanks to all who attended, and I hope to see you future East Bay breakfasts!