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And to finish off this series of Enterprise 2.0 conference highlights from Boston on the topic of networking, here is Part III, last one I had planned to share over here in this blog on this topic, and which will be talking about my thoughts on the networking experience throughout the event itself. More than anything else as part of sharing my two cents on how the overall networking opportunities could be improved in future events. Yes, I know, you can’t get enough networking at these events, so the more we all try to fine tune them, the better, don’t you think?

If you take a look into the agenda from the conference itself, you will notice how packed it is for most of the days and already starting like really early in the morning, till late in the afternoon. Networking opportunities in between sessions are very minimal and this was one of the things that I missed from the event itself. In most cases there are about 15 minutes break in between sessions where folks could interact with one another and follow up conversations.

Well, 15 minutes to make a move to the next session, pack all of our "stuff", have a "nature" break, or enjoy some refreshments, talking to folks about the session we just attended or simply just catching up with them, are probably far too many activities for just 15 minutes in between speaker sessions. So in reality the networking opportunities throughout the conference were very much restricted, if you count lunch as an exception, to the end of the day and as part of the local gatherings from various other networking events.

Not ideal, if you ask me. Don’t you think? So what would I propose, you may be wondering, right? Well, to begin with, I would extend the in between sessions breaks to 30 minutes, minimum, which I do realise would mean that there would need to be a new parallel track of sessions to be added to the already existing one, but I don’t think that would be too much of an issue. If there are conflicts with multiple sessions there is always a chance that video recordings of each and everyone of them would be made available after the event. I mean, for a conference on Enterprise 2.0, I wouldn’t think this would be too difficult, right?

But look at the benefits. You would be allowing folks to engage with the speakers after their sessions to ask additional questions, have some conversations on the corridors catching up with people and discussing key learnings from the sessions attended thus far; a quick stop-over the refreshments area to grab a software drink and a quick bite and back to business; and all of that without having the stress of knowing you need to rush off, because you only have 15 minutes. Well, now with 30m. things would be much much easier for everyone. And those networking opportunities will certainly help conference attendees to build stronger connections amongst themselves by starting the dialogue throughout the day and carry it on during the evening events.

And all of that with breaks of just 30 minutes in between sessions. I would think it would be very doable for future events, and as such I submitted this very same feedback for future occasions hoping to be able to extend my networking opportunities not just to the evening events, which were all great, but throughout the whole day, which would be more engaging and bumping from one session to the other without time for a breather … What do you think?

And with that I am done with this series of blog posts on the Enterprise 2.0 conference networking activities that we all got to experience last week, where you can see that those face to face interactions are just as good as ever; and as such we should exploit them as much as we possibly can. Now, from here onwards, it will be the time for my next round of blog posts detailing the highlights of the sessions I attended and what I learned from each and everyone of them… Another interesting ride I hope you will enjoy reading about, just as much as I did attending them…

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, Social Gatherings, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Face to Face, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Logistics, Organising Conferences, Feedback, Networking Breaks

Continuing further with this series of blog posts gathering some more highlights from the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, here is Part II, related to networking, where I would like to cover some further thoughts on what that experience was like during the course of last week. And, now coming closer to the end of another week at work, I can certainly confirm that the main reason why I have been away from almost everything external has been the need to have a break from all of those amazing face to face conversations, pause, think about them, what I learn, apply that newly acquired knowledge and experience(s) and move on…

And it looks like I haven’t been the only one; while doing my usual Twitter catchup this morning (Specially under the #e2conf hash tag), I noticed how plenty of those folks who were at the same conference were having post-conference fatigue symptoms, hehe, looking for a much needed "break" to get things going as well. And while wondering why that may have happened, it hit me. Big time!

Like I was saying earlier on, this year the amount of local gatherings (Dinners, tweetups, parties, etc. etc.) has been tremendous! More than in previous years, by far! I started with Sunday evening having a lovely dinner with a bunch of my favourite people in the Enterprise 2.0 space (See this picture for more details); then Monday evening’s tweetup with Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe & Jim Storer (From The Community Roundtable) on communities (Amazing event! Although throughout the whole evening I didn’t even had a chance to meet up with Connie! Grrr, guess next time!); followed by Tuesday’s Dachis Group Boston TweeUp that David Armano has been sharing a bunch of pictures over here to then finish up with my own team dinner.

Wednesday’s highlights in the networking space were a lovely dinner invitation by the Dachis Group where I had one of the most amazing conversation on social software adoption (Beyond just the IT industry) with my good friend Susan Scrupski and two incredibly smart and talented 2.0 people:  Greg Matthews and Ben Foster (Who I got to know during those conversations which I thoroughly enjoyed!). To then finish off the evening with one of the major highlights of the entire week!:

Andy McAfee’s party!! There are a bunch of pictures from such special event all over the place, but I am going to let you go and check the Twitter stream from after the party, where the word warning keeps coming up constantly and reading through you will see why … Andy surely knows how to throw a party and it certainly was a privilege being part of it! Lots and lots of great fun, drinks and amazing conversations! I would have gone to Boston just for this one, I tell you! Many many thanks to Andy for being so gracious in offering his house for hosting one heck of a party that will be remembered for years! At least, I will! (Thanks ever so much, Andy!!)

By Thursday you can imagine what my entire body was like, right? You now know what I meant I spent a whole week sleep deprived, but privileged to be in the company of people who I have been admiring for a long while and have plenty of respect for in the area of Enterprise 2.0 and why I keep coming back to this conference. Last week was another proof! Oh, that very same Thursday evening had another night out with my team where we spent a good time having a lovely dinner, drinks and musing on what we learned from the event itself over the last few days enjoying a delightful bottle of port back at our hotel to finish off a superb week! (Thanks a lot, Josh, for that one!)

I am sure that by now you may be thinking that there have been perhaps a few too many networking events at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston, right? Well, maybe; these are the ones I went to myself, including the usual last few rounds of drinks at the local Irish pub inside the Westin hotel, but there were plenty of others, too! The clear thing about these kind of local gatherings is that no matter what, when, how, why, there is nothing that would ever possibly substitute the face to face physical interactions of bright minds talking passionately about what drives them on a daily basis. Nothing.

That’s still what drives me to keep going to these conference events over and over again and why I have always been saying that an event of this magnitude without networking is no longer the event of events! Glad Enterprise 2.0 in Boston still is …

(A big shout with a special thanks to all of those folks I have met throughout the week, from "my" usual and dear suspects, to the bunch of recently met folks, with whom I had a wonderful week of constant inspiration flowing through! I won’t name you all, since I am sure I won’t do you all justice by leaving the odd name out here and there, but you all know who you are! Thanks much for being who you are! Please don’t change …)

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations, Twitter, Connie Bensen, Rachel Happe, Jim Storer, The Community Roundtable, Dachis Group, Susan Scrupski, ITSinsider, Greg Matthews, Ben Foster, Andy McAfee, Port, Josh Scribner, BlueIQ, Passion

A bunch of folks out there may have been wondering where I have been hiding in the last couple of days, after I came back from a wonderful week at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, since I haven’t been much online, hanging out in my usual external social software spaces. I am sure plenty of people were curious as to whether I would be sharing any further highlights (Other than the live tweeting I was able to do throughout various sessions) about the event itself, since a bunch of them are starting to flourish all over the place.

Well, fear not! I am back! Back into my usual regular blogging and slowly, but steadily, re-surfacing again in all external social software spaces where I usually hang out. It’s just the last couple of days I have been doing a massive catchup with everything that’s been happening at work, while I was away, but also, because I wanted to take some timeout and reflect on what I learned during the course of that week in Boston for Enterprise 2.0 and start drawing a mental picture of what I wanted to share as highlights and what not.

And I think I am ready! Ready to share with you folks my main highlights from what I flagged back then as the event of events, and still is! So much so that being away now for a couple of days from everything may have been a little bit as well to recover from that physical networking fatigue of just far too many people to talk to, but too little time all over the place and, in the end, not meeting up with enough of them. But let’s bring this one up in an upcoming entry …

For now though, I thought I would get things started with this upcoming series of blog posts by combining them with other things that have been happening and which I have also found a rather fascinating read from elsewhere and not related to the conference (That’s been part of the online catchup I have been doing so far as well…). So, hopefully, a combination of both highlights posts and the usual blogging will help get folks an idea of what’s been happening lately. And still keep up with the variety of topics so you won’t get bored in the process.

Thus you may be wondering why I am starting this series of articles with this one single highlight on Networking, right? Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious, but one of the major key highlights from the overall event was to be able to eventually meet up with a bunch of the incredibly smart talent that there is out there in the Enterprise 2.0 space and that I have had the pleasure, and honour, to hang out with in various social software spaces for a while now. To name them all it would not make good justice since I am sure I would be forgetting the odd name here and there, but I can certainly tell you this year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference has been one of the most networked events I have experienced to date!

One single event where my average sleeping time went from the usual 7 hours per day down to 4 per day and I still didn’t have enough hours in the day! One single event with the highest number of parties, TweetUps, dinner invitations, local gatherings, informal meetings that I can recall. Ever! Fantastic!!

Of course, I took some pictures, just like everyone else that was there. And one thing that I learned after the event is that my Nokia N95 is getting a bit too rusty and the quality of the pictures hasn’t been as good as I thought they would be. First time that happening. So I took tons of pictures, but most of them were far too dark, or with moving "targets", or just not good enough quality worth sharing. However, some others are, so I have placed them all in my Flickr account and here you have got a couple of them, so you can get an idea of what networking was like while at Enterprise 2.0 in Boston.

Then in another blog post I will share what that networking meant for me during the entire event as well as a couple of thoughts on how to improve it for the next year … Thus let’s get the ball rolling!

Ouchie! No comments on this one, right, Maggie?

(Goodness, I wish plenty of the other photos I took from the different parties and TweetUps I attended would have come out nicely… Alas they didn’t … double sigh … Although, on the other hand, seeing these perhaps it’s much better they didn’t come out after all that well anyway )

Tags: e2conf, Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Boston, Conference Events, Events, Conferences, Highlights, TweetUps, Twitter, Party Time, Parties, Social Gatherings, Informal Meetups, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Software, Connecting, Connections, Friendships, Relationships, Face to Face, Nokia, Nokia N95, N95, Pictures, Photos, Flickr, Maggie Fox, Luis Suarez, Dan McCall, Social Networks, Networking, Conversations

Everyone wants to sell something to someone if not everyone.  Selling is a relational process. Advertising is a marketing process. The disconnect between advertising and selling is relational. Relations begin with communications. Communications are driven by conversations between people, one to one to millions.

When I see ads on web sites I, like 99% of the market, see no relationship to the sites conversational content, if there is such content. And marketers wonder why they have such a low click through rate?  How’s that working for you?

Yet brands continue to spend billions of dollars a year (close to $400 billion this year) trying to catch peoples attention with ads that have no context to our conversations. The marketing industry, while shifting to the internet, has not shifted their thinking rather they are applying old methods to new technology. It simply won’t and isn’t working!

How Can Advertisers Create Relations?

Marketers think slick ads and unique technology creates relations. They’re wrong. Relations are formed by an affinity to “content”, the context of  conversations. The problem is that marketers simply do not know how to create “relational content” that has context to their audience.  So you ask “what is relational content?”. Good question.

Relational content is communications which creates value for the receivers.  That is why we call it “conversational currency“.  OK, so how can marketers create conversational currency that “pulls their market to them” and enables a transaction?

A Revolutionary “Mesh”?

Joe Marchese writes in an article titled “Why Advertise At All? The form advertising takes to maintain relevance in media’s latest evolution, has yet to be totally unlocked. And it may be that advertising makes up a smaller share of the media mix or (shockingly) a larger share, given that advertising’s new role will be to create conversations, which can drive product insights, which can lead to maintaining a leadership position in product innovation.

It may be that the lines separating advertising, research and other marketing functions will simply blur, and elements of each be present in all brand communications

It is not a blur rather it is a revolutionary convergence or methods and means. The advertising industry needs a revolution not an evolution. As economic pressures continue advertisers need to create innovative ways to create relations that enhance transactions. To get something you never had you have to do something you never did.  So what have you never done?

What if you simply aligned your message with specific audiences that have an affinity to your offering. Once aligned why not simply create a conversation of “giving”. How? In stead of spending billions on ads that don’t work, “give” the ad money to the audience and tell them you’ve stopped wasting money on advertising.  If you transferred the ad money to the audience using a new medium do you think they would spend it? Who doesn’t spend found, or free, money?

The money your now spending on ads is wasteful and ultimately your customers pays for the waste. Do you think your market would waste money you gave them? Do you think your market would tell their market that you gave them money?  Think again.

I repeat “To get something you never had you have to do something you never did”. So you don’t think it will work? You’ll never know until you do it. By the way, there is a medium which can enable you to do it. Stay tuned and we’ll tell you.

What say you?

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Image by George Dearing via Flickr

This isn’t a post about marketing, social media, or technology. Ok, maybe it's a bit about social media and a sprinkling of technology, but it’s mostly about people and passion.






Those two things shone bright last month during a food drop at the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas. It was the first time I’d really been behind the scenes to see how things really come together.

I was encouraged by the NTFB’s vigor and dedication to helping feed its surrounding communities, certainly a challenge for an area as large as the North Texas region.

It didn’t take long to realize the NTFB is a well-oiled machine, legitimately concerned with things like “doing more with less” and increasing operational efficiency across the organization. On a related note, there was recent data showing that the first question on many people’s mind before investing in charities concerned “overhead.” Other organizations take note; That perception is apparently engrained in the psyche of your customer so we should all be thinking about how to change that.

After an emotionally-charged press conference, I was stopped by someone on the marketing team who asked if I had any recommendations for how they could use  social media.

My advice? Tell your story as openly and honestly as possible. And enable others to the same. That’s one of the key lessons I’ve learned from another one of Telligent’s clients, The National Breast Cancer Foundation. NBCF’s marketing head Kevin Williams has made that mantra part of everything NBCF does. In Williams words, "make it easy for people to tell your story."

Those two things are the bookends to a larger communication strategy, but it’s becoming clear that communities want radical transparency and want their own voices to be heard as loudly as the cause, brand, or sponsor.

The positives for the organizations when done right are many, but seeing social media diminish as a thinly-veiled discipline and become operationalized is one of the most important byproducts. 

The other thing we chatted about was how to use the web to raise the awareness of current campaigns and increase membership. I was fortunate enough to present on just that at the recent DigitalNow Conference in Orlando. My slides featured NBCF’s social media strategy and were a part of a larger deck that can be found on Slideshare here.

But again, the fundamentals aren't terribly complex. Do your Facebook thing, establish your Flickr page and staff up who's planning to respond and jump in the conversations. And as some of us are acutely aware, it  gets a bit more difficult when you have to figure out how to engage with people after they actually start showing up to your social media pit stops.

Lastly, I'd do all the people who really pulled this event off an injustice if I didn't mention the corporate horsepower behind this Herculean effort.
Telligent, Tyson Foods, Wal-Mart and cause marketers MediaSauce were some of the corporate backers, with MediaSauce managing a lot of the logistics and planning.

If you’re curious about the timeline and events that lead up to the Dallas stop, make sure to visit the Hunger Pledge site.

I can't say enough about the experience and what I learned. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.  I pledge to do more.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interview with NTFB CMO Colleen Brinkmann

Interview with Scott Henderson of MediaSauce.

Flickr photo set of North Texas Food Bank Tour.

I recently attended a conference and the host had the “traditional marketing materials” set out for the taking by anyone who had interest.  My first thought was what a waste. My second thought was I wonder if participants are interested in the material.

Upon looking around I discovered that not one person who was passing by the “material” table was actually taking the material.  Being curious I decided to see if the material had any valuable content in it.

Sure there was some pretty graphics and slick pictures all printed on high gloss bound paper with a high stock cover.  By he way, the content was all about them. I decided to ask someone about these materials.  I found someone who looked official and engaged in a conversation. The questions and answers were as follows:

• How did these materials get here? Answer: We shipped them  (Cost)
• These are nice looking. How much did it cost to print them? Answer: We run lots of 25,000 so we keep the pricing price down to roughly $3 per piece (Cost of $75,000 per run)
• How often to your print material like this? Answer: Probably once a quarter so we can keep the content fresh. (Cost of $300,00o a year)
• Do your customers, suppliers and partners like this material? Answer: I really don’t know, people usually don’t comment whether they like it or not. (No feedback loop?)
• Can I get this information off your web site? Answer: Yes, it is in the section called Products and Services” and all you have to do is log into or site and you can download the material. (Now why would I want to do that?)
• How many people download this material? Answer: I have no idea. Someone else manages the web site. I am in charge of marketing and events. (So your web site has nothing to do with marketing and events?)
• Just curious but has the economy hurt your sales? Answer: Yes, business is terrible and our entire market segment is down 20% over last year. We’ve had to cut budgets and layoff people. We’ve even cut marketing and advertising.  I hope this economy turns around soon. So how is your business and what is it you do?
• My answer was, I am in social media. The response: Oh yeah, I am on Linkedin, Facebook and just started Twittering. Seems like a lot of wasted time to me.
  

Am I Living On A Different Planet?

Sometimes I wonder if I live on a different planet.  How could can company spend $300,000 a year on printed material that no one is interested in? How could someone in marketing and events not be concerned about the traffic on their web site? How could printing out hard copy material once a quarter be considered “fresh content”?  How could any company spend $300,000 a year in hard copy material that doesn’t add any value while having to layoff people?

How could they? They do because they don’t know the difference.  Simply put they lack the knowledge and understanding that the “market as changed” and they wonder why profits are down. Instead they waste time, money and effort.  Please kill the waste.

Does this sound familiar or am I the only one living on a different planet?

What say you?

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Twitterslurp - a drop.io API app that creates a keyword Twitter stream, with a list of users and stats for your website, see an example at the Personal Democracy Forum created by the Bivings group.

Tweetboard - showcase a Twitter stream in your blog. The owner and visitors to your site populate this stream by tweeting in the text box. All replies are threaded. View a history of all tweets or the lastest ones.

Rather than embed this app in your blog, it acts as a tab on the side of the browser window, which you click and a window expands. If this tab is red it means there are new tweets (from the owner and visitors) since your last visit; if it’s green means otherwise.

When someone tweets in the text box provided, the tweet appears at Twitter with a special link called “posted.at” at the end of the tweet. This is a unique link that points back to the site, and opens up that thread…this brings traffic back to your site where the visitors can participate in the thread discussion.
When browsing a sites Tweetboard you can click the permalink of a tweet and it launches a text box where you can copy the permalink of that tweet. You could paste this link into a blog post or a tweet, whatever…I guess this pop-up box spoonfeeds you rather than having to right-click, then copy shortcut.

Further to this, each reply in a tweetboard thread also has a special link called “inreply.to”. When someone clicks the permalink of a reply, a box pops up with the link to that spot in the thread on the tweetboard of that site. If you are reading a reply in the thread and click reply, and enter a tweet, that tweet will appear in twitter with a link back to that exact spot in the thread.

Twitlogo - create and download your own Twitter logo, here’s me.

Dial2Do - a speech to text way to tweet and more, see the others

Tweexchange - see if a user name is available

BONUS
twictionary
My Tweet 16 - view a users first 16 tweets…oh, this doesn’t work as “Twitter only makes a user’s last 3200 tweets available.”

Marketers have not shifted their thinking rather they have simply moved old models to a new space. Consider the poor results of old print methods and coupons which yieled a 3% – 5% return.  The same “model” is now being pushed out on the internet using Google Adsense, banner ads, “virtual coupons”, target marketing on Facebook etc etc. Billions spent doing the same thing they did in the past.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results, advertisers are insane.

Joe Marchese writes in an article titled “Why Advertise At All? : It’s been eye-opening to have conversations with thought leaders in advertising and marketing regarding the future of the industry. The conversations always start on how one could advertise effectively in social media, but more often than not it turns into a discussion of the bigger question: What’s the purpose of advertising/marketing?

I would argue that for marketers, finding a way to interact with consumer and strengthen brand perception is as important as ever. In fact, as production of perfectly functional, and higher and higher quality substitutes continues, it is a brand’s perception by consumers that protects its economic value.

But it’s not enough in today’s media landscape to tell people what your brand values are merely by broadcasting them. Marketers must find a way to allow people to experience and share a brand’s values. Brands found a way, through advertising, to be a part of people’s cultural experience using broadcast media. The task is the same for social media, and it is an important one.

The form advertising takes to maintain relevance in media’s latest evolution, has yet to be totally unlocked. And it may be that advertising makes up a smaller share of the media mix or (shockingly) a larger share, given that advertising’s new role will be to create conversations, which can drive product insights, which can lead to maintaining a leadership position in product innovation.

It may be that the lines separating advertising, research and other marketing functions will simply blur, and elements of each be present in all brand communications. “Why” is always a good question to ask before starting any marketing or advertising initiative — but how honest are we with our answers?

You Can’t See Well Through A Dirty Window

Innovation is not applying old models to new methods. Innovation is turning old models upside down and inside out.  Innovation is being creative with new methods. Current advertising models and methods are not very “social” nor innovative.  (see How Social Is Your Media?” and a related Power Point here). 

Advertisers continue to waste their money and our time. Not a very productive social thing to do.  What advertisers don’t “see” is that brand awareness is increased best by word of mouth. Revenue is gained best by simply passing the cost of advertising through to the consumer. If you gave the consumer the money you spent on advertising do you think they would tell their friends? I would, would you?

Tom Nilsen has created a new model for advertisers. The model simply stops the advertising and gives back the money spent to the consumer. How does it work? Ask Tom, stop advertising and give me the money.  You’d be surprised how appreciative people will be.  Appreciation spreads fast by word of mouth. Trust the consumer and you’ll win. The reason you can’t see it is because you are looking through an old (mind) and dirty (models) window. Get it?

What say you?

I noticed this recent article from ClickZ about social sites versus blogsites as bona-fide business drivers. It appears that while social sites are great for making connections that may lead to new business development projects, purchase decisions are far more influenced by blogs and content based on personal and business expertise.

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