There it was. In print. The brochure arrived.The annual event that I look forward to year after year.

Finally in 2010, after 20 years of membership in the association, I’m achieving a milestone. I’m on the agenda for the 2010 IABC Word Conference, taking place in my home city of Toronto. I won’t be playing the [...]]]>

There it was. In print. The brochure arrived.The annual event that I look forward to year after year.

Finally in 2010, after 20 years of membership in the association, I’m achieving a milestone. I’m on the agenda for the 2010 IABC Word Conference, taking place in my home city of Toronto. I won’t be playing the role of sage on stage. I won’t be at the microphone talking at an audience for an hour. Instead, I’ll be joining three others in facilitating a conversation.  An approach that I think is far more fun!

I’m both honoured and excited to join an international crew Bryan Person from Texas, Jeremy Schulz from Arizona and Christopher Swan from California in facilitating a three hour Unconference Session, entitled Emerging Communication Channels

Beyond a love for warmer climates, we all share sense for what’s possible, a passion for marketing and communications, an interest in social media, and an obvious infatuation with technology and new ideas. It was these that brought us together at last year’s IABC World Conference. The four of us first met online through the conversations that took place through the outtathegate campaign. That was the start of a great collaborative experience. We continued  our conversations long after the 2009 conference, brainstormed some ideas and then pitched a few to IABC for this year and… tada…this session was the result.

I think this is a prime example of how a conversation between strangers with something in common, backed by the power of social media can lead to an incredible exchange of ideas and the creation of something wonderful.

Just how wonderful? You’ll have to be part of our unconference session to find out!

We’d be honoured if you join our conversation…

Iggy Pintado, or @iggypintado, author of The Connection Generation, a man I have great respect for, was [...]]]> I finally got to meet the person behind @iconic88. While I don’t usually follow brands or tweeps on twitter who aren’t forthright with providing details about their personal identity, I made an exception in the case of following @iconic88.

Iggy Pintado, or @iggypintado, author of The Connection Generation, a man I have great respect for, was following and recommending @iconic88. So, trusting Iggy’s advice, I hit the follow button too and found that @iconic88’s tweets were usually positive and uplifting, sometimes informative and there were always a number of them to be found in the tweetstream whenever I logged on for my twitter-fix.

At the  recent A List Entrepreneurs function we had the chance to meet the mysterious @iconic88 as Iggy was doing the big reveal! I was really excited about being part of this event. The guest of honour was a genuine and warm hearted person, who was humble and optimistic and undeniably a good soul.

That said, I guess I just had far greater hopes for the event than I realized. It was great to be there for the big reveal, but I really thought there might be more substance to the evening’s discussions.

First off, I was surprised that in an event that was aimed at those who embrace social media (why else would you want to meet the unknown @iconic88). I just assumed that those who embraced social media would also embrace all the transparency and information sharing opportunities that come along with it, but we were told that we couldn’t take video (not that the dark lit room would have allowed it on your basic iPhone). I was genuinely surprised by the announcement asking us to refrain.

The discussions got underway, I was thinking I might learn something about creating a vibrant community on twitter, some real useful bits of information to apply to twitter strategy, some gems that I could employ or suggest to clients or associates.

Instead what I experienced was a very casual discussion between a couple of very nice, very sincere, very well meaning gentlemen. While it was all very pleasant and real, it also demonstrated a few of the things that, (pardon the language here) really piss me off about the discussions that happen around twitter.

I took offense to the warning from iconic88 to be wary of over-tweeting. While I agree over-tweeting is a bad thing, he was not the person to be offering this warning. According to his follow cost stats , his AVERAGE number of tweets per day falls around the 180 mark. Although over-tweeting is something he proclaims he doesn’t do, nor does he schedule his tweets. I want someone to tell me how an average of 180 tweets per day, yes that is 15 per hour, is NOT over tweeting.  And, if someone has a family, a job, a life, how does one find the time to maintain this kind of average?

Then, of course, the conversation went to where it always goes, it turned to the number of followers! Why does it always have to come back to the lowest common denominator — the number of followers? Folks it’s not about the sheer numbers! It’s really not hard to get numbers, but connecting with the right people can be a challenge, but it is the key to unlocking twitter’s real value.

It really is about the conversations! How does anyone profess to have conversations with 30,000+ people? There is so much value to be extracted from twitter usage that is not reliant on huge numbers, but on connecting with those who can offer a valuable exchange.  If you follow the right people, there’s undeniable value in that. So many people miss this in their discussions about twitter. So many of you think more is better, but as most of us travel along the path to reach our twitter goals, more often just means more “noise”.

My final challenge to the evening’s discussion was“ why, oh why, oh why do we keep focusing on the tactic? Why are we so hypnotized by the shiny object?

There were some great people there and I’m happy to have met many of them. I will continue to follow @iconic88 and @iggypintado and a few of the people in the video below, but I will also be sure to  ask them, why we can’t we elevate our discussion as to how  twitter as a tool (‘cause that’s all it is folks) can help us to meet our larger communications, marketing, education, personal development goals, strategies and objectives?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Question of the day:

What would make you follow someone with a high follow cost?

While his presentation style is undeniably understated, his observations and insights are powerful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Question of the day:

In the last bit of the video he [...]]]> Robert Scoble, blogger and entrepreneur  discusses how ideas spread. The public session was part of the Stanford GSB marketing course, the Power of Social Technology.

While his presentation style is undeniably understated, his observations and insights are powerful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Question of the day:

In the last bit of the video he refers to an intimate dinner conversation, if shared with the right four people, you could change the world.

Who would you like seated at your table?

What Matters Now is the latest free  e-book from Seth Godin and friends -it’s provocative, insightful, inspiring and just plain powerful!

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So, what were my lasting impressions? First off, the Waterview Convention Centre is a stunning [...]]]> What a great day at the SME Technology Summit 2009 This was an AWESOME way to kick off the month. HUGE thanks go out to @trib aka Stephen Collins whose generosity made it possible for me to attend. “You da man!”

So, what were my lasting impressions? First off, the Waterview Convention Centre is a stunning venue – well chosen! The Insight Exchange team ran a great conference and they diligently made sure that the speakers and delegates alike enjoyed the day’s experience.

The keynote speakers – Tim Pethick and Mark Pesce were both compelling and knowledgeable. I thank them for sharing their experiences, their thought provoking ideas and predictions for the future. It was obvious to those in the room that a future that relies heavily upon technology is as real for SMEs as it is for large multinationals.

I came away from these sessions reassured that I am one of the lucky ones. I get this stuff. I already have many of the skills necessary to participate and even lead in the use of technology in meeting the strategic marketing and communications agendas of organisations, large, small and anywhere in between.

Throughout the day, I jumped across all three tracks (Marketing, Social Media and Effectiveness) in the sessions

I attended. I noted a number of tips from the presenters, learned of some terrific examples, many of which were tweeted by a vocal group of us who populated the hundreds of tweets that became the #smetech hash tag dialogue.

I also came away with a long list of things I must learn/do more about – including:

•    investigating freelancer.com (and other such offerings) as both a buyer and supplier of services,
•    joining the Australian Business Women’s Network and possibly AIMIA
•    diving deeper into the sea of analytics
•    continuing my own efforts in blogging, podcasting, tweeting and so on…
•    pursuing potential opportunities with a number of the presenting companies
•    and furthering the conversations/connections, online and off,  that began face to face today with a number of fabulous and talented people

Attending an event like this really brings home the need for both community and conversation in our professional lives. I’m grateful I could take advantage of this opportunity. Now, it’s time to leverage it and see how far I the journey will continue past this first step!

Thanks to the organizers, the venue staff, the speakers, the sponsors and the many delegates who all did their part in making the day worthwhile.

After social networks, what next?

Are social [...]]]> PDA, the digital content blog, featured a recent post that highlighted the discussions of a star-studded internet rock star panel who met at Said Business School in Oxford recently to discuss the future of the web. These great technology minds considered some basic, yet tough and far reaching questions including:

After social networks, what next?

Are social networks the internet’s last big development? And how much will they change?

Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal  and was an early investor in Facebook and LinkedIn reminded everyone to evaluate first what stage we’re at with social networks and suggested that maybe there is no innovation left any more, and we have to look for it in a completely different direction.

Biz Stone, Twitter’s CEO was quite sure that  for him, Peter’s suggestions were not the case, there was further innovation to come and that using open technology, open platforms that encourage transparency is where we’ll continue to go and that this open exchange of information will create a resounding global impact.

Ram Shriram, a founding board member of Google and one of the search giant’s first investors, moved discussions to the mobile internet, suggesting quite assuredly that “Combining social and mobile – there is a new wave of opportunities coming up, a growth of users, so mobile internet is clearly the next major computing cycle.”

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman observed,  “I actually think we are just beginning to see how people launch the eventualities of social networks into their life.”

Given that so much information is now being generated through social networks, but we’re just getting started on determining what can be done with it. Oxford lecturer, Dr Kate Blackmon summed up the discussions  in a nutshell in saying that the future was not about crowd sourcing but crowd filtering.

So, where is the web going? Who can really say for sure. There are  many questions, a few sound predictions, but no clear agreement about exactly where the web is headed. Personally, I’m fine with that, because for me, not knowing and being there to evolve along with it is half the fun. Besides, if these web-savvy minds can’t come to a clear agreement or shared predictions, how can I?

I know one thing though, I’ll be sailing on into the future of the web, clutching tightly to my mobile.

Question of the day:

After social networks, what do you think is next?

“We’re building a cluster of solo players out [...]]]> Chris Brogan’s recent post Social Media Needs to Become a Team Sport makes some valid points. In essence, he says that social media is full of a bunch of solo players, rather than teams of people working together to achieve (or, in his analogy, score) a common goal.

“We’re building a cluster of solo players out there on the field when what is necessary is a team methodology with all kinds of touchpoints, system connectors, and deeper communications/strategy channels,” he writes.

Many companies who have adopted the use of social media tools (applause here for this in itself is a huge step) are entrusting  the success of  their  efforts to only a few company representatives – often the responsibility lies with only one or two people within the organization (and even more often, this person’s position  is far removed from senior level strategic decision making and many are also new to the organizations they represent).

How ironic that social media tools are being trusted to so very few people.

I would love to see companies embrace the power of social media by first seeking to really understand it – to embrace the opportunity to offer education to  employees around these new tools that have become embedded in our culture , to teach employees of all levels and within various functional areas how Facebook works and how to tweet important news, how to find and upload videos on YouTube regardless of whether or not they will actually use these skills in their day to day jobs. I don’t have to be an accountant to get value from understanding balance sheets and income statements, but I make better  bottom line decisions becauseI understand the basics of how what I do affects the bottom line, and the same holds true here.

Imagine if companies sought to understand what twitter, Nings, Facebook, YouTube, wikis, etc can actually do, AND how, once they have become familiar with their capabilities, these tools  can  be used and integrated to accomplish the organization’s goals from various departmental, and management level perspectives. For HR and PR will have very different needs, views, concerns and ideas of how social media might be used to achieve their goals, as will the Systems Developer when compared with the CFO.

What benefits would we see from organizations that take advantage of the opportunity to use teaching social media as the springboard for greater internal dialogue between departments and use it as the galvanizing force for ongoing communication and in breaking down functional barriers? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we saw decisions about how best to leverage social media be the thing that brings together departments like Sales, Marketing, IT, Communications, PR and HR.
We might be skipping in the streets if the same organization demonstrated an integrated approach in their selection of chosen tools AND in the creation of the messaging that was then used by an integrated team of employees representing various functions, management levels, geographies, viewpoints, etc.

Yes, I agree with Chris Brogan and think there needs to be a team approach to social media adoption. Maybe this is the strategy that will drive corporate adoption rates.

Maybe this is the only way we’ll truly see a lasting increase in corporate “socialarity”.

Questions of the day.

Do you know an organization that is doing great things with social media? increasing their “socialarity”? one that is educating employees around these tools? using social media to help increase interdepartmental communications or break down functional barriers?

It’s designed to allow readers to contribute insights, access tips on browsing, ask questions and build community. Site owners are [...]]]> Google has launched Sidewiki, a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page. It was launched on September 23, so some of you may have thoughts on its viability by now.

It’s designed to allow readers to contribute insights, access tips on browsing, ask questions and build community. Site owners are provided with the ability to interact with users, editing and responding in a way that links into the new technology being made available through Google Wave.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can access the sidewiki feature by downloading the Google toolbar with sidewiki, online at www.google.com/sidewiki.

So, is this a great tool for capturing feedback and launching conversations or does it throw the doors  wide open to spammers and give ‘em free reign?

Question of the day

What will you use sidewiki for, if anything?