Three Resources to Use:

1. Use the Forbes CMO article as a guide for your marketing leadership, pass along this article “CMOs: Consumers Are Connected. You Need To Be, Too”.
2. Below, use the detailed matrix (and the links within them) for the strategists who need to plan out the actual programs.
3. Leave a comment with other suggestions, and benefit from working with the very savvy Web Strategy community, who I learn from every single day (thank you).

Sharing This Content
Occasionally, I get a few emails from people asking if they can use my blog posts in their presentations. Here’s my policy: You cannot package up this content and sell it without my permission. However, it is ok to use for educational purposes as long as you give me credit on the slide, mention it verbally, and link to my blog. Creative Commons defines this as: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Love to hear your comments below, and how social impacts all digital channels.

Thanks to Christine Tran, Altimeter Researcher for her editorial expertise on the Forbes piece.

The Social Support movement is afoot (see opportunities), and more companies will be connecting existing marketing and support systems with the social web. Many companies, like Comcast, Wells Fargo, Intel, BestBuy, JetBLue are responding to customers and in some cases, supporting them in near real time.

The challenge is that these teams are unable to scale, even a support team of ten full time folks at Comcast will have a hard time responding to all customers in all social channels. As a result, expect companies to resort to scalable ways to respond to customers, such as:

The Four Social Support Strategies

1) Do Nothing: Use Legacy Support Channels
Some companies will not respond to customers, it’s not in their culture, exposes them to risk, have specific legal or federal restrictions in place, or simply don’t get this space. In this case, these companies may only choose to support customers in their formal forms of support in 1800 numbers or on the official company websites

2) Employee Based Support:  Employees Respond to Customers
Many companies are assigning people in their support or product teams to respond to customers in the social web. The more conservative the company, the less people are officially able to support. Take for example financial services company Wells Fargo has a handful of “Social Concierges” that tweet on the @Ask_WellsFargo account, they set expectations around hours of service (insert banker’s hours joke here) and not to disclose account information. On the flip side, Best Buy encourages their thousands and thousands of “Blue Shirt” employees to respond using a Twitter CMS system that response from the official @Twelpforce account.

3) Peer Based Support: Customer to Customer Other companies will approach this by encouraging their top customers to respond on their behalf. By creating online communities where customers can self-support each other using Q&A features like Salesforce “Answers”, or my Lithium’s unique Twitter alerting system that encourages advocates to respond to prospects.  (Lithium is an Altimeter Group client).  It’s not just on branded communities, many companies encourage support from third party sites such as Get Satisfaction, who centralizes support for all products.

4) Automated Social Support: Computer Generated Tweets
Social CRM systems are going to be intelligent, in fact, they’ll start to incorporate bot-like features you can find in web-based chat support, or the logic from interactive voice systems (IVR), and respond to customers. Support and product teams can already tweet from some CRM interfaces, so attaching an intelligence module will be the next step –it could even come from existing employee Twitter handles.

Web Strategy Matrix:  The Four Social Support Strategies

Augmented Reality provides brands with an engaging experience that merges both the digital and the real world. This 30 second video shows how a 3D animation on the product box enabled me to understand the assembled product.

Lego’s “Digital Box” Provides Customers with an Interactive 3D Digital Experience
This weekend, I went to the local Lego store here in Silicon Valley (Hillsdale) to see a practical version of Augmented Reality. I was previously briefed by Metaio, the technology vendor that empowers the software for the Augmented Reality kiosks called, Digital Box. This store, outfitted with a kiosk with a screen and webcam gives instructions on how to show the contents of any box assembled in real time.   Not all of the boxes were equipped (I tried the Star Wars line with no available) but was able to grab this lego kit of a bus, hold it in front of the kiosk.  You can see that the contents ‘assembled’ on the screen, and came to life as a pre-set animation, as I rotated the box, the virtual animation would move with it, giving the illusion that the bus was actually moving over the box.

Breakdown: “Kiosk” Style Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality Not Ready For Primetime –Yet Promises Real World Engagement
The above matrix is just a breakdown of ‘Kiosk” style of Augmented reality, however let’s look at this space as a whole. This technology is in its infancy, the animations are still simple, don’t have a lot of interaction beyond rotation, and require moderate ability to line the product up directly with the web cam. Furthermore, there are barriers to entry as most people didn’t even know about this feature in the store till I showed them, and not every product was outfitted with the ability to display the interactions.

Despite the fact that this is an emerging technology with years ’till maturity, there are three major business opportunities:

1. Extending the web to the real world. Reusing existing digital marketing and support content (from the web) in the physical world will add mileage to marketing assets.  Consumers can access related existing content such as brochure facts, customer reviews, or web based demos that already exist wherever they are, without looking for a URL.  The camera lens will identify the product, then serve up the context information with a click of a button.
2. Greasing marketing and sales process. Creating an engaging experience with customers near point of sale reducing sales costs through sales aids or increasing interest. Animations and virtual experiences can be connected with any device from anywhere, triggering demos, how-to videos, or even 3D media that would entice a prospect to spend more time, or purchase the product.   Essentially, this means a virtual sales person or guide could assist any consumer from anywhere at anytime.
3. Ubiquitous information with mobile devices. Aside from kiosks in stores, we should eventually expect mobile devices to be equipped with the capability to instantly bring up internet information about any product in real-time.  Expect Google to develop a product that maps physical products with their online information, making them yet the middleman for internet advertising –again. Furthermore, it gets really interesting when a brand can ‘hijack’ another company’s brand by creating augmented reality experiences on the boxes of their competitors.

Most Lack a Personal Goal Strategy
Let me lay out some the observations I’ve noticed from some of the smartest folks I’ve watched achieve success in their lives.  Often they first tell me about the challenges, that most people don’t even have a personal goal strategy.  1) Most people don’t even have personal goals, seriously try it,  ask folks you work with: “What’s your personal goal?”   2) Most people think the end goal is a at 65 and do all their planning in anticipation of retiring a glorious life after doing 45 years in a desk job.  3) People confuse personal goals with personal first downs.  In football, A first-down is an incremental improvement (10 yards) but not the final goal.  Some examples of first-downs are  to finish a project, get a raise at work, lose 5 pounds, or to put money in their 401k account –all short term tasks but not addressing what they really would do if they were freed in life.  4) Most people keep their personal goals private and to themselves.  Afraid of rejection, or wanting to keep it private they write their idea down in the back of their minds, hoping it’ll someday get accomplished.

Develop A Personal Goal Plan
Now that I’ve outlined some of the challenges, let’s focus on the guidelines.

1. Actually have a personal goal. This is the most difficult one, although this requires some soul-searching think about the following questions:  ”What would you do if you were able to retire right now?”   or  ”What would you do if you were able to stop working because you’d be independentatly wealthy”.
2. Weave this goal into your life. Rather than waiting for 65 to achieve this goal, start weaving it into your life right now.  Make it your job, your career, your mission.  Do real research and write a blog about the topic, start to speak about it, people will see you as someone focused on it, which will fuel your path to the this goal.
3. Work backwards. Setting the goal is easy, but then layout the steps you’ll need to achieve in order to get there, I try to lay out 10 steps, and I can obviously see the first few steps and the last few steps, yet it’s dizzying filling out the in-between steps.
4. Tell everyone. Rather than keep your personal goals secret use your online and offline social networks to help people achieve your goals.  You’ll be surprised at people who have similar goals, or want to make that their goal and will join you.   Your network of friends will help you fill in the middle or ending steps that you might have been unable to see.

My Personal Goal: Operation Bluewater, 30 days in Hawaii, Net Positive
For what it’s worth, I’m going through this as I focus on #OperationBluewater: To spend 30 days in Hawaii net positive (I’m not paying to be there) a year, which I briefly outlined a few weeks ago.

Retirement, why wait now?  weave it into my career now, and work from the beach.  I blogged before how I love the tropics, the beautiful beaches, warm humid air, pink skies, Japanese food, and kind souls .  It’s a mere 5 hours plane ride for me from SF, and half way to Asia, and while it feels like another place, the creature comforts I’m used to are all accessible.  Rather than waiting till I’m 65 to retire there, I’m going to slowly relocate, up to 30 days at a time and maybe increase the duration over time.   So far, my plan is on track, and I’m following the guidelines above.

So how is it going? A few weeks ago I was at RetThink at Hawaii and was able to meet locals and those that loved being at the islands, I told anyone who would listen about my goals, and they were supportive.  Lately, it’s started to take on a life of it’s own, more people are talking about #OperationBluewater (see Twitter stream), and want it to be a personal goal of their own, and Christine Lu, Chris Noble, Eric Nakagawa are starting to talk about ways to make this happen.   Often people are coming up to me and saying “I support your goal of #OperationBluewater” which I translate as “I want to do it too, let’s do it together”, great let’s do it.  So there it is,  I’m putting my personal goals out there, let’s see if my goal can grow into a larger movement.

I wish you success on your own #OperationBluewater, I hope these guidelines helped.  Please share with others about your goals, or methods in which you achieve them in your life.

Photos from the last visit to Oahu two weeks ago

Many companies are entering the social/green/community space, with hopes of impressing customers, yet despite their best intentions, they could come across as inauthentic, and be damaging their own brand.  Companies should first take a self-assessment of their brand to see if they’re ready before they decide to enter the social space.

Companies should first assess their culture and ask:

• Is the company ready to talk about the good –and bad– with the market?
• Is the internal culture ready to embrace customers on their own terms?
• Is the culture ready to make changes based on the request of customers?

Launching a corporate blog is easy, a Twitter account even easier, yet if companies culture doesn’t match the values they’re telling the market, they risk brand damage through reduced credibility. You’re not fooling anyone.

Web Strategy Matrix: The Eight Stages Of Listening

Exercise: Self-Assess Culture, Roles, Process, Data, and Tools
Use this matrix to initiate a discussion within your company on which stage you’re at, then put a plan in place to grow to the next level. Do note, depending on size and complexity of the organization, different groups may be in more than one phase. First, identify the characteristics your company currently has, then define which phase you’re in:

1. Does the organization have the right culture setup that’s ready to listen?
2. Is the organization prepared to react to customer opinions? how about in real time?
3. Are the processes in place to triage information to the right teams? How about during a real-time crises on a Saturday morning?
4. Are the right roles in place to listen? Are proactive marketing and support teams trained, empowered, and ready to respond?
5. Is there a single repository of customer information or is it currently fragmented around the enterprise
6. Lastly, what technology platforms are in place to facilitate this strategy? ? Hint: choose this last –not first.

For Dialog: Which Stage Are Companies At?
Curious to hear your professional opinions, what stage do most companies think they’re at?  In reality, what stage are they truly acting at?

Translations
Please translate into other languages, I’ll be happy to link back to you

• Italian
• French

1) Shotgun: Toyota’s Yaris Campaign Spreads Chances
While experimentation is always important, companies must do so in the context of a goal, whether it’s to test and learn, or just to prove to management it can be done. Take for example Toyota’s latest campaign, which is much akin to interactive marketing or advertising (not social engagement), where they’ve funded eight agencies to spend $15,000 only on their social marketing campaigns. The goal is to see who can make it work and stick, then they’ll spend more money with the firm that achieves ‘viral’ growth. This shotgun approach has caught the criticism of Laurel Papworth, she’s right at vegas, this is called spreading your bets on the roulette table.

2) Laser: Ford’s Fiesta Movement Amplifies a Smaller Target
On the other hand, take for example the competitive car, the Ford Fiesta, which also plays the young hip efficient car for today’s youth. Ford’s approach was more focused, they put most of their eggs into reaching only 100 drivers that were social savvy influencers to get them to spread the word. This “Fiesta Movement” (NYT) was targeted at social influencers, empowered them although it’s unknown what the final impacts of the expensive loaner car program is.

Web Strategy Matrix: Social Marketing Approaches, Shotgun vs Laser

Brands Should First Start With Understanding Customers
So which way is better? First, let’s start with the most important factor, people. While padding the top line for revenues in a slumping economy continues to be important, it’s important to note that burning out your relationships with your community can cause long-term drain. Rather than test eight campaigns on a community causing ‘brand overload’, first do the research to find out the social behaviors (we call this SocialGraphics), identify who they trust online, and where they are located at online before doing anything. By first starting with data, you can reduce eight campaigns to two, or maybe one, and avoid burning out your brand –and community.

So what does this means to Toyota and Ford?  Toyota’s social efforts come across as young, they’re not sure what they’re doing so they’re hoping to see which (interactive+advertising) agency will figure it out for them.  On the other hand, Ford comes across as slightly more mature as having true influencer relationships (Similar to PR Influence Relations) and spend the time to build these real-world relationships.

Update: Thanks to Barbara for the “Fishing vs Friending” analogy.  Apparently the CEO of Ford read this post, welcome, an honor.

CMOs are hungry for information. The information landscape is in flux, consumers are more empowered as they assert control using social technologies. Additionally, things are moving faster, as mobile devices and microblogging makes real-time responses from companies not fast enough.  As a result, they are thirsty for what’s next, and how they can get ahead of the curve –with minimal risk.

This regular monthly (or more) column on the Forbes CMO network (@ForbesCMO) isn’t reporting, but instead will marry industry level insight and provide pragmatic advice. After I post industry insights at Forbes, I’ll also cross-post or point to it from the Web Strategy blog so you don’t miss out on anything.

Having met many of the CMO and marketing leaders at a recent Forbes event, they are certainly more sophisticated in their understanding (my first piece at Forbes) of new technologies and are ready to understand, trial, and adopt new methods. While we know that ’social marketing’ is the hot topic for senior marketers especially during a recession, I’ll be pushing the thinking as I explore location based social networks and mobile technologies –all in support of improving the customer relationship.  I’m thankful for the opportunity to advance the industry, and hope to be a guide to marketing leaders who want to benefit from new technologies.

Now, to hear your opinions. As we continue to connect with marketing leaders and CMOs around the globe, I need your help what do you think they should know about emerging technologies. If you could speak to CMOs, what would you tell them? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Things appear to be picking up in the economy, and I’d like to continue to recognize those moving in the social media space. I’ve started this post series (see archives) to both track and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

• Mike Pascucci leaves AAA Mid-Atlantic, and accepts the job of Social Media Strategist with Ektron, a Content Management System (CMS) company based out of Nashua, NH. Find him on Twitter at @mikepascucci.
• Kingsely Joseph leaves Salesforce and joins Digital Chocolate an digital gaming company in San Mateo as Sr. Product Manager, Social Games at Digital Chocolate. I’m sure I’ll be hearing a lot about his new ventures, as we share the same building (keep it down up there alright? kiddin), find him on Twitter at Kingsley2
• Former Facebook platform marketing manager Josh Elman joins Twitter as the Product Manager. I’ve interacted with Josh frequently during his role at Facebook, and found him insightful, helpful, and now a friend. Best wishes to Josh on his new adventure at yet-the-next-big thing. Find him on Twitter at @joshelman
• Warren Sukernek leaves Radian 6 and was hired at Lift 9 as the Partner & VP of Strategies. Warren will be responsible for leading teams in providing actionable insights from the company’s socail media research and analytics solutions, find him at @warrenss
• Gwen Peake joins Ford Motor Company as the Digital Communications Manager Reporting to Scott Monty, and will coordinate digital communications & social media efforts for Ford. Find Gwen on twitter at @gwenj.
• Mike Osswald is promted at Hanson, Inc., a digital agency as VP, Experience Innovation Where he will focus on identifying future-forward, significant trends and technologies. His focus on, social technologies will allow co-workers and channel partners to engage in all facets of product and service design.
• Additionally, Lisa Wilberding also joins Hanson, Inc as the Midwest Social Engagement & Messaging Strategist where she will define, plan and execute long-term Social Engagement solutions for clients, as well as create messaging for web sites and interactive communications.
• Dan Kidd is hired at community platform vendor Neighborhood America as a Senior Director, CPG, Custom Research where he’ll be focused on Social Media Campaign Analytics.
• Last but not least, congrats to Augie Ray, who was hired at Forrester Research as an industry analyst covering Social Computing For Interactive Marketers. We wish him the best in this fantastic new role –congrats to the team! Find him at @augieray

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, fill out this form.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals.

Job Resources in the Social Media and Web Industry

Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, these affiliate fees pay for my hosting)

Read Write Web keeps announcements flowing at Jobwire, although is broader than just social media jobs

Facebook group for community manager group in Facebook

Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Altimeter Group’s list of social media consultants and agencies

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, please)

To Combat Google’s Stealth Social Network, Facebook Goes Open
Facebook’s recent moves to In an open discussion, they revealed that they’re attempting to take great strides in the spirit of openness –yet beyond the ‘feel good’ move, this prepares Facebook for a more distributed approach, that will help them further colonize the open web.  With the growth of the Facebook population blooming to 300 million, they’ve already demonstrated critical mass. Yet Facebook’s biggest threat isn’t other social networks like MySpace, or Bebo, their biggest threat is Google’s stealth social network, which seeks to envelope Facebook like an octopus. In order to countermove Google’s zen-like play, they’re taking a similar open approach, here’s what you should know:

How Facebook’s Open Strategy Shifts The Roadmap for Corporate Marketing
Although they announced several improvements (like a cleaner UI),  let’s focus on three strategic initiatives and what they mean to brands:

Revealing Roadmap Strengthens All Relationships
From allowing non-students to join the community, launching the newsfeed to the ill-fated Beacon, Facebook’s spirit of innovation has often gotten ahead of its users.  In a response to help both users and developers better understand Facebook’s future vision, they have now shared their 6 month roadmap in public for all to see.  This helps developers properly allocate resources and prepare product timelines, as well as give users and brands forewarning for upcoming changes.  This move not only helps with planning, but signals a relationship of trust, and indicates this is more about ‘us’ than just Facebook.

Sharing of Email Addresses Fuels Social CRM
Facebook plans to allow users to share their email address with developers and brands at the control of the consumer.   Currently, corporate marketing and support systems are unable to easily identify which customers are talking about brands in the public web –there is no unique identifier.   Because email is a unique, universal identifier, (a primary key) brands who are investing in social CRM can better identify users. The promise to identify prospects vs customers, provide faster and customized support customers, or even provide contextual information will be at hand.

Fan Pages Everywhere Connects Corporate Sites and Social Networks
Facebook will soon allow website owners to allow any of their webpages to now embed Facebook Fan features.  This “Open Graph API” allows any product page could have Fan features that allow users to subscribe by becoming fans, and receive information on their Facebook newsfeeds that could be seen by their friends.   This competitive move to Google’s SideWiki, extends the Facebook experience beyond the social network to corporate websites –making every webpage social.

Recommendations: Update your 2010 Planning:
Web strategists who have an active customer base in Facebook, should shift resources and planning for 2010 based on Facebook’s roadmap, in order to align with these significant changes, they should:

• Evolve Your Web Strategy Roadmap Brands and developers should analyze the changes coming to the Facebook platform, and start to allocate resources.  Although the roadmap provides general dates (month or quarter) around feature releases, developers should engage in dialog within the developer community or with Facebook themselves.  In particular, the sharing of email addresses is planned for Nov 2009, and owners of the your Social CRM program should start planning immediately.  Secondly, with the Facebook Fan page features coming in early 2010,  web strategists should identify appropriate products to test, begin iterative design, and ensure legacy CMS systems are able to include these client side scripts.
• Integrate Social Marketing with Existing Email Marketing If you’ve earned the trust of your customers, and they’ve shared their email address with your brand, you can now match their address with your existing customer databases and fuel your Social CRM initiatives.  Secondly, if customers have opt-in you can now provide useful emails to your customers, or adding additional rows in your existing email marketing programs.  Above all, be sure that you’re transparent with customers how you plan to use their email addressees, and always make it opt-in.
• Boost Your Social CRM Strategy With Customer Data.  Social CRM is a company’s response to the fleeting customer who self-supports each other in public social networks.  In order to provide your customer with a holistic experience, you’ll need to map customer profiles in existing CRM databases to those in the public web.  Start a discussion immediately with your CRM team to prepare for this influx of data, while initially the data will be just emails, the information in their profile could help to build a richer customer model that aids marketing, development, and support.
• Prepare Steady Cadence of Community Focused Content. Now that every webpage can become a Facebook Fan page, your raving customers will want to get more information about your products –and tell their friends.   You’ll need to create, and fulfill, an editorial agenda that fuels this ongoing dialog.  Forget about advertising as we know it, instead create an editorial agenda encourages dialog such as contests, incentives that can be shared with their friends.

Currently, search results serve up content that is popular –but not necessarily content that is accurate or relevant to your needs. With Google’s Social Search feature, it will serve up results based on a users’ specific contact list, here’s how it works:

Using the recently launched Google Profile product, users will be able to add their name, then list out the various social networks they are part of. Google goes to work and finds out who’s your friend in those social networks, then applies it to it’s search algorithm. The end result? Search queries now serve up results based on your friends experiences, even in local markets.

The Impacts Of Google’s Social Search to Web Strategists

Social search empowers customers over search marketers. With consumers influencing each other in search results, this diminishes the power of traditional search marketing as people can lean on each other. We saw this in PR, journalism, and other industries, this is just a continuing trend.

To regain power, brands must focus on advocacy programs. If consumers will lean on each other to make decisions in search results, brands must become a platform for their top customers. Learn how to build an advocacy program using this checklist.

Encourage word of mouth by requesting online reviews and feedback Since users will gradually rely on their friends for recommendation in social search, advocacy programs will need to be bolstered by word of mouth programs. Brands should encourage word of mouth by making it easy to review products, encourage customers to give feedback, and even consider transparent sponsored discussions to foster word of mouth.

In consideration to attendees of this event, I won’t be giving any specific individual quotes, (this wasn’t a media event) but instead, I’ll focus on the insights related to emerging technologies, overall budgets and market economics.

The Dialog on Social Marketing Has Elevated:

CMOs on a holding pattern for growth. Our host, Steve Forbes kicked off the first evening, telling us why he believes we got into this financial spiral. He gave a broad economic lecture covering mortgage, congress, the weakened dollar and compared the current situation to other global and historical incidents. Although the theme of the event was “Preparing for Growth”, I didn’t get the sense that marketers had increased their budgets or were preparing for a marketing upswing. Yet despite decreased marketing budgets, the opportunity to innovate with inexpensive channels were discussed.

CMOs admitted they were losing power to the empowered consumer. A few years ago, the conversation may have been one of resistance, argument or fear of these changes. Yet this group had moved on, accepted the changes, and had already put into place programs to benefit from market changes. I liked Greg Walsh’s quotes, one of the opening moderators (I just reviewed his book) he openly admitted that power was shifting to the empowered consumers. He gave the analogy that previously marketers were used to ‘Bowling’, where marketers could easily throw a message down the aisle and hit the pins with great confidence. Now, he eloquently describe, it was more like ‘Pinball’ where a marketer could load the message up, shoot it out, but have no idea where it will end up.

Social was on the lips of nearly everyone. Although not all the panels and speeches were focused on social, it was noted by speakers and moderators it was a recurring theme among the day. Charlene Li (who invited me to attend, thanks) lead a panel with executives from the Ritz-Carlton, Porsche, and HP. This wasn’t the usual social rhetoric of the 101 questions, but the overall group asked sophisticated questions around the change in influence, reputation management, and integration with existing programs. For example, the Ritz, has already woven in social to their experience, each hotel manager spend over an hour reviewing the online conversation (even Tweets) at their location before walking the grounds each morning.

Social is difficult to measure –yet marketers know they must be there. One of the Forbes moderators gave a stat that they polled the Forbes CMO group to find that “Over 70% of the CMOs polled will do more in the social space this coming year”. Yet, when asked “How do you measure success?” there wasn’t a clear answer, it’s still baffling. Although social marketing is easier to measure than real world ‘analog’ ads, it’s more difficult to measure than web based digital ads. Similar to the difficulties measuring analog marketing, they’re ok with not being able to measure everything in social –they now see the value.

Beyond monitoring, insight from the social sphere is untapped. Social media monitoring is just the first baby step, most companies haven’t tapped into what the data actually means. I sat next to the CEO of Autonomy who’s mission is to organize customer and market data and make sense of it for companies. We were both nodding to each other seeing the opportunities to mine, understand, and make sense out of the vast unstructured social data sets and develop richer customer profiles and map out relationships.

In private conversations, I asked a few if they think the pace of technology change is increasing, and they said “yes”, interesting times ahead. Finally, I’d like to thank Forbes for inviting me to attend and participate, they graciously paid for my travel and hotel.

Update: This post has been reprinted on the Forbes CMO network.

The Thesis: The Corporation of the Future Should Inspire Trust
Selling products to make a profit is no longer sufficient. Companies must also appease the human nature of their customers as they are now demanding sustainability, open conversation, helping the community, transparency, and an ethos and mission they can relate to. The book asks four fundamental questions, they are: 1) Do customers care about what the brand stands for beyond just the immediate use of the product? 2) Do customers talk to each other about these higher goals 3) What should companies do to assure their brand is more than a collection of boxes or software code? 4) Does it impact the bottom line? If so, how much?

Unlike Other “Do-Good” Books, There’s Useful Data
Good for Business is a touchy-feely book which ultimately concludes that companies need have loftier goals than just profit such as donating to charities, volunteer work, and brands that make you feel warm and fuzzy. At first, I groaned when reading the start of the book, having been victim of “do good” speeches when I was in corporate –it always felt like an empty shell.   Yet the book started to win me over when the four authors presented meaningful stats and graphs about the growing fickle customer, their desire for brands to be more than just profit machines. Using data they made an argument that companies showing their human appeal a worth while investment.

Chock Full Of Case Studies –With Measurable Business Impact
I’m not sold that the earthy huggy ‘humanized brand’ is right for every company, some cultures simply won’t be able to adapt and some customers just want their immediate needs solved. The book also gives dozens of case studies of companies that have an ethos of more than just profit such as: Jones Soda empowers customers by letting consumers pick labels, Ernst and Young connects with their millennial employees talk back by launching an internal community called “Feedback Zone”. The Container Store is one of the top places to work as they allow employees to have flexible hours, How UK’s Innoccent drinks values it’s employees more than sales and profits and dozens of other examples.

Jeremiah’s Review: Good For Business

The Good: A Convincing Argument
The book Good for Business sets the stage that the world has changed and companies need to change too. It also gives some juicy data points and dozens of anecdotes of companies that have made the leap. It’s well-written, and can be consumed in a few hours.

The Bad: Leaves More Questions Than Answers
The book falls short in a two ways. While stories are entertaining for a long flight I find myself asking more questions that were unanswered, like: 1) What were the challenges these companies went through during this metamorphosis? What was the common barrier  2) Although there’s a loose framework towards the end of the book, how do I get started? How do I do this?  Although a nitpick, while the cover art is catchy, yet the smiley faced button is reminiscent of Walmart (was that intentional?) or the comic book movie The Watchman, which has no relation to this topic.

The Verdict:  Addresses Right Questions, But Doesn’t Tell You How
Good for Business asks the right questions, get you thinking, but seems it’s missing a few chapters. The thesis convinces you that changes need to be made, but feels empty, as it never tells you how to do it. I recommend you put Good For Business on your reading list, but read the more important books that give a pragmatic approach. To summarize, I give this book a grade of a “B” or “Four out of Five Stars”. If anything, this book is calling for a sequel to answer these questions.

That’s just my take, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book, or your comments on similar titles.

Work, Online, and Life Mix
As employees check personal websites at work (and likely on work computers) they are indeed using corporate infrastructure. Similarly, as employees do work from home in the evening on personal or work computers the lines continue to blur.  It can become even more blurry, as the work and lifestyle content share on social networks becomes one in the same. For example, a LinkedIn account that describes an individual’s career goals which she uses to network with prospects is both personal and work related. Secondly, a product manager who announces new features using his Twitter account is discussing work-related content.

Social Accounts Created At Work, Who Owns Them?
What becomes even more dizzying is the thousands of professionals that have career-related blogs that attract companies in the first place. Who owns their blog posts during their tenure at a company? If an employee generated revenue from those blog posts should the revenue go back to the employer? What if a career blog is launched during employment at a company and discusses information related to the company, or a LinkedIn profile during employment, who owns them?

Case Example: Cisco’s CTO on Twitter and Her Million+ Followers
The real question is: Would a company even want this information? I discussed this on Twitter and many scoffed at the ideas that a company would want bits of 140 characters at a time. Take for example the Twitter account of Padmasree of Cisco. She created this account during her employment at Cisco, and talks about both personal and Cisco related content. Her Twitter account, as the CTO of Cisco is on the suggested users list by Twitter and she has over 1,200,000 followers. This is clearly an asset to her and Cisco, and if she leaves would be a loss to Cisco. I’ve spoken in public with Jeanette Gibson of Cisco communications, and they make it clear it is an account owned by Padmasree, she owns it if she decides to leave Cisco.

Guest Post: Perspective From A Lawyer
I’m not a lawyer, so I’ve asked one to comment on this topic. I recently moderated a panel at Blog World Expo on the topic of sponsored conversations, and I was delighted to meet Attorney Lisa J Borodkin, (her blog, Twitter) who specializes in federal court litigation and the resolution of complex commercial disputes. Her substantive expertise is copyright, trademark and new media law. She commented on this post draft post, and gave me permission to publish the following, which are completely in Lisa’s words, she writes:

“There are several dimensions to this issue.

First, the contract law aspect.

It’s important in the age of the blog and Twitter that people understand that a clause claiming all “intellectual property” created during the term of employment would be property of the company would cover tweets and blog posts. This provision would also cover anything else creative the person did on the side, as a hobby, such as writing a screenplay, or creating a comic strip, even purely for fun.

For this reason, when I represent entertainment executives who are presented with this type of clause in an employment contract, I ask that it be restricted only to intellectual property created within the scope of their job duties under the agreement. The rationale is that if you are not being paid to create something, then the company shouldn’t own your output simply because it is created during the term of employment. That would be a windfall for the company. So it’s a new twist on an issue that has been around for a while. The twist is that when these provisions were first written, I doubt anyone ever thought of blogging or Twitter. So this ownership should be only tied if possible to the type of job the person is hired for.

Second, the copyright law aspect.

Most terms of service for blog hosting sites and Twitter provide that the user is the author and owns the copyright in the blog post or Tweets. (Here’s a link to a blog post I wrote on the subject: http://lisaborodkin.com/ip-protection-for-blog-posts/ ) They also provide that, by using the blog hosting provided by the site, the user grants a perpetual free license to the blog host for using the content. This is a pretty fair distribution of rights. Everyone wins.

The point here is that company “ownership” of the blog or tweet content is not the only option. For most company purposes, a shared license or joint copyright would probably also be just as beneficial. For the blogger, ensuring that the blogger is always credited as the author of the work with a credit and trackback or link is probably the key condition.

Third, the policy aspect.

The larger question is whether the job or industry the person is in is of the type that a company would find it beneficial for the person to be blogging during work hours or using work equipment. There is a good online database of social media policies from a variety of companies at http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php They vary wildly, from PR firm Porter Novelli’s “Never comment anonymously” rule, to the EFF’s detailed advice on “How to blog anonymously.” As you state, the reality is that people will blog, Tweet and use social networks, and it is healthier for companies to embrace that and recognize the value in such individual activities, where it is beneficial to the company’s mission.

By now I hope everyone realizes that thousands of lawyers every day are fully employed in reviewing millions of company emails that have been subpoenaed in lawsuits all over the world. As long as a company reminds everyone that they have no right of privacy in anything that goes through the company’s computer systems, and that this extends beyond email to social networks, then employers and employees can undertake these activities mutually aware of the risks and rewards. The hope is that both will find shared value in mixing social media with work and allocate the potential economic rewards in an equitable manner.”

Jeremiah: Thanks Lisa for your insight, it’s interesting that many employees probably don’t realize that content that goes through the company’s systems is owned by the employer –even their personal Facebook messages.

Key Takeaways

• Companies are attracted to potential employees with the ability to communicate online, and those that have a built-in following, yet the rights over the content created aren’t entirely clear.
• Both personal and work lives are mixing online and off, creating blurry lines between ownership of content.  In many cases, legacy employment contracts give ownership to the company –even personal created content on company systems.
• Employees are creating social content that relates to work often on company-owned property, or during work hours.

Recommendations:

• Employees should get educated on this topic and find out what it means in your existing employment contract.  Get a lawyer that understands the language of the contract, and can advise and protect you.
• Employees should carefully review their existing employee contract to know the boundaries, risks, and liability for their online activity.
• Employees should understand how to create a “carve out” in the employment contract for personal created media.
• Companies should understand benefits and risks, then evaluate their social media policy and update it to reflect the changing world of social as personal and work lives collide.
• Companies and employees should setup training, policies, and a dedicated group within a company to help employees to understand best practices in the new world where personal and work content collide in the workplace and at home.

Updated: Someone tweeted this related cartoon out.

Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams.  Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing.  This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and social web for marketing, support, and competitive strategies.  There are several impacts to the ecosystem, here’s what you should know:

• Deal Fills In Technology and Relationship Gaps for Twitter. Twitter lacks the computing power of a premiere search engine, as their current Twitter search results are littered with spam, duplicate tweets, and are only sorted by time.   Leveraging the sophisticated engineers at Microsoft and Google affords Twitter an opportunity to focus on their platform –not search.  From a business aspect, this deal makes sense is that Microsoft and Google both have relationships with advertisers and brands, with trained sales forces to cut deals. Although the terms of the deal aren’t public, it’s suspect there was an exchange of material goods, it’s likely that Twitter will benefit from revenue share in the near future.
• Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority. Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results.  As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo” location based tweets could provide additional context.  4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends.  Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile.
• To Compete, Facebook Must Make More Content Public. For closed social networks like Facebook, this means they need to continue to offer up more data that can be searched in public by search engines.  With default settings in Facebook set to ‘friends only’ this will continue to be a challenge as Facebook’s community prefers the filters and privacy settings that this closed social network provides.
• Twitter’s Future: Seamless Integration with the Web. Success for Twitter isn’t about becoming a destination site, but instead about becoming a data protocol that’s embedded everywhere.    Like “Air“, microblogging features are already present in multiple applications, desktop and mobile clients, and the bite-sized information is becoming available in context wherever it’s needed.
• Customers Influence Search Results An even more amazing impact of these announcements is that for the first time, consumers will be able to directly impact web search results. Although companies spend thousands of marketing dollars controlling their search results by using Google’s advertising services, customers and competitors can quickly and cheaply impact search results using simple tools like Twitter.  Consumers, empowered using mobile devices as a publishing platform can link to content and influence search results. Now, a simple tweet with a picture of a plane landing on the Hudson from a mobile phone will show up at the top of search results.

Key Takeaways: Customers Impact Brand Search Results Using Twitter
Even if your company is not active on Twitter, your customers can influence the search results related to your company –you must pay attention to this trend.  Just as your company likely already has a search strategy through search optimization or paid search terms, you’ll need to extend micromedia to your strategy.  In order to be prepared for this change, companies must:

1. Develop a Listening Strategy That Starts With Roles and Process.  Every business and market is now moving faster and faster as information spreads around the globe in minutes –if not seconds.  Companies must be ready to quickly identify flare ups, be ready to respond, and correct incorrect information.  Develop a listening strategy that has internal roles set in place, a process to respond and the right tools like Radian 6, Visible Technologies, BuzzMetrics, or Cymfony.
2. Change The Marketing Mindset –Legacy Methods Ineffective. Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to. Instead, marketers should allow content on all web properties and email marketing to be easily added to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites by offering icons that encourage people to share. Providers like ShareThis and AddThis make this simple to do.
3. Develop Influence Marketing Programs. Since these search engines have all noted that they will rank real time information on a person’s authority and not just traditional page ranking, marketers must double down on building these relationships.  More than ever, brands will need to foster discussions within Twitter as retweet, replies, and linking behavior will influence what is served up on results pages.  It takes time to build real relationships that develop into public conversations so get started now.

Related Links:
For a list of social networking stats (including Twitter) we’ve a 2009 collection we keep up to date.

Mobile Social Network Offers Discounts Based On Location
Using FourSquare, a location based social network, I ‘checked in’ to the movie theatre indicator to my friends my location.  Immediately after the application identified my approximate location it offered a ’special nearby’ which I clicked.  The Savvy Cellar Wine Bar offered me 50% off a wine flight to a store 2 blocks away. Using both my general location using 3GS on the iPhone and my explicit checkin to the location, it was able to serve up advertisements based on my physical location.  We should expect FourSquare to evolve and eventually offer advertisements based on your friends interests “John, Amy, and Allen all like Los Taqaritors, invite them now for a 20% off discount”.  Location based ads will soon connect with social information.

Catering To “Top” Customers Spur Word Of Mouth
The opportunities aren’t just focused on location based, but also provide opportunity for developing an unpaid army of advocates.  Take for example Foursquare’s point system, those who ‘check in’ the most to a location can become the ‘mayor’ of their particular store, indicating they’re the top customer.  Some savvy restaurants provide free drinks or other services to the mayor, who will continue to spread their affinity for a restaurant using social networks.   A few weeks ago, I spent time with Yelp’s marketing team and their community manager Connie who oversees many of the community facing events.  I learned that many local restaurants cater to Yelp Elite, and will likely provide them with quality service above and beyond, in fact, Yelp has launched a program for restaurants to offer a prix fixe menus for Yelp users. Expect to see Yelp’s mobile application advertise these special deals for Yelpers as they search for restaurants online using mobile devices.

Empowered Customers Check Prices In Real Time –Impacting Buying Behavior
Even if you don’t have a physical store, but offer a consumer good, consider RedLaser, which is a real-time bar code scanner that allows any phone to scan UPC codes and find them cheaper online.  This means that retailers with higher priced products may miss out as consumers can quickly buy it from a competitive store down the street or find it online.  If this trend continues, manufactures may shift their supply away from high-priced retailers to compensate for the change in demand.  (Thanks Andrew Hyde for the tip)

Innovative Market Dependent On Adoption
Despite the innovation, location based marketing and advertising has its limitations as it’s dependent on: total number of consumers with mobile devices, adoption of mobile social networks, and their desire to find location-based offers.

Key Takeaways For Local Businesses:
Local businesses should approach these mobile social networks in a four part strategy –not simply reacting without a plan.  Companies should approach this space by:

• Listening In For Free Research. Local businesses should immediatly montior their brands on mobile social networks like Yelp and FourSquare.  Use this information as free research: find out the perception of customers opinions both good –and bad to learn about their market.
• Responding To Reviewers. Use negative information as a way to improve products and services and let your community know you’re listening to their feedback.  Although there are always two-sides to any complaint use these same tools to respond to customers in public, but be sure to abide by the terms of service.
• Rewarding Top Customers.  Customers that frequently patron your store and tell others on these mobile social networks should be rewarded.  Build both in person and online relationships with them so they’ll continue to advertise and market on your behalf.  Free drinks anyone?
• Preparing for pricing impacts and positioning.  With disruptive tools like RedLaser appearing, customers can quickly find pricing of products and find them at nearby retailers.  Retailers like CVS, Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Safeway should take heed as consumers continue to become empowered through instant information.  Companies will need to respond by:  making product pricing more competitive, or offering other deals such as bundling, speed, time, or other value-based offerings.

Update: Here’s some screenshots, I learned how to take screenshots with your iPhone by holding the main button and power button.

Despite a downturn in the economy, we continue to recognize those moving in the social media space. I’ve started this post series (see archives) to both track and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

• MySpace is finally filling its executive board after ushering out nearly the entire leadership team at troubled social network. They’ve recruited an experienced team to turn the ship around starting with Nada Stirratt has joined MySpace in the role of Chief Revenue Officer, Dustin Finer has come on board as MySpace’s Chief People Officer, Ali Partovi, former CEO of iLike, will serve as Senior Vice President of Business Development based in San Francisco, Hadi Partovi, former president of iLike, will serve as Senior Vice President of Technology based in Seattle. More information can be found on CEO Owen Van Natta’s Blog.
• Adam Nash, has been internally promoted at LinkedIn as the Vice President, Search & Platform Products at LinkedIn. We recently spoke, and he emphasized LinkedIn’s commitment to his space, hence crafting his role. I’ll be watching this area of opportunity closely, congrats Adam.
• Vanina Delobelle left Monster and is now working for Sears Holdings Corporation in Chicago. As I a manager of e-commerce Product Management, Vanina will build a social commerce solution.
• Microsoft gets serious about Social Computing and launches the Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs, a new group led by general manager Lili Cheng that will focus on software and services that are centered on social connectivity, real-time experiences, and rich media.
• Sheila Scarborough launches new social venture in her role with a focus on social and tourism, her blog captures her hard work, get some sleep already!
• James Whatley @whatleydude left his role as Head of Digital, Social Media for SpinVox at the end of August and has taken up a position as Director of Engagement Strategy at WOM Agency, 1000heads.
• Bob Bahramipour joins InXpo a virtual events company, as CMO to oversee all aspects of marketing, including advertising, brand awareness and product marketing, to further drive adoption for the company’s virtual solutions. This also includes social media and how to incorporate this further into our platform. I’ve met Bob in person, and recognize his talents, I expect to see good things spring from his fresh perspective.
• John Hegstrom is a new VP of Client Services also at InXpo a virtual events company. His goal is to ensure that customers successfully reach their target audiences, deliver their messages effectively, and build engaging and collaborative virtual environments.

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, fill out this form.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

List of Enterprise Social Media Professionals
This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals. Other job resources include:

Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, these affiliate fees pay for my hosting)

Read Write Web keeps announcements flowing at Jobwire, although is broader than just social media jobs

Facebook group for community manager group in Facebook

Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Altimeter Group’s list of social media consultants and agencies

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, please)

I recently spoke with Dave Elchoness of GoWeb3D who’s one of the early pioneers in the Augmented Reality (AR, but not to be confused with Analyst Relations) industry. In this above video he gives a demonstration of how information (often from the web) can be over layed on top of physical locations. Unlike Virtual Reality (like the now obscure Second Life) the barriers to entry are mobile devices, internet access, and utility can make this a reality.

Dave’s business GoWeb3D provides a data layer on top of the Dutch Layar browser (update: also see Wikitude “World Browser) which is available for some mobile platforms –iPhone is coming. This browser will allow developers to create data layers what will provide AR experiences. Users of this application can “drop” digital content such as blog posts, photos, videos, for their friends or customers who visit a specific location in real life.

I’m still chalking this space as “to watch” as we should first expect growth to happen in the mobile social web first, let’s keep an eye on promising emerging technology as it quickly comes around.

A few months ago Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group launched her Engagement Database report, which showed which brands were most active with their customers in social sites. Today, we’re proud that partner Ray Wang launches the Software as a Service Bill of Rights for customers, you can view, download, or share the document from his blog.

Our research wasn’t created in a hole, we want to help the community that we serve and involved 57 ecosystem partners for their feedback, input and guidance. We’ve also made the research available using Creative Commons–meaning we encourage it to be shared with others.

How to use the Software As A Service Bill of Rights

• If you’re a buyer of any of these markets, use this document as a checklist to ensure your rights are being met.
• Have a dialog with your vendors, asking them where they fall within these bill of rights and where they differentiate.
• Encourage your existing vendors to follow these rights as you negotiate your next renewal.

The Audience Continues To Gain Power Over Speakers
A few years ago, the first major eruption occurred from the audience hijacking the attention at SXSW during an ill-fated interview on the main stage. Even weeks ago, Kanye’s debacle was commented on by Twittering attendees despite them not even having the mic.

This week, an audience revolt happened at the Higher Education Conference, you can read about it here, here, here and here.  Although I was miles away, I was watching it unfold in real time on Twitter search –I felt horrible for that speaker who likely didn’t even know what was happening till someone posted his phone number on Twitter and people were texting him how horrible he had done. Ouch, the audience was vindictive and felt injured and wanted to get back.

Savvy Speakers Will Engage With Audience In Real World –and In Digital
Critics would suggest that monitoring the backchannel is counter intuitive to what a speaker should be doing: focused on presenting.  Yet, I’d argue that some power has shifted to the audience –and with that comes responsibility of the speaker to respond to the power shift.  As a speaker (I’m now represented by Monitor Talent), I feel empathy and at the same time am scared this doesn’t happen to me.  The best way for speakers to avoid this revolt is to make sure that they be aware of the changes in power shifts and develop a plan to integrate social.

How Speakers Should Integrate Social Into Their Presentation:

Prepare More Than Ever.  This is baseline. I could give a long list of speaking dos and don’t but there’s been books, classes, and private coaches that provide that (something I’m going to continue to invest in as I grow). It boils down to: know your audience, have strong content, practice, repeat.  The change here is that the audience will scrutinize you, grade you, for all to see.

Know Your Audience’s Social Technology Adoption. While the first audience revolt was at SXSW, a new media tech conference, where adoption of new communication tools is likely.  The Higher Education conference wasn’t focused solely on technology (update: in the comments, I learned this was a technology conference), so this revolt has moved out of the technology scene.    You’ll need to pay attention to this more at conferences where social is active, first gauge the discussion in chat rooms or twitter using search tools.  Find the conference hashtag (if there is one) to determine level of activity.

Monitor the Backchannel While Speaking. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Guy Kawasaki keynote a large conference, he monitors the body actions from the crowd and commands attention of the audience, he’s making micro-tweeks to his presentation to engage and react.   Just as speakers do this in the real world, they must be monitoring the verbal, explicit reactions in the backchannel like Twitter or a chat room.   Ask coordinators to display a monitor on stage facing you to see hashtags, use your mobile phone, or have your computer on stage to quickly see the stream.

Develop Backup Resources to Monitor. Some speakers have told me this is nearly impossible for them to do as they are focused on presenting content, here’s two tips for you. Speakers who are unable to monitor the backchannel should have a buddy attend the speech, sit in the front row, or off stage, and indicate if there’s something out of the ordinary they need to respond to.  If your speaker content is rehearsed –it should be second nature to present it.   Scoble is known for taking “Twitter breaks” during his presentation every 15 minutes to gauge the audience feedback.

Interact with the Audience: If your speech is going well, a majority of the tweets will be echos of what you’re saying then retweets.  However, some speakers should monitor and look for questions, comments, or interesting new information that would add to the presentation.  For example, at the Web 2.0 expo, I saw an audience member say my panel was boring on twitter, so I immediately shifted to Q&A which kept the audience interest.

Practice Two-Fisted Speaking. In the future, we may start to see presenters with two devices in hand: the presentation clicker in right hand, and cell phone in right hand, monitoring the flow of conversation.  Despite the presenter having great control with the clicker controlling the flow of conversation, ultimately the audience has more control as they scrutinize, talk to each other, and shape a complete other conversation.  Speakers should practice integrating input as they output in real-time first in private, then integrate into their performance.

I’d love to hear from you how speakers should respond to the power shifting to the audience, I know there’s a lot I can continue to learn in the craft of speaking.  What should speakers do?

Related Resources:

• How to Successfully Moderate a Conference Panel.
• Web Strategy: How To Integrate Social Technologies with Virtual Events
• BusinessWeek’s Larry Chiang has extended the conversation and has republished this blog post with my permission
• A powerpoint plugin allows tweets to be seen right on the screen in presentation mode, link via Charlene Li
• Econsultancy weighs in, and agrees with about 80% of my suggestions.