With the noted exception of SES London 2010, (power points, tables and vaguely passable WiFi) every conference is the same. No power and no wireless. I’m sitting next to Kristofer Bjorkman, Founder of mynewsdesk. Kristopher managed to get onto the wireless early and he’s showing me the “Tweets of rage” prompted by the wireless #fail.
Guy Clapperton, (@guyclapperton) Chairman is now on stage for the intro.
He’s talkin about working in ’89 and using a modem for bulletin board updates as the precursor to social media.In terms of history of participation, public meetings, letter pages, radio phone-ins can also be seen as a limited precursor to social media. I think this is quite a journalistic point of view. Sure, there has long been a ‘nominal’ participatory mechanism but with extensive cultural and social barriers, whereas social media participation has fewer barriers (such as crap wireless for example.) I’m sure this is where we’re going with this.
We’re handing over to Kevin, who starts with a quote from Oscar Wild, from the importane of Being Earnest – which he paraphrases slightly unsuccessfully. Somthing about marriage and things coming together and better posiitons. Hmm…
Social Media Decisions – How can social media ve adapted to my busiess.
Len – (we’re going to be looking at a lens or something).
Universal Truths – Human Needs (social and knowledge)
i.e. we are human, social characters. We want to be part of a tribe and connect with other members. It’s all getting very Seth Godin.
Knowledge – how do I get ahead? Expand my boundaries? Succeed?
1. Innovation will be driven by this thirst for knowledge and information exchange.
2. Global economy – hard to identify, who do I trust, how do we collaborate?
Linkedin had over 1BN searches for people last year.
3. Overloaded – in terms of information and communication. How many people go beyond page 1? Does page 1 mean most relevant or best SEO team? (Erm…)
4. Social Media Facts – We’re in an infancy stage and the web is at adolescent stage. In a green field area, there are many opportunities to innovate.
5. Voice, Identity & Filter – everybody has a voice now. Two-way communication and interaction. What tools and mechanisms can we use to filter the information and make it more relevant to us.
“Knowledge Is Power” – an outdated statement.
Social aware applications need to help us format and filter and “socialise” this knowledge.
The new digital economy opens so much opportunity – “the accidental entrepreneur”. Kevin gives the example of Henk van Ess, who asked on Twiter if anyone had a battery solution for the iPhone. A company in China put their hands up and the journalist now has a global business in supplying longer-life batteries for iPhone. (The site is 3G Juice).
BestBuy (big electronics retailer from US) is coming to Europe. BB staff had a surplus inventory problem so the shop floor staff (called blue-shirts) started to create a forecast model, which is much more accurate and based on custmer feedback. BB are also very active on Twitter and empower the blue-shirts to manage customer interfacing via this mode.
Final Sum-Up. “How can my business embrace social”
This is what we’re here for in the next couple of days. Going social and adapting my business, or business practises to get the benefit of these tools and mechanisms.