Social Media Jungle at CES, Part One
I spoke today at CES at the Social Media Jungle produced by Jeff Pulver. If you haven’t been following these, they’re a series of events designed for journalists, bloggers, marketers, PR people, technologists, business people—anyone, really, who’s interested in and/or already practicing social media. Jeff continues to host them in cities around the world, so click here if you want to check out his upcoming schedule to attend or to contact him about a speaking spot.
A few observations from the day:
If 2007 was the year that companies said, “Show me some examples of what social media can do,” 2008 was the year that they said, “Show me what you’re going to do for me.” And we already know that 2009 will be the year they say, “And how it’s going to help me save money.”
Chris Brogan began by appealing to the pirate in all of us (yep, you heard me); how, for example, the British navy was so hidebound by rules and protocol and tradition that the Queen would have to hire privateers (pirates, actually) who could blow past those protocols and get to the objective at hand; i.e., winning the war.
And--no surprise--he sees the social media consultants as pirates who can ignore those who “don’t get it” and help companies and experiment with social media at a grassroots level. But, as Howard Greenstein points, out, not everyone is an early adopter, and 2009 should be the year that social media consultants stop telling people they don’t get it. It’s our responsibility, he says (and I agree wholeheartedly) to educate and pass what we’ve learned on to those who can use it.
Jeremiah Owyang then presented some data from Forrester on the social technographics of consumers on the Internet. It’s good stuff: you can find a version of it here. (Funny moment: Jeff, founder of Vonage, using Skype for the first time to get Jeremiah on the line. Oh well).
Robert Scoble talked a lot about the tools he’s using to stay connected these days. Of particular note is Upcoming, which he uses to communicate where he is and what he’s up to (fascinating while he was in China, and, as someone pointed out, a terrific way to get insight on what he thinks is worth seeing and doing at conferences).
Beyond that, Friendfeed is a staple now because he can focus just on what his friends are interested in. As he said, almost without noticing it, “In the olden days, when I used Google…” which made several of us nearly fall out of our chairs.
Time flies.
Next up: a few views of ROI; living in the three-screen world, social media for small business, and some practical considerations for corporate communication in the new media age. And, if you want to check out the Twitter stream of the event, go to Twitter search and enter #SMJCES in the search bar.
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