Servant of Chaos

Join the Solution Stars Video Conference

Every year of my working life, technology has transformed the jobs that I do and the way that I perform in those roles. From my earliest start in an chartered accountant’s office where I began using Lotus 1-2-3 and the Basic programming language to automate my more mundane tasks, I have always focused my use of technology towards a business outcome.

These days, technology is second nature to me. Each day I use a web/tele-conference facility of some kind to collaborate with colleagues around the world; listen and scan online conversations for products and services that I am responsible for; download podcasts and vodcasts; read and respond to blogs, Facebook group discussions and forums; and a number of other things. And while I live in Australia, I am now more globally connected than I ever have been.

As the twin pressures of climate change and financial chaos continue to reverberate through the business community, we will need to increasingly use these types of technologies to cost- and time-effectively deliver value to our businesses. After all, it is not that the business need for global collaboration has evaporated – just the conviction (and funds) that we need to do so face-to-face.

From a brand point of view, the timing has never been better, nor the environment more open, to begin experimenting with social media. Sure, there are pitfalls; but you can learn a great deal simply by beginning to participate. You could start by joining the Network Solutions Solutions Stars Video Conference on October 29. By my calculations, the 1pm New York start time translates to 4am Sydney time and 5pm GMT.

This free video conference aims to provide insights and online marketing tips to small businesses … but the advice can easily be applied to larger businesses and brands. The conference features nine different documentary style video sessions:

   
• Building Web Presence
 
• The Social Opportunity
 
• Start with Listening
 
• Strategy Drives Outreach
 
• You Need Social Networks
 
• To Blog or Not to Blog
 
• Visibility Through Search
 
• Rising Above the Noise
 
• Time Demands

A great cast of speakers have been assembled, including:

• Geoff Livingston, Author of Now is Gone
 
• Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks
 
• Tim Ferriss, Best Selling Author of Four Hour Work Week
 
• Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder, All-Top
 
• Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
 
• Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger
 
• Chris Brogan, Vice President of Strategy, CrossTech Media
 
• Rohit Bhargava, Author of Personality Not Included
 
• Wendy Piersall, CEO of Sparkplugging.com
 
• Lionel Menchaca, Chief Blogger, Dell
 
• Steve Hall, Publisher and Editor of Ad Rants
 
• Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company
 
• Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog
 
• Toby Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg Marketing

And while it may be an early start for some of us … it’s a small price to pay for some great advice from those who not only talk about marketing, branding and strategy in a socially connected world, they practice it daily.

Shall we agree to meet there online? I’ll bring the coffee!

This, That and the Other -- Mark Pesce's Keynote at Web Directions South

Mark Pesce's keynote at WebDirections South sped by at a thousands words a minute. His words pounded us like the Hadron Collider, the ideas slamming and fragmenting into synaptic allusions that stretched across time from the Enlightenment through to the previous evening's sweep of the web by the all-seeing Googlebot.

There is plenty to chew on in this speech. There is plenty to consider in our own, personal, collectivist journey. Will we emerge unscathed from what Mark calls the hyperconnected mob? Will technology provide us a way to continiuously recontextualise our connections to the amorphous social groups from which we draw our various identities?

Perhaps only time will tell ... but in the meantime, there is much to debate and discuss. It is a new world that will come to life conversation by conversation.

Mark Pesce Keynote - WebDirections South

It's Conference Time

Web Directions South

This year, the Web Directions South conference is holding a Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp. So not only do you have the opportunity to attend the 30-odd sessions as part of the conference, you can also spend October 23 in a full day workshop with Stephen Collins and Jeff Kelly looking at how Web 2.0 business models, techniques and technologies can be applied to your business.

You can attend the workshop at the discount price of $450 by using the code W2BAL during registration.

PSFK Conference Asia

On October 10, PSFK are holding a one day conference in Singapore. There will be 12 sessions (panels and presentations) with folks from the agency, client and even scientific sides (Andrew Hoppin from NASA will be discussing collaboration). It's S$1000 for the day and you can register here.

MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer

Held in Scottsdale, Arizona, October 22-23, the next MarketingProfs conference promises to be a feast of ideas and practical ideas. With keynotes from Gary Vaynerchuck and Arianna Huffington, and panels made up of some of the leading digital marketing practictioners, it will be an event not to be missed. Register here.

Friend Me? No, Friend You!

I am starting to think about SXSW next year ... and am wondering how I can organise to get there. Running from March 13-17, 2009, the interactive event brings new technologies, evangelists, entrepreneurs and creatives together to look at what works NOW, and what WILL work in the near future. Twitter is a great example from last year. Clearly it is a great event with many fantastic panels, presenters and chances to meet with folks who I normally only converse with online.

One of the most interesting aspects of SXSW is that presenters are more than happy to have some fun with the content and format of the panels. This presentation by Merlin Mann is a great example where he introduces the room to FlockdUp.com -- a site dedicated to the under-served visionaries who power all things social media -- the thought leaders.

Would You Help a Reporter?

Ross Dawson's Future of Media Summit generated quite a lot of debate on both sides of the Pacific. There was some excellent coverage of the summit from a variety of angles, with Stephen Collins asking What will the future of media look like?, Chris Bishops pondering the business models around monetising future content and Craig Wilson viewing the summit with one eye focused on the Twitter backchannel.

Seth Yates has provided an excellent summary including notes on all the panels which is a great reference point for those who attended, and those who could not. Reading back through these posts it is clear that the debate shifted to a discussion about future roles, not necessarily future industries. Indeed, much of the discussion falling out of the conference has been around citizen journalists vs professional journalists.

Stilgherrian's summit coverage, (and the same post at Crikey with a different commentary/discussion), plus Jonathan Este's response, (which was originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian's blog with comments) turned the heat up on this debate.

Clearly this is an emotion-charged discussion. And while it is a discussion that needs to take place, it strikes me that we are being bogged down in a debate that may be solved by refocusing our cognitive surplus in another direction -- finding an innovative way of delivering value across the chasm between the "traditional" and "social" media groups. In fact, finding a way of bringing journalists and new media practitioners together may be the best way forward.

Last week I saw a link to Peter Shankman's Help a Reporter site. It is a site designed to connect reporters with credible and expert news sources (and yes, that includes bloggers). It is opt-in. It's a site that uses technology to provide value to a community that, in many ways, does not yet exist. It is well facilitated. But I wonder, is this something that would work here in Australia? It certainly could, and should.

But participation costs. It means leaving your shoes at the door. It means rolling up our sleeves and reshaping the media industry from the ground up. It is not the total solution, but it is a first step. What do you think? Would you help a reporter?

Future of Media Summit 2008

Ross Dawson's Future of Media Summit was held simultaneously in Sydney, Australia and San Francisco, USA.

I live blogged the proceedings using CoverItLive (my first real usage of this service) while also attempting to feed this information into the Twitter stream -- which you can view via Summize.

There was much "traditional media" vs "new media" discussion which bogged down the flow. This was particularly evident during the panel discussions which were heavily laced with members of "traditional media", with bare and often no representation from the "new" side of the business. This forced the alternate conversation into the "back channel" -- the Twitter stream which was equally one-sided.

It wasn't until later, during the unconference sessions, where Stephen Collins and Jed White took the lead in introducing the participants to Twitter (and the under-conference that had been happening all day). Unfortunately I had to leave by this time, but was able to roughly follow proceedings via Twitter -- with new names popping up every couple of minutes. Perhaps, in this way, the future of media is PARTICIPATION.

But before we can get to participation, there is some work to do on education and on technology. There is some effort required to re-think the business models and the frameworks that we use to value communities, consumers and the space where they intersect with brands and publishers. It seems that ten years on, the vision of the Cluetrain Manifesto is coming into focus.

Congratulations go to Ross Dawson and team responsible for bringing together some of the stakeholders. I will be interested to see the way that this conversation pans out over the next 12 months.

I will have more analysis around this event in the coming days -- and keep an eye out for the coverage from Stephen Collins, Stilherrian, Chris Saad, Craig Wilson, Mark Pesce and other attendees.

Future of Media Summit Live

The Future of Media Conference

Future_of_Media_Strategic_Framework
Originally uploaded by Somethin' New

Ross Dawson has consistently been thinking through the future of media from a business perspective for the last few years. In 2006 Ross developed this strategic framework which still holds great value for organisations yet to come to grips with the opportunities and challenges of Web 2.0 (and let's face it, that is the majority).

This month, Ross has released the latest installment -- the Future of Media Lifecycle. It is a nice framing device for the main thrust of the Future of Media Summit that is occuring simultaneously in San Francisco and Sydney next week.

If you are in Sydney (July 15) or in San Francisco (July 14), you can register here ... and participate in the live conference, the city-to-city live hookup and in the unconference sessions that are bound to bring some life to the proceedings. After all, where else are you going to get this array of speakers for one low price?

And if Pubcamp Sydney was any guide, there is bound to be a healthy Twitter back channel in action -- and with luck -- a vibrant series of unconference discussions.

Pubcamp Sydney in Hindsight

Last week, Jed White from itechne hosted Pubcamp, Sydney - the Web 2.0 media day - bringing the publishing/media world face-to-face with the increasingly vocal and empowered social media/web 2.0 crowd. This week, it was followed up with a Melbourne event.

Broken into a short format presentation style (similar to the approach we took at Interesting South), a variety of speakers provided their take on the current role and the future of media. There was a panel discussion and a debate -- all followed by unconference sessions which allowed participants to actively investigate some of the topics raised during the presentations.

In Sydney the room seemed to divide into two camps. One one side were the new media folks, furiously commenting and conversing via the Twitter "backchannel" -- and on the other the "traditional media" folks who appeared largely unaware of the un-unconference being carried on through Twitter. There seemed to be no middle ground between the two sides -- each holding firm to the belief in their own relevance.

It was, however, during the panel discussion where the Twitter conversation spilled over from the back channel onto the conference room floor. The panel appeared to be populated by people who had spent most of their careers in the publishing industry with no "new media" representative. Stephen Collins summed up the collective Twitter response along the lines of "you don't know what you are talking about". From that point onwards, there was no going back -- with the conversation becoming stuck around the relative merits of "professional" vs "citizen" journalism.

It wasn't, however, until I sat in on Matt Moore's unconference session on value networks that I began to see a way forward. It is not that there is no overlap between the two camps, it is just that there is no shared vocabulary for us to discuss shared areas of interest. And rather than spending our energies debating the relative merits of our own cases, I feel it would be far more productive identifying opportunities where each group could collaborate or experiment together. This, of course, means new ways of identifying and measuring value -- it means new approaches to community and to business.

And while there may well be a long way to go before we see such opportunities come to pass, perhaps Pubcamp is the first, tentative step forward. Next time, I hope to see greater web 2.0/social media representation; getting down and dirty with the business model discussion; less plugs for new services/offerings; discussion on the role of communities; involvement from digital strategists/agencies.

For more detailed coverage of the Sydney event, see Renai LeMay (for the AFR), Craig Wilson and Nic Hodges (let me know if I have missed your coverage). Melbourne has been covered by Ben Barren, Michael Specht, Stephen Mayne.