 |
 |
Online Community Business Forum: Initial Report BackFriday, April 18. 2008 First, apologies for the radio silence on the OC Report blog folks. The Online Community Business Forum was a huge success, but also a massive undertaking, and I took a couple of days to unplug from the socialmediosphere.The good news? There is a ton of great content about the event online. I'll be posting highlights over the next few days, but I wanted to point folks to several great summaries of our opening sessions. Two of the highlights of the conference for me were Alan Webber's opening remarks, and Rohit Barghava's session on "Thinking beyond your community site". I've been a huge fan of Alan's since becoming an avid reader of Fast Company in the late 90's. Alan did a great job of setting the tone for the Business Forum with his inspirational remarks about founding Fast Company with Bill Taylor in the early 90s. Alan was followed by Rohit Bhargava, who provided perspective on thinking beyond "your" community site, and gave case studies of community building using an ecosystem approach, including one that covered the launch of his new book "Personality Not Included."  Thomas Kriese of Omidyar Network did a fantastic job of capturing both sessions: Alan Webber at Online Community Business Forum Rohit Bhargava speaks at Online Community Business Forum This was an exceptional two days of content, conversations and networking. Look for more content to follow as we get the presentations and notes added to the wiki. And I haven't even mentioned all the Gorbie sightings! 
Online Community Business Forum: Final Agenda Set!Wednesday, April 9. 2008We are just a few days away from the Online Community Business Forum in Santa Fe, and the final agenda is in place. You will find the speaker and topic lineup below. In addition to the awesome lineup of speakers, we are planning a 1/2 day of Open Space on Tuesday afternoon. We will be posting highlights from both days on the Online Community Report. Monday, April 14th Opening Comments Alan Webber – Co-founding Editor of Fast Company Session 1 / Thinking Beyond The Community Website Sometimes the best thing you can do is to build your community by focusing instead on the ecosystem around it. Using two interactive case studies as a framework, this session will kick off the day by challenging your perceptions about your online community, and getting you to think beyond your own sandbox. Session Lead: Rohit Bhargava – Senior Vice President Digital Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy Session 2 / The Business of Community Case studies on planning, managing and articulating value from two leading brands. Session Lead: Rachael Makool – Senior Director, Ebay Session Lead: Mark Williams – Manager, Support Communities, Apple Session 3 / Community Metrics & Reporting An overview of online community metrics models, methodologies and techniques. Session Lead: Matthew Lees , VP - Patricia Seybold Group Session Lead: Robert Dell’Imagine, Director of Communities - VMWare Session 4 / Break Out Sessions - Breakout: Influencers & Evangelists Session Lead: Alan Crosby, Director of Global Community Relations - Sony Online Entertainment Breakout: Community Management Best Practices Session Lead: Scott Moore, Social Media Strategist Session Lead: Gail Ann Williams, Director of Communities - Salon.com / The Well Breakout: Getting Beyond Not “Getting It” Session Lead: Shara Karasic, Community Manager - Work.com Session 5 / Real Value from Virtual Worlds Many organizations and finding real value in virtual worlds. Gain perspective and hear case studies from 2 experts dealing in the business of virtual worlds and virtual goods. Session Lead: Robin Harper, VP of Marketing and Community Development - Linden Lab Session Lead: Ravi Mehta, VP, Publishing - Viximo Tuesday, April 15th Session 6 / Community Value & Revenue Techniques A leading VC, and a leading social media expert give perspectives on the dimensions of value of online communities, as well as specific examples of revenue techniques. Session Lead: David Silver, Author, ‘Smart Start-ups’ Session Lead: Aaron Strout, VP Social Media, Mzinga Session 7: On the Horizon - Panel Discussion Moderator: Kellie Parker, Online Community Manager – PC World/Mac Publishing Panelist : Mary Furlong, CEO - Furlong and Associates Panelist : Jenna Woodul, Chief Community Officer - LiveWorld As I mentioned before, we are also going to have a mini Unconference On Tuesday afternoon will likely have about 12 sessions.
Why I <3 the Online Community Business ForumWednesday, April 2. 2008The Online Community Business Forum is coming up in less than 2 weeks. We are holding the event at the lovely Inn & Spa at Loretto, and we have a great lineup of speakers and attendees. The lineup for both days (april 14th and 15th) is strong. We just confirmed this afternoon that Rohit Bhargava will be leading the opening session. Rohit is coming to Santa Fe fresh of the launch of his new book Personality Not Included, and will provide insight in to how social media and online communities are transforming business. We also have great sessions planned, including:
Other speakers include Mary Furlong of Furlong and Associates, Aaron Strout of Mzinga (the Twitter Mastah!), Tessie Topol of MTV, and David Silver, Author of Smart Startups. There will be several wine tasting receptions (of course) in and around Santa Fe. We actually had to fight with the Inn & Spa at Loretto to keep the Presidential Suite open, because Michael Gorbechav tried to bump us. No kidding. And, as icing on the cake, we will have a mini Unconference on the afternoon of April 15th. The two days in Santa Fe promise to be packed with plenty of good session content and plenty of networking all held in a beautiful setting. We do have a few seats left. If you are up for a last minute trip to lovely Santa Fe, please drop me a line: bjohnston@forumone.com
Mobile Communities Unconference: This Thursday, still seats available!Tuesday, March 18. 2008 We still have a few seats available for the Mobile Communities Unconference, this Thursday, March 20th in Palo Alto. Want to join the conversation? Register here: http://mcu2008.eventbrite.com Groups coming include: 3jam, Active Path Solutions, AdMob, AOL, Cisco,Digital Chocolate, FunMobility, Google, HP, Intel, Lithium, LiveWorld, Microsoft, Mixer Labs, MobiHand, MobileLife Inc., NextNow, Nokia, Omega Mobile, Inc., Quest Software, Ribbit, SAP, VMWare, Yahoo!, You Tube Questions? Call me @ 415.299.9638
Notes from the Online Community Roundtable, 3/12 @ MicrosoftFriday, March 14. 2008
We had a fantastic group of people at the Online Community Roundtable Wednesday (3/12) evening on Microsoft campus in Redmond.
Bob Rebholz of the Windows Live team was our host, and we scored space in the MS conference center (which rivals SAP Labs as the nicest space we have Rountabled in). We had folks from Microsoft, Forum One, Intel, Full Circle Associates, OCLC, The Gates Foundation, Telligent, Trusera, VML and the University of Washington.  A few highlights from the evening: User Experience: Categories vs. Folksonomies The folks from the OCLC were struggling with the issue of wanting to introduce folksonomical content structures in to their site, and how to either compliment or replace hierarchical category structures. Invitation and Community Growth Trusera asked questions around growing community membership via "invitation". Specifically, they are struggling with balancing growth velocity and member quality. The invitation process ensures quality by inviting "known" potential members and assuming members of their network are trustworthy. The problem is that this i generally a slow way to grow a network (gmail is an obvious exception to this statement). Internal Usage Adoption How do you incentivize internal staff and organization members to use new social tools? This question was posed by a non-profit foundation that is trying to roll out a new collaboration toolset, and is trying to asses the best path forward. Feedback from the roundtable group was: start small, test & get feedback (but pay attention to what they do as well as what they say), and ensure that the tools actually facilitate and enhance existing workflow, not disrupt or add overhead to it. Qualifying and Representing "Activity" The last session started as a conversation on incenting users, but to me, one of the most interesting dimensions was around tracking, qualifying and representing activity in a social system. The example given was tracking what help and training content someone read on a community, and then representing this as a level of "knowledge" via a widget on that persons profile on various social systems. After every roundtable (including this one) I'm always struck by the caliber of folks working in this space, the level of real-world knowledge they posses, and they generous nature and willingness to share. My notes are short, but we had two superstar notetakers (one was also a super-tweeter) in the room. For a play by play (and thanks to both Nancy and Teresa), please check out: Notes from the Seattle Online Community Meetup - Nancy White A Vertitable Online Community Smörgåsbord - Teresa Valdez Klein Would you like to be invited to the next roundtable, or are you interested in hosting? Please drop me a note. Want to keep up with Roundtable activities? Join the Facebook group.
Why are we hosting the Mobile Communities Unconference?Tuesday, March 11. 2008I've had a couple of questions about why we (Forum One) are putting on the Mobile Communities Unconference. In a word? Growth. Analysts are predicting revenue from mobile social networks to climb from US $1.5 billion in 2006 to as much as $52billion dollars a year by 2012. The following graphic is a chart from Christine Perey's report on Mobile Social Networking.  Another? Scale. The number of mobile handsets in use just dwarfs the number of PCs. Another? Experience. You can take it (your network) with you. With the user experience that advanced handheld devices like the iphone bring, you no longer signifignanty compromise your online experience when using a handset. And last but not least: Location. Locative experiences and media are going to explode soon. I got a taste of this when I worked at Autodesk, but just the simple fact of knowing where you are geographically, and where friends, family and potential contacts are relative to your position adds a whole new layer of meaning and experience to social networking. Want to join the conversation? We have an AWESOME group of folks lined up to discuss this next Thursday, March 20th in Palo Alto. Groups coming include: 3jam Active Path Solutions AdMob AOL Cisco Digital Chocolate FunMobility HP Intel Lithium LiveWorld Microsoft Mixer Labs MobiHand MobileLife Inc. NextNow Collaboratory Nokia Omega Mobile, Inc. Quest Software SAP VMWare Yahoo! You Tube and more. Want to join the conversation? Register here: http://mcu2008.eventbrite.com
Mobile Communities Uncconference: 3/20 in Palo AltoTuesday, February 26. 2008Hot on the heels of the Unconference East, we have the Mobile Communities Unconference coming up March 20th in Palo Alto. The intention of the Mobile Communities Unconference is to explore the opportunities with building community via mobile devices. Several factors are driving the importance and relevance of this topic, most notably the fact that the number of mobile handsets in use globally dwarfs the number of personal computers. The shear number of mobile devices, combined with the increasing sophistication of mobile devices, increasing speed of data flowing on mobile networks, the increasingly robust web experiences available via mobiles, and the explosion in interest around social networking begs the questions: - what impact will mobile have on pc-bound online community experiences? - what are the unique opportunities for mobile-only experiences that transcend voice and leverage text and mobile internet access? - when will the US catch up to the technology leaders in the mobile space, like Korea? Mobile is such a juicy topic right now. Combine that with an Unconference format, and you have a very interesting day of discussion. We have a great group of folks coming already. A sample of the partcipating organizations include: - SolutionSet - YouTube - 3jam - SAP - FunMobility - Microsoft - CollabNet - Liveworld - TechSoup - VMWARE, INC. - Gatheringpoint Digital LLC - Omega Mobile, Inc. - Yahoo! Inc - Lithium - Digital Chocolate - itsmylife Labs - Alta Partners - MobileLife Inc. Again, we just extended early bird pricing of $145 until the end of day on Friday, 2/29. To register, go here: http://mcu2008.eventbrite.com/
Online Community Unconfernece East: A report backMonday, February 25. 2008 We had a fantastic OC Unconference East in New York City last Thursday. Over one hundred online community and social media professionals were in attendance, and we had over 40 collaborative sessions. I've captured highlights below. I've also just opened up the Unconference wiki, so you can check out the session notes for yourself.  Organizations in attendance included: AOL, MTV, Consumers Union (consumer reports), Cyworld, Business Week, Socialtext, IBM, Mzinga, Spinvox, Twing.com, Salon.com, Harvard Business, MediaBistro, KickApps, HP, TV Guide and Zagat.com. Sessions ( a partial list) - What is necessary to start a successful social network? - Social Movements/Communities with a Cause: - Enterprise And Large Organizations Meets Community - User Managed Communities: where users make the rules - Community Building: Resources and Considerations - Virtual Goods 101 - Social Media Optimization - Customer/Consumer Communities for Co-Innovation - Twitter Strategies for the Enterprise - Culture vs. Community: Intention-based content - Community Analytics: measuring success & failure - Social Networks: Likes/dislikes and what you want to know - Virtual Goods and Virtual World Interactions - Building Enterprise IT: Colloboration & interface to internal systems (using wikis) - Open ID & other user-centric identity technologies (Higgins, Infocards, SAML) You can see pictures from the Unconference here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocue2008&w=all&s=int Wiki Again, the wiki is now open to the public for reading. We do restrict the right to edit / post to Unconference attendees. http://www.socialtext.net/ocue08/ Blog posts about the Unconference Online Community Unconference East - KickApps Blog Online Community Unconference 2008 - Updates - Modern Metrix Blog Live Blogging at ForumOne's Community Unconference 2/21 - Aaron Strout / Mzinga Next Unconference: Our next Unconference is the Mobile Communities Unconference March 20 in Palo Alto. If you are interested in exploring the opportunities with community building via mobile devices I would encourage you to come check it out.
SAP Future Salon: Social Media and Online Communities 2/26Monday, February 25. 2008
OC Unconference East: What to expect during topic selectionMonday, February 18. 2008We are just 2 days away from the Online Community Unconference East in NYC. We still have about 5 open seats for those or you in the NYC area. You can register at: http://www.ocue.eventbrite.com There is a really diverse mix of organizations coming, including: BlogHer Inc., Mediabistro, CMP, HP, Gartner, Autodesk, AOL, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Consumers Union, Zagat, TV Guide, allfacebook.com, Business Week, and Cyworld. So, how does this work? The premise of our Unconference series is that the best source of information on the topic of online communities is the community of folks building and managing online communities. The Unconference format provides a venue for folks to lead discussions about topics they are most passionate and knowledgeable about. At the end of the day, attendees walk away with new ideas, perspectives, and a long list of new professional connections. One of the most amazing parts of the day at our Unconferences is the topic selection process. We are fortunate to have Kaliya Hamlin guiding us through the process again in New York. The topic selection process starts the Unconference, when any attendee who wishes can come forward, announce a topic, and claim one of the 45-50 open slots on the grid.  Within 35-40 minutes the grid fills up with topics and the first session kicks off. It's really inspiring to hear all of the topics that are suggested, and to see so many great ideas come together on the grid. If you would like to see an example of the great content that comes out of an Unconference, please check out the Online Community Unconference 07 wiki. I would encourage you to spend some time looking through the session notes as there is a lot of great content. Again - we have about 5 seats still available for the Unconference in NYC this Thursday, 2/21. If you would like a seat, register here. |