Christopher Carfi

The SXSW Interactive festival in Austin takes a community-based approach to its programming.  Their panel conversations are sourced from conference attendees, and the panels are voted on by folks like us.  As such, I've suggested two panels for SXSW 2010, and would love your help, if you think they sound interesting.  All you need to do is click on the links below, and click the little "Thumbs Up" icon when you get to the Panel Picker.  That's it!  Here they are:

Short description and links (please vote for each, if you're so inclined)

Will The Smartphone Change Retail The Way The iPod Changed Music?
http://bit.ly/5EFbl

Is The iPhone The Future Of Personal Data?
http://bit.ly/1sPe

Longer Descriptions

Panel Suggestion #1: Is the iPhone the Future of Personal Data?

Abstract:

Your profile is on Facebook. Your resume is on LinkedIn. Your browsing
preference are on Google. Your purchases are with your credit card
company. Today, your information is held in dozens, if not hundreds, of
data silos, none of which are under your control. With exponentially
growing storage capacity, tens of thousands of applications, and
double-digit annual smartphone market growth, is personal data going to
move out of the cloud and into our pockets? Will our our iPhones and
BlackBerries and Pres become the center of our digital information
lives, the way that our wallets were back in the paper age? Or in the
Facebook age, is the existing model so entrenched (and perhaps so
efficient), that the organizations that currently hold our data will be
unable or unwilling to give it up?

Questions Answered:

1. Can we control our own digital information?
2. Will Facebook, Google and financial institutions always control our data?
3. Would personal data control reduce identity theft, or exacerbate it?
4. Is the individual the "right place" to integrate our data?
5. Will customers trust their mobile phones as a storage medium?
6. What social changes will be required to think about "me" as the custodian of my own information?
7. How does this intersect with other "data portability" efforts?
8. What are the right pieces of information to integrate? Search? Health data? Financial? Everything?
9. Who really owns our data today?
10. How much of our digital lives will live in our pockets, versus in the cloud?

Panel Suggestion #2: Will The Smartphone Change Retail The Way The iPod Changed Music?

Description:

In
each of the past three decades, the movement from centralized control
to distributed networks has radically reformed an industry. In the
1980s, the PC moved computing power from the shamans in the data center
to everyone's personal desktop, and in the process reformed and created
the computing industry. In the 1990s, the the MP3 unlocked music for
millions. In the 2000s, blogs (which Jay Rosen presciently called "the
little First Amendment machines") transformed news and media by
enabling individuals to do what only could be done historically by
huge, centralized organizations.
As we move into the 2010s, mobile is the fundamentally enabling
technology that will empower networked individuals. Basic technologies,
when moved out into the network, have completely reformed computing,
music and media over the past three decades. Will mobile be the spark
that radically changes they way we search, shop and connect with the
retail establishments we frequent everyday? Or have fifty years of
advertising and marketing formed us in such a way that the current
model is the optimal way for customers to interact with vendors and
each other?

Questions Answered:

1. Is mobile the same type of disruptive influence as the MP3, networking and blogging?
2. Is retail the next industry to be radically broken down and reformed, like media was in the 2000s?
3. How will peer-to-peer networking affect retail?
4. What will the entrenched players do?
5. What are the new types of businesses (or business models) that mobile will enable in retail?
6. What happens when we carry all of our loyalty cards in our phones, instead of our wallets?
7. When will we stop doing the same old things with mobile? (e.g coupons => MOBILE coupons … yawn)
8. Who will be the new types of industry players?
9. Will other mobile providers catch up with the mindshare of the iPhone?
10. What new mobile apps are on the horizon?

Thanks again.  Seeya in Austin.

Ok, I'm really excited about this one, as a part of the work I've been being with Kevin Werbach and the team over at http://www.supernovahub.com .

On September 9 at 11:30am PDT / 2:30pm EDT, join us for a
conversation on how the Network Age enables organizations and leaders
to let go while still maintaining control. Scheduled participants
include Altimeter Group’s Charlene Li, Deborah Schultz, Jeremiah
Owyang, and Ray Wang.

Here are the details and backgrounds of the participants.

Web and chat: http://tobtr.com/s/682282

Call-in Number: (347) 945-6578

When: Wednesday September 9, 2:30 pm  EDT / 11:30 am PDT

Charlene Li is the founder of the Altimeter Group and the co-author
of the bestselling book “Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed by
Social Technologies”

Deborah Schultz architected the Procter & Gamble Social Media
Lab to study the impact of the social web on customer relationships and
the business benefits of “open innovation” and is a member of P&G’s
Digital Advisory Board.

Jeremiah Owyang has more than a decade of experience counseling
companies on how to leverage emerging technologies to communicate with
customers. He was the online community manager at Hitachi Data Systems
and director of corporate strategy at PodTech and joined Altimeter
Group from Forrester Research where he advised and created research for
interactive marketers.

Ray Wang was named “Analyst of the Year” in both 2008 and 2009 and
has held posts with PeopleSoft, Oracle, Personify, Deloitte, and Ernst
& Young and Forrester Research.

Seeya there!

Romy Ribitzky points out some good case studies on social media in business in her August 20, 2009 article entitlted "Business Social"…worth a read.

After the SupernovaHub Mixer in San Francisco, Kevin Werbach and John Hagel talk 1:1 about the implications of the Shift Index.

See the full presentation from the Wharton | SF mixer here with John Hagel and John Seely Brown.

"We have to make our passions our professions. If we don't, this [the economy] is going to be uglier and uglier, and we're going to feel more and more stressed." -John Hagel

John Hagel gives his thoughts on the importance of "passion" at last night's sold out SupernovaHub Mixer at Wharton | SF.  This is just a 30sec snippet; the whole event was over an hour in a packed house.  More on the mixer over at http://www.supernovahub.com/ .

Video also available here.

I’m really excited about the ongoing “Network Age” briefing series that we’ve been working on with the SupernovaHub community.  Last week’s briefing, on the topic of curation and filtering of the Real-Time Web (with Andrew Keen who wrote “Cult of the Amateur” and Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch), was outstanding.

Our next Network Age Briefing is “Can We Ever Truly ‘Disconnect’ in the Network Age?”

When: Thursday, August 13, 2009, at 12:oo pm EST/9 am PST.

Web and chat: http://tobtr.com/s/639145

Call-in Number: (347) 945-6578

One of the defining properties of the Network Age is being
connected.   It’s connect or bust for business, for government, for
pleasure — indeed, for survival.   But being “always on” must take a
toll on us.   Are we dodging “meatspace” relationships by burying our
noses in our  smartphones?  Are we burning out?  Is a backlash coming?

Join SupernovaHub’s Isabel Walcott Hilborn as she talks with Linda Stone (who coined the phrase “Continuous Partial Attention”) as we discuss disconnectedness in the Network Age.

When do you turn off the ringer? What about email purges?  Is it
ever acceptable to not even read what comes in? What is the best way to
take a break?  And why are people so sensitive about it?  Are we coaxed
by the sweet enticements of the net into distractions that keep us from
focusing and being productive at our jobs?  If so, how do we mediate
the distractions and stay on point?

photo: jrodmanjr

I could not possibly agree more with this review of Scanaroo.

Yes.  Indeed.  I encourage everyone to do that from here on out.  🙂

Related: Scanaroo home page

“Let this be a lesson to us all: we’re seeing what happens when an
organization forgets that it exists to serve its members, not the other
way around.” – Dan Roam

The American Kennel Club won’t let Dan Roam name the new family pet “Snowball” because the AKC “has already registered the full allotment of this breed with your requested name.”

Um, what?

We’ve had a number of occasions where organizations have come to Cerado wanting to sprinkle magic Social faerie dust on their existing business efforts. “We need to be doing things on Twitter! An Facebook! And FriendFeed! And Flickr! And YouTube! And…”

And…hold on a second. (And, most importantly, please do not start the conversation by putting up a slide that looks like someone puked up every logo that’s appeared on TechCrunch or Mashable over the past two years, and claim that as a “Social Media Strategy.” Seriously. I’ve seen this done. It’s not pretty. But I digress.) It would be a lot wiser to go to Buzzoid to buy followers on Instagram if you are looking for quick and easy solution on that particular platform. There are many services out there that can upscale your social media following. Since Socialcaptain shut down many brands are looking for new providers for their Instagram accounts.

The first thing we ask “why do you want to do this?” There are a number of prerequisites to work through before going down the social business path; here’s a starting point to walk through the fundamentals that we put together back in 2007; it still seems to be holding up as a reasonable set of guidelines.

The thing that seems to tether the conversation to reality is the conversation around metrics. Metrics are how we tie the “why” to the business. We put together a quick slide deck with a few thoughts on how to set up metrics around a social business effort; it’s embedded below.

A lot of the structure from this thinking ties back to Joe Cothrel’s seminal article from 2000, “Measuring the Success of an Online Community.” (Cothrel, J. P., 2000, Measuring the Success of an Online Community. Strategies & Leadership, v. 20, no. 2, pp 17-21. MCB University Press.) Make sure to check it out.

Additionally, Hannah Del Porto at ImpactWatch has collected a killer list of additional resources on the metrics front. Go check out Hannah’s post for some great commentary on the topic as well. The links:

• 15 Ways to Measure Return on Engagement (ROE) of Social Media – PR Sarah Evans

• How to NOT calculate Social Media R.O.I. – The Brand Builder

• ROI vs. “Impact on X” – Understanding what Social Media ROI is and isn’t – The Brand Builder

• Social Media Monitoring: Brands That Listen Make Better Friends – Matt Granfield

• The Fleeting Value Of Social Media Monitoring – Silicon Valley Watcher

• Social Media Monitoring for Your Company’s Online “Health” – CMD Agency

• Social media success doesn’t start with ROI – Social Media.biz

• Measuring Linkfluence and Visual Social Media Monitoring – IStrategy Labs

• Social Media Cost Per Click Analysis – Social Media Surfer

• Social media and the acid-bath of ROI – Business Insight Zone

• How High Should You Set The Bar For Customer Service With Social Media Engagement? – PR Communications

So, how are your measuring social business activities in your organizations? Any other best practices out there that people are finding useful that might be worth sharing?

Perhaps you would be interested in a dedicated account manager for your personal or business’s Instagram? Upleap can help you get more instagram followers and drive sales.

An overview of OK Labs' efforts in building a customer and developer community.  The key bit:

The whole thing is here.