I was invited along to the Dachis Group's Social Business Summit 2010 held in Austin on the eve of SXSW. Jeff Dachis had gathered a great ensemble of speakers - including both visionaries and practitioners from consulting and corporate backgrounds - and Peter Kim did a good job as Chairman. Actually in the spirit of the event that should probably be @jeffdachis and @peterkim...
Like most things in life, the 80/20 rule also applies to conferences. You have to endure 80% of average, to get to the 20% of the wisdom that makes any conference worthwhile. SBS 2010 turned that ratio on its head. Which is why I can't hope to do the event justice by adequately summarising in detail all the insights shared by all the speakers.
Instead, here is my arbitrary collection of wisdom, they are lifted from within longer, thoughful presentations. They are just snippets but they resonated for me, and I'd hope to anyone seriously involved in the area. They aren't quite verbatim quotes, so I didn't use speech marks, but I'm pretty sure are accurate in spirit.
Here goes...
Charlene Li, Altimeter Group: Get executive skin in the game. Don't just rely on the Groundswell. Align social initiatives to the business' objectives. Choose the one objective where you can have the biggest impact.
Jaime Punishill, AskCiti: You will need to evangelize. Expect to spend 25% of your time giving the same 12 slides, over and over, and over again.
Jackie Huba, Ant's Eye View: Social initiatives aren't just campaigns, they are a corporate commitment.
Kate Niederhoffer, Dachis Group: Lack of empathy with the customer's viewpoint is the biggest problem in customer support.
Frank Eliason, Comcast: Social media will drive culture change. Don't try and change culture to enable social media. It won't happen.
Frank again: Metrics won't get you anywhere. Take the customer's story and stick it in the face of your executives.
and more Frank: Most companies have a customer culture at the bottom of the organization, and often at the top too, but generally not in the middle.
Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Co: Being social exposes the true state of things inside the organization. Things that are hidden from view at present.
Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice: To get attention you have to use the language of business. Ask yourself, will the CEO understand what you are talking about?
Rick Maynard, KFC: A single global social media strategy doesn't work. It has to be local.
Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction: Companies that adapt to the network, thrive on the network.
more Lane: Advertising on the web fails because it tries to send you away from what you came to see.
and again: Iteration is another word for failure. [my personal favorite]
John Hagel, Deloitte Centre for Innovation: Knowledge is created through friction not consensus.
and John again: Organizations crave predictability and are at odds with serendipity. Serendipity creates knowledge. You need a serendipity strategy.
Christine Morrison, Intuit: It's about the customers not the platform. I wouldn't be on Twitter if my customers weren't there.
Lee Bryant, Headshift: Trust is cheaper than control.
and Lee again: Corporate IT has codified a series of backward business behaviours.
Hopefully by giving an example of the insights shared I haven't reduced the value of their whole presentations to an arbitrary soundbite, but have given a flavour of the value within. Certainly, I'm hoping Jeff invites me back. SBS2010 delivered lots of value, lots of insight in a single eight hour package.
Why the rabbit? Well, you had to be there...
Joking aside, if you weren't there - use #SBS2010 for commentary, links to attendees and some of the decks that were posted publicly. If Dachis Group share a roundup location, I'll add it later.
Tags: Social Business