Second Life: How Virtual Worlds Create Real World Value (mtg in SF)

At last month’s Podcast Hotel, I finally had a chance to catch up with good friends Ted Tagami and Kathleen Craig, who have been moving at warp speed working for Millions of Us producing some amazing work inside Second Life for some very, very big brands. After delving into the practical business value and the utopian ideals of virtual worlds which many of us have been discussing for over a decade, I invited him to speak at this month’s San Francisco Social Media Club meeting to share what they have learned so far from their real world experiences.

This is going to be the sort of meeting you don’t want to miss. So please join us On Thursday May 24 from 6-830pm at Adobe’s SOMA HQ for a presentation and discussion on Second Life and the potential for virtual worlds to deliver real world business value. Ted Tagami will lead the presentation which will be followed by a round table discussion and a live Exploration of Second Life. Ted will be joined by his Millions of Us colleagues - Mat Small, Director of PR, and Kathleen Craig, Producer. During Ted’s presentation, we will hear different case studies of how brands have been able to successfully enter Second Life.

As always, the round table format is meant to be interactive, where everyone has a chance to ask questions, share their personal experiences and add their perspective to the conversation.  If the group is fairly large, we will break into smaller groups for more intimate discussions, but since we will be “in world” for most of the presentation, are striving to keep the group together.
Special Thanks to Adobe and Crimson Consulting for sponsoring the San Francisco meeting. We are looking forward to seeing you on Thursday. Please do register here so we can let Adobe know who is coming and prepare the room accordingly.

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Courage, Conflict and Compromise

Another set of 3 C’s - I am beginning to think that C is the most powerful letter in the alphabet… This should be a long post, but there is not enough time to do so, and I promised Nate Ritter from Eventful that I would try to be short with my posts (also means that they are a bit messier, so please forgive me).

Courage

I think this is the most important element that Champions need to make a difference. The courage to face the potential risks for doing the right thing is an incredibly important ingredient towards success. The ‘ask forgiveness instead of permission’ model has been cited more than once privately by a few very senior executives when talking about why what they did worked. Even this morning, during the breakfast I blogged about on Future of Communities, it was the courage to support the lone person who was willing to speak his displeasure that helped to turn the tide of the conversation. Many people felt the same way, but only one person was willing to support the person who risked himself to stand up for what he felt was right.

Conflict

We are really not ever taught how to fight/debate well. I know of some organizations who have specific training in ‘having difficult conversations’, but even they don’t do a good job of addressing the tension that arises from different opinions during a discussion or meeting. We must get better at managing conflict in a respectful way. This starts with the formation of the team and continuously improves through ongoing interactions between the people involved. The more trust that is built amongst the people involved, the better chance the organization has of using conflict as an opportunity to succeed rather than getting derailed.

Compromise

This occurred to me yesterday, and was validated in conversations I had this morning. Why aren’t potentially great products better? The ability of champions to courageously stand up for what they think is right, to navigate through the conflict, to collaborate well with the other stakeholders and ultimately to NOT make bad compromises. The political systems of organizations which employees need to navigate often force them to make compromises in the short term in the hope that it will get corrected in the long term. These are often bad compromises which will neglect the real needs of the consumers for want of not dealing with a very serious challenge or obstacle that can not be overcome easily. Don’t make bad compromises!

What do you think about these three issues? How are you dealing with it in your day to day work? Am I on to something here or just overly obsessive with the letter C lately?

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What is Community 2.0 Podcast #2

Over the past 24 hours I have continued to ask people this important question around What is Community 2.0, and some clear trends are appearing which are touched upon here. This podcast includes answers from Mike Flood, VP of Community Relations for the Seattle Seahawks, Jake McKee from Big in Japan and David Churbuck from Lenovo. Listen in for some tasty bites of insight…

Subscribe to the Social MediaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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Social Media Clubhouse Podcast #6

On this fine Tuesday morning from Las Vegas, Giovanni Rodriguez and I drove to the Red Rock Casino for Community 2.0 and had a very focused conversation on the use of the word Community. More importantly, we talked about the real meaning of community and the interest in serving that community as opposed to selling to it as the primary intention of the interaction. Please listen and comment on this, I would really love to hear your thoughts on this important topic.

For further reading, check out Giovanni’s Post on Community with a Capital “C”: Who will Follow Craig Newmark

Subscribe to the Social MedaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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Social Media Clubhouse Podcast #5

On Monday morning we drove to the Community 2.0 conference and dug deeply into a conversation about What is Community? How it can be done by corporations and whether or not Community is even the right word. I was joined by Kristie Wells and Giovanni Rodriguez for a very insightful chat, which was unfortunately interrupted by some technical challenges which lost a bit of the conversation. Still a good 12 minutes….

Subscribe to the Social MediaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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What is Community 2.0 Podcast #1

During the opening night of the Community 2.0 Conference I had a chance to ask a few people the question what is community 2.0? There were a few good answers. On this podcast, we hear from Lois Kelly from Foghound, Sylvia Marino from Edmunds, and Social Media Strategist extraordinaire Deb Schultz. Listen in for some great insights…

Subscribe to the Social MediaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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Social Media Clubhouse Podcast #4

On Sunday night, our friend Giovanni Rodriguez of HubBubPR, my fiancee Kristie Wells and I headed over to the Community 2.0 reception. In the car on the way over, we discovered that Kristie is a great back seat driver (so am I) and the Red Rock is about 15-20 mins from the house. We also talked more deeply about what we are doing with Social Media Club (Giovanni as interviewer), the challenges that corporate champions face when trying to engage with community models and whether or not this whole thing can be as simple as ‘conversation’. At the end of a long day, there is some good stuff here, but I am really looking forward to the morning and some good community engagement with old friends and new peers…

Subscribe to the Social MediaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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Social Media Clubhouse Podcast #3

On our way to New Comm Forum’s last day on Friday March 9, I was joined by Debbie Weil and special guest star Tom Abate, of the San Francisco Chronicle. Howard Greenstein stayed at the clubhouse to take care of some Social Media Club business. The first three minutes or so was just fun (and funny) banter about Thursday night, and then Tom revealed his biggest insight to come from the day - that Social Media is indeed the right term to apply to the ‘greater significance’ of what is happening today. From here, the conversation dug more deeply into the transformation that is happening to the mediasphere, briefly touching on David Weinberger’s keynote. We also talked about Craigslist, and whether or not it is a ‘business’. I will let you discover the rest, which is just a terrific podcast - exactly the sort of thing I hoped we would capture in the car ride together.

Subscribe to the Social MedaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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Social Media Clubhouse Take 2 - Community 2.0 That Is

Well, this past week showed us that despite having a great place to hang out (actually an incredible clubhouse with pool table, 180″ projection home theatre and a killer backyard), that it is hard to compete with the Las Vegas strip and the lure of neon, beautiful people and the possibility of winning the big jackpot. But yes, we are having a BBQ tomorrow afternoon at the Social Media Clubhouse from 1-5pm for those people coming in for Community 2.0 - if it is 5 of us, or 50 of us does not matter, because I am going to have a great time regardless, will be beercasting and creating some videos and playing some pool (or chilling by the pool).

So if you are coming into town and want to hang out in the afternoon with some members of the Community 2.0 Community who are not at the terrific Bootcamp being lead by our good friend Deborah Schultz along with Tara Hunt and Kathleen Gilroy, stop on by!

Since we did not have time to find a sponsor, everyone can either bring some food, or you can chip in a few dollars. If you don’t have a place to stay, and are either a member or a friend, we also have a few rooms available this week that are much less expensive than most hotels and resorts in the area at only $125 per night.

We are still talking with the good folks at CMMC about whether or not we are going to hold the “Leaving Las Vegas” party on Tuesday night, so stay tuned!  UPDATE: looks like this won’t be happening - too much other stuff to do and need to be awake for WED morning session.

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Social Media Clubhouse #2

After a long day at New Comm Forum, Debbie Weil, Howard Greenstein and I had a nice dinner with a few other bloggers at Maggiano’s and drove back to the Clubhouse. During the drive we talked about some of the issues of the day, but largely delved into our perspectives on Second Life and briefly into David Weinberger’s most exceptional keynote.

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Social Media Clubhouse Podcast #1

This morning, we had a great chat for about 13 minutes on the way in to New Comm Forum from the Social Media Clubhouse. Joining me (Chris Heuer) were Howard Greenstein and Debbie Weil. The conversation covered the prevalence of massage parlors in Las Vegas, Mit Romney’s undergarments and the deeper topic of how many people hold onto old protocols instead of holding the deeper purpose and beliefs behind such protocols. For instance, some journalists hold on to the notion of print, instead of remembering that is the uncovering of the truth and communicating it widely. It should be quite entertaining, or at least I hope it is.

Subscribe to the Social MedaCast or go to iTunes and search for Social Media Cast in the Podcast Directory.

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SMC is the Media Partner for the Social Software Summit

Chris and I are proud that Social Media Club is the “Knowledge Partner” or “Media Partner” (different brochures say different things) for Technology IQ/IQPC’s “Social Software Summit” April 30-May 2 in San Francisco.

We’re pleased to offer members of Social Media Club 20% off the price, by using code “IUS_15072” when you check out.

Here’s some of their copy about the event:

The World Wide Web + 1, Web 2.0, is now deeply rooted in the fabric of our online society.

Are people tagging your website all over the terrain of the web? Does your company have a blog… do your employees? Do you understand the power of wikis or of RSS feeds?

Now, more than ever, it is crucial that the leaders in social media, the purveyors of collaborative social software, and users of these technologies, are talking to each other. This new ecosystem of services has proved incredibly fruitful and lucrative for Fortune 500 companies across industries. Hear how you too can start reaping the benefits of this improved version of the World Wide Web.

More info at their site.

Chris and I will be doing a session on day 1 about:

The Communications Strategy for a Social Media World
• Discover why knowledge marketing is your not-so secret weapon in a
successful communications strategy
• Create genuine engagement that builds relationship capital and
brand value
• Learn why embracing a holistic communications strategy will improve
your products and your bottom line

AND

we’ll be doing a Pre-Conference session called “Mastering Social Media Concepts and Practices.”

We hope to see you there.

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Social Media Clubhouse - Las Vegas, March 7-13th

We just finalized plans and signed the contract on our first Social Media Clubhouse and I am tickled pink (well not pink, but you know what I mean). From March 7-13th, we will be in Las Vegas for the New Comm Forum and the Community 2.0 Conferences, so we rented an awesome house where we will host something equivalent to what Coke did with the World Cup (We All Speak Football)and what Podtech did with Bloghaus, with our own unique twists.

The house is about 5 minutes by cab from the Venetian for New Comm Forum, and 15 mins by cab from the Red Rock Hotel and Casino for Community 2.0. It will be worth the drive - ride sharing can be organized on the Wiki, and if you are planning on coming, we would ask you add your name there each day so we can make appropriate plans. More information will be posted over here on the wiki in the next few days. The house was just completed recently, a new custom home, and it is quite amazing. It has a pool (not heated), wifi to DSL, a great home theatre room for movie nights, a BBQ, a tennis court, a big backyard and hopefully a pool table by the time we arrive.

Our plan is to have a series of small hosted cocktail parties and movie nights, and we will host a BBQ on Sunday afternoon/evening and hopefully a Pool Tournament on Thursday March 8th after the New Comm Awards. The final schedule will be posted on the wiki. We are seeking sponsors to help pay for some of the costs which will include sponsorship of the parties and all the media produced for Social Media Clubhouse, via blogposts and podcasts, so contact us if you are interested.

We will begin hosting similar activities at all of the various Social Media conferences we attend and the one’s we organize ourselves. We are also seeking to have the house serve as a gathering/collaborating place along the lines of what Dave Winer imagined as a Hypercamp, where bloggers and podcasters and others attending the conference have a place to hang out and produce media together - sharing resources, references and pointers to information that will strengthen the quality of the media being created - and having a fun time, which is truly what it is all about. I will be hosting Podcasts each morning and evening on the drive to and from the conferences in the stylish MiniVan, in addition to writing blog posts and shooting photos and hopefully some video each day.

We are also offering members of Social Media Club an opportunity to have a less expensive option for housing while attending the same conferences - which provides another way to connect across our growing network. In addition to myself, Howard Greenstein will be there with us from Wednesday to Saturday, Tom Foremski will be there from Wednesday through Saturday and my fiancee Kristie Wells will be there from Saturday through Wednesday. At the moment there is at least one room available each night we will be there, with a few more during Community 2.0, so let me know if you are in need of a place to stay - it works out to about $125 per night and we should all be able to fit in the minivan on our way to and from the conferences each day.

So this is what I mean by ‘Club’ - a group of people who trust each other and are able to work together beyond the walls of their organizations, and connecting as independents within our growing global neighborhood. Together we can not only help each other be successful with our work, but reduce our expenses and have fun.

I look forward to welcoming you to our first Social Media Club House in Las Vegas! Yeah Baby!

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