So...What's Next?!?

The Possibilities of Mass Collaboration

I attended the Georgia Technology Summit today. So far I found a few blogs, some tweets, and Amani Channels video from the session. I am sure there are more to come. I will be saving the reactions here.

The keynote Speaker was Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics - the 2007 management book of the year.

I was very excited that this group would be introduced to his message, but I am a little concerned that it did not resonate with many.

Just follow some of the tweets;

StephenFleming:                

#gts2008 Seeing a lot of eyes glazed over here. I hope it's soaking in to some people.                  

jhaynie:                

#gts2008 -  *more people need* to read wikinomics in this room                

I actually saw someone dozing off!

Tapscott started with the 2007 Time Magazine person of the year as being “You.”

He discussed the growth of Facebook and MySpace that is happening all over the world and that there is a new blog created every second of everyday…

And then he dropped the "All this news is so 2006."

Today it is about a new way of productions. How we create goods and services and how companies communicate all over the world.

What was so timely about this message was the post on BusinessWeek

Social Media Will Change Your Business
Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later

I would like to repeat...I saw people falling asleep this morning!!!

Tapscott also discussed how the new web is accessed throughout various “things” from chips in the door key for his hotel to smart houses.

He talked about how the physical world is becoming smart and interconnected bringing up;

Broadband Mobility

Geo-Spatiality (GPS Tour Guide)  and IntelliOne

He also discussed the idea of True Multimedia – You get to have a movie and be in the movie as well. Think of the next generation of game play with cinema.

I would say it is practically here with machinima.

Tapscott discussed the rise of web services and how the new web is based on XML – computation…..where every time you interact with the computer you are programming the global platform and the need to integrate internal systems to the global platform (AJAX)

He announced that people who keep thinking about the Internet as it used to be are making a big mistake.

Our kids, the ones coming into the workforce, known as the net generation, have no “fear” of technology because it is like air to them.

I hated computers in the 10th grade. Todays 10th graders do not know a world without computers.

How much of an accelerated change is this?...Tapscott showed the growth trend of this generation in regards to the population growth

Generations – Boom, Bust (Gen X) and then the  Echo (net gen) which is louder than the original boom.

For this generation time online is taking away from television. These kids watch less TV and they are multi-taking while interacting with all their digital devices.

62% of the time heavy Internet users bleep out TV ads. That means when they are watching television, they are watching it on their own terms.

Tapscott noted that this is the first time in history when children are the authority on something really important.

Tapscott highlighted the attitudes of the net gen based on  a panel with some kids awhile back.

"Why would I read a newspaper no links and only comes out once a day…"

"News is called an RSS feed and I can start my own newspaper."

"The Daily Show is not funny unless you know the news."

Kids expect to be engaged. As Tapscott pointed out;

Self organization has been around for the ages. Language is a function of self organization. But what used to take place over a millennia or centuries now can happen in a week or even a single day.

Tapscott noted that the average age of people who watch the nightly news is 62!

He also made a good case that the Internet is a platform for collaborations and that companies should not have websites anymore, they should be building communities.

Best question of the day...If you have employees wasting time on social networks…..is that a technology problem?

Sharing is Capitalism at it’s best because it is collaboration for innovation.

My Question – First I noted that there is a generation gap - from my spot in the room I thought I was the only one with a laptop trying to live blog (the wireless was not accessible) as opposed to all the bloggers we have at the SoCon events. But as you see a few others blogged the event -some of the "usual suspects" :)

Then I asked how the participants  of today's summit can find the balance of responding and managing these shifts as well as strategies to embrace and take advantage of these trends. Tapscott nailed the answer - just start contributing.

Overall it was a great event and I got to see a lot of people I know and meet a few new people.

Tonights closing quote;

We could go over the cliff. You would hope not. You would hope that people see what needs to be done. It's not rocket science. It's not difficult. It's not even all that costly. It's actually about the way you think about the world.

Tim Flannery

Who started this thing anyway...

I just returned from the kick off of SoCon08. I got to see Grayson Daughters there briefly and she pointed out how far we've come. I met Grayson through the Atlanta Media Blogger's Group - a small monthly meetup from about two years ago. We were lucky if 10 people showed up - but they were usually the 10 brightest people I had ever met.

That got me thinking about the first Atlanta Media Bloggers Group - which was started by Kevin Howarth - eventually I kept it going, but that was only because I was inspired by the person who spoke at the first one, which was Josh Hallett.

From there it was Kevin (again) who convinced me and drove with me to ConvergeSouth and then it was James Harris who encouraged me to set a date for this - idea and yet to be named unconference. It was the core Atlanta Media Bloggers Group that rallied the troops which eventually brought Leonard Witt, Jeff Haynie and me together.

I remember walking into SoCon07 and saying to myself..."who did  this?"  - because it ended up being much more than I would ever dare to imagine thanks to Leonard's passion and Jeff's organizational skills.

This year we had 160 people at the dinner - about 70 more people than last year  and we have 300 people registered for tomorrow's event. Wow!

'So tonight I leave you with this quote...

“Influence may be the highest level of human skills”
-Unknown

Oh Atlanta!

Today I attended the Atlanta Conventions and Visitors Bureau Industry Briefing and sat in the audience with immense pride. One I love the city of Atlanta. Two I love the direction I have seen it going in and
Three they are a client and during the presentation about the social media site they gave me and my team a very complimentary shout out!

So here are some notes from the briefing;

We have about 38 million visitors a year which generates about $12 billion in revenue,

ACVB is passionate about customer service and our southern hospitality. As Mark Vaughn, EVP Sales & Marketing put it, we will never have a beach (of course we never know what global warming may bring us...) but what we do have is our southern hospitality and that is the strength we each need to play to - to be the best and most hospitable city in the world.

I learned from Andrew Wilson, COO of Brand Atlanta that hits to the Atlanta.net site increased by 12% from 2006 to 2007 and is currently the second highest ranking COB site in traffic with Vegas being the first.

They talked about the wonderful blogging team that has volunteered to be the Ambassadors of this city. They also unveiled the desktop widget that was created, which I must say is quite useful You will be able to set you preferences based on what you like to do - eat, go to concerts, sports...and the ACVB events calendar will then push information to your desktop. Pretty Cool.

I have to say this project has been the most enjoyable one to date...and so for tonight's quote - I leave you all with a song by Alison Krauss

Roaming around, oh Lord
I've got all this and Heaven above

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

I get a feeling in me
When I remember all those
Crazy days and crazier nights
Can't you hear the music playing?
You must have heard them saying
We're gonna rip 'em up
And light up the night

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Same old place
It's the same old city
What can I do?
I'm falling in love

I'm just an old hound dog
Roaming around, Lord, Lord
I've got all this and Heaven above

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Oh, Atlanta
Hear me calling
I'm coming back to you one fine day, hey
No need to worry
There ain't no hurry cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Atlanta's Landscape is Changing

About a year and a half ago we started putting SoCon07 together and we were hoping we could get 100 people there. Although it was a free event, we knew that not many people were aware of the impact that social media was about to have on...everything.

We did A LOT of promoting; TechLINKS agreed to be our media sponsor, CRMA and Atlanta IT Association promoted it, we had lots of of blogger friends blog about it...but I feel the big win was when Time Magazine announced "You" as Time Magazine's Person of the year. Social Media was finally hitting the mainstream.

We had about 100 people at the dinner and about 250 people at the Saturday event.

This year we have not done nearly as much promotion. I have blogged about it and sent information out to my email list. I know Leonard and Jeff have blogged and others have blogged about it. But we have not pushed it nearly as hard as we did last year. Not only that we are charging this year - we have additional expenses that needed to be covered whereas last year we all handled as much as we could ourselves. Currently we have over 120 people signed up for the dinner and almost 200 signed up for the event. I will be sending another email out tomorrow to let everyone know this is the last week to sign up - we will shut registration down on Friday. On Tuesday we are going to have to raise the price of the Friday night dinner. So - if you have not registered yet - do not delay.

Today Leonard Witt, Barbara Vining, Timothy Moenk and I met to finalize some details such as break out sessions and the menu. We agreed on 11 breakout sessions based on what people requested on the registration form. Most people were still looking for a basic over view, or what I think they are saying is they do not know what they need to know but they need to know something. I am happy to announce we put a schedule together that will address the "newbies" as well as those looking to know "what's next."

The "what's next' session will be covered by Timothy Moenk and will touch upon his current interest which is DataPortability. I will be covering Social Media for B2B and Josh Hallett will cover "Everything you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask."'

Another meeting I had today covered our project scope with the Technology Association of GA. We have been consulting with Tino and his team for a few months and I am very excited with the roll-out plan that Tim has put together. It seems to be a win-win for everyone involved.

As we roll this out to one of the largest associations in GA I can only imagine the ripple affect as more and more organizations realize the potential that can be unleashed when the the tools, technologies and cultural shifts are embraced in favor of collaboration and communication.

Tomorrow's What a Concept! weekly post will be all about the upcoming summit - so I will not repeat that here other than to mention that the keynote is Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, a book I recommended to everyone last year. That should get more and more people thinking about collaboration.

Just the events in the first few months of this year has me looking forward to some of the changes that I have been advocating finally gaining momentum.

There is this rumor going around about a recession. I personally have chosen to ignore such rumors and to even ignore a recession, if one should occur. However if one should occur I suspect it will make more organizations want to cut back, be more efficient and effective and run a more lean and streamlined business. It might be a good time to learn more about this thing called social media that will allow such changes to be implemented.

So...today's quote of the day...

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
-Henry Ford

BlogSavannah Recap

Well I am home after a long day. Tim and I set off for Savannah this morning at 4 am and I walked in the door at 10:30.

The drive was worth it. It was great to see some friendly faces including the not so excruciatingly normal Betsy, the Bigger than life BigBonton.

I was especially happy to see our tour guide from last year, Phil Sellars. Phil is one of the most delightful, knowledgeable, and entertaining story tellers I know. Last year Amber, Rusty and I had the pleasure of walking and driving around Savannah with Phil and hearing about the rich history of the city at every corner. Phil also helped us get our cars out of a locked garage at the end of the day as well. He is a enjoyable and well connected (thankfully!)

I am happy to report that with a few key partnerships, Phil has taken his walking tours podcast idea to a whole new level with a company called CityTrex.

I am very much looking forward to the success of this venture and hope to be able to find a way to be part of it as well.

The final highlight of the day was seeing a demonstration of a OLPC which in spite of whatever controversy or disruptive business practices might be happening around this project is still a really cool innovation and provides the right ideas and hopes for raising a connected, educated, and creative generation.

Today's Quote

"Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century."
_Perelman

Everything I know about Social Media I learned from watching my son play XBox Live

Alright - a few people such as Tim Moenk, Amber Rhea, Grayson Daughters, Josh Hallet, Jim Stroud, Rusty Tanton, Chris Boese, and many more might take a little offense to that title. The reality is most of what I know I learned from very smart, brave forward thinking people.. :)

However, I developed some profound (if I do say so myself) insights from watching my son play XBox Live.

Today I had a wonderful meeting with Les Ottolenghi who is setting up an amazing program schedule for the TAG Enterprise 2.0 society - but I digress.

I was telling him my theory that XBox Live and all the other ways our kids are connected will end wars in the next decade or two. Our children will not want to battle the friends that they have known and grown up with online. They will accept, understand, and appreciate the differences that our generation and generations past have killed over.

He agreed on the fighting aspect but felt the new wars will be fought over available resources. I thought that made since... humans will have to go through stages in the evolutionary process. The majority have stopped enslaving and torturing other humans (unfortunately I am aware that this still happens in many many places - but we are at least appalled by it and it is not
accepted globally like it once was) - next we will stop killing each other over our differences. However that does not mean we will be ready to play nice. We will probably just move into parallel play - which means we will have evolved into toddlers. Eventually we might be able to share.

Later tonight I got to hang out with some friends and again I made the comment that everything I have learned from social media I learned from watching my son play XBox Live. The point I was making then was that people of celebrity status, whose careers benefit by connecting with their fans, but who also get so overwhelmed that they have to escape - can utilize social media to gain their humanity back, connect with fans while playing. I connected those dots when my son informed me that Jack Black plays Halo. I began to wonder if my son ever got to play with Jack Black and did not know it. Then I thought what wonderful PR that was if he did play and everyone knew it was him...

Speaking of celebrities, I can not get Heath Ledger out of my mind today. I first saw him in 10 Things I Hate About You - one of my favorite movies - and then in Knight's Tale - another favorite. He is/was damn good looking, but so what - so are many who died young. So why does he keep coming to mind today...I guess he just did not "seem the type" to be found dead.

Finally - I think since I have a fresh start with this blog, I am going to end each post with a quote as opposed to a random quote randomly.

Many people can appreciate the fact that I can appreciate this quote...so this is for you (you know who you are :))

Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. - Winston Churchill