Morning all,

I am curious whether you have had a chance to digest all of the information from the conference? What opinions have you been able to form about social media and do you see it playing a part in your organization?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Matt

Whew!  I love attending and participating in industry conferences (especially when it’s on a topic close to my heart like social media), but it can be really draining!  Taking three days off of a work at the beginning of the week to participate in the conference just means that you now have two days the rest of the week to do five days’ worth of work!  That’s why I’m just now getting to this wrap-up post.  The good part of this is that I’ve had some time to reflect on all of the great dialogue that we had, both in the group setting and on a one-on-one level.

On Wednesday afternoon, I asked everyone to write the following ten things to take away from the conference.  Here they are:

1. Be a Champion
2. Get Leadership Buy-in
3. Experiment on Your Own
4. Continue to Learn
5. Take Risks
6. Involve IT, Legal, Public Affairs, training, change management
7. Integrate Into Existing Strategies
8. Start Small
9. It’s About Culture
10. Quality vs. Quickness

This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but in listening the multitude of fantastic speakers that Kelly was able to bring together last week, these were the top ten points that were made over and over again.  From the first pre-conference workshop that Grant McLaughlin and I presented to the the Nancy Mulroy’s final presentation on how she applied the things she learned at last year’s conference, I loved seeing all of the various ways organizations big and small are using social media.

This conference served as validation for me – as you heard on Wednesday, my company is currently developing and implementing a suite of social media tools behind our firewall, and it’s always good to hear that we’re on the right track while staying flexible enough to adapt and learn from what others are doing.  More importantly though, I met a lot of great people who I’d like to continue learning from.  I think that’s always the most powerful thing about these types of conferences – the people you meet and the relationships that grow from that.

That’s why I’m really excited about having this blog and the soon-to-come wiki site available.  As we continue down the long and winding road of using social media, it’s good to know that there will be a resource available here for you to ask questions, engage in dialogue and get ideas.

I’ll post again once we get the wiki site set up so that you can all download the presentation materials.  But why wait?  Start your blog, start tweeting, create a YouTube channel, or just start using an RSS reader. Just remember, if you get stuck, there’s a whole community here on this blog where help is just a comment away!

Speaker: Nancy Mulroy – Hartford Police Department’s Public Information Officer

Topic: From the past to the present: How to gain social media success

Nancy is a former attendee of the social media conference and in a very short amount of time after attending she has been able to bring social media to the Harford Police Department. She emphasized the “one step at a time” approach. At first the Dept. brought RSS feeds to the websites and she sold the local press and media on their use vs. conventional listserv technology. It took approximately a week to develop the RSS feed with a few hours from an internal developer.

As the possible benefits of social media became apparent, police chief Daryl Roberts started a blog to gain trust with the community, work with people and address the need for help solving certain crimes in the area.

Nancy recommended using a three E approach when changing your organization:

• Explore
• Engage
• Enlighten

Nancy’s involvement came in part with the Web Governance Committee and gaining buy in. By taking a lead in web governance Nancy was able to apply her new knowledge and guide discussions on development.

Key Points:

• Use multi-purpose content
• Don’t reinvent the wheel – add social media (e.g., comment features) to existing sites
• Maintain Service Relationships and safety

Resources:

Chief Roberts’ Blog

Harford Police Website

Speaker: Joe Balintfy – National Institutes of Health, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

Topic: How to use audio and video to transform your internal and external communications and reap the benefits – with minimal costs

In order to reach a larger audience, Joe has had extensive experience working with Audio Reports, Podcasts and Vodcasts. Joe shared his experience and stated his affinity for higher production quality, scripted content. He has invested in a production quality camera and recording equipment. The reasoning stems from a desire for any individual or organization to look at his content and possibly rebroadcast his information, extending his marketing reach.

YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/NIHOD

Investment:

Time invested costs much more than equipment. Joe offered some time estimates for professional quality productions based on his experience.

Audio report – One to Two days
Podcast – Additional One to Two days
Vodcast – Approximately 1 – 2 Weeks depending on length

Remember:

Cross promote across all of your social media outlets. Simple actions increase traffic to other websites.

Use tools that make your life easier, for example:

Eureka Alert (A system to make sure journalists covering science get distribution)
Audio tools such as: Adobe Audition, ITunes distribution

Video: Final Cut Pro (MAC based)

Additional Resources: 

http://www.nih.gov/news/research_matters/index.htm

Speaker: Bruce Burton – Department of State

Topic: How to use social media innovations and web 2.0 tools to promote a knowledge-sharing culture among a widely dispersed organization

Summary:

The Department of State certainly works in an environment dependent on knowledge. With 57,000+ employees across the world the organization has faced communication issues. Communication issues often stem from the highly autonomous business units (embassies and bureaus) and a communication structure that has not changed significantly since the era of Thomas Jefferson. In addition with the rise of the Cold War, a “need to know” mentality prevailed.

Bruce offered amazing insight into the Dept. Of State as he said the organization is moving from a culture of “need to know” to “need to share.” As a result of recent efforts over the past 4-5 years, the Dept. is successfully growing the adoption of tools such as Diplopedia, the internal wiki for the department.

Social Media is being implemented to help the organization achieve the following tasks:

• Inform internal stakeholders
• Manage information
• Collaborate
• Unite
• Educate

User Adoption:

Bruce mentioned that The Department of State has approached everything in a viral way and will continue to do so. As a result hundreds of groups and pages of information have been formed.

Resources:

Blog Software: Moveable Type
Internet address for information: http://www.state.gov/m/irm/c23839.htm

Speakers: Charles Holt & Jamie – US Department of Defense

Topic: How to integrate social media (blogging, podcasting & other new media) with traditional channels to maximize your communication efforts and results

Summary:

The DoD is becoming more attuned to digital natives; those aged 18-25. Along with being raised in generation “me” the DoD recognized many of their incoming recruits were intermediate to advanced users in social media. The traditional military hierarchy had to adjust. Paraphrasing the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates stated in the featured video clip, “It is a sad state of affairs when Al Qaeda is better at communications than the US.”

Charles and many of his colleagues have started creating a culture within the DoD where social media is not only accepted, it is embraced like traditional media. Of course the DoD is similar to many other organizations. They tried many social media applications and test them for their functionality before committing resources to their upkeep.

Their outreach efforts were very similar to DHS by conducting blogger roundtables. In addition the DoD has their own blog as well as their own online video channel where they post as many military videos as possible.

DoD Link Blog: http://www.defenselink.mil/Blogger/Index.aspx

Benefits:

As a result of the social media presence, the DoD is maintaining a presence in the blogosphere even when they are not on the national news. As items become more popular they are getting new requests for information that may have been disseminated days and months ago. For video they use feedroom.

A key lesson learned is to always upload linkable source information. By doing this, members of on-line communities can argue over the facts and not opinions that very well could be based on inaccurate information.

Key Thing to Remember:

The DoD has experimented with many social media applications and found what works best for their organization. Perhaps your organization should take on a similar mentality.

Speaker: Don Burke – CIA: Directorate of Science and Technology

Topic: Implementing Social Software in a Need-To-Know Culture

Summary:

I personally enjoyed learning about history from this CIA social media expert. Rightly so, many organizations build up scar tissue from rough experiences as they mature. New policies and safeguards are often put in place and they hinder collaboration across an organization. Social media offers a new opportunity to overcome scar tissue. Collaboration behind the firewall is possible for complex and adaptive organizations.

Don’s personal experience with social media stems from the implementation of Intellipedia. The site enables any user to contribute with all users able to see changes. In many ways it is an aggregator service for the organization. In addition users are asked to use attributable points of view instead of neutral points of view.

Intellipedia adheres to three core principles

1. Work at broadest audience possible
2. Think topically, not organizationally
3. Replace existing business processes

Key Point

When implementing social media make sure you do it for yourself. By taking the time to make yourself more efficient you will better yourself and collaboration will be a by-product.

Resources:

YouTube: Did you know 2.0

www.shifthappens.wikispaces.com

Simple sabotage field manual written in 1944 (Yes, I found the real manual for you to reference)

Speaker: John Verrico

Topic: How to open your media relations doors to bloggers and broaden your reach to your target audience in the process.

Summary:

John’s experiences with bloggers have been positive and they continue to trend in this direction. As a representative for the Department of Homeland Security he understands the importance of having accurate information available to the public. As more individuals include blogs into their daily lives as news sources, David stressed the importance of working with bloggers to establish relationships. Bloggers are news sources; each blogger is capable of reporting good and bad news to their subscribers and often help readers form their opinions.

In order to combat bloggers commenting or publishing false information, DHS works with bloggers via regular meetings or “blogger round tables” as they are often named. By bringing bloggers together, DHS has been able to decrease the spread of false or inaccurate stories. John’s advice included treating each of the bloggers as though they were conducting a media briefing event. As a result DHS is not only able to have their official voice in the public realm, but often bloggers carry stronger voices among Internet users because they carry a trusting citizen’s voice out in the public.

David helped steer DHS towards not implementing any in-house blogging capabilities. A proactive campaign to get existing bloggers to write about DHS activities was a much more rewarding exercise. Interestingly enough, John’s experience found many bloggers carried extensive experience and were often experts in a particular subject. Traditional news reporters on the other hand can sometimes be seen as having a large reach but few areas of deeper knowledge.

Remember the exercise…

Remember trying to open the hand of the person next to you when they had it closed. Many of us took an adversarial approach when a simple question may have sufficed. In short, don’t be adversarial with bloggers, find them and develop a relationship with them. In high stress situations where false or misleading information may exist or leak out about your organization, bloggers need to have the ability to call a person in charge to fact check.

When working with bloggers, John had many considerations based on his experience for you to remember. These considerations include:

• Bloggers are not always available like representatives from the media
• Blogs are immediate
• No chance to respond before story goes viral
• Difficult to track information spread
• Treat bloggers like traditional media (e.g., invite them to press events)
• Hold blogger roundtables
• Bloggers are an excellent communication tool that will expand your media reach

Speaker: David J. Neff – CIW, American Cancer Society

Topic: How to Spread Your Message And Harness The Power Of Social Media While Being Cost-Effective

Summary:
David had many insights into social media since his organization had grown its online presence. To begin David offered practical advice such as, people tend not to watch video over 10 minutes long. This is a useful piece of information for future vodcasters.

When asked about time savers and tools David mentioned TubeMogul.com is a resource to consider. Of course he is just speaking about his experiences and not endorsing anything. Worldcaption.com is a resource that came to mind when the discussion turned to captioning.

David first addressed social media by looking at what it means to the general population. His goal is to get the greatest audience penetration and participation in cancer related events. In David’s opinion, social media allows the populations to take on a group think mentality around your message; people will talk about your message in good and bad ways. Whether the messages are good or bad, David mentions that any organization will experience these things and you have to deal with it, and encourage it.

When discussing how messages were previously disseminated to the general population David introduced his thoughts on the old model:

Influential
Long Leads
Weeklies
National Business Press
Local business press
National consumer/broadcast media

As social media has been introduced, a new media model has emerged:

Core communities
Trend spotters
First “credible” source
National media

This part was important…

David stressed that success was a result of having an interesting and unique message to help you stand out. Compelling content and digital story-telling is critical to disseminating your message. For instance recall his experience with Frozenpeafund.com and how one woman’s fight with cancer helped raise awareness and significant donations. FYI – The digital story David played online is located here http://www.sharinghope.tv/video/1706386.

As another FYI, David’s experience with social media resources include:
Scobleizer
Global Neighbourhoods
TechCrunch
DivamarketingBlog
ooVoo.com – interviews with favorite bloggers
PEW marketing research – report on-line about digital

Tracking – Google Analytics, summize.com, compete.com, tweetscan.com, Google blog alerts, Facebook search, viewzi.com

So, in today’s interactive session, we wanted to give our conference attendees an opportunity to actually see the power of wikis and the “wisdom of crowds” here at the Conference.  Sure, we could have walked through the history of a Wikipedia page, or talked about how Intellipedia has changed the way the Intelligence Community creates and shares information, but it’s a lot easier to to take these thoughts and ideas back to your organization if you’ve actually experienced it.

With this afternoon’s session, I’m hoping to illustrate the power that wikis can have when used within an organization.  I’ve done this interactive session a couple of times before, and it’s gotten really good feedback so far, so I’m hoping for a similar result here today.

The Hypothesis

A roomful of people can provide the same answers as the “experts” in less time, often with more complete information and leads to additional information.

The Setup

Two recognized “experts” are given a list of questions that they’re given 10 minutes to answer in isolation.  During this same ten minutes, the audience is given the same list of questions and are asked to answer the questions in real-time.  Today’s experts will be David Neff from the American Cancer Society and Jack Holt from the Department of Defense.  What follows are the questions and the “crowd’s” answers to those questions.

The Questions

Who won last night’s All-Star game?

• American League
• The game was the longest in history – 15 Innings
• Score: 4 – 3
• Last All-Star game in Yankee Stadium

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of what DC landmark?

• The Lincoln Memorial in 1963
• Part of the speech was ad lib

I just found out that my friend has lung cancer, and I want to learn more – how can I find out more information?

• American Cancer Society
• Cancer.org
• NIH Cancer Division
• Cancer Center of America
• Sharinghope.tv
• Use custom homepages with RSS feeds from resources
• Sloan-kettering
• Virtua Cancer Center
• Mayo Clinic
• Lance Armstrong’s Book
• WebMD

I want to place RSS feeds onto my website, but don’t know where to start – what are the questions that I need to ask to get started?

• What type of content should have RSS feeds
• Target Audience
• Where should the RSS feeds be located on the website
• Who are the experts in the organization
• Who is going to code the RSS feeds
• How would you promote and integrate RSS feeds into your communication strategy
• Where are some of the sources
• Organizational policies regarding RSS
• How to track RSS feeds
• Audience’s knowledge of RSS

What types of wiki software are available?

• MediaWiki
• Social Text
• Confluence
• PB Wiki
• Wikipedia Wiki page has all current wikis listed
• SharePoint

I want to learn more about social media – what are the some of the best learning resources?

• Presenters
• Digg
• Attendees
• Social Media Today
• Social Media for Government Blog
• Wikipedia
• Technorati
• Wikinomics
• TubeMogul.com
• Wiki Patterns
• CNet

We’ve all worked with public affairs officers and they seem to have a wide range of capabilities and knowledge. What types of training should a public affairs officer be required to take?

• Writing for the web
• Strategic public relations
• Attend conferences
• Crisis management
• Media training
• Media relations

Who’s going to win the Red River Shootout this year (Texas-Oklahoma)?

• OU!!!

After reviewing the answers from the “experts,” we found that the hypothesis proved true (for the most part!).  The experts often provided a “right” answer, but the “crowd” was usually able to not only match the experts’ right answer, but provide a more complete answer, and often more information that led to answers to follow-on questions too.  While this exercise didn’t prove anything, it did illustrate the potential social media can have within the organization when you open up and put your information on a platform like a wiki, rather than keeping it contained within a channel like email.