Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
More on the IDC Web2.0 Conference yesterday (attendees aside), there were some great insights that I’d love to talk about.
Prof. Michael brought up a point that I personally identify with. He says sometimes he has a guest in the class room and the guest is talking to the class, but the class is talking to each other via IM (or maybe Twitter), in other words, we’re having multiple levels of conversation.
I hope this is not new to marketers by now. Listen to Sarah from ReadWriteWeb or Ian from MTV. Generation Y is doing this. All the time.
Sarah will tell you they won’t even read this far down a blog post. Ian will tell you we have the computer on talking to 7 friends with MTV in the background and alternate-tabbing between games while stopping once in awhile to sms someone.
And that’s the truth.
Marketers are not going to get our full attention. And they certainly can’t demand it. They’re going to have to fight for it, not by interruption, but with darn compelling content. Does this mean we absorb less if we’re doing five things at the same time? Without empirical proof I’m going to say maybe. But I feel it also makes us aware of more. I can’t walk out of a movie these days without picking up at least one or two brands featured in the show, and more often than not the conversation becomes a “hey did you see that BMW insert?” after the movie.
Speaking as a Gen Y consumer myself, I love it when brands make the effort to connect, and seem like they’re genuine. (not some scammy thing). I’ll talk to you about Sony, about EA Games, about Bluehost and about HP because I know that they’re at least recognising the new presence of the new consumers and trying. They may not be fantastic at it, but it’s better than pretending we don’t exist or are a “fad”. (full disclosure: my office does PR work for HP)
Speaking of listening, I wanted to talk about this yesterday and am further prompted by this comment. Dear Yahoo!, I love that you sponsor stuff like the Web2.0 conference, but Jonathan is right. Does it make sense to sponsor it when people don’t get what you’re about? I love the “social” ymail and I love how it was presented in a non-intrusive way together with the goodie bags. But wouldn’t it be cooler to connect with say, 60 people who are in the space, in the know and can really appreciate what your product is about? Or give them a chance to try it and be bought over?
If you’re willing to listen to a proposition (not for me, but for the local Singaporean blogosphere), let’s start a conversation!
Tags: bluehost, ea games, Gen Y, generation y, hp, ianstewartmtv, IDC web2.0 conference, im, mtv, multi-tasking, multiple levels of conversation, readwriteweb, sarahintampa, social media insights, sony, sponsorship, twitter, yahoo, ymail
Posted in Blogs, Marketing, collaboration, community, social media | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Just got back from the IDC Web2.0 Conference today (thanks to Debbie and Joyes for granting me access!) and have some immediate thoughts before I go into detail about the various topics discussed.
Main thought: People need to do more research before coming for these conferences.
I estimate about 200 people in the room, and when the room was asked who used feeds (RSS), less than 30 people raised their hand.
Now I’m not judging, but I think if companies are going to spend $240 to send people for a three hour conference, they need to be able to absorb what is going on and follow the discussions. If only 30 people understand feeds, how many would understand the rest of the topics today? Wikis? Co-creation of content? Social networking? User-generated content? I have my doubts. I think companies owe it to themselves to do a little bit of research before going, so that they can truly engage in the discussion.
The thing is there was some good content at the conference. One speaker mentioned it’s not necessary to be front and centre of the content-creation, just a curator. And I wonder how many people got the reference.
Edit: Maybe next time after a conference I should walk up to people randomly and ask “So what do you think the takeaways are for your business?” and see what answers I get.
Finally, a question was asked towards the end of the day: “Is there research to show that using IM and Facebook increases productivity? And are some professions more suited than others to using social media in education. For example, would it be applicable to medicine?”. A muted groan rippled through the room.
Firstly, obviously there is no research to show that. The people who question the benefits of IM, Twitter and Facebook are those who are not on it or don’t understand it or are suspicious and un-trusting of their employees to be on these applications. Do you think people aren’t using the office phone for non-productive uses? Or the office email? Or the office printer?
The reason why this question comes up, to me, is because companies want to see this instant gratification. Are you using Facebook to generate a sales lead or close a sale? No? Waste of time. But it doesn’t work that way. Facebook, Twitter and IM take time to produce results. I spend a lot of time in the office on Facebook. I joke that it’s “research”, but finding out how people use Facebook and interact is very important. If you don’t know how your consumer is using their tools, how can you ever hope to be relevant?
Will there be employees who abuse this trust and throw sheep or superpoke friends at work? Sure. But I don’t feel that’s a reason to shut down access, because to me, the benefits outweigh the cons. Let’s keep this all in perspective. It’s the people that abuse the tool. Not that there’s anything inherently “wrong” about the tool.
Secondly, what a crazy question! Can the medical profession use social media? Of course! I honestly and truly question why this person was at this conference at all. The whole morning people were talking about interaction and content sharing and co-creation and wikis and transferring ideas and collaboration via Google Docs.
You mean you don’t see how medical knowledge can be pooled together, developed and refined via these tools? Or did you seriously mean doing away with practical surgery sessions and teach it via social media? Which is absolutely ridiculous too.
It is people like that, that are holding social media (and your company) back from advancing. The new consumers are not going to be convinced by an advertisement in the newspaper. If it’s not timely and relevant, forget it. If your business is not showing and interest in discovering how the new consumers think and behave, you might not be around in 10 years when they graduate and choose to spend their disposable income with a company who does.
Tags: close sales, co-creation of content, curator of content, facebook, facebook and productivity, facebook at work, feedburner, feeds, generate sales lead, generation y, google reader, grand copthorne waterfront, IDC web2.0 conference, new consumer, rss, Singapore, social media conference, social media singapore, social networking, twitter, user generated content, wikis
Posted in Singapore, Wikipedia, social media | 10 Comments »
