MVP for a Day

I'm realizing more and more that physical internal events can really help build awareness around the opportunities afforded through Social Media. There's certainly no shortage of passion and interest - so the trick becomes providing the right level of information such that the energy is channeled in a productive way. We've been doing this through our Lunch n' Learn events - But took it to another level this week.

On Monday, we were fortunate to serve as host for Microsoft community executive and CEO/Founder of CGT Consulting, Sean O'Driscoll. I've been following Sean for quite some time, and consider him among the top thought-leaders in this space.

We'd posted an open invite to the event on our internal community platform - and it filled almost immediately. Based on strong interest from our global audience, we extended to a LiveMeeting and had healthy international representation.

I'd say the event was a huge success...

We covered three high-level topics -

- How to leverage SM to tap deeply in to the voice of the customer
- Culture change - How enterprises are adopting and embracing social tools and behaviors
- Measurement and analytics - When are you successful

My favorite quote from the day:

"I learned more in that three hour discussion that I did at the last two-day conference I'd attended."

Priceless...

The session was three hours. The crowd was extremely diverse with representation from just about every organization in the company. Throughout, the audience was engaged, asked provocative questions and had a healthy appetite for the content.

The point here - many of us have two very distinct responsibilities that are interrelated... Deploying Social Media and cultural transformation. Such events go a long way towards establishing the foundation for your peers and building the groundswell that helps with cultural evolution. I have no doubt that every attendee walked away considering new opportunities for Social Media in the enterprise.

If you're faced with evolving 2.0 behaviors in the enterprise - consider leveraging the physical community to help develop and promote the online community. Bring in topical experts such as Sean to help ground people in the topic and explore some of the possibilities. Our internal community has been buzzing with conversations since Monday... and nothing could make me happier.

Comments

[Sean ODriscoll]

Outstanding! Really glad to hear things went so well and that the convo is continuing now that I'm back home in seattle.

sean