Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

A Tour of Social City at EMC World

So I'm off to the Big Apple to represent EMC and pick up our first-place award for engagement marketing in BtoB Online's 2011 Social Media awards. The campaign that took the award was a rather large launch (internally known as 'Mega Launch') back in January.

As I sit here staring at the inevitable flight delay board, I reflect on our ongoing evolution in the social realm. One thing that's consistent - When we want to have an impact in Social, we go BIG.

To that end, and with EMC World 2011 now in the rear-view mirror, I thought I'd give you an inside look into our social presence at EMC World - 'Social City'.

Social City was designed to put all of our social engagement points front and center for attendees of the event. Be it EMC's Facebook presence, our EMC Community Network, our roster of industry bloggers - There's a point of engagement for everyone.

It was also designed to help drive EMC World discussions far beyond the physical confines of the event. As you'll see - Social City helped us extend the conversations to hundreds of thousands more via digital channels.

So - See for yourself. Here's your very own tour of Social City - including the now infamous Bloggers Lounge - at EMC World by yours truly. I suspect you'll see what I mean... We like to go BIG with Social.

 

 

We ARE Big Data

At EMC World last week, ten-thousand of us got together in person to discuss what happens when cloud meets big data. Through the wonders of Social Media, we were able to extend that conversation well beyond the physical confines of the event, to hundreds of thousands more.

It was simply awesome to watch.

As we've done in recent years, we had a really cool 'buzzboard' running on plasma screens throughout the event (See screenshot below). Somewhat par for the course, our buzzboard scrolled tweets and images tagged #EMCWorld in real time. It's a good reminder of the digital discussions that take place alongside the physical.

During his opening keynote, EMC CEO Joe Tucci shared that in 2010, the digital universe was 1.2 zetabytes. By end of decade, it's projected to be 35 zetabytes. That's 44x growth. WOW!

To that end, we added a new twist to our buzzboard this year - The 'Big Data Meter'. Here's a screengrab from the counter on our EMC World Facebook page.

 

 

We set out to project the amount of digital information generated during an event such as EMC World. To get there, we looked at social activity from last years event and made some assumptions based on audience growth.

We then turned our attention to the logistics of this years show... How many keynotes, how many breakout sessions, how many hours of live broadcast, etc;.

The net net here - Between tweets, blogs, images, breakout presentations, keynote videos, live broadcasts and the like, roughly 100 terabytes of information a day was created and added to the digital universe during EMC World.

And, as we watched it all unfold in real-time, I'm convinced that our assumptions going in were rather conservative.

My takeaway - big data is not merely an interesting theme on the horizon. It's not a phenomenon specific to big companies. Rather, it's here, it's now, and it's all of us...

More information on our exploding digital universe over here.

The Journey to the Engaged Enterprise

Back in 2007, we set out on a journey to fundamentally transform the way we do business. We knew at the time that this wasn't as simple as flipping a 'social switch', spinning up a community or establishing a brand presence on Facebook.

Rather, we knew that we were embarking on something really big and transformative. We knew that the journey would be challenging, but also exciting, and that the rewards on the other side were simply enormous.

A bit over three years in and I think we're well on track. We've established an extremely high-degree of 'social proficiency' across our global workforce, and use tools such as EMC|ONE, the EMC Community Network, Facebook and many other channels to engage our audiences in new and meaningful ways.

Lots of Little Data = Big Data

Wow. Well that was quite the event. If you missed it, EMC unveiled 41 new or revamped products - likely the biggest launch in the history of EMC.

I'll leave all of the cool details around the products themselves to our industry elites... As a primer, Chuck shares an overview, as does Chad, Barry and 'Zilla.

eBiz types can rest easy knowing that Social was an integral part of the event. Between a buzz building campaign leading up to 1/18, some Facebook fun to help drive speculation, live Q&A via the EMC Community Network, and much more.

Given all of the effort that went into this, I'm happy to report that #EMCBreaksRecords trended nationally on Twitter during the event, and that social activity was responsible for approximately 28% of traffic to EMCBreaksRecords.com web site.

But what struck me most during the event had little to do with the launch itself, nor social per se... EMC CEO Joe Tucci was on stage talking about the history of EMC, and providing some thoughts about the future of information...

Preserving Information - The EMC Heritage Trust Project

Consider for a moment the explosive growth of our digital universe. Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created will grow to a staggering 35 trillion gigabytes! If you haven't already, be sure to check out the EMC / IDC Digital Universe report for a real provocative look into this expanding universe.

Now consider all of the information created BEFORE the arrival of the digital revolution - and the means in which it's 'stored'.  Consider the photographs, historical records, ancient writings, visual arts, etc - that all remain captured only in fragile forms such as paper.

EMC's Heritage Trust Project looks to help digitize such priceless information. Through this program, EMC works with initiative partners to provide hardware, software, expertise, financial assistance, and recognition to those who use digital tools to preserve the world's heritage and make it available via the Internet for research and education.

EMC is calling for nominations for the 2011 Heritage Trust Project. The project provides cash grants betwen $5,000 - $15,000 to organizations that seek to pursue digital archive initiatives.

This is an incredibly valuable program and I'm proud to be a part of the company behind it. Protecting and remembering our past is key, and digitizing historical information is of great value to our and future generations. Please help spread the word on this... Much more information on the program itself and the process for submitting nominations is available on EMC.com.

 

Top Ten Signs Your Social Journey May Be Stalled...

 The title says it all... If any of these resonate, you may need a dose of high-octane fuel to get things back on track...

1. Determing the best response to a less than flattering tweet involves several meetings, a small army of people, and several unwiedly Powerpoint decks
2. Your Social Media hiring plan consists largely of 'moderators' and 'content approvers'
3. You insist that people sign an NDA before posting to your Facebook wall
4. Before replying to a post on your internal community, you check the company org chart to ensure the person you're replying to can't fire you
5. You think 'VOC' means 'voice of the company'
6. No matter how hard you try, you simply cannot get your arms around the saying  "We have two ears and one mouth for a reason"
7. Your brands Twitter page is protected
8. You're wondering how to convert all of your direct mail templates into 140 characters
9. Your Social Media team reports into your Office of Risk & Compliance
10. Your last blog post was over two weeks ago!

Got more? Let's hear them in the comments...

Video Killed The Radio Star

Twelve years ago (OK, maybe fifteen), it was all about the <Blink> tag to bat your message home. Overused? Heck yeah. In fact, the bane of my existence for many years.

As the digital world evolves, so do the capabilities for effective information delivery. The audience of today is busier than ever, and needs to consume information on their terms, not ours.

See You at JiveWorld 2010?

There's nothing I enjoy more than sharing some of the lessons learned during our journey to become a truly socially enabled company. In fact, I've learned SO MUCH from the larger community over the years that it seems only fair to return the favor. After all, we're in this together, and are collectively building the communications model of tomorrow... Cool stuff.

I'll have a chance to share a bit about our journey next week at JiveWorld 2010 here in San Francisco. The speaking roster is packed with some of the best in the biz - it's sure to be an information-packed event.

Unfortunately, it looks like the conference itself is sold out. That's not to suggest you can't directly benefit from the great content coming from the show... Simply follow along via hashtag #JW10.

Will you be there? I'd love to connect. Drop a note in the comments or ping me via @LenDevanna on Twitter... Hopefully we'll see you there!

Live from VMWorld

No shortage of excitement coming from this years VMWorld.  If you're not fortunate enough to be here, you can follow all the buzz over at VMWorld.com. I'm running around with Flip cam in hand and hope to get some content posted this afternoon. In the meantime, wanted to share a couple of interesting videos coming from the show. First up, Sanjay Mirchandani, Senior Vice President and CIO at EMC, takes some time to talk about the benefits of virtualization, and also discusses EMC's own journey to the private cloud.

Sanjay is among several others who also made an appearnce on the live video feed from the event. Not too late to tune in and catch some of the great information coming out of the show.

Opportunity's Knocking

With Social Media becoming an increasingly important part of how we engage online, we're looking for some top-talent to come join the team. Specifically, we're looking for a senior community strategist type to help shape the future of EMC's community offerings.

If you have a strong passion for the social web, thrive in a highly collaborative team environment, and want to help build the future of digital communications, you'll want to give this opportunity a close look. We're looking for someone who has successfully conceptualized, deployed and managed large and thriving B2B communities.

Sound interesting? Check this and other EMC opportunities out at the careers section of EMC.com. Candidates interested in this particular opportunity should search and submit your credentials against Req ID 59488BR.