Guest Post: Virtual meets IRL, again'Social Media 2.0 / #socialc20

From: kerbehr.wordpress.com

The presentations at this conference were, IMHO, fantastic. The presenters were all very frank and pretty open in terms of sharing experiences ' both successful and the kind one learns from. Everything was discussed from blogging to Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare, and beyond.

This conference was also unique in that we had a 'mingling', almost 'speed-dating' session with other conference attendees. The art of being social and responding in a stream-of-consciousness. It was during these conversations that I met the people I would end up speaking with most (even having dinner with!). Although, the use of the #socialc20 hashtag also linked me with some folks I would later meet IRL, as they know me as @kerbehr, and I knew them by their Twitter handles.

There was no shortage of interesting content and hearing from brands that we all know all too well: McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Sega, Intuit/Turbo Tax, NHL, Chicago Bulls, Scholastic Books, Washington Capitals, Pepsico, Wells Fargo'the list goes on! We also got sneak peaks into @charleneli's new book 'Open Leadership' and @jbernoff's new book 'Empowered'. I'm looking forward to reading both, Charlene's comes out this month, and Josh's sometime in September.

So, in the course of two days, I feel like I made some solid contacts, met some tremendous people, and hopefully, have some interesting things lined up for work. I also got to drink LOTS of bottled water (contaminated water situation in Boston) and was evacuated during a panel discussion Wednesday morning (I heard it was a broken pipe), so it wasn't just the presentations that were interesting during this trip!

Some quotables (in no particular order):

' If people get what they expect from your prod. they don't talk. Your prod needs to exceed expectations.' - David Witt, Gen. Mills.

'No one social app is big enough to drive major sales, but they help us to engage.' ' Bonin Bough, Pepsico

''Social networks will be like air' It's everywhere. It's a natural state of being. ' Charlene Li

'We tend to overvalue what we can measure, and undervalue the things we cannot' ' John Hayes, AmEx, via Charlene Li

'I love any application where you can make money & pay people with love' ' Josh Bernoff

'Access creates content, content creates traffic' ' Jeremy Thum, Chicago Bulls.

'If someone talks about you negatively, its probably better that they do it in your house.' - @stevealter.

''If you don't build it, they will come anyway. If you build it, but don't know why, they will come once'and never come back again' ' Steve Alter

' The fastest way to not be a faceless corporation is to not be one. Put personality into your soc med efforts' ' Kellie Parker