Grounded In Reality

I’m here in Chicago for Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2007, where the theme of the two-day conference is “Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.” It’s my first time in Chicago, and I’m sad to say I’ve only seen the airport, hotel and one restaurant so far. But on the bright side, Forrester has a phenomenal line-up of speakers and topics like Charlene Li, VP and Principal Analyst for Forrester Research in the social computing space; Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEP of Playboy Enterprises; and Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Devision for Microsoft. And that’s just day one.

My head is spinning with ideas, but I wanted to share a few key insights from day one:

1) Word of the day: “groundswell.” A central theme of the conference, Forrrester defines groundswell as a “social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” Check out the winners of Forrester’s Groundswell awards here for great examples of organizations using social media to achieve their business goals.

2) When developing a social media strategy, technology should be the last part of the equation. Charlene Li recommends a four-step approach that can be remembered as “POST,” which stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology. Start by assessing the social technographic profile of your customers (see below). Then list your objectives. Next, determine a strategy for achieving those objectives. And lastly, identify the right technology. So next time a planning session begins with, “We need to be in MySpace” or “We want to blog,” take a step back and think hard about the audience first, their current behaviors and the relationship you wish to build with them.

3) Christie Hefner reminded us that while technology is evolving, basic human instincts - to meet someone, to be liked, to laugh - are eternal and universal. A good digital strategy should still tap into these instincts. She also commented that the term “brand” is overused, and I tend to agree. Not every product name is a brand; a brand represents a point of view, attitude and lifestyle that can move from one platform to another.

4) Manish Mehta from Dell (a GCI client) and Stan Joosten at Procter & Gamble teamed up for an interesting panel moderated by David Armano at Critical Mass. The topic: “Always in Beta: How Big Business Can Benefit from ‘Little’ Innovation.” The key messages: approach marketing as an R&D lab, experiment with new marketing techniques, don’t worry so much about ROI if it’s the right thing to do, and give employees permission to fail… as long as they learn something. This really resonated with me, as I frequently find myself having the “ROI of social media” discussion. The thing is - you don’t have to spend a lot of money to dip your toe in the water with social media, and small risks - or “incremental experiments,” as Stan would say - can truly transform a company.

More to come on day two…