Here is my presentation from the MarketingNow! conference in Melbourne. I also setup a Posterous group blog to capture a variety of inputs from the proceedings. Check it out here.
Enjoy!
Lead Generation, Community and Social Media
View more documents from Gavin Heaton.
After a whole day of social media discussion, I thought day 2 would be interesting if we could get some of the audience contributing to a group Posterous blog. It is like live blogging but from multiple perspectives.
If you want to check it out, visit marketingnow.posterous.com – or contribute via post [at] marketingnow.posterous.com.
I have had a great day speaking at the MarketingNow conference. I have also had the great opportunity to hear Darren Rowse, Laurel Papworth and Simon Young. Later this afternoon, Jim Stewart will talk about video (looking forward to this!).
Tomorrow we will be treated to four hours of David Armano, a workshop from Stephen Johnson and a panel discussion. I think there are STILL tickets! Come on down if you can make it.
After my talk, I was asked about the nuts and bolts of getting started with social media. While I will be posting my slides to slideshare in the next day or so, not everyone wants to read slides or spend time clicking through online decks. For those who would prefer to read a book – you can take a look at my Dialup Guide to Blogging book. It is a short, focused read and could be just what you need!
Some organisations are beginning to experiment with social media, while others feel that they are well advanced in their efforts. But if you are like me, you will know that there is always something new to learn or a new approach to consider.
So, in a couple of weeks, there is a fantastic opportunity to hear from some leading social media practitioners. The MarketingNow! Conference in Melbourne is presenting two days of intensive training and interactive workshops with:
There will also be plenty of opportunities for networking and discussion.
But WAIT! There’s more!
Just when you thought that there could be nothing more exciting or more useful to your social media efforts … I should also let you know that the conference is FREE. For a minimum donation of $100 to Thankyou Water or The Starlight Children’s Foundation, you get FREE access to this great conference. Two days of gold. REGISTER HERE online.
You know what it is like. There are faces everywhere. Banners. Stands. Noise. The bustle through the aisles urge you ever forward to where the scalding coffee waits your grasping, pre-keynote fingers. There are people you need to meet, folks you’d like to know better, and friends and colleagues waiting for you at the double doors. Someone, somewhere is in possession of a powerboard and will become your new best friend for the day. You are just three steps and a chance meeting away from your next big gig.
And then it starts.
The sessions fly past you at a rate of knots. There are networking drinks. Dinners. Meetings for coffee. Your brain sags like an overworked sponge and you think, at some point, that the stream of same-same Twitter responses may just make sense. In between workshops, the occasional donut beckons. And then, before you know it, you cocoon yourself in your car and shuttle back to the office. The conference over. Swag secured. Notes to digest and summaries to write. Your boss will be expecting a report first thing Monday.
Yes. You know it’s true. Ad-Tech Sydney is a festival.
But what happens a month on? Three months? Six? After the bold curation of ideas – of jamming social media cheek-by-jowl with electronic direct mail, strategy and ad networks, SEO, virtual worlds and innovation – what happens next?
Every time I attend a conference I always see them as lost opportunities. They can be intense hives of activity, leaving participants with dozens of ideas to work on – to digest and execute. But rarely does a conference event extend beyond its immediate horizon. Rarely does a conference work with the biorhythms of the business world to enthuse, engage and energise its community over the longer term.
But the folks behind Ad-Tech Sydney are taking on such a challenge – and doing admirably well. Not only do they have the Ad-Tech Brain operating as a blog and industry news aggregator, they have now run two free, breakfast briefings that provide us all with an intellectual caffeine hit just before the work day begins. Dr Jeffrey Cole, founder of the World Internet Project, will no doubt continue this new tradition and jolt us awake at next week’s briefing.
I like the way that Lucy James, Ad-Tech Content Director, is taking this opportunity to weave a story around the conference brand. The briefings are run with neat precision – setting a cracking pre-work day pace and leaving us all with a line or two, or an anecdote that we can easily relay back in the office. And the line-up of quality speakers adds to the experience – yes, you can read about Zappos until you fall out of your ergonomic chair, but it’s not the same as hearing Aaron Magness, tell the stories in his own words.
If authenticity is what we crave in social media, it doesn’t get any grittier than an intimate 80 seat room face-to-face discussion with the people who are taking these ideas and transforming them into successful businesses.
Is this the future of conferences? It certainly changes the way that you think of the conference “value exchange”. It’s not just a one-time event. It creates a sense of involvement, connection – and dare I say, “community”. It establishes an intellectual agenda and serves as a constant reminder of our participation in the world of ideas. I have a feeling other brands could learn some lessons here.
July is going to be a busy month. Not only is it birthday month for Jye Smith and I, it is also conference time for the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) which runs July 8-10. Ian Lyons, Mike Zeederberg and I are running a “Dive into Social Media” session on Day 1 – which should be great fun. In fact, Day 1 looks like it will be fantastic. It kicks off with a keynote from Joseph Jaffe on The AND Economy, follows through with some great local and international speakers and then breaks into workshop streams.
But for those of you who just don’t think that one keynote with Joseph Jaffe is enough, here is your chance to squeeze an extra drop of JaffeJuice out of the event … that’s right, we’re talking dinner and drinks!
If you are interested in coming along on Thursday, July 9, leave a comment below – or register for the twtvite event here (search for Sydney). I will organise a venue once I have some idea of numbers.
Last night I spent the evening at Creative Sydney, a three week festival celebrating the wealth and diversity of the city’s creative talents. I was there to speak on the topic of creative approaches to networking – and in particular, how our coffee mornings have evolved into a vibrant community gathering.
Interestingly, as I arrived, I bumped into Sebastian Goldspink who was part of our original coffee morning brigade. It seemed a fitting and positive omen.
The evening kicked off with a quick get together … allowing the speakers to get to know each other (a little), and then it was into the rapidly filling room complete with smoke machine. Imogen Semmler facilitated the panel, setting the scene for the different types of networking that take place across the city.
Pia van Gelder entranced the audience with her unique, geeky style and passion for electronics. As the Overlord of Dorkbot.Syd, Pia creates a space where people who are interested in “doing strange things with electricity” can come together to share ideas, collaborate on projects and showcase their latest inventions. In Sydney, they meet on the second last Tuesday of every month – but check their website for confirmation.
Chris Mead from Playwriting Australia spoke about the way his small organisation of three people are working across the creative industries to connect like minds and resources. From Broome to Hobart, this small team are transforming the relationships between people, plays and playwrights – and doing so on a shoestring budget. It was particularly fascinating to hear the way play scripts affect the individuals who work on them as well as the communities of which they are a part.
Angela Bennetts runs an event called Even Books. It is “… a regularly occurring night of mayhem themed around a different book each time. Sometimes we have bands, sometimes acting performances, sometimes bingo, sometimes readings. But always booze. Good old booze. Oh, and books.” It was great to see how the event grew from a small cafe setting with book readings to full-blown, themed parties – but what was clear – a tremendous amount of planning and effort goes into making these events a success. There is another one coming up soon (check the Facebook page).
Michael Chrisoulakis from Metro Screen spoke about the way they bring various players in the film industry together. Events are designed to start building creative teams – putting producers and directors in touch with screenwriters and actors and so on. The “speed networking” events are designed to accelerate these types of introduction. The next speed networking event is scheduled for July 7.
Pecha Kucha is a regular meetup for architects and designers – and provides an opportunity for them to showcase their ideas and work. It has a huge global following – and the Sydney event is run by Marcus Trimble. Each presenter is allowed 20 slides – but only 20 seconds per slide. This means that their story must be delivered in 6 minutes and 40 seconds.
My talk was on coffee mornings and how they evolved. You can see it here.
Over the next few months I will be speaking at and attending a number of events. Some of these are formal, some informal. It promises to be a very busy, but exciting time! I will be putting up a full list soon (and of course, you can always find me at the Sydney Coffee Morning).
But one event I am particularly excited about is Creative Sydney:
Creative Sydney is a festival celebrating the wealth and diversity of the city’s creative talents from May 27- June 12. In its inaugural year, Creative Sydney will feature a provocative talks program and event series at the Museum of Contemporary Art and The Roxy, Paramatta, as well as the launch ofCreative Catalysts – a list of Sydney’s creative pioneers.
Joining me on the panel for Come Together: the New Creative Networks on Wednesday 10 June, 6pm will be:
Tickets are FREE but we are limited to 250 seats, so please make sure you book your seat early.
Image: Amelia Tovey, Shoot The Player (Photography by Cara Stricker)
The buzz was unmistakeable. From the minute I opened the door and walked into Vibewire Youth Inc’s Enterprise Hub, I knew that this was going to be a coffee morning to remember. This final live event in the week-long e-Festival of Ideas, billed as the FastBreak Breakfast, was bringing together five of Australia’s leading young innovators to kick-start a morning of conversation.
Interestingly, the whole festival was held in conjunction with the Australian Innovation Festival which is being built around the Four Cs of Innovation – collaboration, creativity, commercialisation and connection. In speaking with the Co-Director of Vibewire, Mary Nguyen, it was clear that there was something missing in the way that the Australian Innovation Festival was framing innovation – and what was missing was the voice of youth. With the stroke of a pen, Mary added to the Four Cs a single word – “Conversation” – and the tone was set.
Over 70 people braved the early morning traffic to hear Jye Smith talk creativity, Scott Drummond make connections, Isadore Biffin dare us to collaborate, Elias Bizannes challenge our understanding of “commercialisation” and Matt Moore to scare us into conversation. From these brief, four minute speeches, the audience gravitated to breakout areas across the Enterprise Hub space to chat, share ideas and network.
The speeches were captured via Ustream … but the real value was in being there. Hopefully you can make the next one!
Today sees the start of Vibewire Youth Inc’s e-Festival of Ideas – a week-long celebration of youth innovation. Focusing on four topic areas – politics, human rights, the economy and Generation Y – the e-Festival, now in its sixth year – aims to generate conversation among young people across Australia – and is using online forum technology to do so.
The forums have guest panellists organised to keep the debate going, and a hot topic list to get started includes:
The guest panellists, drawn from all quarters of society, include:
To get a sense of how some of these conversations may evolve, take quick listen to Traci Fenton’s view of workplace democracy.
This year, as part of the e-Festival, Vibewire will also host some LIVE events – allowing forum participants to meet face-to-face (and don’t forget that includes our Friday Coffee Morning this week at Vibewire):
e-FESTIVAL OF IDEAS NETWORKING NIGHT
What Innovators, creatives, activists and everyone else. Meet, drink, talk.
When 7pm, Wednesday May 6th
Where Vibewire Enterprise Hub, 525 Harris St, Ultimo NSW
e-FESTIVAL OF IDEAS FAST BREAK EVENT
What 5 speakers on the 5 Cs of innovation: Collaboration, Connectivity, Creativity, Commercialisation & Conversation. Also available on U-Stream & Twitter (use #efest to join the conversation).
When 8am to 10am, Friday May 8th
Where Vibewire Enterprise Hub, 525 Harris St, Ultimo NSW
e-FESTIVAL OF IDEAS SERIOUS GAMES
What A treasure hunt throughout the city, using technology to collect items. Players will challenge their perspective on e-Festival topics.
When 10am – 5pm, Sunday May 10th
Where Start at Vibewire Enterprise Hub, 525 Harris St, Ultimo
To get started with the e-Festival:
I look forward to chatting with you!