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Unconference East: Moving Forward, TogetherMonday, February 8. 2010 We are less than 48 hours from the Online Community Unconference East (yeah!). This is the third year we've run the Online Community Unconference in New York, and we've had great events both years. On think I wanted to be a bit more mindful of for this year's Unconference was to really be mindful of focusing the group's energy on specific outcomes. Our theme for this year's Uncoference reflects this intention: "Moving forward, together" We will use the theme as a guiding principle for the sessions on Wednesday, and ask that participants think about what is needed to move forward personally, professionally, and to move community and social media forward as an industry. We will also explore what progress (moving forward) looks like. Our notional topic list from the Unconference wiki (which will be open to the public after the Unconference) reflects the "moving forward" intention:
There are still tickets available for the Unconference. For more information (including attendee list), please go here: http://ocue2010.eventbrite.com/ 
Social Media Week February 1-5Tuesday, February 2. 2010 February 1st through 5th is Social Media Week. Social Media Week features a week of social media events, including, conferences, discussions, and meet-ups that take place simultaneously in multiple cities around the world. The aim of each event is to advance the use and understanding of social media in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors. Check out the event schedule to see a listing of all of the social media events in San Francisco this week.  We're very excited to co-host a panel discussion with Autodesk on Social Media for Social Impact on February 4th. The panel will explore the use of social media in making progress on social causes, and panelists will review case studies, criteria for success and lessons learned from each of the panelists. Our panelists include:  Connie Chan, Yahoo! / Yahoo! for GoodConnie Chan is manager of Yahoo! for Good, the company’s Social Responsibility department. Connie is responsible for leading Yahoo!’s online cause marketing initiatives and managing social media for Yahoo! Green.  Amy Skoczlas Cole, eBayAmy is the Director of the eBay Green Team, Amy leads eBay’s efforts to engage their 89 million active users in a movement to use products that exist in world, saving consumers money as well as helping protect the planet.  Peggy Duvette, WiserEarthPeggy Duvette, Executive Director of WiserEarth, advocates for building online community capacity in the nonprofit sector. Since 2005, she has managed WiserEarth, an online community space that allows organizations and individuals to connect and collaborate around social and environmental issues.  Susan Tenby, TechSoupSusan Tenby is the Online Community Director at San Francisco-based nonprofit TechSoup Global and leads an active community of nonprofit staff and volunteers in Second Life. All proceeds from the event will be donated to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund. hashtag: #sm4si  The Social Media Club is featuring a panel discussion on Innovation Through Real-Time Feedback Loops on February 4th, 6:30pm - 9:00pm. Go here to register: http://smwloops.eventbrite.com/ In this interactive panel event, we will discuss and demonstrate:
The panelists are:
Why You Should Sponsor the Online Community Unconference EastThursday, January 28. 2010
I'll start with a caveat: this is a flat out, unapologetic (but hopefully entertaining) pitch. That's me in the photo below, the unapologetic pitcher.
 As you know, Forum One is hosting the Online Community Unconference East in New York City on February 10th. The Unconference is an open space gathering of online community and social media professionals from the commercial and non profit sectors. We expect over 200 participants (our biggest east coast event yet). A partial list of organizations coming includes AARP, Answers.com, Autodesk, Bloomberg, Cisco, Consumer Reports, Examiner.com, Google, HP, Huffington Post, IBM, iVillage / NBC, kgb, Microsoft, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Scotttrade and TripAdvisor (to name a few). Pretty great group, no? The Pitch - 3 Reasons We feel like our Unconference events represent one of the best sponsorship values for events around, for three main reasons: 1. Fantastic (but appropriate) Visibility As a sponsor, you will receive the "normal" event perks - your logo on conference materials, acknowledgement at the event, a sponsor banner. The key to our sponsors' success is that we don't oversell our sponsorships, and we limit the number of service providers attending the event so that the ratio of practitioners to service providers is favorable (which also makes for a better attendee experience). You will also have an opportunity to address the full conference for 5 minutes shortly after lunch. In short: Limited competition for attention, you are free to participate as an attendee, and you get the events full attention shortly after lunch. 2. Good Value Our packages start at $5k, with our premiere package at $10k. Many events with smaller, less qualified audiences charge twice that, and typically try to cram in as many sponsors in as possible. 3. Attendees are Senior Staff and Have Purchase Power / Influence Forum One has been hosting online community and social media events for almost 10 years. Over the years, we have curated a very senior network of community practitioners and executives. Most of the attendees at our conferences have direct purchase influence, and many have purchase authority. Business gets done at our events between sponsors and attendees. That's it in a nutshell: great event, great visibility, solid value and an awesome attendee list. I want to be clear about our intentions with sponsorship sales: sponsorship helps us continue to run these events at a modest profit, which ensures a sustainable business. By sponsoring, you help support the larger community of social media and online community professionals. Thanks for listening to my pitch. I really do appreciate your time and attention. If you are interested in discussing terms, please contact me and Chloe Caviness (our sales manager). Now back to our regularly scheduled community programing 
What to expect at the Online Community Unconference EastTuesday, January 26. 2010 The Online Community Unconference East will be held February 10th in New York City. To learn more about the event, or to register, go here: http://ocue2010.eventbrite.com/ .So, how does this Unconference thing work? The premise of our Unconference series is that the best source of information on online communities and social media is the community of practitioners actually doing the hands on work. The Unconference format provides a venue for participants to lead discussions about topics they are most passionate and knowledgeable about. At the end of the day, attendees walk away with new ideas, perspectives, and a long list of new professional connections. One of the most amazing parts of the day at our Unconferences is the topic selection process. Our Unconference uses the organizing principals of Open Space Technology to create the event agenda. Said another way, the topics discussed during the day are suggested and lead by Unconference attendees. At the start of the morning, any attendee who wishes can come forward, announce a topic, and claim one of the 50+ open slots on the grid. Attendees announce session topics  The agenda begins to form  Within about 35-40 minutes the grid fills up with topics  Once all the topics are announced, we begin the Unconference sessions. The agenda grid plays the role of gathering place and ideamarketplace throughout the day, as attendees come back to the agenda to check for any updates, changes, or new sessions. Outputs If you would like to see an example of the great content that comes out of an Unconference, please check out a few of these resrouces:
I would encourage you to spend some time looking through the session notes and the book of proceedings, as there is a lot of great content. Pictures from the Online Community Unconference East 2009 Again, to learn more about the event, or to register, go here: http://ocue2010.eventbrite.com/.
Online Community Unconference East - Early Bird Pricing Ends on January 11thFriday, January 8. 2010 Our annual Online Community Unconference East is just over a month away. The event takes place on February 10th at the Digital Sandbox in New York City. The Online Community Unconference East is sponsored by Answers.com.We expect to have 250 + people in attendance this year, making this the our largest east coast unconference yet. There will be 40-50 collaborative sessions on topics generated by the attendees. We have an awesome group of people attending including community and social media practitioners from Microsoft, Answers.com, Consumer Reports, Autodesk, Scottrade, TripAdvisor, CafeMom, Cisco, IBM, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, iVillage / NBC Universal, Rosetta Stone, Google, Harlequin Enterprises, The Humane Society of the United States, Scottrade, WEGO Health and more. The early bird pricing of $145 ends on January 11th. Register here to take advantage of the early bird pricing: http://ocue2010-ocrn108.eventbrite.com You can see pictures from the 2009 Unconference here. OCU East 2009 Wiki We have several sponsor opportunities open for this Unconference. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach NYC community and social media professionals, please contact Bill Johnston (bjohnston at forumone dot com) about our sponsorship options. Please note: We ask non-sponsoring platform and service providers to register as such, and to pay the platform and service provider admission of $1,000. Charging non-sponsoring platform and service providers a higher rate helps us to ensure that attendees are mostly from brands developing their community and social media presences, and also helps us provide the best opportunity for our paying sponsors. This also allows us to (at least at this time) still allow non-sponsoring vendors to participate. 
Online Community Unconference East - February 10, 2010Thursday, December 3. 2009 We're geaing up for our first event of 2010, the Online Community Unconference East, on February 10th in New York City. We expect 250-300 online community and social media professionals to attend -- making this our largest east coast unconference yet! Additionally, we expect to have 40-50 collaborative sessions.Current attendees include: Cisco, IBM, The Humane Society of the United States, Answers Corporation, Medidata Solutions, Consumer Reports, Knowledge Alliance, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, CafeMom, CFA Institute, Impact Interactions, Optaros and more. To register at the early bird rate of $145 ($195 after 1/10 edited to correct date) please go here: http://ocue2010-ocr1203.eventbrite.com For an excellent summary of last years Online Community Unconference East, check out this Huffington Post article, An "Unconference" for Online Communities. Last year's Unconference featured approximately 40 sessions on key topics including: Best Practices - Busting the myths of online community management The idea of the session was to drive discussions regarding many of the common ideas around community that have been published/promoted/blogged about as if they were absolutes rather than the experiences of a few. Twitter for Business A discussion of how different companies are using Twitter. Best Practices for Content Strategies and best practices for company and user-generated content. Social Networking in the Enterprise A discussion around how companies are using social networks and social media. The Online Community Unconference East is being held at the Digital Sandbox in NYC, which is centrally located in the financial district and provides plenty of breakout space to support a full day of learning and fun. Lunch and snacks and WiFi will be provided. You can see pictures from the 2009 Unconference here OCU East 2009 Wiki If you currently drive the community or social media strategy for your organization, and you are in (or will be in) the NYC area on 2/10, please join us for a highly energetic day of learning and collaborating. We have several sponsor opportunities open for this Unconference. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach NYC community and social media professionals, please contact me about our sponsorship options.
Social CRM Virtual Summit - November 11th, 2009Tuesday, November 3. 2009
We’re proud to be sponsors of Lithium’s online conference Social CRM on November 11th.
 The Social CRM Virtual Summit is a five-hour online conference, which includes webcasts by industry leaders in an interactive exhibit hall, a resource center with extensive materials for download, and a virtual networking lounge to chat live with speakers and prospects. Bill Johnston will lead a session on Best Practices: Community, Strategy and Planning with Joe Cothrel of Lithium. Their session includes discussions on:
 Social CRM Virtual Summit AgendaThe social media revolution has changed everything, including how customers choose to interact with companies and each other online, and where they turn for trusted information. This virtual summit comes at a time when companies are starting to see tangible financial results from deeper online engagement with customers, and will explore the current capabilities of and future for Social CRM. At this five-hour live, virtual summit you will experience: Go here to register for this free event and to see the complete agenda.
Latest on the Online Community Summit, October 8-9 in Sonoma, CAMonday, September 14. 2009 We’re just under four weeks away from our 8th annual Online Community Summit in Sonoma, CA, on October 8-9. We have a fantastic speaker and session line-up that I’ve detailed out below. If you’d like to attend the Summit and you’re a senior online community or social media practitioner, please go here to request an invitation. There are limited tickets still available. Please note: We restrict attendance of platform and service vendors to those sponsoring the event. If you would like information about sponsoring, please email me. Check out the event site here for more information.  Event Schedule: Thursday, October 8th 8:00 - 9:00: Registration / Breakfast 9:00 - 10:00: Introductions & Welcome Bill Johnston – Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks Joi Podgorny – Head of Community, Mindcandy 10:00 - 11:00: Session 1 /Turning to the Crowd: Ideas and Contest Sites How can you generate great ideas and enthusiasm for your organization at low cost? Session Lead: Anil Rathi, Idea Crossing Session Lead: Ryan Wilson, XPrize 11:00 - 11:30: Break  11:30 - 12:30: Session 2 / What You Need to Know About the Mobile Communities Revolution As mobile usage explodes, the importance of mobile communities is increasing dramatically. We’ll review experiences from Obama to Armani to the American Cancer Society and demonstrate the coming wave of change that will impact your organization. Session Lead: Kevin Bertram, Distributive Networks Session Lead: Miles Orkin, America Cancer Society 12:30 - 1:30: Lunch 1:30 - 2:30: Session 3 / Social Marketing & Advertising Communities and traditional forms of marketing and advertising have historically acted like oil and water. Progress is being made by innovative organizations that involve the community in feedback, permission-based programs and even advertising creation. Session Lead: Paul Levine, Current.com Session Lead: Bruce Smith, Answers.com 2:30 - 3:30: Session 4 / Break Out Sessions 3:30 - 4:00: Break 4:00 - 5:00: Session 5 / News Communities While the importance of PR and marketing hasnʼt changed, the ways to influence major news sites has transformed radically. Weʼll discuss the news landscape and what it means for your organization. Session Lead: Lila King – CNN.com Session Lead: Chris Tolles – Topix.net  Friday, October 9th 8:00 - 9:00: Registration / Breakfast 8:00 - 9:00: Community and Good Ideas Demos (open podium) 9:00: Introductions 9:00 - 10:00: Session 6 / Social “ME”dia: Employees as Advocates How does an organization combine employee passion with social media tools to meet organization goals? Session Lead: Erika Kuhl, Salesforce.com Session Lead: Lucia Willow – Pandora.com 10:00 - 11:00: Session 7: / Break Out Sessions 11:00 – 11:30: Break 11:30 – 12:30: Session 8: Operationalizing Social Media - Reshaping the Organization As social media and community programs move form short term, tactical engagements to longer-term business strategies, organizations must transform to take full advantage of the possibilities. Hear about the topography of the “social organization” from our panel of experts leading the charge to transform their organizations via social media. Panelists: TBA  12:30 - 1:00 Conference Close and Wrap up Some of the current attendees include community and social media practitioners from leading companies including: Apple, GlobalGiving, Autodesk, Inc., Leadership Corps, Moshi Monsters, Edutopia, LinkedIn, American Legacy Foundation, SEGA of America, Time Inc. Lifestyle Digital, WestEd, TripAdvisor, Dell, Inc., Answers Corporation, Executive Networks, Inc., Microsoft, REI, Care2.com, Stupski Foundation, and The MathWorks, Inc.
Online Community Summit 2009: UpdatesThursday, September 3. 2009 I wanted to post a quick update with the latest session leads and topics for the Online Community Summit, to be held October 8-9 in Sonoma.I am looking forward to hosting the Summit, along with co-host Joi Podgorny, Head of Community at Mind Candy. The current list of session topics includes:
Session leads include:
If you are a senior online community professional interested in participating in the Online Community Summit, and you haven't received an invitation, you may request one by writing me here. Photos from last year's Summit: Please note: We restrict attendance of platform and service vendors to those sponsoring the event. If you would like information about sponsoring, please drop me a note. For more information about the Summit, you can check out the event site here. Event tag is #ocs2009
Online Community Summit 2009 - Initial Topics & Session LeadsFriday, August 14. 2009 The Online Community Summit will be held October 8th & 9th in Sonoma, CA. It is hard to believe that the Online Community Summit is now in it's eight year!The Summit was originally convened by Jim Cashel of Forum One in October of 2001 as a unique invitation-based event, bringing together thought leaders from business, government, finance, academia and the media, who despite different positions share a keen interest in online group collaboration. Each year we gather a select group of senior online community professionals to discuss topics addressing business strategy, emerging technologies, key trends, as well as many tactical issues during the breakout sessions. This year, I will be hosting the Summit, along with co-host Joi Podgorny, Head of Community at Mind Candy. Joi is an online community expert with areas of expertise in virtual worlds and online experiences for children. What makes the summit so special?  In short: the people, the conversations, and the location. The Summit is attracts senior and knowledgeable online community experts from the commercial and non-commercial sectors. Our session format is structured in a very unique way, in that two expert session leads present 30 minutes of prepared comments, followed by a facilitated discussion with the attendees. The location of the Summit is Sonoma, California, a nexus of world class food, wine and leisure. In addition to sampling the best ideas in community and social media, we will be sampling the fruits of Sonoma Valley with outstanding food, wine and socializing on the beautiful ground of Ramekins Culinary Academy and the Sonoma Plaza. A Few of the session topics:
Session leads include:
If you are a senior online community professional interested in participating in the Online Community Summit, and you haven't received an invitation, you may request one by writing me here. Please note: We restrict attendance of platform and service vendors to those sponsoring the event. IF you would like information about sponsoring, please drop me a note. Event tag is #ocs2009
Online Community Roundtable: July 8th - Washington DCWednesday, July 1. 2009 Are you a community manager or social media strategist or are you in charge of online community & social media at your organization? Are you in the Washington DC Area? If so, you might find the Online Community Roundtable of interest. This is a small networking group / event that meets regularly to discuss issues, opportunities and trends with online communities, and represents leading organizations (large and small). This will be our first meeting in the DC area, and I'm very excited to be "taking the show" to the east coast. The format is an hour of networking, followed by two hours of presentation and discussion about online communities and social media. The Roundtable is free, but you need to RSVP. Date: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm Location: Center for Global Development Street: 1800 Massachusetts Ave NW City/Town: Washington, DC You must RSVP to attend: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128815474008#/event.php?eid=128815474008 Please note: even if you don't have a Facebook account, you can still rsvp to the event. If you have any questions, please email me .
Online Community Unconference 2009 Wiki Open & Session HighlightsMonday, June 22. 2009 One of the most exciting things about the Unconference format is the fact that there are so many sessions running simultaneously. This can also be on of the most frustrating, as it is impossible to be everywhere at once. Thankfully, participants generally try to take thorought notes of their sessions to share back with the group.We had over 50 sessions at the Online Community Unconference, and notes for most are captured on the Unconference wiki. The wiki is now open for public reading (editing and commenting are reserved for Unconference attendees). The Online Community Unconference wiki can be found here: http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2009 A few highlights from the session notes include: Managing the Mob: What to do when things go wrong Melissa Daniels of Yahoo! convened this session to discuss how to integrate your community into the organization's decision making process, even when the community mood is dark. Social CRM : Mapping Social ID's, Behavioral Targeting & Common Profiles A session about managing customer relationships across multiple domains, convened by Ajay Ramachandran of SourceN. Using Community in Strategy Development Nilofer Merchant of Rubicon Consulting convened this session to explore how companies can use communities as a strategic tool and integrate feedback and learning from communities into product development and company strategy. Community Driven Product Design - Collecting Feedback from your Community Siko Bouterse of hi5 convened this session to explore the best ways to build feedback systems. B2B Communities - What works, Best Practices Mike Rowland of Impact Interactions led a session sharing community management best practices based on his firm's experience over the last 10 years. What is Community Leadership? Scott Moore convened this session to explore the attributes of leadership in communities. Social Network Analysis (in excel!) Marc Smith of Telligent led a session on social network mapping and analysis, and offered a demo of NodeXL, a free, excel-based tool.  Mission Aligned TwitteringJill Finlayson of Social Edge led a discussion on a holistic approach to Twittering: figure out how the whole organization can get value. Are we a Community Too? Ways Community Practitioners Stay Connected. What's next? Gail Williams of Salon Media Group and Scott Moore explore the concept of a community manager and strategists "tribe". Please feel free to share the link to the wiki, or to link to the source session notes from your blogs / tweets.
Webcast of Online Community Health: Give Your Online Community a Check-up Now AvailableWednesday, June 17. 2009
The archive for the Online Communities Health: Give your Online Community a Check-Up Webcast is now available.
 You may view an archive of the video / audio from the webcast here: http://www.forumonenetworks.com/ochealth On the webcast today, Bill Johnston was joined by Joe Cothrel of Lithium Technologies and Marty Collins of Microsoft. Topics discussed in the webcast included: - How to define “health” in an online community - How to measure online community health - How to concepts of community health can be applied to distributed communities (on Twitter, Facebook, etc.) - Three steps you can take today to improve the health of your community. Ask questions and discuss the webcast on the Lithosphere at: http://bit.ly/ochealth #ochealth
Initial Report Back from the Online Community Unconference 2009Thursday, June 11. 2009 We had an amazing day at the Online Community Unconference yesterday. Over 220 people attended the event and the agenda included 57 breakout sessions throughout the day on topics including:
 We will report more about the event in the next few days, but here are some tweets, blog posts and pictures of the event: My take-away from the Online Community Unconference - Open Business A few tweets during the Unconference: @penguinasana - Being open to getting bad feedback, but allowing that & listening, making change as a result builds loyalty #ocu2009 @suzboop - Incentives are bad, instead reward -give users a way 2 feel good about what they're already doing well.Don't pay them 2 participate #ocu2009 @DebbieDembecki - feature development without plan for measuring use of the feature is counter productive to measuring engagement #ocu2009 Twitter Streams
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