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.

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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:

• Defining and creating a community strategy by working with organizational and customer stakeholders to determine needs, goals and key influencers.
• Determining what metrics are important to track, what is currently being measured against what many companies want to measure, and current key performance indicators, featuring research from the Online Community Research Network.
• Defining the value of online communities through the key sources of value, including: cost reduction, lead generation, increased engagement, building customer loyalty.
  • 5am to 10am PT / 8am to 1pm ET / 1pm to 6pm GMT, or
  • 10am to 3pm PT / 1pm to 6pm ET / 6pm to 11pm GMT
  • Webcasts by industry luminaries such as Mike Fauscette (IDC), Bill Johnston (Forum One), Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group), and Ray Wang (Altimeter Group) in a virtual auditorium
  • Scheduled live chats with industry experts and practitioners from companies including Barnes and Noble, Lenovo, National Instruments, Redfin, Best Buy, Juniper Networks, and T-Mobile
  • An interactive exhibit hall with dynamic sponsor booths, including Genesys, ON24, Ant’s Eye View, Forum One Communications, CRM Media, Cognizant, and Liveperson
  • A resource center with dozens of valuable white papers, podcasts, and presentations for download
  • A virtual networking lounge to meet other like-minded professionals through live chat
  • Keynote speeches from CRM thought leaders, Paul Greenberg (The 56 Group) and Brent Leary (CRM Essentials)

The virtual event is featured in two time sessions on November 11th.

Social CRM Virtual Summit Agenda

The 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:

Summit keynote speakers include Social CRM thought leaders, Paul Greenberg and Brent Leary.

Go here to register for this free event and to see the complete agenda.

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I’ve included links to a few key content sources below. You will find a rich set of observations in the Twitter stream, as well as video interviews from 3 of our session leads.

Tweet stream from the Online Community Summit 2009
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23ocs2009

Flickr stream:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocs2009&w=all

Video Interviews:
Sharon Carothers of Legacy / BecomeAnEx.org

Jordan Williams of REI.com

Erica Kuhl of Salesforce.com

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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 hasn’t changed, the ways to influence major news sites has transformed radically. We’ll 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 MEdia: 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.

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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:

• Big Communities to Tackle Big Problems
• Turning to the Crowd: Ideas and Contest Sites
• What You Need to Know About the Mobile Communities Revolution
• Social Marketing & Advertising
• How Online Communities are Reshaping News
• Social MEdia: Employees as Brand Advocates
• Operationalizing Social Media – Reshaping the Organization

Session leads include:

• Kevin Bertram, Distributive Networks
• Sharon Carothers, Legacy
• Austin Heap, Haystack
• Lila King, CNN.com
• Erika Kuhl, Salesforce.com
• Paul Levine, Current Media
• Miles Orkin, America Cancer Society
• Bruce Smith, Answers.com
• Hardy Wallace, Murphy-Goode Winery
• Joi Podgorny, Head of Community, Mindcandy
• Lucia Willow, Pandora.com
• Ryan Wilson, XPrize

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

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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:

• Turning to the Crowd: Ideas and Contest Sites
• What You Need to Know About the Mobile Communities Revolution
• Social Marketing & Advertising
• How Online Communities are Reshaping News
• Social MEdia: Employees as Brand Advocates

Session leads include:

• Kevin Bertram, Distributive Networks
• Lila King, CNN.com
• Erika Kuhl, Salesforce.com
• Paul Levine, Current Media
• Miles Orkin, America Cancer Society
• Bruce Smith, Answers.com

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

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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 .

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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 Twittering
Jill 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.

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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

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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:

• Identifying and Engaging with Online Influencers
• Social Psychology 101 for Community Managers
• W.O.M. Branding – Mobilizing Advocates and Brand Citizenship
• Online Community for Social Good/Change (Non Profits, Multiple Stakeholders)
• Super Tools for Super Users – Next Generation UI and Technology Brainstorm

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
Online Community Unconference 2009- the groupery
Back From the Online Community Unconference – Tom Humbarger
Back from Online Communities Unconference 2009 - Stefano Maffulli
#ocu2009 Community Jobs Wanted – Janet Fouts
Reflecting on #IABC09 and #OCU2009 – AudioBoo (Bryan Person)

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
#ocu2009
#octribe

Pictures from the Online Community Unconference 2009:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocu2009

#ocu2009
#octribe

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