Last year after New Comm Forum, it was crystal clear that the most popular sessions were the ones that featured case studies and people’s personal experiences. Of course, a certain amount of teaching-type panels and workshops are necessary at any conference, social media or otherwise, but once we get past the 101 level, we really want to know, what have other people done? What works? What doesn’t?
And it’s even better to hear from the people themselves, not just about them and their projects.
A common criticism of conferences is that it’s always the same speakers, the same material. I don’t think that’s true of New Comm Forum by any stretch, however, we do have a certain number of repeat players every year because one of the first speaker pools the Society for New Communications Research draws from is its Fellows. Most of whom are great speakers who deliver new content every year.
But…. thinking about both of these dynamics — case studies and new voices — I suggested to executive director Jen McClure that we do an alumni panel at the 08 conference. Recruit speakers who had attended a previous Society event but had never spoken at one, and who had a project from the past 18 months that they would be willing to share.
New Voices of Experience, the panel that resulted from our discussions last spring, will be the Wednesday April 23rd luncheon session at New Comm Forum 08. I’ll be speaking with Doug Bardwell (Forest City Enterprises), Wendy Harman (Red Cross), Bob Siller (Altera) and Chris Turner (Christian Lifeway Resources) about what they learned and how they applied their new knowledge once they were back in the office.
I spoke with the panelists in a conference call last week and am excited about their stories. Whether you work for a non-profit, B2B or B2C organization, there’s something for everyone. We’ll be talking about everything from social media in internal communications and lead generation to what’s involved when you are trying to introduce social media into an established culture. There will be plenty of time for questions from the floor, and we are looking forward to an interesting conversation.
As a speaker, I have a very limited number of deeply discounted registrations. Three. If you are interested, email me. First come, first served.
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Shifting gears completely, I’ve decided to move one of the topics I occasionally talk about here to my personal/photo blog Snapshot Chronicles. Specifically, my obsession with certain science fiction television programs — currently Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood and Stargate Atlantis. I’ll still talk about sci fi here when there is a marketing, communications or social media angle. But I’m feeling the need to rant (and rave) more about the programs themselves, and that’s really content that belongs on my personal blog, not my marketing blog. So, never fear, if you are interested in my thoughts on sci fi marketing, you’ll still find them here. If you want to know why I think the PTB made a dreadful mistake in dumping Torri Higginson from Stargate or my speculation on who the final Cylon is, you’ll find that over on Snapshot Chronicles.
Tags: SNCR, New Comm Forum