I gave a quick overview of the ConnectNow conference in Part 1. Here are my thoughts and notes – along with links and other information – on each of the talks given during the first two days of the event.

Gavin Heaton

Topic: Lead Generation, Community Management, and ROI (blog link)
Website: http://www.servantofchaos.com
Twitter: @servantofchaos
Big ideas:
- 10 years on and the Cluetrain Manifesto is still relevant and is still not accepted business practice
- There are different types of social networks and these are used by different types of people, of different ages, at different stages of their lives; see Groundswell’s Social Technographics report that talks about 6 types of social media users
- There are 5 impacts of new/social media (read Gavin’s blog post for details)
- There is a convergence of markets: there used to be just the consumer market (mass production) and the enterprise market (custom-built) but now there are enterprise-level products and services available at lower prices (e.g. Software as a Service) and the consumer space is being extended into the enterprise (e.g. smart phones like iPhones in the workplace)
- You need to have a continuous digital strategy (details in blog post)
- You need to share the message, but own the destination (case in point: I’m sharing Gavin’s message but sending you to his home base, which is his blog, as the source/message destination)
- Social media is not about influence, it’s about trust (details in blog post); your trust and reputation can have a ‘fat value’ (details in blog post); 75% of your “fans” are already connected
- From the Q&A session that followed, a good idea: Consider converting your company’s brochure content into a series of YouTube videos that tell a great story and can also be shared

Katie Chatfield

Topic: Do You do your Best Work at Your Desk?
Website: http://katiechatfield.wordpress.com
Twitter: @katiechatfield
Big ideas:

Human behaviour is a function of a person in their environment (Lewin’s Equation); you can change behaviour by changing the person (very hard to do) or their environment (easier to do)
Before you can get into social media, you need to have a more social business
Giving people a tool doesn’t make them craftspeople; i.e. it’s about the people, not the technology
Remember that competent people resist change because it makes them less competent
Short form stories (3 minutes long) are a great way for employees and teams in an organization to tell each other what they’re working on [“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough” – Albert Einstein]
In those short stories, you should tell people: (a) what it is you’re working on; (b) why you think it’s awesome; and (c) why it’s useful for them to know about it

Tara Hunt

Topic: Yes, I do Mind the Gap
Website: http://www.horsepigcow.com
Twitter: @missrogue
Big ideas:
- There tends to be a gap (sometimes a big one) between what businesses and communities value
- For example, truth, beauty, freedom, and love are not usual business values; though notable companies like Google, Apple, Craigslist, and Zappos (respectively) present exceptions
- The businesses that share more community values tend to do better
- Most businesses are online community tourists: they watch, but they don’t participate (they’re not from there; they’re just looking at the ‘natives’)
- Watch Barry Schwartz’s TED Talk on the loss of practical wisdom
- Many businesses create strict guidelines to follow, thereby instilling robot values over human values into their staff; why?
- We need to de-robotize; we need to start the human revolution
- From the Q&A session: Why not ask your fans what’s important to them? What do they value?

Hau Man Chow

Topic: The Future of Mobile Apps
Website: http://www.motherapp.com
Twitter: @motherapp
Big ideas:
- You can convert any site into a mobile application using MotherApp

Brian Solis

Topic: The Human Network in an Interconnected World (presentation notes)
Website: http://www.briansolis.com
Twitter: @briansolis
Big ideas:
- All we know about social media is based on opinion; it could all be wrong
- Executives don’t usually get into social media because of an ‘a-ha’ moment; they often get into social media because of an ‘uh-oh’ moment (read ‘Championing Change from Within’)
- We – the people in this room – need to be the conductors of our organization’s social media
- Who in an organization owns social media? Everyone.
- Your organization needs a style/brand guide for social media
- Talking back and forth with people if fine, you need to show that your organization has empathy
- Become the people you want to reach and inspire
- Conversation is bigger than any social network; check out the Conversation Prism
- Social media is more about sociology and psychology than it is about technology; we’re becoming digital anthropologists
- Check out the Brand Dashboard

Laurel Papworth

Topic: Social Media: Where’s The Money?
Website: http://laurelpapworth.com
Twitter: @silkcharm
Big ideas:
- Reputation and trust are crucial in the online world
- When you calculate the ROI (return on investment) on community engagement don’t forget to calculate the COI (cost of inaction of community engagement) as well (details in blog post)
- You can monetize social networks via numerous revenue streams (details in blog post)

Jim Stewart

Topic: Video for SEO and Inbound Marketing
Website: http://stewartmedia.biz
Twitter: @jimboot
Big ideas:
- Watch the video, ‘How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer’
- Old media missed lots of opportunities with online news; such as reporting on local trends, creating time-sensitive local ads on the web, and real community-building
- Video creation isn’t very complicated or expensive: light it up from above ($20), mic it up ($100), frame it up, use good software (free to $300 for screen capture software like Camtasia Studio)
- When making a video: (a) tell a story, don’t ready a script; (b) try to have a point
- Distribute content far and wide via services like TubeMogul (which is good, but still buggy)
- Make sure your video includes a call back to your home base
- Make sure you transcribe your video

Darren Rowse

Topic: Blogging for Dollars – Do You Have What it Takes? (presentation notes)
Website: http://www.problogger.net
Twitter: @problogger
Big ideas:
- Blogs often make money indirectly (i.e. not through straight ads or affiliate marketing)
- There are ‘4 Foundations of a Successful blog’ (details in blog post; also see presentation notes)
- But, if you want a long shortlist: you have to (1) listen; (2) identify goals; (3) build a home base; (4) build trust; (5) be useful; (6) build community; (7) be personal; (8) tell stories; (9) be unique; (10) build a network before you need it; (11) leverage what you have; (12) craft your content well; (13) be playful; (14) be transparent; (15) be accessible; (16) be passionate; (17) promote yourself, but not too much; (18) be prolific; and (19) persist
- Remember: sometimes the money comes later; don’t just make money from your blog, but because of it

Gary Vaynerchuck

Topic: Crush It! Cash in on Your Passion and How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business (presentation notes part 1, part 2)
Website: http://garyvaynerchuk.com
Twitter: @garyvee
Big ideas:

The cost of entry to build a brand has collapsed; e.g. to build WineLibrary.com, it cost $4m in advertising over a number of years while, to build WineLibraryTV.com, it cost almost nothing
The value of content has never been higher; “When your content is shit, you’re fucked”; that said, monetizing content is tougher than ever
Spend time in communities; you have to love your community before they’ll love you; this is the thank-you economy
Customer service via social media is key; the price of your product can get neutralized by caring
The cost of entry is: (a) caring, (b) social media customer relationship management
The only three things that “move the needle” are: (a) price, (b) convenience, (c) customer service
Social media spokespeople for your company need to know your brand story cold
Two ways to solve the personal vs. corporate brand issue for company spokespeople and customer service people: either (a) don’t let your people develop a personal brand and become heroes or (b) become a platform to make heroes (under your logo) and attract increasingly better people when/if current heroes leave the organization
How do you convince people (e.g. in an organization) to do something (e.g. participate in social media)? Don’t spend any time on selling to people who don’t want to do it. Spend all your time and effort on people who want to do it and then promote them. The rest will come around.
Focus on social trends and culture shifts; the big trends these days are virtual goods and currency (e.g. via Facebook); smaller and more mobile is better (because we’re lazy); geo-location
The money these days is in restrictions (e.g. Apple and Facebook)

Deborah Schultz

Topic: It’s the People, Stupid (earlier presentation version; presentation notes)
Website: http://www.deborahschultz.com
Twitter: @debs
Big ideas:
- There is a blurring of our work and personal lives; social media is becoming our ‘third place’
- The social web is not about information provision or telling and selling, it’s about relationships, people, and making connections
- We’re weaving the social web together; it’s an explosion of the personal in an online environment
- We live in a culture of sharing, and sharing is easier than ever before
- We live in a relationship economy in which transactions are by-products of healthy relationships
- Through the social web, we’re seeing the death of the grand gesture; e.g. companies will ignore you all year till they launch their seasonal/annual advertising campaigns, after which they’ll ignore you again
- There’s a new framework for the new social web: (a) organic over static; (b) emotion over data; (c) relationships over transactions; (d) continuums over grand gestures; (e) intentions over attention
- We’re all becoming, looking for, and aspiring to be Tummlers (also see TummelVision podcast)

Stephen Johnson

Topic: Social Media Monitoring and Building Brand Advocates
Website: http://arcanelogik.com
Twitter: @huxley
Big ideas:
- The first and most important thing to do when you get into social media: listen
- Do you know what motivates your customer?

Panel Discussion

Big ideas:

It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure (Clay Shirky)
What’s important is your company’s reverse elevator pitch; i.e. what your customers say about you and your brand after you have left the elevator