Howard Greenstein labelled the event "What worked and what didn't in Social Media in 2007?" and convened an impressive collection of entrepreneurs and people who work at helping traditional organizations adapt to the impact of social media upon them.
The most interesting discussion thread for me came via Jack Myers, (CEO Myers Publishing, author of the Media Business Report and "Virtual Worlds: Rewiring Your Emotional Future" published in May).
With TV industry experience starting at CBS, Jack proposed a potential outcome of the current writers strike is fundamentally changing the traditional television broadcasting industry. Given the impact of digital technology on transforming the recording industry, an entirely reasonable prediction.
Also discussed was the bottomline for organizations. As participative technologies empower individuals to become publishers and broadcasters via the Web, how do traditional media companies engage and develop new revenue models to play and sustain in this environment? No doubt the arrival of Chris Anderson's new book "Free" late 2008 will promote that dialogue.
It was interesting looking around the room and seeing who was present and not. My limited survey found technology entrepreneurs, consultants striving to help companies find their way in a low-cost consumer-created content world, and publishing industry companies although not the industry leaders. I hadn't realized that Business Wire, the event host, is a Berkshire Hathaway company. I'm betting there was no company in the room with more than 1,000 employees. While new low cost participative media technologies are nipping at the heels of larger organizations, their ability to adapt and leverage the possibilities is so much harder.
Not to say of course that some companies, with support from outside agencies are not figuring it out. Today's Financial Times (print p17) carries a story headlined "Gorilla drums up sales for Cadbury" with a photo of their YouTube favorite video captioned: "Sweet music". The story indicates the company reported the Gorilla advertising company "had helped it recover market share in its UK confectionery business." Tellyads voted the ad number 1 in 2007 based on their 185,000 requests since September 2007.
The Youtube video is here with 1,449,759 views, 3216 ratings, 2,442 comments, 4 honors 5 links and favorited 7,824 times. Sites are linkng to the Youtube ad and there are a string of remixes.
Of course the FT Cadbury Schweppe's story goes onto mention other forces at work challenging the company to change including an oil funds backed activist investor and rising commodity prices.
No doubt leveraging and adapting to new low cost participative media technologies is just one dimension to making an organization 21st Century sustainable. Much more challenging is changing organizational structures and business models that demands serious heavy lifting and will.
~ Jenny Ambrozek
