In the next couple of weeks I will be participating in several events that I may or may not have publicized. So catch me, if you can. I'd love to meet you in person, and hopefully I'll ask smart questions that will get us all thinking better together.
Often people ask me out for a cup of coffee to pick my brain. These events are all opportunities to participate in the common learning and to meet. If you're serious, you should take advantage of one or more of them.
And, by the way, the blog is the perfect place to get on my radar -- comment, link to it, read. It's all free and it's a two-way conversation. We do have a common purpose, which is understanding how social intersects with marketing and communications.
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Tomorrow I will be curating a conversation about influence at PodCamp Philadelphia -- 3pm. Here's the draft agenda. Here's the event registration site.
It's part of the advanced track, in other words, we assume you know the basics. There will not be a PowerPoint, just a very interactive conversation on influence. Bring your sharpest thinking and plenty of your ideas because we'll talk about:
* Why everything you know about influence wrong and what you should do about it
* What doesn't work. The 5 ""influence traps"" you must avoid
* How you reach the people who really matter the most
* The best ways to influence the influencers your customers watch for cues
* Can influence be bought or sold?
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On Sunday evening, October 3 8-9pm, I will be a guest of the BeanCast along with:
Kevin Briody (Ignite Social Media)
Stuart Foster (Mullen)
Michelle Tripp (BrandForward)
The BeanCast™ is hosted by Bob Knorpp of The Cool Beans Group. If you're familiar with the show, you know we'll talk about this and that that and everything in between. Seriously, it's an opportunity to hear extemporaneous thinking and dialogue on what is on our collective minds and in the news/making stories.
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On October 6, I am speaking at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Foxboro. It will be a fast 20 minutes at 4:30pm. We will use this time to connect some dots on influence with visuals and to understand:
How do I get there in the first place? How do I create/identify/harness/enroll influence? What role does it play in my mix?
We'll talk about understanding how to think about developing/attracting it
for your brand/businesses. How you measure it is in results... however,
you won't know if those are good, unless you know what you set out to
do/change/activate/influence (pardon the pun) and identify red herrings
that can take you off course.
I will ask for a volunteer or two from the audience as well. Just to make sure I'm not putting you all to sleep.
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On October 8, I will do the honors of kicking off the day at the FutureM start-up marketing bootcamp sponsored by Highland Capital Partners and Flybridge Capital Partners in Cambridge.
We will talk about what's next in marketing. Modern businesses need to have marketing built-in and look at it as an iterative process, just like software.
Organizations that adopt this mindset, and are able to leverage digital media, where customers and prospects are spending more and more time, have an easier time being and remaining top of mind. And they can do that without too many funds -- think for example at 37signals -- they may not have.
We'll talk about not mixing the old ways with the new habits they need to form to ship in marketing.
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On October 15, we'll be talking about digital crisis communications as part of the Social Media Business Summit track at BlogWorldat 12:15pm. I'm be moderating a panel of experienced communicators who have been on the front lines:
We'll address questions like: how can you avoid a PR disaster when a crisis strikes? Whether the crisis lives online or off line, a company still needs to plan for all possible contingencies and scenarios, do a situation analysis to respond -- and recover. Are you rushing to deal with perceptions without knowing the facts? Are you integrating social media into your crisis planning? Are community managers trained, do they have crisis escalation paths? Or have you just addressed responding to detractors?
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On October 18, we'll switch gears a little bit and talk more broadly about why social media makes sense for brands, and how communicators can help their companies develop, implement, measure, and manage a program as part of the IABC Heritage conference in Philadelphia.
If you're local, you should attend. There are other excellent speakers who will talk about the power of story, customer-centric marketing, and much more.
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On October 27 at 3-4pm ET, I will do a live Webinar for Powered-Inc. (where I work), to talk about social crisis communications. I have oodles of additional insights and stories -- recent and older -- with patterns and lessons to share.
So make sure you put a placeholder in your calendar and sign up for this free Webinar here and watch Twitter for reminders. Social won't kill a crisis, but lack of social during crisis will kill you. [hat tip Ike Pigott]
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As you can see, I'm no recluse. So catch me, if you can.
[with David Parmet at the microMARKETING book launch in NYC]
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Slacker.
What are you going to do with all that free time?
Posted by: Ike | October 04, 2010 at 12:40 PM
Ike:
I'm taking my vitamins to get through this week. Some will say that me losing my voice would be a blessing. In that case, I can still tweet and blog :)
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni | October 04, 2010 at 08:24 PM