SXSW: Day 2 - The Morning

After realizing that the left turn arrow from Cesar Chavez to Congress en route to the Hyatt was not working, and sitting through multiple cycles, then avoiding the confederate re-enactors on their horses and with their wagon pulled by donkeys we got in 15 minutes late and filled with road rage. First session of the day was "social media: the next generation of business engagement" and I found it to be yet more 101 level information on how to get buy in and really high level KPIs and the difference between KPI and ROI. There was a little discussion around how your metrics should be dependent upon your objectives, etc. Frankly, if you don't understand that by this point, you're facing a bigger problem than not having the right metrics.

Anyway, next session will be "seed & feed: cultivating self-organizing communities" or "to reply or not to reply? Facebook conversations". Everyone must attend at least one core conversation session. Wow. Get smart people in a room who are passionate about a concept and let them talk and share. Its a fabulous way to spend an hour. Discussion around community and the issues corporations face when involved in community, especially if it's not about the products, but rather about a concept that happens to deal with their customers base. Take PartnerUp for example: the community is not around Deluxe products or services. In fact, we don't want it to be the kind of place that is a group of people talking about how much they love us (I'd rather see that on Facebook & Twitter), but instead thank us for providing a place where small business owners can find people to answer their questions around starting, marketing, funding and running a small business. Even if we aren't the people who answer the question, we provided the place and brought folks together, we want to make small business owners happy. That's the key to community managers, we are a group of people who want to create happiness in the world. I like that idea. Do you buy it?