Thursday, April 30, 2009

Social Media Think Tank Takes Off in Springfield


by Don Harkey

About a month ago, I was chatting with Kurt Theobald, an entrepreneur and fellow business consultant in Springfield about the use of Social Media in business. We both were on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and had played with a few other services. If you play with these services, you will quickly discover that there are multiple uses for each and that they all can take up a tremendous amount of time (especially Facebook). Are these things business owners / leaders should get involved with or are they simply a waste of time? How can these "tools" be applied effectively to a variety of business processes? That's when Kurt said, "let's pull together a think tank to talk about it".

Our first meeting was almost a month ago and only 4 people showed up, but our discussion was very good. It quickly became apparent that we needed to focus on the processes rather than on the tools. We also quickly discovered that the greatest potential comes from utilizing tools in combination with each other. We published a few of our findings on Twitter along with an open invitation to our next meeting.

Last week we met again and had 8 people come in, many of whom had heard of the team primarily on Facebook. I want to tell you we had QUALITY people at that meeting. We had a recruiter who used social media to connect with potential recruits. We had an entrepreneur who is working on the next social media application focused on the creative arts. We had a communications expert who works as an adviser for politicians. We had a business owner who had been using social media from its inception. We had a web developer who's knowledge of web tools is impressive. We had a representative from the Springfield Business Journal who works on a team exploring the implications of social media and the web on print media. The bottom line is that we have a great team and the discussion showed it... and the discussion is occurring right here in Springfield, Missouri!

After the meeting, the participants immediately began publishing some of the discussions and the enthusiasm for the project spread even more. We have since had to change our venue from the backroom at Hebrew's Coffee to the Brentwood Library to hold all of the people we expect to attend the next session. One of our goals is to develop some "best practices" for social media in business and then work to "get the word out" into the Springfield area.

If you are in the Springfield, Missouri area and would like to participate in our Social Media Think Tank, you can attend our next session at:

Brentwood Library
May 11th @12:30PM

RSVP on Twitter by sending a tweet using #sgfsmtRSVP.

Follow Social Media Think Tank tweets by searching #sgfsmt, by following the RSS Feed (http://tinyurl.com/czt9xn) or by following donharkey and kurttheobald on Twitter.

I think we are on to something very exciting! Let's get some focus on applying these tools and then let's get the word out!

6 comments:

  1. An excellent overview, Don! The #sgfsmt group is awesome!

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  2. Wish I would've heard about it from the first meeting! I teach our e-commerce clients about social media and how best to practice. Really looking forward to this upcoming meeting.

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  3. Jenny and I used to work together, I am very interested in this conversation taking place here in #SGF, I had considered starting a social media club here after I heard about KC's and STL's. Kudos to you two!

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  4. Great overview Don. Thanks for getting the word out.

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  5. Don,
    I realize this is an older blog, but I was poking around the internet for ideas and this popped up. I'm not in the Springfield area, rather Stuttgart, Germany. We have a think tank that we started about a year ago and most of our folks moved/PCSed. That's what happens with the military :o) I'm new in the seat and trying to get it going again. I like your conglomerate of folks. How is your think tank going these days? Still have a good group? What do you discuss when you get together? Processes, latest tools, etc... Our group is conducted via a virtual site as not everyone is in the area. We try to reach out to industry as well so we're not stuck in the military rut.
    As you seem to have a good thing going, I would welcome any ideas/suggestions/best practices/lessons learned you can share.
    Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!
    Kristi Beckman

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  6. Kristen -

    Our group met several times over a few months and laid out a pretty decent understanding of how to utilize social media tools for business. Our conclusion was that social media is another tool in a networking toolbag. Some people get involved because they expect to become "viral", but we saw large corporations spending lots of dollars attempting that only to be beaten out by wedding dancers and violent soccer players.

    In reality, as one of our attendees said, social media puts communications backwards 100 years (in a good way). 100 years ago, business was conducted largely in smaller communities via relationships. With the advent of TV and Radio, business switched over to mass media. Now, social media tools are allowing us to do what we did 100 years ago, only to MANY more people. In short, successful social media is about relationships.

    People who avoid social media or text messaging because they would "prefer old fashioned face to face conversation" are missing the point. These tools allow users to establish more relationships that end up in face-to-face conversations. We found it helpful to think of social media as another networking venue. You have to know the venue, who is there, and what normal behavior is. You don't want to go to a Rotary Club meeting and pass our business cards to everyone just as you don't go on LinkedIn and "SuperPoke" people.

    Good luck to your group in Germany. Thanks to you and all who serve with you in the military!

    Don

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