2020 Social: Because Business is Social

Avoiding Collisions on the Social Web

Posted on 30. Dec, 2009 by Dave in Announcements, Case Studies, How To Guides, Ideas

Last week, the social Web felt a bit like a bad holiday sale…as some notable brands suffered collisions with their respective audiences. The combination of business processes and the consumer reactions, expressed via social media, played a role in each of them.

Post continues here.

What Social Media Taught Me About Management and Leadership

Posted on 28. Dec, 2009 by Gautam in Ideas, Trends

I started my career in HR in 1999, and I started blogging here in 2002 – so in my mind both of these are linked in some way.

In my career in moved from KM to e-learning, to Training to a HR Generalist stint and then to HR Consulting – and parallel to this I was discovering more and more tools as they got invented and went out of fashion – from Yahoo Groups to Ryze to Linkedin to Orkut to Facebook to Twitter.

Looking back at my career and social media journey over the last decade I thought I’d point down my thoughts on what social media taught me that an MBA in HR did not (or maybe I didn’t pay attention to it)

1. People have a lot more in common than their differences. Social media gives amplification to the basic desire of human beings – to connect and to express. Some people like to express more and some like to connect more. Leadership is going to mean more about giving them tools and work that meet that need is the key.

Mail Today Story on the Biggest Technology Trends of 2010s

Posted on 27. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Media, Trends

Mail Today interviewed me recently for a story on the biggest technology trends of 2010s.

I think Augmented Reality will be the biggest digital technology trend over the next decade.

Augmented Reality applications add a data layer to physical objects, and augment our physical reality by making it interactive. Basically, you point your mobile phone camera at any physical object (a building, a book, a person) and get information about it, superimposed on the screen, in real time.

As an example, you will be able to point your cameraphone at the cute girl in the neighborhood cafe and see that she is single, likes super-achiever type men, and has three friends in common with you, but tends to complain about her ex-boyfriends in public. The app will achieve this feat by identifying her through face recognition technology, then quickly scanning her profile information and status messages on Facebook and Twitter. If you still fancy your chances with her, it will request your common friends to introduce you to her via Facebook Connect driven dating service Thread.

Layar and Mobilizy/ Wikitude are early examples of AR apps and Pranav Mistry’s talk at TEDIndia is a sign of things to come.

Five Reasons Why Facebook is Good For Your Soul

Posted on 25. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Ideas, Media

I just came off a panel discussion with writers Greg Atwan and Tom Hodgkinson on BBC World’s ‘World Have Your Say’ talk show. The topic: does Facebook improve our lives?

The discussion touched upon several topics. We discussed how governments, businesses and individuals can use Facebook in good, bad and ugly ways. We talked about reasons why Facebook is the most popular social networking platform in the world. We also touched upon some fascinating conspiracy theories from Tom on why Facebook is evil.

I believe that Facebook is indeed good for your soul and here are five reasons why –

1. The Facebook activity feed enables an ambient awareness of your social circle. Even if your friends are scattered across five continents, you can keep up with their lives on Facebook. So, when you meet again, you feel as if you were never really out of touch with each other.

2. The boundaries between your online and offline lives have blurred. If you meet someone interesting at a party or a conference, you are likely to friend them on Facebook, and get to know them better, so a chance encounter is more likely to result in real friendship. Similarly, if you meet someone interesting on your blog or Twitter, then friend them on Facebook, you are likely to meet them in real life and sometimes become close friends.

2010 Social Media Predictions: Online Brand Communities Will Come of Age

Posted on 24. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Trends

I was recently quoted in two compilations of social media predictions for 2010, by TrendsSpotting and Junta42, along with social media influencers like Pete Cashmore, David Armano, Chris Brogan, Peter Kim, John Batelle, Drew McLellan, Jason Falls, Charlene Li, Robert Scoble and Paul Gillin.

I think the big social media trend in 2010 will be that online brand communities will come of age.

Brand marketers will create compelling micro-content to seed these communities, then run contests to invite consumers to interpret their brand, create their own content.

I also see brand marketers investing in communities that are built around a bigger social object: a lifestyle, cause or passion.

Here is the TrendsSpotting 2010 Social Media Predictions –

Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.

The making of a Social Organization

Posted on 21. Dec, 2009 by Gautam in How To Guides

At 2020 Social one of the things we believe is that we are a our own petri-dish. We experiment with technology and processes to convert ourselves into the kind of organization we think is suitable to be called social.

So not only do we have a blog, a Facebook page, a twitter account, a twitter list showcasing all our tweets – we’ve also now started a wiki to focus on building a repository of social media successes in India – and will invite participation from like minded folks soon.

On the other side of the seriousness spectrum we have started a Fun page where we publicly talk on the lighter side of life at 2020 Social

Internally we are driving online collaboration using three tools, Google Apps for mail, document sharing and calendering - Socialtextfor internal conversations and collaboration on a wiki – and Basecamp for project management.

As social media enthusiasts we have noticed that internally even we need to see a business/behavioral benefit to using a tool – and we understand that more traditional businesses would need to see it more.

One of the way to showcase this is look for external cases where ROI has been calculated – but we believe that using the tools showcases a greater commitment and a better story for any client.

Singapore Management University Social Media in Asia Wiki

Posted on 17. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Trends

The students of Singapore Management University have put together a nifty wiki on social media in Asia.

The wiki has sections for each country (see India) with pages for introduction, case studies, resources and interviews with local experts (Kiruba, Rajesh and myself).

In my interviews, I talk about how the social media marketing scene in India is maturing –

:: Tell us about the use of social media by businesses in India.

About 5% of Indians have access to the Internet and 35-40% have access to mobile services. These numbers may seem small but actually it means 30 million users. For several businesses such as Pepsi and Reebok these 30 million internet users are sufficient because they are urban, educated, and upwardly mobile. For other business this number is not enough. Eventually we need to analyze who the target audience are for businesses. Hence, not everyone needs or wants to use social media at the moment. Further down the line, this might change.

:: Could you give us a brief comparison between the Indian and the U.S. market?

Tata Indicom Uses Account Statements to Invite Customers to Participate in Its Blog and Forum

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Case Studies

I was pleasantly surprised recently to see that Tata Indicom is using its account statements to invite customers to participate in its blog and forum –

I have been presenting slides on how real employees (including old friend Nidhi) use the Tata Indicom corporate blog to have real conversations with their customers –

I tend to be very particular about building the right customer community platform using the right software (which, very often, is something like Lithium), and for a reason. The right platform enables and encourages the right behavior, opens up new degrees of freedom, both for community users and the administrators.

However, the Tata Indicom example is a reminder for me that brands can do a lot of right things without using sophisticated software. Their blog is built on the free Wordpress blogging software and their forum is built on vBulletin, not a particularly sophisticated forum software. The forum user interface is unwieldy, the different pieces of software don’t speak to each other, and there’s only so much that Tata Indicom or their customers can do with it.

However, even though Tata Indicom doesn’t have the right software to run a customer community, it sure has the right soul and, in the end, the right soul matters more than the right software.

Janaagraha Launches Its Citizen Action Community iJanaagraha

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Announcements

Bangalore-based civil society group Janaagraha, which had earlier tied up with Tata Tea to launch the Jaago Re (wake up) campaign during the 2009 Indian Lok Sabha elections, has launched its citizen action community iJanaagraha today.

In its finished avatar, the iJanaagraha online platform will have strong location, community and activation layers and connect citizens with activists and politicians around civic issues at the polling booth level.

In the first phase, the iJanaagraha platform asks citizens to stay awake (Jaagte Raho) and register online to vote and also volunteer to become an Area Voter Mitra. Area Voter Mitra will run get-out-the-vote drives in their neighbourhoods, with support from Janaagraha and the Election Commission of India. The activities in the first phase will be focused on the long overdue Bangalore local elections (see iJanaagraha Blog).

On his own blog, my friend and co-conspirator Jasmine Shah shares his experiences in running the very successful Jaago Re campaign and looks ahead to Jaagte Raho.

My Talk on Digital Activism at Social Media Club Delhi

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Events, Ideas

In my previous post on three lessons entrepreneurs can learn from activists, I wrote about the importance of building a partner and volunteer ecosystem and mentioned how we use this principle in our own work at 2020 Social.

Over the last three months, Dave has been working with several other social media practitioners and enthusiasts to start chapters of Social Media Club in a number of Indian cities, including Delhi (Facebook, Twitter), Mumbai (Twitter), Bengaluru (Twitter), Chennai (Twitter), Kolkata (Twitter), Hyberabad (Twitter), and Pune (Twitter). Several of these aren’t yet active, so if you want to take the lead in your local Social media Club, write to @evansdave on Twitter or volunteer on the Social Media Club wiki.

The Delhi Chapter of Social media Club held its first meetup at Hauz Khas Village on November 21, 2009 (the first Social Media Club meetup in India?) and some 40 odd people turned up.

I gave a talk on digital activism in India and China to emphasize the idea that social media goes beyond business and marketing.