2020 Social: Because Business is Social

Decoding Social: How Are Social Technologies Changing Business, Media and Society?

Posted on 02. Mar, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements, Ideas, Media

At 2020 Social, we understand that the nature of knowledge is changing from stock to flow and knowledge will become redundant in the blink of an eye, if not shared with others. On the other hand, if we share knowledge with other, often for free, they repay us with attention, and we create more opportunities for ourselves to learn and share more.

In this spirit, we will be sharing all our research, point of view, conference and workshop decks with the community of social media practitioners and enthusiasts we have learned so much from.

We speak at almost a dozen events every month, and sometimes use the same ideas across talks. For instance, I have given several related talks on “how to scale passion?” or “what can entrepreneurs learn from activists?” at BITS Pilani, IIT Roorkee, TEDIndia, Startup Saturday Delhi, Social Media Club Mumbai, IIT Delhi and Pecha Kucha Bangalore. Each talk is a work-in-progress artifact and I have seen these ideas evolve, each time I talk about them. While individual slide decks for each talk are interesting as artifacts, I’m beginning to think that it’s better to share a master slide deck (that’s in constant beta) so that people can easily refer to the latest iteration of our thinking.

With that background, let me share the latest version of our 100+ slide workshop deck titled “Decoding Social: How Are Social Technologies Changing Business, Media and Society?”

I used a version of this deck earlier today as the first of my three guest lectures at Mudra Institute of Commuications, Ahmedabad on how social technologies are changing business. I intend to use this deck next in the introductory session of my NASSCOM Foundation workshop on “how to scale passion”.

Here are the three key mantras the deck builds upon –

- The future has already arrived; it’s just not evenly distributed yet.

- The tools are transient; the values embedded in them are persistent.

- To understand how social technologies are changing media and business, begin by asking how they are changing people and society.

Here are the five key questions the deck seeks to answer –

- What are social technologies and why are they important?

- How are social technologies changing people?

- How are social technologies changing society?

- How are social technologies changing media?

- How are social technologies changing business?

If you want one of the 2020 Social experts (Gaurav, Dave, Gautam, Kaushal) to speak at your event, write to us at contact@2020social.com.

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

New Openings at 2020 Social: Consumer Practice Lead and Build Competency Lead

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements

As 2020 Social’s suite of offerings have evolved, the senior team is increasingly getting stretched across our competency areas and practice areas.

So, Dave leads our business-to-consumer practice and the plan competency, Kaushal leads our business-to-business practice and the build competency and Gautam leads our employee and partner practice and the engage competency, while I help out across all three competencies and practices.

My target is to take Dave and myself off this grid so that 2020 Social can function even when we are away, let’s say, for speaking at conferences.

To get there, we will need to fill three key positions over the next three months: the business-to-consumer practice lead, the build competency lead and the engage competency lead.

Last week, we announced openings for the first two positions:

- Consultant (1): Ideally Mumbai, but also Delhi or Bangalore

Role: Develop the digital marketing strategy and define the business case for social applications and community platforms for consumer and media clients. Establish thought leadership in the domain of how Indian consumers engage with web, mobile and social technologies through blog posts, white papers and conference talks. Set up the Mumbai office for 2020 Social and establish and grow client relationships. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants and Analysts.

Skills: Consumer marketing, digital marketing, business consulting, business development.

Background: IIM or equivalent with 4-6 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

- Consultant (1): Ideally Delhi or Bangalore, but also Mumbai

Role: Define the functional requirements for social applications and community platforms for clients. Work with internal account managers/ project managers and external design firms/ development firms to ensure that projects are delivered in cost and on time. Simultaneously, find opportunities to productize these social applications and community platforms as proprietary white label solutions that can be re-used across multiple clients. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants, Analysts and Designers.

Skills: User experience design, product management, project management, familiarity with Drupal and Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter/ OpenSocial APIs.

Background: IIT/ NID or equivalent with 6-8 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

We are also looking for interns to work with us on a part-time basis:

- Interns (4), Delhi or Bangalore, Rs. 5000 monthly stipend

Role: Research how digital and social technologies are changing business and marketing. Identify best practices and case studies for developing social media strategy and creating campaigns for clients. Part time role for 2 to 6 months with a commitment of 20 hours a week.

Skills: Good communications skills, ability to work in teams, eagerness to learn, familiarity with blogs, forums, and social networking platforms like Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

Background: BBA or MBA students.

Reporting to: Gautam (Delhi) or Kaushal (Bangalore)

Working at 2020 Social combines the best of both worlds: you enjoy the open and collaborative work environment of a web 2.0 startup, the steep learning curve of a strategy consulting firm and the benefits of being part of an established organization (we are related to 20:20 Media, one of India’s largest independent PR firms).

Send your CVs to careers@2020social.com: it might be your lucky day.

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

Define Your Sandbox Early, But Stay in Constant Beta

Posted on 21. Feb, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements

STAYING IN CONSTANT BETA WITHIN A SANDBOX

As an entrepreneur, you need to articulate your offering early in your startup’s life cycle, and still stay open to change, especially if you are in the fast-evolving social technologies space.

After nine months of running 2020 Social, I have learned that the key is to define a big enough sandbox early, then stay in constant beta, and play within that sandbox.

THE EVOLUTION OF 2020 SOCIAL

In June 2009, 2020 Social started off as an insights firm, focused on tracking conversations on the social web and identifying trends international clients could benefit from.

Within a hundred days, we realized that the social opportunity in India itself was big enough and reinvented ourselves as a consulting firm, focused on advising Indian and international clients on how social technologies are impacting their business strategy.

By October, we were ready to move beyond pure-play advisory services and offer full solutions to our clients. Since then, we have been working hard on building our BUILD and ENGAGE capabilities, apart from strengthening our already mature PLAN capabilities.

Now, 2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, to connect their customers, partners and employees, catalyze innovation and collaboration, and drive loyalty and advocacy.

2020 SOCIAL COMPETENCY AREAS

As of now, we have three “competency areas”:

- PLAN: which involves doing primary and secondary research on the social web, advising clients on how social technologies are impacting their business strategy, and conducting workshops for senior management.
- BUILD: which involves building online community platforms and social applications, and integrating them with existing platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter using social APIs.
- ENGAGE: which involves creating compelling content for the community platforms we build, tracking and participating in conversations on the community platforms and the broader social web, and increasing participation in these communities through social media contests.

Dave leads our PLAN competencies, Kaushal leads our BUILD competencies and Gautam leads our ENGAGE competencies.

2020 SOCIAL PARTNERS

In some of our engagements, we focus only on the PLAN piece, while the BUILD and ENGAGE pieces are handled by another full-service digital agency. In such cases, we usually work from the client side to define detailed functional requirements and campaign calenders, select the agency and closely work with them through the BUILD and ENGAGE pieces. We have worked with Experience Commerce and Interakt on such engagements and look forward to working with other full-service digital agencies.

In other engagements, we work across the PLAN, BUILD and ENGAGE pieces and partner with design and development firms to offer the full solution. We have worked with Design For Use and Tekriti Software on such engagements and look forward to working with them again.

Lithium (for external communities) and SocialText (for internal communities) are our preferred white label platforms. Drupal is our preferred platform for building custom community platforms.

2020 SOCIAL PRACTICE AREAS

As of now, we have three practice areas:

- BUSINESS TO CONSUMER: which involves building communities of interest, around lifestyles and causes.
- BUSINESS TO BUSINESS: which involves building communities of practice, around professions and industries.
- EMPLOYEES and PARTNERS: which involves building collaboration platforms.

Dave leads our business-to-consumer practice, Kaushal leads our business-to-business practice and Gautam leads our employees and partners practice.

2020 SOCIAL OFFERINGS

So, 2020 Social’s suite of offerings is essentially a matrix of our competency areas and practice areas –

NEXT FOR 2020 SOCIAL

Over a one year horizon, I expect 2020 Social to build offerings beyond pure-play services.

We are working on building some lightweight white label platforms of our own. The first of these platforms will be an ideation-cum-contest platform called 2020 Social Ideas.

We are also working on building some niche communities of our own. The first of these communities will be a private research community for young, urban, Indian trendsetters called Yuvaah.

Stay tuned to hear more about these initiatives soon.

THE 2020 SOCIAL SANDBOX

I am sure that our offerings will continue to evolve, but I am sure that we will play within the broad sandbox we started with:

- We believe that social technologies are changing business and society and we want to play an active role in fulfilling the promise of this movement.

- We will differentiate ourselves based on our insights and do work that extends the boundaries of how organizations use social technologies to connect with their constituents.

- We will build deep competencies in some areas and partner with experts in other areas who share our vision to bring together effective solutions for our clients.

Ask us how we can help you or partner with you.

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

Welcoming Puneet and Arushi – Interns at 2020 Social

Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by Gautam in Announcements

Over the last week we had two new people who have joined the team at 2020 Social.

Puneet Singh (Twitter) from Fore School of Business, Delhi and Arushi Gupta (Twitter) from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi have joined us as interns. For the next couple of months they will work on specific live projects that will impact.

Puneet would be working on a project in which he would be looking at Business to Business (B2B) Communities – and finalising on what are the various types of B2B communities that can be leveraged by organizations to engage with their clients.

Arushi would be working along with Karthick and Freddie on what goes into building private community of young trendsetters – a community focused on observing trends and also on how marketers and organizations understand and engage these trendsetters.

Social Media In India Wiki

Posted on 19. Jan, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Announcements, Ideas

Social Media in India Wiki

If someone questioned me what does the term ‘best idea’ refer to, I’d probably reply that which is the simplest and the most logical. You know when an idea just suddenly seems to stare at you in the face and makes you jump up and scream “But of course!”. Well, that is probably your best idea.

Keeping this in mind, the best idea that had us hollering at 2020social was that of building a Social Media India Wiki. Considering the growth rate of social media in India, it just makes complete sense to provide one single platform that is built not just by us at 2020social, but by all the social media players in India. The idea just clicked as the obvious next step.  So much so, it just instantly made me wonder how no one else had thought of it (thank god for that). But then again, my CEO isn’t considered the social business strategy guru for nothing!

The wiki as a single platform creates a two-fold contribution:

1) We share information and resources, thereby promoting healthy competitive growth.

2) We also guide each other by sharing our experiences and issues faced.

In this manner the whole industry comes together to coordinate as ONE. This helps decide how to create focus and promote growth in the Indian social media sphere.  Of course, social media clubs and other offline events are a great way to interact. But I believe that limits communication to a certain city or a certain group or topic. What do people do if they cannot commute to another city to attend a workshop? And honestly, how many of you actually end up interacting or sharing resources with all the 50 attendees from the workshop?  And what if you just cannot, for the life of you, remember the name of that blogger you had met at last week’s workshop??

You’d probably have to scroll through 10 different online resources to figure out who he was and his blog’s URL.

Well, we figured a wiki would be the perfect answer to avoid such instances and make things simpler.

As the name suggests, Social Media in India Wiki is a simple one-stop storehouse for everything required by a social media practitioner or even a business looking to utilize social technologies. Clearly structured, the wiki comprises of various self-explanatory categories:

• Social Media Practitioners in India
• Indian Brands on Social Media
• Indian Communities of Interest
• Indian Celebrities
• Indian Non-Profits and Activists on Social Media
• Social Media Job Openings in India
• Indian Journalists Covering Social Media Space in India

Each of the above categories then branches out into miniature lists collating information to a specific platform or group.

Visitors can also edit or contribute to the wiki. To do so, a visitor needs to firstly register and create a profile. Then he/she can ask for write permissions from the wiki admin and advance to editing as required. Discussion forums and threads help members to directly interact and network with people they have read or heard of. To make matters easier, users can also submit new page suggestions with sufficient examples to the wiki admin. The wiki admin then creates the requisite page structure and opens it up for more member contributions.

While the wiki is still barely 2 weeks old, yet the response to it has been marvelous and beyond encouraging. At the time of writing, the wiki had 73 members who had joined it to build this knowledge base.

We are grateful to each member for his/her participation and contributions. The feedback reinforced the belief that there was indeed a need for such a source in India and that we are on the right track. Since the building phase is ongoing, we are constantly thinking of ways to evolve and add more to the wiki. Plans to add exciting new pages like blogging policies, issues facing social media practitioners are in the pipeline.

So whether you are a social media practitioner or an enthusiast, do come join the fraternity by jumping aboard the wiki wagon and submitting your say to the industry. Each one of us has some knowledge or expertise we can share and the wiki is where your skill, no matter how trivial, will help build this into India’s largest resource for all things social media.

Thinking about Social-ERM

Posted on 13. Jan, 2010 by Gautam in Announcements

Many business leaders and HR professionals I meet and talk to take stances that are either on the lines of “Oh, Orkut and Facebook is such a drain on my company resources and time ! I need to ban such stuff – or at least regulate it – so that we can do our jobs better”

Or (and this is a smaller number) some CEOs, COOs, HR professionals and many Marketing professionals – the ones who are more open-minded, say – “Hold on, here are some things that are changing at a fundamental level in the way we engage with the external world, and our employees are out there on Facebook, Linkedin, Orkut, Twitter – talking about their jobs, our products, answering questions from their friends and strangers. If we can’t ban this, how can we channelise it?”

Welcome to Social ERM

Yeah, I just coined the phrase Social ERM – and I take this off from the concept of Social CRM that Gaurav blogged about.

So what would Social Employee Relationship Management do?

1. Listening - Monitoring of the social web to keep track of what your employees are saying on various platforms about their work/ industry/market/ customers/ organizations/ other employees.
2. Profiling - This step would involve trying to classify your employees in the following ways -
   1. What kind of postings are they carrying out?
   2. Do they respond to user queries?
   3. Do they post about new stuff that is happening in the industry/ market ?
   4. What is the influence they have built?
   5. Who is their audience?
3. Sharing and Connecting - This would look at building an online community within the firewall amongst the people you have profiled so that they can share and curate the content each of them create on different site
4. Collaboration - The next step would be for these online innovators to create content jointly or ideate on what they can work together – or to reach out to each other when faced with a external query not in their area of expertise.
5. Converting and Supporting - When one does steps 1 and 2 – one would also discover disgruntled employees – This step looks at how HR and Operations can respond to the source of that negativity so that the at least become neutral if not positive. However, I foresee companies still not being open enough to do this, but one does hope!
6. Energising and Retaining - Clearly employees who engage in social media in the work arena are excited by other rewards and recognitions than employees who are not vocal about their work. HR and Operations needs to think new ways to energise and retain these employees – and giving them augmented roles with social media responsibilities

So CEOs, COOs, HR professionals – are you ready for Social Employee Relationship Management?

Social Media India This Past Week

Posted on 12. Jan, 2010 by Hardeep Kaur Rai in Announcements

We, at 2020 Social, have decided to maintain a weekly round-up of the social media happenings in India. As one of our New Year plans, this initiative is aimed to keep a tab on the market pulse and the trends taking place, thus making it easier for people to touch-base with the SM industry happenings in India.  This post covers the week of 4^th Jan- 9^th Jan 2010.

Lots of important happenings this week with surprises galore like SRK’s entry in the Twitterverse, Chetan Bhagat’s feud with the 3 Idiots team and numerous launches from the corporate players.

1) Beginning with the big one that really grabbed eye-balls was SRK’s joining the Twitter bandwagon on 2^nd Jan 2010. At the time of writing this post, Mr. Khan had 67922 followers with him following a meager 17. You can visit his profile at http://twitter.com/iamsrk.

Many section of the industry have termed the move as evidence of the rise of social media in India and hope that with King Khan’s presence on Twitter, more action would be recorded on the part of corporates and other members of the Indian public.

SRK’s Twitter entry made headlines across numerous blogs and publications like Allvoices, WATBlog, Indiaglitz, Times of India, India Today etc.

Source: Allvoices.com

Source: Times of India

Source: Indiaglitz

However, it would be better to wait and watch to ascertain whether it’s a temporary phase designed to promote SRK’s upcoming release-‘My Name is Khan or does he intend to stay.  What is certain is Twitter’s traffic growth, given that even SRK’s tweets make it to the headlines of national media.

Source: Times of India

2) Another activity, to begin and transmit into the TV and print realm from the social media world, was the Chetan Bhagat-3 Idiots’ controversy. How a simple Twitter conversation lived out a 5 day long national controversy reinstates how attentively people listen on the social media airwaves.

The controversy began with Chetan Bhagat’s fans stating to the author that the filmmakers could have provided a better placement for the story credit.

Source: Chetan Bhagat’s Twitter Id

Soon the action moved from the Twitterverse unto Chetan’s blog where he  wrote about the story issue that soon catapulted into a full-fledged controversy.

Source: Chetan Bhagat’s Blog

Complete coverage was handed out by journalists and publications like Vir Sanghvi, Times of India, Live Mint posting or blogging about it.

Source: Vir Sanghvi’s Blog

Source: Times of India

Source: Livemint.com

It didn’t also help that videos of the film makers shouting at the journalists and the author’s interviews soon spread on the web and national TV.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra Says Shut-up to journalist on Chetan Bhagat book row

Source: YouTube

Chetan Bhagat says \’3 idiots\’ his story: Aamir Khan slams the claim

Source: YouTube

Ultimately, with no end to the controversy in sight on the TV & print medium, it was the social media platform that carried out the peace move with Chetan Bhagat posting his final remarks on his blog and the 3 Idiots team uploading a You-Tube video clarifying the issue.

Rajkumar Hirani breaks silence on 3 Idiots & Chetan Bhagat\’s Five Point Someone

Source: YouTube

3) Moving on to the corporate world, SMS Gupshup has decided to build several social communities around Healthcare, JaagoRe and Stree (Women).  And another pleasant surprise came with Reliance Media Works (formerly known as Adlabs Films) acquiring ilab UK- a film processing and post production firm based out of London.

4) In the sphere of launches, the first was the launch of BookSmith by Pothi.com which converts personal blogs into e-books and print ready books. Another launch was of ShareBaazi.com –a virtual trading game by Economic Times Online & Indian Fantasy League.

The week also saw the launch of MeriCAR.com’s service reminders and SMS alerts facility. This facility proves to be an effective and helpful method for car owners and workshops to ensure car servicing. But competitor CarWale.com is not far behind and has partnered with AOL India to form a co-brand AOL Autos for more user-generated car-related information and other innovative content.

Continuing on the launch brigade is Hungama Digital Media Entertainment Private Ltd with a site for unheard musicians-ArtistAlound.com and Aircel with a mobile app store in collaboration with Infosys. The last entry for this week in the launch category is Tata DoCoMo with its comic viewer app for mobiles termed DOCOMICS.

With so much action happening in the first week of Jan 2010 itself, I’d like to believe its a good omen symbolizing more action this year for the Indian SM industry. After all, the saying goes- if it begins well then it ends well.

While I have tried my best to include as much of happenings as I could find yet if any have been missed or overlooked, then please feel free to drop me a mail at hardeep@2020social.com. Feedback is always welcomed. And do log in next Monday for more weekly SM happenings gist.

Announcement: Kaushal Sarda Joins the 2020 Social Team

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by gaurav in Announcements

I’m delighted to announce that Kaushal Sarda has joined the 2020 Social team as a consultant.

Kaushal will head the Bangalore office for 2020 Social and focus on B2B, technology and startup clients. He will also work with Gautam to develop our collaboration/ innovation practice, where we connect employees and partners to help clients achieve their business objectives. Finally, he will work with Upasana to strengthen our “build” practice, where we build online communities using white label or open source platforms.

Previously, Kaushal has worked as a CRM consultant at Capgemini Consulting and founded SaaS based enterprise collaboration platform Uhuroo. He writes about collaboration and innovation at his Creating Connections blog and is a regular speaker on these topics. Kaushal holds an MS in information systems from George Mason University.

Do connect with Kaushal on email, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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

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.

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.

I have been associated with Jaagte Raho/ iJanaagraha initiatives over the last six months as a member of the Janaagraha Technology Advisory Group. Members of the 2020 Social team have also been working with Jasmine on strategy and project management aspects. It’s exciting to see the project in public after months of work. It’s even more exciting to know that only a fraction of the project is in public view as of now, and some of the most powerful pieces are still in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

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