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.
Social Community Efforts From Banks & Financial Institutions
Posted on 22. Jan, 2010 by Mohit in Reviews
Banking and Finance Industry is very competitive. Customers are becoming impatient and loyalty for brands is decreasing. Slowly brands are realizing that they can no longer appear monolithic, imposing and they need to find new ways to engage customers to retain and build relationships.
Web in its new avatar (Social Media) facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration, has given consumers the power to make or break reputations, enhance or damage brands, create winners and losers in the marketplace, and do so with lightning speed. At the same time, social media offer unparalleled access to unfiltered customer opinion, opportunity to understand the real influencers, and opportunities to leverage user-generated content.
Note: There are many popular blogs, forums, and review sites around Banking and Finance. But in this post I am focusing on how large banks and financial institutions are adopting social media to reach out to customers, prospectus and Influencers.
Community efforts from Banks and Financial Institutions.
This online community HSBC Business Network is for SMB and entrepreneurs. The focus is to empower new start-up companies to succeed by enabling them to network and form relationships with each other, as well as leveraging the expertise and support of HSBC’s business specialists
Common Wealth Credit Union (Groundswell Award Winner, 2008)
To positioned itself as a progressive and transparent financial institution with heart, Common Wealth Credit Union launched an online community for Alberta’s Generation “Y”. A lifestyle platform for youth to self express and support called Young & Free. Its a fully integrated marketing campaign combined with a spokesperson search to find the voice of Alberta’s under 25 crowd.
Common Wealth embraced the power of the social web by tapping into popular sites like YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter to create an immersive experience where compelling user-generated content takes centre stage. To position it as a democratic, transparent organisation they launched a yearly campaign to find “Young & Free Alberta Spokesperson”.
The winner from the contest became a paid employee of the credit union, working full time with the job description: talk, type and tell good stories – essentially a full time blogger for the credit union for one year.
The Open forum is a very interesting way that American Express is using to share information and start conversation with small business owners. Some of the key highlights of the OPEN Forum initiative are: building brand equity, acquiring new customers, and building loyalty of existing customers.
It’s a excellent example of how to develop a vibrant social media community around a target segment.
Schwab Listening community (Groundswell Award Winner, 2007)
Charles Schwab launch a private online community “Money and More” made up of 350 25-to-40 year old Generation X non-Schwab clients. Idea was to listen to a focused group of Gen-Xers that was brought together on a community platform to better understand – how to become their investment service provider of choice 10 or 15 years down the road. What they learned was so powerful that they were able to create new products and services to meet the needs of this target group— resulting in a 56% increase in GenX customers vs. a year ago Based on insights from the community, Schwab lowered account minimums to $1,000, introduced Schwab’s high-yield Investor checking account with a high yield, and developing an online landing page specifically for the Gen X target.
Barclays Bank – 100 Voice Community
The 100 Voice community is student focused community where students can share their opinions on money management and student finances. Its a marketing driven program to create visibility and conversation around the benefits of the Barclays Student account and enable students to share their experiences with others.
Bank of America : Small Business Online Community
This Small Business Online Community includes a ‘Forums’ section, where SMEs can post questions and seek help and advice from others in the community. Registered users can also post their stories of business success and share tips for overcoming business challenges. The community-generated content will be supplemented by a range of expert articles.
Change Everything is a project of Vancity, Canada’s largest credit union. The Change Everything web site was spurred by the spirit behind Vancity’s new campaign. ChangeEverything.ca is an online community targeted (but not limited) to residents of Vancouver, Victoria and B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
Once Registered, the user start blogging about his progress toward making that change. But the real substance of the site happens when someone comes across the user blog and gets inspired; they can join it. Now both of them are blogging, discussing, and potentially collaborating on making the change happen. Its one of the best community engagement program I have come across.
I intend to update regularly this list of Banks and Financial Institutions on social media. So, if you know of any other Bank or FI with social media presence, do send me an e-mail or leave a comment below.
Cross-posted at Mohitvermablog.com
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.
What do you think?
If you’re in the advisory business how many times do you apply your advice on yourself?
(Cross posted from Gautam on Organizations 2.0)
Social Media Strategy is Business Strategy Plus Technology Plus Sociology
Posted on 11. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Ideas
I often tell friends that what I do at 2020 Social is one third business strategy, one third technology and one third sociology. So, I felt a strange sense of kinship when I saw this presentation by Altimeter Group’s Deborah Schultz focus on how engaging people on social media is less about technology and more about sociology:
I have also heard Beeline Lab’s Francois Gossieaux talk about how online communities have less to do with web 2.0 and more to do with human 1.0 during his Tribalization of Business talks:
So, when you sit down to think about the social media strategy for your brand next time, remember that it’s one third business strategy, one third technology and one third sociology.
You might be spot on on the business strategy and the technology, but unless you get the sociology and the storytelling right, you’ll fail to connect with your consumers.
Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.
Business is Social: Here are Five Reasons Why
Posted on 01. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Ideas
At 2020 Social, we believe that business is social. Here are five reasons why.
1. Consumer Generated Content: Your consumers are authors, photographers and filmmakers, all rolled into one. Tap into their creativity, ask them to interpret your brand.
2. Conversations: Your customers, partners and employees are talking about you, in public. Listen to them, reach out to them, engage them in a two-way conversation.
3. Collaboration: People work together in flow when they connect with each other as people. Create rich profiles and shared workspaces to enable people to help each other.
4. Community: Communities come together around a shared social object: a lifestyle, cause or passion. Build and nurture a community around a social object that is bigger than your brand.
5. Collective Intelligence: Customers, employees and partners can give you new ideas and insights. Observe their behavior, ask them for their ideas, recognize and reward them for their contribution.
While social platforms like Twitter, SMSGupShup, Facebook, Orkut, Flickr and YouTube are transient, the underlying value system consisting of these five archetypes, or 5Cs, is here to stay.
Ask us how you can leverage these 5Cs to catalyze innovation and drive engagement, trial and advocacy amongst your customers, partners and employees.
Cross-posted on Gauravonomics Blog on Social Media and Social Change.
2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, connects their customers, partners and employees, and helps them achieve their business objectives.
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