Getting a Handle on Social Personas at Social Media Club Sydney

August 30, 2009 By

smcsydI’m looking forward eagerly to the Social Media Club Sydney event planned for tomorrow night, 31st August.

What with that and attendance at the next day’s Future of Influence Summit, I expect my brain will be buzzing with new ideas and perspectives by the time I get home on Tuesday night.

There are two speakers for the Social Media Club (SMC) event: best selling author and marketing strategist David Meerman Scott and senior analyst for Forrester Research, Steven Noble.

I’m intrigued by the theme for the evening: “Understand social personas and stop wasting money and resources”. The theme is explicated somewhat in the blurb for the event, but I’m still intrigued, but also excited because I am absolutely sure these two speakers will be stimulating some serious thinking and discussion.

Tim Burrowes from the dynamic mUmbrella (“Everything under Australia’s media and marketing umbrella”) will be moderator and interviewer for the evening, with forum style Q & A. The event is designed for drinks & mingling before and after.

Unfortunately for anyone thinking of trying to book now, SMC Sydney has done it again and the event is “sold out” (i.e. it’s free, but full). On my count just now of those listed to attend, and if all who’ve registered were to come there will be at least 400 present. Mind you, as a Sydneysider born and bred, although no  longer living there, I’ve long held the view that a Sydneysider’s “Yes, I’ll be there” must always be understood to carry the unspoken qualification “…unless I get a better offer in the meantime”. But as previous events have had the House Full sign out, it clearly pays to book early, and fast, for SMCSyd events.

I’ll do my best to take some notes on the night and post something later in the week. No doubt others will be tweeting and blogging the event too and I’ll see if I can link to some of that info stream.

Filed Under: Events, Social Media, Social networking Tagged With: , , , ,

Steven Noble, Forrester Research: Interview

March 19, 2009 By

One of the best things to happen last year for research on social media in my part of the world – i.e. Australasia and more broadly the Asia-Pacific – was the Forrester Research appointment of Steven Noble as a Senior Analyst. As well as being a very clear and disciplined thinker, Steve is a blogger – both as one of the worldwide group of bloggers, authoring his Elbow Grease blog at his former place of employ, Hill & Knowlton, and on a personal level where he blogged and blogs about his neighbourhood in Sydney’s once seriously tough and now rather more upmarket inner western suburb of Chippendale.

In this short interview at the end of the day’s formal phase at Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum Steve opens by commenting that he thinks he is talking to HAL (so now my Flip camera has a new name).

In more serious vein he observes that a must-view item from the day’s proceedings is the slide deck from the presentation, Creating Business Value from Emerging Technologies, by David Backley, General Manager Applications Development and Maintenance at Westpac, one of Australia’s “Big Four” banks – the presentation was titled .

Steve says social media will “continue to boom across Asia”, but for different reasons in different markets, mentioning specifically India, Australia and China.

Some Web 2.0 related points Steve makes on China:

  • rapid urbanisation of the population
  • more people online in China than in the US (not new information, but worth the reminder)
  • 40% of online adults in metropolitan China are content creators, publishing regularly
  • marketers are responding to that!
Filed Under: Business, China, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social networking, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , , ,