I’m pleased to announce that on Wednesday, July 16, I’ll be stepping into an exciting new role as a social media evangelist with LiveWorld, Inc, a San Jose, California-based company that builds and manages online communities and social networks.

The job offers me the opportunity to do what I’m passionate about: explore, write, and talk about how individuals and businesses are using social media to build community. And I’ll continue to blog here, Twitter there, and play a major role in the growth of the Social Media Breakfast as part of that exploration.

I’ll also be joining a team that has lived and breathed the word “community” since its founding in 1996.

In heading to LiveWorld, I leave Monster Worldwide, where I’ve worked for the past two years. I have to say goodbye to a caring group of co-workers later this week, but I take comfort in the fact that I’ve been part of a team that knows a thing or two about communicating — and staying in touch — online.

I’m moving, too …

… but not to California.

Instead, in late August, my family and I trek south and west to Austin, Texas, and I’ll work out of a home office. Why Austin? Pretty simple: We wanted to be free of the long, cold New England winters and to find a welcoming, affordable city to raise our two children. We think Austin offers us the setting to do just that.

I’m also headed to a city that is no stranger to social media, as it boasts the likes of fellow social media evangelists Connie Reece, RichardAtDell, and Thom Singer (to name a mere few). I’m ready to learn more from them, all the while sorting out just what it means to Keep Austin Weird.

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This conversation with Chris Brogan is the third in a series of interview posts leading up to next week’s Enterprise 2.0 Conference, being held at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel.

(Here are the previous interviews, with Alicia Staley and Keri Pearlson/Susan Scrupski.)

Chris is a blogger extraordinaire at ChrisBrogan.com, co-founder of the PodCamp unconference series, and the VP of strategy and technology at CrossTech Media. I caught up with him over e-mail to get his thoughts on the E2 conference.

Bryan Person: You’ll be moderating the “Social Media and the Enterprise” session and speaking on the “Microblogging and Emergent Platforms” panel at next week’s Enterprise 2.0 Conference. Can you give us a sneak peak about what you’ll be talking about in each?

Chris: In “Social Media and the Enterprise,” I have a strong panel of talented professionals, including Maggie Fox, KD Paine, and Rob Howard. We’ll talk about how collaboration technologies work behind the firewall, as well as how people in larger organizations are choosing to engage in the conversation already taking place on the Web.

In “Microblogging,” I’ll talk about how these tools like Twitter and Utterz and Qik and BrightKite are being seen as consumer tools, but how they matter to enterprise technologists. Further, I’ll talk a bit more about the state of unified communications and how much closer we are to the dream of powerful presence and integrated phone apps.

BP: On the subject of microblogging, you spend a hell of a lot of time on Twitter, having made more than 18,500 posts. Two questions here: 1) Do you really “dip in, dip out” when using Twitter (some of us are really envious if it’s true!) 2) What’s the real magic with Twitter in your eyes, and why has it become one of your key communication tools over the past year or two?

CB: I use several tools to view Twitter. When it’s working, I use the Jabber client most of all, because it’s the fastest, more stream-like experience to watch the flow. I really like Twhirl (great purchase, Loic LeMeur!) for its functionality, too. I also have cooked up several searches using Summize, and I have RSS subscriptions to some of these so that I can keep tabs on topics that matter to me. Finally, watching over almost 9,000 conversations is tricky. I’ve built a few simple tools to follow the people I *most* need to stay tapped into.

The real magic of Twitter is that it’s a powerful, connected, pulse-driven network, and when cultivated and tapped into properly, it can yield great network effects of all sorts, including group search, and specific promotional experiences. I’m not sure how I was effective in doing some of what I did before without it. But as I type this, Twitter is down yet again. I want stability.

BP: How should enterprises be viewing and testing out Twitter-like applications today? Any reason they shouldn’t be empowering their employees with microblogging and presence tools?

CB: Presence tools are perfect for the enterprise. Imagine a team of 12 engineers across 3 locations, overseeing a complex computing platform. One engineer might send a short status message (like a tweet on Twitter), saying that she’s getting processor spikes on her web servers. Engineer 2 says he’s not seeing anything. Engineer 3 responds that he *just* started a backup batch, and maybe something’s broken in the code. It’s the ultimate project status tool.

BP: Apart from speaking and moderating sessions, what other plans do you have for E2? What kinds of conversations are you looking to have?

CB: I’m looking for more stories of collaboration technology being used behind the firewall. My passion for social software doubles when I think about how businesses can use these tools to deliver more value for their employees by building simple-to-use platforms that promote simple status and presence sharing, document and information exchange, rich media, and profile/friending activities. I’m hoping to talk with people doing work in that space.

BP: You attend your fair share of conferences — and you organize some as well. What words of advice can you offer to Enterprise 2.0 attendees on getting the most out of the event?

CB: Before the event, check upcoming.org for related parties. Scan Twitter using Summize to see who else might be going that also uses Twitter and connect that way. Check Facebook. Check Technorati.com and Google Blog Search. Do everything you can to find people’s blogs, presence applications, and otherwise, and get a better understanding of who’s going.

During the event, make sure you try hard to meet the people you hope to meet early in the event. Time has a way of creeping up. Bring TONS of business cards. Do everything you can to defer longer conversations to later. If you’re a media maker, take pictures, shoot video, and capture the event as best as you can.

After the event, connect up with people you meet. Drop everyone a short line using the business cards you’ve collected. Build potential relationships early to keep momentum. And reconnect with your family. They missed you while you were gone.

Photo from Chris Brogan’s Flickr photostream.

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An unconference within a conference. Sounds cool, right?

Well, that’s exactly what’s happening next Tuesday, June 10, at Enterprise2Open, a four-hour unconference built into the Enterprise 2.0 Conference at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel.

I’m looking forward to taking in the proceedings, which, according to the event wiki, will include a mix of case studies, product demos, and how-to discussions.

One of the discussions I have my eye on is “Barriers to Enterprise Adoption in Large Enterprises,” which will be led by Keri Pearlson and Susan Scrupski from nGenera (the unconference sponsor).

In the brief interview that follows, Keri and Susan offer some insight into their unconference session.

Bryan Person: Can you give us a preview of what you’ll be talking about?

Keri Pearlson/Susan Scrupski: We envision a very open, lively discussion, rather than a “presentation” at our E2Open session. We do a lot of work with executives from some of the largest companies in the world. We’ve noticed that while many people talk about Enterprise 2.0 and about all the tools they hear about on the Web, very few are actually using them, either personally or in their work life.

We wondered why. For the past few months, we have been engaged in a research project to look at redefining employee computing with some of our colleagues at nGenera, and part of that project is to understand the barriers to adoption. We’ve found barriers such as lack of awareness (execs just don’t know what is out there, or they have heard but don’t see the business value), technology (their systems are locked down, so they can’t get to many websites from their corporate computers), security (there is a lot of concern about company IP getting lost, stolen, or just removed from company-controlled assets), and culture (there is a reluctance to change to something so foreign to so many seasoned workers).

We’ve noticed that the new generation of workers come ready to use many Web2.0 tools in their corporate jobs, and that’s putting pressure on companies to reconsider their positions on using these tools. We suggested this session so we can have an open discussion on the barriers to adopting E2.0, what is works and doesn’t work when trying to overcome them, and how we might manage these barriers and bring the benefits of E2.0 to our corporations.

BP: What unique challenges do large companies face in adopting and rolling out Enterprise 2.0 technologies?

KP/SS: All companies trying to make a “change” to E2.0 face similar challenges. Size doesn’t stop companies from having cultural barriers, technological barriers, or security concerns. But large companies have some unique issues such as pockets of adoption and pockets of resistance, corporate policies restraining use of web2.0 tools that affect local decisions, and strong or centralized IT departments. We hope our discussion at E2Open will raise awareness of the barriers many corporations face.

BP: Introducing Enterprise 2.0 initiatives in a company is one thing, but achieving widespread adoption is often quite another. Are there two or three key steps that businesses should be taking to ensure an effective rollout of Enterprise 2.0 tools?

KP/SS: At this point in our research, we have found very few large corporations with widespread adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools. We primarily have seen spot implementations, experimentation, and “renegade” users who use these tools individually or on their home computer. We’d like to hear from E2Open attendees what their experience has been to ensure effective rollout.

From those who have rolled out Enterprise 2.0 tools, we’ve found that the most effective process is one where a small business experiment was created to prove the value and concept, build a business case, and identify change management issues. The experiment was followed up with a larger pilot and ultimately with rollout to the enterprise. This process isn’t unique to Enterprise 2.0 tools…it’s the process many have followed to successfully implement change initiatives.

BP: Apart from your unconference presentation, what other conversations are you hoping to have at the event? Are there other burning issues you’re planning to explore or discuss with colleagues and customers?

Keri: I’m personally interested in the vendors’ vision of employee computing…what is their vision for how large corporations should manage the increasing pressures for a more open, individualized, personal employee computing environment, and how are they helping their clients achieve this vision?

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Yesterday morning, I asked my Twitter pals to drop me a line if they were planning to attend next week’s Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston.

Alicia Staley answered the call.

Alicia is the executive director of the nascent Staley Foundation, which raises money for Boston’s Tufts Medical Center. She’s also one of the countless business professionals who’s grappling with the critical challenges of implementing social media tools inside the enterprise.

Alicia agreed to share some of her thinking on that topic with me, as she prepares to attend Enterprise 2.0 and learn plenty more.

Bryan Person: I see by way of your Twitter profile that you have a new blog. Is this your first blog, or have you done others?

Alicia Staley: Yes, I just launched my first blog - AwesomeCancerSurvivor.com. It’s my first real effort to establish myself online and share my stories. My blog was created to establish a community of followers for my foundation, which will have its first official kickoff in October 2008. The blog will help track [the foundation’s] progress on a personal level.

BP: Why are you attending the Enterprise 2.0 Conference? What are you hoping to get out of the event?

AS: I’m attending the conference to see if there’s any tools/ideas that we’re not leveraging within my foundation. I’m trying to develop a better understanding on how enterprise 2.0 might influence the development of strategies and use of tools within my foundation. I’m hoping to see some examples of how other organizations have structured themselves to incorporate social tools in the workplace.

BP: Any sessions, presentations, or keynotes that have caught your eye?

AS: I’m very interested in attending:

• “Social Media and the Enterprise”
• “Enterprise 2.0 Tools: A Critical Evaluation”
• “Power to the People: Driving Business Innovation Through Communities”
• “Realizing Business Value with Enterprise 2.0 Solutions”

[Editor’s note: See session descriptions on the E2 conference schedule page.]

BP: You’re a regular Twitter user. Do you see applications for microblogging within the enterprise?

AS: I got started on Twitter about two months ago. I initially joined thinking it would be a fun way to keep in touch with some of my friends. After a few days, I saw an immediate benefit in building out my network for my cancer foundation. In a short period of time, I’ve connected with cancer survivors all over the US. It’s really amazing to me. Now I’m looking to see how Twitter might help out in an enterprise sense. I’m not quite sure how it would apply yet to my foundation, but I’m hoping the conference would clear that up.

BP: Do you have any best tips or tactics you can share on how to prepare oneself to attend a conference like Enterprise 2.0?

AS: I review all the conference tracks and sessions. For each session that sounds interesting, I research the background of the main speakers. I also try to research companies that I haven’t heard of before reading the conference materials. I like to have a good sense as to who will be there, who’s presenting, what companies have an interest in the conference topics.

—

I’m planning to attend at least part of Enterprise 2.0 next week, and I’ll report back on what I’m seeing and hearing.

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Zik Daniel (the lucky man in the photo above) that keep me jazzed about social media.

Zik’s a Caribbean-born cricket fanatic who now lives in North Carolina, and for the past two weeks, we’ve been exchanging a flurry of Twitter messages during the Test cricket matches between the West Indies (his team) and Australia (my team, thanks to two years of living in Australia).

I found Zik through a search on Summize that I conducted as the two countries were facing off in Jamaica. I had been itching to jump into some Twitter cricket chatter during the game, and Zik’s live Twittering and Flickring from the cricket ground in Kingston indicated he was certainly someone worth following and engaging.

So, I followed and engaged.

Zik’s impressed that I’m an American who knows something about the game, and I admire his obvious passion for the sport. Here’s just a sample of our entertaining exchanges:

zik @BryanPerson Truely a wonderful thing to be discussing cricket with you on twitter. One of these days you’ll have to join us live

zik @BryanPerson The fact that in cricket a result other than win or lose is possible makes it even more appealing to me and much closer

BryanPerson: @Zik: 5 days and more than 30 hours of cricket — and a draw. As an American, it’s one part of the game that sometimes rankles me.

BryanPerson: @Zik: Into the final seven overs. I think the West Indies will survive.

zik @BryanPerson In the Caribbean, cricket is not just a game, it’s community :).

zik @BryanPerson Enough time for my palms to be mad sweaty right about now. If another wicket falls I’m gonna need meds

zik @BryanPerson It’s a new stadium built for the WC2007. This is the 1st test match being played on it. Infuriating incompetence nonetheless

zik @BryanPerson Building a new stadium without adequate drainage is unforgiveable. Heads should roll, but alas none will.

BryanPerson: @zik You mean they can’t get a decent drainage system? Just don’t understand how it takes 3+ hours to get game going after rain stopped.

As these things go on Twitter, our conversations have now expanded to include politics, too.

It’s the people, stupid

It may be the tools of social media that initially facilitate the connections between people who share common interests, like cricket or the Caribbean. But it’s ultimately the people behind those tools – people such as Zik – that make social media engagement so compelling.

Zik is headed down to Barbados to take in the third and final Test between Australia and the West Indies in person. That contest begins on Thursday, June 12.

I can’t wait for the conversation.

(Photo courtesy of Zik Daniel) 

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At the Community 2.0 Conference in Las Vegas last month, I joined forces with Jim Storer and Aaron Strout from Mzinga (disclosure: my employer, Monster, is a Mzinga client) in recording and producing a series of podcast conversations with some of the event’s presenters and attendees.

I wanted to share some of the details behind our work.

THE TOOLS

• Recording. We used the Zoom H2, which can capture and split the audio of the interviewer(s) and guest(s) into separate audio channels (something that can really in handy as you’re editing). It also multiple options for pickup patterns and can record in both .wav and .mp3 formats. The user interface is reasonably intuitive, too. And if looks matter, the H2 ain’t nearly as hideous as its slightly more upscale uncle, the Zoom H4.

• Editing. I went with Audacity, which is a free download and install for both Windows and Mac machines. I’ve produced more than 100 podcasts over the past two-plus years, and Audacity has been my editing tool of choice on all but one of those episodes. It’s easy to use, seldom fails, and enables me to edit and publish podcasts quickly – which was important for this conference.
  
  
• File storage. We used both Mzinga’s servers and Libsyn, which charges a monthly storage fee but allows for unlimited downloads of your content (I pay $10/month for up to 250 MB of new audio files).

• The blog. Our podcasts files were embedded into posts on the Community 2.0 blog, which runs on the Blogger platform and was launched a couple of months prior to the conference.

• The audio player. We used the Flash-based audio player from One Pixel Out. You’ll see a version of that player on many sites and WordPress blogs, including mine. There’s really no reason not to use Flash-based audio players, as they make streaming a podcast episode from within a web page drop-dead easy.
  

BEST PRACTICES

• Divide and conquer. If you’re one just one person trying to chase down guests, interview, edit, add show notes and mp3 tags, upload, publish with an associated blog post, and attend some of the actual conference sessions so that you have good material for your interviews, you’re going to be in for one heckuva challenge. Fortunately, we were three. Jim, Aaron, and I split the duties at C20 – they conducted more of the interviews; I did the bulk of the editing in Audacity; and we shared the blogging responsibilities.
  
  
• Check the acoustics. I’m not a sound engineer, but I do know that some settings are better for recording than others. In one interview we conducted, for example, the muzak from an empty conference room came through louder than we had anticipated. Run some simulated sound checks in a few different spaces before you record for real.
  
  
• Prepare the bookends. To save yourself loads of editing time at the conference – when you likely won’t have time to spare – you should pre-produce a generic intro and outro that you can dump into your audio editor and wrap around each podcast interview or segment. Here are the audio files I used, which feature music purchased and cleared for podcasts through Shockwave-Sound: 1) C20 intro 2) C20 outro (note: these link to .wav files).
  
  
• Have a real plan. How do you intend to distribute and publicize the podcasts, and how will you use the content after the conference, if at all? These are important questions to ask and answer long before you ever hit the record button with your first guest on the conference floor. Why? Because your answers will influence the format, tone and length of the podcasts; the potential impact of the long tail; the types of questions you’ll ask during interviews; and the level of satisfaction your listeners are likely to have.After all, publishing a quick-hit podcast that announces time changes or a bonus presentation during the opening day of the conference is helpful, as long as the attendees can find and listen to that content on your website or blog (or in iTunes) in a timely fashion. Listening to that same podcast three months later on a post-conference CD, on the other hand, wouldn’t be useful at all. But, you know what would be of value for participants on that same CD? An interview with the conference chair about possible themes for the following year’s event. (Check out a conference podcast from Autodesk University that does something similar.)

IN THE END …

… our download numbers aren’t very large, and that’s very much because there was very little promotion of our podcasting plans – or of the C20 blog itself, for that matter – leading up to or during the conference. But because this was more of a proof of concept on the content and marketing side, we’re OK with that. We can do a better job of laying the groundwork next year.

And as for the conversations themselves, I think they came out well and included a compelling mix of speakers, thinkers, and conference goers alike. You can have a listen yourself via the links below and let me know if you agree:

• Rachel Happe, IDC
• Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh
• Rachel Makool (eBay) and Matt Warburton (Yahoo)
• Dawn Lacallade, Dell
• David Weinberger, author and Harvard Berkman fellow
  
• Charlene Li, Forrester Research
• Bill Johnston, Forum One Communications
• Betty Sanchez, social media consultant
• Melany Gallant, Ramius Corporation
• Dan Neely, Networked Insights

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Last Friday morning, I sat down for a conversation at a local Starbucks with Aaron Strout, VP of social media at Mzinga and one of the five men whose consulting time is up for grabs in the “buy yourself a social media guru” charity auction that Bay Area business communicator Jennifer Leggio has organized.

Aaron and I are friends (full disclosure: I also do podcast production work for Mzinga, and my employer, Monster, is a Mzinga client), and we had planned for a discussion of two or three hot topics in social media. But the auction talk was just too good to cut short! Listen below:

 

 Bryan Person interviews Aaron Strout about charity auction with social media gurus [05:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Buying your guru

And once you’re done taking in our conversation, consider placing a bid for time with Aaron, or with any of the other impressive members in the auction lineup. Here are the links to each of the eBay auction pages:

• Aaron Strout, VP of social media at Mzinga
• Chris Brogan, VP of strategy and technology at CrossTechMedia
• Joseph Jaffe, president and chief interrupter at crayon
• Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications
• Greg Verdino, chief strategy officer at crayon

The auctions are scheduled to end this Friday evening.

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I’ve been kicking around — lightly — on FriendFeed for a couple of months (here’s my FriendFeed page), but it took until this weekend to incorporate the site into my regular online routine.

FriendFeed, if you haven’t heard of it, is what is known as a a “social aggregator” (Wikipedia’s definition), a site where you bring together the various feeds — from blogs, Flickr, delicious, shared items in Google Reader, etc. — of your online friends. Socialthing! and the unfortunately named Profilactic have set out to do the same. But at least from what I’m seeing, it’s FriendFeed that’s generating the most buzz.

How I’m using FriendFeed

• Managing the Noise. My first impression of FriendFeed was that it was little more than another place to see my Twitter pals’ posts — and well, that just isn’t very useful. So how do I avoid wasting time with too much duplicate content? Mainly, I limit the number of friends on I follow on FriendFeed. To reuse a phrase I heard last week, I’m viewing FriendFeed as a “best of” collection of my friends’ online content.
• Joining conversations. I’m a big fan of FriendFeed’s comment streams. They’re easy to contribute to, and unlike with Twitter, there’s no 140-character limit. Plus, in some cases, commentary is starting to shift from the blog post itself to FriendFeed.
• Participating in room discussions. FriendFeed rooms were launched a couple of days ago and offer a “mini FriendFeed for a particular subject or group of people.” Rooms can be public or private, and members there can links, photos, videos, etc. and then add to comment streams. I’ve just joined the newly launched FIR Room, for listeners of the For Immediate Release podcast, and created separate rooms for Red Sox fans and the Social Media Breakfast followers. And the big advantage that FriendFeed rooms have over Facebook groups? They have an associated RSS feed with them, meaning I can monitor the discussions through Google Reader, too.
• Adding “imaginary friends.” Hold the snickering, please. The imaginary friends feature allows you to follow a feed of someone who isn’t on FriendFeed. But you really can get creative and add any RSS feed, such as weather for your local city or all @replies to you on Twitter (hat tip to FriendFeed fanatic Steve Rubel for these suggestions).

Room for improvement?

Certainly. Content duplication and lack of notification on comments to my FriendFeed items are two features I’d like to see added. But on the whole, there’s far more to like than dislike about FriendFeed.

Have you given it a test-drive yet?

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I’ll be out in Las Vegas this week (my first visit to the City of Sin) for the Community 2.0 Conference. I’m part of the blogging and podcasting team and will be filing plenty of reports on the conference blog over the next few days.

I may cross-post some of my podcast interviews here.

You can also keep track of Community 2.0 Twitterings by following the #C20 hashtag on Hashtags.org and Twemes.com.

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With my “hiring/getting hired in a 2.0 world“-themed Social Media Breakfast coming up on Thursday, I thought today would be a good a day as any to launch a new series on this blog called Social Media and Your Career. Here’s the first installment …

A great way to maximize your networking opportunities at face-to-face events is to study the attendee list in advance and identify and research two or three people whom you’d like to meet.

While not all event organizers openly publish the names and affiliations of their registrants ahead of time, the ones that bring together the social media crowd often do. Take the registration pages for PodCamp Boston, WebInno, and my own Social Media Breakfast 7 as examples. If you scroll down on all of those pages, you’ll see who’s scheduled to attend, along with some combination of their company names, websites, blogs, and Twitter handles.

Now, do your homework: Select a few names from the list; follow their corresponding links; and learn more about what interests them, using their blog posts, tweets, about pages, and social networking profiles as guides. Then, once you arrive at the event, seek out those people on your must-meet list and use some of the information you’ve gleaned online as conversation starters.

Whether you’re a student looking to speak with an expert in your area(s) of interest or you’re a seasoned professional wanting to expand your personal network, you’ll always get much more out of the events where you make meaningful connections. Help your chances of making those connections happen by doing a bit online legwork ahead of time.

Social Media and Your Career is a series of posts on BryanPerson.com that covers how to use the tools and best practices of social media and social networking to jumpstart your professional life and/or raise your professional profile.

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