Five months ago, SXSWi 2011 saw record attendance of just under 20,000 paid attendees. Seven months from now, SXSWi 2012 is going to be even bigger based on early signals. ALL event spaces are booked. Downtown hotels are already sold out. Over 3,000 panel ideas were submitted to SXSW 2011 (Interactive + Film + Music); over 4,500 were submitted to SXSW Interactive 2012.

Dachis Group has fifteen ideas from our social business expertise that we’d like to share as part of the Festival:

• Brands: The Cost of Being Human
• The connected company
• Culture Drive Social Business Transformation
• Exploiting Social Buying Trends
• Facebook Pages Through the Social Business Lens
• Global Social Experience Activation
• Hammurabi, horseshoes, and hookers in social media
• Making Social Business “Business As Usual”
• MILFs of Social Media
• Navigating the Facebookracy
• Secrets to User Centric Social Experience
• Social Media vs. The Realities of Business
• Social Retail Commerce Landscape
• Social Reward Programs
• Touch Publishing
• Yarn Bomb Your Digital Marketing

I invite you to check out the proposals that sound relevant to your interests and appreciate your feedback as votes and comments.

And speaking of events, the Dachis Group Social Business Summit returns to Austin for a third year on Thursday March 8th, the day before SXSWi opens. Our after party typically kicks off the weekend as well. 

See you in Austin next year!

During his SXSW Interactive presentation, Jared Spool entertained with audience with classic examples of web design fail.  The audience enjoyed a good laugh in judging poor web design examples based on the final product.  But after the ice breaker, Spool challenged the audience to think about all of the decisions a designer made that led to that final design style.  The most insightful part of the presentation was Spool’s reference to his research at User Interface Engineering about what separates successful from unsuccessful companies as it relates to designing user experiences.  Spool entered the research project with the hypothesis that successful companies would have the best design methodologies.  He left the research project with vastly different findings.  The results showed that the most successful companies actually lacked methodology while the ‘struggling’ companies were the ones trying to put methodologies in place.

Spool rationalized the results stating that methodology is a systematic, repeatable approach to a process based on following specific set of rules.  He found that design rules did not work for designers.  According to Spool, rule-based decisions prevent thinking.  With rules, designers appeared to fall apart when faced with an exception.  Designers of the successful companies were on the opposite side of the spectrum (shown below) in that they relied on tricks and techniques.  In the case of successful companies, designers were left to their own devices to make informed decisions rather than follow hard and fast rules.

Source: Jared Spool, Anatomy of a Design Decision, SXSWi 2011 featured speaker presentation.  Posted on Twitter by @kennethkunz from Yfrog.

Spool’s dissection of design decisions applies to what we refer to at Dachis Group as social business design.  Successful companies trust and empower all employees to make informed decisions, not force them to follow strict, top-down methodology and dogma.  Dave Gray’s The Connected Company blog post points to research supporting this concept.

“It’s not about design for control so much as design for emergence. You can’t control a complex system, but you can manage its growth, and there are a lot of things you can do that will position it for success…Design by connection is not a top-down activity so much as bottom-up. Complex systems just don’t work that way. In a complex system, you need to pay attention to small things and make little adjustments along the way.” Dave Gray, The Connected Company, 2011.

During our recent Social Business Summit, John Hagel explained how the problem businesses face in today’s information age is that current knowledge is diminishing in value at an accelerating pace.  Knowledge workers need to constantly refresh knowledge stocks.  Businesses can no longer rely on competing with one piece of proprietary knowledge. Businesses must participate in a larger marketplace of information exchange to maintain a competitive edge.

According to Hagel, the key to a successful business is “small moves, smartly done” that lead to a cascade of change.  If we apply Spool’s teachings, we discover that each of these small moves are a result of many smaller decisions.  The insight that emerges is the most seemingly unimportant decisions lead to small moves that combined over time have a huge impact (good or bad) on business.  So I’ll make a leap in making the following statement:

What separates a successful business from an unsuccessful business is how it supports the millions of decisions its employees make.

There’s compelling evidence for companies to trust employees’ workarounds on established methodologies to solve business problems.  If you don’t trust your employees to make informed decisions, you need to look more closely at your hiring practices and training programs.  Trusting, supporting and empowering employees to make their own informed decisions is the most powerful way for the enterprise to scale operations and allow for the flexibility and innovation required to be competitive. Design for open business cultures, ones that are networked to support the sharing of employee expertise and learned techniques at scale.

The title of Seth’s keynote was The Game Layer on Top of the World.  As he explained, the changes we’ve observed in social media over the last ten years have culminated in the “social layer.”  Real life connections have become online connections. Facebook has become your social life. Twitter has helped you make new friends. The social layer is primarily about these connections. And it’s essentially done being built.

But now that this foundational social layer has been built, Seth believes the “game layer” can be built on top of it.   Over the next ten years, we’ll see (and help build) an interactive layer built on an amalgam of our personal motives. Whereas the social layer is a layer of connections, the game layer will focus on influencing these individual motivations — something far more powerful than simply being connected, especially if those individual motivations can affect a larger group goal.

Seth discussed several ways in which game layering can improve current problems. School grading systems could shift from getting good grades (in many ways, simply a “status” that can change on any given test day) to reaching a new level (indicative of progression and achievement).   Schools could reward accumulated knowledge and achievements, similar to how players “level-up” to a new status in a video game — unlike grades, it’s very difficult to quickly “level down” in most video games.  Email lists can become customer acquisition tools (after all, he argued, Groupon is just an email list with some basic gaming aspects like “free lunch” and “countdown” added on).  And restaurants and bars can increase loyalty among location based service users by shifting from exclusive ownership  (becoming a mayor) to inclusive ownership (joining a society).

What Seth didn’t talk about is the game layer in the enterprise.  The potential exists for an organization to create “games” that will influence individuals to alter their behavior in order to benefit both themselves and the organization as a whole.  While there are game aspects currently at play in many parts of a company, these mechanics are often tacit games — they’re not formally structured as games and lack intentioned corporate outcomes driven by consistent personal motivations.  These tacit games result in intrinsic rewards that vary per employee, while intentioned games result in both intrinsic personal achievements and extrinsic rewards that are desirable to all individuals, and in the end, the organization itself.

For example, many training programs are tacit games.  After a day of training, employees may receive intrinsic benefits like increased competence, more self-confidence, or a larger knowledge base — all things that will help them succeed at their job.  But intentionally adding a game layer to a training program could give employees an extrinsic reward for completing training — a virtual ‘badge’ indicating that they’ve become an expert in a certain topic area.

As the game layer is spread through the organization, the employee can seek out more rewards.  Attend more training?  Earn a badge.  Sign up for an external course?  Earn a badge.   Eventually, after earning several badges, the employee would level-up to a new status, indicating the progression of their acquired expertise.

But these badges and statuses won’t just be virtual tchotchkes.  They’ll be real-world indicators of expertise and competence.  If a coworker is looking for an internal expert, they won’t have to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations or even an internal directory where employees often self-define their expertise.  They would simply seek out their coworker who has reached the appropriate level needed for the task at hand.   Ultimately, the enterprise benefits from this intentional influencing of individual motivations with a work force that is more trained, more connected, and with more clearly identified skill-sets.

Farther down the road, performance reviews and promotions will be able to partially account for how much an employee has learned on the job by simply noting how many badges have been earned or what level has been achieved.  After all, wouldn’t the decision to promote one of two equally skilled employees would be just a little simpler if one had five more “badges” than the other?

At the end of his keynote, Seth showed how communal gameplay can solve complex problems.  Everyone in the audience was given either a blue, a green, or an orange piece of paper.  In order to “solve global warming”, players (the entire audience) had to exchange their color cards so that every person was holding the same color as everyone in their row — instead of a random arrangement of colors, the first row would be all green, the second all orange, etc.  If everyone could achieve this in less than 3 minutes, SCVNGR would donate $10,000 to the National Wildlife Federation! In less than two minutes, the audience won, proving that large problems can be solved if individuals focus on their own personal motivations that drive towards an intended group outcome.

In the next post I will explore one way in which game mechanics could play out in the enterprise.

• The main event sponsors: SXSW® Interactive had, by my count, 12 main sponsors. The typical canvas banner was placed in every room where events were held, on the outside of the Austin Convention Center, and various other spots around town.  The logos were spaced out and easy to see. These sponsors were (in no particular order): Miller Lite, Chevrolet, Pepsi, Pepsi MAX, freecreditscore.com, AT&T, Microsoft, Monster Energy drink, Samsung, AOL, IFC, and The Austin Chronicle. [Static]
  

  SXSW Sponsors Banner

• Branded spaces inside of convention center: AOL had the AOL Lounge. Microsoft had an area set up where you could play with the Kinect system to try it out. I’m sure there were other areas by all the main sponsors, but either I didn’t cross their path or I just didn’t notice them. [Experiential]
• Catch a Chevy: Chevrolet had at least two lines of cars, Cruise and Volt, with drivers all over the SXSW area. The cars had friendly drivers, and a sign on the side that instructed you to flag them down if they’re empty and they’ll take you wherever you need to go.  [Experiential]
• Free FedEx sponsored lunch: Every day of the conference, FedEx set up a big FedEx truck outside the convention center, and offered lunch that was free to anyone if they followed @FedExDelivers on Twitter or “liked” FedEx on Facebook.  They didn’t ask for proof – just trusted that you did it. And they gave out lunches every day (a different catered meal each day). [Experiential]
• Paper flyers: Yep, these were pretty big around the convention center. I’ve actually not seen this many paper flyers since circa 1997 in my college town. [Static]
  

  Flyers, flyers everywhere

• Standard trade show booths: Need I explain this? There’s a whole area of the convention center dedicated to trade show booths where various companies are set up to explain why they are so awesome and why you should try their product/service/experience/etc. [Experiential]
• Intuit free pedicab rides: There are a lot of pedicabs in Austin during SXSW®  – these are brave people who ride bikes with mini “couches” attached and they bike you from point A to point B.  They’re typically a minimum of $10 per person per ride. Intuit, however, was offering free rides if you followed @GoPayment on Twitter. You simply told the driver/biker that you had followed them, and at the end of the ride, he/she pulls out an iPhone with a payment app on it. He creates the transaction that your $10 per person has been paid, and you sign the iPhone screen with your signature, although no money has been exchanged.  [Experiential]
• Test drive a Chevy: Right outside the convention center, you could sign up to test drive one of many Chevrolets: Corvette, Volt, Cruise, and more. For free.  The cars were new, shiny, and noticeable. [Experiential]
• Pepsi MAX / foursquare lot and concert: The two brands teamed up to have a large outdoor area with a bar, games, a real four-square game court, music, etc.  They put on an exclusive concert with hip-hop artist Big Boi – tickets were only available to those who “found the golden ticket.” I’m not entirely sure what the algorithm was that enabled one to get the golden ticket, but it had something to do with checking in a lot on foursquare while in Austin. [Experiential]
• Sponsored parties: Many brands/companies sponsored parties in the evenings. Google and the ACLU invites you to party like it’s 1986 but protect your privacy like it’s 2011 with an 80’s cover band.  Dachis Group kicks off SXSW® on Thursday night with a party at Arthouse. Frog Design sponsors the official South by Southwest® Interactive kickoff party. Usually free drinks are involved. [Experiential]

I labeled the above examples with either “experiential” or “static.” Nothing static is going to be a winner in my book.  This is the interactive conference. Although I don’t know the details about what those main sponsors got in addition to having their logos on the canvas banners, I don’t think that seeing the logos themselves was at all impactful. And although some of the flyers had QR codes on them, I couldn’t see through the noise of the other 50,000 flyers next to them to at all be interested in what they said. So I think the static marketing efforts don’t work in this environment.

It is interesting to note that of the 10 types of marketing efforts I really noticed, 8 of them are experiential in nature. I think today that solid marketing efforts must have some sort of interactivity and experience attached in order for people to care in the first place.

But the real winners in my book are those that were both experiential and social in nature.  I think to cut through the noise and craziness that is this huge event, I need to physically experience something, as well as be excited enough about it to share with my friends.  I’ve written short recaps of the three efforts I found to be most effective: Pepsi MAX / foursquare lot and Big Boi concert, Catch a Chevy, and Intuit’s free pedicab rides.

Which marketing efforts worked on you if you were in Austin? Do you agree that the winners were the experiential and inherently social ones?  Which other incredible efforts did I miss?

My move from observer to attendee did not happen until 2005 when I first attended SXSWi and my observation was confirmed that SXSW was all about discovery, innovation and relationships. This was not the place for strict conference planning but about listening to the rhythms of the conference. This year was my fourth overall conference and first time crossing into Music and Film in addition to the full interactive schedule but only as a cultural observer of the gatherings outside of Interactive. This 25th anniversary of the festival and my history provided me with awe and perspective on the recent nine days of energy. Friends at Get Satisfaction captured this great infographic that I have cropped to provide a brief history.

Discovery

Chronicling the ideas at the event can only be done through journaling. Some use photos, others notes or blogs and so many in film. This year it felt that everyone was a journalist of photographer. The impressive number of live video shots, impromptu interviews and of course persistent posting across all platforms. The net is that if you missed it or did contribute to the collection of metadata you will find it curated for you. For this I found the Twitter-based service Lanyrd to be a fantastic companion. The service mapped my Twitter graph and provided me with a guide of SXSWi session I was attending, those of my contacts and all sessions in general. In case you missed a few … or all … here is the curated capture of slides, photos, notes and video: http://sxsw.lanyrd.com/-/coverage

Innovation

Since the 2007 SXSWi launchpad of Twitter or perhaps the early personal publishing innovations of 2000, the SXSWi conference has been the hunting grounds for the next thing. Each year journalists and others have sought to identify it. This year was no different. Ultimately, the size of our personal and business graphs has swelled. Many posts baulked at the leading innovations being GroupMe or Beluga for social communications with close ties. The consensus I heard was that the innovation was not the technology but the people. So this year was less about innovation and more about adaptation. Beluga filled the back channel communication for the Dachis Group team.

Relationships

With so much area to cover and 20% attendance growth, it was practically impossible to connect with my close connections and a much more realistic plan to initiate connections with those that were new or infrequent. I must say that over the past three years, the service that has not been impacted by innovation and captured discovery has and will be business cards. Sadly, most attempts to Bump, or read barcodes on badges have awkwardly been available but not realistic. Thus, my pocket full of cards I have returned with and those I exchanged in reciprocity. However, I was most pleased with the use of Hashable to capture the who, where and when of my connections via Twitter, Location and Hashtags. It was relatively quick, gave the external high five and captured 26 contacts to and from me that are now business card free contacts.

Now that I have returned back to my office and the buzz of SXSW has subsided I am inspired primarily by the people, these relationships that I hope to capture into manageable collections of depth, geography and interest. It is smaller circles that organically, geographically and chronologically make up the transferable influence that SXSW or any other collective offers us. I am challenged by the same engagement models my clients have, once we move past acquisition. How do we manage the relevance of the connection outside the initial engagement of SXSW or a blog post intro? Now that we have the tools for capturing the real-time, it is now time to invest in engagement at all times. Perhaps activating the gamification layer of my network or at least the unbound energy of Seth Priebatsch will help?

Catch a Chevy

By day two of the conference, my legs were killing me from all the walking. I’d imagine everyone else in the city of Austin felt that way too.  I’m standing on a corner near my hotel, preparing to make the trek over to the convention center, again.  Out of nowhere, this little Chevy pulls up with a sign on it that says something like “If I’m empty, flag me down for a free ride anywhere.” So we did just that. We had the nicest driver, Cynthia, who gave us some great music and refreshing air conditioning for the ride. We asked about the car, and she told us about the Cruze that we were riding in, a car that gets over 40 miles per gallon. We also talked about the Volt, which is electric for about 50 miles, then kicks into a highly efficient gas car as well. I don’t even know how many miles per gallon my own car gets, but now these facts are ingrained in my brain because of the short, pleasant experience thanks to Cynthia and Chevrolet.

I told many other friends and colleagues about the program over the several days of the conference. We talked about how we liked the cars, what a great idea it was.  Chevrolet didn’t require anything in return. The cars had QR codes on the back of the front seat headrests, so you could scan the code to find out all the details of the car.  This surely appealed to the tech crowd at the conference. I was completely impressed and likely did exactly what Chevrolet hoped for: I talked about how cool the program was and how helpful it was in times of need. Many other friends later caught a Chevy and told me about it afterwards…word of mouth – the original social media.

I appreciate Chevy’s subtle move here. People are tweeting often with #ChevySXSW to talk about these experiences out of sheer excitement. Nothing was required of people for any of the Chevy initiatives from what I can tell from researching them, but people are happy to have gotten to catch a ride, test drive a Chevrolet, recharge at their lounge, and more. According to http://www.twittercounter.com, @Chevrolet increased by approximately 80-100 new followers per day throughout the interactive conference, a steady increase.

Many brands gave away free things, from lunches to rides to experiences.  Some required a Facebook like or a Twitter follow. Others were completely free. Which angle do you think is most effective for consumers? Do you like it when brands trust you to do what they ask (just follow us and you’ll get ___)? Do you think they should require proof? Or are you more impacted when brands allow you to take away what you will from any experience?

Intuit’s free pedicab rides

There are a lot of pedicabs in Austin during SXSW®  – these are brave people who ride bikes with mini “couches” attached and they bike you from point A to point B.  They’re typically a minimum of $10 per person per ride. Intuit, however, was offering free rides if you followed @GoPayment on Twitter. You simply told the driver/biker that you had followed them, and at the end of the ride, he/she pulls out an iPhone with an Intuit payment app on it. He creates the transaction that your $10 per person has been paid, and you sign the iPhone screen with your signature, although no money has been exchanged.  Since $10 is expensive every time you want to go even a few blocks, I thought this was a great idea.

We stumbled on the Intuit driver/biker randomly, but immediately jumped at the thought of a “free” ride when all I have to do is follow them on Twitter or like them on Facebook. [Side note: the driver/biker started the conversation with “Do you have Twitter?” which I found incredibly funny to be asking a SXSW® Interactive badge holder as well as the fact that it was kind of quaint the way he said it. I’d bet this guy doesn’t “have Twitter” himself!] It was so easy and such a great deal that I talked about it all week whenever someone mentioned a pedicab: “OMG you have to find the Intuit pedicabs! You just have to follow them on Twitter then all your rides all week are free!”  I also tweeted while in the Intuit pedicab about how great the experience was.

In thinking about this effort, I realized that Intuit is essentially paying $10 for each new follower or fan during the event. I of course don’t know how much money they invested in creating the program, so it is hard to know their ROI. We can look at http://www.twittercounter.com and see that @GoPayment increased followers by approximately 98 followers per day throughout the interactive conference. They ended their program on March 16, and if you compare how their number of followers was increasing, to what it looks like after the marketing initiative was over, you can see that the program was surely working while active, and increase in followers completely leveled off after the Intuit pedicabs were off the streets of Austin.

I know that I won’t unfollow them unless they become incredibly annoying to me on Twitter, and I surely talked about it a lot over the few days of the conference. As soon as I followed @GoPayment, they followed me right back and sent a Direct Message with a link to more info about GoPayment, pedicabs, and their efforts.  And who doesn’t like another follower himself? Great idea, cool execution in demonstrating their GoPayment ability to accept credit cards on an iPhone, and a crowd-pleaser.

What could Intuit have done differently? Do you think gaining approximately 500 new followers on Twitter (at approximately $10 per user) was worthwhile? How do you think @GoPayment will keep its new followers engaged and interested? Or will it be able to do so?

I was lucky enough to attend South by Southwest® Interactive in Austin, TX the past few days. I had never been, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from all aspects: content, networking, parties, learning about new trends/companies/apps/etc.  One thing I immediately started noticing was the various marketing efforts, and the many shapes and formats they took.  I want to talk about what I saw, and what worked on me, just one mid-30’s female consumer out there in the mix.  I’ll post a short series of observations to outline my favorites and why I think they worked, as well as a summary of the most noticeable efforts.

Let me start by saying that this is the interactive conference. The real winners in my book are those marketing efforts that were both experiential and social in nature.  I think to cut through the noise and craziness that is this huge event, I need to physically experience something, as well as be excited enough about it to share with my friends.

First up, my favorite marketing campaign from the week/weekend:

Pepsi MAX/foursquare exclusive Big Boi concert

Pepsi MAX and foursquare teamed up to have a large outdoor area with a bar, games, a real four square game court, music, and more.  They put on an exclusive concert with hip-hop artist Big Boi – ticke

ts were only available to those who “found the golden ticket.” I’m not entirely sure what the algorithm was that enabled one to get the golden ticket, but it had something to do with checking in a lot on foursquare while in Austin.

From the moment I heard about the concert, I decided I had to be there. I live in Atlanta and have been a fan of Outkast and Big Boi for years, and I’ve been lucky enough to see them live several times so I knew how great the show would be. I had a couple of friends who unlocked the golden ticket early in the weekend, so they were set to go. As far as I could tell, that was the only way to get tickets unless you knew someone important at Pepsi or foursquare (I don’t).

The upcoming concert was a big topic of conversation – the exclusivity definitely drove more discussion.  I had heard about the concert online before even arriving in Austin, and once I got there, I continued to hear about it and saw posters and promotions all over the place.  I certainly changed my own behavior in an attempt to win tickets: I have resisted checking in all these months although I’ve watched news and developments in the location-based services spaces very closely.  I had yet to see the “pay-off”, and thought most of my other friends wouldn’t really care where I was. And then there’s the safety factor of telling your “friends” every time you’re not home that concerned me.  But now, in Austin for SXSW Interactive, I finally had a tangible reason to play the foursquare game.  So play I did. (And I’ve continued to check in even after the concert…another foursquare user gained.) In addition to changing my own behavior, I also talked to everyone I knew and met, and told them how interested I was in attending…word of mouth at its best.  I tweeted about the concert and mentioned @BigBoi directly…blasting out info of the concert to my own followers at the same time. I ended up securing two tickets to the show! Not through the traditional methods, but it worked.

The concert was at the Seaholm Power Plant in Austin, which many Austinites have never even been to. More exclusivity and buzz. The experience itself was amazing – great venue, great sound, great lighting, great branding by both Pepsi MAX and foursquare throughout. Drinks were free, people were happy.  @BigBoi was a trending topic in Austin on Twitter that night, thousands of people checked in via foursquare at the event, blasting out their whereabouts to countless friends and followers on various social networks.  This effort was the epitome of social. The Pepsi MAX/foursquare lot was a fun and social place to hang out. The concert was exclusive and there was a unique and even secret way of acquiring tickets – people were buzzing via traditional word of mouth as well as talking about it on their social networks.  And all that talking on social networks blasted out to their friends and followers who weren’t in Austin or in the SXSW® loop.  I of course do not know details about how much money was spent by the two brands to hire Big Boi, set up a physical lot by the convention center for fun and games, to transform the Power Plant into a branded extravaganza, or to write the code that enabled the golden tickets.  But the exposure and buzz were very big: the marketing initiative was a SXSW® winner.

Did you hear about this Pepsi MAX / foursquare / Big Boi initiative? Did it only work on fans of Big Boi, or were others impacted too?

Kate Niederhoffer joined Dachis Group early on, having built up Nielsen Buzzmetrics, one of the most important service companies in the early social computing market. She intends to share her knowledge through the South by Southwest 2011 panel The Biz of Buzz.

Her thoughts in brief: What do we know from being in the business of buzz since the early days? What can we learn about where we are going by analyzing trends from way back when Listening was referred to as social media monitoring to today where social media is primarily a vehicle for personal brand-building and promotion? With a combined 21 years working in social media and monitoring “buzz” these panelists have learned to separate the hype from the truth and will share top trends and lessons learned from working in the trenches of emerging media.

Kate’s session will address these questions:

1. How do social media monitoring tools/ listening platforms really differ?
2. What are the top themes in social media that have emerged over the past 6 years?
3. Are things like engagement and influence really possible to capture?
4. How do you rely on social media to make business decisions?
5. Which social media metrics are meaningful?

If that sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to give a thumbs up toThe Biz of Buzz.

Peter Fasano is a Dachis Group engagement manager with deep experience in making social business work for big brands. Like The Coca-Cola Company.

Peter’s panel proposal is In the Hive – Activating Business Social Graphs. Let me know if this sounds familiar:

The state of now for you is a game of whack-a-mole. You are looking for a future state of scalability for you, your team and your business. Social Media Marketing, Servicing or Communications has matured through your enterprise and so must your integrated approach to becoming a socially calibrated business. Your internal band of rockstar marketers, service agents or PR teams have risen from the early days of passionate workers and social media hobbyists to the formal or informal social media leadership of your organization.

You have engaged your community on nights and weekends to meet their growing demands and growing numbers. Your social outposts have grown to include private or public communities, social networking sites, blogs and the works. Your communities are diverse and have moved from self-policed to moderated. Communities have moved beyond your “official outposts” to Twitter posts, blogs, or YouTube channels about your business – to keep up with the growing voices you have now activated Listening Services to keep track of conversation on your “owned” social outlets and then to the “outside” voices. Your efforts have earned additional resources and the attention of the Marketing or PR teams that want to push messages through status updates.

Has the organic collection of people, process and technology reached its limits?

Peter’s panel will address these questions:

1. Does your org chart map to your knowledge chart?
2. How to identify and map your knowledge centers?
3. What are the incentives needed to activate your business graph?
4. How do you optimize information flow through the enterprise?
5. What is the business justification for this resource shift?

To learn more, give a thumbs up to In the Hive – Activating Business Social Graphs.

We’re spending more and more time using social tools for personal entertainment and productivity. So what about work?

Dachis Group’s head of alliances Bryan Menell has proposed a panel for South by Southwest 2011, titled Work Should Be Social Too. Bryan works with our technology partners and a fundamental element of social business design is the belief that communication should happen as work, not for work.

Here’s what Bryan will cover: Collaborating with friends is easy with today’s public social tools. They require no training, and make the fun things in your life seamless to organize. So why is it more difficult at work? Join us for a panel consisting of executives from some of the leading collaborative tool companies, as we discuss some real corporate case studies, and the social barriers to sharing at work.

His panel will address these questions, answered by the experts:

1. What is the business case for being more social?
2. What other businesses have seen benefits from enterprise social tools?
3. What social technologies have crossed over from consumer to the enterprise?
4. How can you pitch your superiors on embracing social tools?
5. What are the people issues surrounding social adoption at work?

We have several executives from the leading collaborative software companies that have committed to being on the panel if if gets selected. If that sounds interesting to you, I encourage you to give a thumbs up to Work Should Be Social Too.