This Monday (June 23) the Converseon team will be attending OMMA Social at the Yale Club of New York. Our CEO Rob Key will be speaking in the afternoon and we’ll also be showing of our eResponder and Conversation Mining technology throughout the day.

OMMA Social is designed to guide marketing and media professionals through the terrain of social media. This one-day conference will address social marketing challenges and provide insights into how to make social networking work for companies now, and in the future.

Rob will be speaking on a panel straight after lunch at 12.45pm, here’s the description:

Catching On: “What Makes Something Viral?”
In a world that increasingly depends on consumers distributing content through social media channels, media companies and marketers all want to create content that consumers want to share. But what makes something viral is still an inexact science. Is it just great content that makes something viral? Is it using aggressive strategies to seed the content in the right communities? A diverse panel of social media experts tells what they know.

If you’re going to be attending please keep an eye out for our team or even swing by our table to see a Conversation Mining demonstration. If you’re not going to be at the event, follow our Twitter account for updates throughout the day.

The Converseon team is in mass conference mode this week as CEO Rob Key, Constantin Basturea and Paull Young each appear at leading online communications conferences around the USA. Details follow, if you will be attending any of these events please be sure to seek us out.

SMX ‘Master Social Media Marketing’ Conference– Rob Key Promotes Social Media Evangelism

Location: Long Beach, CA
When: April 22-23 (Rob’s panel is on Wednesday April 23 from 10:40am-12:00pm)

Rob Key will speak on the ‘Evangelist – The Marketer’s Role in SMM’ panel discussing the importance of evangelizing social media as an active participant in online communities in order to truly succeed in social media marketing. The session will also provide tips on how to authentically engage in online communities.

SNCR New Communications Forum – Constantin Basturea Looks to the Future of Public Relations

Location: Sonoma County, CA
When: April 22-25

Converseon has long been a proud supporter of the Society for New Communications Research as it is one of the most forward thinking organizations focusing on the rise of social media. Converseon director of social media and SNCR Fellow Constantin Basturea will be appearing alongside Brian Solis and Darren Barefoot on a panel entitled ‘Detour Ahead: Closing the Road to PR 3.0′.

Authentic Communications Conference – Paull Young Discusses New Methods to Measure Communications ROI

Location: CUNY Graduate Center, New York
When: Thursday, April 24 (Paull’s panel is from 1.30-2.15)

The Authentic Communications conference’s tagline is ‘Beyond Web 2.0’ and it aims to ‘bring together the best minds in the industry to showcase and explore success, failures and discuss how the industry can make sense of and take advantage of the rapidly changing environment facing us‘. Paull Young will be moderating a panel on measurement and ROI featuring Allison Murphy from PR Newswire, Kirsten Osolind of Re:Invention and Edelman’s Steve Rubel.

Converseon will be involved in wide range of upcoming conferences. We’re looking forward to seeing old friends, and making new ones. Don’t hesitate to give us a shout if you’d like to connect at one of the following.

Rob Key will be speaking at Search Engine Strategies in New York on March 17-20th. He’ll be hosting a panel focusing on using Conversation Mining to find new language/keywords. The session, which will take place on Wednesday March 19, is described as follows:

If search engines are tapping into human knowledge more widely through tagging, click through tracking, search history features and other methods, so can search marketers. Social networks, blogs, feeds, tagging, social bookmarking and immersive game environments provide 24/7 real-time focus groups. Learn how Buzzmetrics, Cymfony (and Converseon) and others help quantify and reveal critical insights.

If you’re interested in attending, please leave a comment and we can give you a code for a 20% discount.

The Converseon team will also be present at BlogHer Business in New York on April 3-4 as Christin Eubanks joins our client Graco presenting a social media outreach case study on the successful Graco Get-Together events. BlogHer Business promises to be an informative and exciting conference (check the full agenda here) as some of the leading female bloggers and corporate online marketers combine to share best practices.

For those with a more academic bent, our CTO Jeff Doak will be at the International Conference on Blogs and Social Media (ICWSM) on March 30 to April 2 where he will be engaged in discussion on new research and technologies for social media analysis. Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Conference “brings together academic and industrial practitioners to present and to discuss new research, applications, thoughts and ideas that are shaping the future of social media analysis.” We’re always interested in meeting those who share a similar passion for the field and are doing interesting research and development, so contact us if interested in meeting.

Converseon will be exhibiting at Ad:Tech San Francisco on April 15-17. Please come by and say hello. Our focus will be discussing best practices in developing social media strategies, with a special emphasis on social media monitoring - what we call Conversation Mining. Please contact us if you’d like a demo of the service.

Also upcoming, Converseon will be speaking and exhibiting at the ACCM show in Orlando on May 19 – 22. As the site describes,

“ACCM is the only conference that provides education in all the areas of multichannel marketing you need to increase profits, control costs and grow your business.” With the continued rise of social media and a renewed focus on performance based acquisition programs (such as through “Affiliate 2.0”), it should be an interesting event. Converseon provides an array of innovative social media, search and affiliate marketing services to multi-channel marketers.

These are just a few of the upcoming events, keep an eye on our Upcoming.org account for more. We’ll update everyone with more details and events in the coming weeks and we hope we’ll see you at one of the conferences.

Last week Converseon announced the “Where in the Summit is Converseon” social media scavenger hunt at the Affiliate Summit West 2008  in Las Vegas Nevada taking place February 24-26. The Affiliate Summit is the most premier conference for the affiliate industry and Converseon will be sending the entire affiliate team to the event. It is an incredible opportunity to meet with new partners across industries, and this year is no different.

We wanted to have a bit more fun this time around and add a unique twist to the standard networking events, making the experience more memorable and interactive for all our affiliates and partners, offering prizes for using Flickr and Twitter in a social media scavenger hunt. The attendees are given clues to solve and must find Converseon team members (Jamie, Stephen, Robin, Harmony and Stephanie) at various locations during the Affiliate Summit to win points towards our prize packages. To gain points participants take a photo with us and upload it to our Affiliate Summit Flickr account, It’s pretty simple but should be lots of fun.

Here are some sample clues:
• How can you go to Las Vegas without seeing ”The King”? 10 points if you get a picture with any Converseon team member with The King, and another 20 points if you are able to get the entire Converseon team and you posing with his eminence. And 25 points more if you’re wearing Blue Suede Shoes in the picture.
• There’s only one way to get around the strip, but don’t get derailed. Catch a picture of any Converseon team member and you on Vegas’ mass transit system and get 15 points.
• Going once, going twice – SOLD! 10 points for a picture with any Converseon team member at this Summit event on Monday at 3 pm.

We’ll also be offering additional prizes through our Twitter account such as coffee mugs or a free lunch with the team. The points will be calculated and totaled at the end of the game. We will post the final winner on the “Where in the Summit is Converseon?” website by March 3, 2008. Prizes from Converseon clients Edmund Scientifics, Relax the Back, MyWinesDirect, Get Organized and Mikasa will be shipped the following week.

This morning Converseon sponsored New York’s first Social Media Breakfast alongside Text 100. Reuters Second Life reporter Eric Krangel (aka Eric Reuters) spoke about virtual worlds, the changing media landscape and his role as a Second Life journalist. You can see all our photos in the Converseon Flickr account.

We’d really like to see the New York social media scene come together and we think events like this are important for the community - not that virtual relationships moving into the real world is anything new, as this 1997 Wired quote about The Well shows:

In addition to electronic dialog, there should be a strong face-to-face element to The Well. (It was while on EIES that Brand had learned the value of online confrères having physical contact - a group of EIES regulars made a point of meeting offline as well.) He sensed that the most interesting possibility to arise from knitting electronic dialog into the fabric of everyday life would lie not in championing either the virtual or the human-contact model but rather in finding the place where they overlapped. “Brand had an awareness that you had to have that sense of the physical environment and the local culture and flavor for the community to work,” says John Perry Barlow, who joined The Well in 1986.

Thank you to all the friends of Converseon (new and old) who joined us for breakfast this morning; it was great to be able to sponsor a meeting of New York’s finest social media minds.

The following post refers to a Veterans Day screening coming up tomorrow, November 11 for Converseon client Smithsonian Channel.

To help mark Veterans Day the Smithsonian Channel is airing a special block of programming ‘America’s War Stories‘ - highlighted by a new documentary ‘Remembering Vietnam: The Wall at 25‘.

Jan Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, calls the documentary ‘the best documentary film about the wall I’ve ever seen’. It will go to air on Direct TV at 8pm EST/PST Sunday November 11, but can also be watched online via a live streaming at the Smithsonian Channel website at 9pm EST / 6pm PST Sunday November 11.

I’ve seen the program and found it beautiful and moving. Here is a sample of the online conversation we have seen amongst bloggers we have shared the documentary with to help promote its launch:

From the superb milblog Mudville Gazette

This looks to be an excellent program you don’t want to miss.

We Will Never Forget!

A local DC blogger attended the launch screening on Thursday and wrote a beautiful post about how much the documentary moved them:

The documentary I saw yesterday was about the Vietnam Wall, and it was produced by the Smithsonian Channel on the occasion of the Wall’s 25th anniversary.

People come every year from far away to pay their respects, touch, kiss, make rubbings on, or just gaze at the impassive granite face. The Wall has become an altar of gratitude and brotherhood in a country that seems ambivalent about both. Twenty-five years later, a new generation is dealing with a polarizing war of their own, and seemingly forgetting the lessons of remembrance that places like the Wall have fought so hard to keep alive in everyone’s minds.

That Wall, that strange yet comforting shape rising to meet the heartsick pilgrim, is the true balm that was needed to mend a country even a little bit; to help ease those horrible wounds that still haunt many in their sleep; and the sanctuary in which to seek forgiveness for doing what was asked of them–even if it was against every fiber of their being.

The documentary is beautiful. I cannot do it justice, and I certainly cannot finish writing this with dry eyes.

I urge you to watch it if you can (again, the link for the Smithsonian Channel is here), and remember that the warrior just does as he or she is bid.

Murdoc Online

A preview of what looks to be an excellent program that runs this Veterans Day … if this is any indication, you’re going to want to watch it whatever Murdoc says…

A Soldiers Mind

If you have the opportunity, please take the time to watch, what I’m sure will be a very special documentary.

To get even closer to the show check out this podcast with the program’s producer Lynn Kessler, and view the promo here:

(RSS readers click through for video)

The milblogging community is one of the most vibrant niches of the blogosphere. For a cross section check out some of the great stuff at blogs like Blackfive, Army of Dude, YankeeMom, ArmyWifeToddlerMom and hundreds more at milblogging.com. You’ll notice that the milblogging community is currently united in their support of the ValorIT fundraising drive - read all about it here and lend some support to injured soldiers this Veterans Day.

As per the headline, we’re extremely proud to have been selected by the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association as one of their four WOMMIE Award winners for 2007.

The art of Word of Mouth Marketing online is continually evolving and we’re having a great time working at the coalface. Rob Key will be presenting our case study at the WOMMA Summit on November 14-15 in Las Vegas - but in the mean time you can learn from the great case studies hosted at the WOMMA site. In the meantime, we’re happy to be recognized like this:

“I was thrilled to see the caliber of work considered this year for the Wommie Awards, particularly when comparing them against last year’s submissions,” said Amanda Van Nuys, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Organic, Inc. and Wommie Awards judge. “Collectively, the case studies clearly demonstrate how word of mouth marketing has grown up over the last few years as it transitions from its adolescence and into a more evolved and disciplined marketing practice.”

On To The Friday Links!

This week the Converseon team have had a mix of social networking and smart technology catch our eye. The content below has already sparked some deep thinking and conversation amongst our team, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Photosynth Demonstration (RSS Readers, click through for video)

This technology is mind blowing. As they say: “Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images”Consumer 3.0: New Trends in CGM

Pete Blackshaw gives a general overview of the current state of CGM marketing, including some links to good examples.

Facebook Facts that will blow your marketing mind

Mitch Joel shares some stats on Facebook from the Canadian Marketing Association conference:

1. The average Facebook user spends about twenty-one minutes plus per day at the online social network.
2. The average Facebook user visits four times per day.
3. Facebook is adding about three hundred and fifty thousand new users every day.
4. Just this morning Facebook surpassed fifty million worldwide community members.
5. Facebook’s size doubles every six months.

Can Facebook feed its ad brains?

Facebook is expected to tap artificial intelligence to deliver ads to its 49 million members. This is a good real world example of the challenges that companies face in serving the right ads to the right people in real time.

A Series of Podcasts with Lee Odden and Mike Moran

Some great discussion here about Mike Moran’s new book “Do It Wrong Quickly: How The Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules”

Explaining OpenSocial to your Executives

A good analysis of what Google’s new OpenSocial can allow you to do to help share great content with your key audiences.

If you live anywhere near Athens, Georgia and you’re into social media you should be attending the CONNECT social media and PR conference on October 19-20.

Organized by UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, the CONNECT conference will feature some great speakers alongside Converseon’s Constantin Basturea and yours truly. Constantin will feature on a panel on ‘what professionals/educators should know’ about social media, while I will be presenting a case study on the group blog Forward that I’ve been involved with since its inception. In addition we will also run some breakout sessions on Second Life, podcasting and the social media news release.
Some good friends of Converseon are also attending with Kevin Dugan delivering the keynote address and Josh Hallet joining Constantin’s panel. The full agenda is here while during the conference you’ll be able to keep up with all that is happening through the conference blog, Twitter feed and Flickr photos.

What
Connect Public Relations and Social Media Conference

Who

Constantin Basturea, Converseon

Paull Young, Converseon

Kevin Dugan, FRCH Design Worldwide

Josh Hallet, Voce

Katie Paine, KD Paine and Partners

Jay Berndhardt, Centers for Disease Control

Many more…

When
Friday October 19 - Saturday October 20

Where
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

University of Georgia, Athens

October 16-17 marks Danny Sullivan’s SMX Social Media Conference in New York. Danny, as you probably know, used to chair SES and is one of the most respected minds in the business. He’s done amazing work in terms of raising the education of the industry and organizing conferences that deliver top level content. Having spoken as SES several times, i can speak firsthand about his attention to content quality and detail. I’m excited to see SMX grow and evolve.

I’ll be speaking about the role of the marketer in Social Media Marketing. It’s an issue near and dear to our hearts. We caution brands that they need to culturally sophisticated and respectful approach to online communities. Each community has its own norms and values, and respecting and participating in those environments appropriately is critical for acceptance. After all, many of these environments were created by consumers for other consumers. Brands haven’t necessarily been invited. The concept of participation without the expectation of immediate ROI (at least in the traditional sense) may be new territory for many marketers. Altruism must become a core part of social media programs. The topic:

Evangelist - The Marketer’s Role in SMM
Want to be really successful in social media marketing? You need to be an evangelist and activity participate in communities, forums and blogging. Leave this session knowing how to evolve from community observer to community participant and influencer.

The following week i’ll be attending the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit (in between client meetings) before returning back to the East coast for a panel entitled “PR and Social Media: What Every Practitioner Needs to Know” at the PRSA International Conference in Philly (October 20-23). If our paths are crossing and you care to connect, don’t hesitate to contact us.

I had the pleasure of participating in the OMMA panel last Monday adeptly moderated by Max Kalehoff with David Dunn of Edelman and Keith O’Brien providing some solid insight. MediaPost provided full coverage of the session. The consensus was, i believe, that in this world of subversive content creation and virality, brands are not quite ready to defend their brand through new and emerging tools.

Of course, I’ve always felt the best defense is a good offense, as indeed if we don’t define ourselves, others will happily define us. With a standing room crowd, the topic is clearly on the minds of many. I predicted that by next year, if the session is done again, that there will be more “directors of social media” in attendance as brands continue to create these internal positions to transcend the traditional marketing siloes that inhibit effective brand defense. We’ll see if the prognostication is accurate over time.