Upcoming Community 2.0 Conference
As mentioned before, I have agreed to chair an upcoming conference on the business of communities - Community 2.0, which will happen on March 12-14 in Las Vegas.
Communities are hot – every company thinks that they need one, but no one is too sure how to set them up or how to leverage them. As with most new buzzword-compliant memes many will approach the opportunity by throwing technology at it and fail miserably. Others will inevitably trespass ethical boundaries and muddy the waters for those who follow.
But some will take the lead of the existing pioneers and integrate the lessons learned into their approach to the business of communities. Those companies will succeed and derive returns that will shame their competitors.
Community 2.0 is for those people who are interested in networking with other community professionals to develop a deep understanding of what works and does not in this new world. The conference will provide a snapshot of the current conversations and body of knowledge related to the business of communities. For those who are interested in helping to shape the market, there will also be opportunities to join groups of likeminded people into ongoing community council conversations.
The discussions, presentations, interviews, stories and case studies at the Community 2.0 conference will be organized in three themes:
- Strategy and theory - what are the underlying forces that make communities tick? How does social networking theory impact communities? Can you leverage crowd sourcing?
- Applications and best practices - where can communities help? Have you thought of communities to bring the voice of the customer into your new product development process? Or to involve employees, partners and customers into improving innovation?
- The technology and social infrastructure - what are the technology building blocks beyond the discussion thread that make for successful communities? What rules of engagement do you need to set up to avoid your community to become toxic?
At this stage the program includes leading luminaries from well known academic institutions, professional services firms, solution providers as well as private and public community managers. We can already count on case studies ranging from the world of high tech to financial services to teenage-based communities. The Conference will also include a targeted technology expo where you will be able to talk with product and service providers in this space. The program is continuously expanding, so make sure to periodically check the conference web site for latest additions to the program.
If you think you have something to contribute - please give me a shout (francois AT emergencemarketing DOT com or on my SKYPE which is fgossieaux).!
[Tags: communities community 2.0 community management business of communities]
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November 24th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
One way to get people to contribute or join a community is not charge a $2k price tag to go.
Holy crap that conference is expensive.
Congrats for getting to speak there. I hope you make some bank. But as for community at the conference itself, you’ll be limited to a very small subset of the actual population (as if that was the point).
But, even if that is the point, it’s sad that some of us who don’t make money off of community involvement (even though we might be good at facilitating it) can’t attend because of the assumption that if you’re involved in building communities, you have money to spend. That’s a false assumption.
I would love to see an unconference about this exact subject, with a much lower price tag. I have a feeling this particular conference will just be a “good ‘ol boy” or A-list conference, where people all say the same things inside the bubble. Unfortunate, to say the least.
November 24th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Nate - I hear you. I am not the producer of the conference so I do not have the visibility in the financials as I would if it were my own event. But having organized conferences myself, I doubt that anyone can make money with a first event like this. It is really expensive to produce an event like this.
I like the idea of an unconference…and will check into that.