Interview with Lee Odden about Social Media: what it is? why use it? How and more

Enjoyed the chance to catch up with Lee Odden over at The Online Marketing Blog.  He's running a great series on social media and it is blog worth making sure is in your reader. 

We covered everything from how to define social media, how to justify business involvement, a look at some of the strategic directions and considerations, as well as measuring success. 

Hope you enjoy it too and looking forward to comments... here or there ;-)

The Evolution of the Web: The Personal Info Construct

....and the implications for the mass media.... a great video to check out

Learn and Share: Tomorrow's Twebinar

Expect a great trip down the road tomorrow at the Twebinar -- Game Changing Moves Doing Business with Social Media.

Radian6 and CrossTechMedia have partnered on an interesting journey that looks at how businesses can benefit from social media. With 30 interviews of people practicing social media and hosted by blogging powerhouse and social media mentor to many, Chris Brogan, it should be a great opportunity to learn and share.

Yup...this is no normal webinar. Its not just learn....its share and practice/use social media. It combines a Twitter conversation with it, making it interactive and a true use of social media. Lets hope Twitter is not upside down or a whale surfing the page :-)

Register and join us: http://twebinar.com

Forrester Groundswell Awards Creates Category for Powerful Changes at DELL

Thanks to Forrester for the consideration and selection to be among their Groundswell Award winners.

From the Forrester News Release:
"In addition, a special award was designated to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions of one particular organization. Dell Social Media and Community Initiatives were recognized for excellence in transformation"

Excerpts from Charlene Li and Forrester follow. http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/

Dell
"We created this new category to capture the powerful changes happening across all functions at Dell. The Dell Customer Advocate program, which pursues fast resolution of support problems, decreased the negative share of online comments about Dell by 25%. Direct2Dell, Dell's frank and informative blog, generates 3.5 million page views per month. Ideastorm, Dell's innovation community, tallied 500,000 votes for over 7,000 ideas and generated a new product, Dell PC's with Linux pre-installed. And Employee Storm, an internal idea community, has generated 2,700 ideas and seen visits from 22% of Dell's employees."

Congratulations to all the winners...some great and exciting things here:

Listening

Winner: Schwab's Money and More Private Community of Gen Xers empowered by Communispace (Schwab and Communispace)
Finalist: Alli Research Communities (GSK Consumer Healthcare and Communispace)
Finalist: Brand Monitoring for Verizon FiOS (Verizon and Umbria)

Talking
Winner: Chevy Aveo Livin' Large Campus Challenge(Chevrolet and Weber Shandwick)
Finalist: USA Cycling Championships Community Toolbar (USA Cycling Championships and Conduit)
Finalist: Dorm Survival Guide Group and Application for Facebook (Target and AKQA)

Energizing
Winner: NetShops Social Merchandising (NetShops and PowerReviews)
Finalist: Fiskateers Scrapbooking community (Fiskars and Brains on Fire)
Finalist: Carnival Connections (Carnival Cruises)

Supporting
Winner: Nike's Jordan Brand Breakfast Club (Nike and Blast Radius)
Finalist: Agile Software Commons (Rally Software)

Embracing
Winner: Salesforce.com Idea Exchange at ideas.salesforce.com (Salesforce.com)
Finalist: South Beach Diet Research Community (Kraft and Communispace)
Finalist: Swisscom Mobile Labs (Optaros and Swisscom Mobile)

Managing
Winner: Avenue A Razorfish wiki
Finalist: ORT Argentina Virtual Campus Project

Social Impact
Winner: "Design Your Portion of the Border Fence" (Brickfish)
Finalist: Zwinky Virtual Live Earth Fundraiser (Zwinky)

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/
Sounds like a outstanding conference was held in Chicago. Congratulations Forrester and Critical Mass.