Tag Archives: social media conference

Foto: Chris Heuer

Social + Cash was the theme of the sixth edition of Swedish social media conference held last week by Annika Lidne, CEO of Disruptive Media. She has been organizing social media conferences in Sweden since 2007, attracting international guests and keynote speakers like Chris Heuer, Brian Solis, Stowe Boyd, Steve Rubel, Natasha Friis Saxberg, Henriette Weber, Jyri Engeström, Neville Hobson, and Peter Parkes. (See videos from all six conferenses and read Brian’s thoughts on his previous visit).

The one day conference has from the start been streamed live free of charge, having twice as many simultanious online viewers as the 200 attendees on site. The conversations on the live video chat and on Twitter have become the natural ingredient and trademark of the conference.

To quote the keynote speaker Chris Heuer, founder of Social Media Club:

“I really love Sweden and a big part of it is the experience I have at Annika’s conferences. There is just a different energy there, you can tell she really gets it, and wants to help others understand why this media is disruptive, too.”

Swedish State Of The Internet

A few figures from the state of the Internet in Sweden might be interesting to put the conference in context. 62% of the population of 9,3 M uses the Internet on daily bases, and according to recent report, the number of sold Iphones “in the home of Sony Ericsson” reaches up to 500 000. 5 % of the people blog, 27% read blogs, nearly 40% have a Facebook account, and Sweden is holding the 19th place on the list of unique Twitter users in the world. Sweden also holds the top position in the Nordics with highest number of blogs among listed corporations (17,9% Nov -08), thus higher than among Fortune 500 companies (15.8% Dec -09).

There’re also good efforts being made to identify and measure corporate social media, particularly Twitter, usage in Sweden.

So, how does the social capital that individuals and brands earn by engaging on the social web convert to ROI, return on investment? Does it, and if so, can it be measured?

Chris Heuer opened up the conference by urging us to move the lence of focus to delivering the promise of social media by changing from management to leadership, as by finding new success stories like clubs on Sunset Strip instead of the good old Dell story. Since free is not free, it costs time, money and attention, and the time being our most valuable resource, there should be a balance between what one gives and takes. Chris warned us from being selfish cookie monsters. Everybody needs to get paid, as one can’t live of Whuffie alone. He also talked about consious capitalism, where in the light of social media transparency, only individuals and companies who want to do good and make good products, without exploitative profit plans, will survive, thus profiting from social media. Watch the entire keynote and presentation on Slideshare.

The day offered many good examples of ROI, e.g. how an author, by releasing her book for free on the Pirate Bay, instead made money through donations, or how by engaging influential fashion bloggers in a transparent and trustworthy way with help of Bloglovin’ (Browser based blog reader with 96% female users and 5,5 M visits/month), Modcloth sold out clothes within 24 hours, or how the satisfied bank customers are the ones doing all the selling by discussing and commenting on the CEO’s blog. (All presentations in Swedish.)

To my liking, the day also highlighted the importance of ambassadors, how there simply is no universal social media strategy to be implemented, and how creating relationships and trust takes as long time online as it takes offline.

Catch up the whole conference in English and in just 53 min! with key takeaways summed up directly from stage by Chris Heuer, Annika Lidne and myself, moderated by Joakim Nyström, host of the Sweet Sunday Web Crunch, Swedish weekly live podcast show with everything Internet.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

By Julie Blaustein

There were a number of great speakers the first day of the SuperNova Conference, but Chris Anderson made it most clear to the audience. The theme for the conference is “Networks are central instruments of the changes sweeping our world… and networks themselves must change to address novel demands.” The first day of this 3 day conference focused on Changing Networks: The evolving infrastructure.

Chris Anderson is the editor of Wired Magazine and well known for his book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More. He also has a degree in physics and has conducted research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. As he sees it, “The past decade was about finding new post institutional models on the web. The next decade will be about applying them to the real world.”

Having recently released his book Free which examines the rise of pricing models which give products and services to customers for free, he spoke about the democratization of tools from the web that make this possible. He talked of how 3D printers started out at about $7,000 and can now be purchased for only about $700. But he really hammered home his point that the web has been democratized and enables all kind of  new possibilities when he talked of his latest company. DIY Drones works with folks that build amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Its a company with no infrastructure, no office and when Chris was seeking a partner, the most qualified, talented candidate found via the Web turned out to be a 19 year old from Tijuana!

If you are unable to make it to the conference, you can tune into USTREAM‘s SuperNova Channel or join the conversation at their Twitter Hashtag #sn09.

Chris Anderson, Speaker at SuperNova Conference

A Forum for Change in the Network Age

Founder Kevin Werbach, Bradley Horowitz of Google, Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard and Werner Vogels of Amazon

by Jacob Morgan

Every year there are a few must attend conferences and Supernova is one of them.  It’s one of the most unique and eclectic conferences you can attend.  Per the Supernova website:

“Supernova is the only forum to examine all of the opportunities and challenges created in the Network Age. With thought-leaders from business, technology and government, we’re building the most powerful human capital network about networks. And, we not only look at what’s happening today, we’re the first to prepare you for what’s coming tomorrow.”

The theme for this years event is: Change Networks and change is something that is taking place on a global scale from both and individual and from a corporate level.  Things are possible now that were simply unheard of even 5 years ago, but what do we do, how do we do it, and how can we get ready for what’s coming next?  These are all key issues that the Supernova conference will address.

The tracks for the conference are going to be broken down into 4 areas:

• Changing Networks: The evolving infrastructure
• Networks For Change: Public policy and social impact
• Strategic Change: Business implications
• The Changing World: Daily life and online experiences

Take a look at some of the folks they have speaking at the event:

• Chris Anderson (Wired Magazine)
• Eric Bradlow (Wharton)
• Paul Brigner (Verizon)
• Sean Ammirati (Read/Write Web)
• Jonathan Christiansen (Skype)
• Peter Guber (Mandalay Entertainment)
• Chris Kemp (NASA Ames Research Center)
• Dave McClure (Founders Fund)

The event is taking place in San Francisco at the Mission Bay Conference center from December 1-3.  You can register here and if you use the code “gen01″ you will receive $200 off of the registration price.  There are going to be plenty of amazing folks to network with and learn from so come prepared.

I hope to see you there!