I attended the second Social Strategy Talk yesterday. First of all complements to VINT! Great event, good speakers, good interaction, in short: an inspiring meeting. Thanks for organizing this. Below my observations and thoughts (although I have to admit that I did miss the end because I had to leave early due to other obligations).

Nokia – Younghee Jung

Younghee had an inspiring story. The relation to social media and social strategies was less clear to me. She elaborated on a community design competition organized by Nokia Design.  The competition was held in real, physical communities (Dharavi, Jacarezinho, Buduburam). They basically researched Urbanization as driver for new requirements for mobile phones. I found the presentation interesting, and inspiring because the environment and social and cultural dimensions of these communities are way off from my day to day life.

Interesting was also how the MC (Menno van Doorn) challenged us to talk 10 minutes to someone and come-up with a design for a new mobile phone that would make that person more productive.  No shocking ideas resulted, although the idea of a beamer in a mobile phone sounded far off, someone in the audience (Stijn Grove) actually new that phone is already for sale on http://www.chinavasion.com (for only 257.98 euro )

After Younghee’s keynote, three enterprises got 10 minutes each to present their social strategy, and ask the audience a key question. The audience was divided in three groups that would work on these questions in the break.

Vodafone:  Listening to the groundswell – Arie de Zeeuw

The Vodafone presentation by Arie de Zeeuw was very inspiring. In my opinion they really made the right start in joining the online conversation: “start listening”. They made this start with an intern who got the assignment to listen for three months, and do no more than that. Their conclusion after these three months: ” we have been blind for a very long time”. Key question for much of the conversation they tap on the internet is ” what to do with it” . Many things really deeply touch their internal processes and are far from easy to resolve. Arie pointed out that CEO level commitment was critical to follow-through on the input they got. They have this commitment at Nokia, as they are on a quest to be the top mobile brand in the Netherlands (which is a challenge as there is very little brand loyalty for mobile operators in the Netherlands).

The initiative that started with an intern has grown into a 6 FTE Web Relations team. This team will not engage in online discussion, but will use a new internal process to trigger changes and formal responses from the Vodafone organization.

Their lessons learned sofar:

1.       No guts no glory. But, respect the web, learn the rules of the game (conversation / community) and stick to them

2.       Be Fast, this is what the online community expects. Fast as in: “faster than the normal internal systems”.

3.       Learn and improve. The online feedback offers ample input and opportunity to change the organization and its services for the better. These changes are often not simple, but the reward is high.

Sellaband: Embracing the groundswell – Pim Betist

Great start of this presentation. He made us listen to some music, asked our feedback. My opinion (and of many others in the room): really good music. His statement: you would never have heard this artist without the Sellaband Community.

Their model is simple and interesting. The community pays for the production of a CD: they essentially fund the artist, and get a copy of the CD and a share in the revenue. In the end Sellaband will save us from a world of Britney and Justin clones.

Their key question was a challenging one: how do we move forward? Pim explained that they see two key models in moving forward, that might be mutual exclusive: “Broadcaster”  vs. “Facilitator”. Essentially: do we solely facilitate the process, or can we also started broadcasting (marketing?) the things we really like in the music database that we are creating as Sellaband. My personal opinion: facilitate broadcasting by community members, turn them into DJs and Personal Radio Stations.

KLM: Energizing the groundswell – Hans Zijlstra

Hans explained Club China and Club Afrika. Two initiatives to create communities for starting entrepreneurs that are focusing on doing business in/with these areas. The value for KLM is improved brand engagement: loyalty, co-innovation, marketing effectiveness and organic word of mouth. I particularly liked the simple drawing that Hans had in his presentation. It showed how community insight would be the foundation on which profitable growth can and will be build (I will try and post that illustration later here). The key question for KLM was an obvious, but not a simple one: how can we further build and leverage these two communities in a way that will contribute to the bottom-line of KLM