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Social Media at the World Business Forum

04:54 pm on Sep 30th 2009 Andrea Meyer

Point: Extend the conversation of a conference beyond its four walls

Story: Open innovation, crowdsourcing, and new product development all depend on expanding the conversation from a narrowly defined in-group of people to broader, more inclusive global participation. The World Business Forum, for example, is already the largest conference of senior executives in the US. But HSMAmericas, creators of the World Business Forum, wanted to extend the conversation beyond the walls of the conference’s Radio City Music Hall location. They’re doing this through the Bloggers Hub, a concept which they pioneered with sponsor Pitney Bowes at the World Innovation Forum in May.

First, HSMAmericas created the infrastructure to support a global conversation about the conference. With the aid of hub sponsors IBM and ExecuNet, they wired a block of front & center reserved seating on the mezzanine at Radio City Music Hall. The hub space includes ample power outlets and high-speed internet access.

Second, HSMAmericas invited a diversity of some of the best business bloggers to participate. (See categorized list below.) The featured bloggers will be blogging and tweeting the conference in real time as well as posting articles and interacting in conversations during and after the event. Each blogger brings his or her own spin and segment of the global audience. Some bloggers, like me, emphasize innovation. Others emphasize economic issues, entrepreneurship, technology, etc. This ensures that the conference reaches a wide variety of global participants and extends the conversion along multiple dimensions of specialization.

Third, HSMAmericas created coordinated points of contact and content access. This includes a Facebook page, a LinkedIn group, and a Twitter hashtag. Bloggers will be using the #wbf09 hashtag on their real-time updates of the conference.

For example, anyone — executives, managers, entrepreneurs and all interested parties — can participate in the action of the Forum in real time by following the #wbf09 hashtag on Twitter. Bloggers will be using the #wbf09 hashtag on their real-time updates of the conference. They will append #wbf09 not only to their updates from the Forum but also to conversations they have with anyone using the #wbf09 tag. To join in, simply use the #wbf09 tag in your tweet. You can pose a question, share an opinion, or reply to anyone directly. To reach a specific blogger, just start your tweet with their Twitter ID. (For example, to reach me, simply start your tweet with @andreameyer and use the #wbf09. I’ll see it and reply.) Including #wbf09 in any of your tweets will make it visible to anyone participating in the conversation.

During the time of the World Innovation Forum (May 4-13), for instance, 4514 tweets mentioned #wif09. World Innovation Forum speakers Paul Saffo and Fred Krupp are on Twitter as @psaffo and @Fred Krupp, respectively. Previous World Business Forum speakers on Twitter include management guru Tom Peters (@Tom_Peters) and legendary CEO Jack Welch (@jack_welch).

Here is a list of the World Business Forum Featured Bloggers and their Twitter IDs.

Women’s Business Perspectives
Hot Mommas Project | Kathy Korman Frey | @chiefhotmomma

Action:

To invite participation in your conference from anywhere in the world, create a central blog space that aggregates links to all the blogs
Designate a Twitter hashtag (simply choose an abbreviation or word preceded by a pound sign (#) You can register and define hashtags at Wthashtag.com
Create a page on LinkedIn and on Facebook to let individuals know which of their colleagues and friends are attending or interested in the event.

Further Information:

I will be live-tweeting and blogging from the World Business Forum on Oct. 6-7, 2009. Join me in person or follow along on this blog or on Twitter @AndreaMeyer and @WorkingKnowledg or any of the above sites for full coverage!

Tags: blogging, Facebook, Innovation, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter, World Business Forum

4 Comments »How-to, Innovation

4 Responses to “Social Media at the World Business Forum”

Robyn McMaster Sep 30th 2009 at 08:06 pm 1

Andrea, what a thoughtful list you compiled here. I so look forward to meeting you at WBF09.
Andrea Meyer Sep 30th 2009 at 08:24 pm 2

Thanks very much, Robyn, I’m looking forward to meeting you as well, and to reading your flurry of blog posts!
Hank Wasiak Oct 4th 2009 at 03:22 pm 3

Nice post and thanks for taking the time to compile and segment the list of bloggers. Well done. See you on Tuesday
Andrea Meyer Oct 4th 2009 at 03:31 pm 4

Thanks, Hank, see you soon in the Bloggers Hub!