Convergence: Interactive Marketing Channels
Moderator: David Crow, Microsoft
Panelist: Ryan Anderson, Fuel Industries
Panelist: Todd Henwood, Publicis Modem
Panelist: Jon Lax, Teehan & Lax
Friday, March 28 – 1:15pm

One of the major things that came out of this session was a simple learning: in a rapidly-converging digital world, relying strictly on quantifiable data for measuring the success of an online marketing campaign is incredibly difficult.

When trying to gauge the value of interactive marketing, the panel tersely said that “ROI is BS,” and that when you speculate on quantifiable brand value created by a campaign, “you’re making shit up.” You can’t use cause and effect relationships in online activities.

Because we are in the early days of social media, it is almost impossible to give specific metrics based on historical data. Instead, the emphasis is on conversation: by creating good relationships, you are creating value that you really can’t measure. “Innovation only occurs when the marketing executive is willing to put their job on the line. They need to believe that it’s the right thing to do, rather than relying on data.”

One of the questions brought up by the audience during the session was the fact that several clients can easily see the value in television and print campaigns, but can’t quantify the value of online marketing. Why then should they invest in online marketing?

Lee Dale, President of Smack Inc, shared some thoughts on that question with me and allowed me to share them here on the blog:

Why advertise online when TV works just great? Well, there’s a great question. I wouldn’t have considered asking such a preposterous question in 2008, but hey, not one but two people threw that one out to the interactive panel moderated by David Crow, lounging stage left in tie and muted red vest.

So, how does Jon Lax respond to such inanity? Well, in kind of course: you have to have faith, an innate trust in what you’re doing online, because there’s no way I can offer ROI.

While I can’t even fathom people suggesting that they won’t spend on online media because they’re happy with the ROI on their TV spends, the fact that we had 15 minutes of preaching faith in online from Jon completely undermines the medium.

As a content and interactive producer, this is particularly frustrating, but not nearly as much as how infuriating it is for the tax payer me to hear a government marketing manager say: “Well, I’m not going to bother spending online because TV brings such value. I know because when we run a campaign we it gets a lot of press.”

What the f**k? You’re spending millions on TV to get press?!?!

Has no one here ever heard of an integrated campaign? There’s a reason that there are great PR and interactive agencies. Because, done right, and worked into a good mix of media buying, over time and across media, the value of your spend increases; you don’t blow wads of cash on TV in order to get press, or do an inclusive online campaign that doesn’t connect with your campaign across other media – you find the right balance, within budget, to get your message out to your target as effectively and efficiently as possible.

It’s no wonder it’s difficult selling 2008 integrated strategies and community strategies to companies when a whole segment of leaders in the industry and marketing managers don’t understand the basic tenets of advertising, established well prior to this strange beast we call the internet and as applicable today as ever – spend right, and you’ll find your ROI.

Well said Lee, well said.

Photos by Rannie Turingan.

Moving Experiences: Innovation in Wireless
Moderator: Thomas Purves, WirelessNorth.ca
Panelist: Dominique-Sebastien Forest, Quebecor Media Intéractive
Panelist: Jeff McDowell, RIM
Panelist: Mark Ruddock, Viigo
Friday, March 28 – 2:15pm

If ubiquitous connectivity is essential to grow mobile and wireless adoption in Canada, is there room for growth when our wireless data rates are still some of the worst in the world? Smartphones and mobile devices these days are powerful enough to deliver rich and intuitive experiences, so why are there still few content providers taking advantage of this power to provide usable and compelling experiences?

All big questions that drive any discussion on the future of the Canadian mobile environment. To start approaching these questions, the panel first answered another pressing question: who or what are the engines of innovation in the mobile industry?

• Forest: Device manufacturers are still driving innovation, but need the support of software developers. Content is key to drive increased usage, and increased usage drives handset makers to innovate and create devices that facilitates the content.
• Ruddock: All mobile stakeholders need to work together to create innovation. The iPhone redefined mobile user experience — now these kinds of innovations need to be done not by only own company, but across federated industry with multiple manufacturers and providers.
• McDowell: Device manufacturers are in fact responding to the demands of developers right now. What we need is an ecosystem of people innovating together: there is not enough cooperation in the industry.

Purves then asked the panel about current and future distribution models for content:

• Ruddock: The mobile carrier doesn’t have the same kind of control it used to have. Still, for the potential of large-scale distribution to be achieved, the industry needs to open up more.
• Forest: Media companies need to think differently: it’s no longer a question of making the newspaper available on a mobile device, it’s thinking about what services will be valuable for the mobile device and figuring out how to implement them well. We need to change the mobile model from consumption to conversation.

McDowell: Using the carrier is still an effective way to distribute and charge for content, particularly for maps and navigation. However, for growth, we need to move away from the carrier and go directly to the content provider.

• Ruddock: Carriers are still sitting on tremendous opportunity by capitalizing on billing and payment schemes. They have to stop thinking of themselves as networks and instead as e-commerce infrastructure.
• Forest: In the end, the user has to decide “what’s cool and what isn’t.”

Ruddock also elaborated on Apple’s movements in the mobile industry, in particular the new iPhone SDK. With iTunes, Apple is using a tool that people are already using and comfortable with in order to distribute content. Instead of seeing it as a hurdle, content creators are seeing iTunes as an effective opportunity to get their content out to a large group of mobile users. The rest of the mobile industry — and not just one company — needs to look at using similar push-based models to get content out to users.

Finally, the conversation of revenue and advertising was discussed. Forest stressed that on a small screen, ads can not use important real estate. The advertising needs to be extremely relevant and well-implemented. Ruddock added that the entire advertising model needs to be rethought when it came to mobile interfaces: advertising could now become a useful service to us instead of a way of mindlessly pushing product.

Photos by Rannie Turingan.

Join Austin Hill, Co-Founder & CEO, Executive Instigator, Akoha, as he ask us to think beyond our assumptions about gaming. The opportunities for and of games are everywhere. The clip was captured during ”FIRE @ ICE: Interactive Rants at ICE 08″ as a video test – for fun of course.

by Rahaf Harfoush

About the Panel:

Finding great people has never been easy but it’s become increasingly difficult and it’s poised to get worse. Student enrolment is declining, wages are sky high and executive level talen is tough to find.

Today’s panel is moderated by Charles Zamaria (Professor, Ryerson University), and the panelists are M. Michelle Nadon (President & CEO, mediaintelligence.ca),  Korash Sanjideh (Managing Director, HMC Interactive) Laura Jo Gunter (Dean, Info Arts & Tech, Seneca College), Geoff Whitlock (CEO, Lifecapture)

Apparently, Laura Jo looks just like Charles Zamaria’s wife. LOL. He put up a picture on the powerpoint and the resemeblance is uncanny!

Let’s Get Started: 

Charles: Is there a crisis?

Geoff: There is definitely a shortage of talented individuals interested in working with new technologies.

Charles: do we see this reflected in enrolment?

Laura Jo: There are two issues. 1) in the computer studies, computer IT, enrolment has dropped 50-70% , and I think part of the problem is that it takes from 2-4 years to just graduate with a masters. So what we’ve noticed is that because of years people weren’t entering in that area, you’re going to notice a huge shortage. We have 100% co-op placement, especially from the Banks. On the arts side we’ve seen a decline in application.

Charles: Is this bearing itself out in the professional arena?

Michelle:  There are two different groups: the students and the marketplace. The students stand a better chance of succeeding than the current labor force. The demographic of +35 have the steepest learning curve.

Korash: In the UK there are a lot of similarities. We want to attract a fusion or art, science and tech students. And to find that is getting increasingly different.

Charles: Is there not enough personnel? Are they leaving Canada? are the school crappy?

Geoff: A little bit of each. In our business there is a revolving door of technologies. Clients are always demanding something new. We’re always using new stuff, and it’s hard for anybody in our industry to specialize in the specific. That’s what they’re doing in university, but we don’t need that. We need you to know a little bit about everything. It’s a whole new kind of requirment. We’re converging our screens on the outside, but our tool sets on the inside. We don’t even hire designers, they have to be able to build a website!

Charles: So you’d rather have generalists?

Geoff: We just need people who are more apt to picking up more than one discipline. It doesn’t help out new marketing.

Charles: Is one of the problems, the fact that the industry is predicated on a project by project that prevents Geoff from providing sustainability?

Michelle: Years ago, generalist was a one way ticket to a general manager’s job. Then it went back to the specialist syndrome, where everyone had one core expertise. Now what we’re saying is that you need to have a core competency but you also supplement it by acquiring different but complementary knowledge bases, which result in a cluster of skills.

Charles: Are universities up to date?

Laura Jo: All universities will say that they are training students for the long term, and the colleges are doing much more of a career, practical training, but we’re starting to move into a bit of a theoretical as well. Universities are starting to work more with industries. Our biggest issue right now is funding, you need to have up to date software, tools and facilities.

Charles: Is there more potential today for industry academic parternships? Pros/Cons?

Laura Jo: There is always a benefit for working with industry. The biggest issue is that we should never work with industry on mission critical projects. They have different time lines, and students need time to learn.

Charles: We have a brain drain here, where do they go in the UK?

Korash:  It’s interesting for us, because we’re based in the south west, which is not really a creative hub, the hub is in London. The university grads are naturally gravitating towards London. We’re losing potential recruits to London, while you guys are losing them to the states.

Charles: Tell us a bit about your project.

Korash: Recently, we recognized the problem, and started to formulate a plan to keep people in the region, and attract people from elsewhere, and what we’ve done is open our company to a radical graduate programs. Grads will leave university and enter HMC for an intensive work internships. What we’re finding is that there is good interest from universities from Holland and Finland to bring graduates over to train from within HMC. We are aware of this whole shadowing and mentoring process, and we’re also talking to our ex-lecturer from our degree and he’s put himself forward to come in once or twice a week to guide the students to industry standard work. It’s a great opportunity, but it’s a bit risky, since a project can fall apart, and then you’ll have clients screaming. But the program is a good incentive to increase retention.

Charles: Can we adopt a model like that?

Michelle: In Canada it might be a little bit different, we share challenges around regional issues, but the advents of the technological marketplace makes that regional differences are becoming less and less importance. At the end of the day it’s all about the internships.

Charles: Ok, what about feasible solutions?

(Note: Charles is a hoot on stage, he’s loud and funny and brings a lot of energy to the panel. I wish I had a video clip)

Geoff: I’m not sure the universities can help because they’re facing the same thing, a shortage of people. Especially with the boomers retiring. There’s no sort of group that goes down to public high schools to create a career package. We pay a lot of money, but people in different industries who still have the same skills. So everyone is looking for jobs.

Charles: Is the solution a rationalize co-op system?

Geoff: that would make the parents consider the stream a more relevant.

Laura: I would settle for math and English literacy. There is a huge crisis of people having really low entry scores for college level math and English.

Michelle: There needs to be more coherence.

Question Period: (I’ll post the interesting bits)

I asked a question about the whole concept of the “revolving door” and asked the panel if they thought that since turnover was so high,  if maybe they should reconsider their HR Strategy to allow independent contractors the option to plug in a more diverse ways with their organizations.

Geoff commented that they recognize the need and are trying to adapt.

Charles: If there were one thing we could do, what would it be?

Michelle:  Knowledge is power, because knowledge= confidence. So I would direct all parties to continually go after knowledge acquisition.

Korash: Be prepared to change. The media industry is moving so fast, you have to keep up.

Laura Jo: I would say, a lot of support for entrepreneurs for this area, because that’s where the job growth is in Canada. You need a lot of support for the younger entrepreneurs.  We’ll see a lot more people wanting to work there.

Geoff: Look at the how the military is recruiting. Our industry needs to open up, explain what’s inside, how much money you can make, etc. That would create an information body so people can understand what they have to offer as a job.

General Comments:

I would have liked the panel address more of the generational issues that will hugely impact that work force and how companies will need to shift their perspective if they hope to recruit and retain Gen Y in the future.  On top of low academic enrollment rates, you have a generation entering a work force that is desperate for talent. I wonder when HR departments will realize that and react accordingly.

Bridging the Gap: Connecting Ideas, Research and Business
Moderator: Tom Calvert, Credo Interactive
Panelist: Steve DiPaola, Simon Fraser University
Panelist: Adam Montandon, HMC Interactive
Panelist: Vincent John Vincent, GestureTek
Friday, March 28 – 9am

The morning session on day two of ICE08 was an excellent showcase of some great initiatives using interactive technologies that are being developed in places like academia and public-private partnerships.

The first of such projects was iVizLab, an initiative that creates socially engaging systems that enhance communication, collaboration and learning through real-time 3D animation, visualization, user interface and AI techniques. Among the interesting research areas of iVizLab that were presented included projects around 3D face-construction for communication and animation and . More information about iVizLab is available at their website.

The next presentation was by GestureTek, who create multi-touch interfaces and gesture-based digital interfaces for new interactive content. One of the more exciting projects being undertaken by GestureTek is the creation of joystick-like interface control through cameraphones instead of acceleratometer-based devices.

Adam Montandon from HMC Interactive shared with us some points on how they keep coming up with great innovative ideas:

• Make idea generation a game.
• Remove obstacles to idea sharing.
• Do not worry about the specifics of an idea at first.
• Change your environment constantly.
• Believe in your idea, no matter how crazy it may be.

In addressing the issue of finding great talent and innovative people, Montandon was clear: if you create an exciting environment where ideas are valued, you don’t have to look for great talent, because the talent will want to come work for you.

See the slideshow on flickr. Snaps from Photojunkie and others are being uploaded after sessions.

If there’s one emerging idea or theme that I’ve found myself thinking about throughout my first day at ICE, it’s that true creativity and innovation are driven by individuals who not only offer their unique perspective or point of view, but who also have the ability to empathize with, and derive inspiration from the unique perspectives of others.

From Lizbeth Goodman, Director of the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute, who spoke of her team’s successful use of interactive media and emerging technologies to empower individuals and communities otherwise ignored by the mainstream, to Ross Wallace, Director of Strategic Partnerships at MaRS who talked about the challenges and opportunities faced by MaRs when developing its unique business model, innovators thrive in the overlap between convergent and divergent ideas.

The great thing about a conference such as ICE, is the breadth of interesting people and perspectives it brings together under one roof – as one acquaintance remarked to me this morning, they were rather shocked to attend a Toronto technology conference with so many unfamiliar faces. So just when you think you’ve seen it all, look again. The unique perspectives at ICE are proof that Toronto tech community isn’t as insular as it seems. That we’re not just talking to ourselves, that there are more voices to be heard, and that there continues to be an even greater need to define new boundary objects to help us shape the discussion and continue the dialogue across our different disciplines and communities.

So jump in, share your perspective, and keep listening to the views of those around you. There’s still another day ahead!

Stepping Up: Interactive Marketing & Canada’s Place on the Global Stage
Moderator: Chantal Rossi, Google
Panelist: Brian Cusack, YouTube
Panelist: David Dougherty, Trapeze Media
Panelist: Maggie Fox, Social Media Group
Thursday, March 27 – 2:15pm

With Canada being one of the fastest growing internet markets in the world, you’d expect interactive marketing to be booming. Sadly, marketing in the Canadian digital space has been lagging behind many other countries. What can we do to rectify that situation?

It’s clear that old models (traditionally push models) of marketing don’t translate well onto the web. As Brian Cusack explained, the internet is not only a place for entertainment and education , it is also a place for community. Marketers need to enter the conversations that are currently happening between consumers — and not as marketers, but as active members of the community.

The challenge, of course, is getting clients to understand that they need to take a risk and, as David Dougherty concisely stated, participate in conversations that are already happening instead of simply creating new ones. Maggie Fox went on to dispel the myth that engaging in interactive marketing can be detrimental:

“People will and are already saying bad things about you. Right now, you just can’t hear them. When you engage in social media, you can understand and respond to what people are talking about.”

Dougherty went on to add that “it is one thing to listen, to monitor. You also actually have to take part.”

Cusack gave examples of NBC using YouTube to engage users in context, demonstrating the importance of “being human” in the interaction with consumers. And of course, in the end, content is king. Fox stressed the importance that it takes time to build relationships and engage in conversation:

“The words ‘campaign’ and ’social media’ should never be in the same sentence. Social media is not a campaign, not something you do in six months. You can’t just shut it off. It needs to be part of your business, not just part of your product launch.”

Photos by Rannie Turingan.

By: Chris Ragobeer

Session: Are you being followed?March 27 3:45pm

Moderator:

• Sébastien Chorney, Interactive Media Producer and Strategist

Panelists:

• Salim Ismail, (former) Head of Yahoo! Brickhouse (USA)
• Bart Nickerson, Director of Account Management, MyThum Interactive
• David Raissipour, Product Unit Manager, MSN Mobile (USA)
• Clyde Wagner, Founding Partner, Sweet Caesar

Mobility allows information to be distributed at a faster rate because mobile devices have made it easier to consume and disseminate information. Given the current state of technology and media, what will be the next big idea in mobile content and advertising?

Sebastien delivered a presentation on the evolution of successful media distribution using different mediums:

A short history of context:

“People don’t hate advertising they hate bad, intrusive and annoying advertising”

He uses the following contexts to form his discussion:

Context 1.0: Print

Context 2.0 : The web

Context 3.0 : Mobile

Where will the future lie? Some of the suggestions that were posed were social networking, multi-player gaming and multi-platform extensions of brands.The panelist discussion started off with the biggest challenges with Location based services, that being geo-coding and user security.

Example of best LBS application includes a service that pushes relevant information, at the time and place the user needs it. Internet has been highly corporatized where the mobile space has the ability to become the open space just like the internet was when it first began.

A great comparison between advertising and coupon discussion : people don’t like advertising, they want what they want.

The discussion was a hybrid between advertising and LBS. Mobile device is a very personal device and being intrusive to the user will have negative impacts on what the user wants to receive or be pushed to them.

People find that they are bombarded by too much advertising when they don’t get any value out of it. One ad can be too much when it’s not relevant. The key to mobile content and advertising is providing value to the user. The companies that can do this successfully will be the biggest players in the market.

Ending thoughts on the future: data plans falling, more smart phones, more videos and sound, bringing awareness to Location based services , giving users the control on their privacy.

By Rahaf Harfoush

About the Panel:

What does community really mean in the context of audience users and open source? THis panel will discuss different views of community enabling and creation. Moderated by Eli Singer (Director of Social Media, Segal Communications), the panelists are Mark Relph (VP devleopment, Mircosoft), Amber MacArthur (New Media Strategist), and Kris Krug (President, Rain City Studios)

Eli Singer: Community is a huge buzz word these days, it’s really difficult to understand what it’s all about. Everyone seems to want community but no one knows what that is.  Who owns them? Manages them? What do they do?

Kris Krug: Rent City builds community websites for all sorts of people, mainly bands and records labels. These guys are looking for all the features of social networking sites, but bring it back to the label. For the last 10 years I’ve been consulting with independent artists on how to use the web.

Amber MacArthur: We are working on a social network for Tony Robbins, which is all about leveraging social networks. I also do podcasts, videocasts etc. For me it’s been all about leveraging and building community. Every thing I’ve done is about reaching out to people and working with people who really believe in that.

Mark Relph: I have a team of 30 people that think all about reaching out to our Eco System and to audiences aroudn the country.

Eli Singer:  What is community?

Kris Krug: I see it a group of people who are interacting, sharing knowledge.

Mark Relph: I agree with that, i would add the concept of an ecosystem, particularly for us. We are helping people using our stuff to do their stuff. It’s about a dialogue.

Eli Singer: Where does your brand fit into this Ecosystem? How do you connect the dot?

Mark Relph: That group of people who self organize, don’t need our help. That group of people have a set of expectations, and the first step is to attempt to meet those expectations in a way that earns our right to be a member of that community. They have their own ways of doing things, and they still expect us to earn our citizenship.

Eli Singer: So you’re identifying a community that you want to be a part of.

Mark Relph: Sometimes it’s what other communities want to be involved in.

Eli Singer: How do you consult with your clients when people want to actually bring that brand into their lives? (ie: Celebrity)

Kris Krug: Communities are forming out there on their own, but it makes a lot of sense for labels to own their communities. The other communities that I’m involved in are all about exchange.

Amber MacArthur: The most important thing is to nurture any community you create. You have to connect people, you need to actively massage the relationships. It takes a lot of TLC, and a lot of people forget that. They don’t realize you have to go there and check in and be there and communicate with people.

Kris Krug: When figuring out where to spend client budget, there is the tendency to throw up a whole lot of money up front without thinking about the maintenance. We also tell them to hire someone full time to manage and nurture.

Mark Relph: You have to do this on an ongoing basis as well. Once you head down this road you have to keep these people on.

Kris Krug: It’s not a side job for a marketing manager, it requires full attention.

Amber Mac: You have to embrace the openness because closed down community doesn’t work.

Eli Singer: So we need new titles, people who aren’t PR, talking to the public? I forsee friction.  How can we bridge that gap?

Kris Krug: There is a conversation taking place out there, you can be a part of it or not. [to Mark] How do you guys deal with haters?

Mark Relph: you ahve to have a thick skin and you have to be able to take feedback. It’s a part of the dialogue and you have to be willing to listen to that. The way you overcome it is that when you are honest and transparent, then the community will return that respect by listening to your point in return instead of seeing it as a PR knee jerk reaction. People are passionate about your product and that’s a good problem to have.

Kris Krug: Does it keep you honest?

Mark Relph: Yes, it keeps us honest.

Eli Singer: If you want to go into community and you want to be successful you have to prepared to use these platforms, you have to be prepared for openness. As a brand manager, should I build a community or do targeting on FaceBook?

Kris Krug: It’s really easy and fun to experiment with Facebook’s ad.

Eli Singer: As a brand manager, dangerous mindfield territory of community, or safe path of extending by ad buy into social media?

Kris Krug: You don’t really mean it do you?

Eli Singer: If there is no buy in at meetings, then it’s a hard sell. So what is it about communities?

Mark Relph: We view it as, if you do communities really well, then you get more permission to do targeted advertising because they are open to it. We don’t do it as an advertising vehicle, we look at it as a community exercises.

 Amber Mac: It’s also about building loyalty. When I heard through my network that they hired David Crow, I thought it was great that they were reaching out.

Eli Singer: what are 2 or three things that you’ve gotten from your community?

Amber Mac: we get content and feedback from our community. We actively go in there and listen to ideas and criticism. We have truly listened to our audience form day one and it’s made our show better. Our users promote the show, and we try to understand that. We give back, if they have something cool to promote, we give back by promoting it. It’s pay back all the time.

Eli Singer: Can we talk about the failures or mistakes?

Amber Mac: I don’t view things as failures, i see them as experimentation. We’re all in this new space and no one really knows what works or waht doesn’t work. So if we go in a direction that the audience that doesn’t like, they’ll tell us because they feel that they own it. As for mistakes you just have to move on.

Mark Relph: I would agree that we would try to do a few things that don’t pan out. We’ve had a few examples where it’s been on a shame on us. Where we’ve had a community that we didn’t use, and then the idea bombs and the community says “I told you so.” We’re doing a series about IT as a career, and that idea came from our network.

Kris Krug: Fake communities, or putting messages that aren’t authentic. Fake blogging is one as well.

Eli Singer: Any measurement tips? How do you value community?

Kris Krug: I dance around ROI, but I look at google results, if you’re on the top ten keywords on google is a good one. User base, how much your community has grown over time. User content contribution is another way.

Amber Mac: If people are going in direct ROI, it’s not going to come. You need to focus on other things like loyalty.

Mark Relph: It’s a gravity that takes place over such a long period of time. I get paid on satisfaction paid surveys. That’s a direct measure, which sometimes isn’t completely accurate. The other thing is how much money you spend on it. Not to say that everything is expensive, sometimes it’s just behaviour that matters, but if you’re going to do it in the long term it better be an independent line item in your budget. It’s an investment.

Kris Krug: You can also point to cost savings.

Eli Singer: Who do you look for inspiration?

Kris Krug: The flickr community. There have been huge blow ups as they’ve changed, and they’ve dealt with all of the issues in a really great way. Google Heather Champ. All the major flickr execs are highly participator and engage their community.

Amber Mac: Leo Laporte, who has a big community on Twit.tv. He’s done a fantastic job of building a community. Another community, although I hate them is the Digg community. You have to admire their huge power, it’s worth looking at even though they’re mean.

Mark Relph: We’ve looked at Ebay and Flickr. I would also add in the users of Craigslist as a great example of an organic community. For me, we have these user group leaders who have day jobs and there’s no glamour, they’re not podcasters, but they do it for the joy and support of a small group of people. They do it for the fun of doing it.

Audience Questions:  

Eli Singer: Let’s get Dave Crow, who I think is the Godfather of the tech community in Toronto.

Dave Crow: I look other communities. I strongly believe in the mix, rip and burn approach. A lot of people are doing interesting things and a lot of that is the tech community. Richard Florida, folks who are looking at taking the tools of open creative space and moving them beyond a single point. Richard Florida is working at a city level.

Questions: How do you bridge the gap of being a small company who want to connect with community but not might have the resources?

Kris Krug: One thing is you shouldn’t outsource, it should be an internal thing. You can have people with invested interest to interaction with your vision. Another idea is if you can get your email support or product centered people to blog publicly and let other users contribute and trouble shoot.  I would shift traditional dollars from PR over to these new mediums where you can have quicker returns or where a tangible reaction.

Amber Mac: A lot of it is passion. If someone is the most passionate on your team, involve them in building communities online.

Mark Relph: You can also look to the fan voice, because you’d be amazed when you talk to the community and provide those influential excited people with a chance to get closer to you, you’ll be amazed at how many people will volunteer to do that.

Eli Singer: you don’t have to create your own blog to participate. Look into your organization and identify what kind of content you’re producing.

David Crow: We talk about this community thing like we’re building something, when we’re really facilitating it. It’s about building your reputation inside an existing community.

Question: Ad revenues and building communities?

Kris Krug: There is a business model to monetize it. They make millions of dollars in google ads. It’s about pushing users and page uses. It’s not the most interesting model but it works. Everyone wants a social network these days. You can sustain a social network through advertising.

Question: What about building a community within the company?

Amber Mac: Use something like ning. Ning lets you build your own network, even brand it. You can add content, it’s easy and fast. For any time of corporation it’s a great way to build internally.

Eli Singer: Do you have sanctioned social networks within Network? How has usage of FB affected your culture?

Mark Relph: We may not be the right example depending on where you work in this crowd. The only restriction we have in our network, is on intellecutal property, and don’t run bit torrent on your machine, oh and porn. Everything else goes. Almost my entire team participates on Facebook and Twitter. Even IM. I’ve been struck by a few panel, where there is a desire to tap into these communities, but there are restrictions on using these. So you should ask yourself “If we can’t be that way, how are you going to participate.”