Thanks to everyone who came to see the presentation at Web Directions South yesterday, and sorry we weren’t able to have a bit more discussion at the end of the session — some great questions and ideas came up that I would have liked to explore further.  I’ve posted the presentation to Slideshare:

Or you can download a PDF of the presentation, along with notes (PDF 14.4 MB), including pointers to the various sites and articles I mentioned in the presentation.

I’m very excited to be joining an inspiring line-up at Web Directions South in a few weeks’ time, presenting on the topic of Creating platforms for social innovation:

People are redefining the relationship they have with the organisations they interact with, empowered by social technologies.  They are seeking:

• Human-ness: as organisations have grown in size and become more and more depersonalised, people are wanting more human interactions and personal response;
• Trust: from greenwashing to the GFC, the market’s trust has been eroded — people are looking for organisations to say what they mean and mean what they say;
• Co-creation: people are taking a more active role in developing the products and services that they use.  And if they don’t find what they’re looking for, they will often create it themselves;
• Responsibility: people want to engage with organisations that are genuinely addressing the complex issues of sustainability and wellbeing.

Building a brand, service or product offering that resonates in this new “economy of meaning” requires a rethinking of an organisation’s relationship to the “market” — their customers, stakeholders and the environment.

In this presentation we will examine how innovative organisations are using social technologies and design methods to create multi-dimensional value — both for the organisational and community — and will explore the themes that underpin the examples with a view to applying them in your context.

Regular readers will note that the session is focused on a number of themes that I’ve been exploring here lately, so I’m really looking forward to connecting with other folks at the conference around these concepts.

Presentation notes

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Melbourne and Sydney workshops. As promised, here are the presentation slides, along with my notes (PDF 14.78 MB) from the presentation component of the day.

Of course, I can’t include all of the great discussion that took place, but hopefully it will help jog the memory as well as provide some further details on some of the topics we covered.

Workshop materials

The material generated by workshop participants is also available for download:

• Melbourne: Risk & opportunities – transcribed (PDF 65 KB)
• Melbourne: Other workshop materials (PDF 21.2 MB)
• Sydney: Workshop materials (PDF 1.1 MB)

The remainder should be up by Monday.

Other follow-ups

Two follow-ups from the workshops:

1. There was a question about RSS in Outlook: one that I’m aware of is NewGator Inbox [Update 21 June 2011: as far as I can tell this product is no longer available, so I've removed the link], although it seems that Outlook 2007 has an RSS reader built in.
2. I mentioned the “Government 2.0″ Google group in (I think) the Melbourne workshop also. I’ve also come across a Government 2.0 Australia Ning community (they are different groups, but exploring similar themes. Neither are specifically focused on social networking, but may be of interest all the same.

If any readers have other related resources to suggest, it would be great if you could do so in the comments.

Thanks

I wanted to say thanks to a number of folks who participated in the workshop by being so generous with their time and insights (in alphabetical order):

• Fi Bendall (Bendalls Group), Peter Buckmaster (Care Network), and Katie Hart (Amnesty International Australia)
• Priscilla Brice-Weller (ANTaR)
• Marc Lehmann (Saasu)
• Helen Mitchel (CPA Australia)
• Mathew Patterson (Campaign Monitor)
• Deb Shaw (Amnesty International Australia)
• Georgina Swan (Choice Australia)

Your input and generosity was greatly appreciated by the participants (and especially by me!) Some of the video and other materials from the case studies should find their way into blog posts in the not too distant future…

Thanks also to Penny Hagen who assisted in preparation for the workshop. And last, but not least, Maxine, John and the WDS team for organising such a wonderful event and presenters’ dinner. It was a wonderful opportunity that I deeply appreciate…

Just wanted to make a quick post to thank all the participants of the Web Directions South (WDS) Roadshow Engaging social media workshops that we did in Melbourne and Sydney this week.

I personally enjoyed them a lot – the energy of the folks involved was fantastic. From the feedback I’ve received it sounds like y’all enjoyed and valued the experience too. Thanks also to those of you who pointed out things that could be improved – your points and insights help tremendously.

I’ll be collating the materials generated through the workshops and tweaking the presentation materials for distribution early- to mid-next week. The WDS folks will be in touch via email with details as soon as they’re ready.

P.S. my preparation for this workshop, along with preparations for a major delivery for Inspire, have meant it’s been awfully quiet around here of late. I suspect May will see a bit more posting in these parts…

Just a quick note about the WDS09 Roadshow workshops that I’m facilitating in April. Plans for the day are starting to take shape, and I’m in the process of organising some interviews with folks doing interesting things in the social networking space so anyone that comes along won’t be listening to me all day long ;)

Not that that would have been the case anyway – my friend and colleague Penny Hagen has been lending a hand working out the flow of the day – the aim is to keep things “hands on” and practical.

I hope to have a bit more to post as we get closer to the date – but in the meantime a reminder that you can get a discount if you use the code “WD-GY” when you register, reducing the price to $499 for the day.

I’m very excited to be participating in the up-coming Web Directions South Roadshow. I’m facilitating the Engaging Social Media workshop in Sydney and Melbourne on 21 and 23 April.

It’s a great program – I feel privileged to be amongst the well known names that are on that list. Most of all I’m looking forward to the opportunity to learn more about what people are doing in the social media space and helping them overcome some of the roadblocks and challenges they face. Should be a lot of fun :)

Update: If you use the discount code “WD-GY”, the price for the workshop drops to $499 :)

Yesterday I lead the Social media and government workshop that was part of the Web Directions South Government conference. I hope the participants enjoyed and benefited from our time together as much as I did – it was a great day from my perspective. Thanks again to those of you that attended.

Thanks also to Maxine, John and the Web Directions team for the opportunity to meet with you all and for putting on such a great day.

As promised, here are the workshop presentation with associated notes (PDF 12.8 MB). I didn’t put this up on Slideshare as it was designed to support the workshop across the day and doesn’t really “read” as a slideshow. (If you think I should put it up anyway, lemme know…) Video slides have also been removed…

There are a number of links in the notes to further information and sources. Unfortunately the links aren’t clickable (does anyone know how to get that to work in Keynote?), but you can copy and paste into your browser to access. I hope that you find the slides and notes useful.

Update 28 May 2008: In the presentation notes I state that MySpace is larger than Facebook. Seems this is no longer the case.

The results of the “Live Wiki” exercise, where we brainstormed the many benefits of social media are also available for download (PDF 40 KB).

I will write up the brainstorming session ideas in the next few days and post them here once they’re done.

One of the side effects of a great brainstorming session is that there are a lot of notes to write up! Sorry for the delay – you can now download them from here (PDF 88 KB).

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be facilitating the Social media and Government workshop as part of the Web Directions South: Government conference program on 20 May in Canberra.

From the official blurb:

Social media – blogs, wikis, social networking services, online communities, folksonomies/tagging, social search – are reshaping what citizens expect from government services. Areas of government, from health and policy development to tourism and the cultural sector, are all being asked to deliver better, more interactive, more citizen-centric, more engaging, and personalised online services.

If you have any thoughts on e-government, sites that you think would be worth showcasing, or interesting workshop techniques, feel free to leave a comment :)

It’s a full day workshop, which will hopefully be a lot of fun as well as informative for participants. If you’re interested in attending, pricing and registration details are on the site.

(Astute observers will notice that the workshop takes place two days before I present at the CPA Centering on Excellence conference – so it’s shaping up to be a big week!)