Kurt Shintaku's Blog

How to Leverage Online Communities to Foster Innovation and Intimacy

Date: Friday, June 5, 2009
Time: 10:00am Pacific & Arizona
(11:00am Mountain; 1:00pm Eastern)
Duration: 60 minutes

As the recession continues, more professionals are going online to interact with peers and colleagues, to share insight and information – forming online communities bound by mutual interest.  Large and small organizations see the value of these online communities but often find it difficult to know how to tap into their potential power. In a recent Technographics® survey*, Forrester Research reports that 51% of US online adults are willing to participate in online company forums.  Understanding how online communities are formed and work can bring tremendous benefit to your organization.

This interactive IDEAcast hosted by Microsoft will discuss ways you can leverage online communities to gain insight, build stronger relationships and drive product improvements and innovation – both internally with your employees, and externally with your customers.

• Microsoft Senior Online Marketing Manager Marc Sirkin will discuss some principles and elements of a good online community, where online communities fit in the larger social strategy, and how to measure success and effectiveness. Marc will share his experience launching and managing Microsoft’s CIO Network, a private, invitation only online community designed specifically for CIOs. Sponsored by Microsoft’s own CIO, Tony Scott, the Microsoft CIO Network has 1,200 members, and is quickly developing as an effective membership program and communications vehicle for driving engagement with this influential audience.
• You will be given opportunities to share your thoughts and questions before, during and after the webcast through Facebook and Microsoft LiveMeeting.

*North American Technographics® Media and Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2008, Forrester Research, Inc.

Social media’s increasing influence in the Enterprise can be a source of untapped opportunity for organizations that choose to embrace it and potential threat to those that choose to ignore it. Join this webcast today to learn how to leverage the power of online communities.

Who is this webcast for?
Managers and Executives in Business Functions Interested in Social Networking (Sales, Marketing/Corporate Communications, Engineering, Operations, Product Management, Innovation, Human Resources, Finance)

Cost:
$0 + Your time and engagement

Interested?

• Please contact me if you’re a customer of mine, for instructions on how to register.
• Listen to our last IDEAcast on the Top 5 Ways to Create an Effective Enterprise Social Strategy with Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research

Speaker:
Marc Sirkin is a Lead Social Networking Strategist focused on building business to business communities in the Enterprise Marketing group at Microsoft.  Since 2001, he’s held executive and senior level marketing roles focused on helping large international organizations benefit from digital marketing. Marc’s unique ability to develop strategic marketing plans that connect directly to measurable business results has helped him launch and refine online communities and web based community applications that have resulted in millions of dollars in donations, and lifelong customer relationships in the non-profit sector. As part of Microsoft’s Worldwide Enterprise Partner Group, he’s helping to develop emerging social and online community models that are focused on driving tangible business results through the use of social marketing strategies and tactics. Marc is a popular blogger and speaker who has contributed to a variety of conferences including WOMMA, NTEN and DMA.