In an effort to help customers better understand The Vaughan Practice, my fundamental offer is operational efficiency. The purpose to be efficient is not just to lower cost but to create an environment where Innovation is a possibility. When we are hired, companies expect to be in a more powerful situation after we are finished. I attended the Free State Social to speak with other professionals for the purpose of strengthening my knowledge in the domain of social/mobile media so that I could better help my customers in the following domains:
- Increase efficiency
- Increase brand awareness
- Compete in the global marketplace
- Anticipate market drift
- Produce satisfaction
The lineup of speakers was truly strong. Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang represent two of the strongest thinkers in the industry. The rest of the lineup was extremely solid as well and in that assessment I also include the local panel of Zena Weist, Shea Sylvia, Ramsey Mohsen and Tony Botello.
I left the conference Friday afternoon extremely satisfied and thinking that I couldn’t wait til next year.
There will be a lot written about the Free State Social and what a strong event it was. After all, the Lawrence Journal World brought industry heavyweights to the region. They were exposed to legions of the social media professionals in the mid-west. This created a situation in which we in the mid-west walked away with some tremendous learning. There were a few things that I personally took away from the conference.
1. Be who you are all the time – You never stop being a mother or a father and similarly, you never stop being an executive, salesperson, customer service associate or a technologist. We tend to compartmentalize who we are. Do we decide we are only who we are at work from 8-5 and after that, do we become a cook, a chauffeur, or care-taker of virtual farms? We must embody our role and be that at all times.
2. Be a care-taker – Your customers, your employees and even your boss need to be tended after, much like your children, even when you are not with them. Take care of those who take care of you. Hold their concerns as your own.
3. The Rings of Influence – This is a powerful way to help businesses think strategically with social media. If you want to reach potential customers via social media, have you even reached your own employees yet?
4. Be Different – If you are the only supplier of what customers are looking for, they’ll come back for more.
5. Lastly, there was something missing from the conference which I will write about tomorrow. I speculate that for those of us who attended, there is a leadership opportunity available to us, that you hadn’t thought of.
Thanks for the recap post, Vince! I hope you enjoyed yourself and found both Thursday and Friday to be valuable. Sorry I stuck you with the @LJWorld reporter!
I’m excited to hear about what was missing – that’s exactly the feedback I need.