I help you get to know “Social” for your business or Government Organization. I help you manage and massage your social behaviors into a cohesive social message for your brand. I am not coming to you with me being a social media maven who will get you a million twitter followers and max out on how many fans you can have in Facebook. No, I am helping you focus and develop an all-inclusive strategy. A strategy that begins with understanding what it is you do (your mission) and applying the best practices you already have with marketing and your products or business processes, into social channels.

Not only do I help you with that, but I especially focus on getting the corporate or small business environment up to speed on how to communicate and collaborate effectively behind your firewall to make sure tight and well planned external communications.

If this sounds like something you would like to know more about, please contact me at andrearosebaker at gmail dot com or call 310-439-8309 and ask about my introductory social business workshop. Workshops are custom tailored to your organizational needs and can run from as little as an hour to an all day intensive.

OMNI Hotel at CNN Center

Today is officially day one of the ALI Social Media for Government Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This morning, I went around the room of about 40 attendees to ask them what questions they have as they attend this event and what they expect to learn. I jotted down the questions with the promise to make sure everyone has an answer or at least a place to go to, to get more information if no quick answer exists.

I can haz a question

To help this group get their questions answered, I am putting this list out to my social networks to share in the conversation. I ask of you, if you have a presentation, story, anecdote, or anything else to share to help answer these questions, please do so in the comments below and pass on this blog post to your circle to continue to build the answers to this list of twenty questions. If you have the answer to the question, in your comment, please put the question number and then your answer. If possible, please link liberally to more information. While this is a Government audience, I think we can agree that no matter what industry you are in, these are universal problems. I have been able to answer some of these questions in the little time I have as chair between sessions and hope to discuss others at the end of each day. Tomorrow morning, I present another session in which I hope to focus on the Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media.

When I get enough information to complete the answers to the Q, I will take that into a permanent page on my website as a continued resource that I can bring out and refresh now and again. I thank you in advance for your time.

Here are the questions I culled from the group:

1. How can I get/use an editorial calendar to manage my social media content?
2. How can I get my peers onboard, get excited, or keep their interest with using social media?
3. How can I enhance my blogs with Twitter and Facebook?
4. How can I create a group blog and make it a successful one?
5. How can I get past management’s reluctance to embrace social media as another content outlet for our information?
6. How can I put social media policies or create guidelines for management of social media into place?
7. What else should my organization be doing in social media besides a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?
8. What are some of the best practices available?
9. How do I get the most bang for my buck?
10. How can I do effective measurement and analytics, how do I measure twitter?
11. How do I handle all my daily requirements and run our social media presence? It’s just me! How do I manage this monster?
12. How to I bring IT on board and convince them social media is not an evil thing?
13. What is the most effective way to cross-broadcast our information using multiple social media channels?
14. How do I address the generation and cultural gaps of my target audience?
15. How do I shift the paradigm from email to social?
16. How do I reach my rural constituents when they might not even be web connected?
17. How do I boost the effects of Follow Friday or other audience gathering techniques?
18. How do I select the right tools for the job/audience?
19. How do I maintain success once I achieve it?
20. What is the next big thing/trend in social?

Photo Courtesy of PeterP Photography

September has been a busy month for me, so I would be remiss if I didn’t share with my readers what I have been up to, where I have been speaking and where I will be speaking.

Last week (September 11-13) I gave back to back 2 hour presentations on the “Social Business Roadmap” and “How to Conduct a Social Business Assessment“, both were based on a whitepaper I wrote with my colleague at AIIM International this past March 2011. These presentations were part of the #Optsum conference in Glendale, Arizona. It was a beneficial trip from the networking connections I met at the conference over lunches. It was also beneficial to me on a personal level because I got to reconnect over the two days with former Army buddies. I drove from Glendale to Tucson for the first visit, my former roommate Andria and the next night in Glendale with my friend Gian and his family. As much as in the desert you can get that Glendale is, I found my stay enjoyable as the Renaissance Hotel is right next to a fun little town center called Westgate and my hotel room had a stone’s throw view of University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Cardinals played their opener.

As always, I post my presentations to Slideshare.net and I let my attendees know where they can get the materials. I do from time to time tweak the presentations to be specific to audience, but the ones I post to slideshare fill the general conversation spectrum.

This week I am in Atlanta, Georgia for the Social Media in Government Conference where I not only ran a workshop on Monday, but I am the Chair of the event for the first time. I have spoken for the ALI Conferences in the past for Social Media in Government, but this is my first chair. I feel very comfortable in this role as I have chaired other events, as well as had my share of event planning. The conference is being held in the Omni at CNN Center which is a quite an impressive venue. I am hoping I could run into Wolf or Piers in the hallways.

I am also grateful this event is in Atlanta where my sister lives real close, so I have been able to stay with her and bond with my nephew. As I am a Maryland resident, Atlanta is 11 hours away from me and so seeing my family and watching my nephew grow into a little man has been at least easier through social media. I am thankful technology keeps us connected. However, since this is only about the 6th time I have seen him and him me, having him remember who I am to him or who I am at all at 2.5 years old is a learning process every visit. Each time I see him, by the time he warms up to me, it is time to leave town.

I will be rounding out the end of this week in NYC for a project I hope I can be a part of and share with you about sometime soon.

Next week, I will be speaking on Social Media Return on Investment at Digital East from September 28-29, with my colleague at SMCDC Former President Larissa Fair.

After that, I plan to slow down a little and take a much needed vacation in October back to the West Coast for time with our family and friends in California.

If you stop by our booth (number 505), you can ask Jesse Wilkins, who also will be speaking on Social Media Governance on the 20th at 1:30pm or myself about our Social Business Roadmap. In fact, if you head over to Jesse’s blog post about the event, you can enter to win a free full conference pass.

If you’ve never been to FOSE before, then make 2011 the year you attend! There’s a reason (several, actually) why it’s the top government IT event in the country. FOSE features a FREE Expo with education sessions and over 400 IT solution providers, including Blackberry, Canon and Dell. Another excellent reason to attend FOSE: Apple founder Steve Wozniak will be one of this year’s keynote speakers!

This year’s Conference features advanced level sessions and keynotes across 5 tracks, including:

• Enabling the Mobile Government Workforce
• Cybersecurity, Network Defense and Information Assurance
• Next Generation Infrastructure Strategies
• Information Management & Collaboration

Interested in attending FOSE? Register today at http://bit.ly/FOSE20Reg for a 20% discount off the full conference rate!

Government Social Business will be a strong focus for 2011 and I believe that was kicked off nicely at the Gov20LA event two weeks ago in Santa Monica. I led a session there called a Structured Brainjam (a term we borrowed from one of my online mentors – Chris Heuer of Social Media Club fame), in which I presented the attendees a chance to weigh in on a topic raised during the two day event. One of the points up for discussion was changing the name of calling what we do in the aspect of Government 2.0. I have been on the record that I do not like iterative numbering of programs or content.

We know something is going to change, everything changes. Garbage’s second album was Garbage’s s “Version 2.0” (probably their most successful and well known album mind you), but they did not go on to make their next album 3.0. That would be silly. So we should approach all 2.0 programs and ideas as what are we trying to achieve. Well for me, I am trying to achieve the education of Social Business processes and programs under my division, Systems of Engagement for AIIM.

On a much larger scale, I think what is known now as the larger Government 2.0 community, there are several thrusts of what groups are trying to achieve. Open Government being one, but for me and several others, we will be focusing on Government Social Business (GSB). GSB is the evolution of current Government processes with the inclusion of social media and social collaboration to meet constituent needs and transparency when warranted.  I mention when warranted, because there are several mitigating factors to consider with GSB to include, but not limited only as FOIA and Privacy, not to mention the daunting task of Records Management that will have to be re-evaluated with the evolution of data that is now being created out in the open.

I do plan to blog and continue the discussion about Government Social Business on my various blogging platforms and twitter (@immunity), if you care to share your opinions.  I look forward to the conversation.

All in all, there are just a few days left in February and my survey of collecting your top business problems. I appreciate your 2 minutes to help answer just 10 questions.

The goal of the 2010 WIRe conference is to propel the Intelligence Community (IC) beyond the static use of tools toward a more dynamic point of cultural transformation and repurposing of the ways that we utilize online intelligence. As we investigate the differences between how the IC and the rest of the world use social media, we will pinpoint best practices across the social networking spectrum and examine how constantly evolving Web and social media tools impact the intelligence mission.

Who Should Attend:
The 2010 WIRe conference will foster networking opportunities for members of the IC, Department of Defence (DoD), military, and academic communities, as well as Government contracting and industry representatives.

This event is completely unclassified.

Just announced: WIReCamp — a networking & open brainstorming session during the WIRe conference next week! Bring your fresh ideas 4 #gov20

This moderated networking event will take place during the conference between 12-5pm each day. I am looking forward to moderating the event. Hope you can come with your ideas.

I will be attending this event, always moving forward in making Government more efficient and less redundant.

I am also looking forward to seeing Dion Hinchcliffe and Marcia Conner speak as well as the progress for the Apps for the Army and IDEO presentations.

If you are in the United States Government, Contractor, or state or local… DHS included, please think about registering and attending. Its not too late.

I have been blogging in some shape or form since 1999. I started blogging about concerts I attended and the occasional hi-jinks that ensued with my work as a music promoter. Over the years, I have transitioned to community management and supporting the Federal Government with Enterprise 2.0 best practices. Part of being a good community manager is to have a voice that can be heard above the rest of the noise of discussion in regards to presenting policy and guidelines, as well as mitigating wiki edit wars.

As such, I leverage my blog internally in my company and with the customers I support to organize the chaos. Blogs are an effective way to place a conversation or announcement you would normally send to a large email recipient list and can prevent those long chains of “reply all”.

This workshop is a follow-up to my previous talk at the last Potomac Forum I spoke at in August 2009, Hints for Communicating in Social Media.

To see the steps I have covered in my talk, please check out the wiki on GovCollab.

Blogs I contribute to on the open internet aside from this one:

• navstar-inc.com/blog – @navstar
• smcdc.wordpress.com – @smcdc
• Capital Beltway – @thebeltway

I am also a guest blogger for ZDNet and Social Computing Journal on topics of Enterprise 2.0 and Government 2.0. Occasionally, I am also asked to guest post on blogs, which I consider an honor and will link on my website. If you would like me to be a guest blogger on your site you can contact me via twitter (@immunity) to connect for more details.

During my talk, I will be asking the following questions to those in the audience to think about:

• What is your mission?
• Who is your target audience?
• How do you communicate now?
• What social media tools are right for you?

What is the Difference in all this 2.0 Stuff?

Internal vs. External Communication

Excusing my crappy excuse for drawing on a flipchart, you can see from my “illustration” above what the difference with all the buzzwords that are floating around. This is the main focus of my talk that I give when talking to people who are interested in knowing more, have heard the buzz and think they need “Facebook” or “Twitter” as their answer. But it may not be that simple. I previously discussed this back in April on a guest post on ZDNet, “You Were Never 1.0, but Get Ready for Enterprise 2.0“. Fortunately what I wrote then still holds true months later.

My aim is to prepare organizations, be it business or Government to make a knowledgeable transition into effective communication and workflow using Software as a Service or other Web 2.0 applications in an Enterprise manner. While there is much good being done by Social Media/Web evangelists — myself included, those intrigued should not get caught in the glamour and glitz of something new for new sake, but strategically plan around what the problem is that an organization is trying to solve. The “Jeopardy Method”, of giving the answer then ask the question/dilemma seems to be how things are getting done now. When the case should be — the question/dilemma is “Our Organization is Having a Problem Communicating externally, internally, capturing workflow, answering requests for information, etc… and we need to fix that by?” Identifying the problems, in detail before you have a solution in mind will help you choose the right tool for the job.

Sounds a little old school right? It should — using social media is just a new way of doing old business. Now project costs are lower because the software is not dependent of End User Licenses and pricey volume purchases. Now, you can find the best fit to solve the problem and then customize it yourself, or with a company that specializes in customization of known solution like Mantech and Jive‘s software. For example, Jive Software develops and provides the software  platform that Mantech customizes and supports onsite for their customers. The result, “A-Space”, a social networking and productivity site for the US Intelligence Community.

So I am sorry for the late night post, but I was just told tonight that C-Span will be recording and covering live the conference at the Reagan Building, I am a little nervous and definitely will be coloring my hair tonight. After my presentation, I will publish my slides (which I normally don’t do slides), for review. Addtionally, I will add, I do have a finished White Paper on “Enterprise 2.0 for Government” available by request.

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