social business "players"

Hi All -

Thinking about the kinds of companies or people we might want to attract to a Soc Biz Workshop, I searched on "social business" (duh!).  Very quick searches; by no means comprehensive nor representative, turns up examples such as:


*         An event held in Europe last summer:  http://www.socialbusinessforum.com/category/speakers/ (Just to give a broad list of people who have apparently stood up in public and promoted these ideas.)  Appears that event was probably sponsored by an org called OpenKnowledge, who says they are an international company specialized in Social Business Design:  http://www.open-knowledge.it/en


*         Another similar event - "Social Business Summit" http://www.socialbusinesssummit.com/ sponsored by the Dachis Group, a self-described "social marketing optimization software solutions leader" http://www.dachisgroup.com/about-us/ .  I note that IBM is a big sponsor of both of those events.

Companies we regularly hear from are: IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Jive, Yammer (now owned by Microsoft).  Sorry, Mark, I probably wouldn't be in a position to hear if SAP is ringing our bells... likely they are!  Look also at the list of sponsors for the first event to get ideas of others.

My main point is, there is a LOT of activity going on regarding "social business".  Who are the key participants, opinion makers and users we want to attract? How will we snag them?  What do they need, from a standards point-of-view? Those examples represent some European and American situations.  What's going on elsewhere?  etc...

There's so much more to know and consider than the teeny bits we've talked about.  Part of feeling more comfortable with promoting a workshop is to do some of that research.

  -- Ann