Upcoming Social Media Conference

Northern Voice 2010 is getting underway in Vancouver, BC this weekend. It’s a conference put on by the local tech community focusing on social media and blogging. There’s a wide range of topics, from Wikifying the CBC: Social software at CBC Radio 3 (crowdsourcing the creation of content) to Finding Your Online Voice (defining you and your brand online). Tickets are sold out if you are interested in attending, though I did see a few floating around on Twitter in the last few days.

If you are interested in getting an idea of what the conference is about, a number of sessions from previous years have been recorded and are available online. One of my favorites from last year is Dan Schick’s presentation on the topic “Social Media in Large Organizations”. In his presentation, he notes that you need to get organizational wide buy-in when starting with social media. And a great way of doing this is to gain input from a wide range of people as you create the policies and guidelines that will govern your organization’s social media use. It’s the process of creating those policies that is important. As you get input from key stakeholders, you build trust about how social media is going to be incorporated into an organization. As he notes, “trust is the key to opportunity”. You can view Dan’s presentation on Social Media in Large Organizations on Youtube or visit the Northern Voice wiki.