Second Thinking (Not Second Thoughts) About the Twebinar

I wrote about it last week and have blogged about it as well, but now that the hype has faded and the dust has settled regarding last week's Twebinar conducted by Radian6, Cross Tech Media and Chris Brogan, I have some additional thoughts to add.  With distance comes perspective, so I am adding two more cents to my commentary, making my total four cents.

My latest thinking is that there was a tremendous amount of hype that accompanied the Twebinar.  I helped pimp it myself.  Since I like to back up my blatherings with some statistics, I consulted Tweetscan to check the number of times the term "Twebinar" was mentioned, because when I checked last week, it was a fair amount.

The result?

"Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ';' in /home/ts/public_html/cache/s-twebinar-u--p-0-d- on line 17"

I'm no programmer, but the message above tells me that Tweetscan is busted and someone needs to go in and fix a line of code (line 17, if anyone at Tweetscan is reading this).  So it is completely unintended, but it is a perfect segway into my thinking about the Twebinar:

1. Building and promoting an event that became so large that WebEx could not handle it and basing a large part of it on Twitter is dangerous as hell.  I mean, the "replies" tab on Twitter was not even working, so Chris and David Alston had to do a work-around with Summize.  It was fast thinking on their part, but this thing was billed as "ground breaking."  There was a lot of breaking, but most of it was on the technology front with Twitter and WebEx.
   
   My job-issued PC could not handle the event, so I was lucky enough to bring my Mac, which could.  I am a Firefox user, but having all of those tabs open was confusing, while trying to take notes, post comments on Summize, listen to the video as well as Chris narrating was sensory overload.  I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, so you can imagine the challenges I confronted.
   
   I again congratulate and laud Chris and David for making this happen, but I'll tell you that there is no way that I would dare compete in the Indy 500 and base my success upon driving a 1974 Pinto.  I don't trust Twitter, although I keep reminding people of two fundamental facts:  First, it's free, and you get what you pay for; and second, give me the $150 million and I'll make the damn "replies" tab work pretty fast.
   
   
2. Mashups have been around for a long time, and again, I give Chris and David credit for having the guts to base their event on a fundamentally unstable platform.  But to me, I came to the Twebinar first to learn, and second to find out about the "wow" factor.  I learned quite a bit, not necessarily about social media, but how to translate it into business-oriented terms.  I got a lot of take-aways from people like Shel Holtz, Shel Israel and others.  But when you take a step back, it was Twitter and video from some very smart people.  And a web-cam commentary from Chris.
   
   
3. Chris has been kind enough to let me know that he'll give me access to the archive soon, but I really want to go back and listen to the speakers again.  I was taking notes and switching screens pretty quickly, so I missed some of what could have been the "wow" moments.  The one that stuck with me was Richard Binhammer of Dell saying that since they have begun using social media to enhance communication with customers, complaints have gone down by 30 percent.  This is a compelling statistic (although I have to wonder how much the call center in India fiascos contributed to these declines).
   
   
4. My final thought is about the definition of "game changing."   I am anxiously awaiting the archive so I can really pay attention this time, but I think that social media is not necessarily a game-changing maneuver, but one that is manifested using social media tools.  The magic is not in the technology, but in their strategic application.  I teach this probably ad nauseum, but many of what the experts in the videos discussed could are based upon sound public relations ideas, like Arthur Page's principles:
   
   
• Listen to the customer. To serve the company well, understand what the public wants and needs. Keep top decision makers and other employees informed about public reaction to company products, policies and practices.
• Manage for tomorrow. Anticipate public reaction and eliminate practices that create difficulties. Generate goodwill.
• Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy should be implemented without considering its impact on the public. The public relations professional is a policy maker capable of handling.

Again, I give Chris and David all the credit in the world, but I am not sure I am convinced that social media is truly "game changing."

Mark Story is a part-time, adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a full-time communications professional at a government agency in Washington, D.C. Prior to the government, Mark worked for 11 years in some of the largest online public relations shops in the world.  If it's working, tweet him at mstory123.