SF Bay

What will change the business world in 2012?

It depends who you are, but there are some mega-trends that permeate through a variety of job functions and industries. Here are some that are flying up the adoption curve:

Social business

The last 20 years of behavioral and technological change have taken us to the point where interactions on the web are starting to replace face-to-face interactions. This is going far beyond membership and presence in social networks and you will see new tools enabling new forms of collaboration, transparency and monitoring both internally and externally.

Mobile business

“The Pew Internet Project finds that one third of American adults – 35% – own smartphones” and this number will only continue to rise. Whether it’s a tablet, smartphone or virtual desktop, work and information consumption are happening anywhere and anytime. The adoption curve is still in its early stages here but you’ll see applications, advertising, email, video and work productivity optimized for mobile devices in the coming years.

Cloud computing

Remember when the Internet would tie up your phone line, it took minutes for pages to load and nobody over 30 knew how to use it? 15 years later it has infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Email and online notifications are standard communication tools, your global sales team can see and sync real-time contact data thanks to SaaS CRM, anybody can share calendars and edit documents with collaboration tools like Google Docs, and you can present to anyone in the world live through the Web. The Internet will grow more powerful and data will increasingly flow through “the cloud.”

Business intelligence and analytics

Do you know the value of the work you do every day? Do you know how you could be more efficient and valuable to your company? Software can tell you. No matter what function or sector you work in you are producing data that should be analyzed. IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign encapsulates this perfectly. Costs will be reduced, people will be more productive, and products or services that aren’t proving their worth will be exposed. Everything can and should be measured. Soon you’ll know whether all your investments and efforts are worthwhile.

Automation

The world is going to be run by robots! Not yet, but technology can reduce error, free up resources and make every business more efficient. Data center IT automation is getting off the ground, CRM systems can be integrated with web forms and engagement data and automated for lead distribution, content can be automatically published and controlled with RSS feeds, trading floors are losing ground to trading algorithms and the days of real people at the other end of phone calls are numbered. The positive is that automation doesn’t necessarily mean loss of jobs – it just means people will get to stop doing busy work and start making a bigger impact.

Instability

Disruptive companies are getting millions and billions of dollars in investment to take down tradition and change the way we live. Companies and industries are starting and stopping at a breakneck pace while governments and banks are at risk of default around the world. It won't be next year, but maybe sometime soon the world will be able to look back at the innovations of 2012, take a deep breath and watch the economy grow again.

Belize

Jaguar

Cricket & waterlillies

Tobacco Caye cabana

Fan palm

Spot the croc

Green Week

This marks the third year we've hosted a Green Week around Earth Day. We've had over 6,000 professionals sign up for the events over the last two years and have facilitated the sharing of some incredible knowledge. This year is no different with speakers from organizations including Autodesk, Forrester, NASA, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Pacific Institute, and many more. Since it's an online event you can save the costs and environmental impact of your travel and simply tune in from your desk or couch.

In company news, we're rolling out our first BrightTALK™ Summit widgets this week, so I've put one on display below. You can also find a nice full page ad in the May issue of Scientific American if you happen to pick up a copy.

A BrightTALK Summit

London, spring 2011

A series of photos from my trip to London:

South Kensington

Camden

Museum of Natural History

Camden Town

Borough Market

On-site or online events? What about both?

There has been plenty of debate over the past few years about the comparative value of online and face-to-face events. We’ve seen some companies abandon trade shows, while others cling to them and insist that online events are just a fleeting trend. There is another group that has adopted a balanced mix of online and on-site events.

Although BrightTALK™ focuses on online events, it’s clear to me that there is value in both. Our San Francisco office is just blocks from one of the largest convention centers in the United States and we see hordes of professionals roaming the streets during events like the RSA Conference, Dreamforce, and the Web 2.0 Expo. I often attend in-person events and always try to make it to our local B2B Marketing Breakfasts. I also tune into a few webcasts each month, most of which have presenters speaking from other states, or even other countries.

At a recent Think Influence meet-up, I was talking about the group’s content plan with its founder, Barbara French, and we discussed the fact that group members in other cities wouldn’t be able to participate in the upcoming presentations without flying in for the day.

We decided to host the first event of the year at the BrightTALK San Francisco office, and to stream the presentation on turning influencers into brand advocates as a live video in the BrightTALK™ Social Media Marketing Summit. This would allow us to extend the reach of the presentation to include marketers in other regions as well as those who live locally, but couldn’t make it to the meet-up that morning. Having it recorded will enable anyone to enjoy the content at anytime from anywhere.

We now have about 50 top local marketers coming into the office to participate as a live audience, and another 250 signed up to watch online from 31 states and 16 countries (Update: there have now been over 1,000 views including on-demand viewers).

For everyone in the office, it will be a great chance to spend the morning with their peers, and for everyone online, a convenient way to learn from the speakers without worrying about travel, cost, or their busy work schedules. I see it as the best of both worlds, and evidence that both event formats can live in harmony. Here's the proof:

A BrightTALK Channel

Grooveshark

This is by no means a self-serving promotion, but I would like to say that I've been using Grooveshark for my streaming music needs lately, and it's a fantastic site. It is similar to Pandora, but allows you to create a music library, which is basically an iTunes in the cloud. That means you can save songs in your library, create playlists, and best of all, access this on any computer or device that's connected to the Internet. I like Pandora because they create mixes that expose me to songs I otherwise wouldn't notice, but now Grooveshark is also implementing a social networking capability, which allows you to connect with friends and see what they're listening to.

I found out about this in a creepy way, when my friend caught me listening to Mariah Carey, but I think it has interesting potential, and I'd suggest checking it out. They now charge for their Android app, which makes business sense, but made me uninstall the app, but the website remains free to use. Here's a widget with my jam of the week: