Happy Social Media Week!

Feb 13-17, in case you missed it.  Just watched a great archived webcast from the SAP Conference for Social Media Week.  Mark Yolton of SAP, Rachel Happe of The Community Roundtable, and Maggie Fox of the Social Media Group delivered a lot of insights about the new ways employee engagement and marketing work in the social media environment.  Some of my favorite bits, with implications for internal communications:

• When you're dealing with truly engaged social communities, you need to be prepared and willing to embrace the quirks of human behavior.  (Mark Y.)  Meaning you need to basically like people and who they are, and not basically fear what "they" will do to "your" social media.  
• As you build online communities, have the sponsorship and executive coverage to allow you to "fail forward fast." (Mark Y.)  Being completely careful will likely mean you will be passed up in the emerging marketplace.  Correct quickly and move on.
• In a business world where every conceivable process has been optimized, relationships and culture are the only sustainable advantage.  (Rachel H.)  My own take on this is that professional communicators can really help sustain that advantage by saving people from drowning in social options: streamlining.
• Present state of marketing: no filters + low barriers to entry = high noise-to-signal ratio.  (Maggie F.)  Contrast that to the day when TV advertising ruled.  Not news for consumer marketing, but now the true description of what it feels like in the internal comms environment as well.  

Over 90 minutes, but many "aha" moments make it well worth the time for your communications team.