TalentBridge is hosting another E1O1 session and this time we are dedicating the session to a discussion around Social Media. The world took notice when Microsoft paid $150 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook back in late 2007 raising the valuation of Facebook to a whooping $15 billion, and the world actually fell backwards when Facebook recently accepted a $200 million investment from Digital Sky Technologies for 1.96 percent of Facebook stake giving Facebook a valuation of $10 billion. What is happening with this Social Media …

So we know and agree … the world is going crazy about social media … anyone who is anyone … or to that matter, even those who are not, are climbing on the Social Media bandwagon. Talk of a modern day wild wild west, and this would definitely qualify. I am frequently approached by friends and acquaintances who want to create a social media presence, but rarely know why. Most often it is all about … but is’nt that the new thing. And almost always, my immediate response is … no it is not. Social Media, as I see it, is an age old concept packaged in a new attractive box with an attractive label and absolutely no understanding on part of the majority that the package has the same old same old. It is all about creating and mainting a perception, and the art of creating and maintaing perceptions has existed since time immortal … afterall are’nt we still arguing if there was really a “man on the moon”. In essence this is how I see it and this is what we want to ask our E1O1 expert tonight –  molding public opinion, whether in business, politics or just in our personal lives, is an art form that (if not well) is widely understood. So why then, if social media is nothing but a tool for influencing the opinions and perceptions of people at large, is there such a sudden swell of interest in it … and more importantly why does everyone seem to be struggling with it.

Scott Lake, from ThinkSM, is leading the E1O1 session today evening which (as always) will be held at the home of TalentBridge i.e. Entrepreneurship Centre (110 Laurier Ave West, Ground floor of City Hall). Over the last little while, Scott and I have been having discussions around entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship development in Ottawa and Scott with his ever giving take on life and with his infectious energy and passion for entrepreneurship has emerged as one of the strongest supporters of the TalentBridge program and a personal source of energy, wisdom and inspiration for me. The session tonight is titled “Man on the moon: Reality or just Social Media”, and Scott will be leading the discussion on the relevance and importance of Social Media for our businesses and for us personally to position ourselves successfully. The spin – as highlighted above – is “Social media is not a web phenomenon, it has existed since ever … web is just a new way of doing it … but we still need to understand the broader deeper aspects of social media to leverage web for it”. Specifically, we are going to have Scott lead the discussion on some broad topics:

• his personal journey into Social Media
• a brief history of ThinkSM (Scott’s Social Media company)
• Social Media metrics – the lack and need of them
• what do we all see working and not working in social media (in Ottawa particularly)
• “Man on the moon”. What are our collective thoughts on it? If what we have now, with Twitter and all, is Social Media 2.0 then should we call that Social Media -2.0 (minus 2.0)
• How do we see SM being really leveraged by all of us in our business endeavours
• If not for business, what can SM be used for
• Plus as always – as it is with E1O1 – any other ideas, insights, stories ….. anything really