This is my first true unconference. I've been at several quasi-unconferences so I get the gist of what's supposed to happen. However, I love the concept of creating content on the fly. I'm linking to the event wiki so that folks can see the agenda and notes from other sessions.

Kicking things off!

Bill Johnston and Kahliya Hamlin facilitated introductions of all the attendees. We each had about 20 seconds to tell folks who we were and what we were interested in. It's a nice way to get to know that crowd ahead of time.

Jumping into our first session (I'll try and clean these up and make them a little more blog-like later):

Optimizing Social Media i.e. how can companies leverage external communities/tools like Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Youtube to drive engagement and business value.

Jim Cashel, ForumOne:
- Should we be using Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and other third party communities?
- What sort of hooks do you use on your site to engage people in social media?

Jay Bryant, Liveworld
- Echoed question of how to use content? D

Tiffany Allen, Miran? Online (part of AOL)
- Working on member adoption. How do you get the audience that uses FB & Myspace to use their site.

Angie Ryan, Cyworld
- Thinking a lot about profile transferability?

Karen, Twing.com (Community Search Engine)
- Looking to find a way to reach their potential customers?

David Flores, TVGuide.com
- Want to extend their communities into social media (like FB). What are the best strategies?

Bill Johnston, ForumOne
- Interested in figuring out FO's and clients'

Brian Sotter, Autodesk
- Do you try be a widget like Google Maps or do you try and be a destination?

Patricia Han, TVGuide Online
- Echoed sentiment of crowd.

First question - how did Mzinga use social media to promote We Are Smarter?
-Aaron's answer: Leveraged FB, our wearesmarter.org, twitter and others blogs to promote the book and the site. What's most important is being a good community player.

Jewelry TV. Have two people dedicated to Facebook and Youtube. (Jay Bryant) Outbound awareness activities.

Jim talked about "Social Media Optimization" (the new SEO) and the fact that it's harder because unlike SEO, it's optizing around Google. Social Media Optization (SMO) is optimizing for multiple players. Jim also talked about the importance of good blogging (writing well, playing nice in the community, engaging.)

Question: how do you optimize Wikipedia?
1) For one, it's doing a good audit (how many times is a company metioned. What key topics are mentioned?
2) Stay neutral
3) Come at it from a community angle vs. a corporate angle.
4) Jay Bryant talked about how TV Guide Online went back and tried to create links back to their site on Wikipedia - this wasn't well received and the links were kicked out.

Jim also uses a site called Slideshare (streaming PPTS) and Eventful (events). Also use LinkedIn for job
recruiting. Using FB Group - useful mechanism for keeping in touch with existing members.

Karen at Twing.com asked how do you create a Facebook group that can succeed? Angie at Cyworld said that getting "fans" is a big part of success. The more people following you, the easier it is to get people to join a group.

Cyworld in particular is very targeted (she agrees that content is king - they have a number of in-house bloggers and writers to create content.)

IMPORTANT NOTE: Angie said that they've gone from calling writers, "writers" to "bloggers." They also have resources that are in charge of blogger relations.

AOL has done a number of widgets - one of their shortcomings is that they haven't optimized for Facebook yet.

Jay asked, how do you measure the effect of this?
- Angie said that they measure adoption of Facebook.
- TVGuide Online actively goes out to message boards, Myspace and any other fan communities and teases them with new and unique content e.g. interview with the cast of Lost. Bloggers or community manager like this because they've got the "scoop."

Jim asked if this is a good use of resources?
- Patricia answered that she thinks it works but questions whether or not this is scalable.

Angie asked if TVGuide allowed users to "break news."
- David answered that yes they were able to do this through their blogs or via upload of videos. They don't provide tools that facilitate mashups.

Aaron talked about the fact that scaling social media marketing is difficult but there is an opportunity to

"influence the influencers." Robert Scoble as an example is someone that has created a real brand with a broad reach. Hooking into his network has a powerful effect (but Robert obviously will not promote things that he doesn't feel are beneficial to others.)

The group talked about music - people like Ashley Tisdale, Radiohead and Britney Spears about how they use social media to promote their brand.

Session Two: Twitter Strategies for the Enterprise (I lead this session):

This one is easy because Bill Johnston of ForumOne took notes and posted them on the ForumOne Unconference wiki.

Session Three: Who Owns Community?

coming next...