March 10, 2009 63 Comments

The Importance of the Physical World

Molson

At a party in Toronto a few weeks back, Ferg Devins and the Molson team brought out several different beers to taste. Also on the table were some of the ingredients that went into their products. Now, it wasn’t like we were going to make beer there, nor did many people actually pick up or touch or otherwise interact with those ingredients, but by them being there, we all had this sense of the beer being very fresh, very wholesome, very authentic.

One thing that I feel is missing with all our focus on how social media will change the world is an eye for what we can do to introduce the physical world back into the equation. I’m going to correct that in a few ways in upcoming projects, as I move beyond preaching about how cool blogs are and into making experiences that help with building remarkable business communications experiences.

Want an example of a physical tie-in? Look at what Colin Browning from New Marketing Labs is doing with his Innovator’s Road Trip to SXSW.

What kinds of physical-meets-social-media tie ins have you built out lately?

Related posts:

  1. People in the Real World
  2. Communications in a Post Media World
  3. Marketers in a Social Network World
  4. Secrets of the Annotated World
  5. The Optional World

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  • http://www.velvetchainsaw.com Dave Lutz

    Interesting comments on incorporating social media with conferences or tradeshows. I’m a business consultant for the meeting and convention industry. I think many groups have tried tying the two together but haven’t realized enough attendee adoption on the virtual side.

    I think the main challenge is that the discussions rarely have leadership, moderation or a consistent stream of interesting content. If you put a solution out there and just say sign up, there will likely be no value created. There needs to be a number of leaders that get the conversation going and keep stoking it on a regular basis. Ideally that conversation and leadership would come from the speakers or panelists of the conference.

    There are also a number of matchmaking solutions used in the tradeshow industry. These are intended to match buyer profile with exhibitor products and services; recommend specific education sessions (kind of like Amazon does for books) and match up attendees with similar interests.

    Another common tool for large shows is a personal expo planner. This is where you would select the exhibits you want to see in advance and a customized floor plan would be generated showing all of your stops.

    Are these the kind of tools that you would help improve your conference or tradeshow experience?

  • http://www.velvetchainsaw.com Dave Lutz

    Interesting comments on incorporating social media with conferences or tradeshows. I’m a business consultant for the meeting and convention industry. I think many groups have tried tying the two together but haven’t realized enough attendee adoption on the virtual side.

    I think the main challenge is that the discussions rarely have leadership, moderation or a consistent stream of interesting content. If you put a solution out there and just say sign up, there will likely be no value created. There needs to be a number of leaders that get the conversation going and keep stoking it on a regular basis. Ideally that conversation and leadership would come from the speakers or panelists of the conference.

    There are also a number of matchmaking solutions used in the tradeshow industry. These are intended to match buyer profile with exhibitor products and services; recommend specific education sessions (kind of like Amazon does for books) and match up attendees with similar interests.

    Another common tool for large shows is a personal expo planner. This is where you would select the exhibits you want to see in advance and a customized floor plan would be generated showing all of your stops.

    Are these the kind of tools that you would help improve your conference or tradeshow experience?

  • http://www.sharona.co.il/ sharonam

    IRL is doing a first step in that direction – creating a visual social network based on location based services.
    http://www.irlconnect.com – bringing facebook & twitter to google maps as of yesterday.

  • http://www.sharona.co.il/ sharonam

    IRL is doing a first step in that direction – creating a visual social network based on location based services.
    http://www.irlconnect.com – bringing facebook & twitter to google maps as of yesterday.

  • sharona

    IRL is doing a first step in that direction – creating a visual social network based on location based services.
    http://www.irlconnect.com – bringing facebook & twitter to google maps as of yesterday.

  • http://twitter.com/franswaa frank

    I don’t have a personal example, but i’ve seen some cool things happening!

    Churches are using Twitter!
    @Dana Lookadoo shared this link with me earlier today – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29588220/ – it’s about a new age church promoting Twitter while preaching. the church was encouraging people to tweet the sermon (or what ever they wanted to tweet related to listening to the sermon). pretty cool. though i wonder if anyone talked to each other in person :)

    http://twitter.com/franswaa

  • http://twitter.com/franswaa frank

    I don’t have a personal example, but i’ve seen some cool things happening!

    Churches are using Twitter!
    @Dana Lookadoo shared this link with me earlier today – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29588220/ – it’s about a new age church promoting Twitter while preaching. the church was encouraging people to tweet the sermon (or what ever they wanted to tweet related to listening to the sermon). pretty cool. though i wonder if anyone talked to each other in person :)

    http://twitter.com/franswaa

  • http://twitter.com/franswaa frank

    I don’t have a personal example, but i’ve seen some cool things happening!

    Churches are using Twitter!
    @Dana Lookadoo shared this link with me earlier today – http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29588220/ – it’s about a new age church promoting Twitter while preaching. the church was encouraging people to tweet the sermon (or what ever they wanted to tweet related to listening to the sermon). pretty cool. though i wonder if anyone talked to each other in person :)

    http://twitter.com/franswaa

  • http://www.moodstep.com Joanna

    Then I guess that even if my blog is not commercial, it is a physical-meets-social-media. The net has always been for me a tool to meet people. 10 years ago I typed my birthdate in a search engine and met one of my birthdate twin. :)

  • http://www.moodstep.com Joanna

    Then I guess that even if my blog is not commercial, it is a physical-meets-social-media. The net has always been for me a tool to meet people. 10 years ago I typed my birthdate in a search engine and met one of my birthdate twin. :)

  • http://www.moodstep.com Joanna

    Then I guess that even if my blog is not commercial, it is a physical-meets-social-media. The net has always been for me a tool to meet people. 10 years ago I typed my birthdate in a search engine and met one of my birthdate twin. :)

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