First I would like to dedicate this post to Mum of a LEGO Kid, because you just convinced me to drag myself out of my self-pity (I have a cold!) and reflect on what were my Aha-moments from last week’s Conference on Social Media and User-generated Content.

So a rather intimate affair, we were around 50-60 people in total and from a refreshing variety of companies ranging from CNN, Yahoo, Coca-Cola, Deutsche Bank, TripAdvisor, E.On, Honda, Habbo Hotel, Spannerworks and many more. Although initially I was expecting something bigger, the frankness of the discussion and the willingness of people to share their thinking and ideas was great – it seems a smaller conference is more conducive to that, rather than a bigger one where you never get to know everyone there.

Interestingly, there were also plenty of different approaches to the subject matter – from literally how to do corporate blogging by VisitBritain.com to my own talk about how we at LEGO strive to not only involve lead users in our product development, as was the case with LEGO Mindstorms NXT, LEGO Hobby Train and now the LEGO Universe MMOG but also have created ways for everyone to design their very own LEGO products via LEGO Factory and are gradually setting up structures to open up our business platform to our fans and LEGO certified professionals, creating an business ecosystem around LEGO.

Honda contributed with a case studies of their recent marketing campaigns on ‘Hate Something Change Something‘ and ‘Hondamentalism‘, both which I thought were brilliantly executed campaigns, but somehow I was a little disappointed not to see a truer user-focus from them – i.e users really having a big say in what Honda does, more than just interact around the campaigns.. perhaps it is hard to do as a car manufacturer, but somehow I would like them to be different and do it anyway! (call me a hopeless romantic!)

Coca-Cola talked about how coke music was the spring board for many a young aspiring artist and how the community here took off – of course needless to say, music has a strong tribal effect particularly on young people so hats off to Coke for making it happen. Another piece of inspiration came from Yahoo, whose Yahoo Answers is an interesting way to create discussion around a topic and find answers to all your questions, whatever they may be. Not that revolutionary you may say, but think of it this way – Wikipedia is great if you want to find the explanation to something you have stumbled on, but aren’t sure of the details. Yahoo answers is great if you have a question, but don’t know the answer.. You with me? Hmmm… perhaps not the best explanation – but essentially I’m trying to say that here community interaction is focused around problem solving, where the collective brain of hundreds of thousands of Internet users can come to your rescue whatever the problem.

Also, I can’t help but love the pixelated world of Habbo, created by my fellow Finns at Sulake Corporation – also a massively multi-player on-line game, this one primarily at teen-agers and very funny in its approach to characters, locations – you name it.   

So ultimately if I was to distill my thoughts from the conference without making this too long a post it would be this:

1. Create an open platform – platforms work better than closed solutions, because you can never quite anticipate how people will use things you create. If you have a platform, more things are possible and it is easier to reconfigure stuff that doesn’t work. Open platforms means its easy for advocates to get others on-board, and you do want a bustling community for it to make sense!
2. Unite people behind something they care about – Social networking is great, but after you’ve got all your mates on Facebook or Myspace, why would you go anywhere else? Good question. Ultimately we tend to be more open about meeting new people when it is around a subject we are really in to – immediately we have something in common with these strangers and it is easy to strike up a conversation. On-line it is very similar too.
3. Make it useful – Whatever fancy community you want to create, this links to the above point. Many an idea dies a horrible death, because beyond the novelty factor, it really doesn’t do much. The bits that people come back to over and over again are the useful bits. Wikipedia is useful. Linked-in is useful too, these things have a purpose people get and hence I predict they will be around for a long while. Facebook has a chance of being around far longer than Myspace, because they went for an open platform, allowing people to come up with tons and tons of widgets and applications (some useful, some less useful), but at least they are there and things happen at a breakneck speed, so there is a reason to keep coming back for more than just checking on your mates.
4. Don’t manipulate, facilitate - This one is very much about the approach. Meaningful things happen trough facilitation, only bad things happen through manipulation. Enough said. Help people to make a difference and you help yourself.
5. Be truthful and honest (and humble) – No, Social Media is not some sort of smoke and mirrors thing you can douse a failing product line in and miraculously see it recover.. it is essentially a dialogue and nobody wants to discuss anything with a liar and a cheat. To involve users you have to be honest and truthful, not think you can use this thing to warp people’s perception from bad to good. Moreover, treat people with respect – always. I get so furious for instance when I hear people talk about driving traffic to websites by comment spamming – no, it doesn’t work. You look like an idiot trying to advertise Cillit Bang by posing as Barry the character from the adverts on someone’s blog..
6. Have some fun! Yes it can all be very serious sometimes and uniting people in laughter is a great one, however – it’s more of an ingredient, as not all people will find all things funny all the time. Also, people who share a common interest or passion are more likely to be able to share something funny between them and boy, sometimes we all need cheering up!

Last, but not least I’ll do a plug for our friends at Spannerworks, who have created a no-nonsense guide to all things social media in a nifty E-Book you can download and dazzle your friends with in-depth knowledge. Or as Forrester research puts it ‘Social Computing is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Gradually, Social Computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world.’ Forrester Research, Social Computing – How Networks Erode Institutional Power, And What to Do About It