After mentioning the excellent #tags tweet-up that happened after the last Likeminds I find myself pushing forward a meeting this Thursday (18th March 2010) with a few others. I hope that at least a few people attend and that we can make some connections that mutually benefit the participants and help the wider community. After Scott Gould (Likeminds co-founder) asks what can you achieve if you turn your community into connections – what can the Exeter Likeminds community achieve if we connect in a more meaningful way than just via twitter?

I would like people thinking of coming on Thursday to consider this question -

What do you want to get out of #tags?

While I’m sure we will have a great time networking at The Old Fire House in New North Road (we have the Attic Bar exclusively booked, thanks to Jon Colmer & the owners of The Old Fire House) I wonder what more could we achieve?

I would like to propose that every other month the #tags tweet-up is structured like the original meeting with an overall topic theme, a guest speaker and panel of local businesses and organisations sharing experiences and best practices. This Person to People (thanks Scott for the terminology) is followed by an open debate and maybe true People to People conversations in smaller groups. I would also like to see a local endeavour highlighted (like those highlighted at Likeminds), this could be a charity of and individual doing something for charity – I know that there are a few doing some amazing stuff. In the alternating months a more casual tweet-up is held – maybe around a social event like a band playing or whatever. A chance to network but on a very informal basis.

What does the community of Exeter Like Minded people feel to that? Feel free to comment below – or more importantly come along on Thursday 18th March, the Attic Bar at The Old Fire House, New North Road, Exeter from 6pm – 9pm and answer in person.

After attending the first conference and by following the excellent Like Minds Blog site I was very clear on what I expected to get. I expected the conference to be ‘high-minded’ – with a title People-2-People you wouldn’t expect it to be a workshop on how to use Twitter. Equally, looking at the roster of speakers I didn’t expect it to be about Devon businesses – even though there were plenty of local small business tidbits in there. Like Minds delivered what I expected – I thoroughly enjoyed absorbing the ideas and thoughts that were, by nearly every speaker, superbly delivered. I was surprised however at how entertaining at times the presentation were – more a kin to a concert or comedy show than a business conference! I loved it.

Like Minds 2010 Speakers - photo Benjamin Ellis

But best of all was the chance to network and have conversations with people right across business sectors and parts of the country (and the World). And this raises the question in my mind what will the legacy of Like Minds be to Exeter, Devon and the Westcountry? I have no doubt that Scott and Drew now have the opportunity to take Like Minds to a new level. (Maybe an international level – Like Minds USA perhaps?) I hope that it retains its Exeter connection in the future because I believe we need these water-shed events to inspire us. But what can we working here in our small businesses in the Westcountry hope to get from it?

I’ve already read some comments about how Like Minds didn’t provide useful information for small businesses like those found here in Devon. And on the face of it I can understand that – it didn’t specifically. But I knew that before I went – I believe that my job as a participant was to absorb the contents of Like Minds and re-hash and re-mix it into something that works for my business sector. (I intend to blog about these ideas soon.) But how can we ‘locals’ use these ideas to help benefit one another?

After the last Like Minds there was a tweetup called #tags in Exeter that I thought was brilliant and answers the question about Like Minds legacy. It was a simple two hour tweetup that local practitioners and businesses could attend but it had a bit of a structure that allowed people to share experiences and tips of how to use socialmedia/buisness/communications. Unfortunately it only happened once and although there were subsequent #tags tweetups (which is great) they were the more normal gatherings in a pub. And I feel that loses the opportunity for a more constructed and helpful event. The web site http://tagssocialmedia.co.uk/ stands sadly stuck in December 2009. I believe that for local business to benefit from Like Minds we need this type of event to take the world-class thinking captured at the conference and remix it (I love Jonathan Akwue use of remix in his speech) so that it is relevant and useful to our practices.

I think the legacy from Like Minds could be great for the city of Exeter and for businesses in and around the area but we need to work at it and put a structure forward so that we can build those people 2 people connections that the conference talked about. And for my part I’m not just saying that someone else should do this I offer my help in achieving it but I’d love to know what other local practitioners and business people think? What is the Like Minds local legacy?

Thanks to Benjamin Ellis for the photo.

I picked up on the conference on Twitter. For the last few months I’ve followed the twitter of comments online about social media, marketing and pr. I read the blogs of various Exeter and Devon based opinion leaders and slowly became more and more curious about this new form of communication. I say communication at this point and not conversation because I was not really contributing to the proceedings. I instinctively didn’t want to add more noise to the world until I had a purpose and something to say. So I watched the debate develop. When the opportunity to turn my voyeurism into reality with the LikeMinds’s conference I took it and this is what I found;

Firstly, I was impressed with the number and diversity of the crowd that gathered outside The Exeter Conference Centre. I was then shocked to find one or two people I knew inside. After catching up and a cup of coffee I was genuinely excited to hear the speakers – there was a real buzz in the air. I had no idea what to expect and I certainly had paid no attention to the conference title about Return on Investment (more on that later). As the speakers did their stuff on stage and the audience were entertained by the Twitterfall back of stage I was filled with a strange mix of feelings. It was exciting to feel part of something new and cutting edge, yet also the debate about social groups, conversations, building communities felt old – as old as humanity itself – the need for us to be social. It all seemed so common sense (in a good way) that businesses and organisations need to have a two-way conversation with their publics and here was an efficient and cheap set of tools and technologies to facilitate that.

I particularly enjoyed Trey’s and Olivier’s talks – those American accents I think gave the conference a real international – global feel. But all the speakers spoke with real personal insight on Social Media.

The questions asked by the audience brought a focus to the conference from the more general ideological presentations to ‘what is Social Media worth’ and ‘what’s the ROI’. The debate that raged on Twitter after the conference over the following days also bore down on this point. As I’ve already said I didn’t go with an eye to discovering this but more to learn more about, what is to me a new medium. It occurs to me that – like many have blogged about – Social Media is new and unproven, but so was the World Wide Web in the nineties and that to ask for specific proof that Social Media has a profitable ROI is premature. History is still in the making. Maybe it is all a fad, maybe its a fundamental shift in the way we do business and if you don’t get onboard you’ll be left behind – maybe you just have to make a choice on what you believe and deal with the consequences.

I also think that – again as many have said – that the real ROI is not about the numbers its more fuzzy than that. As LikeMind’s organiser, Scott, says – look around you for my ROI, meaning here are hundreds of people engaging in conversation, brought together as a community purely using Social Media tools. And that’s me, because I am a return on the investment of the organisers. Why? Because;

1. I am engaging in the process – by writing this blog and Tweeting about it.
2. I am discovering a voice and seeking a purpose that will develop my brand and start a ROI of my own.
3. I will be part of the conversation and be part of a virtual and real world community, I will make contacts and hopefully friends.
4. I can bring my skills, my talents to a wider audience – that helps me and those around me.

The actual ROI that I bring? Who knows yet but maybe you are reading this and I can bring something that you need to a project, solve a problem or generally be an asset to your business or organisation that you would not of had with out the LikeMinds’s connection.

Social Media, bring it on! Lets have a conversation, lets work together, lets share information and lets connect – I need the work! The company and the stimulation of working with other like-minded people.

Thank-you for reading and – Hello my name is Rob Glover, nice to meet you.

@robglover_uk