Business Insight Zone

This morning I got to attend my second — and Austin’s third — Social Media Breakfast. (See more about last month’s Breakfast here.) These SMBs have been put together by recent Boston-to-Austin transplant and all-around good guy Bryan Person. [Addendum: this one was held on the back porch of Rudy's BBQ -- lovely breakfast tacos! -- on a gorgeous fall morning.]

Today’s speaker was Peter Kim, formerly of Forrester Research and now of The Startup With No Name, which is headquartered here but has staff members — including Peter — in Boston. Continuing the Boston-and-Austin theme, Peter was joined by Boston-based colleague Brian Haven (another Forrester alum) and Austin-based colleague Kate Niederhoffer.

Peter’s theme, which led to all sorts of friendly-but-pointed debate, was “Does Social Marketing Matter?” Peter works firmly in the social-media space and has been a marketer throughout his career, so he has lots of thoughts in this vein. To open his talk, he brought up some of the notorious social-media disasters of 2006 . . . none of which had any discernible effect on the companies they befell.

My basic answer to Peter’s guiding question is “Not yet,” which seemed to resonate well with one of his closing observations about social media as a whole: “It’s early.” During the course of the talk, a lot of the smart folks in the audience shared their ideas about what social media is and isn’t doing for now, and how it might be used going forward. To be honest, the session had a chaotic feel to it — my notes are a mess — but (a) that might be expected, given the protean nature of corporate social media at this point, and (b) it’s all right with me, since it reveals how much opportunity remains to grow and clarify (and, no doubt, re-complicate) our ideas about social media.

At any event like this, some of the highlights are always the conversations you have before and after with old friends and new. This time, I got to talk with:

• Havens (about whose writing I blogged last week, having no idea I would meet him this week);
• Niederhoffer (from whom I hope to learn much more about psychology’s impact on business);
• Dell blogger Amie Paxton;
• my old pal Jon Lebkowsky;
• Karen Kreps (who, among other things, writes for The Good Life, where I used to have a column); and
  . . . drum roll, please . . .
• Gary Hoover, the founder of Hoover’s!

If you attended today’s Breakfast, feel free to chime in with your own thoughts. If you’re interested in attending future Breakfasts, you should get in touch with Bryan Person.

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Addendum, Wednesday morning – Here are more takes on the session:

• Jon Lebkowsky: Social media for breakfast
• Bryan Person: A conversation with Peter Kim about social media marketing (includes an audio interview with Kim)

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(Photo graciously supplied by Mr. Person — used with permission.)