‘Trouble At The Henhouse’ dropped in 1996, just as marketers were starting to try to think about the Internet. In my opinion, this was and is the much-worshipped (by Canadians) band’s best album. But, until today, when ‘Let’s Stay Engaged’ shuffled through my iPod’s earbuds, I didn’t realize they wrote the anthem for today’s best practice marketing strategies ten years early.

Let’s Stay Engaged

It might be late but it won’t be early
you got me to the gate with time for a coffee
it’s getting late sounds like a departure
it’s getting close sounds to me like a departure
Until we meet again lets stay engaged
until then lets stay engaged
Lies over time float to the surface
lies over time they equal surface
lies over time though the reasons desert us
lies over time with no apparent purpose
Until we meet again lets stay engaged
until then lets stay engaged
See the dead art and you see your reflection
fear no art and you fear no reflection
but don’t look at me, I’m not the artist in question
sounds good to me, but I’m not the artist in question
Until we meet again lets stay engaged
until then lets stay engaged

Maybe ‘Henhouse’ was a full brand/marketing/social web/social commerce concept album…

Gift Shop – “After a glimpse over the top/The rest of the world/Becomes a Gift Shop”

Does this refer to Chris Anderson’s “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” concept?

They really were Ahead By A Century.

1. Facebook tried to be Twitter, with a partnership with CNN. Will this happen more and more? Will Facebookers feel the need to Tweet?
2. CNN.com served 13 million+ streams… but fell behind, and offered lower quality than UStream and Joost.
3. Twitter stayed up, and so did the mobile networks!
4. Whitehouse.gov launched at 12:01pm including a blog, podcasts, video, RSS… but without comments? (Like Obama’s inauguration, it’s a good start)
5. The world watched, Together.

Twead carefully during your keynote

Recently, at the Toronto Mesh web conference, a lot was revealed about the future of conferences. Specifically, the massive impact of mobile devices and social media tools on these types of get-togethers. The communication vehicle of choice? Twitter, of course. During the two-day event, power-tweeters (frequent users of Twitter) introduced the power and benefits of micro-blogging to dozens of twuddites. (Twitter luddites)

What was the call to action for these new adopters? Easily a quarter of the audience members in any given session had laptops open, and half of them were twittering amongst themselves, expanding the presentations and panels to deep discussions in the seats.

Twemes, a Twitter API implemetation, further enabled the conversation between tweeters, as Mesh attendees or ‘Meshies’ tagged their 140-character-or-less comments with ‘#mesh08,’ allowing the community to follow the discussion in real time as the comments rolled by. You can see all of these comments aggregated here.

I recommend trying out Twemes.com: ideally, follow a “hot pick” in the top right corner (these are usually conferences) and click “start live update” to see the topic-tagged twitters roll by. You can imagine the additional engagement this provides for events and conferences.

The added value of the Twitter conversation backchannel was obvious. During the conference, Meshies were using Twitter to discuss the future of music as a business model, and taking the liberty of re-branding Saturn’s awkwardly named social network ImSaturn (the marketer from Saturn tried desperately to point us to the correct URL, but stumbled through the difficult address).

Do we even have to attend anymore?

ScribbleLive was unveiled at Mesh ‘08, a live blogging platform with real-time updates. In this forum, ScribbleLive users live-blogged forums and presentations, allowing multi-taskers and attendees in other sessions follow multiple discussions. For a great example of the group blogging output, check out the live blog of Steve Jobs’ Keynote at the WWDC, including his announcement of the new iPhone 3G.

My mobile meeting manager

Mesh ‘08 also boasted an impressive, although slightly off-the-mark blackberry app. The technically-oriented (crackberry-addicted) audience presented an optimal opportunity for Sweet Caesar to offer a free downloadable guide to the event. The features and user experience of the app were quite valuable, even though it just left me wanting more.

Among the features were a venue map, schedule and presenter bios. Unfortunately, this information didn’t update over the two days and was incorrect (as conference schedules go) as soon as the first keynote began. Overall however, the implementation demonstrated the potential for great value in the future. Now event planners must consider “What is my mobile strategy?” “What is my web strategy?” Maybe next time we’ll see the integration of Twitter, ScribbleLive and social networking tools to enhance our next Mesh (or your next conference’s) experience.

Look for Part 2 of my post on the evolution of Meetings and Conferences: Meeting virtually in real life (Part 2): Entertain us, we’re bored and twittering.