Sandy Carter, VP, IBM, talked about how she used social media as the CMO of IBM Websphere to get community input into go to market strategies. She talked about how her team listened to customers and influencers as part of the process of developing a new product.
Sandy shares a story about how the IBM development team listened and collaborated with customers on a new product – sMash. As a result, they were able to deliver one of IBM’s most successful product releases.
Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester presented his research on the Future of the Social Web at the KickApps Social Media in the Enterprise seminar on June 17, 2009, in San Francisco.
Jeremiah breaks down the future of the social web into five eras:
1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services
He talks about what’s happening or will likely happen in each of these eras. This is a great way of thinking about the social web and is a great guide for anyone looking at this space. Here’s a clip of his presentation where he previews the five eras.