InterPLAY

I’ll be participating on panel discussions Friday 4pm @Screenz and Saturday 11am @Blueberry Hill’s Elvis Room at InterPLAY.

Friday’s panel: Bidness, The Small Business and Social Media – How prominent is your business’s online profile? Is it necessary to build relationships with bloggers and others in social media? Learn just how important social media is to your business – along with how to save your advertising budget dollars, build a viral marketing campaign, increase word of mouth, and other “guerilla marketing” techniques. Featuring Marianne Richmond, David Gray, Matt Homann, Madalyn Sklar, and Ben Vierck; moderated by Melody Meiners.

Saturday’s panel: Lifestyle, Blogging and Social Media 101 – An introduction to the world of blogging and social media. What is social media? What is Web 2.0? Learn that and more from those who were there when it all began. Featuring Ben Vierck, Tanner Hobin, and Mike Flynn; moderated by Todd Jordan.

I’ve spent a great deal of time lately thinking about social media + business as I’m cofounding a startup next week here in St. Louis. Not only does one have to figure out how to work within the new context of social media (reaching the long tail, product support and evangelism through microblogs, poking holes through the PR wall, etc etc) but if you do software (as I do) you need to make sure you’re not missing the boat by NOT including a social aspect. Can collaborative crowd wisdom improve your application? What incentives do you need to put in place for the crowd to get that improved functionality.

Update; here’s the video of the Saturday’s Panel:

InterPlay 08: Blogging and Social Media 101 from Mike Flynn on Vimeo.