Case Study: The NHL Uses Tweet-Ups To Energize Its Fan Base And Reach New Audiences

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Yesterday we published a case study that I'm really excited about, covering how the NHL used tweet-ups to create excitement for the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. The league worked with fans to organize a series of events that took place simultaneously around the world on the opening night of the playoffs. I had a chance to attend the tweet-up in Vancouver, and thought they were a great example of the power of both online and offline influence.

In the weeks leading up to the playoffs, fans started talking online about organizing a series of playoff tweet-ups -- and the league's Director of Social Media Mike DiLorenzo jumped at the chance to make it happen. Mike planned a big tweet-up in New York on the opening night of the playoffs, complete with food and beer sponsors and hockey merchandise giveaways -- and started promoting the event on Twitter.

To make sure there were lots of tweet-ups happening around the league, Mike reached out to a handful of influential hockey fans in key NHL markets to recruit their participation. Lots of fans also stepped up and volunteered to host events in their cities too. Before long, there were tweet-ups organized in almost two dozen cities around the world. The league supported every one of those tweet-ups by sending gift bags, coupons for discounts at shop.NHL.com, and signed hockey merchandise for event organizers to raffle.

The NHL spent only a few weeks and a few thousand dollars planning and supporting the tweet-ups, but the results were fantastic:

• Big in-person attendance. More than 1200 people attended tweet-ups in 23 cities (including events in New Zealand and Northern Ireland) for the opening night of the playoffs. Many fans organized further tweet-ups as their teams progressed through the playoffs as well
• Bigger online chatter. Those attendees talked a lot about the events on Twitter: On the opening night of the playoffs, the term "NHL" was mentioned on Twitter more than twice as often as on a normal day. And #NHLtweetup became a trending topic for the day.
• Enormous total reach. According to the league's research, as many as 240,000 people could have heard about the event on Twitter. And the tweet-ups also generated press coverage that reached millions, including a story in USA Today. 

So, what can other marketers learn from the NHL's success? We think there are a number of important lessons here:

1. Get your brand advocates involved. The NHL wouldn't have been as successful without fan participation. The fans helped develop the idea, and they did all the legwork for the local events -- including finding venues and promoting the events. If the NHL had tried to organize these events itself, it would've cost a lot more money, and probably wouldn't have worked nearly as well.
2. Give yourself enough lead time. The NHL and its tweet-up hosts had only three weeks to organize these events -- and it was a pretty hectic three weeks. The league plans to organize more tweet-ups this season, and will start planning each six to eight weeks in advance. 
3. Make sure PR is part of your strategy. The fans who attended the tweet-ups generated a lot of excitement about the playoffs -- both at the events, and on Twitter. But the mainstream press coverage provided a ton of reach. The media is still in love with Twitter, so inviting them to the events can really pay off.

There's some other great coverage of the event online -- including that at Goaliegirl.com -- and clients should read the entire case study for even more details and best practices. Congratulations to the NHL, and to all its tweet-up organizers, on a great event.

Why Are Marketers So Bad At Measuring Social Media? (And How Can They Get Better?)

[Posted by Nate Elliott. Follow me on twitter.]

Marketers don't think they're very good at measuring social media.  When my colleague Emily Riley asked marketers to rate their ability to measure the impact of their social media initiatives, the average grade they gave themselves was 4.5 out of 10. Not a great score -- especially given that accountability is one of the key selling points of interactive marketing. So I've spent a lot of time this year trying to understand why marketers aren't good at measuring social media -- and how they can do better.

The fact is, social media marketers are drowning in a sea of metrics. Every social platform and vendor offers its own metrics, and there are literally hundreds of ways to measure the success of social initiatives. With so many numbers to choose from, and so little insight into which metrics are important, it's not surprising that marketers feel overwhelmed.

Most marketers fixate on easily-available measures like followers or fans -- regardless of whether those metrics are important. Many others fail to measure obviously useful numbers just because they're not on the first page of a report. A marketer focused on talking [video] should have a radically different definition of success than one focused on embracing [video]. But marketers are much more likely to tailor their social media measurement to the tools they're using than to the objectives they're trying to achieve. Have a look -- most marketers measure pretty much the same metrics, no matter what their objective:

It's obvious that marketers need more clarity into which social media metrics they should be tracking. So we've developed a simple three-step process to help marketers better tailor their measurement strategies to the objectives they're pursuing. Walking through these three steps will help you cut through the clutter on your marketing reports and measure your social media initiatives more effectively:

• Step 1: Think back to your marketing objective. Go back and find your notes from when you were first planning your social marketing effort -- and remind yourself of the objective you were pursuing. If you don't know what your goal was, you'll never know what you should be measuring, or if you succeeded.
• Step 2: Consider what types of metrics signal success. Don't think about specific lines on a report yet -- instead, think about what types of consumer behaviors and sentiments match your objectives, and focus your measurement on those categories of metrics. If your goal was energizing, success is defined as lots of people saying positive things about your brand; if your goal was supporting, you want to know if users were providing good advice to each other -- and whether it kept users from having to ask you for support directly.  Again, this isn't about specific metrics, it's about how you hoped your social initiative would change your relationship with consumers.
• Step 3: Look for that category of metric in the social technology you're using. Once you've identified the type of metric that will signal success, then you can look for ways to track those metrics within the social platform you're using. This is when you should get into the specifics of which lines on the report Facebook or Jive gives you are most important -- and which other vendors you need to use to find the exact numbers you're looking for.

In my new report, 'Three Steps To Measuring Social Media Marketing,' I offer a framework that helps marketers place social media metrics into one of six categories, shows them which categories of metrics should be used to measure which objectives, and gives examples of how to obtain those metrics from each social platform. I hope clients use my framework; I think it will make their lives easier and their measurement more successful.

But the key message of that report (and this blog post) isn't the framework, it's this call to action: We as an industry must do better at measuring social media marketing. Social media budgets keep rising, but that trend won't continue forever if we can't prove that social initiatives are effective. Perhaps more important, if we don't know which social applications succeeded and which didn't, we can't learn from our experiences and improve on future efforts. And it's surprisingly easy to measure social media effectively: we just need to focus on measuring objectives rather than technologies.

Whether you use the detailed framework in my report, or simply keep these three steps in mind as you design your own measurement strategy, I hope these ideas help you sift through all the social media metrics that are available, and find the right ones to measure your efforts.

Online Video Contests Can Help Marketers Listen To And Energize Their Customers

[Posted by Nate Elliott]

Chances are you've seen an online video contest lately. In fact, you've probably seen a lot of them: more than 20% of interactive marketers -- including category leaders like P&G, Nike, Coca-Cola and Sony -- tell Forrester they've run campaigns asking users to submit online content in the past year. I've been collecting a list of dozens of great video contests, and one contest clearinghouse site says there are 115 user-generated video contests accepting submissions right now, across a huge range of categories.

Some of these contests -- like Tourism Queensland's Cannes-Lion-winning "The Best Job in the World" contest, or Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" contest -- generate a lot of media coverage. But there are many hundreds more each year, promoting everything from steak sauce to psoriasis research, that don't get as much notoriety.

Why are so many marketers running online video contests? Because users love online contests almost as much as they love online video -- and because user-generated video contests can help marketers achieve a huge range of marketing objectives.

Video contests let marketers listen to their customers and learn about their needs -- like student loan provider Access Group, which asked law students to enter videos about their concerns and then used insights from those videos to create its "Student Loans, No Worries" ad campaign. Contests can help marketers energize users an drive a viral marketing effect -- like Servus Credit Union, which encouraged entrants to develop their own marketing campaigns to drum up votes, and found the three finalists generated as much publicity as the credit union's PR firm did. And they can give marketers access to cheap, original online video content -- like ski resort Sunshine Village, which used its contest to generate a video library of its mountain's trails and terrain.

Of course, not every video contest succeeds. They often take months to plan, they can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $250,000 or more, and they usually require the coordinated efforts of several internal departments and external vendors. And if you don't get the "three Ps" right (choosing the right premise, offering the right prize, and picking the right promotional strategy) you could fall flat on your face.

I've spent the last two months studying hundreds of contests, and have just published two new reports on the topic. User-Generated Video Contests: Best Practices For Driving More Entries And Creating Viral Impact is designed to help marketers understand which users they should target with video contests, what goals they can achieve, and how to get the most value from their contests. Video Contest Checklist: How To Choose The Right Premise, Prize, And Promotion For Your Contest contains a checklist that guides marketers through every single step in the contest process -- including choosing a contest premise, selecting a prize, planning a promotional strategy, choosing a voting structure, picking a vendor, setting a schedule, establishing a budget, getting internal buy-in, and measuring the results.

Over the next few days, I'll be publishing some of the most important lessons I've learned in my research -- including the best promotional strategies I've seen, and mini-case studies on what makes contests successful -- on my personal blog.

In the meantime, if you've been thinking of running a user-generated video contest -- or if I've convinced you it's a good idea -- drop me a line (nelliott at forrester dot com). I'd be happy to work with you on making your video contest a success.

Ongoing Lessons

[Posted by Christine Overby]

Last week, Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst on the Interactive Marketing team that I manage, caught flak for comments that he made on his personal blog about the community vendor Mzinga. As you might expect, we both have been communicating with Mzinga's Chairman Barry Libert and other members of his team. At the same time, Jeremiah has been reflecting on the conversation begun by the post. So have I.

 

All of us at Forrester have learned from this. We have a blogging policy. I’m using this as an opportunity to reinforce these guidelines with bloggers on my team. So are other Research Directors. Forrester will continue to update these guidelines regularly as we gain new insights. Treat your social media policy as a living, breathing thing – I think these are good words for analyst firms and clients alike.

 

I am thinking too about the relationship between our research – which is, well, highly-researched and planned – and our social media contributions which are more informal. Should an analyst refrain from stating opinions in social media because it’s more organic? I don’t think so. But can we modify our tone and conclusions to reflect the more spontaneous nature of social tools? Absolutely.

 

Analysts will continue to participate in the Groundswell. At the same time, we’re still learning like everyone else here. As such, I welcome the dialogue and your comments.

B2B Social Technographics: How Technology Buyers Participate Socially

[Posted by Laura Ramos]

On Friday, Forrester published new research on one of the most active groups of people ever seen when it comes to social participation -- buyers of technology products in the business-to-business (B2B) sector.

I teamed up with Oliver Young to write the report, "The Social Technographics of Business Buyers," based on a survey conducted online between December 2008 and January 2009; you can access the full report if you're a Forrester client, or arrange to buy it if you are not. You can also register to download the slides or hear the replay of our Webinar on the topic.

I very much like how Josh Bernoff summarizes our approach to this research in his recent post: "Just as Forrester surveys consumers, we also survey business buyers. We use the POST method and the same Social Technographics Profile to review buyers' behavior -- in this case it's over 1200 buyers in American and European countries. But the difference here is, we can ask, not just how people participate in these social technologies, but whether they use them to make buying decisions.

The results were startling, to say the least."

When we started thinking about this survey, we believed that technology buyers (a techie-sophisticated crowd on their own) would show a greater propensity to engage in social activity.  We were surprised, pleasantly so -- after an initial double take, to see that business buyers at all levels, executive on down, participate in a wide range of social activity on a monthly basis or more often.

What does this mean for B2B marketers? I'll echo what Josh had to say first, "If you're a B2B marketer and you're not using social technologies in your marketing, this report means you're late. We've seen a lot of excellent activity here from the likes of Dell and National Instruments (both won Forrester Groundswell awards) but a lot of the blogs, communities, and other social outreach from business to business companies is less than mature, to say the least. This is your chance to stand out. Take this report and show it to your boss to convince her that it's time to get started."

You can visit my blog where I outline three main reasons why B2B marketers should care about this data. Oliver Young is also blogging about this research; he delves deeper into the differences between social participation while working versus for personal use. We see this as evidence of how social activity as a lifestyle trend will continue to bleed over into the business world.

I've already heard from a couple of press folks -- and have been avidly watching the twitters -- about this research.  Hope to hear from you too. Comment away or contact me at Forrester; either way I hope to hear your reactions and impressions.

Tags: B2B marketing, social media, buyer behavior :: Add to del.icio.us

Participate In Our Research

Want to see how your Interactive Marketing budget plan compares with that of your peers?  Interested to see if you have the same view of Social Media as others in your role?  We're conducting a survey of Interactive Marketers and we need your help!  If you know about your company's Interactive Marketing or Social Media strategies, please take our short survey!

In exchange for your participation, we offer the following:

Your choice of one of three complimentary research pieces immediately upon your completion.

A spreadsheet with the aggregate results when the research is complete.

A copy of the research based on the data we collect.

The survey is quick (10 to 15 minutes), we only publish responses in aggregate, and we respect your privacy.  We'll be running it until the end of the year, but please take the survey as soon as possible.  Feel free to spread the word to your colleagues and peers as well!

If you have any questions, please contact me directly:  tcummings@forrester.com

Thanks!

Tom Cummings
Researcher, Interactive Marketing
tcummings@forrester.com

P.S. This is a separate survey from the Customer Reference Survey by Laura Ramos and Merv Adrian that is posted below.  If you've already participated in that one, you are more than welcome to participate in this one, and vice versa!

APAC, it's time to start listening!

[Posted by Steven Noble]

Anyone who has read Groundswell will be familiar with the concepts of listening to, talking with, energising, supporting and embracing your customers and community.

Of these five ideas, four are easy to find in APAC. Here is an example of each from Australia:

• Talking with the groundwell. Telstra uses Now We Are Talking to share its views about telecommunications issues.
• Energising the groundswell. Sunglass Hut helped its customers to forward content via SMS, Facebook and email.
• Supporting the groundswell. Staff can adapt Janssen-Cilag's internal wiki to meet their own needs.
• Embracing the groundswell. Brewtopia designed its first beer in partnership with the members of its email list.

But listening? Sadly, that's a different story. Here in Australia, I'm finding very few organisations with thought-out, long-term commitments to listening. Likewise, APAC is an incredibly diverse region, but everywhere I've looked so far the story has been the same: lots of talking but very little listening.

This concerns me greatly, because listening is not just an objective in its own right —€” it is also one of the keys to achieving any positive outcome with social computing. Without listening, talking becomes shouting, supporting becomes cost-cutting, energising becomes gimmicky and embracing becomes exploitation.

I've not yet studied the causes of this behaviour, but I have a theory. In Australia, many of us are employed by overseas multinationals. Usually, we make local operational decisions but don't set the global agenda. Likewise, multinationals from the US, Japan and Europe often outsource their manufacturing to APAC, but keep their decision-making at home. Now, listening without acting is pointless, and perhaps this is why APAC organisations do less listening. If it is, then local listening will surely grow along with the influence and wealth of our region.

If you know of any strong, measurable examples of listening in APAC, please leave a comment below or send me an email. If you're a marketing agency with strong, measurable examples of listening in APAC, then perhaps we should consider a formal briefing.

Brands Punk'd By Social Media

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

A list of companies that were blind-sided by the internet, they didn't understand the impacts of the power shift to the participants, or how fast information would spread, or were just plain ignorant. 

Criteria of "Punk'd" includes a situation where the story would have not been told if social media was not available, or if social media enhanced the situation.

This doesn't include fake blogs, companies who deliberately tried to cheat the system get their own honorable mention.

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2008

• Louis Vuitton gets Brand-Jacked in Anti-Genocide Campaign Artist creates and sells T-shirt demonstrating how the media turns a deaf ear to real world tragedies such as genocide in Dafur, infringing on LV logo.  LV fires back, with lawsuit, a groundswell begins. Submitted by Søren Storm Hansen
• Burger King exec trash talks using daughter's email Not sure why he didn't just create a new email address, that would have been a lot safer. Submitted by Hilker.
• Johnson and Johnson to bloggers: Hurry up and get dis-invited Sounds like a mis-coordination, bad timing, and not a well thought through process that ended up getting scobleized, and Maryamized.
•  Anonymous Unmasks Church of Scientology The church of Scientology has been criticized by an anonymous group, a faceless mass that has created videos, staged marches and protests, and is subvert the Church from around the internet.

2007

• Target's Rounders program "This is our secret game" Target encouraged it's premier members in the rounders program to pump up it's brand in a Facebook group, sadly, the covert operation ended up on blogs and then mainstream media
• HD DVD Decoded by Digg, unDugg, then Dugg again Digg users publish HD code, industry freaks out, Digg maintains stance.
• Wholefoods CEO caught being a troll Whole Foods CEO, was anonymously trashing competitors and pumping company up on Yahoo finance boards.
• Delta holds customers hostage What's worse than being held prisoner on Delta's dirty plane? (Video), watching the crew getting off da plane.  Oh, and no food, crying babies, but one talented videographer.
• Taco Bell's infestation crawls into YouTube A minor rat problem moved it's way to YouTube, spreading faster and farther than expected, a total of more than one million views for all videos. Submitted by Graham Hill

 

2006

• Data storage blogger posts industry price lists, sales reps cry f#ck! Robin Harris, one of the most well known of the data storage blogosphere posts price lists that were received from various customers.
• Dell Laptop Explodes, news at 11 --on YouTube More bad news for Dell, as laptops explode in Japan, all can see online.
• Comcast suffers from Narcolepsy Sleepy Techician caught on YouTube, then fired.  Also see Comcast must die blog, submitted by Jeff Jarvis.
• Hitachi Hell gets the finger Angry customer gets bad service, writes long experience, and flips off HQ in picture, he's also an influencer in the gaming community
• The naked NOKA chocolate uncovered A premium chocolatier (Noka) had a tremendous markup ($309- $2,080 per pound) of their secretly re-packaged chocolate, was exposed as a fraud and spread on blogs. And their google results is really painful. Submitted by Whitney.
• AOL gets canceled --how to get get on my nerves This guy really bothers me, I can see why Vincent Ferrari was miffed.  It's clear, he was dealing with the customer retention department. Nothing worse than the feeling of being held hostage.  Submitted by David Alston.
• Airplane fiasco's spread online: JetBlue There are so many examples, such as a YouTube testimonial about JetBlue's 8+ hours stranded in terminal. Related: JetBlue's CEO responds after flights are cut months later due to storm.
• Starbucks Brandjacked by YouTube Video Who wants a tasty frappuccino when there are kids starving?  This was one of the first cases of brandjacking we saw.

2005

• Why we Dwell on Dell Hell Jeff Jarvis launches blog post that sends a flurry of PR negativty at Dell's poor service, it's since been improved.

2004

• Kryptonite unlocked Locks were disabled using a simple bic pen cap, spread on forums and blogs, one of the earliest examples that got mainstream attention.

2003

• The Barbera Streisand Effect Singer star tries to remove content from internet, it all goes downhill from there. I actually learned about this from reading my colleagues Groundswell book

2001

• Apple's dirty little secret plastered over NYC Apparently, 18 months is all the iPod will run before you'll need to buy a new one, says this video, where street teams went around defacing ads. Submitted by David Churbuck (I got his name right this time)\

Also see: 8 Groundswell Examples: News, Education, Religion, Cops, Restaurants, Music, Conferences, and Analysts

This is a cross post from the Web Strategy blog. Thanks to Jackie Huba for correcting that Apple's dirty little secret was actually form 2001, very early on.

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Social Technographics Data Now Available

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

Forrester is proud to share select social technographics data in tandem with upcoming book Groundswell by analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li.  Many of us have already read the book, and it supports our thinking, methdology, and recommendations we provide to clients.

We're pleased to share Social Technographics with you, but before you dive in, please follow the following steps:

• First: Understand what Technographics is, start with this eight slide presentation.
• Next: Take a look at the Profile Tool we've provided on the Groundswell site.
• Finally: You can start to develop a strategy after understanding what tools your market is adopting.

Josh Bernoff gives more detail about the tool, from his blog.

A Groundswell at SXSW: How The Audience Revolted Against the Speakers

[Posted by Jeremiah Owyang]

For the second year, I experienced the SXSW Interactive Festival, an event attended by thousands who have love for media, the web, and gadgets.

SXSW is a bubble of the tech elite assembling, in many ways it’s a glimpse into the future, exposed on a Petri dish today.

[A Groundswell Occurred at the SXSW Interactive Festival as the Audience Revolted And Took Charge]

Last year, Twitter gained traction at SXSW 2007, this year, it fully ramped up to be one of the most prominent and power shifting tools of the festival –we witnessesd a Groundswell. What’s a Groundswell? It’s a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions. Dan Fost, writing for Fortune Magazine reports that this is Social media is putting an end to the passive role attendees traditionally play at business gatherings.

At least four Groundswells occurred at SXSW 2008:

1) Audience Revolt at Mark Zuckerburg Presentation The first and foremost example was the interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg by Sarah Lacy, Although discussed by hundreds of blogs and on twitter, I'll summarize:  Sarah Lacy was un-prepared to interview the young CEO, displaced the focus, and a uprising happened online and in person from the audience.  They vocalized their discontent on Meebo (a chat room provided by the conference organizers), and expressed themselves using Twitter (a mobile social network and chat room), and even took charge by taking control of the questions, and then spilling it over to hundreds of blogs.  Sadly, for Sarah's reputation has been marred as an interviewer by the extensive coverage of blogs and even mainstream media.  As a result, the audience took charge, revolted in discontent and hijacked the interview, later, Mark Zuckerberg held a make-up discussion off site. It’s very clear the audience took charge.  You can watch the video, and read Wired's SXSW: 2008, the Year the Audience Keynoted.

2) The Crowd overtakes a Panel Perhaps far worse than interviewing skills was the direct challenge to the general assertion of some presenters.  The speakers in the Social Marketing Strategies Metrics, Where Are They? panel, were victim to a revolution in their own session.  Although I wasn't present, I heard that the audience disagreed with the content, statements, and stance of this conservative panel and directly challenged them.  One member of the audience requested to ask a question, but was denied by the panel. Defiantly, and with the crowd on his side, he asserted himself.  Read the actual chat transcripts to learn more.

3) How an audience “team” improved a session Not all the examples were negative, in Charlene Li's presentation, apparently, one of the projectors were off center, disrupting the experience.  A murmur started to bubble up in Meebo (conference provided open chat) requesting that "...somebody fix the screen".  According to Miles Sims, one member of the audience nearest the projector went over and fixed it, and a silent cheer from the crowd echod in the chat room.  You can read the archives yourself.

From the Meebo Chatroom during Charlene's Preso:
09:37 alx: can somebody fix the screen?
09:37 TheMuggler: I wish that sxsw staffer near the projector would line it up witht he screen
09:37 aebaxter: I know, I can't see all the pictures of the revolutionaries
09:37 mstephan: I am next to it, I'll see if I can fix it 09:38 james nice
09:38 Miles: Good work!
09:38 mstephan: *bow*
09:38 TheMuggler: you are a revolutionary!

4) Twitter, a communication tool to track sessions, parties, and events Perhaps in a pure social manner, Twitter became the glue of the dozens of friends that were spread out over the city at parties, to find out where friends are and people you want to meet, people were actively tweeting where they were.  In many cases (myself included) it was a way to let people know where the happenings were, and to constantly keep a pulse on what the masses were up to.  More than one person expressed to me that they were overwhelmed by the dozen or so tracks simultaneously, but were able to monitor through twitter, meebo, and from blogs. 

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SXSW is a conference made up of folks who thrive on interaction, you won't see this type of behavior from every conference, and the conference organizers supported this behavior by providing the Meebo chat room.  We should still look at how this could impact other conferences, is this just a one off, or a trend?

Wisdom of Crowds or Idiocy of the Mob? Some are suggesting that this is an example of unruly mobs being rude and disruptive using anonymous tools.  Despite the damages this could have, it's certainly not going to go away.  It will be interesting to see if conferences are going to encourage back channels (like SXSW promoted the Meebo chat rooms) or how they will embrace as they naturally bubble up due to twitter usage.  It’s very clear that this groundswell can quickly do immense damage (search engine results impact client and job relations) yet it can also put the power into the hands of the customers, in this case, the audience.

Speakers, Panelists, and Moderators must monitor back channel Recently, I wrote a post that has been passed around many conferences on how to successfully moderate a panel.  I'm now adding a section suggesting that the moderator first poll his community using some of these tools, and to also monitor the back channel in real time, while not all conferences will embrace a back channel, it's safe to assume that Twitter will be found at many tech and marketing conferences.

Moving from "Me" to "We" SXSW was certainly a collection of creators, critics, and joiners (individuals that participate, then influence, according to the Forrester's Technographics data) and in no way represents a larger sample of the marketplace.  Conrad Hametner, shared with me that the esteemed speaker Henry Jenkins, who gave a presentation at the Festival and suggested that social media world is taking charge, the former generation the "I" generation is now being replaced by the highly networked generation of the "We" where collaboration, two-way discussions, and power of masses starts to take hold.

Jenkins is right, we're starting to get glimpses of the future where the social tools gives to a  culture shift from the "me" to the "we". 

I've cross posted this on my Web Strategy Blog