My favourite part about MARCOM is that CEPSM is one of the few companies out there trying to shift the public sector into social media. As for Lisa’s comment above, unfortunately the reason why there are is too much theoretical discussion about social media and not enough tactical, is that in most public sector environments there is a certain amount of education that needs to happen first.

Lisa, you are ahead of the game. We need everyone else to catch up. But they’re getting there.

I hope the conference went smoothly.

Be sure to fill out the marcom feedback survey (I sent mine in last week). I think your comments will be extremely valuable.

First off, thanks for posting about MARCOM. I hadn’t heard of it before (probably because it was always in Ottawa). I enjoyed the conference, but while we attended many of the same sessions, my perspective is quite different.

I found the two keynotes & the Facebook session to be interesting, but basically traditional conference fodder. They weren’t focussed on the gov’t/not-for-profit world which, as you rightly point out, is MARCOM’s USP.

But I loved Jim’s presentation (from CBS). While the email portion of the session was interesting, Wayne used corporate examples which were irrelevant to my world. The CBS portion was a case study that actually made much of the theory real. Instead of talking about grand concepts, it showed how a not-for-profit is actually doing it and succeeding. How they handled risk, how they tackled legal, how they managed interactivity – those are my problems, and he spoke directly to them.

Likewise, the Environics/City of Mississauga also took a concept and made it real.

IMHO, there’s too much theoretical discussion about social media – I get why we should be there; I get that it’s a tactic that must link to your strategy; the problem is HOW to do it in a risk-adverse environment. I have several communications plans that include social media tactics (one of many tactics). But I have to preface it with “explore” because we haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

Case studies make it easier to see how, and to bring an example back to the office to say “they’re doing it, why can’t we”?

All in all, a worthwhile conference. But if your team is part of the planning process, I’d recommend less theory and more “real life” examples from our world, not the corporate world.

Just my 2 cents.