Shel is kicking of BlogPotomachere in Falls Church, VA – the unconference (i.e., no PPT, etc.).

The following are notes from Shel’s session:

We’re talking about “social media policies” – is it right to manage control around your company’s SM.  Those who are giving flexibility to their teams seem to be doing the strongest on this front.

Who owns SM? The leadership teams within should be driving the strategy and allowing all divisions to contribute where appropriate. Shel provided @zappos as a great example of a company using SM very well…across the organization.

Heard a quote from someone at a recent conference – “We need to drop the whole ROI and move to SOI – Spirit Of Influence” – good idea but we need to still be able to execute with the C-levels so this doesn’t really fly in the board room.

Summary: Shel had a whopping 10 minutes to talk here so he was really focused on the barriers of entry within SM – session title “Integration Challenges.”

Cultural barriers are a real challenge within the organization – especially with something so new as SM. Internal communications need to be about understanding the business’ communications strategy and how your employees can effectively share with their audiences.

Interesting question – “isn’t blogging ineffective since there are so many people doing it?” – Shel: “No” – most of what he reads comes from Twitter and he believes that every company should have at least one blog because of RAPID RESPONSE.

Here is a good stream on Shel’s presentation via Twitter.