On Wednesday 16th June, the evening before Like Minds Conversation Helsinki, I have the honour of being invited to speak at the prestigious Dicole Oz meetup.

Dicole Oz is hoted by Teemu Arina, one of our panelists at Like Minds, who Joe Pine referred me to – so it’s like minds allround.

I’m guessing most of you won’t be there in person (in fact, it’s full already) – but you can watch the live stream here at 18:45 on Wednesday 16th June, Helsinki Time.

I’m going to talk about People-to-People: The Future of Everything, something that any regular reader here will understand. People-to-People is the new way that we are operating in a knowledge economy, where people are more valuable than parts, and success is built not by the speed of a machine, but by the strength of your team. (Yes, there will lots of rhyming.)

Here’s the Test

I want to go to Helsinki and talk about this community. I want to talk about Exeter and bringing £100,000 into a city’s economy through social media. I want to talk about the stories of like minded individuals across the world – most of whom haven’t met yet. I want to talk about the depth of discussion that we generate here.

What I need are your stories and examples – from the boardroom, to the big deals, to the unique engagement, to the personal touches, to the new friendships – so that I go to Helsinki equipped with the examples to show what a people-to-people community looks like.

Let’s talk:

Archived Comments

  • http://www.stuartwitts.com/ Stuart Witts

    Scott, feel free to use either of these stories as examples:

    #LikeMinds and Kind Hearts (http://stayhappyanddontdie.com/?p=144)
    Bletchley Park’s code breakers are at it again (http://stayhappyanddontdie.com/?p=478)

    Hope it all goes well :)

  • Lynne Gray

    Social media for me, is about meeting fantastic new people you might never have met otherwise. Great minds, great information, great collaboration and great community! And such warm and friendly people too. I have learnt so much and hopefully shared too. The best thing is that the people I have met have been even nicer than I already thought and have become good friends, what more could you want?

  • http://radsmarts.com Robin Dickinson

    Congratulations, Scott. Your leadership shines.

    I think what you’re doing on this blog is an outstanding example of a thriving people-to-people community, powered by social media tools, but empowered and enlivened by talented, generous souls. Well done!

    Robin :)

  • / Scott Gould

    Thanks Stuart – legend!

  • / Scott Gould

    Lynne do you have a particular story I can tell?

  • / Scott Gould

    Thanks my friend – it’s a pleasure to build this with you.

    I’m thinking of talking about how B2B and B2C are rather outdated. Instead I will pitch a 360° model, looking at advocates, peers, etc

  • http://radsmarts.com Robin Dickinson

    Excellent. I’m really looking forward to seeing the stream.

    Your P-2-P message delivers Wonka’s golden ticket of opportunity for savvy people to grasp this cathedral sized rose window of first mover advantage.

    So let the brave step forward and stake their claim.

    Give the both barrels, my friend.

    Robin :)

  • http://www.iambanksy.co.uk Alastair Banks

    Hey Scott, As you know, relationships have formed and flourished all over Exeter through Social Media. One such relationship that involves you and I is that of Tags – I know this has been in a lull recently due to commitments but the three of us got together via SM channels and at that first event we had over 60 people there – not bad I’d say! Many of those people have gone onto become friends, suppliers, clients and collaborators….worth remembering in my opinion.

  • / Scott Gould

    Both barrels – check.

  • / Scott Gould

    Good thoughts – check!

    Thanks mate

  • http://twitter.com/alexthegreen Alex Green

    Its trite and short, but the 20 minutes of individual, personal attention that you gave me by phone when you were in the middle of your holiday (aside of breaking your rule about saying ‘NO’) had such a profound effect that, knowing how passionate you are about social media, when reading Shane Hipps’ “the hidden power of electronic culture” I was compelled to send you a copy.
    It emphasizes your commitment to personal, emotional connections driven by person to person experiences that make real community depth, not just large, faceless network connections.

  • / Scott Gould

    Thanks mate :-)

    That was coming up a year ago – believe it or not!

    I’ll make sure I tell them about you mate :-)

  • JamieLee

    Hey, Scott! :)
    My social media people-to-people story, demonstrating the power of a strong TEAM, is – of course – my wonderful experience with the Savvy B2B Marketing blog. Michele, Stephanie, Wendy, Kate, Heather, and I met serendipitously while attending an online training. We moved our conversations off the training site’s forums and into a LinkedIn group that we established for the purpose. Long story short, we wound up founding our collaborative blog a little over a year ago and are still going strong. Social and collaborative tools provided everything we needed to work together easily and efficiently. We use both twitter and LinkedIn to promote our content, with an emphasis on twitter. Because of our involvement in social channels, we’ve met and worked with a number of wonderfully smart and genuinely nice people. We’ve shared resources, references, and referrals. We’ve become supportive colleagues and friends.
    I’ve gained so much from these relationships – confidence, a platform for my business writing, increased credibility, a collaborative team, mentors, new skills, and new friends. We always like to say that the online training we did was “okay,” but the best thing we got out of it was each other. :)

    Good luck in Helsinki. Wish I could be there!

  • Ben Emmens

    Scott – thanks for this post. It got me thinking…

    Our organisation (a global network / peopleinaid.org) is all about people to people connectivity. Working collaboratively with more than 170 member NGOs, as well as corporate partners and academics, we use our convening ‘power’ as a network to create a sense of community and to facilitate virtual and face to face interaction and learning. Our aim is to improve the way in which the humanitarian and development community works to overcome poverty and and alleviate suffering around the world. I sometimes describe what we are doing as investing our social ‘capital’ (that is the sum of our ‘connectedness’/ relationships, and our behaviours/attitudes), for social profit – and I am currently writing on this with a view to publishing something later this year…

    For me personally, I am grateful that my people to people network has introduced me to inspirational thinkers and do-ers at many international NGOs and also organisations such as the Center for Creative Leadership, Nokia, Thomson Reuters, the DMCS, Roffey Park and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations where I am a Leadership Commissioner on the Leadership 20:20 initiative (http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/leadership2020) – would like to follow up on that initiative with you once you’re through the next couple of weeks!

    Wishing you all the best for Helsinki!

  • / Scott Gould

    Hey Jamie!

    Sooo good to hear from you. Are you well?

    So it was online conversation -> group ->collaborting. Much the same way you, me and Josh did?

    I love your quote – “the online training was OK, but the bset thiing we got out of it was each otehr”

  • JamieLee

    Exactly, Scott.
    One of the most important things social does is simplify the process of finding people who share your passions and goals … “like minds,” right? ;) Once you find those people, things start to get really fun – you share ideas, brainstorm, collaborate, and so on. The best things happen when you can combine the online relationship with Real World interactions – closing the loop, so to speak, on the person-to-person connection – cementing things. I recently enjoyed dinner with 4 of the other 5 Savvy Sisters in Boston – it was wonderful to be together in the same space & what was even more wonderful was that we didn’t talk “shop” one bit … not one bit. Our evening was just five friends getting together to share stories, a few laughs, and a good meal. In fact, I think the topic that held our attention the longest was Wendy’s chickens. Yes, I said “chickens.” If you want an really interesting social story, you should check out how she’s connecting with some very high caliber authors because of her flock. (You can find her at her blog – Simple Thrift – and read all about Project Chickens Before the Eggs.)

    Cheers, friend!
    :)

  • Lynne Gray

    I have always felt it is a privilege to meet new people and get to know them ~ Twitter makes that possible and gives the opportunity to put people together who have similar goals, be it business or personal. Some may call it ‘Like Minds’!
    I’ve been able to introduce people who are now working on an exciting and wonderful (NFP) global project that it to be launched in the not too distant future. Can’t say more at the moment!
    Giving people those extra opportunities to help reach their goals, gives you a warm glow ~ it’s very addictive!