On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by the Social Media Club’s Boston chapter that was entitled the Future of ___. The premise was to have folks come in and discuss what the future of X industry was. Out of the five speakers, the two that truly stood out were Ari Herzog and Justin M. Whitaker.

Herzog is the councilor-elect for Newburyport and used social media as a tool to help fund and win his campaign. Politics in general is an interesting topic, but the idea of utilizing social media for and by elected officials is very appealing to me. It makes the officials accountable, like companies to their constituents. By interacting with individuals, Herzog has taken a trend started by Howard Dean and improved upon by Barack Obama to the level that adds the human aspect to the pols.

The only hiccup in the presentation from Herzog was during the Q&A. He had heralded a supporter for his campaign that was outside his district as a success of crowd sourcing, with a decent sized donor coming via a political networking site. For him, it’s great that he was able to get the funding for an election, but the donation was not from his district. GregPC questioned whether he thought this was fair or if it was just another a case of wealthy donors being able to use their wealth to support their cause. The councilor-elect said that he saw nothing wrong with it, but was rebutted by GregPC who asked whether it was “fair” for the similar practice to have been used in California to sway the tide of influence for Proposition 8. Herzog smartly noted that he couldn’t comment on the issue, but it also brings into question the overall transparency of the political funding process. Will these questions be answered as social media becomes more integrated with our future candidates?

Aside from politics, the last area that I would think of finding interest would be the banking industry. Despite my skepticism, Justin Whitaker’s presentation tied a slew of variables that applied to business as a whole rather than just the future of banking. The most interesting point that he brought up was the importance of reputation and social capital.

It would be hard for any PR guy to spin a tale around banks having a stellar reputation right now – it’d be like shining a turd and calling it gold. So rather than denying that, Whitaker noted ways that banks are using social media as a way to listen and engage (where they can) with their customers. He also noted that our own personal social capital could eventually tie into how we receive loans, interest rates and credit lines in the future. It may sound like a far fetched idea, but with the amount of breadcrumbs we leave around the Net, it is really feasible. It also reinforces the idea that businesses and individuals alike should be monitoring what is being said about them while also building up a professional and respectable persona across the Web.

Overall it was a good event with some great insight into the state of a number of industries and how social media will become further ingrained into our corporate and social culture.

On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by the Social Media Club’s Boston chapter that was entitled the Future of ___. The premise was to have folks come in and discuss what the future of X industry was. Out of the five speakers, the two that truly stood out were Ari Herzog and Justin M. Whitaker.

Herzog is the councilor-elect for Newburyport and used social media as a tool to help fund and win his campaign. Politics in general is an interesting topic, but the idea of utilizing social media for and by elected officials is very appealing to me. It makes the officials accountable, like companies to their constituents. By interacting with individuals, Herzog has taken a trend started by Howard Dean and improved upon by Barack Obama to the level that adds the human aspect to the pols.

The only hiccup in the presentation from Herzog was during the Q&A. He had heralded a supporter for his campaign that was outside his district as a success of crowd sourcing, with a decent sized donor coming via a political networking site. For him, it’s great that he was able to get the funding for an election, but the donation was not from his district. GregPC questioned whether he thought this was fair or if it was just another a case of wealthy donors being able to use their wealth to support their cause. The councilor-elect said that he saw nothing wrong with it, but was rebutted by GregPC who asked whether it was “fair” for the similar practice to have been used in California to sway the tide of influence for Proposition 8. Herzog smartly noted that he couldn’t comment on the issue, but it also brings into question the overall transparency of the political funding process. Will these questions be answered as social media becomes more integrated with our future candidates?

Aside from politics, the last area that I would think of finding interest would be the banking industry. Despite my skepticism, Justin Whitaker’s presentation tied a slew of variables that applied to business as a whole rather than just the future of banking. The most interesting point that he brought up was the importance of reputation and social capital.

It would be hard for any PR guy to spin a tale around banks having a stellar reputation right now – it’d be like shining a turd and calling it gold. So rather than denying that, Whitaker noted ways that banks are using social media as a way to listen and engage (where they can) with their customers. He also noted that our own personal social capital could eventually tie into how we receive loans, interest rates and credit lines in the future. It may sound like a far fetched idea, but with the amount of breadcrumbs we leave around the Net, it is really feasible. It also reinforces the idea that businesses and individuals alike should be monitoring what is being said about them while also building up a professional and respectable persona across the Web.

Overall it was a good event with some great insight into the state of a number of industries and how social media will become further ingrained into our corporate and social culture.

On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by the Social Media Club’s Boston chapter that was entitled the Future of ___. The premise was to have folks come in and discuss what the future of X industry was. Out of the five speakers, the two that truly stood out were Ari Herzog and Justin M. Whitaker.

Herzog is the councilor-elect for Newburyport and used social media as a tool to help fund and win his campaign. Politics in general is an interesting topic, but the idea of utilizing social media for and by elected officials is very appealing to me. It makes the officials accountable, like companies to their constituents. By interacting with individuals, Herzog has taken a trend started by Howard Dean and improved upon by Barack Obama to the level that adds the human aspect to the pols.

The only hiccup in the presentation from Herzog was during the Q&A. He had heralded a supporter for his campaign that was outside his district as a success of crowd sourcing, with a decent sized donor coming via a political networking site. For him, it’s great that he was able to get the funding for an election, but the donation was not from his district. GregPC questioned whether he thought this was fair or if it was just another a case of wealthy donors being able to use their wealth to support their cause. The councilor-elect said that he saw nothing wrong with it, but was rebutted by GregPC who asked whether it was “fair” for the similar practice to have been used in California to sway the tide of influence for Proposition 8. Herzog smartly noted that he couldn’t comment on the issue, but it also brings into question the overall transparency of the political funding process. Will these questions be answered as social media becomes more integrated with our future candidates?

Aside from politics, the last area that I would think of finding interest would be the banking industry. Despite my skepticism, Justin Whitaker’s presentation tied a slew of variables that applied to business as a whole rather than just the future of banking. The most interesting point that he brought up was the importance of reputation and social capital.

It would be hard for any PR guy to spin a tale around banks having a stellar reputation right now – it’d be like shining a turd and calling it gold. So rather than denying that, Whitaker noted ways that banks are using social media as a way to listen and engage (where they can) with their customers. He also noted that our own personal social capital could eventually tie into how we receive loans, interest rates and credit lines in the future. It may sound like a far fetched idea, but with the amount of breadcrumbs we leave around the Net, it is really feasible. It also reinforces the idea that businesses and individuals alike should be monitoring what is being said about them while also building up a professional and respectable persona across the Web.

Overall it was a good event with some great insight into the state of a number of industries and how social media will become further ingrained into our corporate and social culture.

On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by the Social Media Club’s Boston chapter that was entitled the Future of ___. The premise was to have folks come in and discuss what the future of X industry was. Out of the five speakers, the two that truly stood out were Ari Herzog and Justin M. Whitaker.

Herzog is the councilor-elect for Newburyport and used social media as a tool to help fund and win his campaign. Politics in general is an interesting topic, but the idea of utilizing social media for and by elected officials is very appealing to me. It makes the officials accountable, like companies to their constituents. By interacting with individuals, Herzog has taken a trend started by Howard Dean and improved upon by Barack Obama to the level that adds the human aspect to the pols.

The only hiccup in the presentation from Herzog was during the Q&A. He had heralded a supporter for his campaign that was outside his district as a success of crowd sourcing, with a decent sized donor coming via a political networking site. For him, it’s great that he was able to get the funding for an election, but the donation was not from his district. GregPC questioned whether he thought this was fair or if it was just another a case of wealthy donors being able to use their wealth to support their cause. The councilor-elect said that he saw nothing wrong with it, but was rebutted by GregPC who asked whether it was “fair” for the similar practice to have been used in California to sway the tide of influence for Proposition 8. Herzog smartly noted that he couldn’t comment on the issue, but it also brings into question the overall transparency of the political funding process. Will these questions be answered as social media becomes more integrated with our future candidates?

Aside from politics, the last area that I would think of finding interest would be the banking industry. Despite my skepticism, Justin Whitaker’s presentation tied a slew of variables that applied to business as a whole rather than just the future of banking. The most interesting point that he brought up was the importance of reputation and social capital.

It would be hard for any PR guy to spin a tale around banks having a stellar reputation right now – it’d be like shining a turd and calling it gold. So rather than denying that, Whitaker noted ways that banks are using social media as a way to listen and engage (where they can) with their customers. He also noted that our own personal social capital could eventually tie into how we receive loans, interest rates and credit lines in the future. It may sound like a far fetched idea, but with the amount of breadcrumbs we leave around the Net, it is really feasible. It also reinforces the idea that businesses and individuals alike should be monitoring what is being said about them while also building up a professional and respectable persona across the Web.

Overall it was a good event with some great insight into the state of a number of industries and how social media will become further ingrained into our corporate and social culture.