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Yesterday, at the third annual Southeast Venture Conference in Atlanta, the opening keynote speaker Tim Draper, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, asked the more than 700 attendees “What revolution are we creating?”

Thanks to Eric Gregg SEVC director for the comp ticket.  I am accustomed these days to the more casual atmosphere of SoCon09 and Startup Riot where entrepreneurs are all wearing jeans and online using Twitter.

That was not he case yesterday.  I took out my suit, put on a tie and observed capitalism in action where handshakes and personal relationships still matter.  Deals, not laptops, were on people’s minds.

Among the keynotes and company presentations, I was encouraged by the optimism even if there was no escaping the tough economic reality we currently face. Times like these require adaptation.

John Yates the partner-in-charge of the technology group at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP brought the point home when he asked members of the panel to compare 2008 and 2009.   Today, one VC sees fewer business plans focused on widgets, and another was witnessing a flight to quality and observed that people are looking for the long haul.

Few companies presenting on the first day focused on the social web, but all were technology driven.  One presentation that I missed was LivingSocial - a social network that allows people to review and “share their favorite movies, books, games, music, restaurants and beer” and integrates with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, and Orkut.

While few in the audience seemed to support a stimulus package, Draper ever the optimist viewed the current situation as a perfect opportunity for companies with vision and a solid business plan. It just is going to take longer.

“This is the best time ever to start a company.”  Draper said, reminding the crowd that many of the largest and most successful companies started in rough times including GE, Chevron, Westinghouse, Microsoft, Adobe, Skype, and Johnson and Johnson. See Tech Journal South article.

“Entrepreneurs, this is your time. This your moment, go out and do something.”

These days that sounds revolutionary enough.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: SEVC; Southeast Venture Conference; Tim Draper; Draper Fisher Jurvetsson; John Yates;

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These days you are more likely to read about bankruptcies than M&A activity, but Delta’s merger with Northwest Airlines last fall is an interesting case study for marketing and PR professionals responsible for social media integration.

Social media can help with the transition, but it can also add another layer of challenges if each company has a pronounced social media strategy.  I have long maintained that successful social media efforts must reflect a company’s corporate DNA. A merger can change all that.  A botched social media integration strategy can undo years of hard work.

So how do you preserve a company’s authentic voice when you are combining two different employee cultures, two different customer bases and two different sets of social media practices?  In any corporate merger or acquisition, the name of the game is “seamless transitions.”

According the Katie Mingo, using social media to integrate Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines was a top priority.  Katie is in charge of content optimization and interactive marketing at Delta.   You may have seen her bookend Delta’s inflight safety video.

Corporate blogs: You essentially have three choices when each company has a corporate blog (as opposed to brand blogs) – kill one, keep two going separately or merge them. 

Killing one is clearly the quickest solution, but perhaps unnecessarily drastic. In creating a combined company, it’s important to foster good will by courting employees and customers alike.  Blogs can help by going beyond the news and providing insights into people making the changes. The logical solution is to repurpose content and link to each other’s blogs.  Over time, two blogs will organically become one as the content increasingly overlaps.

Fortunately for Delta, this was not an issue; Northwest did not have a strong presence.  But Delta did use its blog Under the Wing as a platform to “make employees feel more welcome and help customers with the transition.”   Believing that is always better to show than tell, the blog essentially replaced what would have been a static list of FAQs.

When the merger closed in late October, Delta used its blog along with ongoing internal and external communications to recognize Northwest’s culture, history and employees.  The kickoff posting featured a vintage Northwest timetable.  Subsequent postings focused on integration including several about Delta and Northwest employees helping with a Habitat for Humanity project in Brazil.

Open vs Closed, Centralized vs Decentralized Communications: Some corporate cultures are top down and buttoned up.  Others are more open and give individual managers more discretion to make communication decisions.  As a former vice president of corporate the latter scared the hell out of me, but I recognize that a degree of independence is essential for social media to work.

At Delta, corporate communicates vet all blog posts as they would news releases and other communications.   Mingo noted that Northwest employees generally had another layer of approval, which impacted the communication process.

So what happens when open and closed cultures combine?  Of course the acquiring company’s culture wins, but here again social media adds a layer to consider in the transition process.  Employees need to adjust to how information is communicated.   For a more centralized company, a merger can also be an opportunity to experiment with social media – especially if it proved effective at one of the merging companies.  Social media tools like wikis and employee forums can also be useful to foster engagement, collaboration and greater familiarity.

Amplifying Traditional Media: Lastly the marriage of mergers and social media can help amplify traditional media. Beyond blogs, Delta’s social media strategy includes Flickr and YouTube.

One video of Northwest Airlines being repainted with the Delta logo and colors went viral leading to 100,000 views.  The video caught the attention of The Learning Channel. The program Busted Knuckles did a special on how to change brakes on an airplane.  The producers followed an aircraft maintenance technician around.  Social media was involved in the promotional phase.

Having been involved in many mergers over the years, I understand the tension that combining cultures and resources can create.  Social media should be a required part of the process.  Like any use of social media, success rests on maintaining authenticity and respecting your targeted audiences.  

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: Delta; Northwest Airlines; Northwest Airlines Delta Merger; Delta acquisition;

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Yesterday was a day of contrasts -  It began at Technology Association of Georgia’s (TAG) Technology Summit — thanks to Patrick Gaul who had an extra seat at his blogger’s table. 

I was joined by fellow bloggers David Cohen,  Amani Channel,  Sherry Heyl, Justin Rubner, and Lance Weatherby.  Though to be honest Twitter seemed to be the platform of choice.

Hundreds of members from Georgia’s business establishment were on hand to honor some of the state’s most innovative technology companies the honorees.

Among TAG’s 2009 Top 10:

CCP Games North America –  a gaming company, creators of Eve and part of Georgia’s gaming future.

PlayOn Sports! – digital media company that allows fans to watch untelevised, high quality local community content.

Asankya  – creators of a cloud application acceleration service. 

NanoLumens – makers of digital screens that can be contoured in any shape and size.

New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was the featured speaker.  One of his biggest applause lines was when he told the crowd he was for startups, not bailouts.

Shotput Venture’s Open House

This evening I attended Shotput Venture’s open house to kick off their efforts to find the next generation of web entrepreneurs.  The organizers expected 75 attendees; 200 showed up and a third were Georgia Tech undergrads. 

One such student Andre Nasri is developing a iPhone application after working with fellow students on an automated login system.

The scale of this venue was less grand, but the goals were no less great:  to discover promising startups and help build Georgia’s technology future.

Good economic news is in short supply these days, but across Atlanta there seems to be no absence of innovation.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: TAG; Technology Association of Georgia; 2009 TAG Summit; NanoLumens; PlayOn Sports;

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Jeremiah Owyang’s posting on PR Firms in a Recession: A 2009 Forecast confirms what I have been suspecting as of late:  we have the entered the Pothole Economy.

It is indeed tough out there.  According to a USC School of Communication survey, PR budgets are down, and layoffs are up. 

When times are flush, marketing and PR departments talk vision and spend money on corporate offsites.  When times are bad (the economy shrunk 6.2 percent in the last quarter of 2009), you focus on short-term needs. You look for inexpensive solutions. You fill in potholes not build whole new roads.

It’s ironic.  Now is the time when strategy is most needed and vision is at a premium, but we can ill afford deep thinkers.  People are hungry for information, but there are no budgets for training. And so the uninitiated use the recession as an excuse to ignore social media, but they do so at their own peril. 

I agree with Jeremiah: “If you’ve not developed social media skills by now in 2009, you are behind.”

Who will succeed in the Pothole Economy?  On the road to success, I am finding these days that it’s not the mapmakers or surveyors.  Rather it’s those who can actually do the grunt work.  In other words, strategists get in line.  It’s the people who can build blogs, optimize search and produce podcasts that are getting the jobs.  They are the ones who deliver immediate value.

And to management’s role in these challenging times, Jeremiah’s right; it needs “to quickly adjust to offer more outputs for clients than ever before.”

For those lacking the requisite skills, it’s time to grab a shovel and fill in some holes in your experience.  Use this time to expand your knowledge.  It will enable you to position yourself for better times and ultimately make yourself more valuable.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: Pothole Economy; Recession; PR; Career 2.0;

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