Four things you should do after this conference

1) Hunt beyond your industry (Jeremy Gutsche) http://www.trendhunter.com/
2) Listen to your members, staff team members, customers, and colleagues (Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow)

3) Play - don't be afraid to fail - these last two are mine!

4) Try some of the advice from the Digital Now network and sepakers..

Don Taspscott had it right eight (8) years ago, when he warned us about the tsunami of changes coming at us from technology and the generation that was "bathed in bits" (in his book, Growing Up Digital).

He said that if you want to keep up with technology, hire a 16-18 year-old in your tech team. That was how we got started in Second Life and produced a video we showed our our panel at today's session on Tomorrow's Members, Listening to the Voices of our Future. Don't be afraid to let these digital natives help you figure out this technology thing...

What have been your takeaways?

Joining the DigitalNow crew - Tom Hood

Hi, I am Tom Hood, CPA, the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs. That is my alter ego, Rocky Maddaloni (from Second Life) of the Second Life Association of CPAs. I have been a DigitalNow attendee since the very beginning, 200o when Jim Collins was the headliner and Y2K was on our minds.


Remember when we were all scared to death of the new "Internet" thing? I still remember vividly an article in Red Herring magazine titled, "Associations - Roadkill on the Information Super-highway" (Red Herring magazine was ultimately roadkill itself). The Digital Now community gave me hope, a network, and resources to deal with the threats and opportunities of the web.

Just a few things I learned from Digital Now:

• Why we as Associations need to embrace Web 2.0 to stay relevant to the next generation of members


• The themes of Value, Strategy & Structure continue as a great framework for dealing with the rapid changes in Technology and the evolution of the Association world.


• Don Tapscott, Jim Collins, Pat Lencioni, Tim Sanders gave us great leadership and strategy tips & tools for managing in a rapidly changing environment.
  
• How cool the library associations did their Learning 2.0 project and allowed us to build off their idea for CPAs - see our project at CPA Learning 2.0
  
  DigitalNow has become my "must-attend" conference every year since...
  
  Ok and now a bit about me, I am a CPA with a bit of a "techie" background. I am enjoying my role as CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. Maybe that is why I love this conference - it is about technology as an accelerator of business strategy., both areas that I believe are critical to our future success.
  
  I live in Maryland with my wife and three sons. Having raised this little herd of "digital natives", I am curious and amazed at how they use and think about technology. Some of you may have met my oldest son, who were here last year and this year, him and his brother, Andrew, will be at the conference to help demonstrate Second Life to any of you "newbies". The point is, how will this upcoming generation of digital natives affect the way we all do business? What about the Long Tail and the Wisdom of Crowds and social media? These are just a few of the reasons I love this conference.
  
  Hope to see you at the conference!

Reason # 436 to start blogging and use other forms of "Social Media"

Ok, I am not really sure if it is reason #436 or not but Debbie Weil's latest post on ROI of Social Media is worth a read. And ROI is not Return on Investment... It is Return on Influence.

The article goes on to talk about how the new forms of social media (which includes blogging) can boost marketing and more importantly your relationship with your customers and members. This has been our experience since 'taking the plunge' into blogging and Web 2.0 over a year ago. And yes were were totally inspired coming from the DigitalNow conference.

Let me give you two examples of how this works...


1. Our blog (http://www.cpaisland.com/) caught the attention of Linden Lab's CFO, John Zdanowski. We then connected to John when he was visiting our "island" in Second Life. One thing leads to another and then we end up hosting him in Second Life doing a "mixed reality" session with him "live" from the real world conference in Orlando and a live "virtual" session in our BLI conference Center on CPA Island. Then CFO magazine's blog picks up our work on Second Life and the amazing viral connections of the Web 2.o world are unleashed...


Next is Youtube and what I like to call the Long Tail effect...

We produced a video with our friends at the AICPA, promoting the CPA profession in Maryland. We loaded the video to Youtube and have since had 2,271 views without any marketing at all! Check it out here: Defining America's CPA - Maryland. Then in an interview with a local business paper, they love the Youtube idea and we get some great press. Another one of the trails that results from playing around with the Web 2.0 stuff...

How about you? what has been your experience with Social Media?