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I learned this week about the Cockpit-in-Court , an early London theatre that stood where we find 70 Whitehall today. Apparently, it did as the name conveys host cockfights, although they stopped as long ago as the Jacobean times. The current building includes Kent ’s Treasury, built 1733-37. I attended an event in Kent’s Treasury this week at the kind invitation of Professor Anne Gregory and Paul Willis of the Centre for Public Relations Studies at Leeds Business School , hosted by Alex Aitken, Executive Director of Government Communications, to celebrate the launch of Strategic Public Relations Leadership. [Google books , Amazon.co.uk , Amazon.com , Routledge , BookDepository , Waterstone’s , WHSmith , Blackwell ] The vision we have for social business at Euler Partners is built up and out from public relations in its “excellence theory” manifestation (rather than the various flavours of publicity and spin with which some readers may be more familiar). It is a fundamental, and one that has too rarely contributed all it has to give to organisational success, and Anne and Paul believe the time has come for public relations professionals to step up to the mark. They cite the increasing complexity of the modern organisation as reason enough: This context requires public relations professionals to be able to clearly articulate and demonstrate their own contribution to organisational effectiveness. This textbook provides public relations leaders with a framework to do this, as well as a checklist of essential capabilities which they must acquire and exhibit if they are to operate at the highest levels of any organisation. I’m delighted to have provided a “product description” in Amazon’s terminology or, in the jargon of the publishing industry, a “book blurb” for the back cover: The authors write “an organisation’s reputation is determined not by expert publicity programs, but the alignment of declared and enacted values as judged by those with whom it has a relationship.” If you understand what this means, this book will help you make it happen. If you don’t understand what this means, you should read this book. Given the compelling association the authors identify between public relations excellence and organisational leadership, it can only benefit your career trajectory. ...

[Edited 7th October to embed the event video and move the slidestack to the end.] http://youtu.be/UkhXr4u9 _J4 I’ve been hosted by 3M today in Minneapolis St. Paul, and what great hosts too… a fantastic team and an incredible company heritage to boot. I could have spent a whole day exploring the Innovation Center, which is so well done I’m sure it brings out the geek in just about everyone. Gregory Gerik is 3M’s transformation social media leader, and he led the design and delivery of the 3M ThinkTANK conference today. Kicked off beautifully with a keynote by Brian Solis , we’ve been provoked, informed and entertained by: ...

Next week is Social Media Week . That’s well known. What’s less well known is that this is Social Data Week , and this facet of social underpins a lot of the stuff on next week’s agenda. Nevertheless, many people with social in their job description, from public relations to marketing to ‘digital’, are not yet fluent in the data foundations. One aspect of social data that particularly excites me is the Semantic Web, often referred to as Web 3.0. According to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Web 3.0 describes the web as a universal medium for the exchange of data, information and knowledge. It’s an awesome vision that’s playing out right now. ...

The first edition of Attenzi - a social business story was published May 2013. And I’m delighted that today sees the publication of the second edition in association with Social Media Today . Joining the original foreword by Microsoft Yammer co-founder and CTO, Adam Pisoni, is a new foreword by Social Media Today founder and CEO, Robin Carey. The book also has a new front cover and an additional chapter. ...

Ever since we started the CIPR Social Media Panel we’ve been a pro-active bunch. I haven’t got the stats to prove it, but I’d bet the panel is the most active CIPR group. We launched the successful “Social Summer ” sessions, developed Wikipedia guidance (subsequently adopted by equivalent organisations in Canada, Australia and South Africa), created CIPR TV , published the CIPR Social Media Guidance , updated the CIPR’s own social policy, published the CIPR Guide to Social Media Monitoring , and much more. ...

I’m kicking off #SCRM13 in London this morning. SCRM stands for social customer relationship management, and my role today is to get some energy into the room and, hopefully, encourage delegates to look up from simply slapping “social” onto business as normal. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what many have been charged with doing. Those with appropriate powers of persuasion will effect organizational change I’m sure, but more to the point I feel that more chief executives need to attend Luke ’s conferences, a sentiment I’m sure he’d endorse. ...

I was invited to kick off the CharityComms “Made to Measure Communications” event today. Being a fan of measurement, or business performance management more widely, I’m always excited about meeting new people and sharing ideas and insights, but given that many find the topic a little dry to say the least, I’m grateful for any and all interaction and enthusiasm event attendees might muster. And today’s audience didn’t let me down, so thank you for that. ...

What, exactly, is the value of social? This was the question I sought to help answer in my slidestack ahead of the AMEC European Summit in Madrid earlier this month. And it was the overarching question that informed much of the three days of debate, discussion and deliberation. This post is about two related developments – the latest from “The Conclave ” (aka the #SMMStandards Coalition), and “A New Framework for Social Media Metrics and Measurement”. Measurement standards “Perhaps the most important Social Media launch of the year ” is how Katie Delahaye Paine portrays it. This is so-Katie that I can actually hear her saying it right now (as she might hear me cry “the most exciting development in PR since the Cluetrain ”!) Katie refers to a suite of social media measurement standards that represents the work of a collection of organisations (including AMEC, a full list is appended here ) informally referred to as The Conclave. Following 18 months of long conference-calls, meetings, slidestacks and email threads, we have posted standards for: ...

According to its website, the Open Mobile Alliance “was formed in June 2002 by the world’s leading mobile operators, device and network suppliers, information technology companies and content and service providers. OMA delivers open specifications for creating interoperable services that work across all geographical boundaries, on any bearer network.” The OMA met today in Dublin to discuss aspects of big data, and I was invited to present on personal data, social media and social business. ...

[Also published on Microsoft’s #bizremagined website .] I’m fascinated by innovations in the language of innovation. Is it the inclinations of the innovator or the characteristics of the innovation that suggests new words and phrases? When and why is existing lexicon deemed inadequate? Why do we embrace some expressions yet others wither and die? A quick browse at netlingo.com turns up such beauties as advermation, mouse potato, and idea hamster. All new to me, and for all I know dead already. I had a go a few years ago with Internetome to describe the physical manifestations of the Internet of Things, and let’s just say the word hasn’t made the Oxford English. Yet. Enter the phrase “social business”, bandied around with increasing frequency. What is it exactly? Well perhaps this particular turn of phrase is sufficiently nascent to mean different things to different people. The candidate meanings form a spectrum to my mind, with “an organisation that uses social media” at one end (with the hashtags #socmed and #socbiz used interchangeably), and a deep, transformative opportunity at the other. Whether or not such a profound transformation ends up being labelled social business, we’ve tried hard at Euler Partners to articulate what it might mean in less ambiguous terms. ...