Happy New Year!! Five Trends to Watch

I'm back in the office working my way through two weeks of emails and I find myself excited. It's 2010- a year that for folks my age conjures images of Roy Scheider on a spaceship heading for Jupiter. It is the future and, space travel aside, there are so many exciting trends happening this year. I hope to share my viewpoint and the opinions of some other thought leaders here on this blog over the next 12 months.

Here are a five things I find fascinating:

1. the integration of cloud computing, enterprise software and social networking to improve sales, marketing and PR business applications and create real, measurable value
2. the continuing impact of mobile computing on businesses and their customers
3. the economic recovery- will it be fast or sluggish
4. will traditional media evolve and save themselves or will they continue to diminish in influence
5. how will the mammoth health care reform bill impact the long delayed computerization and modernization of the healthcare industry

A lot of moving parts for one year! How will it all shake out? Stick around and we'll find out together...

New SIIA Webinar This Monday on B2B Social Media Apps- Targeting the C Suite

I want to make sure my faithful readers are aware of the next SIIA Webinar coming up this Monday, November 2 at 1:30pm. This latest episode is going to focus on how sales and marketing can work together to leverage simple, free social media tools to identify decision makers, grow relationships and close deals.

I'll be moderating the session and cuing up a fabulous panel that includes

• Jim Fowler, CEO, Jigsaw
• Steve Ressler, Founder, GovLoop

Click here to register: "Social Media Webinar Series: Using Social Media to Target the C-Suite and Close Deals"

There is a $89 charge to register- however, since you’ll be my guest, you can register for free if you use the following code- PRMSTRAT.

Listen to my Webinar- an Overview of B2B Social Media Business Applications

Last week, I had the great opportunity of serving as a speaker for a webinar hosted by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA). There were three excellent presentations and a fascinating Q&A session. The speakers were:

Jeff Majka, Director of Marketing and Business Development, Strategic Communications Group
Gail Nelson, SVP, Marketing, BurrellesLuce
Angela Lauria, CMO, AppAssure

...and the session was moderated by Karen Leavitt, CEO, Marketing Fusion.

Download the PDF of the 36 slides here and listen to the audio here (about 90 minutes).

What do you think? Please leave a comment or drop me a line!!

As I told you here, this was the first webinar in a four part series. The next three webinars will be held as follows (mark your calendars and click on the links to register):

Enterprise Sales Support - Using Social Medial to Support the Enterprise B2B Sales Cycle
Price for SIIA Members: Free, Non SIIA Members: $35
Monday, October 5th - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT
With new service-based models and the rise of "freemium", the sales cycle is getting complicated -- and every advantage counts. Social media has the potential to connect these new models to the customers that want them, but how do you implement it? Where do you start? Hear how social media can transform the way you approach lead generation and sales cycle support.

Panelists:
Adam Mertz, Product Marketing Manager, Jive Software
Jay Hallberg, Co-founder & VP of Marketing, Spiceworks

Using Social Media to Target the C-Suite and Close Deals
Price for SIIA Members: Free, Non SIIA Members: $89
Monday, November 2 - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT
Many of your customers are using social media to communicate with THEIR customers. How can you tap into their social media programs? The first step to closing the deal is to conduct a social media audit of your principal prospects. How can this be completed efficiently and comprehensively for a large number of prospects? How can you facilitate social media for deal capture?

Panelist:
Jim Fowler, CEO, Jigsaw

Social Media for Brand Awareness, Thought Leadership and Other Traditional PR Activities
Price for SIIA Members: Free, Non SIIA Members: $89
Monday, December 7th - 1:30pm - 2:30 pm EDT
Social media should be an integral part of your PR strategy, not just your sales function. To run a successful campaign Marketing, Sales and PR need to be integrated using today's popular social media tools. How can you effectively integrate your social media strategy across the enterprise?

Moderator:
Robert Carroll, VP Marketing, Clickability
Panelist:
Richard Dym, CMO, OpSource, Inc.