Staying Social Fresh

Yesterday was my first time in Tampa and though it was a quick trip, it was a good one.  Jason Keath invited me to speak at Social Fresh, a bi-annual conference specializing in enhancement tools for people in the social industry.With few internal sources available for best practices, networking and training among traditional companies, Social Fresh fills a void that most in the field can relate to.  I'm grateful for the opportunity.It's also a geeky pleasure to connect with your Twitter favorites in real life.  I especially enjoyed chatting with Shauna Causey and Jay Baer while we waited for our video interviews.  Like me, they both have exciting new developments in the works and it's great to see the glass ceiling for social is no where in sight. Yet.My topic, "Elevate: Leading & Launching a Social Media Practice" was well-received and I believe any conversation about the business of social media must also include a leadership component.  [Click here to see a blog post summary of my chat].As promised, here are my slides from the presentation:[slideshare id=11488102&doc=adrianparkersocialfreshshare-elevate0-120208152727-phpapp02]Most of all, I enjoyed the dialogue with attendees after my session, several of whom confirmed my sense that we're all facing similar challenges. Some of the primary questions were:

1. How do we educate and lead cross-functional teams who don't see value in interactive marketing?
2. Are there resources for navigating privacy, IP and other legal issues facing companies?
3. What's the best way to lead a team when everything we're doing has never been done before?
4. How do I prove the value of social media in my organization so I'm not perceived as simply an add-on but a necessity?

Let's continue this dialogue over the next several days as we edify one another. If you have recommendations to the questions below please drop me a comment or a link to your blog post.  I certainly learned a few things during my brief time in Tampa and look forward to what's next for my Social Fresh friends.Next up - I owe Kate Sawa (@katesawa) a post highlighting how to calculate and use earned media efficiency as a measure of social media ROI.  We're going to use her success at the American Heart Association as an upcoming case study.  You just wait and see.