Yesterday I was presenting at the Art of Digital Conference (Twitter Tag: #artofdigital) along side:

• Identity 2.0 – Alison Gow, Executive Editor, Digital, Liverpool Echo & Daily Post
• Break Out Session: Power of Online Communities – Millicent Jones, Liverpool Philharmonic
• Web 2.0 & New Audience Relationships – Will Gompertz, Director, Tate Media
• TV 2.0 – Ian Forrester, BBC Backstage

One of the loud, over riding themes that came out of the conference for me, is that this tidal wave of the social web is upon us. For those companies embracing this trend, means that they are fundamentally having to change they way they do business.

Millicent mentioned in her presentation that they are moving to a more media production company, where they are looking at live streaming some of their concerts. It also means that they potentially have another revenue stream as well. It has also meant that they will have to look at their stage lighting as it need to be TV & film standard. They have also experimenting with concerts in Second Life.

Will talked about how they have been working in partnership with BBC to scan and show the work in their archives for Francis Bacon. They have also joined forces with Google Maps – so if there is any Tate artwork associated with a location it is shown on the map. They have also teamed up with You Tube to promote some of their video footage.

Alison talked about the first big push they had was around the day in the life of the newsroom and got the entire newsroom involved in the project. From 7am – the following 1am they covered how they picked the stories for the headlines to questions that were sent in. At 1am there were still 60 people online posting comments when the front page as posted up. More importantly if the business hadn’t been restructure then the opportunity to be the Digital Editor would not have been available. The culture change within the business seems to have changed focus to a more devolved content structure.

Starting on the journey of embracing these new technologies is an exciting journey into the unknown, and definitely not for the faint hearted. The companies that will survive will be those that place the new media / technology /social media at the heart of their business.

More importantly this needs to be reflected in the management structure of the business, as strategic decisions are made in the board room, so therefore it would correlate that the New Media / Technology / Online Marketing should be represented on the board of a company if they are that serious about making it intrinsic to the business.

Once you have started on the journey into the social media / online communities / new technology, there is no turning back…..it’s a one way ticket. Reason being that you will have set the expectations of your audience and once you have given them the glimpse of the new world, they’ll be hooked and want to continue the online conversations with you….as their views, reviews and opinions count. It would be like walking out of a room mid conversation – and none of us do that (right?).

So let’s get serious guys…….and start thinking about what this means for your business and how you can embrace the tidal wave that’s heading your way.