(TOTH to David Brazeal.)
This weekend I had the distinct pleasure of assisting Jennifer McClure, the Executive Director of the Society for New Communications Research, at the Society's annual Symposium and Awards Gala.
Held this year at the Marlowe Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Symposium was a day-long presentation of SNCR's research, conducted by SNCR Fellows and collaborators, which continues to yield some of the most useful data about and case studies on the emerging use of new media by brands, corporations, nonprofits, small businesses, and educational institutions.
The Awards Gala presented the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Awards, which consisted of over 50 citations, commendations, and awards for excellence to organizations and individuals that exemplified innovation in, as the SNCR website puts it,
the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities and virtual worlds and collaborative technologies in the areas of business, media, and professional communications, including advertising, marketing, public relations and corporate communications, as well as entertainment, education, politics, and social initiatives. In addition, the SNCR Fellows honor their choices for the SNCR Visionary of the Year, Innovator of the Year and Brand of the Year.
This year, the recipients of the SNCR Visionary of the Year Award were Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, co-authors of the book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. On hand to accept the award was Josh Bernoff, VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.
Groundswell has had an enormous impact on my thinking about Web 2.0, and I have blogged about it extensively here. I've been using the methodology laid out in Groundswell in my presentations to nonprofits and cultural organizations on how to use social technologies to advance their mission and keep their bottom lines healthy and strong. If you haven't read it yet, I strongly recommend you do. I promise, you'll like it.
I took video of all the awardees, and will be posting more soon, but I wanted to share this one first. Congratulations to all the winners. It was a tremendous evening, and I was very glad to share it with you.
[viddler id=bb745c62&w=437&h=370]
[Flickr photos of the Symposium can be found here and here.]
[Twitter stream of the symposium can be found here. Shel Holtz live-blogged it here.]