The answer is simple … if your job is in social media, this event isn’t for you.

It’s for your clients.

Brian’s BOOK is for you. (And, if you are indeed an enterprising, social media superstar, you’ll probably read Engage whether I tell you about it or not.)

So, why educate your clients?

That answer is simple, too …. educated clients benefit us all.

Lead the camels to water.

Although many of us work in a world where we can watch watercooler debates via social feeds all day and hang with other people who whip out their phones and tweet the funny jokes they just heard, the reality is … um …. that’s not reality.

While social media is a business tool (and a powerful one at that), many businesses are still just circling it like hungry sharks nudging a surfboard to determine if it’s a seal.

This is still largely uncharted terrain. And the parts we have charted continue to shift overnight, as if someone passed a magnet over our collective strategic compass.

Each day there are new concepts to understand, new tools to explore and new resources to review.

Companies are intrigued, but they’re also seriously freaked out.

And, if you’re working in this field like we are, you’re likely seeing that, too — in the form of RFPs that get abandoned, social strategies that don’t get implemented and community managers who are jettisoned for failing to tweet their way to increased profits.

Help them take a drink.

If we’re going to be grown-up professionals and make social media a grown-up industry, it’s going to take more than 140 character oaths and Foursquare mayorships.

We’re going to need to work together to pave the way for insight and acceptance in companies of all shapes and sizes.

The more that companies “get it,” the more they’re going to realize that it takes special skills and special people to capitalize on that “it.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be one of those people.

Be the ambassador.

If you’re sitting on the front lines of this industry, you’ll find much “food for thought” in Brian’s book – much of it far too deep or technical to cover in one evening talk.

Instead, our July 27 event is your chance to have someone who essentially just wrote the “how to” manual for social success make the case to your clients (and potential clients). You get to be the lucky ambassador sitting next to them who can capitalize on that excitement.

(Register using our special “bring your client” rate and you’ll be a fiscally-responsible ambassador, too.)

So, is that, “helping my competition?”

Perhaps.

Being a “social ambassador” at Brian’s presentation could mean that someday you’ll win a gig that my company is also vying for.

But, if we don’t first work together to educate companies, in the end, we all wind up losing.

Is this because I’m brilliant?

Heck no.

If anything, I have a lot to learn. And that compels me to continually seek out new educational opportunities at meetings, workshops, webinars, teleseminars and conferences, both locally and nationally.

But lately, everything I go to has had the same soundbite loop of examples, (Zappos!) ideas, (”Listening is key”) and anecdotes, (”Gary V was just a guy with some wine and a dream…”) all framed by the uber assertion that, “Social Media is AWESOME!”

And, sure enough, there is always a hungry crowd of people sitting at these events.

These are, ironically, the same people I talked to about social media more than year ago who regaled me with questions about Twitter as if it were some sort of mythical Sasquatch–like beast that I had stumbled upon in the woods.

In time, these people got the message that social media was here to stay, so they started using these tools, too. And now they too want to get together and talk about how it works, why it works and how to use it for their business.

Don’t get me wrong … I think that’s a great thing. There should continue to be events for these people to go to. (In fact, I’ve created some of these events myself, where, I too, am guilty of using the soundbites mentioned above.)

My problem is that personally, I’m not interested in those questions or events anymore.

I’ve been working with social media intensively, extensively and exclusively for nearly two years.

I’m ready for some new dialogue.

I want to talk about questions like …

• How do we create metrics that can adequately measure the nuisances in the qualitative and quantitative data gained from measuring social media conversations? (Because, yes, we can measure this stuff. Yes, there is a science to this. And yes, there are whole conferences being devoted to this topic.)

• How do we navigate the ethics of social media when qualities like, “authenticity” and “transparency” open the door to a host of landmine issues like, “Who determines what data is private?” “Where should the disclosure line be drawn between being someone’s fan and being their marketer?” “How do you maintain authenticity while at the same time being highly strategic about your engagement?”

• How to we develop and manage a content strategy for social media when the message is not being used for the traditional two-way exchange of sender and receiver, but rather is a living dialogue that ping-pongs between senders and receiver (and each receivers’ receivers) ad infinitum?

• As more and more learning and interaction happens virtually, what will the new role be for real-time events and interactions? How can we respond to the needs of online communities for face-to-face connection? How do we capture the “a ha!” moments that occur offline and relay them back to the online network?

• How do we build and integrate social media into a larger marketing and PR strategy so that it serves as an invaluable new tool in a company’s arsenal (with its own strengths and weaknesses) rather than a “bell and whistle” to tack onto an already overextended business workload?

Where are these types of conversations happening?

Locally? Yes. These questions pop up at most every coffee meeting I have. People are creating word-of-mouth support networks, but that’s generally where the “education” ends. Most events are still being built to simply help professionals sell social media to their clients and companies (and that’s a fine goal). But this means that, for now at least, they are trapped in Social Media 101 mode.

At national conferences? Maybe some, but not at the ones I’ve been to lately. Those have been the lands where the giant corporate case study reigns supreme, even when they are entirely devoid of nimbleness and innovation. (Note to conference planners: the hottest ideas in social media are NOT coming out of giant corporations.)

Online? Always. I am currently attending Twitter U to get my Social Media MBA. The ideas are coming in a steady stream from networks and blogs, (thank you Mack Collier, Brian Solis, et al), but the answers many of us seek will still ultimately be found through application and interpretation. For those, we need community and clients – areas where offline interaction can still hold the most impact.

Not sure what the solution is to this problem. But I know it’s not one I can solve on my own.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know I do have good questions, so I’ve pitched myself to speak on these topics both locally and nationally, but have had little success.

I’d build my own events to tackle these ideas but, since I’d be trying to pull in an audience of my peers, I think it’d be an exercise in futility (especially if I had to charge money for the events to cover my costs). As Chris Brogan so aptly put it last week, the Twin Cities is still pretty siloed when it comes to forming tribes to support each other in the social media community. That’s a damn shame.

So this morning, I watched the Twitter stream as the social media faithful here in town gathered for yet another event. They likely tackled social media again, twisting the topic like some programmatic Rubik’s Cube to examine and discuss from some new angle.

Ultimately, I’m not sorry I stayed home.

I have work to do and clients to help. Not sure anything they would have found would have helped me with either.

As usual, for now, it looks like I’m on my own.

As with any super-hot buzz topic, there were no shortage of resource materials, expert presentations and educational events for me to choose from in my quest, so…

• I signed up for presentations, seminars, webinars and teleseminars.
• I was exposed to a lot of experts in the field.
• I read a number of whitepapers and books.
• I spent a lot of time listening, watching and taking notes.

Ultimately the goal of my immersion was not just to learn about social media (although I did).

The goal of this project was to learn how people are marketing and teaching social media to other people.

I learned a great deal about that. For instance:

1. “Everyone and their brother” is jumping on the social media education bandwagon.

There is a lot of good stuff out there to choose from if you want to learn more about social media.

But there is also an awful lot of garbage out there too.

After wading through some of the garbage, my advice would be to choose wisely when you’re looking for social media education opportunities.

Also, if the host of the event you’re attending is not working with an event planner, don’t expect a stellar “user experience” at your event.

Planning events, contrary to popular opinion, actually kind of is rocket science. (Bells and whistles like coffee refills and full toilet paper rolls in the bathroom don’t just magically happen by themselves.)

Sure, any company can produce their own event. But not every company has the skills to make sure that you have an exquisite time while you’re there.

2. Because of “the great recession,” a lot of events are focusing on how to make money quick from social media tools.

…and shame on the people who are hosting these events.

Making money instantly from social networking is as absurd as thinking you’ll make money right out of the gate from face-to-face networking (do you walk into a networking event and pronounce, “I have arrived! Let the sales commence”)?

As much as we’d all like to make a lot of money, the fact remains that insty-sales are a product of lust, not trust.

Building a relationship that leads to a long-term valuable client partnership takes time.

3. For many people “teaching” = “slideshow of statistics.”

If you want to learn about social media, chances are you’re already familiar with the Intenet.

And if that’s the case, you can Google how many people are on Facebook or how fast Twitter is growing just as easily as your “teacher” in any social media class can.

Using teaching time to talk about how popular social media is isn’t education – that’s marketing.

What you’re less apt to find at most any event – and what I find people are most curious to learn – are details on “why” this is all relevant and “how” to implement these ideas.

4. Presenters at events still like to talk AT other people.

Social media is social folks. If you can’t translate that to your real-time instruction, you’re missing something critical.

5. You can pay a sizable amount of cash to learn about this stuff and walk away with pretty much nothing in return.

Quantifying the return on events can be tricky since everyone who attends has a different learning style and may use what they’ve learned in very different and personalized ways.

One thing that can more easily quantified is the impact of the learning if the subject is taught using a theoretical approach (as were most of the events I attended) versus an experiential approach.

Essentially, if you were to take a seminar on riding your bike and no actual bikes were involved, is it possible to really “get” what you’ve been taught?

If the subject you are teaching is examining the nature of conversation and interaction, I’d propose that your education style should be the same.

From an ROI standpoint, this means that if I’m paying a few hundred bucks to attend an event, I want to get my knees scraped up a bit during the learning process and walk out of there with the ability to ride off into the sunset.

DO I THINK I CAN DO BETTER?

After much analysis and soul searching, I decided that if Kane Consulting wanted to complain about the state of social media education, that we should put our money where our mouse was and produce an event of our own.

So we did. And you can register for it right now.

Will we be able to magically avoid every one of the missteps I’ve mentioned above?

Probably not.

Will we produce an amazing event experience that addresses these concerns head-on and commits to focusing on real-time “user-experience,” experimental learning and return on investment?

You bet your sweet tweet we will.

Hope to see you there.

(bike photo by Stig Nygaard, Flickr Creative Commons)