I was pretty facinated by Chris’s ideas and his passionate vision for social media in general. For a young kid (I can say that since I am older than him) he has some very compelling ideas and a good vision that I believe he can rally people around.

The discussion turned to what the current state of the market is and why Chris was spending time with multiple Fortune 1000 companies and had discussions with roomfull of people to “educate them” and evangalize about social media and its usage, value, benefits etc. Only to see that there were not any defined projects or budget associated with these projects. So Chris in fact is doing a great service by educating the market about social media and communities and hopefully can reap the benefits when these enterprises are ready to buy. In most early markets this tends to be the case as many people can attest to.

Social Media Club offers forums (live, in person) to have the grassroots efforts thrive. So if you are a PR person, Marketing type, technology savvy about Web 2.0 and really want to champion the usage of Social Media and Social Networking within your company you could go to these events to learn how other people do it and hopefully convert more within your company.

What is the best way to educate and evagalize about communities then so we can get more people in this space quicker?
We have 3 options I think (like always, there are only 3, others dont matter

1. Allow for industry outreach efforts like CMMC. The pros are that everyone speak to the same language and has consistency, tools and messages that resonate.

2. Social Media Club and the like allow for more grass roots efforts. The pros are you get more traction quicker, since you dont need a whole committee to make a decision and you certainly dont have to please everyone.

3. Most vendors within a market will also allocate their chief spokesperson (like Marc B did for Salesforce.com about the SaaS market) to evagalize in their market.

So how can you leverage these in your company to promote communities? Leverage ALL these tools and resources so you can show the light – Companies need to hear from customers and create a bi directional communication channel with their customers, partners and communities are the best way to do that.