Always In Beta at The Forrester Consumer Forum

Talk with us at alwaysinbeta.criticalmass.com

Next week is Forrester's Consumer Forum in Chicago.  I'll be moderating a panel with Manish Mehta of Dell and Stan Joosten from P&G.  We're going to be talking about what it means to be "beta"—and how it's shaping our view of the way we connect with customers. Here's how the panel is billed:

"Innovation isn’t limited to R+D rooms anymore. The Web 2.0 movement—powered by scrappy start-ups such as Twitter, Malhalo and even YouTube have proven that innovation often happens in iterations. Build, launch, tweak, measure, and repeat.  Techniques like Mash-ups enable faster development and more experimentation with a range of tools from mapping to community to data feeds.  Digital experiences seem to be “always in beta”—learning and evolving along the way."

In addition to the panel, I've been working behind the scenes with a small team to launch our "Always In Beta" site. The site will contain a live video stream from the Critical Mass booth which will be broadcast from our booth on October 11th.  Anyone from anywhere in the world can chat with us in real time.  The chat feature is live now so feel free to stop by—you never know when someone will be there to talk to you.

In addition to the site, we're going to try something a bit different for the panel format.  I will be inviting the audience to text messages to a visible screen during our discussion.  Halfway through the discussion, I will start to address questions and thoughts from the screen which will be aggregated as they come in.  (See below)

(visual by Kevin Schnabel)

The point of both these experiments is just that—we're willing to try some new things.  We don't know how the formats will go down—if the video will work properly, what people will say in the chat or through SMS on the panel.  But this is awfully similar to what's happening in the real world right?  People are going to talk about you and your brand in ways you can't always predict.  It then becomes our choice to either help facilitate these conversations, or put our heads in the sand and pretend that the world isn't spinning.  Plus, we think it's just a good opportunity to try something out and learn from it.

Comments

[Damian Rees]

I really like this idea David. Particularly for some of those people who get crowded out of these discussions by the some of the more confident or dominant members of the audience as it offers a really nice experience for those who feel like they can still have their voice heard.

I was wondering - are you planning to encourage people to add their name or keep it anonymous? Making it anonymous could be very interesting ;) Good luck with it. Hopefull you'll update us on your findings

[Lewis Green]

David,

I think you are the most conference/seminar traveled person I know. Keep up the great work.

[Jeroen Visser]

David,

Brilliant idea! In fact we're doing this for several months now and i can say this:

for us it works...

We're using this live sms-feeds during congresses, party's and presentations...

If you want some more info contact me by email or if you want us to do it for you, buy us a ticket to chicago and we'll be there for free :D

[Erica]

David - What a great idea. I often find myself at conferences, listening to the speaker and then forgetting my questions by the end, when questions are welcomed. It would be so nice to fire the questions off when I first had them.

And Damian, there would be a huge difference between name attributed and anonymous questions. David, you'll have to let us all know how it goes.

[deb schultz]

Great stuff D. As you know geek conferences have been bringing live events to the audience at home for a while - very helpful and often educational for the panelists and attendees alike. Looking forward to seeing you there.

[Tim Leberecht]

Hi David,

Wish I could be there to see the panel. Here's my take on the implications of "Always in Beta" on the media.
http://iplot.typepad.com/iplot/2007/10/beta-goes-meta-.html