Strategies for Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

With the advent of social technologies like blogs and social networks, the world has transformed to one where people get what they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions. Companies are threatened by this new order, and need new frameworks and strategies for how to approach the groundswell of active, participating customers. This Forum will address the following issues:

• What process should companies use to create a coherent social strategy?
• What business objectives and results can be achieved with Web 2.0 technologies?
• Who should lead and own the social strategy within an organization?
• How will social technologies transform your business in the future?

Presenter(s)

Bio: Charlene primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for the Interactive Marketing professional. She is one of the driving forces behind Forrester's Social Computing and Web 2.0 research, and examines how companies can use technologies like blogs, social networking, RSS, tagging, and widgets for marketing purposes. During her eight years at Forrester, Charlene has also lead the marketing and media research team, and ran the San Francisco office.

In her research, Charlene covers such marketing-related topics as consumer portals, search, and media site design. She also leverages her background in newspaper publishing and looks at online local media and online classifieds. In the past, she has also written about online advertising, online gaming, and media content strategies. She also contributes to her Groundswell blog and plans to publish a book by the same name in spring 2008.

Previous Work Experience: Charlene was publisher of interactive media for Community Newspaper Company, a group of newspapers in Massachusetts, where she started its award-winning Town Online Web site. In addition, Charlene served on the board of directors for the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation. Before working for Community Newspaper, Charlene was at the San Jose Mercury News, where she managed new product development. This included creating new advertising products and a consumer electronics show.

Charlene is one of Forrester's most quoted analysts and has appeared in outlets like The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, CNN, NPR, and BBC, as well as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek. She is also an accomplished and frequently requested public speaker, and has appeared at Web 2.0 Expo, Ad:Tech, Search Engine Strategies, and AlwaysOn. She has delivered keynote speeches at many events, including Forrester's Consumer Forum and Television Forum.

Education: A former strategy consultant for Monitor Company, Charlene is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.