Last week I attended Social Media Week, a conference that takes place simultaneously at numerous locations worldwide such as Berlin, Barcelona, Sao Paulo and Shanghai. The conference featured events on social media and its implications for society, culture, politics and business. Here are some highlights from this year's event in Berlin:
1. Connecting social media with reality
In their talk "Engage or Die - Social Media & Event Marketing" Dagobert Hartmann, director of strategic planning and Christian Pöhlmann, concept designer at Uniplan presented their research on current trends in live communication. According to their findings, one of the largest barriers to the mainstream adoption of social media in companies is that it is difficult to convince the upper management of its benefits. They also emphasized the importance of motivating users to co-create as well as forging links between on- and offline interactions—aspects that are especially relevant for the emerging sharing economy and the mission of Ouishare.
2. "Everything can be shared"
A highlight of the week was a panel on collaborative consumption, which was moderated by Ouishare co-founder Benjamin Tinq and featured the German companies Wimdu, a peer-to-peer(P2P) vacation rental platform, Deskwanted, a platform that helps you locate co-working spaces all over the world, Gidsy, a marketplace for activities and DriveNow, BMW's carsharing service. Interesting questions that were discussed during the panel were: what motivates users to share? Are the reasons mostly financial or are people seeking to create human connections? According to the panelists, users' motivations seem to vary by the type of platform being used. While the DriveNow PR spokesperson Michael Fischer claimed that their users solely sign up for their service as a cheaper and more convenient alternative to owning a car, community manager Katie Needs had the opposite to say about Gidsy. According to her, "most people that offer activities on Gidsy don't care about making money, they want to meet new people and share their skills with others." Furthermore the panel addressed common issues companies in the space face as well as the future of collaborative consumption in general. When asked about the latter, Joel Duell, co-founder of Deskwanted, response was, "everything can be shared." As soon as the enabling technical infrastructure is in place, we will be sharing everying. If you would like to learn more about the discussion check out the video of the panel. [caption id="attachment_3000" align="alignleft" width="403"]
From left to right: Michael Riegel (Wimdu), Joel Dullroy (Deskwanted), Katie Needs (Gidsy), Michael Fischer (DriveNow). Photo taken by Francesca Pick.[/caption]
3. Social Media is changing travel
A second panel that stood out was "Social Traveling: where on and offline networks meet." The panel addressed several fundamental questions that I believe should be subject to further discussion: how are social media transforming the way we travel? And more, how are they influencing our daily decisions and behavioral patterns? Watch this clip of the panel with Fred Caballero, co-founder of Startupstay, Maxim Nohroudi, co-founder of Waymate, travel Blogger Nina Hüpen-Bestendonk, Benjamin Kaubisch, founder of Jetstream and Monica Zalidvar, Community Manager at Roomsurfer. To give you a short impression of social media week alltogether, check out this short video with interviews of Waymate, Friendsurance and Roomsurfer (description of these startups is below). https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=kfQCfdY0A6o These are the startups presented in the video: Waymate isa platform that enables door-to-door journey planning and facilitates the comparison and booking of different travel routes by integrating various forms of transport (car, bus, train, plane) into one interface. The platform will launch its open beta this fall. An interview with the founder will be published here soon. Friendsurance has a very unique and revolutionary approach to insurance. The platform helps you lower your insurance rate by connecting you with a network of other people with the same insurance. This distribuites the risk of damage which in turn can lead to cost savings of up to 50%. If you live in Germany you should definitely take a look at it (this is the only place it is available till now). Roomsurfer is essentially a mixture between CouchSurfing and Airbnb. The platform matches travelers with hosts not only by location but also by common interest. In comparison to CouchSurfing staying with a host is not free but ranges from a price of 5 - 30€ per night. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Header image was taken by Francesca Pick.