Talking Points with Jeremiah Owyang, Web-Strategist.com

Of many web marketing blogs I have read, I highly recommend this article entitled “The Many Forms of Web Marketing for the 2007 Web Strategist” by Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah Owyang is a web strategist and currently employed as director of corporate media strategy at PodTech.net. Recently, he was here in Singapore for the IX Conference, and we managed to get him to do an interview with us about his thoughts about social media, corporate websites and the upcoming trends in the web other than Facebook.

BL: Hi Jeremiah, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Give us a short summary about yourself, your background and what you are currently doing?
Jeremiah Owyang: I’m a “Web Guy”, I’ve had several jobs related to web, I worked at Exodus Communications, Cable and Wireless, an American Bank. I’m most known for bringing a Social Media program to a Hitachi company. I’m currently working at PodTech.net as the Director of Corporate Media Strategy –I help our Fortune 1000 customers understand and use social media. I do a lot of blogging, speaking and the occasional video blog.

BL: What prompted you to come to Singapore for the IX Conference?
Jeremiah Owyang: The wonderful Bill Claxton invited me, I spoke both at the University as well as the main congress. I was on a mission to understand the Singapore technology industry, and I interviewed people on video, and text blogged it in real time. If you check my flickr account, I published over 600 photos in that short week. I learned a lot about Singapore’s tech industry and I’m telling people about it in Silicon Valley.

BL: Social media has taken off in US, Europe, Japan, Korea and China. In Southeast Asia, there is still some reservation for big corporations to embrace social media. What do you think that the social media community should do to woo the conservatives over?
Jeremiah Owyang: It’s pretty simple, once corporations realize that prospects are talking to customers they’ll realize they need to ‘open the doors’. I know it’s not easy to see at first, so that’s where people like me come in, educators. There’s some very key studies that indicate that people trust other people “like them” and now they have the tools to listen and be heard –that’s a disruption to traditional communications. It’s not just about PR and Marketing, product teams can build better with real time communication with the marketplace. There’s benefits to support and even the intranet, these tools are versatile.

BL: You talked about the future where the “corporate websites will become irrelevant” and have cited successful examples from Dell and Microsoft. What is your vision of what a future corporation website will look like?
Jeremiah Owyang: Great question, the future of websites will be ‘community websites’. What’s that? If corporate websites are not trusted sources of customer opinion, then to stay relevant corporations will need to allow customers to help build the website content with them. The savvy companies will learn the best way to bring the community close is to let them right in. We’re already seeing companies starting to do this, and with measurable success.

BL: What are the three important lessons for those who want to engage in this new emerging social media industry?
Jeremiah Owyang: 1) Join the communities that already exist 2) Learn how things have changed 3) Be human!

BL: We have heard from you in the IX Conference that Facebook is the company to watch for the next year. Is there another emerging trend that you foresee that is important in the development of social media?
Jeremiah Owyang: Yes, live webstreaming is key to watch. I was known for being one of the Ustreamers at the Web 2.0 conference. I let my audience tell me where to go using the chat room, who to talk to, and what questions to ask, they were as part of the show as I was. At one point, there were more people in the chat room talking and listening and asking questions through me than actually in the session! I became so interested in ustream.tv that I even joined their board of advisers!

BL: How’s your experience with the social media community in Singapore? Will you come back again?
Jeremiah Owyang: Oh yes, I’m looking to come back, I’m hoping to speak at upcoming conferences like Global Entropolis, Nexus, SG Entrepreneurs, or any other web or marketing event, if you know of any, please suggest to them. Not only will I share, but I’ll capture the stories of Singapore web industry and bring it back to Silicon valley using my blog, pictures and video.

BL: Jeremiah, that’s great. We will look forward to see you again in future conferences here again. On behalf of our team, we thank you for taking the time out to do this email interview.

Related Links: Do check out these interesting articles in his blog:
[1] On Corporate Websites: Web Strategy: How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website and Voices from the Community: Corporate Websites ARE Irrelevant.
[2] On Living Streaming: Live Streaming changes Communication: Financial Times and Ustream CEO.
[3] On Singapore (a lot of interesting accounts about the recent IX Conference): Here are a few that we selected – Let go, let your Community create with you, and grow together, What are the most popular websites in Asia? Watch this video to find out and Headed to Singapore, exploring Tech Industry.

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