What do we do now that fans are in charge?

I’ve been immersed in the “creative class” for the past 4 days, and I’m really sad to be leaving. Being amongst all these developers, designers, artists, entrepreneurs has been awesome. I highly recommend EVERYONE attend this show. It’s given me a great perspective on what’s happening and what’s possible in the Web 2.0 world we’re all living in.

I’m hoping to share with everyone the details of what I picked up here, but there’s so much, and I’m a bit rushed to make my plane. So here’s a quick glimpse.

The word of the day is “community”. Everyone down here is thinking talking about ways to bring people together online and offline. Communities are forming around every topic and interest group imagineable. Communities need rules. Communities need context (story lines / narrative). Communities are good for the citizens and the “hosts”. Communities can turn on you. Communities are inevitable. Communities will talk.

What do we do now that fans are in charge??

I’d like to dig deeper into this theme as it relates to sports marketing. With fantasy football, EA sports, IPTV, etc all picking up steam, how will the sports fans form community on line and off line, and how will teams, leagues, media and sponsors learn to foster these communities and leverage them for profit? How can these communities be “curated” so that members move off line and do good things in the world of atoms? (notice I didn’t say “real” world because one thing I learned down here in Austin is that online IS REAL just as offline is REAL. We perceive no difference).

Sports Marketing 2.0 Conference

I’d like to take this opportunity to invite sports media (NBC, ESPN, etc), Sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NASCAR, etc), sports teams, Partipation sports (Extreme, jogging, etc), fantasy sports, EA Sports (games), sports bloggers, sports media, sports associations, college SIDs and last but not least BRAND MARKETERS to get together and talk about this stuff.

Nobody knows the answers to these questions. Even is we’re competitors at some level, rightn now we can help eachother by sharing what we’re doing and what we’re learning. We need to be in community in order to understand community.

So, whose up for a little “unconference”?

If you know anyone at any of the big players, and you can help me get in touch, please drop me a line. If you would like to attend a conference like this, please drop me a line. If you’ve got ideas for making this conference great, drop me a line…I can’t do this alone.