We are very excited to have the opportunity to attend the Inaugural Dachis Group Social Business Summit 2010 in Austin next week. This is an invitation only event that includes some of the thought leaders of social business:

• Jeff Dachis, Dachis Group, Opening and Welcome
• Doug Rushkoff, The People’s Business
• Charlene Li, Altimeter Group, Making The Case For Open Leadership
• Jamie Punishill, Citibank, Operationalizing Social Business
• Kate Niederhoffer, Dachis Group, Classic Rocks, Corporate Culture
• Jackie Huba, Ants Eye View, Engaging The One Percenters
• Frank Eliason, Comcast, Social Business and Cultural Change
• Dion Hinchcliffe, Hinchcliffe & Company, Emerging Social Business Strategies in 2010
• Sam Decker, Bazaarvoice, Creating Customer Oxygen
• Rick Maynard, KFC, The Secret Recipe For Social Business Success
• Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction, Work Like The Network
• Karen McGrane, Bond Art + Science, UX Will Make Or Break Social Business
• Stowe Boyd, /Message, Publicy and the Erosion of Privacy
• Christine Morrison, Intuit Turbo Tax
• Lee Bryant, Headshift, Humanising the Enterprise

There should be around 75 attendees, so a smaller group condusive to conversation. The goal for the summit is to provide and engage in creating a composite picture of the “state of Social Business,” i.e. what’s important now and what’s happening next. We will post our thoughts and any insights gained from the event in a blog post after the event. Do you have any thoughts or questions about the current state and future of social business? Let us know at www.twitter.com/KaleidosMktg (@KaleidosMktg) and we’ll do our best to report back on it.

There’s already been some good conversation and previews around Twitter hashtag #SBS2010, and we’ve found some new interesting folks to follow on Twitter. (Thanks @zackolantern!) Hope to meet you all next week!

Over the years there have been several leadership and business books that have stood out and made an impact on my own philosophies. With the transformation of how we do business that is underway due to the growth of social media, I have been wondering whether the philosophies or strategies promoted by these books have been impacted in any way.

Though it was about 15 years ago that I read this, one such book was Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T Phillips. There were two ideas in particular that I took from this book. The first is the philosophy that you should get into the trenches with your team and understand what is going on at every level. The second is the philosophy of surrounding yourself with thought leaders with whom you can discuss ideas and strategies. There are many other keys to leadership included in the book, and upon recently revisiting the book I discovered great ones that I didn’t even remember, but today I am going to focus on those two that resonated with me.

One of the things that social media and Twitter give us access to are the thoughts and readings of some of today’s business leaders. We can follow anyone on Twitter, and many of today’s leaders are on Twitter, posting their latest readings and thoughts for all of us to view. We can also see who they are following and learn a little about their interests though we may not know why. It is not the same as being able to sit down with them one-on-one, but gives us some insight and access that we could never have had in the past.

Though it is not exactly getting into the trenches with their team, leaders can now get a better idea of what both employees and customers are thinking and saying about them. Social networking platforms have given us unprecedented access to thoughts, opinions and people who previously would have been inaccessible to us. Does the access give us the same information and understanding that we would get through in person interaction? I think there are trade offs. We get more information but may miss nuances and emotions that you may pick up on in person. There is a lot of clutter to get through to obtain the information that you are looking for. The more familiar we become with the technologies and the more platforms are built to help us manage this information, the more efficiencies we will see.

There are many great business books out there that were written prior to the advent of social media and it would be an interesting study to revisit some of those books and identify how social media can be applied or provides us with additional tools to achieve those philosophies.

Yelp.com has just added GPS “check in” functionality and will be a contender with Foursquare. Add them to the previous post as a platform that should be incorporated into social media strategy for restaurants and bars. For more information see Mashable.com.

For all of you restaurants, bars and retailer out there, we recommend incorporating Foursquare into your social media strategy. We think that Foursquare has the potential to become mainstream as Facebook has done and if so it will be the hot new tool to drive customers to your establishment.

Here is a case study about how a BBQ restaurant in Raleigh uses Foursquare and Twitter. The model is that users of hand held devices equipped with GPS can “check in” at establishments. As part of a game, they earn points and you know what customers are at your establishment. These customers can be your brand ambassadors. Once you embrace the technology, the idea is really common sense. Wouldn’t you go out of your way to make any regular customer feel welcome? The addition of social media to your strategy does not mean that you are changing your philosophy or business model. This social media technology just gives you some additional ways to reach out to both regular and new customers.

You will want to offer freebies for Foursquare mayors and specials for those who check in regularly. You will also want to monitor tips about your business to see what people are saying.

Want to take it a step further? Turn social media into currency and work Twitter and Foursquare into your customer loyalty program