Uniting Communities through Social Media with Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs.com
September 15, 2008 :: Steve FisherPeter Corbett recently became one of the primary networking connectors in the MD/DC/VA area with the launch of the Twin Tech event in DC this past summer. Peter is well known in the marketing and social media community as a person who knows how to help companies large and small leverage social media through digital marketing, content creation and what he calls experiential marketing.
We recently sat down for an interview and I was able to spend some time with him and discuss the state of the tech community in DC and the future of digital marketing. Here is a transcript of our interview:
Steve: So, how would you describe iStrategyLabs to most people?
Peter: iStrategyLabs is a digital agency focused on providing clients with interactive strategy, experiential marketing and content creation services. Buzzwords aside, we’re focused on one thing – developing great ideas that sell your products and services or advance your cause.
Steve: So, how long have you been working in the digital marketing and social media space?
Peter: I’ve always been a ‘digital marketer’ ever since my first days on the net back in the early nineties as a teenager, but my career as an interactive strategist kicked into high gear in 2004 when I dug deep into the online media planning and buying side of the advertising world. I then had the opportunity to create the social media practice area at Blattner Brunner in 2006 – where I taught my colleagues the ins and out of social media and how it would be relevant for our clients moving forward.
Steve: What is your philosophy on using social media to grow a business?
Peter: How long do you want this blog post to be? I could go on for pages…
But, if there is one philosophy that I ensure leads every client effort (or my own efforts to use social media to grow my own business) it’s that what we’re engaging is is a one-to-one conversation with people. That is a very different approach that thinking you’re marketing to the mass of faceless consumers.
Steve: What exactly is experiential marketing for the uninitiated?
Peter: Experiential marketing is the physical creation of events that enable a brand to deeply engage an audience. I’ve been fusing this kind of ‘offline event marketing’ with social media and other interactive strategies to broaden the reach of my clients campaigns. Experiential marketing is a older marketing discipline, but it’s becoming really interesting as the lines between the digital and physical dissolve.
Steve: Since you are deep in the MD/DC/VA digital marketing/social media scene what have you seen transpire over the last 2-3 years in terms of trends, public perception and community growth?
Peter: I’ve been getting this question a lot lately. What we’re seeing in the capital region’s emerging tech/digital marketing community is not an accident, nor a trend, or coincidence. Over the past 4 years I’ve been working with about a dozen or so community organizers, programming what once were small meetups (5, 10, 20 people) for highly niche groups – the sweat equity we’ve put in has merely multiplied on itself and now we’re seeing much larger get-togethers (200, 400, 800+ attendees consistently) that are enabling all the niche sub-groups to mix with one another. That’s the idea behind Twin Tech which I host with the NVTC, and idea behind Frank Gruber’s Tech Cocktail. The niche groups are the backbone of the community are still and always will be crucial to the health of this region. What we’ve been lacking are the big mashups that get disparate groups into the same room where new friendships can be made, partnerships forged, companies started, and ideas explored.
That’s really my focus now in terms of community organizing – getting as many people together to mix it up as possible. That draws attention from the local and nation media – something we’ve really lacked over the years. Now, this region is getting noticed again as a cradle for innovation in emerging tech – from talking to some of the digital thought leaders outside of our region – people like Sarah Lacy and Scoble – I’ve learned that we really do have something unique here. We really have an incredibly healthy startup/social media community ecosystem that is spawning some really interesting businesses and other initiatives.
Finally, the fact that this group tends to be heavy users of social media technologies makes this a much faster process – we can see immediately what each other is up to. We know who is attending what, when and where. I’m amazed that I can send one email, or one Facebook event invite and there will be 250/300 rsvps to something in 24 hours. I’d like to think it’s because I’m a popular guy, but it’s really because social technologies have really made it easier for us to get together in physical space…and to market things for close to nothing.
Steve: Switching gears a bit, I would like to talk about your premier event, Twin Tech. This summer brought together the two different tech communities (government contractor crowd and the social media crowd) that might have never gotten together. Why did you put together the event when there are tons of tech events in the area?
Peter: It’s always been ‘my job’ to bring people together. I’ve done this ever since I was a little kid and it’s how I’m built. So, as someone who’s put a ton of time into helping all the niche communities in area grow separately – I was starting to think we needed to begin bringing it all together. When the Zach Goldfarb of the Washington Post called out the fact that there are “Twin Tech” towns in the capital region, I realized that I couldn’t wait any longer to get some serious cross pollination going. I’ve now made it ‘my job’ to merge, mix and mashup the niche groups…I guess I’m just curious about what will float to the top if we stir things up a bit.
Steve: Did you expect over 600 people to show for the first one?
Peter: Believe it or not, yes. At that time my local network of tech focused folks was about 500 or so mostly ‘emerging tech’ people and I knew that the veteran crowd that the NVTC would reach would be about double that. With a 30% reponse rate I figured we’d have about 500 or so folks – adding in the media coverage we got, and the ‘halo’ affect of hitting large numbers like that, the RSVPs got up to 800.
Steve: You have Twin Tech II planned for September 2008. You have a bigger venue with even more sponsors. Are you afraid it might be too big for people to really connect?
Peter: I don’t know that Twin Tech is meant for people to “really connect”, if what you mean by that is to sit down and truly get to know someone. What it will be good for is throwing the brightest minds in the region together in the same place, letting them hang out, and forge a lot of loose bonds that can then be followed up on outside of Twin Tech. People will “really connect” afterwards. It isn’t going to be the kind of thing where you sit down with someone and hash out an idea, strike a deal on the spot, or learn something out social media strategy. The niche meetups are really good for that. It’s really important for that to happen, but Twin Tech is just a starting place.
Steve: What are some lessons good or bad you have learned from doing an event of this magnitude?
Peter: Believe it or not, this isn’t a very big event for me – and it’s somewhat easy to do compared to other events I’ve produced. To put that in perspective, when I was in college I started producing concerts and would do shows with 1500+ attendees, talent flown in from around the country etc. In March I produced a concert for American Eagle Outfitters as a part of an experiential marketing campaign we did, that had about 3000+ in attendance. That took me 3 months and a team of 65 to pull off. Twin Tech is something I do solo for the most part, and with the support of NVTC.
Steve: Do you feel that an event like this will help bridge the gap between the communities and actually see them working more closely together in the future?
Peter: Absolutely. 100%. I wouldn’t bother if it didn’t.
Steve: What was the side effect of doing this event? More awareness for your company? New clients?
Peter: Yeah, there are lot of benefits to me organizing things like this and awareness for my company and new clients are certainly two of those things. I’m a startup myself, so being able to brand iStrategyLabs as the defacto source for interactive strategy, experiential marketing and content creation is key for me. If I can do that through community based initiatives, it’s a) less expensive for me to do a b) serves the broader community while I do. It’s good for everybody.
Steve: As we close the interview I would like to revisit iStrategyLabs. You have new projects like “The Wired Ones” launching in addition to growing your business. What is coming down the pipeline for iStrategyLabs over the next 12 months?
Peter: The Wired Ones has a lot of parts and pieces to it. The most relevant part of this for our conversation here dovetails with the theme of bringing disconnected communities in the region together; The Wired Ones will fuse the Tech, Creative, Entrepreneurial and Media Creation communities together for the first time. With all the niche communities under that umbrella that I’ve been a part of over the years, we’re talking about 2000 or so people that I feel really need to start connecting. I don’t think The Wired Ones Party will reach nearly that size in terms of attendance, but a few hundred or so people representing those areas will make for some interesting new connections between people.
Aside from that, iStrategyLabs is about a year and a week old and growing fast. In October we’re going to open an office in Dupont Circle that will include two floors and a rooftop! Aside from a great place for me to host happy hours, I hope my ‘idea lab’ will be the most creative place in town. I plan to have open ideation sessions – meaning, you can come and brainstorm and work through marketing/communications challenges with others, regardless of whether or not you work at a ‘competing’ agency, or if you’re a client of ours. If done right, it will truly become what iStrategyLabs tagline describes as “An Idea Foundry” – a place where ideas are born, and brought to life in the digital and physical world for our clients and for ourselves.
Lastly, a year from now, I hope I’ll be able to stick to my current model regardless of growth. The current model is to bring together what I call ‘iStrategists’ to solve clients problems only if they’re exactly the right people for the job. In this way i’m not ‘selling clients what’s sitting next to me in the cubicle’; I’m able to bring them fast and flexible teams that are lean and super talented. I don’t want to slip into the legacy agency model where you’re counting hours and trying to figure out how to monetize your staff by charging clients more and for stuff they don’t need. Interactive strategy moves way to fast for that.
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