By Yann Gourvennec
Of course, we knew already about it, but it’s been made public only recently that the late Blog Council has changed its name to Social Media Business Council (aka SMBC). We are very pleased to be able to relay that information (note: I am a proud member of smbc) and we wish our friend Bob (picture below) and the whole council a lot of successful un-conferences and blogwell meetings.
The aim of the name change is I believe obvious, that is to say to send a clear message to the business community - and the social media community - that social media isn’t just about Corporate blogging, it’s about a much broader range of subjects and tools including micro-blogging, social networking and others. This however - I can almost hear a few giggles here and there - that Corporate blogging is over and that we made a mistake by promoting Corporate blogging. Nothing could be more false. It means that Corporate blogging is one of the tools - and a powerful one at that - and that it cannot stand on its own without a few others on the side.
For your benefit, here’s the press announcement made by the Blog C… sorry, the Social Media Business Council 
Posted by on June 30, 2009
Big news from all of us here at GasPedal and the newly renamed Blog Council: Our community for social media leaders at large companies has officially changed its name to the Social Media Business Council and has moved from BlogCouncil.org to
SocialMedia.org. Here’s the press release with more details:
Chicago, IL — The Blog Council, a community of social media leaders at large companies, has officially changed its name to the Social Media Business Council and will call
SocialMedia.org its new online home.
“Every day, our members share advice on how to build successful, scalable and self-sufficient social media programs,” said Andy Sernovitz, CEO of the Social Media Business Council and its parent company, GasPedal. “This new name and domain better reflect the wide range of issues our community focuses on.”
The name change was a collaborative effort, with members sharing dozens of name suggestions before selecting Social Media Business Council through a vote at Member Meeting 4 in New York City.
note: picture courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/ on Flickr, this picture was made available by its author under the Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic creative common licence
By Herve Kabla
Media Aces was born during a rendez-vous. A social media rendez-vous, as you can easily imagine. Yann and me first met on a TV show, someday in february 2009. As every wednesday, I was doing interviews for Corporate Blogs, the online TV show produced and hosted by DecideursTV, a french web TV for professionals. Corporate Blogs is the place where french coporate bloggers come and explain how and why they started their blog. Several companies have joined so far: Poweo, BNP Paribas, Ben & Jerry, etc.
Yann was one of the people interviewed during those days. As head of the internet activity at Orange Business Services (OBS), he had been involved in OBS blogs since the beginning: the audience would clearly benefit from his views, knowing the role he plays within a major telecommunication company, coupled with a long experience of the Internet.
It was just after the last sequence was recorded, that Yann and me got to the same conclusions: the need for a global european association, where all people involved in "corporate social media" - and not only corporate blogs - would meet and share their common intreste in social media technology, usages, benefits … and barriers. Media Aces was born.
Just for the pleasure of remembering the early stages of our initiative, and for the benefits of our French readers, here is the video of the interview.
By Yann Gourvennec
http://media-aces.org blog now open
Media-aces.org is the blog which will underpin our new club of European social media enterprise experts. This isn’t just another blog about web 2.0, but the platform which we will use in order to evangelise about social media and how important it is in the business world.
We have also wanted Media-aces to be a real 2.0 (non-)organisation, in which all members are contributing to the improvement of the use of social media in a responsible, accountable and ethical manner.
As a result, we also want this blog to be the repository for value-added content regarding social media subjects in Europe. Welcome to the media-aces blog and feel free to contribute ideas, suggestions, and even articles if you so wish by contacting us via e-mail through our Yahoo! Group list-owner account at media-aces-owner "@"yahoogroups.com
Yann Gourvennec, founding member of media-aces
By Yann Gourvennec
Media ACES is the association for corporations & European social media.
We are a peer to peer network of corporate social media experts / evangelists based in Europe.
Our aim is to
- Be recognised as the community (club) of European corporations(*) of all sizes involved in all kinds of social media initiatives, including corporate blogs and the use of social networks
- Enable European social media experts to meet with their peers from all other European corporations, in their own country and across borders
- Become the reference for social media in Europe as to best practices and methods, via the publication of a reference guide book for European professionals interested in leveraging social media (online & offline)
(*) by corporations, we mean any company having invested in social media, irrespective of company and revenue size
