“My job as a leader is to empower you.” Yet another great insight from former Medtronic CEO, Bill George. Just one of more observations from our ongoing conversation with Bill on leadership and social media.

Here’s the third installment of our conversation with former Medtronic CEO, Bill George, on leadership and social media with Bill’s response to question #03: “Should corporate leaders approach social media as a team sport or go it alone?” Lots of great insights here on the necessity of a multi-generational, team-oriented approach to leading through social media.

Here’s our second video segment with former Medtronic CEO Bill George. The question this time, in our ongoing conversation around leadership and social media is, “How do you coach corporate leaders with regards to social media?” Bill responds with many useful insights, including, “We need to see this (social media) as mastering all kinds of ways to motivate people…and having them motivate you.”

In early October, former Medtronic CEO Bill George stopped by Hello Viking to discuss leadership in the age of social media. What fun! We had a long, engaging conversation across all kinds of topics–-which resulted in a series of videos. This is the first: Question #01: “How important is humanity, transparency and authenticity in corporate leadership?” Bill responds here, with great insight.

Last night I had the opportunity to speak on a panel with Meghan Wilker and Nancy Lyons from Geek Girls Guide and Nathan Almquist from Webknowledgy at Brookfield Properties’ Boutique Retail Roundtable. It was refreshing to hear consistent responses from our panel—the industry seems to be coalescing around key elements.

This is one of those things that excites me about the Twin Cities marketing, advertising and technology communities. We show up. We represent. For everything. On Friday I’m one of two speakers for Social Media Breakfast event #16. I’ll be talking about the impact of social media on the advertising and marketing industry. (There’s a podcast preview within this post.)

It’s pretty clear that people approach the “social” side of social media first. The media, with a small m, is theirs (photos, and videos and text). Corporations, on the other hand, are typically approaching “social media” because of the Media side of the term, with a capital M. Here’s the crux—people want Relationship before Brand. Corporations prefer Brand before Relationship. Who wins?

This was our highlight in 2008. A web-based iPhone/iPod Touch game, contest and birthday celebration all rolled into one. Viking [...]