Last year, much of the conversation in the social software marketplace was about the technology behind community -- platforms, features, reporting, etc.  Buyers were evaluating community vendors on the merits of the technology itself.  But as the market matures, the conversation naturally shifts to business solutions the technology can provide.  The state of the economy is only serving to accelerate the shift.  No one can afford to deploy technology for technology's sake in this economic environment.

During this maturation process, we've been discussing and pitching four primary business benefits for customer communities: customer loyalty, lead generation, peer-to-peer support, and consumer insights.  We're starting to see consumer insights really pick up steam as a leading application for online community.  We're not the only ones noticing this trend. Brad Bortner, principal analyst at Forrester Research, coined a term -- Market Research Online Community (MROC) -- to describe this valuable way to use community.  So when we decided to host an Executive Conference Call through the American Marketing Association to talk about how community can benefit brand managers, product owners, and market researchers, it seemed natural to ask Brad to join us.

The teleconference is tomorrow (June 9th).  We'll start out with a discussion between John Kembel and Brad Bortner about trends in market research and where online communities fit in the mix. Then we'll open it up for Q&A and discussion amongst the attendees. It's not a webcast, it's truly a great big conference call. I'm looking forward to the discussion, and as a marketer, very interested in seeing how the format works. Stay tuned and next week I’ll share some feedback from the event.