Gone are the days of closed communication and here are the days of wikis, blogs, podcasts, tweets, FaceBook and Flickr – completely open and completely personal. Social media is how the world is communicating with each other; and if companies aren’t willing to play they are going to find themselves falling behind their competition.

Social commerce, the use of social media in business, is putting companies on an even playing field; and that is why major corporations, like Austin-based Dell and AMD, are adding social networking feature to their sites daily

In an effort to get companies in the game, Austin’s social media experts have come together to create Interactive Austin 2008: Putting Social Commerce to Work. The conference, which takes place on Thursday, January 19th, is dedicated to educating companies on the advantages of Social Commerce, its importance in the rapidly changing corporate environment, and how to harness its power for increased profitability.

Interactive Austin 2008 will feature two prominent keynote speakers. Pete Hayes, the Vice President of Corporate Marketing & Communications for AMD, will speak on “Get into the Click Stream: An Alternative to Driving Traffic to Your Site.” While the Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer of nGenera Corporation, Brian Magierski, will speak on “Social Commerce and It’s Impact on Business.” Aside from the keynote speakers, this will be a day full of educational and informative panel discussions and case study presentations from Austin’s social media experts.

If you are in business, you need to attend Interactive Austin 2008 so you don’t get left behind. Get in the game and register at http://www.interactiveaustin2008.com.

The Accolades team will see you there!