Australian Blogging Conference: Redux

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There are various posts on the value of the first Australian Blogging Conference. The conversational style of broad topic areas, bounded and nutured by a chair works well.

Kudos to Peter Black for being persistent and organising this event.

Des Walsh and Joanne Jacobs are respected in this relatively new industry. I discovered heaps, and have put some of their ideas into action.

Partly sponsored by Microsoft (specifically the corporate and business blogging session, or in other words: we paid for lunch) – I missed the political blogging sessions.

Apart from the opening, where Duncan Riley lit a blow torch/flame underneath the Australian bloggers: to connect up. Obviously, coming from Australia yet having an international audience I grok where he is at. Thinking on this…

Michael Rees adds to my notes, especially on the Podcasting/Vidcasting side. Video content, if it is the next-big-thing is an artform that is rarely taught in schools. Not just the technical feeds/bits side – also the composition, interviewing, making a story.

The legal session demonstrated that there are minds thinking about the impact of this online world on a slow-to-adapt legal system. Also joining the conversation were the Australian Law Reform Commission. Privacy, defamation, bush lawyering. The thinking that people/companies "go after" those with the cash is scary. Online, a few simple words can easily destroy the intangible asset of goodwill.

A theme that I don’t think I answered fully, and certainly with too-little thought was the "personal + corporate" blogging mix. Bronwen reminds me brilliantly of on her blog; and it’s something that’s worthy of thought.

And don’t forget: the best Unconferences are followed by Barconferences.

So, my random thoughts from random notes and reading:

  • Australian organisations should be online, in a read/write sense (blog, wiki, whatever) to hear from their customers. Markets are conversations.
  • Content is king. Are you adding to the world?
  • A blog without comments is merely a website.
  • Australian organisations should remember being english speaking, relatively stable economically; that the world is flat – and customers are not restricted to the mainland and Tasmania. The world is your market, converse with it.
  • Branding: what is your brand? Is it you personally?

Rough Notes: Australian Blogging Conference, Business Blogging

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(these are my rough notes from the discussion)

– Chair: Des Walsh (DW)
– with Joanne Jacobs (JJ)
– and Nick Hodge (NH)

– intro and slides
– Signs Never Sleep example

– Q: CEO to blog, if they are taking it seriously?
– then who should write it?
– recc: marketing + pr: no, slow and lack of immediacy
– doesn’t engage with comments
– blog without a comments is just a web site

– Blog plus Newsletter to industry people; to build brand credibility
– newsletter is formally generated, blog to incite comments
– 2-3 articles a week
– ROI: competitive advantage, first-mover. position on authority
– complex on blog, expertise in field with advanced customers
– 10 comments per article; comments get responded to with free flowing discussion

– security: blog spam, password security: need a person watching
– cf: wikipedia
– wordpress/ akismet
– large organisation: employ someone to be the blog post

– Is a blog personal or corporate
– self-censorship / internal censorship

– Hierarchy vs. Organic
– blogging policy
– policy and corporate effect
– the new pr: blogging policy wiki

– who should blog, in terms of companies
– PR; professional service firms accountants lawyers
– taxgirl: making accountancy interesting

– promoting a competitive product: delete or not delete
– comments policy
– comment deletion: good advice, send email when it deleted

– blogging a great tool to raise a profile
– blogging as tacit knowledge management
– posts to yourself; outside in the world

– RSS feeds much more effective
– Feedburner; out to the world; using the Feedburner RSS to email

– blog reconstruction when people can no longer edit

– blog as knowledge management: pitched to corporates, who does it work?
– JJ: blog, as engagement with the community; external facing
– IP held in a particular
– value addition: "inform the public", ongoing archive of information. difficult to measure first up

– "what are we going to write about today?" : business, giving away information. How to you ensure freshness
– creative writing, writing professionals: teaching bloggers to be creative
– writing as a skill
– finding your own voice, projecting the voice, developing voice
– writing in a creative fashion:
– 5 bloggers, <50 word posts. learning how to write, success stories
– SEO/ text creative writing
– titles are absolutely important
– writing/editing for SEO; subediting

– podcasts: 10 minutes, http://lipsync.com/ . US$5/m for hosting
– (cc) music license to middle http://freeplaymusic.com
– vodcasts, podcasts
– humor: know your audience (NH)

– know your audience: watch your traffic.

– video vs. text: text 10,000   vs. video 50,000 unique views

– ROI: tail-end of a marketing strategy
– blog to drive, sales, marketing
– driving profile
– measuring on Return on Blog
– JJ: measuring for NPV, expressing the ROI on a particular, based on tangible outcomes. Feedback, genuine market research with the consumer base and change
CGC media monitoring (huge growth area, as existing companies are doing to well enough)

– risk management: ensuring intangibles. Business Continuity planning (crisis management).
– risk is greater when doing nothing

– offsite blog, corporate reputation management — good in a risk situation

– example: blogging as a mechanism of a complex discussions: industry changing

– hired gun: good or not good? (NH says good because he is a hired gun(tm) )

– Windows LiveWriter is good (thanks, DW!)

I just missed out on Halo 3: 7 days in Seattle.

Qantas QF11 747-400

Rundown of a week in Seattle, and sadly a week too soon.

Halo 3 ships this week world-wide, and I missed it. However did buy some Halo 3 T-Shirts for the family.

Mushroom and Tree

Meeting up with my fellow Enthusiast Evangelists, prodding VP’s and seeing all sorts of cool things almost made up for the lack of Halo 3. Almost.

Full flight to LAX, and I think I slept most of the way. Two Arrigo-nauts collected me at SEATAC and dropped me off at the hotel in one of the new Arrigo-mobiles. Cost: two jars of Vegemite. Goes well on bagels, evidently.

Sunday: a quick shop and eat with Paul Foster. I can has iCat! Lego store Bellevue!

Frank Arrigo Signed Bear looks out the window

Monday morning on-campus. Nic Fillingham and I jumped on those shuttle buses, building to building and generally found ourselves lost on campus. Microsoft is big.

Paul Foster gets to Fry's

On the Monday afternoon before the internal meeting, Nic, Paul and I visited Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry’s (Renton). Retail therapy works on men, too. As long as it is a quick visit, quick browsing and immediate purchasing. All hunting, no gathering. Fry’s had a collection of WiFi antennas that will augment the home network through 100 year old walls. Halo 3 advertising everywhere.

Second only to Halo3 in Seattle are Starbucks. I lost count of how many I saw during the week. Starbucks is so ubiquitous, it is tough to find/get real strength coffee.

This week, it’s OJ on CNN and FOX News early in the week, drifting to Jena and Ahmadinejad in latter part of the week. It seems that these channels have hyper-competed themselves into a corner. At least CNBC and Bloomberg seem to have cool stuff on. Even a Microsoftie in Japan talking Halo 3. I knew I went to the wrong country! Oh, and the History Channel is just like Australia.

Internal meetings are usually "not my thing". I either go postal/have a brain fart (this time I reserved this for a VP) or start thumping the table. This 3 day meeting, I managed to get that out all on the first day. And seem to be keeping my job.

I have not watched Iron Chef, but did see a cook-off show in Japan. There is a restaurant in Seattle where it is a battle of the bands. Our team of EE’s lost due to the use of a former professional chef (Miel) on the other team. I must admit, the steak was almost as perfect as my mashed potatoes.

Paul's Windows Home Chocolate

Thankfully, the PopFly, Visual Studio Express, Photosynth and Windows Home Server guys all had chats with us on Days 2 and 3. The volume of cool looking and working things at Microsoft is increasing.

I have note worked out the story as Benjamin is being cagey: frogz.fr?

News: Australia is one of the largest markets for Windows Home Server. Time to Pimp My Server, too. 🙂

I applied and was rejected from The Geek Squad

Highlight of the week: Microsoft’s Home of the Future.  Flora escorted and presented many concepts that will appear in future homes. Having been setup for some time, does the Home of the Future really foretell the future? Well, originally the Home contained a microwave oven that could scan barcodes. That product now exists on the market in the US$170. My feeling is that technology will slide into the home’s we live in today. Less Jetsons and more Smiths/Jones.

The next 6 months is going to be a little of a consolidation of my first 6 months of work. More hints/tips/howto and a fewer interview style videos.

Interestingly, I could get my phone data-synching in LAX ok via T-Mobile but AT&T in Seattle sucked. The connection kept timing out, so I was relegated to SMS/TXT. How 1997. Due to roaming costs, Windows Mobile 6.0 smartly does not automatically synch and prompts you prior to connecting. The last thing I need is an angry cost centre owner asking why my bill is thousands.

Cashed in all my QFF points and upgraded myself home. Probably not the best use of points, but I needed the sleep.

Next trip to the US: MIX08 in Las Vegas.

Other stuff I missed out on:

iCat

Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Keyboard 8000 ships this week in the US. iPod Touch not in stock at the Apple Store, Bellevue. Yes, I believe I am going to buy one as the WiFi and form-factor for browsing is intruiging.

Rock on Halo3. I’m sorry I missed you!

… oh, and I missed my cats, cars, TV and family too.

And now to lose these 2kgs I’ve seem to put on. Even eating 50% of normal volume.

Gonzo Windows Home Server & Mac

Paul's Windows Home Chocolate

http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2007/08/16/grow-your-partition-with-a-restore.aspx

"It’s not supported, but here is how it works"

Servers should be easy. The Windows Home Server is easy. Servers should be fun. Tweak, tinker and make it your own.

… and you can pimp your server, too. Make a server fit into your home’s decor.