January 2007

According to our good friend Kevin O’Keefe, top State Department legal adviser John Bellinger will be guest blogging all week at OpinioJuris, a blog that focuses on international law and policy.

I think it’s great that the administration has consented to Mr. Bellinger’s blogging efforts, but I’m not sure that this is the best way for them to be reaching out to the blogosphere at this time. Perhaps their efforts would be better spent on using a blog to explain the reasoning behind the decision to send more troops into Iraq.

Whether or not you agree with that decision, we can all agree that it has been a politically contentious one. Perhaps some further detailed explanation from the White House would be the right move for the increasingly unpopular President Bush.

The girls over at Best. Lesbian-ish. Day. Ever. have a great post up about the American Idol-style writing competition being hosted at Gather.com. Folks submit the first chapter of their manuscripts and the audience votes. Then the next round, the surviving writers submit their second chapters. And so on, and so forth.

The winner gets a publishing contract from Touchstone/Simon & Schuster and a $5,000 prize from Gather.com.

I’m impressed with the way that these publishers are learning to leverage the blogosphere and social networks. This is exactly the way to build grassroots interest in an author before her book is even published.

We got back from CES with blistered feet but smiling faces, and after a weekend of recuperation we’re already back in the ring for next year.

We were so pleased with the results from our 2007 “It Won’t Stay in Vegas” party that we’re already planning another year. Our goal this time around is to invite every qualified blogger at CES. If you’re interested in sponsoring, click here. If you’re interested in being on the guest list click here.

Thanks to everyone who made the 2007 party such a smashing success!

Our blogger party sponsor Monster Cable has launched a blog of their very own.

As of yet, we’re the only blog in their blogroll, and they sent us some link love. We’re honored!

Welcome to the blogosphere, guys.

Brendon Hodgson at Hill and Knowlton put up a great post last week about the difficult birth of the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority’s blog.

Apparently, the bloggers have been offering up a fair amount of corporate-ese press release type talk while the commenters want to talk about real problems they’re facing with transit in Houston. The disconnect is causing quite the maelstrom.

The core lesson in all of this: if your commenters bring up a real issue, don’t try to skirt it. If you’ve posted about making the change from serving your airline’s passenger salted peanuts to granola bars, but your commenters want to talk about how some of your flight attendants were not up to snuff on their last flight, you might want to address the latter issue in a separate post. Ask for more information, acknowledge that you’re concerned about their experience and work towards a solution.

There is room for flexibility and rule-bending in the blogosphere, but when it comes to stonewalling or re-spinning a contentious conversation, the rule is really simple: DON’T. Instead, tackle the issue head on, deal with angry people by acknowledging that their concerns are reasonable and work to close the issue as soon and as amicably as humanly possible.

I promised I’d do one yesterday, but the minute I got home I fell in to a coma and didn’t awake until 10 a.m. this morning. The general consensus among everyone we’ve talked to is that they should rename CES, the Sleep Deprivation Convention.

At any rate, here’s a rundown of some of the awesome buzz from around the blogosphere. This isn’t anywhere near comprehensive, so if you posted about the party and your post isn’t included here, I’m sorry. Please leave it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list post-haste.

• Windows Live QnA covers the party and has some great photos from the Bloghaus to boot.
• Jeremiah Owyang also has some great photos, including a really great one of Maryam.
• Our favorite Sidebar Geek Brandon LeBlanc has a great rundown of the party.
• Paul Mooney has some great coverage of the new Monster Cable blog.
• The Bubblicious Gang has a great lineup of photos. I really look forward to seeing their video coverage.
• An Earthling has some awesome photos of Steve doing magic.
• Renee Blodgett has a rundown of all the awesome women of CES.

Our good buddy Jeremiah Owyang wrote about a reported incident in the press room at CES. Obviously, this is coming from a third-hand source, so keep that in mind when making judgments about the relative accuracy of the account. As Jeremiah tells it:

In one case, I heard that in the CES press room a discussion occurred where one blogger told another that they prefer to read blogs to get news, rather than traditional press.

A member of the traditional press got really upset, raised his voice, causing much of the table to look over, and he left in a furious stomp. It was suggested that he felt his job was threatened.

I understand why the mainstream media feels threatened by this new medium, but I don’t think their worries are credible in the long term. The blogosphere is a really nice compliment to traditional media, but it will never replace it.

As Shel Israel told me, CNN can embed an intrepid reporter with a group of soldiers in a combat zone. Political bloggers can be armchair warriors, but they can’t report directly what’s happening on the front lines. Yes, soldiers blogging gives us a perspective on the war. But soldiers are doing their job soldiering. That doesn’t leave them a lot of time to investigate and report the way a traditional journalist can.

I think in time, most reporters worth their salt will start their own blogs either for personal use, or to flesh out information about their recent work. Newspaper editors are always cutting fascinating pieces out of articles for space reasons or because the piece of the story in question is interesting but tangential. Those are the kinds of tidbits that journalist-bloggers would be uniquely poised to provide. It’s just another way that blogging adds value to the mainstream press without compromising it.

I just got back from the Bloghaus blogger lounge over at the Bellagio (or the “Blog-eo” as Steve and I call it). It’s pretty flippin’ sweet. If you want to read more about my impressions, check out TeresaCentric.

I’m going to sleep now, because we have an early flight. There’s lots to blog about tomorrow, including a wrap-up of all the wonderful people and photos from our party. See you in the blogosphere, everyone.

Our party sponsor Monster Cable sure knows how to give the bloggers some love. Kim and I are over at the Atomic Testing Museum opening the packages from Monster. Inside are some pretty cool things.

First of all, we have two gifts to give away in a drawing. Any blogger who posts about the event is eligible to win either a MonsterGame Playstation 3 Gamelink. This cable transmits game graphics in eyeball shattering 1080p resolution and 8 channels of pure digital audio. The all in one hookup makes it super easy to use.

The other prize is a Monster power Home Theater Powerbar 2100. The powerbar protects all your home theater modules from power surges while balancing out the performance-degrading surges and spikes common in American AC power.

So if you’re a blogger, and you’re coming to our party, and you haven’t blogged about the event yet, you really should do it. Then send the link to teresa [at] blogbusinesssummit [dot] com before 4 p.m. PST and we’ll put you in the drawing for one of these two prizes.

Also, Monster is offering press seating to all our party guests at the George Benson & Al Jarreau concert immediately after our party. That means no standing, no waiting around, just a chance to enjoy the concert and see what wonderful innovations Monster has come up with this year. It’s going to be a blast.

Our fabulous “It Won’t Stay in Vegas” Blogger Party is happening tonight. I’m really, really jazzed. Kim went over to the venue last night and said that it was spectacular.

We’ve got about 100 bloggers coming to the event (here’s a partial guest list) and we’re expecting a few walkups at the door. Apparently, the museum looks just like a set out of a James Bond movie.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to liveblog during the party, but if I do get a chance, I’ll report in on who’s there and who’s doing what to whom. There are a few bloggers I’ve been meaning to chat with about a few things….
And speaking of bloggers, Steve and I will be spending a hefty dose of time over at BlogHaus with our wonderful friends from PodTech. We hope to see all you bloggy types there.

As for CES, we’ll be making a brief appearance on the show floor to talk to our sponsors who are exhibiting: Broadclip, Monster Cable, and OQO. I hope we get around to the floor today, but if not we’ll be sure to meet up tomorrow. I’m excited to see what great gadgets they have and to find out in particular if they have anything that would be of interest to our inFlightHQ and Big Business Jet readers.

In our quest for great blogging stories from CES, we met with Matthew Colby who handles a lot of the Web strategy for TomTom, the company that makes those wonderful navigation systems that you can buy directly, rather than having to buy a new car that has GPS navigation.

Matthew told us that Tom Tom started their blogging process by working with a consultant and then slowly moving more of their blogging operations in-house. The only thing he thinks they won’t eventually own is their buzz-monitoring initiative, which they outsource.

It’s interesting to see the variety of corporate cultures where blogging is concerned. Some companies like ActionTec start out with an in-house blog but find that they can’t support it internally. Other companies work with outside companies to get started and then bring their blogs in-house later on.

Another great conversation I had today was with Gunjan Bhow, who is the VP of Marketing & Product Management for ActionTec. Gunjan was blogging for a while for ActionTec, but he described the initiative as being “deprioritized” within the company.

It’s not that they didn’t see the value in blogging, he said. It’s just that there were other pressing initiatives they had to deal with. This is something we see a great deal within companies. There’s the interest in blogging, but there isn’t a lot of structure in place to support it. Most companies simply aren’t willing to justify the time and effort needed to make blogging a real priority. That’s why we think that sponsored blogs like inFlightHQ and Big Business Jet are such great options. Companies that recognize the value-add can get a blog that reaches out to their target audience without having to invest their own personnel in the venture. That allows them to go back to doing what they want.

But enough with the sales pitch for our sponsored blogging services…

Gunjan shared some of the evolution of ActionTec’s blog with me. At first, the company started out with a primiarly B2B focus. The were working on reaching out to telecommunications companies. They distributed their wireless routers primarily through Verizon. But more recently, their focus has expanded to include direct consumer outreach. The blog was an offshoot of the desire to become more consumer-centered without spending gazillions of dollars on marketing initiatives.

Gunjan struck me as a guy who really gets it. Not only was he tapped into the fact that Wordpress rocks, but he understood that a company blog should not be constant 100% plugging of the company’s products. He was more interested in writing about the digital lifestyle.

He also understood the importance of engaging with other bloggers. Over the past few days, he’s done interviews with mainstream media outlets and many, many bloggers. He talked about the engagement he’s done with the folks over at Skype Journal in conjunction with all the great hardware that Actiontec has manufactured to go with Skype.

He views blogging as a replacement of mainstream media. He talked about the way that media in the United States has become such a “he said, she said” phenomenon. There’s very little direct personal communication between companies and individuals, and blogging is a way to cut through that.

It’s always nice to meet people who really understand blogging and the blogosphere, and Gunjan is one of those people. I really wish he had more time to blog, because I would really enjoy reading what he has to say.

I had a couple of terrific conversations this afternoon, the first of which was with Simon Hewitt, the marketing director and blogger for Cambridge Audio.

He explained to me that he was interested in blogging primarily as a “catch-all” for information that didn’t really have another avenue for the company to announce or acknowledge. He uses the blog to link to great reviews from magazines, or to talk about some aspect of the audio jungle.

He pointed out that there was a real difference in recognition of blogging between a year ago and now. At first, he said that some of his co-conspirators wanted him to change the blog to be more about news and less about discussion and conversation. They weren’t really sure that enough of their target market really knew what a blog was.

Now, the attitude is much different. He estimates that about 7 in 10 of his target audience know what a blog is. He seemed to be pleased with Cambridge’s blogging initiative.

As I was leaving, I asked him about what it was like to be so isolated from the show floor (Cambridge is at the Hilton in Suite 28115). He explained that it was nice to get a breather from the frenetic pace of CES. What’s more, people who came up to the 28th floor of the Hilton were really looking for Cambridge. They had the opportunity to slow things down a bit and really get to know the people who came by.

I compared that to the value-add of blogging, which he instantly understood to be true. Blogs can give you the opportunity to be in the center of the unfolding action like on the floor at CES, but they also give you the opportunity to get to know your customers in a more human way like being in a tower at the Hilton. How wonderful to get the best of both worlds.

Steve and I have been spending a lot of our time today wandering around the show and talking to the companies that we know are blogging. We’re really interested in finding out more about what their experience as been and, of course, to invite their bloggers to our party tomorrow night.

One of the bloggers we met was John Stronczer who blogs for Bel Canto Design. They do high-end (and I do mean high-end) speakers. While in the suite in the Venitian Towers, I thought I was actually listening to a small ensemble performing a Haydn sonata.

John said that his daughter got him into blogging, but that he doesn’t really have the time to give it the attention it deserves. We recommended monitoring the blogosphere for discussion of Bel Canto’s products and then linking back.

We’ll be bringing you more blogger stories from CES as we hear them…

Just a note before I hit the conference floor and am overwhelmed by gadgety goodness, Retrevo is running a hot or not parody that pits gadgets from CES against gadgets from MacWorld. It’s worth checking out.

Steve and I got down here today and got ourselves registered as press. I’m excited to check out all the amazing gadgetry tomorrow and blog about it on inFlightHQ and Big Business Jet.

In other news, blogs are moving up in the world. Now, Google’s Blog Search is at the very top of their “more >>” drop down menu. You used to have to click through to “even more >>” to get to the blog search page. Cool stuff!

I just finished watching Robert Scoble’s interview with John Edwards on ScobleShow and I thought Edwards said something that was pretty important when it comes to business blogging.

Robert asked him whether he would maintain the same level of transparency once he was elected president. Edwards responded that he would, but that the big challenge would be piercing the bubble of security that “descends” around a president by way of the Secret Service and other mechanisms for keeping our nation’s leader safe from harm.

The same is true for anyone in a position of great power, and really for everyone. We all enclose ourselves in bubbles of one kind or another, and that tendency only becomes stronger as we gain power and prestige. For a very select few at the top, access becomes a privilege.

Among other things, the storied “democratization of media” allows us to pierce that bubble. It’s what gives geeks like Scoble the opportunity to ask hardball questions of a presidential candidate. In fact-and no, I’m not just kissing Scoble’s ass when I say this-the questions he asked Senator Edwards were better framed and delivered than any that I’ve heard a reporter ask a political figure in a long time. He cut right through the bullshit and got some straight answers out of a politician. I congratulate him for that.

Steve Rubel recently called for better behavior on the part of the blogosphere in 2007. “The world is watching us,” he wrote. “In 2007 our challenge, as bloggers, is to up our game. Let’s skip the name calling and the back and forth cat-fighting.”

I couldn’t agree more. Obviously spirited debates are lots of fun, but perhaps we should keep our blows above the waist.

My blogosphere golden rule is” “If you wouldn’t want it written about you, don’t write it about someone else. If you wouldn’t approve it in your comments section, don’t write it in someone else’s.”

Flip: Hey, bloggers! here’s an expensive laptop pre-loaded with the new Vista. You can keep it if you want. Play with it and have fun.

Flop: Umm….wait. Actually, we’re gonna need those laptops back. We got…er…criticized by the blogosphere for just giving those to you…Something about being unethical.

Flip: Well, actually…you can do whatever you want with those laptops…keep ‘em, sell ‘em, give ‘em away or give ‘em back to us. Really, it’s cool, Do what you want!

There may be a lot of debate about the best practices for giving review products to bloggers, particularly when those products are worth a whole lot of money. But there’s no debate about best practices when it comes to consistency. The only thing you’re going to get if you keep changing the rules mid-engagement is a bunch of irritated bloggers.

Lesson for other companies: Think these issues through before you start giving out pricey toys. Then come up with a defensible position and stick with it. Haven’t you people learned anything from our President?

Note: the political references here are made with tongue firmly in cheek. They do not necessarily reflect any particular political stance. My political opinions do not reflect those of my boss…company…etc…