After much consideration we’ve decided not to host the Blog Business Summit in Chicago this year.
We are contacting all of our speakers, sponsors, and attendees to notify each and every one of them personally of this news.
Despite strong participation from sponsors and our long-time community members, we just weren’t seeing the registrations we hoped for from the local, Chicago-area bloggers and PR/marketing professionals that were required to support the event.
Our conferences have always relied heavily on local participation, and our feeling is that Chicago has been very well served this year by at least two excellent, and very reasonably priced blogger conferences: SOBcon and BlogHer. A third event close on the heels of these other shows is obviously a tough sell. In addition, it’s clear from discussions with local marketers that blogging has normalized and is not the disruptive force it was back in 2004 when we launched the BBS.
As our pal Robert Scoble said in 2006, blogging is rapidly being subsumed under the larger heading of social media and online community/conversation building. For those serious marketers that “get it”, blogging is just one tool in their arsenal that needs to be mastered.
This is why we as a company are expanding our editorial gamut. The BBS team has launched a new blog: the Web Community Forum
And as you’ll see when you visit the Web Community Forum site we’ve created a new event focusing on the best practices for commercial and political ventures who want to use Facebook as a community building tool. Our sense is that many of the same people who attended our first three blogging conferences are now shifting their attention to building and engaging with their communities there. We hope to see many of your faces once again.
On the Web Community Forum site, we’ll cover how people, businesses, and political campaigns are using technologies such as Facebook, Twitter and, of course, blogs to reach out to core constituencies and build communities. We’ll talk about best practices and great technologies - from WordPress plugins to Facebook applications - that enable community engagement.
We ask for your patience and understanding as we move forward with the logistics of canceling this Chicago event. We are committed to providing excellent customer service to our entire community as we move forward.
If you’re a Chicago BBS speaker, attendee, or sponsor and have not heard from us by noon PST Tuesday. Please feel free to contact us. Here are our phone numbers:
Steve Broback - (425)-503-2093
Kim Larsen - (425)-556-1941
Teresa Valdez Klein - (206)-229-9335
Jason Preston - (206)-235-8981
{ 11 trackbacks }
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Joseph Thornley 08.27.07 at 9:01 pm
Bummer.
And the dates that you’ve picked for the Web Community Forum conflict with the Society for New Communications Research symposium in Boston. It sure would be nice if you could move the December event to eliminate the conflict in the dates.
Steve Broback 08.27.07 at 11:14 pm
Joseph, very sorry that the timing is sub optimal in regards to the symposium. We were limited in our options, and had hoped the geographic diversity would have meant that the conflict would be minimized. Should our new event prove successful, we will very much want to host it again in another city. With luck it will allow you to be there. Thanks for the comment.
Paul Chaney 08.28.07 at 8:24 am
Steve,
While I hate for your sake the Chicago event is not happening (and mine as well, as I was on the roster), I take it as a sign of the times. Blogging has been absorbed into the larger framework of social media and, as you suggest, has become “normalized.” I’m happy to see you are continuing to do what you have always done though, and that’s been a thought-leader and visionary. Hopefully, I can attend the Facebook event.
Paul
Wendy Piersall 08.28.07 at 9:24 am
*sob*
I was really looking forward to this one - one of the things that could have had a lot more attention at SOBCon and BlogHer was the business side of blogging. I have my fingers crossed we’ll get to work together soon, anyway!
Alison 08.28.07 at 12:28 pm
Oh, man. I was just getting ready to register this week & was really looking forward to it. Can you recommend any other conferences in September? Location doesn’t matter to me.
Easton Ellsworth 08.30.07 at 11:39 am
Hey guys, add me to the “bummer” pile. Hope all goes well and a big splash can still be made.
BTW, there’s a busted link in the post - the 1st link to the webcommunityforum site …
Lorelle 09.06.07 at 3:34 pm
I was trying to figure out a way to fit another trip to Chicago into my schedule, and here you are bringing the conference to my neck of the woods! You must have been reading my mind.
While I agree with you for your reasonings, I agree with Wendy. We need more business-oriented training events to help bloggers understand the business as blogging, as well as businesses to understand the benefits of blogging. That’s a fine line that I walk all the time, covering both angles, during my workshops and programs. How to run my blog like a business while keeping the transparency and relationship side of a blog viable.
Hopefully, this extra time, and the location, will help you restructure the event with new enthusiasm and confidence.
Charles Krueger 09.13.07 at 10:58 am
I just moved back to Chicago from Orlando and found your event on Upcoming. I was bummed reading that it had been canceled. I am looking for a replacement if anyone knows of one in the Chicagoland area. If not, I will continue down the path to create one.
Frank Devito 04.22.08 at 8:10 am
This is a very interesting blog; what is twitter? is that a new blogging platform? thankyou Business summit good stuff :O)