NevOn

Forum photos on Flickr

I've just uploaded 39 photos I took at the New Communications Forum 2005 conference last week in Napa, California, to the Flickr photo-sharing service.

They're currently just there, in no particular order and with no captions or texts. They include a wide range of subjects - some of the presenters, some of the panels, lots of the participants, plus a couple of shots of the venue.

You can view the photos individually or as a slideshow. If you'd like to comment on any of the pics on the Flickr site, please do.

New Communications Forum 2005 photos on Flickr

The photos might also appear soon as a TypePad photo album on the Forum blog.

Lots of talk about Napa event

Arrived home late yesterday from the New Communications Forum 2005 conference in Napa, California. A truly oustanding event, as I've mentioned in my posts so far (more in the coming days).

Elizabeth has been active over the past couple of days with new posts in the event blog.

Lots of other people are talking about this conference, too - over 200 posts according to this Technorati list.

Additional Info: Great resource - NewCommForum Weblog Coverage Page on The New PR Wiki has started listing all blog posts about the workshops and panel discussions. If you posted about the event, you can add your info here. Created by Constantin Basturea, who you'll need to ask for an editing password.

Opportunity knocks for corporate communicators

A few immediate reflections on The New Communications Forum 2005 which took place in Napa, California over the past two days. I've posted commentary on some of the workshops and panel discussions; others have also posted during the event (Guillaume de Gardier has a great post with links to many of those posts).

I will be writing more commentary during next week, after I've returned to Amsterdam. But I have already arrived at one clear and stark conclusion from presenting and participating in this conference:

Communicators, opportunity for you and your company is staring you in the face. It is yours for the taking. But you have little time to grasp that opportunity before it is whisked away from you by other, more nimble, people. If that happens, your value and relevance to the strategic development of your company is gone. You will become followers of events designed and created by others, not shapers of those events. Your participation, in fact, will not be required.

During these two days, the talk was about communication. PR talk, marketing talk, employee communication talk, investor relations talk, building communities. Talking about building sustainable relationships with the diverse range of people an organization must communicate with, and how the new tools like blogs, wikis and RSS are the enabling foundations for those relationships.

With no exceptions, all the communicators I spoke to now have much clearer understanding of the potential roles such tools can play in the overall organizational communication mix. And they are just that - tools.

So, more later. I'm traveling back to Amsterdam late Friday (San Francisco time). This will probably be my last post until Monday, when normal service will be resumed!

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Jeremy Wright Interview - January 27, 2005

Welcome to a the second Special Edition of the Hobson & Holtz Report, a 30-minute conversation with Jeremy Wright recorded live at the New Communications Forum 2005 in Napa, California, USA, on January 27, 2005.

A high-profile business blogger, Jeremy authors the Ensight blog and is now focused on building his new venture, Inside Blogging. He gained signficant blogosphere and media attention in recent months related to his being auctioned on eBay, being fired by his employer for blogging and his plans for starting a book on business blogging. In this show, listen to Jeremy's thoughts and views about his book, his new venture (with Darren Barefoot) and about being dooced for blogging.

Download the file here (MP3, 27.6MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For this, you’ll need ipodder, software that lets you subscribe to receive podcasts automatically and sync them to your digital player.)

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at comments@forimmediaterelease.biz. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Panel discussion: Blogging and journalism

Highlight points from the panel - pictured, left to right: Dan Forbush, Tom Foremski, Jeremy Wright, Heath Row - moderated by Dan Forbush. The panel addressed the impact of blogs on their work, their general view on the value of blogs as a communication channel, and how best to promote their blogs.

Tom: Blogs are an incredible medium and will change the economic dynamics of whole sectors of industry. You don't know until you've tried it. Blogs occur naturally; you can't force people to read blogs. If you create value, people will find you and talk about you. It's an automatic feedback mechanism. As a media pro, I can see so many ways of using blogs. I can experiment with new forms of writing that's away from the old print model. Concentrate on compelling and original content, the rest will take care of itself.

Heath: I wear two blogging hats - personal blog and Fast Company blog. First business mag to launch a blog, blogging since August 2003. Fascinating experiment and experience. Changed publishing model. Major challenges and benefits for media. Example: for a monthly print magazine, a blog offers great ways to share new and fresh content more frequently with readers. Involve and engage the readers. Help readers better connect with us and other readers. We have tremendous Google juice. Our site uses cascading style sheets which has given us high respect by web developers. Starting to see articles created for the blog make it into the print magazine. Open blog up to the readers, don't worry about editorial controls.

Jeremy: As far removed from a journalist as you can get. Some would say a media whore, but I'm a professional blogger. I auctioned myself on eBay and was recently fired for blogging. Not intentional pushing the boundaries! What came out of eBay was Darren Barefoot and I started a blog consulting company. We have conversations with companies on how they should use them. It's all about influence - why talk to one person when you can talk to 100?

Dan: Has your move into blogging changed your relationship with PR?

Tom: Nothing has changed; it's still about trusted relationships.

Jeremy: For me, everything has changed. So many ways for blogs to be used. PR will blow that wide open in the coming months.

Heath: Some things have changed. If a company has white papers or a customer survey, not all that will turn into an article but might make a blog entry. My interactions with PR people haven't changed but what I do with their stuff has.

On other relationship with PR aspects -

Jeremy: What has value to me from a PR person is the relationship. I'm now getting 5 or 10 press releases a day but if it doesn't fit what I blog about, I won't blog it.

Heath: Don't call me to see if I got your email. Very irritating!

Tom: Contact me by phone but it had better be good. Call me with scoops! If I can't take your call, well, I can't. But don't stop trying to reach me. I want your story!

On what makes blogging journalism?

Tom: It's a super-set of journalism. The word 'journalism' lends itself to what blogs are.

Jeremy: Blogs now are how many journals started. The fact I have over 100,000 readers blows my mind. I think I provide some value that people want. It may not be journalism, but it seems to be what people want.

Heath: Blogs encompass all writing not only journalism. It's a form of immediate journalism - as soon as it happens, other people can know about it. We're all people and have the same biases as anyone else.

On looking into the future and what's next -

Jeremy: The EPIC model we saw earlier (post). Also, where blogs just become a part of the internet, one part of the fabric. And, they could be something completely different. Blogs evolve almost daily and are changing.

Tom: That's proprietary information! 'Blogging' means different things to different people. The technology that enables it is the fascinating thing, and that is what will change things completely. To do a blog, I have Movable Type that costs nothing compared to the huge costs of newspaper publishing systems. It will change the game.

Heath: I don't think blogging will kill large media brands. Blogging is what desktop publishing was - it's a means to communcate. But barriers to entry are low now. Look at The Economist: no bylines. Just great writing. Trusted. Look at magazine blogrolls, see who they read. That's where trust shows.

Panel discussion: Blogging and branding

Highlight points from the panel - pictured, left to right: Anita Campbell, Evelyn Rodriguez, Dan Taylor, Andy Lark - moderated by Elizabeth Albrycht. The panel addressed the broad theme of how the connectedness of blogs and other networked media creates both threats and opportunities for corporate brands:

Where are conversations occurring and how does this impact brands?

Anita: Cut through the clutter to find influential blogs. Example using NE Ohio Blogosphere analysis this month. 'Connector' (lots of connections) blogs and 'maven' (good insights on subject matter) blogs. The seemingly-unconnected can be connected, eg, a poetry blog and a business blog. But more links don't equate to more influence.

Andy: Tendency for people to link to people they already know.

Evelyn: Talk to your customers and ask who they go to for information. Follow that trail and you will get to the influencers.

Andy: The value of a brand is your perception of it. It exists in people's heads. Some big companies are manipulating the blogosphere.

Elizabeth:: What about a startup company without the big-company resources trying to build their brand - how can the blogosphere help? A clear challenge for everyone is getting testimonials - a critical part of building brand credibility.

Anita: Ounce-for-ounce, there is a no more powerful and cost-effective marketing tool today than a blog. Bloggers also talk about other blogs. Example: in yesterday's conference sessions, The Tinbasher Blog was highlighted and mentioned in two separate workshops.

Evelyn: In creating a new brand or company, engage first in dialog with your perceived market before you launch any product. Understand customers' needs first. See this happening more and more with blogs.

Andy: Gaping opportunity for communicators to understand the power of conversations in markets. PR can be the experts on facilitating conversations, the keys to the marketing kingdom.

EPIC: The age of participatory communication

I'm blogging in the keynote presentation being given by Andy Lark that starts the second day of the New Communications Forum 2005.

Andy advocates how the age of participatory communication that has already dawned will change forever the way we communicate.

To illustrate this, he presents EPIC, an 8-minute video showing a concept of what may happen over the next 10 years or so, as if it were made in 2014 looking back. Is this the future of news and information delivery and social networks? Google + Amazon = Googlezon? It's certainly a credible projection that shows the signficant possibilities of how participatory communication can work on a broad level - this is about everything, not purely from a business perspective.

This concept will challenge many people's conventional thinking. But, just like the way in which blogs will be pervasive in the workplace as envisioned by Forrester Research - I think this is a highly-credible possibility.

I just saw this post on the Marcomblog in my RSS feed that discusses this video (see the comments there for some additional thoughts), produced by Robin Sloan of the Poynter Institute. Go there for more details.

The Hobson & Holtz Report - RSS Special Edition - January 26, 2005

Welcome to a the RSS Special Edition of the Hobson & Holtz Report, a 23-minute conversation recorded live at the New Communications Forum 2005 in Napa, California, USA, on January 26, 2005.

In this show, we interview Fergus Burns, CEO of Hookable Media Ltd, the creator of Nooked, the RSS service for corporate communications.

Listen to Fergus talk about the measurable benefits of RSS as a communication channel for organizations, the services Nooked offers, and how RSS is evolving into a mainstream communication tool.

Download the file here (MP3, 24MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For this, you’ll need ipodder, software that lets you subscribe to receive podcasts automatically and sync them to your digital player.)

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at comments@forimmediaterelease.biz. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

The Napa experience Day 1

From my own perspective, the first day of New Communications Forum 2005 has been an enlightening experience.

As I've presented one session and led two workshops, I've been able to participate in only one other workshop (Shel's on blogs in crisis communication, which I commented about earlier today).

The workshops I led today addressed the subject of using tools like blogs, wikis and RSS within organizations, ie, as employee communication channels for use by employees wholly within the organization (see workshop outline).

During each 90-minute session, we discussed these tools in the broad context of how employees can use them as informal means to develop effective relationships with other employees and share information and knowledge more easily. Such big-picture talk often doesn't help people more clearly understand how they can apply these tools themselves, in their own companies, so we had some practical work to do where the participants were divided up into two teams, with each team discussing a different typical situation in a company and making recommendations for which tools might be appropriate to use in addressing some specific communication objectives.

The feedback I've had so far indicates that everyone participating got some real value from this approach. And we had some really good ideas surfacing as a result of this type of role-playing exercise.

One thing that has been just great is that I've finally met some terrific people, names in the business blogging scene that will be familiar to many of you, including Evelyn Rodriguez, Renee Blodgett, Constantin Basturea, Jeremy Wright, Stowe Boyd, Dan Forbush, Yvonne DiVita, Tom Foremski, Anita Campbell, Alice Marshall, in addition to the great people I met yesterday. This isn't the total 'cool list,' though, by any means.

Today's workshops have broadly been focused on tactical issues, and tomorrow's panel discussions will enable everyone to get into some deeper discussion on major strategic issues surrounding blogs from the communication perspective, including blogging and journalism, and ethics - two hot and timely subjects to address.

It's been tiring but tremendous fun so far. Here's just one photo snapped by our friendly waiter in the Silverado Resort restaurant tonight:

From left to right: Neville Hobson, Dan Forbush, Constantin Basturea, John Gerstner, Shel Holtz. We had a great dinner!

Edit: Shel and I did a Hobson & Holtz Report special podcast interview with Fergus Burns, CEO of Nooked. We'd hoped to post that today, but we're having some difficulty uploading the MP3 file. Wireless network issues, I guess. So we hope to be able to post that interview sometime during Thursday.

Blogs in crisis communication

I'm sitting in Shel Holtz' session on "The Blog's New Role in Crisis Communication."

Some highlights from the discussion:

• Not practical to expect that the CEO of a large company will run a crisis blog. It will depend on the nature of the crisis - whoever is the best spokesperson for whatever the crisis is (so it doesn't have to be the CEO, but it could be).
• How to make the negative work for you with a blog - be open, stimulate discussion with and between everyone with an opinion, for or against. Use a blog as a means to do this. Get the issues out, talk about them.
• Getting CEO approval for a crisis blog is one thing; getting the lawyers' approval is something entirely different.
• Lawyers are called 'counsellors' for a reason: they offer counsel and advice. Part of the risk/benefit decisions every business has to make. In other words, lawyers counsel doesn't always lead to the action you take.
• Cannot replace a crisis plan with blogs. Blogs are just a tool, part of the your overall crisis communication plan.
• Employee blogging in a crisis - how do you deal with this? Employees will blog, maybe anonymously. It will happen, so this must also figure in your crisis planning.
• Comments? Enable them: you want to hear what everyone's point of view is. Example - Bigha (lasers pointing at aircraft: in the news recently).
• One spokesman only. In Bigha case, several employees blog but only one person addressing issues.
• Be clear with your policy re commenting. State what your policy is re when (or even if) you will reply to any. If you might remove some, be clear up front that this might happen.
• Just because everyone's talking about a particular topic doesn't make it a crisis. Example - Target (apparently selling marijuana: many people including me posted about that). Need to assess real risk, as jumping in to address something might make it a crisis when otherwise it wouldn't be.