NevOn

First session blogged

I just finished leading the discussion session on "Introduction to Corporate Blogging" which provides an overview introduction using blogs from a company's perspective, looking at examples of what some companies and other organizations are currently doing.

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends, who participated in the session, has blogged it. Nice commentary, too ;)

Edit: Shel Holtz also blogs it, on one of the discussion points on blogs vs forums.

By the way, with all my posts this week from Napa, the time of each post will still show as Central European Time as that's the time zone setting for my blog. As I'm in Napa, I'm actually writing and publishing at 9 hours behind CET (8 hours behind GMT). Just so you know when you see a post timed at 3:00am or something, it would have been written 8 hours GMT earlier.

Preparing for Forum kick-off

The New Communications Forum 2005 kicks off today in Napa, California.

It's being held at the Silverado Ranch resort and spa, "set in 1,200 acres of lush vineyards and emerald hills in Napa Valley" (its says in the brochure). Can't see much lushness right now as the weather's actually reminiscent of what we have in Amsterdam a lot - grey skies, rain and relatively cold (only about 12C, which is only about 8 more than back home).

I arrived at SFO late yesterday, met by Shel Holtz and John Gerstner. We enjoyed an excellent dinner at the Culinary Institute of America's restaurant in St Helena, in the company of Matt Podboy and Jeremy Pepper. I was a bit knackered after the long flight from Europe, so no partying for me!

Pictured left to right: Jeremy Pepper, Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz, Matt Podboy, John Gerstner.

Hoping to blog much of the event - if I can get the resort's wireless connection working (so if this gets posted, you'll know I did).

Blogging from Napa

My input to this blog will be a bit different (and probably a bit erratic) during the rest of this week as I will be at the New Communications Forum 2005 event in Napa, California, from later today.

This is going to be a terrific time to gather with a group of like-minded communication folk - many of whom I know because of business blogging and most of whom I'll actually be meeting face-to-face for the first time - to discuss and share thinking about organizational communication and how tools like blogs, wikis and RSS fit in.

Shel and I are also planning to do a special Hobson and Holtz Report podcast or two from the conference, with some on-the-spot interviews. Yesterday, we did this week's show (see the show notes) which is online for download (or subscribe to the RSS feed to get each show automatically).

So, different blogging habits this week. Stay tuned!