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	Phil's Blogservations Friday, August 19, 2005 Posted by philgomes 2:16 AM Blog Business Summit: Thursday Notes Blog Business Summit: Thursday Notes Was fortunate enough to run into Mike Manuel during the Blog Business Summit. He mentioned my lengthy post in response to Dave Taylor's talk. "So," he said. "I read your Magna Carta from last night..." Ugh... You're right, man... I did go kinda long. So, I attended about five times as many sessions today. I'll try to be merciful. Those of you presenters who aren't on this round-up, fret not. I enjoyed today immensely. However, tonight I'm prone to compression. Jay Stockwell of Blogpulse touched upon something that I've typically referred to in seminars/lectures as "cheating Dr. Heisenberg". In physics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle basically states that you can't really "measure" something because to measure something it to disturb it. When I first came up with the idea, though, I was talking about BBSs and ListServs. Mr. Stockwell said: "Blog research is unsolicited and naturally occurring. It's a lot more real than solicited forms of research." It amazes me that more PR pratitioners don't take advantage of this — listening to their markets as a matter of day-to-day practice, rather than leveraging infrequent and blunt tools like audits and such. (These tools aren't entirely without their merits, of course, but you get the idea.) In other news...Dave Taylor and Robert Scoble disagree on the whole partial-and-full-feed debate. Mr. Scoble, a frequent traveler, will only take a full feed unless the source is one he considers highly valuable (e.g., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNET). Dave sees instances where either could work and serve a need or purpose. For my part, I switched to a full feed because, well, I can. Clickthroughs to my site don't matter to me, but making it as easy as possible for folks to read my content does matter. (And, since I often catch my feeds through Bloglines' mobile format, full-text feeds don't go unappreciated by yours truly.) In terms of driving traffic to one's blog, DL Byron suggested "Blog with a soul. Blog with creativity, and good stuff will come." And I remember when I was told that blogging with my own voice would be a career-limiting move of jump-the-shark proportions. From Buzz Bruggeman: "Bloggers are your intelligent agents." On a panel that we once shared, Jon Udell used the metaphor of bloggers as an information processing network. To tell you the truth, trusted bloggers — as well as IM — enabled me to be more effective in my former work-at-home situation. Agent technology has yet to catch up. Janet Johnson of Marqui outlined "Marquiism" incident, whereby they paid bloggers to blog anything they wanted about the company, on the condition that they regularly link to the firm. That's brave to admit that kind of thing, but I'm glad they did. Everyone learned a lesson from it. To wrap up "The blogosphere is self-cleansing and will right itself within moments." Mr. Scoble was asked the infamous "How do you pitch a blogger?" question. His answer, though, was more charitable and open than most bloggers allow: "Send me cool information that is not about your company. Build a relationship." The thing is, Mr. Scoble appears to be an unusually pleasant fellow, which is particularly admirable considering the credibility and power he wields in the blogosphere. Generally, though, I default to my standard position that companies should think about participation (read: blogging) before worrying about pitching. People want to pitch first, thinking that blogging is perhaps just a hair out-of-reach, and that's a somewhat ass-backward approach — thoughtful and consistent blogosphere participation lends great credibility. At the very least, companies should develop an appreciation for how the mainstream media informs and drives conversation in the blogosphere, irrespective of whether "pitching" is applied. Mr. Scoble's take on crisis communications takes the standard get-in-front-of-the-story-first tack, but is accelerated through the blog model. "First thing: I link to the bad news and I acknowledge it. It gives me a few hours to meet with execs and the PR team to find out what the story is" in order to give a credible response. That response, though, is in his voice, not in marketroid-speak. With regard to high-profile blogger firings, Mr. Scoble shared the creative simile of corporate culture as like a membrane. Sometimes that membrane is pliable, sometimes it's as tight as a drumhead. And, sometimes, employees strain or pierce that membrane with their blogs or other conduct. As a general note... It was pretty clear based on the first few presentations that, while it doesn't amount to a wholesale rejection, there is a strong resistance to bloggerati who say "If you don't follow my narrowly drawn rules, you don't have a blog and I will say so as loudly as possible." There seems to be a recognition that asking a company and its employees to blog — or properly understanding the ones that already are — is already a significant step. Looking forward to Friday. | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a free video game console. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.