If you are interested in the notes I took at yesterday's conference, then follow this link - I organized all of those posts into a common category.

Next up is a panel discussion on "true voice" in blogging. Moderated by Stowe Boyd, President of Corante. On the panel:

• Steve Hall, Adrants
• Larry Bodine, PM Forum
• Robert Scoble, MS
• Steve Rubel, CooperKatz

Stowe wants to address two things - the possibility of over-hype, and the trend ([ed] - is there one?) - towards conforming - i.e., not doing/saying anything that would reflect badly on your company. Stowe confuses this as a free speech issue, which it's not. You've never been able - without repercussions - to say "anything" about your company. It's simply far more likely that negative comments will get noticed.

First up - the anti-hype. Scoble points out that blogging was seen as a "fad" back in 2000, and that the hype isn't new (he was seeing it at Userland back then). Steve Hall: "everyone likes to crap on things they aren't part of". Heh - there's a point. The backlash against the hype is natural, and expected. Steve Rubel - "I think it's fear". To his mind, there are transparent companies, and "USSR style" silo companies. The journalists in particular are afraid (and well they should be, IMHO - they aren't the experts they make themselves out to be). Larry Bodine - it's also standard resistance to change/inertia thing. If it's new, you'll always, always get pushback.

Stowe - there's a lot of fear, and resistance to change. This is getting into his second point, where he wants to talk about stifling. He's also on about the "power law" of linking, whereby the early a-listers implicitly control the commons. What he really wants to get into is the job losses over things people get fired over (talking out of turn over some blog post). Scoble points out that bloggers get hired specifically because of their blogs and communication skills.

What Stowe is worried about publically speaking (in a personal blog, even) that might reflect badly on their employer. The fact is, we (at least in most of the US) are "at will" employees. You have no right to employment, so if you say something that reflects badly on your employer, there will be repercussions. The divide - as Larry points out - is that you're fine so long as you don't claim to be representing your employer. That's why I don't discuss politics here - this is a corporate server. Steve Rubel points out that fired employers make great press, but there's just not that much of it happening. Steve Hall points out that we moderate our speech in almost all settings - parties, social gatherings, etc.

Larry points out that technology helps you in your relations with your employer - it allows you to be much more prominent (and better known amongst your customers) than you otherwise would be. What do I think about this? Larry is right, and Stowe is reading too much into a few isolated incidents. All you have here (in the US, that is) is a right not to be censored by the government. Or as Scoble put it - as a blogger, you're a gold miner carrying dynamite. You have to be aware of who (and what) you are trying to blow up with the dynamite...

In response to a question about advertising, Steve Rubel pointed out that he'd be scared witless if he were in advertising right now. Traditional advertising isn't going to map directoy to syndication. Instead, as Scoble points out, the information in the feed itself will be a long term ad for a product, service, or company. Larry points out the nature of reality to Stowe - that taking ads will, in fact, modify your editorial policy - because the money you get will have an impact. Unless you are independently wealthy, you can't help but be affected. The lame response from Stowe - "their competitor will advertise there" is truly lame.You may well be willing to make negative comments about an advertiser, but you can't pretend that it won't have an impact.

Well there was a negatively received statement - Larry stated that a blog is one-way, and all about push. Comments and trackbacks (even with spam) are one example, and simple referrals are another. Scoble points out that he posts his cell phone number, and gets a few calls a week as a result.

Next up pubsub with a demo - I subscribe to a bunch of PubSub searches, so this should be of interest. A year ago - they were tracking 100,000 blogs. It's leaped to 10 million now, and it's still growing.

How do you monitor the content you care about? There's the "subscribe to it all" Scoble approach (1300 blogs), and there's the watch/search based pubsub approach. Most of us do a little of both - I read specific people, and I search for specific keywords. PubSub is leveraging the publish/subscribe nature of the blogosphere. So in timeline terms, we had email in the 80s, browsers in the 90s, and blogs/aggregators now.

To compare, he's pointing out that searching (i.e., Google, MSN, etc) you have retrospective search. You get whatever the crawler found last time it looked. What you have with PubSub is a prospective engine, where they get new information sent to them. That allows them (within the publish/subscribe universe) to have much more current information. Essentially, they store the queries, not the results - when a query is made, they match and discard. This means that you don't want to use PubSub for archival information - you want to use it for current information.

When do you need something like this? Brand commentary searches, "ego searches", etc. When you want to find new mentions of a specific piece of information. It's a way to track whenever something is mentioned - for instance, whenever a positive/negative mention is made of your brand/service.

Next up - a panel discussion chaired by Steve Rubel. On the panel:

• Bonita Stewart (Daimler Chrysler)
• Andrew Bernstein (Cymfony)
• Dan Forbush (PR NewsWire)
• Lloyd Trufelman (Trylon Communications)

Steve only started MicroPersuasion a year ago, and he now has ~5000 regular readers. He's big on having people just give blogging a shot. One question to each of the panelists from Steve, starting with Lloyd - What's the value of a blog "placement" (i.e., a mention on a major blog). Answer: It depends on what it's about - and it's also the case that the hype on blogs is huge (think 1996 and websites). His take - a lot of blogs won't survive the march of time (inertia, cost, time, etc). His take is that this is another medium, but let's not go bats.

To Dan - if Lloyd is correct (it's a bigger media space, blogs are just a piece of it) - what does that mean for PR? What it means is that PR pros can be disintermediated much, much more easily now, and that means that PR folks have to work harder. Andrew is more interested in RSS as a query mechanism more than he's interested in blogging itself - it's the ease of syndication that matters, not blogs.

To Bonita - how did you sell blogging at Daimler-Chrysler? They set up a department, using the existing web analytics group. They didn't rush in to build a blog - they started by listening to what consumers have been saying about their products. The example she gives is kind of amusing - talking about the consumer buzz about the introduction of the Dodge Charger. Amusing, because I drove a 2 door Charger hatchback back in the 80's. Makes me wonder how many new ideas the car companies are really having... and worse, for this marketer, it totally distracted me from the brand point she wanted to make. Hmmm.

What they do is circulate a weekly buzz report that talks about both consumer and media reactions to their messaging over time. This gives them a level of feedback that they simply weren't getting (at least, not that fast) before.

To Andrew, what can marketers do with this information? Cymfony builds analytic information above the consumer information available. What they do, apparently, is create virtual focus groups out of the sea of consumer generated information.

Question from the audience - is blog reading bigger than we realize, simply because consumers, when asked, aren't always aware of what they are reading (blogs, stock website, etc). There's some of that I'm sure, but I find this very offputting - it's a matter of the "pros" (in this case, PR people) treating the "unwashed masses" as morons. This is exactly the reason that mainstream media and reporters have earned so much disdain - the clear assertion of arrogant superiority.

Good point from the audience here - blogging is not a broadcast mechanism, and treating it as one is a huge mistake. Lloyd would have us believe that this is no different than letters to the editor and pamphlets, only faster. That's profoundly wrong, because the MSM never paid attention to letters. They've been forced to listen to blogs.

Interesting question - is this mostly a US based thing, or is it really international? It's spreading worldwide, but a lot of it depends on the level of speech rights that are allowed in a given area. That makes it harder or easier, depending on where you look.

Heh - good questions - do corporations actually engage in conversations based on this, or do they just pay lip service? Bonita makes the point that corporations will find out quickly that they can't treat this strictly as classic marketing push, and you'll pay a price for doing so. I'd agree with this - going back to what Scoble said earlier, you'll get a conversation either way - it all depends on whether you want to engage or not.

The pubsub guys point out that they are seeing more and more blogs popping up internationally - as well as commentary on anything you say.

Is there really that much blogging? Technorati says there are 8 million blogs, and Pew Internet says that 27% of the public (US) reads blogs daily. The Blogosphere is doubling about once every 5 months. The critical piece: consumer behavior is changing. There's a ton of internet based research happening before a purchase takes place, and that has changed a lot of the sales dynamics (think car sales).

What blogs provide is a set of opinions about every conceivable product and service out there. If a consumer wants to know what the "buzz" on a product is, they'll be able to find it quickly. That flips the relationship around for this market segment (the plugged in part).

So what's in a blog for a market researcher? Lots of demographic and consumer generated content that marketers can use for real time message correction. What do bloggers write about? Pick an industry where consumers directly interact with identifiable brands, and there's a set of commentary.

How can a marketer use blogs? It's one of the areas you can get product/market research from. Provides a way to have customers feel like their opinion matters, and that they are being listened to. One of the challenges advertisers face is that - even though most of the ads are on tv, the eyeballs have fled:

• Technology (ReplayTV/TiVO
• Multi-tasking (using the net as they watch tv, ignoring the ads)
• The old fashioned thing - refrigerator break :)

So I made my way here, to the MS building at 51st and Avenue of the Americas - the MS executive center, it seems to be called. Note to self: if I walk 17 blocks for one of these again, wear sneakers. Apparently, this thing is being webcast live. Sadly, the WiFi in here is secured, so I won't be posting this until well after the seminar ends. I met Scoble in person, which was nice - he comes off as a truly nice guy.

Lots of PR folks in the room, as well as lots of bloggers (no shock there; it's why I came). Lots of marketing folks too (gosh, that includes me!) - likely trying to get their heads around the idea of unmediated market communications. Good sized group of people just getting their toes wet in this areas, as well - I met Dave Platter of Publitas, who's just getting started introducing blogs to his clients. All in all, a diverse crowd.

Interesting introduction here - Scoble was asked about his political complaint against Steve Ballmer (for those living under a rock: the CEO of MS). See here for one of the various posts on this over at Scoble's blog. See, here's my problem with that theory of interaction. Forget that this is about politics - the bottom line on this is about publically airing dirty laundry. I have some experience with that - I used to rant all the time about the management at ParcPlace-Digitalk, both in public and in internal email. It never had any positive impact. Why is that? Because even if management ends up agreeing with you, you've put their backs to a wall and forced them onto the defensive. People almost never react positively to that. That's not to say that you should never take that tack - but, IMHO, you should never take that tack as a first approach. Even if you win the argument in question, you've created a bunch of enemies (not all of whom will go into public opposition against you). Over time, you'll find that your internal political influence drop as people start treating you as a bomb thrower.

Fascinating segue into the famous blog firings (like Mark Jen and the Delta flight attendant). Scoble's point is that you have to feel your way into the corporate culture before you "go wild". What he did was gather a personal network of supporters within MS before he started to push the envelope. He was just asked "wouldn't the price be too high to fire you (as opposed to the examples given)"? Good answer - Delta is still taking damage from that firing. What Scoble says he's doing (and I agree with this) is giving MS a human face, both with his blog and with Channel 9.

Now onto the Corporate Blogging Manifesto. The most important one is the first on the list: Tell the truth. Almost as important - get out in front of a story, whether it's good or bad. The point is, any big story will be written anyway, with you or without you. if you get your own words out there, you'll have a shot at having them be part of the conversation. One of the other points certainly resonates with me - have a thick skin. Anytime I post on dynamic typing, I get the same group of people bringing up the same set of complaints. If I didn't have a thick skin, I'd have given up by now :) Just as important - if you mess up, admit it and move on. People will spot mistakes and call you on it. The most dicey one - of you think you might be on delicate legal ground (such as: financials in a public company), talk to a lawyer before you post. Another area to be wary of is anything that might fall into patent law. Finally - if you are going to be blogging about your company/service/product - you better know the answers, or know how to get them fast.