Modern Media Man Summit in Atlanta, September 2010

April 22, 2010 By Des Walsh

Daddy Bloggers and Other New Media Men to Gather in Atlanta

There is a very interesting conference being put together, for Atlanta in September, with the name “Modern Media Man Summit” or M3.

We’ve all heard about the mommy bloggers. This event will have a special focus on one particular tribe of male bloggers – and I’m guessing a very large tribe at that – the daddy bloggers.

A couple of good friends of mine, Dave Taylor and Jim Turner, both high profile bloggers in their own right and – as anyone who has been listening knows – proud and dedicated dads, are part of the M3 Team putting this together, so I know it will be done well. And incidentally I think it’s neat that three of the six people on the coordinating team for the event are women.

I’m pleased to see also two other friends, Paul Chaney and Jason Falls, again highly knowledgeable and well respected chaps, are on the six man advisory board.

Let me say I mention that these people are friends because that allows me to attest that their involvement, individually and collectively, is like a quality assurance stamp, and will be seen that way by others in the new media field.

A summary of what the event is about

The Modern Media Man Summit will provide dads and men bloggers around the world the opportunity to gather in Atlanta September 9-11, 2010 to attend an important conference featuring the latest in social media: blogging, podcasting and vlogging, while also harnessing the excitement and electricity of the Internet’s latest buzz.

There are dozens of renowned conferences held annually throughout the world for bloggers, but what none of them have created is a place to gather the new modern media men, specifically the daddy bloggers, whose influence is fast increasing in the contemporary online space.

Ways to connect and keep track

As well as the blog page, whence I culled the information above, there is of course a Facebook page, which in the new parlance you can indicate you “Like”. There is also a Twitter account @M3Summit.

And although they are evidently not set up to take your booking yet, there is a page on the event blog where you can register your interest. (Update: there are now tickets available – a limited number – at an amazing Early Bird price!)

As a lighthearted footnote, on the branding, which I quite like, I am sure I’m not the only one to immediately think of the connotation that M3 of course is in some countries (UK, Hungary etc) somewhere you drive cars fast. Which is still I assume more of a bloke thing, although perhaps not always a (responsible) dad thing.

Filed Under: Web 2.0 Tagged With: daddy bloggers, dads, media men

I Think I’m Over Creating Microsites

March 29, 2010 By Des Walsh

Why using microsites for specific campaigns might not be a smart idea

For a long time now I’ve thought that for a new product, service or campaign it could make sense to create a microsite with its own unique domain name. I thought it would be good for search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing generally.

But lately, looking at some of our sites which are now more of historical interest than of evident current business value, I’ve been re-thinking that approach.

With at least a couple of the sites which I set up on a stand-alone basis I could probably have achieved the same, perhaps even better results, by incorporating the content in this Des Walsh dot Com site, or another which was more likely to continue as a live site.

Reading a couple of blog posts today (both written back in November last year) has moved me further along the path of skepticism about mini-sites. The posts have a context of campaigns much more expensive than mine, but the underlying principles seem to me to apply as much for small business as for large enterprises.

In his post Stop Building Microsites? Todd Defren wonders about their value and while in seeming to be generally not in favor of building microsites, finishes with a less than conclusive observation that brand marketers “think long & hard about developing microsites”. He also has the grace to mention that his firm was at the time building a microsite for a client. I found his outlining of the pros and cons helpful and I concluded from his comments that, particularly for a small business, the possible benefits of a microsite would usually be outweighed by the disadvantages. Particularly telling for me was his comment that “It’s rare to see a microsite with any real traction”.

In her post Building Channel or Why Microsites are a Bad Idea Maggie Fox is more definite – and definitely not in favor of microsites – arguing that companies generally need to start thinking like media companies and “build channel”. I like all the points she makes, especially about building online real estate:

Your plan should be to build permanent real estate (your own and on the social networks of choice for the people you are trying to reach) that can be strategically leveraged to let you connect with the people you want to talk to most and who want to talk to you.

So am I convinced? Will I no longer use microsites for my businesses or for clients? I think the answer for me has to be a “definite maybe”.

While I believe I’m over microsites for the most part, there are a couple of examples in Todd Defren’s post and related comments that suggest it could be a good idea to not rule out completely the possibility of microsites being useful in certain circumstances.

If you have examples of where you or others have used microsites successfully, I hope you will share them here.

Photo was snapped by me from the freeway, en route from Las Vegas NV to Los Angeles CA late in 2008

Filed Under: Web 2.0 Tagged With: Marketing, microsites

Catching the Google Wave

November 13, 2009 By Des Walsh

A new user guide to Google Wave will hopefully help some of us see how it can be of use

The Complete Guide to Google Wave cover image Just when I and maybe others started to wonder whether Google Wave was worth the fanfare, and how to use it in any seriously productive way, a new guide to Wave has been released, which claims to be comprehensive as well as complete. It’s by Gina Trapani with Adam Pash, whose credentials are not to be sneezed at. The guide will be for sale as a PDF soon, it seems, and in dead tree form come January 2010. In the meantime you can read it online.

From watching a demo of the Google Wave some months ago and the short, quite witty explanation below from Epipheostudios.com (via Holy Kaw!) I was excited about the new application and eager to have an invitation to try it out.

Now that I’ve been invited on and joined a few conversations there, I’ve frankly found the live experience a tad underwhelming.

Part of the problem, as I see it, is that once you move beyond a few buzzwords and feelgood phrases, it is not easy – at least for this non-technical person – to actually understand in any depth what Wave is about or how it works.

Crunchbase describes Wave as a tool for communication and collaboration on the web:

In Google Wave, users create and invite other people to “waves”. Everyone on a wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see what other users on the wave are typing in real-time.

Daniel Lyons, in an extended post, is skeptical and whimsical about Wave, and also offers some fundamentally serious observations:

It’s apparently fantastic stuff, really super-impressive. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem—nobody can explain what Wave is or how it works. Not even the people who created Google Wave seem able to really explain why anyone needs or wants it.

That sort of skepticism may be warranted, but from what I’ve seen so far I suspect that Google Wave, or something like it, could be tremendously valuable for real-time collaboration. So I will be studying the Guide and seeing what I can do to make sense of how Google Wave can work in practice.

Have you used Google Wave? Was it worthwhile?

Filed Under: Web 2.0 Tagged With: collaboration tools, Google Wave, online collaboration

Influence: Summiting Simultaneously San Francisco, Sydney

August 29, 2009 By Des Walsh

Thinking about the Future of Influence Summit I’ll be attending in Sydney this coming week, and having an abiding interest in the derivation of words, I looked up “influence” in my Collins English Dictionary and was interested to see that although the meanings listed for the noun were not terribly helpful (e.g. “an effect of one person or thing on another”) the first meaning under vb. (tr.) “to persuade or induce” seemed to line up with the focus of the event.

The Summit’s theme is “influence is the future of media” and the website lists the key issues to be covered on the day as:

Influence as the new center of the marketing world
How influence drives content and publishing
The shape of the emerging reputation economy

Who will be speaking?

Back to the dictionary for a moment, I was interested also to see that the word “influence” derives from the 14th Century’s Medieval Latin influentia “emanation of power from the stars” (which those few remaining people who have studied Latin in bygone days will know is from the Latin influere to flow into, from fluere, to flow).

Narrowly astrological considerations and etymological divagations aside, I thought that was rather cool, given that the event organisers, Ross Dawson and Beth Etling of The Insight Exchange, do in fact have a stellar lineup of speakers for the day – an array of top influencers in their own right.

Venues and speakers divided by an ocean, linked by technology

Another very cool aspect of the event is that it will be held in both San Francisco (Aug 31) and Sydney (Sep 1), with simultaneous sessions linked across the Pacific by video.

Ross delivers a new framework

I’m also pleased to see that Insight Exchange Chairman Ross Dawson is continuing his practice of enhancing his events with a graphic “framework” illustration of the theme of the day, as here in his new Landscape of Influence framework image, depicting key features of the landscape:

driving forces
influencers
influence mechanisms
influence aggregators
influence networks

The framework is issued as a beta, with comments for improvements invited.

Reporting from the Summit

I’m planning to do report live from the Sydney part of the Future of Influence Summit on the day via Twitter (hashtag is #foi09) and, if I can get sufficiently organised in time, via Coveritlive. It would be neat if someone attending in San Francisco wanted to be a co-producer on a Coveritlive stream: if that’s you, please let me know via the comments here or the Contact page on this site.

Note: the September 1 date on the CoveritLive alert box above is the Sydney date – in San Francisco it will still be August 31.

I’m also hoping to grab a few instant interviews with speakers, to post here in days following the event.

(Update: as it happened, I was not able to used Coveritlive because of Internet connectivity problems on the day.)

Filed Under: Business, Events, Social Media, Web 2.0 Tagged With: Future of Influence, influence, Insight Exchange, San Francisco, Social Media, Sydney

Social Media Roadmap Workshop at Gold Coast

August 20, 2009 By Des Walsh

I knew I’d been talking, more than doing, about my social media roadmap workshop concept when the last person’s eyes glazed over. Yes, it’s been a while coming!

But at last, in tandem with my friend and colleague Associate Professor Michael Rees (@mrees on Twitter) from nearby Bond University, I’ll be presenting the first workshop next Tuesday evening, August 25th, from 6 pm to 8 pm, here on Australia’s Gold Coast.

The workshop is one of a series being organised by, and under the banner of, the Centre for Executive Education (CEE) at Bond. This will be a condensed, 2 hour version. Full day workshops are being planned for late September to early October, in Brisbane, on the Gold Coast and in Sydney.

In the video here, CEE Director Melinda Muir talks to Michael and me about the workshop and what benefit people can expect to get from it.

We are planning a dynamic workshop and the numbers are already looking good, but I understand there are still some seats available.

For more information and/or to register for the event, check out the Contact page for CEE (there is currently a glitch with trying to reach the registration page from the link on the CEE events page, which is why I’m recommending making contact with the Centre via the contact page).