BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Full Swing
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2008 is in full swing, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This is the second year in a row for this event and the vibe is excellent.The participation numbers are excellent too – from memory there were about 1,200 speakers last year and I believe there were about 100 speakers/panelists. I was told last night at the main event party that this year there are over 2,200 participants and some 200 or more speakers/presenters.
I participated yesterday on a panel with the topic How to Plan, Build and Promote a Business Blog for Small Business, moderated by Rich Brooks, President of flyte New Media. The other panelists were Denise Wakeman of the Blog Squad and John T. Unger, artist, blogger and expert on the Typepad blogging platform.
The session was very lively, great fun to be part of and – judging by the feedback I’ve had – informative and helpful.
In what I thought was a daring move, our moderator set up a stream on Twitter to capture questions and comments live from the floor: the twitstream was projected live onto a large screen. I had wondered, frankly, whether all of that would be a distraction, but it seemed to work very well.
Des Walsh
Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.
Des, it was a pleasure seeing you and Suzy again, as well as sharing the stage with you. I thought the Twitter stream worked quite well and certainly provides those who couldn’t be there a way to get a sense of the dynamic of the session.
Look forward to meeting up with you again next year at BlogWorld!
Blog on!
Mr. Covey I presume!
Haha!
I am sure glad you have a great sense of humor!
Enjoyed hearing your business perspectives, especially reminding us of the need to unearth the client’s needs before we over-whelm them with our solutions.
I value the time, effort and money you expend to be part of the BlogWorld community.
Carlos
Denise
I so enjoyed the session with you, John, Rich and the other participants. There were so many good ideas and I took note especially of your response on integrating various Web 2.0 tools and features in our blogs – watch for a bit of a makeover here!
Carlos
So good to catch up with you. Yes, it is so easy, but usually less than optimally productive, to overwhelm a potential client with what we can do for them rather than first finding out what they want. As I heard the Real Dr Stephen Covey state and explain many moons ago, we need to seek first to understand, then to be understood. Thanks for your kind words: the rewards, in terms of connecting and re-connecting with people and ideas, are well worth the effort.
Des,
Ah!
The hallowed words of St. Francis de Assisi who is the patron saint and namesake of my beautiful home, San Francisco.
Well said.
Bravo!
Well yes, Carlos
Glad you noticed. He was a little bit ahead of Dr Stephen Covey, wasn’t he? About 800 years 🙂
Here is a thread of pearls for you…
St. Francis was also attributed the phrase “Preach the Gospel, Use Words if Necessary” which Guy Kawasaki flipped to “Preach Your Brand At All Times, Use Marketing If Necessary”.
Guy and I did a Twitter exhange on this on May 24, 2008 as I was preparing for a presentation which I now title “Self-Branding : Use Words If Necessary”.
I will be rending the presentation this Monday to a job/career search group at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral.
To add a pearl from a couple of centuries later, the great Franciscan philosopher William of Ockham gave his and subsequent generations the gift of his razor: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” which translates loosely and not with total fidelity to the original as “entities should not be multiplied without necessity” (the meaning is more subtle than appears from that translation). I suppose the current vernacular version would be “Keep it simple, stupid!”.
So applying this to a job search/career context I would not be saying “Submit only one application”, but I would be encouraging each participant to apply the principle by honing her/his objective and description of what she/he has to offer a prospective employer: what, if you will, is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – not multiplying unnecessarily – or, if you prefer the terminology, your Personal Brand (which your quote from our friend Mr Kawasaki has already introduced to the discussion).
More on Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor at http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node10.html and other googlable sites.
“KISS” and “USP” are easy to remember tools and it is good reminder to myself.
Here’s one that was shared with me last year…”Brief, powerful ways to burn your impression on to the other’s indelible memory”.
Lastly, echoing my love of the Broadway theatre production “Chorus Line”…”If you want to a star, must stand out…”
Cheers!