RANDOM RANT: BDI Blogging Goes Mainstream Conference
I attended the BDI conference here in Manhattan Tuesday "Blogging Goes Mainstream" and met Microsoft Technological Evangelist Robert Scobel, Adrants Founder Steve Hall and PubSub founder Salim Ismael. I should say that the Business Development Institute did a great job putting on an event that thanks to BusinessWeek's cover article last week quickly swelled to almost 200 people.
As a brand marketer, I found it fascinating to hear Robert Scoble and talk to him afterwards. The man is a true humanist. If Giovanni Pico della Mirandola were alive today and blogging I think he would look a lot like Robert. Even though he is a technologist, he has a marketers intuition for what makes a company tick and a keen sense of how respecting the dignitity and competence of the consumer builds the brand. Take a look at this post from his blog on Target: click here
Target is a great brand, but I bet they will learn something for Robert Scoble.
Steve Hall spoke on a panel discussion and I have to say - no disrespect to the other panelists - he was one of the funniest people I have heard in awhile. A veteran ad guy who "gets it" (you brand folks know what I'm talking about) - he also has a good sense of how to keep people awake. If you don't already read his blog, you should add it to your list: www.adrants.com
Salim Ismael talked about PubSub. Whether they or Technocrati or some other RSS solution is the answer to the future of information I don't know, but he did an extremely good job of explaining why blogging has gained so much momentum. One panelist compared blogging to pamphleting in the eighteenth century. I think this is apt (read the first two chapters of Fatal Shore about the founding of Australia and see how much the pamphleteers in London resemble bloggers in their political impact) but misses something critical about information momentum. The dialog that the combination of blogging and RSS creates and the momentum it can generate turns the Internet into a huge democratic machine.
The purpose for this post is this - would you brand folks and agency people like to see these guys back in NYC in August at a ThirdWay seminar to specifically focus on why consumer marketers need to think about blogs and how blogs will affect brands. We can bring them together if there is enough interest. We've been going for well-known authors recently (Jack Trout this month and the book release party for Seth Godin next month) but this could be interesting. Let me know.
As a brand marketer, I found it fascinating to hear Robert Scoble and talk to him afterwards. The man is a true humanist. If Giovanni Pico della Mirandola were alive today and blogging I think he would look a lot like Robert. Even though he is a technologist, he has a marketers intuition for what makes a company tick and a keen sense of how respecting the dignitity and competence of the consumer builds the brand. Take a look at this post from his blog on Target: click here
Target is a great brand, but I bet they will learn something for Robert Scoble.
Steve Hall spoke on a panel discussion and I have to say - no disrespect to the other panelists - he was one of the funniest people I have heard in awhile. A veteran ad guy who "gets it" (you brand folks know what I'm talking about) - he also has a good sense of how to keep people awake. If you don't already read his blog, you should add it to your list: www.adrants.com
Salim Ismael talked about PubSub. Whether they or Technocrati or some other RSS solution is the answer to the future of information I don't know, but he did an extremely good job of explaining why blogging has gained so much momentum. One panelist compared blogging to pamphleting in the eighteenth century. I think this is apt (read the first two chapters of Fatal Shore about the founding of Australia and see how much the pamphleteers in London resemble bloggers in their political impact) but misses something critical about information momentum. The dialog that the combination of blogging and RSS creates and the momentum it can generate turns the Internet into a huge democratic machine.
The purpose for this post is this - would you brand folks and agency people like to see these guys back in NYC in August at a ThirdWay seminar to specifically focus on why consumer marketers need to think about blogs and how blogs will affect brands. We can bring them together if there is enough interest. We've been going for well-known authors recently (Jack Trout this month and the book release party for Seth Godin next month) but this could be interesting. Let me know.
1 Comments:
See you were at the same conference. Picked this post up while wondering if PubSub is all hat and no cattle - since we can't get it to actually work the way Ismail said it would. That notwithstanding, I at least would be interested in seeing folks like Scoble back in NY in August....
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