NevOn

The New PR in Manchester

Just finalizing preparations for my participation in a terrific conference taking place in Manchester, England, this week, which sees the Angels of The North team reunited again - Philip Young, Chris Rushton, Tom Murphy, Elizabeth Albrycht, Stuart Bruce and me, Neville Hobson.

Delivering The New PR – How Blogs, Podcasts and RSS Can Work For You (PDF) will take place on Wednesday 15 February at the Lancashire County Cricket Club at Old Trafford near Manchester.

Participation costs £125 +VAT for CIPR members; £145 +VAT for everyone else. Over 90 communicators have already signed up for the event. There's still space and time for more - you can sign up online.

The 2006 Forum: A milestone event for communicators

I've just finalized setting up my trip to California at the end of this month to participate in the New Communications Forum which takes place in Palo Alto from 1-3 March.

My podcasting partner Shel Holtz and I are running a workshop at the Forum, the Podcasting 101 pre-conference 'boot camp.' This is a half-day interactive session that will help you learn about podcasting, from the elements of a successful podcast, to strategizing content to support your communication objectives, to recording a podcast that sounds good.

We intend Podcasting 101 to be really interactive - we'll be producing a special edition of For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast during the session. Can't get more interactive than that!

I'll also be moderating the session on "New Media Case Studies - Blending New Communications & MSM," which will discuss the blending of mainstream media with citizen-generated media.

This year's Forum is the second such event and follows the success of the 2005 Forum, at which I also presented (check my posts here). A great deal has happened in the development of new-media communication channels during the past twelve months, and this is reflected in the structure of the 2006 event and in the subject matter that will be covered.

And what a phenomenal line-up of talent at this year's Forum! I am very excited to be at an event in the company of people like Dan Gillmor, Rebecca Blood, JD Lasica, Robert Scoble, Eric Rice, Katie Delahaye Paine, Tom Foremski, Pete Blackshaw, Debbie Weil, Mike Manuel, Elisa Camahort... the list of influential champions of social media  is almost endless. See the full list of speakers (over 60) for details.

Forum organizers Jen McClure and Elizabeth Albrycht have constructed an outstanding event, one that I am certain will be regarded as a milestone in professional development for any communicator with a serious interest in getting to grips with the strategic "how?" of social media (last year the focus was largely "what?", but that conversation has moved on).

So if you want to be part of an event that is all about frameworks and participation, this is the one. Full details at the New Communications Forum website.

Hope to see you there.

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Conferences are about frameworks and participation

Jeff Jarvis' rant the other day about conferences strikes a chord for me as I'm involved in speaking at quite a few during the next few months (see the links in the left-hand column).

I'm hoping they do not have some of the characteristics of what I saw at one or two events I participated in during 2005, my experiences of which I can sum up by paraphrasing Jeff:

Too many conferences suck. They're too expensive. They are filled with boring panels. They are all about speeches and not about conversation and argument and learning and meeting. They don't capture the expertise of the crowd. They enrich the organizers at the cost of both the "talent" and the "audience" [...] often, the problem is that the interests of those who make conferences work - the people who fill it - are not aligned with the interests of the money behind conferences - the organizers and sponsors.

That really does sum up far too many conference, the typical corporate-type event where I often wonder why people have bothered to gather together after forking out a fortune in attendance fees and travel costs when it seems to me that no one really is engaged, or even cares.

Yet the real dilemma as I see it is not only about conference organizers, vested interests and the other criticisms (valid ones, to be sure) that Jeff squarely levels. It's also about the willingness of those involved - speakers/presenters and delegates - to actually engage.

I agree with nearly everything Jeff says about what the format or structure of a conference should ideally be - what Jeff calls the 'unconference' - where a prime responsibility of the event organizer is to create the most effective framework that facilitates or enables all the people there to make the most of the environment that's been created for them. And this includes things like blogs, RSS and wifi as well.

If that's the organizer's responsibility, then the speaker's/presenter's responsibility is to use that environment as his or her own framework to provide the means to stimulate engagement with the people who have showed up at the event. So that means things like no boring PowerPoints, no panels full of talking heads just having a nice little chat with each other, etc. You know the kind of thing I mean.

Instead, it means speakers and presenters who really do participate with their audience, making that audience an integral part of the session. In effect, everyone there is the panel or presentation where the (so-called) presenter or speaker is a conversation leader and focus former. Now there's a convoluted label!.

Those attending have a responsibility, too - actively participate, not just sit there like glazed-eyed mute dummies where you can see the bodies are physically in the room but the minds are absent.

All of these things need to happen if any conference could be judged as even halfway successful. But I'm actually quite optimistic, at least about most of those events I'm involved in over the next few months as I can see many of the framework elements already being built by those who are doing the organizing.

And I'm pretty clear on my own responsibility.

Choice podcasts from Davos

I've spent a little time today listening to a few of the audio recordings from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Interesting listening, many of them, even though they are recordings of speeches and sessions which you can read about in mainstream media reporting.

The really interesting ones, though, are the informal and short podcast conversations (no, not interviews: chats, really) recorded by Loic le Meur which are not listed in the link page referenced above. To get those, go to the Forum blog.

Loic's first podcast last Wednesday was a conversation with Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman PR (discussed in show #106 of FIR: The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast on Thursday). Loic's disarming style enables him to easily draw out commentary and opinion from his conversation partners in a way that seems relaxed and natural, and undoubtedly more spontaneous than if it were a journalist engaging in formal interviews.

Four other podcasts are definitely worth a listen.

• Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, talks about why he comes to Davos; comments on Google.org, the philanthropy arm of Google launched last November; talks about what digitizing content is all about; and online advertising with an interesting "that's a good point" comment about the ad potential in podcasting.
• Thierry Breton, French Minister of Economy and Finance, says entrepreneurs who set up in France won't pay taxes for six years; some people have a wrong perception about France, he says, and it's engaged role in the world today.
• Shai Agassi, SAP board member, believes every second transaction in the world at some point goes through SAP, and 30-40,000 companies worldwide run SAP software; about responsibility, leadership, lack of fear and willingness to take risks; praises Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (he calls him a 'statesman') for his philanthropy; has wry commentary on being quoted out of context regarding open source software during a presentation at the Churchill Club a few months ago and how a podcast of the event helped set the record straight. Plus he takes a swipe at a competitor and its anti-SAP advertising. (No prizes for guessing who the competitor is. No, not Microsoft.)
• Frederick Kempe, assistant managing editor international, The Wall Street Journal, on coming to terms with the integration of print and online as quickly as possible; the Davos zeitgeist; and views about bloggers - quality ones, trusted ones and those who will end up in the trash.

Check out the complete list of podcasts (and on Loic's blog). Listen and learn.

Related NevOn post:

• The road to transparency at Davos

[Technorati: davos, wef]

The road to transparency at Davos

The 2006 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum begins today in Davos, Switzerland. The organizers say there will be 2,340 participants from 89 countries including 15 heads of state or government, 13 union leaders and over 30 heads of non-governmental organizations. This year, 735 participants are at the CEO or Chairman level.

What makes this year's meeting especially interesting is that many of these movers-and-shakers will be blogging the event.

This is not private or ad hoc blogging - the World Economic Forum Weblog is an integral part of the 2006 meeting. The blog doesn't yet list who all the bloggers are but some of them have already begun posting. An indicator of what to expect as the meeting gets underway:

[...] We will blog here summaries of the sessions we participate in and some personal ideas about them. As I said, this is an experiment and should be taken as is. In no way should the notes you will find here express the voice of The Forum itself but rather our personal experience of the Summit, as participants.

That text looks as though it was written for the 2004 meeting. Nevertheless, that's what the 'About this blog' currently says.

And not only blogging at Davos - podcasts and webcasts as well. With the podcasts in particular, I think we can expect some interesting and worthwhile content for our listening enjoyment when the first podcasts are available starting tomorrow (I've already subscribed to the RSS feed).

At last year's meeting, blogging played a key role as the catalyst for a highly-controversial issue leading to the resignation of Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN. Jay Rosen described that event pretty well.

There is a clear disclaimer and guidelines on what is allowed for blogging at this meeting, and what isn't:

On- and off-the-record policy for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2006. All sessions in the Congress Hall, and in addition Sanada 1 & 2 of the Congress Centre, are on the record and you may attribute panellists' remarks to their owners. All other sessions in the Congress Centre are off the record. You can report on the tenor of the debate, but you must not quote participants directly. If, however, you receive their subsequent permission you may quote them. All of the private sessions are "off-the-record meetings" and are not to be blogged.

This semi-transparency makes it clear what's public and what's private. Yet it was a private or closed session last year that was blogged (on an individual's blog, not the WEF one) leading to Jordan's downfall, which brings to mind one reality for me - little these days seems to be off the record. So the maxim of being cautious about what you say even in a private session is worth keeping in mind, especially when there's wi-fi (and podcasters with portable MP3 recorders) around.

Still, I expect to see some good personal commentaries on this blog to balance the official stuff we'll read about in the media. Not only on the official blog, though, on others as well (follow the Technorati tags, below).

Loic Le Meur is the driving force behind the WEF blog and will be in charge of that show. Good luck, Loic!

[Technorati: davos, wef]

The continuing rise of citizen journalism

BBC News: 2005 was arguably the year citizens really started to do it for themselves. Raising mobiles aloft, they did not just talk and text, they snapped, shared and reported the world around them.

Commentary by Jo Twist of the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank illustrates the far-reaching effects and changes in the reporting of events during the past year as a direct result of the power of new media communication channels like blogs and podcasting as well as tools like camera-equipped mobile phones that facilitate almost-instant publishing.

Examples:

• The Asian tsunami disaster that began on 26 December 2004
• The London terrorist bombings last July
• Hurricane Katrina in August
• The massive UK oil terminal blaze last month

It's about societal and attitude change and how we all can create news and information and share it as well as consume it.

But it's mostly about individual empowerment (a very big thing in the US especially) with blogs being proclaimed as the biggest thing since Gutenberg and the printing press. Now, everyone has a voice and anyone can be a communicator. Indeed, anyone can now be published in the mainstream media.

BBC News | The year of the digital citizen

The angels of the north ride again

Following the success of last month's one-day conference at the University of Sunderland on RSS, blogs and other new media tools, the event is going on the road with another conference in February.

Delivering The New PR – How Blogs, Podcasts and RSS Can Work For You (PDF) will take place on Wednesday 15 February 2006 at the Lancashire County Cricket Club at Old Trafford near Manchester, England. One of the holy grails of English cricket!

The same team as before will be leading the discussions - Philip Young (the event architect), Chris Rushton, Tom Murphy, Elizabeth Albrycht, Stuart Bruce and me, Neville Hobson. I'll be focusing on podcasting for business.

Here's what's in it for you:

[...] Conference delegates will leave with practical information that provides tangible, deliverable business/organisational benefits including :

• Awareness of potential opportunities/threats of web logs for public and private sector PR teams.
• Access to the latest, comprehensive research into how newsrooms want and use PR -sourced information.

The conference is open to all communications professionals and will be equally relevant to practitioners in the public, voluntary and private sectors. Although conference themes and materials will include hands-on practical information, sessions are aimed at decision-makers with a strategic overview.

Participating costs £125 +VAT for CIPR members; £145 +VAT for everyone else. You can sign up online via the event manager, Don't Panic Projects (what a great name). Limited places so sign up early.

So if you're in the north of England and want to find out how you can integrate the new media ecosystem with your PR (or just savour the cricket atmosphere even in February), this will be a great learning experience for you.

Reflecting on Les Blogs 2.0

Worthwhile being there is how I'd sum up my experience of Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris on Monday and Tuesday.

I didn't get there for day 1, arriving only in the evening (and so made it to the blogger bash), but I did spend day 2 listening, learning and conversing. Meeting new people, and re-meeting those you already know, is always a treat at events like this, and Les Blogs 2.0 was no exception. I was especially pleased to meet three people who I've wanted to meet for a while but not had an opportunity until now - Shel Israel, Suw Charman and Jeff Clavier. It was also a real pleasure to meet and chat with Salim Ismail.

Of course, the list of people I wanted to personally meet far exceeded those I actually managed to. It's just impossible to get to meet and talk to everyone you want to at such an event.

Plenty has already been posted about Les Blogs 2.0 by many of the participants, so for wide commentaries on varying aspects of the event, do take a look through those posts for unique views - check the collection at the Technorati tag 'lesblogs.'

One of the reasons I was at Les Blogs 2.0 was to moderate the panel discussion on podcasting, video and photo blogging. A terrific panel as the photo below shows.

Well, sort of: can't see everyone's faces. So, from left to right - Bertrand Lenotre, Roy Lindeman, Olivier Dufour, Jian Ni, and Gabe McIntyre.

The trouble with being the moderator of a panel is that you're up there and not sitting in the audience tapping away at your keyboard to capture your thoughts, as all these folks were doing:

So I don't have a detailed commentary about the discussion - but you can watch the whole thing as Maarten Schenk video'd it.

(By the way, I took these photos from the panel stage with my brand new Nokia N70 cameraphone, or rather, 'multimedia device' as Nokia calls it. I'd agree with that - an outstanding device. But no digressing for the moment about cool gadgets: a post soon about my N70. If you click on either pic, you'll go to the bigger versions on Flickr which form part of the overall Les Blogs 2.0 photo collection there.)

One major point that did emerge from the panel discussion concerned what's coming next - and that's video - and what's holding it back from rapid mainstream adoption. The tools are here now - hardware, software, networks, places to publish content. Big hurdle - lack of a universally-common file format.

And some perceptive commentary by Elizabeth Albrycht:

[...] Communicators need to be thinking about video. One of the guys behind the cameras at Les Blogs, Rodrigo Sepulveda, said that people are used to using video cameras. They use them at weddings, to film their kids, etc. It is more natural to many people than writing. Therefore, video blogging is potentially explosive. And what happens when people start video blogging their use of your product? Remember Kryptonite? That was all started by a video. The emotional impact of video cannot be denied, and communicators need to be thinking about how to use video and respond to video.

A few random conference thoughts -

• The new sound of conferences - The quiet background sound of multiple hands tapping on multiple keyboards. And, there is a difference between the sound of a Mac and any other computer.
• In the six months since the first Les Blogs, last April, it seems that everyone is now a podcaster, while many others have bypassed audio and leapt straight to videocasting.
• The backchannel - A playground for kids. Juvenile with puerile content but a great temperature-tester that gives you a real sense of what people feel about what's going on in a conference at a particular time. The trick, though, is determining that temperature from amongst all the inane and wholly off-topic chat that goes on.
• The wireless network in place was awesome. It was the first time I can ever recall seeing the wi-fi signal strength meter on my laptop (one of those very cool Konfabulator widgets) showing 100% the whole time. I don't get that even from my home wireless network! Mind you, I was sitting right next to one of the many Linksys routers ;)

Finally, a word of thanks to Loic le Meur for making this all happen. Simply terrific.

[Technorati: lesblogs]

Les Blogs 2.0 kicks off today

The Les Blogs 2.0 conference in Paris formally starts today and runs until Tuesday evening. The event is completely sold out. Lots already been going on over the weekend, judging from the rapidly-growing Technorati tag list.

What's the event about? Absorb this, from Loic's opening remarks:

[...] We believe there is a revolution going-on. We believe the World is changing extremely fast with blogging and we see it every day with the 10 million+ bloggers using Live Journal, TypePad and Movable Type. We want to help us all better understand this incredibly fast phenomenon and its consequences. The reason we have organized this second session of Les Blogs is more than just to network. We believe we have here for the next two days a unique opportunity with 25 Countries in the room to think about how blogging is changing the World.

I can buy that.

I'm going to be there but not for today's sessions - work commitments keep me here in Amsterdam until about lunchtime when I jump on the Thalys and head off to Paris. I'm moderating the session on Tuesday morning on Podcasting, Photo & Video Blogging. And of course, I want to be there for tonight's shindig ;)

If you want to follow the posts of everyone at the event, speakers and participants, sign up for the RSS feed at Planet Les Blogs 2.0, a great initiative by Victor Ruiz. He's also developed a tag cloud. Also, lots of tags in addition to Technorati.

[Technorati: lesblogs]

(As I'll be on the road, so to speak, I won't be live on today's edition of The Hobson & Holtz Report. But Shel and I did get together late Sunday to record a special podcast, where we discuss the future of PR. Lots of listeners contributed views to this topic which are in the show. Shel will be posting the MP3 sometime today.)

 

The conversation is rapidly evolving

As I relax on my train journey back to Amsterdam aboard the high-speed Thalys TGV, I sit in reflective mode regarding this morning's terrific panel discussion on the giant global focus group at the IABC Europe conference in Paris.

Not long after the panel was over, Niall Cook posted a commentary to The Plenary Panel Weblog asking whether the conversation was over or was only just starting. We'd set that blog up at the beginning of November to serve as a focus for some of our thinking to perhaps stimulate some pre-event conversation with conference participants and anyone else who wanted to join in.

Niall's question is an excellent one, and the answer isn't as obvious as it may appear. Naturally, I believe the conversation is only just beginning - but that's only true if we are able to engage in actual conversation with others than ourselves (the panel: Niall Cook, Elizabeth Albrycht, Loic Le Meur and me). Without other conversationalists, there is no real conversation - it will almost be a bit incestuous otherwise.

So I hope we see more people joining the discussion in The Plenary Panel Weblog in the coming weeks. I see a primary job we have as a panel as creating the environment that will stimulate a continuation of the conversation.

As for the conversation itself, it's very clear to me from the discussion this morning that the conversation which involves communicators as participants (rather, conversationalists) is now rapidly changing, evolving. I also saw this at the Melcrum workshop I did in London on Tuesday.

It's no longer the "what is a blog?" type of conversation that was prevalent during the first half of this year. It's now well into the "how do we measure ROI?" and "the risks of allowing my CEO to blog are enormous" types of conversation focus, clearly indicating that broad basic awareness of blogs and what they are is penetrating the consciousness of organizations.

It's also producing some healthy skepticism about blogs as an organizational communication tool, which is an excellent situation - a perfect one for stimulating some truly great conversation and dialogue. And as we as communicators all know, conversation and dialogue are critical elements along the road that lead to understanding.

I can't wait to get more into this evolving conversation.

Niall, Elizabeth and Loic are tremendous conversationalists (I won't use the word 'panelists' - it's meaningless) and I want to thank them for their selfless contribution to the success of this. Not just the panel discussion but also contributing to the conversation on the blog.

Speaking of the panel, we had one last-minute change to it. We were missing one of us - Glenn Manoff, the communications director at O2 UK. Glenn had advised me earlier in the week that his work plate was very full indeed and it was unlikely that he'd make it to Paris. That turned out to be the case; if you've been following business events in the UK in recent weeks, you'll know that O2 was acquired by Telefonica of Spain, so it's easy to see why Glenn's plate is full at the moment. We missed you, Glenn!

And finally, it was just great to see so many people I haven't seen in a long time, years in some cases, and even if all too briefly. Connections that will make re-connecting, so to speak, more likely.

That's the magic of events like this - face-to-face. It beats blogs every time.