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Blogging: A Real Conversation? (NMK)

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The trust people put in blogs, their interactive character, and their ability to be aggregated via RSS have combined to grant the blog a unique status in the communications spectrum. This event examines the increasing importance and influence of blogs, as sources of opinion and as harbingers of the power shift in media publishing...

NB: Bookings for this event made from Friday 24th June onwards must be made by CREDIT CARD or SWITCH only (Mastercard, Visa or Switch Maestro). Thank you.

The trust people put in blogs, their simplicity and interactive character, and their ability to be aggregated via RSS have combined to grant blogs a unique status in the communications spectrum.

This event will examine the increasing importance and influence of blogs – as sources of trusted opinion and as a barometer of the shifting balance of power in media publishing.

Panel 1 - Is blogging a new communications paradigm?

The growth and popularity of blogs embodies the shifting balance of power in the media continuum. Even Rupert Murdoch has twigged, and in the UK publishers like The Guardian Group and News International are forging ahead with new blog and RSS services. But outside the big publishers are a new army of consumer bloggers, writing on a million different topics for as many reasons. Some of them have things to say worth listening to. Are they a threat to mainstream media, and where do we draw the line between citizen media and professional journalism? Should mainstream commercial publishers even be worried if, as Simon Waldman recently told the World Association of Newspapers conference, the way to get attention as more people get their news via RSS is by having a distinct, quality product? Is your company thinking about blogs or acting dumb? Or are you into blogging from a self-publishing standpoint, and what has it done for you lately? Bring your opinions!

Panel 2 - Are blogs the new voices of authority?

The informal nature of blogs – and their simplicity for the user – has been key to their appeal to date. But can this be a marketing model? Do blogs give companies a human face? Fortune 500 companies who have embraced blogging like Disney, Avon, FedEx, Motorola, and McGraw Hill certainly think so, but Britain is lagging in the corporate blogging stakes. Are brands and businesses missing a trick as consumers’ blog reviews of their products and services come to dominate the Google results page? In the connected world, who will consumers look to and respect - brand portals or peers and trusted voices in the blogosphere? And how can marketers marshall blogs as an authentic way to foster relationships and loyalty with customers? Take this chance to explore the topic.

Speakers:

Chair - Steve Bowbrick - blogger & entrepreneur
Steve Bowbrick is a veteran of twelve years in the Internet business, a one-time academic, van driver and librarian, founder of pioneering web design firm Webmedia and the boom era UK email service another.com. Steve's been blogging for three years at www.bowblog.com.

Sabrina Dent – Managing Editor, Mink Media
Sabrina is the Managing Editor at Mink Media, a commercial blog publisher focused on the emerging UK market. She has been involved in developing online communities since 1995, and was previously Director of Online Services for a UK new media house before leaving to develop websites, blogs and blogging services at Digital Parade. She is also a freelance writer who prefers adventure by cocktail and can be found in hotel bars around the globe. When not traveling, she and her passport reside in London with her husband. She is the editor of wandalust.com Wanda Lust, the UK travel blog.

Rafael Behr - Online Editor, Observer
Rafael is Online Editor at the Observer. He is a regular leader writer and book reviewer for the newspaper and, since early 2005, has also been its blogger-in-chief. Rafael has previously worked as a business reporter for BBC Online, as a foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe for the Financial Times and as an editor on FT.com. He fancies himself as a bit of an internet geek, but he doesn't know very much about how computers actually work. He gives thanks for Moveable Type.

Mike Beeston - Managing Director, Fjord
Mike is MD at Fjord, a creative consultancy innovating and bringing to market mobile products and services for clients that include Nokia, Orange and Telia Sonera. Previously he co-founded CHBi one of the UK's first web development companies which, in 1998, was sold to Razorfish for whom Mike continued as UK Managing Director through until 2001. His early career in advertising included 6 years at Saatchi and Saatchi where he was a Media Group Director. In addition to running Fjord, he consults with clients on the ability of mobile to service communities and enable content creation and publishing.

Suw Charman - Blog consultant & journalist
Suw Charman is a blog consultant, researcher and journalist specialising in business blogging, social software and digital rights. She blogs regularly about these and related subjects at Strange Attractor www.corante.com/strange/. She has worked as a consultant in the UK and USA, advising companies on the use of blogs in external and internal contexts. Suw has spoken at the LSE about the effect of blogging on journalism, at the Northern Voice Blogging Conference on how to increase blog traffic, and will be speaking at the Supernova technology conference in June 2005 about business blogging. Her journalism has also been published in The Guardian and design magazine Design In-Flight.

Johnnie Moore - Marketing consultant & facilitator
Johnnie's first job was as speechwriter/researcher to Lord (Alan) Sainsbury before going into advertising - first as a copywriter, later as a strategist. He started his own consultancy in 1988. He now divides his time between marketing advice and facilitation. He has trained in humanistic psychotherapy, NLP and improv - as well as learning to fly. He is co-author of the book 'Beyond Branding' (Kogan Page, 2003) and a founder of the Applied Improvisation Network (www.appliedimprov.net). Johnnie started blogging in 2003 at www.johnniemoore.com and is a collaborator in www.opensaucelive.com He's also co-author of www.173drurylane.com, a blog about Sainsbury's which was once flatteringly described as "a sort of Open Source marketing consultancy".

Adriana Cronin-Lukas - Communications & Blog Consultant, The Big Blog Company
Was released from Balliol into the community in 1996, serving time as a management consultant with a Big Five firm in Central and Eastern Europe - 'management' and 'consultancy' meaning something to businesses in those parts of the world. All this came to an end in 2002 when it became obvious that blogging is much more enjoyable than real work. Since then, blogging has become the main preoccupation and a route to regaining sanity lost somewhere on the fourth floor of a tall, marble-encrusted building in the City. Adriana has applied her analytical powers to the potential of blogging and would like to make sure that companies also understand that markets are conversations. Occasionally she gets accused of problem-solving.

EVENT OUTLINE:

NB: If you have booked for this event please be at the venue by 13.50. The event start at 14.00 sharp.

Panel 1 - Is nano-publishing a new communications paradigm?

Sabrina Dent – Blogging vs traditional publishing
Sabrina will examine the distinctions between blogging and traditional publishing from a technological and distributive point of view. In turn, she will address its open, conversational nature, and the up-front partiality that sets blogging apart from the ideal of objective journalism and attracts readers to it in the first place. She will also consider the degree to which amateur media are reliable sources and contribute to expert debate.

Rafael Behr – Blogging, journalism & the media landscape
Rafael will look at commercial imperatives in the blogosphere, in terms of ads-versus-subscriptions models of publishing. He will tackle how we have defined journalism until now, and the challenge posed to professional media by citizen or hobbyist journalists. Looking to the future, he will explore the likely impact on the blogosphere wrought by the mainstreaming of blogging, as big publishing and media players with major marketing budgets add blogging to their portfolios.

Mike Beeston – Nano-publishing and the social-media revival
Mike will consider the nano (personal rather than corporate) publishing phenomenon as a renaissance of a centuries-long popular disposition, a “social communications” comeback after a brief 20th century love affair with mass media anethsetised us and held our gaze. The web has facilitated this, and he will look at the new effects and social / political power the ability to individually publish and distribute brings. He will also focus on the power of blogging to connect small groups who share the same interests or social life and whose feedback makes the effort worthwhile and the role mobile blogging can play in this.

Panel 2 – Are blogs the new voices of authority?

Suw Charman – The myth of objectivity exposed
Over the years newspapers and magazines (along with businesses in general) led us to believe they're objective and there's no hidden agenda. Suw will examine how these days we're generally savvy enough to know that objectivity does not exist in either the media or business, but it's only with blogging providing a truly subjective background that the myth of objectivity has been thrown into sufficiently stark relief.

Johnnie Moore – Authentic authority
Johnnie promises that what he actually says on the day will be in-the-moment and won't follow much of a script. He suspects that being in-the-moment is something to do with the effectiveness or otherwise of blogs. It may also have something to do with creating authentic authority. Whether marketers like this or not is not something he plans to lose sleep over. Beyond that, he doesn't know what will happen.

Adriana Cronin-Lukas – Blogs: ripping up the marketing mix?
Exploring whether blogs can be part of the marketing mix, Adriana will consider what has more value - the current marketing model or immediate and authentic communication. Looking holistically at the blog, she will ask if its speed, user friendliness, self-publishing and above all its own effective distribution format may break the marketers toolbox rather than fit neatly into it...


BOOKINGS / ENQUIRIES
I you have any enquiries about or problems with booking for this event, please contact Ingrid Fiszpan on 020 7915 5412 or email ingrid.fiszpan@nmk.co.uk

Report on the event.

Location

01zero-one, Peter Street, Soho, London W1F 0HS.