Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
Where to start? Perhaps late, late in the sense that the planning for this year's BlogOrlando started much later than previous events. I was even concerned that we couldn't pull it off. But thanks to some help from some great folks like Chris, Rob, Danny, Ryan and yes you Alex.....we did it. Our tracks grew from four to five, our registrations grew and so did the turnout. A big thanks to all our sponsors, especially Ideablob and Voce :-)
In the end 238 of us showed up at Rollins College this past Saturday to learn from each other. As my colleague Mike Manuel said, "Leave your brand at the door, bring your brain." What makes this event so different? Spike from Brains on Fire probably put is best:
I’ve never been to a free conference before. And the difference of engagement levels between a free conference and a fee-based one is night and day. I guess it might be because everybody that’s there WANTS to be there. They CHOSE to go. They CHOSE to give up a Saturday and engage other passionate people. I’m afraid most conferences I go to are full of people that have been sent there from their company. They’d rather be checking emails or anywhere else. But it’s part of their job description or a requirement. The result is sometimes a very low engagement level.
BlogOrlando was the exact opposite.
Thanks Spike. Also, a big thanks to all the session leaders. Each of you contributed something, and I hope many of you learned something from your audience as well.
Jake McKee kicked us off with a story about how LEGO learned to listen to its fans and became better for it. Yes it was a bit marketing/communication focused, but it's also part community, and well it's LEGO.....geeks love LEGO. Even the non-marketing types learned something. From there it was off to the breakout tracks. Just about every session I checked in on was packed.
Room size is always the big debate. Last year we had a few rooms that were packed to the gills, but sometimes those close quarters breed better, more lively discussions. While I like the increase in attendance, it's the smaller discussions that are sometimes the best. I never want to get away from this format. That's one of the reasons we split into five tracks, I wanted to keep the groups smaller.
It was also important to split tech into two sides, basic and advanced. If you keep having the same conversations year-after-year you end up alienating the veteran attendees, you need to give them something new. However, you still need the core stuff for the newbies. Striking that balance is the key.
Highlights for me were the sessions professionalism/identity sessions by Amber Rhea and Jake McKee. I also heard great things about Alex Hillman's session as well as Spike's session on WOM and Geno's session on movements. There was a reason I invited Geno and Spike, they're great guys who do great work. I hope everyone who attended their sessions agree.
Sadly I missed the Orlando Scene session, but thanks to Ted and Andrew from IZEA there are Ustream archives of that session as well as many others.
For most of the day I ran around making sure everything was running smoothly. Luckily we had no major wifi issues, thanks to Mike from Rollins IT, who many of you met. During my downtime I would check out the ongoing Twitter-stream and appreciated all the discussion and positive comments the event was receiving. Today looking over all the recaps, it's much of the same...thanks.
We ended the day with Erik Hersman. I picked Erik for some specific reasons, one he's from Orlando, but most importantly because the work he's doing spans so much of the discussions of the day. As I said when introducing him....most of us were at the event for different reason, pr/marketing, journalism, personal expressions, business, etc. A project like Ushahidi makes all our 'personal' and 'business' needs seem trite.
I hope at the end of the day everybody that attended learned something and made some new friends.
Will we be back next year? We'll see, give me a few weeks to rest and catch-up with my work-life and family-life.
Photos courtesy of Alex and Sean...thanks!
BlogOrlando has come to a close for the third time. I'm exhausted, but I hope to get some post-event thoughts up tonight.
Thanks to my friends at Walt Disney World PR that hosted the think-tank event on Thursday. We had a blast.
At some point last night I received my 1,000,000th Flickr view. I've said it here and at events, we take to what we're passionate about, and lately for me that's been photography. While this blog has dwindled, I've ramped up my attention to Flickr and the community there. Thanks to everybody that counted towards that 1 million. Let's go for two.
The big 'idea' news last week was Oracle's launch of Oracle Listens. A campaign where they solicit ideas from end users. Charlene Li blogged about it and gave Oracle kudos for the effort. My big question is what does legal think of this? Oracle does things a bit differently than the other idea-submission sites like Dell's Ideastorm or My Starbucks Idea. We'll come back to that difference in a second.
Many corporations have a number of legal hang-ups when it comes to social media. Among entertainment and media organizations a special concern is idea submission. For example, I want to sue NBC, because six years ago at a conference reception I told an executive about my idea for a TV show based on regular folks who are superheroes. Just kidding, but you get the gist.
Enter the new concept in social media sites, the ideastorms. I name the genre after Dell's launch of the self-titled Ideastorm last year. Dell asked for your ideas and then allows the community to vote on them. The top vote recipients hopefully get the nod from Dell and enter production. But what about those lawyers and idea submission?
In Dell's case you need to register and agree to their terms of service before submitting an idea. In those terms are language that states you give all rights to the idea to Dell. Here's a snippet:
You grant to Dell and its designees a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive fully-paid up and royalty free license to use any ideas, expression of ideas or other materials you submit (collectively, “Materials”) to IdeaStorm without restrictions of any kind and without any payment or other consideration of any kind, or permission or notification, to you or any third party. The license shall include, without limitation, the irrevocable right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, combine with other works, alter, translate, distribute copies, display, perform, license the Materials, and all rights therein, in the name of Dell, or its designees throughout the universe in perpetuity in any and all media now or hereafter known.
However they do offer $1000 to purchase some ideas or concepts:
Dell shall have the exclusive option to purchase from you and acquire all right, title and interest, including, without limitation, any copyrights and other intellectual property law in and to the Materials you submit, which rights shall include, without limitation, the irrevocable right to reproduce, prepare derivative works, combine with other works, alter, translate, distribute copies, display, perform, license and apply for copyright registration for any or all of the Materials, and all rights therein, in the name of Dell, or its designees throughout the universe in perpetuity in any and all media now or hereafter known. The option shall be exercisable by us from the date you submit the Materials until 1 year from that date. If we exercise the option, you agree to accept payment in the amount of $1000 USD or value in kind at Dell’s discretion, and you agree to execute, acknowledge and deliver such other instruments consistent with an assignment of the intellectual property as may be reasonably necessary to carry out or effectuate the purposes or intent of the assignment of the Materials.
Starbucks has a similar model. You need to create an account and agree to terms before submitting an idea.
A general counsel at one firm we met with recently said those terms would never hold up in court. Of course I will insert the standard IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer) statement, but it did give me pause.
Ok, back to Oracle. With their implementation you can submit an idea, receive confirmation it's been received without agreeing to any terms. Entering something on the homepage and clicking submit you receive this screenshot which says, "Thank you! We received your feedback." At that point you can create an account and continue on, or just leave. If the legal counsel we talked to didn't like the terms of Dell or Starbuck's concepts, I wonder how they'd feel about Oracle's lack of terms (sorry that's a rhetorical question).
Ok, I do think that it's a bit of overacting. Yes, many of the people submitting ideas are genuinely interested in seeing the companies they support succeed. But what happens if that simple idea you submit does turn into let's say a 1% profit growth for Dell, Starbucks or Oracle. Mention that to any attorney and I think they might be willing to challenge those terms.
On Friday I'll be flying to Atlanta, and then making the quick drive to Athens, GA for the UGA Connect conference. I attended the inaugural event in 2007 and enjoyed the mix of familiar colleagues and students eager to learn.
Will you be going?
We're two weeks away from BlogOrlando 2008 and things are shaping up nicely. Our schedule and session list are set, t-shirts are about to be ordered and the happy-hour plans are in place. There is still a bunch of behind-the-scenes work going on though....it's going to be a fun two weeks.
This October I'll be speaking at the Sarasota International Design Summit. The speaker line-up is quite impressive, so I'm honored to be part of the mix. On Day 2 I'll be leading a session briefly titled, "Does Design Matter?" Following me will be Matt Jones from Dopplr, who will answer that question.
The gist is, in a social media world where a large percentage of your customers/fans consume your content via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, or some other third-party location how can you maintain a brand experience, if at all....and does it matter?
One unique thing the conference organizers have done is print Moo cards for the speakers. As you can see the cards promote the event. They also threw in one of the new Moo card holders. Nice touch.
