BlogWorldExpo: Day 2 Sessions

Posted on November 10, 2007 
Filed Under Blogging, Podcasting

It’s quite possible that day 1 of BlogWorld was so good that it set my expectations too high for day 2. After such a great day Thursday, I had really high hopes for Friday’s sessions. Though, after looking back at the schedule, be the titles alone I should have realized the content wasn’t going to be as strong. Nevertheless, here’s a report on the sessions I attended today.

The opening keynote speech was given by Anil Dash from (Live Journal, MovableType and Six Apart) followed by Leo Laporte (This Week in Tech).

Anil spoke mostly about openID and Google’s new Open Social, both of which I had heard of but didn’t know much about. The concept for Open Social being that apps written for use on social network sites should be able to be used across multiple sites and not tied to a specific site. With the growing number of social networking sites available, this should make life easier for both developers and users. I’m quite interested to see where this goes.

Leo spoke mainly about the differences between Main Stream Media and New Media and how we are moving away from being an audience and instead being a community. Moving away from the monologue and moving towards dialog. He also talked about how podcasting (though, he hates the term Podcasting) is currently a wide open medium in that there are no set rules for engagement. You don’t have to be sitting behind a desk wearing a suit to report the news any more.

The first breakout session I went to on Friday was “Blogworld Workshop - Producing Fun and Engaging Content“. This was supposed to be hosted by Brian Clark (copyblogger.com), but he was unable to attend. Instead it was hosted by Liz Strause (successful-blog.com). When I first walked away from this session, I was feeling pretty negative about it. But, after sleeping on it, I realize that it wasn’t bad, just different than I was expecting. I ended up taking away some very interesting tid-bits of information. For example:
- successful blogging is 20% writing and 80% connecting
- Don’t lecture - talk
- Every blog post doesn’t need to be completely flushed out. Let your readers add to it through the comments.
- In corporate blogging, be helpful, not hypeful.
- To make a post sticky it must have a head, a heart and let the reader know how it will fit in their life

The next session was “Leveraging Social Media for Your Company” hosted by Tom Gerace (gather.com) and Don Crowther (Affiliate Marketer). This turned out to be a great session. Tom and Don each spoke for a minute or two at the beginning and then asked the audience for some questions. They got 6 or 7 questions written down and then started going through them and providing answers in general terms that would apply to most everybody.

I could write an entire post just on the content from this session, but instead I’ll leave you with just a few things to think about:
- Two keys to success: Participation and Add Value to the Conversation
- If you aren’t talking about your products, others can be (both positively and negatively)
- Don’t pitch, constantly give and be transparent
- Provide access to information or even to resources not normally available

Next was “The Lazy Guide to Producing Great Podcasts” hosted by Glenn Reynolds (glennandhelenshow.com). Glenn hosts a popular political podcast where he conducts interviews. He pointed out immediately that he had nothing to do with the title of the session. He went on to discuss the equipment he uses (both software and hardware) along with the process he goes through to produce the show. He gave several low-cost tips on how to make your podcast sound as good as possible. While I normally steer clear of anything and everything dealing with politics, Glenn’s speech was informative and entertaining.

To close out the expo, the final keynote was given by Mark Cuban (blogmaverick.com). You may know Mark as being the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. Or, you may know him from one of the other myriad of projects he’s involved with. For me, this was the first time I had ever heard him speak for longer than a sound-byte on Sports Center. I admit I knew very little about his background, but I did know that he had been writing a blog for several years (though, I’ve never read it). After listening to Mark’s speech, I’m going to have to give his blog a read.

Mark told several quick stories, but the one that stood out to me most was about how blogging and other new media outlets are going to change the way people get their news. A few years ago Mark had done a 6 or 7 question interview with the Dallas Morning News via email. A few days later when the article was printed in the paper, it looked nothing like the interview that had taken place. So Mark took all the back-and-forth emails that had gone on for the interview and posted them on his blog letting the readers know exactly what was said originally. If you think about it, that’s really, REALLY powerful and should give major news outlets reason to look over their shoulder.

For a first year expo, I’d have to say BlogWorldExpo did a great job! Every session I went to started on time (give or take 3 minutes), none of the sessions felt over crowded, the registration price was quite reasonable and the information gathered was invaluable. Not to mention the amazing amount of networking that gets done on the expo hall floor, at lunch and dinner and in the halls between sessions. I’m already looking forward to next year’s expo. I hope to see you there!

I have but one request for next year’s expo. In every session, there needs to be power strips available for the mass amount of laptops. Cheers!

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Comments

5 Responses to “BlogWorldExpo: Day 2 Sessions”

  1. Jason Van Orden on November 11th, 2007 5:40 pm

    I’ll second the request for more laptop power next year. For a blogging conference, it is a must. They had the wifi. Where was the power? It would greatly increase the live blogging and, hence, the exposure for their event.

  2. Dave Cynkin on December 7th, 2007 10:44 pm

    John–thanks so much for joining us at BlogWorld and for your thorough posts covering your experience at the event. Also for the input on the power strips…we’ll add that to the list of improvements we’re planning for BlogWorld ‘08! :)

    Congrat’s on your first 1/2 Marathon too–great accomplishment! If we get a chance to meet at next year’s BlogWorld, I’ll have to tell you my story from my first 1/2…it was very memorable, and humbling to say the least. :D

    Happy Holidays to you and yours,

    Dave Cynkin
    CMO, Sleep Deprivationist & Thrill Seeker
    BlogWorld & New Media Expo

  3. John on December 8th, 2007 8:36 am

    Dave, BlogWorld was absolutely great. I met so many great people there. I’ll definitely be back next year. I’ll get in contact with you shortly before the start so we can exchange hald-marathon stories. I plan to run 1 or 2 more of them before next year’s expo.

    Cheers!

  4. Dave Cynkin on December 8th, 2007 11:33 am

    John, that’d be great. Do you wear a HR monitor? I haven’t been racing for a few years, but when I was training, that was incredibly helpful. Just when I’d think “I’m tired, can’t keep up this pace” I’d look down at the HR monitor and then I’d think “What a lazy bum! I’ve got 20bpm left to play with, I should be going FASTER!”, hahaha… :D

    Good luck in the races, and be sure to add lots of stretching into your workouts (post-run), really helps avoid pulls and injuries.

    Best,

    Dave Cynkin
    CMO, Sleep Deprivationist & Thrill Seeker
    BlogWorld & New Media Expo

  5. John on December 8th, 2007 12:06 pm

    Yeah, I use an HR monitor. I bought a Garmin 301 a while back. I love the thing. Being a “stats guy”, I love being able to throw all the stats on the computer and slice and dice ‘em. You can check out my the blog post I did about the Garmin back in July. It’s titled, “Yes I can even geek up running“

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