Conversationblog

I am in Gent today and tomorrow for the Euroblog 2007 conference.

Just missed Neville Hobson's opening keynote about communicating in virtual worlds because my GPS was going in rounds...

On stage now is Professor Ansgar Zerfass from the university of Leipzig talking about the impact (or non impact) of new media on communications management.

He's talking about usability, one of the main drastic changes in "publishing power" for PR professionals (and for the masses). I completely agree; 10 years ago it was already possible to publish online but how many of us in business communications knew how to set up a website...?

Communities also play a large role in the new media landscape and Professor Zerfass mentions how NGOs and political groups are getting organized around topics using wikis. Here we're talking organization, collaboration and even project management. Again something I see around me...

Thanks to services like Wetpaint it is now very easy (usability again) to manage projects and getting people organized to act against or for something. I also think that here, the PR profession is still lagging behind. NGOs have always been looking to use the web to their advantage, partly because it is cheap and they do not have the same resources ($€) as major corporations have.

Professor Zerfass is now talking about the types of German bloggers. He splits them up in self promoters, information seekers, active consumers, knowledge junkies and social networkers. According to his slide the largest number in the German blogosphere are knowledge junkies, (23+%).

Demographics are very interesting and we're looking at a slide on what he calls "digital natives" - the new generation of web savvy professionals who will enter the PR profession in about 7/10 years. The big shift according to Prof. Zerfass is that they are "senders of content" and less "receivers of broadcast programs".

As a final slide, and again, I agree on the basis of experience; PR and Marketing professionals are still focused on the old rules and resources. Most PR colleagues still focus on and think in column inches... The thing is that the new generation rates "newspapers" as their least used source for information.

I am happy that Prof. Zerfass ends his presentation with a big focus on "building digital competencies" in the Public Relations profession and education cycle... That's exactly what I try to do.

I'll try to keep up with the rhythm of the presentations but then again know this will not be possible all the time.

Technorati : PR, blog, blogging, euroblog, europe, gent, public+relations, wetpaint, zerfass