Conversationblog

It's official; Debbie Weil and I will soon be off to China for the "China Blogging Tour" !

News came in today that Edelman will be our sponsor for the tour and that we will leave for Beijing in June 2007.

This will coincide with the Chinese version of Debbie's book "The Corporate Blogging Book".

We are working on a dedicated blog for this tour and will post, videocast and podcast there throughout the trip. You can see the "draft" version here.

The Edelman "Corporate guide to the blogosphere" (opens a PDF) ; has this to say about China; "the Chinese Internet presents an enormous opportunity for blog-savvy companies...".

Well that's exactly what we want to find out. 

How do business communicators experience new media in China ? How do they plan to incorporate blogs and podcasting in their communication strategies targeted to the West ?

Now that the tour has become a reality the real work starts for Debbie and myself;

• We need to schedule meetings for interviews with Chinese business leaders and communications professionals.

• We will have to set up our videocast channel and test it.

• We will plan the whole trip and fix dates and venues for our seminars and workshops.

• and we need to prepare and execute the promotion in China...

Luckily, and thanks to Edelman's AsiaPac chief Alan Vandermolen, we will also receive support from the Edelman offices in the region.

I am looking forward to do this and couldn't wish for a better travel and blogger companion than Debbie.

This will be a very interesting experience which we will share with all of you. Stay tuned !

The year of the pig (boar) is starting off nicely...

Technorati : Beijing, Debbie Weil, Edelman, Shangai, china blogging tour, the corporate blogging book

Rok Hrastnik at Marketing Studies and author of the ebook "Unleash the Marketing and Publishing Power of RSS" just announced that he will soon release his 2007 updated version.

I am lucky, I'll be able to get a look at the draft but for those of you who have not read his book yet it is definitely one to look out for. Rok is the European specialist on the topic of RSS and gets down to the practical marketing application of this technology.

Next to his book he also runs a survey for the moment looking at RSS usage in companies. Check it out if you have 5 minutes. Also if you happen to be using RSS successfully in a marketing/PR context then please let him know. He's still looking for good case studies.

(You can download a Conversationblog sponsored white-paper he wrote some time ago on this blog.)

I recently wrote a review on Debbie Weil's "The Corporate Blogging Book". Probably not as objective as reviews should be since I was interviewed for her book but still...

Here again the author goes down to the practical stuff and asks the right questions. And Debbie has the right contacts to get the good case studies on blogging which are so dearly needed.

By coincidence it is exactly what I found missing a bit in Debbie's book (about RSS) which will be covered in Rok's book + they know each other so... Looks like these books go full circle together.

Technorati : blogging, book, corporate blogging, debbie weil, marketingstudies, poll, review, rok hrastnik, rss, survey

Last evening was one of those nice moments for me as I finally met - in real life - with Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book.

Debbie interviewed me in my function at IBM several months ago in order to get an insight on how IBM uses new media in communications. We met yesterday at the birthday party of NewsenginePR, a Belgian PR agency that had the very good idea of inviting her as the keynote speaker on corporate blogging at the event.

Debbie's presentation was followed by a round-table discussion with Bruno Segers, ex-General Manager of Microsoft in Belgium and blogger, Luc Robijns from Luon, a marketing agency who "gets" blogging, Bettina Geysen, Director New Media at the VRT - our public radio & TV broadcaster and myself, both as PR blogger and IBM New Media Lead for Europe.

After having thanked her host in both French and Dutch (bravo), Debbie dived immediately into a very straightforward and clear presentation on corporate blogging. I liked one of her bullet points which said "Get over it" very much. Because that's exactly what both public relations professionals and their clients need to do; get over their initial fear of losing "control of the message" in the blogosphere.

But then again it was not the over-hyped - "blogging is the solution to everything" kind of presentation - Debbie had clear answers to the questions of time management, comment management and possible risks of blogging. In short, I liked it and was completely in agreement with her point of view.

The round-table afterward was interesting; just hearing other business managers talk about their experiences with blogging was refreshing in itself. (As a good "Ketje" from Brussels, I gladly accepted to answer questions in French - although I am Flemish mother-tongue - which was strange when the first question came but felt normal after the second.)

Here and there we had our different ideas and thoughts on the topic but in general I think we gave a clear signal to the audience - blogging is part of the new communications mix and at least you should start listening to the blogosphere. Maybe we were a bit too much in agreement most of the time to make this a real debate but still, I do think we managed to spark some ideas in the audience.

Things I take away from this event are the following:

• the BBC is still the best example of a mainstream medium (and not an "old medium" as someone called it) who has successfully embraced the new media tools we have today. It is clearly an example for our own VRT who have now the intention to implementing several of them. A move to watch.
• Time and fear of losing control are still the (false) main issues - including legal risks - when it comes to using new media in a corporate environment.
• NewsenginePR - together with Leads United, are probably the first Belgian PR agencies seriously working on integrating blogging and RSS into their more "traditional" PR expertise. (If there are others, let me know).
• Most Belgian PR professionals and journalists do not fully measure yet what they can achieve using RSS feeds to monitor and collect information and blogs to communicate with their audiences.
• and finally - I am definitely looking forward to a possible "Shanghai" workshop (wink).

Did I say I was also very pleased to see that one of "my" interns - whom I met again at the event - is really making a strong career for herself in the PR world... She is definitely part of this next generation of PR professionals who are growing up with social media and who will not even think twice using them in a professional way.

And once again, a big thank you to Ben Geysen for inviting me.

Technorati : IBM, Luon, Microsoft, VRT, antwerp, belgium, blogging, corporate+blogging, debbie+weil, leads+united, newsenginepr, the+corporate+blogging+book

Had a good 1st workshop today at the University of Geneva, at least that was my feeling. I'll get feedback from the attendees through AILIS; the organizer of these workshops. And I must say, they know something about organization over here. The university made sure that all IT stuff was taken care of, lunch was well organized and we were lucky enough to be able to eat outside.

Next to the "official agenda" I loved the discussions on how to implement blogging internally, the technical and cultural challenges, the use of RSS on intranets, external blogging and the need for guidelines... As I said before, these training sessions give me as much input/ideas as I hope I provide input/ideas to the attendees.

Looking forward to tomorrow for another session, this time in French.

I just noticed I forgot my USB cable to hook up my digital camera... so pictures and a little video clip will be for later when I'm back home. Geneva is one of the most international cities I have ever visited. The amount of different languages and cultures you hear and see here is incredible. My host from AILIS is Belgian and has lived in Geneva for many years now. She told me that about 70% of people working and living here are from outside Switzerland.

I had a good Indian dinner not far from the hotel after I went for a nice walk along the lake. Picked up what looks to be a page turner along the way; The Polish Officer by Alan Furst. If you like spy stories set in Europe during WWII, then I can definitely recommend it.

Before I post this; just got news that Flock launched it's beta browser which includes blogposting... Supposed to work with the most popular blogging platforms out there. It also includes easy subscribe to RSS feeds and much more.. You can check it out here.

Technorati : RSS, ailis, alan+furst, blog, blogging, cern, geneva, universite+de+geneve, who, workshop

Don Dunnington at the IAOC blog  has done a fine job taking quotes out of the famous book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" which could be used/related to PR.

I like this post since I have the book at home and like most educational/inspirational books it reads very well, gives very sound advise and has a lot of "...of course/aha..." moments built into it.  Now, I can get very enthusiastic about books like that but then after a while they end up in my library and gather dust. Thanks to this post by Don I'll pick it up again and try to finish it this summer. The quotes will be used, no doubt about that.