Conversationblog

Dear reader...

Time has come for me to take on a new adventure.

After 8 fantastic years with IBM I have taken on the opportunity to create a new social media agency together with Leads United, a leading Belgian PR agency.

Today we announced Blackline, a social media consulting agency which will apply blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasting etc... to internal, external and crisis communications. We will also offer training and education sessions on a regular basis and will do both strategic and tactical work.

You can find all the details of this new adventure on - what else - the Blacklineblog.

I wanted to thank you, my readers for the support, the interest and the comments during all these year. In some way you have helped me to take this direction.

Now this doesn't mean this blog will stop. I will continue to blog here as well as on the Blacklineblog and will sometimes simply cross post...

Technorati : agency, blackline, blog, leads united, new media, podcast, public relations, rss, social media, videocast, wiki

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Dear readers,

I will not apologize for being silent on this blog for so long.... No, I will not as I think even a blogger has the right to "disconnect" for some time.

I hope you had a great holiday as well or that you're still looking forward to take some time off. For my part I have been traveling to the US and did a coast to coast trip between New York and Portland. At the same time I changed jobs at my full time employer IBM and had a lot of catching up to do but here I am again...

In the meantime:

• 97% of US newspapers are using RSS feeds now ! The Bivings Report shows a strong increase of RSS use at newspapers and the use of online video jumped from 61 to 92%. How are Belgian newspapers doing ? Well, that's one of those projects I started but never finished. On my to do list... Feel free to help.
• A fake Steve Jobs Blogger has been found out ! The Media Guardian is covering the story of the Forbes Magazine Editor who faked being Steve Jobs and was writing a pretty influential blog called "The Secret Diary of...". Here's the snippet on EJC.net.
• The most famous reporter in the world is getting sued ! "A Congolese student has launched legal action in Belgium to have the comic book "Tintin in the Congo" declared racist and removed from bookstores.". Read the story here.
  

Next to these funny and interesting stories I can also announce that I'll be running a public workshop in Brussels in October (more info and registration page to follow soon) and that the China Blogging Tour is on track.

I am happy to be back, hope you're thinking the same ;-)

Technorati : US, bivingsreport, china, holiday, media, newspapers, steve jobs, tintin, transparency, trust
Del.icio.us : US, bivingsreport, china, holiday, media, newspapers, steve jobs, tintin, transparency, trust

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Last week I had my last press conference... I mean, it was the last one I helped set up at IBM because as of June 1 I changed jobs.

As from now on I'll be working on the IBM business side of things and talk to clients about virtual worlds, serious gaming and narrowcasting among other things.

This doesn't mean I am out of the public relations arena completely... Although I am now no longer officially part of the Corporate Communications function at IBM I will still work with agencies and companies on the use of social media and business communications but in the capacity of my freelance work.

It was strange though to announce this to the reporters I have worked with for the last 13 years.

Anyway, going for a new job, a new challenge and starting off good; I'll be going on holiday soon... ;-)

Technorati : press conference ibm virtual worlds narrowcasting

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2007 is going to be a year with a lot of changes for me... I just know it.

That's why I decided it was time to redefine the template of my blog and after playing around with one of the standard templates of Squarespace I went for this one...

Tell me what you think !

PS: the masthead could change to include my little logo but color/look & feel will stay the same. 

If you would have asked me if I was reading email or watching TV on my mobile a couple of months ago I would have answered you "What... are you crazy ? Never...".

Well, "o tempora or mores" as they say in Latin; yesterday I watched my first Rocketboom episode on my Nokia N93 (aff.link)... And I must admit, I am checking my Gmail account twice a day now on the same phone.

Experiencing this myself was something of an eye opener and leads me to believe that we will see more and more multimedia (sound, video, pictures and text) being created and syndicated over the web.

Rocketboom's production costs are around 25$ per day if I am not mistaken but they have more viewers than the most popular talkshow on CNN. Through Tivo you can watch each episode on your TV and via a great little application called ShoZu I can watch it on my mobile...

This can only spur creativity and innovation. This week I was talking to a client (a PR agency I'll train next year in the use of RSS and other new media) and was saying that it is still possible today for a Belgian company to create their own "TV channel" or "radio station". As long as you have good content...

So my first prediction (and not only mine) for 2007 is that we'll see much more "multimedia" being sent from blogs, websites etc.. to different devices like a mobile phone, TV and portables.

Man... I do need to start this New Media Europe podcast/videocast talk show with Matt soon...

Technorati : 2007, N93, RSS, blog, blogging, gmail, multimedia, nokia, podcast, rocketboom, shozu, tivo, videocast

Volkswagen is closing it's factory in Brussels laying off more than 3500 people. The last 5 days have been full of speculation but now we know. I can only start to imagine the social drama that will follow.

Communications toward the workers and to the media has been erratic as could be expected. I guess what happened was that senior management in Germany already decided last week about the lay offs but wanted to keep everyone in doubt till the week after so that they could prepare "the day after".

I have seen this happen more than once in my 12+ years of PR (Renault, Sabena etc...) and do not understand why straightforward, honest communications with the people who will be impacted can not happen from day one.

Technorati : Belgium, Forrest, VW, Volkswagen, Vorst

I stumbled upon the universal declaration of human right today... Just wanted to highlight article 19:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Let's keep it that way.
 

Crisp & clear communications...

Technorati : advertising, billboard, communication, flickr, photo, picture, straightforward, tcoppel