Conversationblog

A bit of shameless self promotion this time.

If you are a Communications Manager, Public Relations Director, Internal Communications Manager or just interested to know how your company, your employees and your audiences will/are be influenced by social media like blogging, podcasting etc... then this hands on workshop could be something for you.

The School of Business, Media & Politics (SBMP), based in Brussels, asked me to give a seminar/workshop on "web 2.0" and I'll do so on October 25/26, 2007 and again next year on February 21/22, 2008.

More information on their website as well as the registration page.

This seminar will be targeted at communications, marketing and information management professionals and will require a basic understanding of the PC & the Internet.

What I mean is; you do not have to have a degree in computer sciences to participate...

Technorati : PR, SBMP, blogging, brussels, corporate communications, marketing, rss, seminar, web2.0, workshop
Del.icio.us : PR, SBMP, blogging, brussels, corporate communications, marketing, rss, seminar, web2.0, workshop

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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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Looking for a good videocasting tutorial ? Want to know how to use video on your blog or how to start your own video channel on the web ?

Democracy just launched an online "how to" guide called Make Internet TV which is worth looking at.

Democracy is a well known free and open source online TV platform and is now helping newbies to get up an running with online video production in no time.

The tutorials are a mix of written content and online video tutorials. They cover equipment needed, editing, hosting, promoting and other facets of online video production.

Really well done and a great help for all of us who are thinking about starting their little online TV channel.

Technorati : democracy player, how to, makeinternettv, tutorial, video, videocasting
Del.icio.us : democracy player, how to, makeinternettv, tutorial, video, videocasting

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

Take your agendas and block the dates !

The Euroblog 2007 survey results will be discussed and debated on March 16 & 17 in the beautiful city of Ghent, Belgium.

"EuroBlog is a research project by EUPRERA, the European Public Relations Education and Research Association, a community of leading researchers from universities and institutions from more than 30 countries."

The 2006 edition was the first pan-European survey of this kind and proved to be a comprehensive overview of who is using blogs and for what purpose. This year's results will be presented during a 3 day conference, part of a larger symposium on social media hosted by the Artevelde School for Communications, Journalism & Digital Media.

Here are some of the speakers/topics:

• Neville Hobson, Managing Partner of crayon, podcasting guru (For Immediate Release) and blogger on nevillehobson.com. Neville will talk about: "the impact of virtual worlds on communicating in real life".
• The Social Web - Challenges for Communication Management, Ansgar Zerfass, University of Leipzig, Germany
• Social software, Consumer Insight and Marketing Strategies, Peter Mechant, Ghent University, Belgium
• Euroblog 2007: European Perspectives on Social Software in Communication, Management - Results and Implications by Swaran Sandhu, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
• The Convergence of Mainstream and Consumer Generated Media: Results of a Journalism Audit and Implications for Communication Management by Catherine Reynolds Shores & Jennifer McGinley, Echo Research, New York, USA
• The Business Value of Blogging, Marieka van Zuien & Mark van der Wolf, Lewis Benelux, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• and many more....

Yours truly will be holding a Conversationblog workshop on RSS on March 15 (in Dutch) as part of the symposium.

On the 17th I'll participate in a round table discussion on the future of social media together with my esteemed colleagues Inger Jensen, President Euprera, Roskilde University in Denmark, Alain Heureux, President IAB Europe in Brussels , my good friend and blogger Guillaume Du Gardier, from Edelman PR and Jon White (chair), Communication Consultant in the UK. At the table I'll be representing IBM in my new function as European Lead for New Media.

You can find the full program here (pdf) and here on the wiki.

I am planning a pre-conference online talkshow with the lead speakers of the conference soon, so stay tuned...!

Technorati : artevelde, blogging, conference, edelman, euprera, euroblog, ghent, guillaume du gardier, neville hobson, philip young, podcasting, rss, social media, talkshoe

OK, I am doing a lot of catch up lately but this informal study by Chloe Kane & Associates is pretty interesting...

Between April and May of this year, Chloe Kane did a survey of 105 senior communications practitioners - the majority working in-house - asking them about their training needs.

I was not amazed at all to see that 58 of them put "new media skills" on top of the list. "Planning communications programs" came in second.

When asked about what practice of communications they wanted to learn more about in the next year, 52 of them responded "Corporate PR", second most popular was "Internal Communications." Talking about areas in communications that will feel/are feeling the effect of new media... they are right on.

When these professionals were asked what they wanted their team to learn, "working with new media" was again on top.

This is something I see here on the continent too; communications professionals start to realize that new media is impacting their profession and daily work and are eager to learn about it.

One of the things I, as a trainer, need to take into account is that they are very much influenced by price and reputation of the courses provided.... Well, I have my references listed publicly through my iKarma page and as for price...

Technorati : PR, chloe kane, communications, education, new media, public relations, report, skills, study, training
Del.icio.us : PR, chloe kane, communications, education, new media, public relations, report, skills, study, training

Andy Hoppe, part of the web team at the World Health Organisation and one of the attendees of my recent workshop on blogging and RSS in Geneva just wrote a reference of my work there... I don't like to brag but in this case I have to point you to what he wrote on iKarma, my reputation tracker.

Andy recently started to set up his own blog (don't have his URL yet) on Wordpress and pointed out an interesting "issue" that we, European bloggers face... how to manage a multi-lingual blog ?

Let's say you post on your blog in different languages. In Andy's case that would be English and German (and maybe French later). How do you manage this ?

Would you create separate feeds for each language ? What would be your home page default language ? Would you use a splash page so people first pick their language and then continue to your blog ?

I'll do some research and try to find good examples but if you know of some multi-lingual blogs that work, please let me know.

Technorati : blog, blogs, europe, ikarma, language, languages, mulit-lingual, rss, wordpress

Back in Bellingen... These 2 day workshops in Geneva were really a good experience for me.

I think it was the first full day training I've ever given in French yesterday. Or at least partly French because when you teach blogging and RSS you inevitably use a good percentage of English words... So I'll look into "French blogosphere vocabulary" for the next training.

(By the way, I have never seen so many ads for watches than I did while in Geneva)

Secondly; teaching such diverse groups - from people involved in knowledge management, over web managers to Librarians - is very interesting because you have to cover different approached and possible applications of new media according to their context.

For some of them blogs and RSS was new, others had heard about it and some of them had already implemented feeds on external and internal websites. The thing is that the bigger implications; syndicating information to specific groups, using blogs as a 2 way communications tool etc... need a context and an objective. I hope I was able to give them some ideas and directions as to how they will be using these tools in the future.

I was glad to read today that one of the attendees already downloaded Wordpress and was experimenting with templates... the workshop did struck a nerve with someone.

Below a little clip I made of the beautiful lake in Geneva with my basic digital picture camera.

Technorati : AILIS, blog, blogging, geneva, rss, switzerland, training, wordpress, workshop, youtube

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

I have been invited by the Association of International Librarians and Information Specialists (AILIS) in Geneva to give 2 full day workshops - one day in English the other in French - on blogging and RSS. I am leaving tomorrow evening till Friday.

Looking forward to these workshops... Every time I learn a lot from the "trainees" and I find it interesting to get feedback about the use and applications of new media from very different angles.

We'll have a full day program covering the "new communications model", setting up a basic blog, creating RSS feeds for the blog but also from online information that doesn't have a feed, we'll be mixing feeds, monitoring feeds, we will create a "professional blog" and much more. Very much "hands on" and applied were possible to their day to day job and profession.

AILIS worked together with the University of Geneva to organize this so we'll have all the infrastructure we need. Will try to blog and send in some pictures from Geneva. (Picture by Taro Taylor).

Technorati : AILIS, blog, blogging, geneva, new+media, rss, training, university+of+geneva, workshop