Business and Blogging

Blog Business Summit Programs January 2005 and September 2007

by Des Walsh on August 24th, 2007

The next Blog Business Summit is only a few weeks away now. The event is to be held in Chicago, 17-19 September, and its structure is an interesting reflection of how blogging in the business sector has evolved since the first Summit in January 2005 in Seattle. (NOTE: the Chicago event scheduled for September has been cancelled.)

The archives on the BBS site have blog posts going back to late 2004, but not, as far as I could see, other historical information such as the session and speaker listings. But thanks to the wonderful Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, I was able this morning to browse the program for the first Blog Business Summit, in Seattle in January 2005, where Robert Scoble led off as keynote speaker.

It’s interesting to compare the program from that first event, less than three years ago, with the program for the upcoming event.

This was the list of sessions for the two day event in January 2005:

• Keynote Address: The Blog Advantage
• Blog Business Models: What Strategies Make Money
• Building Traffic: Posting isn’t Enough!
• True Voice Webcast
• The Entrepreneurial Blog: Monetizing Your Interests
• Picking a Platform: Blogging Engines Compared
• True Voice: The Art and Science of Blog Writing
• Good Blog Design: Speed, Accessibility, Transparency, and Clarity
• Corporate Blogging: Strategy and Policy
• Marketing Strategies and Tactics: PR and Beyond
• Lunchtime Demo: Blog-Based Project Management Using Basecamp
• Dealing with Bloggers: Partnering and Defense Strategies
• Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs, Wikis, and More
• Media Blogging: Podcasting and Beyond

The summit in Chicago next month is a three day event and the program is more complex and nuanced to cater for different communities of interest. It also situates blogging within the broader framework of social media.

The first day, Pre-Conference Workshops, has three tracks: Social Media Bootcamp, Blogging for Dollars, Social Media and the Enterprise.

As an example of the wider range of the contemporary BBS, one of the sessions in the Social Media Bootcamp, with the always amazing Liz Strauss as the moderator or presenter, is on building community.

Rolling Your Own: Successful Branded Communities and the People Who Create Them

The session promises to provide discussion on some key questions you should ask before launching your own branded social network

• When it’s better to reach out to pre-existing online communities rather than trying to command & control your own
• How major organizations made the decision to launch their own social networks

The two full conference days have a two room structure. At present most of the timeslots have just one session scheduled, with several “Session coming” notes for Room Two sessions.

Overall, there is a good range of topics to cover the interests both of blogging enthusiasts and business people who want to know more about how to integrate blogging effectively in their business strategy. I’ll be particularly interested to know what comes up in the last session in Room One on Day Two, on Corporate Blogging Policies. There are no panel leaders listed yet, but the issues are very important for anyone in this business and blogging space:

• Integrating blogs and confidentiality agreements
• Accuracy mandates
• Do disclaimers help?
• Reconciling personal opinions against implied corporate representation
• Competitor linking and dialog—how open do you want to be?
• Screening and editing posts.
• Developing a respectful and transparent comment policy

Although I’ve not so far been able to get to a BBS event, I’ve always been a fan. In fact, as the Wayback Machine still bears witness, I was one of the sponsors of that first event back in January ‘05, under the banner of my Thinking Home Business blog. I congratulate the BBS team on keeping the event going all this time and wish them every success for Chicago next month.

One day I will get to a Blog Business Summit!

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• Chicago Blog Business Summit Cancelled
• Next Blog Business Summit Announced for September in Chicago
• Robert Scoble to Speak at Blog Business Summit
• Future of Media Summit Coverage
• Future of Media Summit 2007, San Francisco and Sydney

POSTED IN: Blogging, Corporate, Enterprise 2.0, Events, General, Policy, Small Business, Social Media, Web 2.0