The Blog Studio

Now you need to come up with a strategy, an idea and a voice.

Before you start hitting publish on your computer (or smart phone) you need to stop and think about what you’re going to be saying and how you’re going to be saying it.

There are a lot of theories and examples and how to’s out there in the world for you to read and take from. And I’m not here to tell you that any of them are more right or more wrong than any other. But, I will tell you how I feel and why I feel that way. That’s why I’m writing this post.

Be Conversational. I can’t stress this enough. Think back to when you were a student in elementary or high school or even post-secondary classes, were you more engaged and attentive in a lecture format that had you staring with glazed over eyes at a talking head or were you more engaged and excited about what you were being told when you were part of the conversation? For me it was the later. I wanted to be talked to not talked at. I wanted to be part of the discussion. I wanted to raise my hand and be called on. And that’s exactly how I feel about blogging. I want to talk to my readers like they are friends sitting in the living room with me. And that’s how I wanted to be spoken to as well.

Don’t Be Afraid To Brag. If your team is doing fantastic, amazing, terrific things - tell the world! Your people deserve the spotlight and your future clients deserve to know that you are awesome. You may want to hold onto a little bit of humility so you don’t turn into that kid who is always talking about herself in the third person and boasting about her resume, but at the same time you’ll want to slip in some of those accomplishments and make yourself stand out from the crowd. Use your blog space as an opportunity to make announcements about big projects or parties or donations or sponsorships. Use it to tell us about the great new community manager you hired in the office. Use it to tell us the things that you are proud of. Just remember to be humble.

Teach, Don’t Preach. This is a huge issue for me. If you know something, believe something, trust in something with every fibre of your being and you want to tell me about it - DO IT! However, do it in a way that doesn’t leave me feeling like you’re telling me to think like you lest I turn myself into an idiot. Give me a list of reasons why I should believe you and follow your lead. Tell me how green the grass is on the other side. Heck, give me directions on how to get over the fence. Just don’t push me over the fence if I’m not climbing fast enough for you. If you’re talking about something that I’m interested in and want to know more about and get into, I will. You don’t have to be my crossing guard. Just show me that you’re excited and knowledgeable and give me the map. I’ll do the rest.

Proofread. This may seem like a simple step, but it’s one that is far too often missed or done so quickly that errors go live online when they could be avoided. There are going to be times when your fingers slip, your mind starts a sentence in one tense and ends it in another or a word just gets misspelled. It happens. The cool thing is that you can make me forget that it happens by cleaning up your copy before it goes live. Whether you have someone else in the office give your piece a once over or you take a little break, run it through spelling and grammar checks and then send it to the world is your choice. Just make sure that it’s not a step that you skip. Trust me.

These are my 4 biggest things for you to keep in mind. As you go on and get more comfortable with your blog you will find that it starts to come easy. You’ll know what point you want to get across and how you want to do it. You’ll be tearing up the blogosphere and will have people begging for more content. That’s a good position to be in. Prepare yourself, you’re going to get there.

Oh, I forgot one thing - Have Fun! You’re not writing a text book, you’re running a blog. Enjoy yourself, when users can tell you’re enjoying yourself they’ll be back to share in the good times when you post again. 

The Conference. Shriek. Gasp. Cower. Shudder.

Is there any industry more conference happy then the tech world? From a three person tweetup at a local bar straight on up to CES and SxSw, if you were so inclined you could attend a conference everyday of the year. Should you?

The question I see asked more than any others: “Is it worth it?”

Let’s try to answer that.

Pricing
The cost of a conference is really the biggest factor in deciding if it’s worth attending. There is a certain slice of the conference world that we can eliminate right off the bat: the wildly overpriced. They tend to be targeted at the corporate market, and the thinking behind the pricing is “Hey, your company is footing the bill, so who cares!” Usually, there are one or two “Big Names” attached as speakers, which is supposed to somehow justify the outrageous price tag. These conferences are never worth the money. There is no “magic bullet”, secret strategy or tip you can learn in a few hours that will ever justify the cost.

If an event you want to attend is double, or even more than what most conferences cost it’s a rip off, plain and simple. Save your money. If the pricing seems on par with similar events, it passes the pricing test and is worth examining further.

Stay on the lookout for tiered pricing. Some conferences have a low general ticket price, then offer upgraded passes. This can be a fine pricing structure, but take a look at what the basic ticket gets you. If you can get into most of the events, then it isn’t an issue. I’ve noticed in the last year, that more and more events are requiring an upgraded badge to get into the most interesting part of the conference. This stinks. Check that the type of entry you buy actually gets you into the events you want to attend. The entry fee may seem very reasonable, until you realize all you’re entitled to is the right to hang around an empty conference room showing YouTube videos on repeat.

Scheduling
The way speeches, panels and roundtables are scheduled can easily make a conference with great content a nightmare to attend. It makes sense to write yourself a quick plan of what you want to attend before you buy your ticket. Carefully take a look at the conference schedule, and see how many sessions are happening each day. Is there a huge amount of downtime, breaks or dead air? No question that some free time is important to digest what you’re learning, especially during multi-day events. You also don’t want to drop your cash so you can spend half the day in a shabby hotel lobby drinking bad coffee while annoying MLM’ers glad hand you and stuff your pockets full of business cards you won’t ever use.  At a good conference, there will always be something going on. At a really good conference, they will even have social events or other activities in between the main events to keep you learning, socializing and enjoying yourself.

It’s important to determine how man sessions you’ll be able to attend.  A well put together event will be structured so that all the attendees can make it to a session during every period. Sometimes the sessions are overlapping, which is a sign of a poorly administered event.

Make sure you take note of where the sessions are too. In some cases, the talks may be spread out in different buildings, or even entire different parts of the city. Depending on what session you attend first, you may not be able to make it from session 1 over to session 2 on time. It would seem like a no-brainer to schedule events in close physical proximity, but I’ve attended conferences where it took a full 30 minutes to get from point A to Point B. If you aren’t able to make it to all the sessions you want, re-consider attending.

Content
Reading the marketing materials for a conference would lead you to believe that not attending that conference will passively destroy your career. Finding out who is speaking, what they are speaking about and the format they will be delivering the information is, are really the heart of any event. Doing just a few minutes of research on your own, beyond the official website of the event, will quickly give you a sense of the quality of the content.

Who will be speaking at the event? There is an entirely new breed of person that has invaded the tech world in the last few years: The Professional Talker. You probably know their names, see them hawking their wares on Twitter and being constantly quoted in blog posts. The Pro’s are often the keynote, or main event at a conference. No matter how big their reputation (or head is), don’t let the professional speakers be the reason you attend a conference. Lot of pro’s have interesting, useful things to say. You can nearly always find these things on YouTube. The talk you’re going to hear is probably just a slightly customized version of the same speech they’ve given dozens of times. If you’re attending a conference mainly to hear Famous Social Media Guru X enlighten you, my advice would be to save your money. You can definitely dig up the wisdom they dispense somewhere online.

Most likely the speaking roster will be filled with people who aren’t Internet Famous, and you don’t follow on Twitter. This is where it pays to do a bit of digging. Do a quick search for their name, and the company they work for. See if they have a blog, take a quick dig through their Twitter stream and look to see if they have spoken at other events. You can usually make a pretty accurate determination about what these people can teach you by seeing what their online footprint looks like. If they have interesting content posted online, it’s a good bet that will have interesting insights to share in person. If they work for a company that are innovators in the field they are speaking about, or do research at a university on this topic, you can expect to learn something. If the speakers have no online presence and work for a company you’ve never heard of, you might want to skip this one. If someone has original, intriguing and worthwhile thoughts about a specific topic you can be certain they have written and discussed it online before, so it should be simple to find this out. At the best conferences, the speakers will have thorough bios that point you to qualifications that make them good choices to discuss their specific topic. Remember, you are attending a conference to hear and learn things that you can’t find out yourself with a bit of time and a search engine. You’re paying. You have a right to expect quality presentations.

The last factor in deciding on the quality of the content is how it is presented. Will you be seeing a traditional speech, a presentation with a slideshow, a panel with several people discussing a particular topic or a round table where conference attendees have a discussion together? In the right context, all of these are great methods for learning something new.

Whether or not a certain format will prove valuable will depend on how much you already know about the subject. If you have deep knowledge on a particular topic, someone giving a slideshow aimed at a general audience probably won’t do much for you. This will be doubly true if there is no, or a limited opportunity to ask questions. Find out if the speakers will be taking open questions, or conducting a discussion at any point during their talk. The size of the audience is a factor as well. The smaller the audience watching is, the better chance you’ll have for asking questions or seeing if the speaker can address a certain aspect of their area of expertise. Most conferences usually detail the size of the various talks, panels and speeches, so factor these numbers into your decision making process. 

If the conference offers a roundtable discussion, this can be another reason to attend, if the subject is one you know something about. A roundtable can go two ways. When a roundtable works, all the attendees will walk away with a much better understanding of the topic being discussed. You’ll also have the chance to share what you know, and help others learn. It’s also possible for roundtables to go off the rails. They might be dominated by one or two people with strong opinions, or devolve into petty arguments. There is no surefire way to see what type of roundtable you’ll end up with. However, experience goes a long way here. People that have run and attended many events like this will have a solid idea of how to run a session, so that everyone benefits. It’s worthwhile to check in with the organizers and inquire about their specific experience facilitating group discussions.

Socializing
Socializing and networking can often be the best reason to attend a conference. Whether you are looking for new clients, vendors, partners or even just friends with similar interests, a conference is the easiest way to make this happen. You’ll definitely end up meeting people throughout the course of any conference, just by attending. Beyond that, find out what networking opportunities the conference provides.

Are there dinners, happy hours or specific times set aside to meet the other attendees? Does the conference provide any way to get in touch with other people before or after the actual conference? Will there be any opportunities to meet the speakers? The more opportunities the conference provides for you to meet people there, the more valuable the conference will become to you. Definitely investigate the time set aside by the conference for being social. To some people this may seem like a throwaway, but I would recommend you weigh the social aspects as heavily as you do the other factors when making your decision whether or not to attend. Some of the best experiences I’ve had at conferences have been at a bar, discussing what I heard that day, over a beer or six with new like minded friends I met earlier that day. Don’t write-off the nightlife!

Miscellaneous
*Swag! - Sometimes conferences will promise you an “Awesome Swag Bag, with more than $500 worth of goodies!” These bags will always be filled with crap. Never let the possibility of getting something good in a swag bag sway your decision to attend a conference.

*Meet and Greet With Your Favorite Gurus and Mavens! - A meet and greet will always be an awkward, unsatisfying event. Generally, you and everyone else at the conference will crowd into a media room at a hotel. People will sidle up to the Internet Famous and make small talk. Everyone will realize how socially strange the situation is, and no meaningful conversation will ever occur. Meet and greets are never a good reason to decide to attend a conference.

There are so many types of conferences up and running now, that it is nearly impossible to create a definitive guide to attending them. What we’ve laid out here is a framework that we think is a solid jumping off point that can make the decision process easier. Most of all, we recommend doing your research asking lots of questions and having a clear idea of what you want to gain by attending. With so many events in the tech world, the decision of which ones to attend is getting harder. There are a lot of really terrible conferences out there. There are quite a few fantastic ones. We hope this guide helps you find the great ones. If you see us at a conference, make sure to say “Hi!” If we’re there you’ll know it’s a great one. Please drop us a comment on how you decide which events to attend and which ones to let pass you by. 

Is Social Media Week over already? It went so fast, and we learned so much here at The Blog Studio. We’re just starting to process and make sense of it now. We’d like to take a second and send a heartfelt ‘Thanks’ to all of you who came out to our office for our ‘No Cheerleaders Allowed’ talk. We wanted an honest conversation about social media, and thanks to all of you, we really got one.

If you’ll indulge us for a moment, we’d like to take a quick stroll down memory lane and recap some of the interesting discussions we had that evening, and share what we learned for those of you who couldn’t make it in person. For those of you that braved the Canadian cold to squeeze into our offices, we commend your moxie!

The biggest lesson we learned is that social media means something different to everyone. Everyone in the room had a different opinion on what social media is, how you can use it personally or for business, and what works and what doesn’t. This make a whole lot of sense, because the one thing everyone agreed on is that social media is powered by the individual behind the keyboard. So to all the ‘experts; out there trying to define social media, you’re being shouted down by the rabble. There is no solid definition that everyone in the industry feels comfortable with.

We started the conversation off by asking everyone to discuss the early experiences they had with the web, and with social media. I got the ball rolling discussing how I miss the days where social media was a free for all, and everyone shared their ideas free of charge. Maybe this is a bit of nostalgia, but it still holds true for. Early memories in the room ranged from telnet to Twitter, and I quickly realized the age of people in the room started in the early 20’s and went all the way to people in their 50’s. How cool is that? Social media crushed the age barrier. It isn’t just for young tech savvy whippersnappers.

The hot button topic of the night was definitely using social media to make a buck. Is it OK to do this for profit? The answers ranged from absolutely to absolutely not. Fair enough. The consensus seemed to be we all want to make a living, but it can be very difficult to quantify ROI on social media campaigns. It’s great to hear that people really want to show their clients and employers they can demonstrate real value with social media, and hopefully prove it.

A thorough discussion of tools and analytics followed, and again the room was split. Many of you felt you can use analytics to show success with the numbers. A second camp felt that while numbers are important, you can’t always quantify the intangible way that people view yourself, or your business in the social media world. Personally, I agree with both points of view. In a perfect world a combination of analytics and conversation is able to tell the whole story. That isn’t an easy concept to explain, but we’re trying, and as time goes on we’re getting better at making our case.

This brought up the idea of whether it’s more valuable to target a select group of people on the web, or get your message out to everyone and see what sticks. Here’s one point where just about everyone in the room agreed: the targeted approach is the way to go.  Speaking to your specific audience, in the space where they live, generates the best results and the most clear communications. This is genuine two way engagement. The ‘scatter gun’ approach is headed out the door with the old media world, because it gets in the way of having a real conversation.

This led to a discussion about where people live and hang out online. We all agree that fewer and fewer people are watching television, at a set time, on an actual television. More commonly, viewers are tuning into their favorite shows online. This has a huge impact on the way we buy and consume advertising, or what even constitutes advertising anymore. While online viewing hasn’t eclipsed traditional TV watching yet, it’s coming.

Our favorite loudmouth American at The Blog Studio, Michael Dolan, turned a few heads when he said “Everyone who watches TV will be dead in a few years anyway.” That’s one way to put it. Maybe a more optimistic way to look at it, is you can get great bang for your buck by participating in TV online, either through ads or social media conversations around these shows.

Mr. Dolan gave a quick rundown of one his favorite topics: Social Media Trainwrecks. We discussed the Saatchi and Saatchi Toyota social media campaign, The Motrin Moms Debacle and the Steve Rubel Wal-Mart bloggers screwup. All interesting cases with a lot to teach anyone who gets involved in this space. The takeaway here is to enter at your own risk and be certain to keep things honest. Your audience is as smart as you are, don’t forget that.

The discussion continued with people and brands who are honest, and using social media in a fun and transparent way. Shaq, PDiddy and BlogTO were three names that popped up right away. I agree. They all do it well, keep it honest and make it fun. They also engage with their audiences and don’t use social media as a way to blast out ads.

The last part of the evening focused on Facebook, and opinions were all over the place. Some people love it, some people hate it. That’s the only honest assessment I can give of this discussion. Every person had a wholly different opinion. Some thought it was the future of online engagement, and some thought it’s already seen its’ day. The line of the night came out of this conversation, courtesy of Meghan Warbly of Argyle, “Facebook is the Nickelback of Social Media.” Ha.

We really had a great time, and were extremely impressed with the wide range of opinions and backgrounds that all came together in one room for a smart and civil conversation. That’s why the social media world is a such a great place. We’d like to take a second and thank all of you for coming and sharing with us. A few of you went far beyond the call of duty. Like Crystal Gibson, who shared her excellent great notes with us. Carolyn Van who showed up early to help us set up, and @tourdedufflet for bringing over some yummy dufflet treats.

It was lovely to meet some familiar Twitter avatars in the flesh like Toronto PR gadfly @J_Lab, @interpretivist and man about town @mynameisguygal. We also got a chance to play Smush. CA, and meet the brilliant minds at Atmosphere industries who thought it up.

Also a special thanks to Marijke Daye from Sweet Something Design for her awesome candy table that kept us all hopped up on sugar for our chat.

Thank you all for taking the time to visit, we’re looking forward to having you over for drinks again soon. 

A few hours ago, a high priced consultant told a friend that blogs were a fad, and not worth the author’s time, and that websites built on blog platforms were kludgy inelegant poor cousins to more robust enterprise level CMS driven sites.

Two minutes later, I fired up whitehouse.gov, and nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Oh how I wish the order of those events was reversed. How I’d have loved to point out to this high priced nincompoop that the official website of the new president of the United States was by all appearances built on a blog platform. Not only is whitehouse.gov elegant and modern, but today it stood up to simply massive traffic.

That the official website of the president of the United States is built on a blog platform is a testament to the level of efficiency that can be achieved by using a modern blog platform

• a trust in the security and stability of the platform
• a thoroughly modern understanding of the web
• a willingness of this administration to embrace social media
• a willingness to engage the public

This heralds an even greater acceptance of blogs and social media into the mainstream. We in the social media world tend to forget just how big the knowledge gap is between us and the less techno-literate. The President’s new platform will expose a whole new audience to blogging in particular and social media in general.

Let’s take a moment to think about why the President’s team may have chosen to use an off-the-shelf blogging platform for whitehouse.gov. Given a relatively massive budget, why not go custom? I can think of a bunch of reasons:

• Building on a blogging platform is much quicker. Most of the components of the site have already been built.
• Most blogging platforms have hundreds if not thousands of pre-existing plugins to choose from. These can add functionality both immediately and over time as new features are invented.
• The more popular blogging platforms have thousands of experts who can develop and support the systems.
• Modern blogging systems are robust enterprise level content management systems. They feature caching mechanisms to withstand large traffic spikes, sophisticated search functionality, advanced categorization and tagging systems.
• Built in support for RSS, email gathering, member profiles, ease of posting video and audio content.
• Ease and low cost of administration. There’s no need to create specific help documentation – it already exists. Help for both administrators and users is usually just a few mouse clicks away.
• Ease of use. Posting new items, editing existing items, reordering, re-categorization, and more are easy and fast.

Here in Toronto, ChangeCamp is running this Saturday January 24 2009. ChangeCamp

is a free participatory web-enabled face-to-face event that brings together citizens, technologists, designers, academics, policy wonks, political players, change-makers and government employees to answer one question: How do we re-imagine government and governance in the age of participation?

Most of us at The Blog Studio will be attending ChangeCamp . As active digital citizens, we’re keen to help shape the future. Looking into the past I’m reminded that we’ve been building non-blog websites on blogging platforms since 2004. It’s awfully nice to see the pioneering work we did reach such a level of acceptance. 

If you recall, late last week, I made a number of small changes to this site to see if I could gain back some of the google juice we recently lost. I think our drop in position is related to a decision I made to reduce the number of words on the site’s home page. I made some tweaks to the home page layout to accommodate longer post excerpts.

Five days have passed, so I thought I’d have a look at the search results to see if we’re ranking any higher for “blog design”. We are, but only by a single spot. However, looking at the cached versions of our site on Google, I see that the site hasn’t actually be indexed in about 6 days. So, the changes to the home page aren’t yet being reflected. Should be interesting to see what happens. As a side note, the search results for “blog design” are very volatile. I see a lot of change in the listings from day to day.

I’m chomping at the bit to try a couple of other SEO tweaks, but I’m trying to be smart about this by making one change at a time, so it’s effect can be measured.

Next up: waiting to see what effect the home page change has, then diving into meta description. Fun!