The Blog Studio

In the last few months, Twitter more than any other social media service has been at the center of a maelstrom of revolution, free speech and radical political thought. Many pundits have gone so far as to call the domino collapse of the governments in the Middle East a “Twitter Revolution”. Despite all the connections and connotations between Twitter and free speech, Twitter itself seems to be maintaining a hands off approach. Their attitude seems to be, “Hey, we just provide the network what people do with it is their business.” This way of thinking harkens back to the very early days of the web, where the original pioneers worked on a sort of don’t ask don’t tell policy of what people sent across their networks.

The Global Network Initiative is a group of companies and investors that have banded together and come forward to protect privacy and free speech on the web. Google, Yahoo!, Human Rights Watch and Microsoft are among the groups that have signed on. There has been some grousing lately that Twitter hasn’t joined up with the Global Network Initiative. Facebook also has opted out, but their free speech record is a subject for another blog post.  The media and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/technology/07rights.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss” title="Twitterati">Twitterati are using the fact that Twitter hasn’t signed on for GNI as a brush to paint them as a company that doesn’t put its’ money where its’ mouth is, and that they don’t support free expression.

It seems the opposite to be true. While Twitter has not officially stepped up and started waving the free speech flag, they are quietly providing a tool that makes free speech possible. It’s one thing to talk a big game, and quite another to keep the servers up and running while they pump out controversial information. What is being played out in the media is a talking vs. doing. The Global Network Initiative is a noble idea, no question. However, GNI isn’t the actual service that is allowing people to spread their message on the net. When an angry dictator or a totalitarian regime decides to shutdown a service because they don’t like the message they’re hearing, they won’t be shutting down GNI.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick”], and this would seem to be the philosophy that Twitter has put into practice. While they may have declined to comment on their free speech policies, the evidence of their “big stick” (mind out of the gutters, please!) is apparent. The credit for the mass upheaval in North Africa belongs with the citizens there on the front lines, but unquestionably Twitter has been the digital cudgel they’re all carrying. Let’s all keep that in mind when the topic of free speech on the web comes up. Speaking about digital freedom is one thing, but putting your servers on the front line of a real revolution is quite another. 

A question we hear frequently from many clients: “Is the writing on my blog copyrighted?”

This question comes in all sort of variations, ranging from who owns the copyright, to the process needed to copyright something, to wondering if copyright even exists on the web. Copyright on the web can easily turn into a labyrinth of complications. I like to offer clients who ask a very simple solution that protects their work, and has the added bonus of helping to promote it. Register all the creative work on your blog under a Creative Commons license.

Working with hundreds of blogging clients over the years, has led us to the conclusion that Creative Commons is often misunderstood by people who are new to blogging. This is really a shame, because using CC can give your blog and creative work a big hand by helping others share and promote what you make. New, and even experienced bloggers, see Creative Commons as a license to steal their work, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Applying a Creative Commons license to the content you create actually ensures that you will receive proper credit for whatever you make, while letting people freely share your creations to help get the word out.

Many bloggers are very resistant to Creative Commons at first. We’ve heard many reasons, but the one we hear the most is “People are going to rip me off, and post my work everywhere!” Let’s think about that for a second. People are going to re-post your writing everywhere? The horror! What a problem to have! There are many reasons that people choose to blog. One of the most common is to promote themselves, their business and their work, in order to establish a reputation. If someone reads your blog post, then chooses to publish it elsewhere, that’s a fantastic compliment and a great way to have more people see what you’ve created.

Let’s face it, unless you are a successful professional blogger (and even then, this can be quite a stretch) you probably aren’t getting paid for your blog posts once they are published. If people share or re-post one of your pieces with a link back to the original, it’s a win for you. There is no chance of you being “ripped off” when people share your work. Most of us could use the exposure for what we create. Applying a Creative Commons license to your projects ensures that when people share your work, you receive proper credit.

There are several variations on the Creative Commons license. The one that we recommend to blogging clients is the Attribution-No Derivatives license. In the simplest term, when your work is licensed this way others can share, distribute and reprint it other places as long as they give you proper credit, and don’t modify your work.  Fair enough? With this license, your original creation will remain intact, and whenever it appears on the web, your name, and a link back to the original on your blog will be included.

Often, when people are looking to source content for a project, they will specifically search for Creative Commons licensed work, because they know that it can be legally shared. If your work falls under this umbrella, it increases the chance that someone will find and share it, increasing the exposure and bolstering your reputation. This is a great passive distribution strategy, and requires no work on your end, other than noting on your blog that the work is CC licensed.

The Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/ organization has an excellent website, and a huge amount of resources to help you understand and apply the licenses to your creation. Take a look at the site, have a look at the various licenses available and read through the FAQ page which will most likely answer any questions you have. If you need any more convincing, the Content Directory lists a portion of the thousands and thousands of people using CC licenses to protect, share and distribute their work. A quick look will show you that you’re in excellent company. Many of the most innovative creators on the web are proponents of Creative Commons.

The most important thing to keep in mind, is that letting others share your work is a cornerstone of the web, and the more people that see your work the better. Remember: Sharing is a good thing! 

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. 

If you’ve had a discussion with me in the in the last year about blogging, and more specifically about making a buck from your blog, chances are high that I mentioned The Deck. The Deck describes itself as “The Ad Network of Creative, Web and Design Culture”. It works in a wholly different manner compared to the way other ad services function, which is why it has become so successful in such a short period of time.

I’m not a big fan of PPC ads. I rarely recommend them to our clients, and in many cases I actively dissuade clients from using them. I truly believe your marketing dollars can be spent better somewhere else, especially if you are working with a limited budget, as most mortals are. It’s certainly possible to see results with PPC ads, but I see it as a endless money pit. The minute you stop dumping money into ads, the clicks stop. You aren’t building anything that has value in the long term. PPC ads are also difficult to make effective and get working correctly. It’s a supremely crowded space where you’re competing with the entire world for a limited amount of screen space and eyeball time.

There are two factors that make The Deck innovative and worth examining and applying to to your marketing strategy. The first is the “Cost Per Influence” model which lets you reach a targeted audience without limiting them by non-human search strings. The second is the idea you are buying a percentage of the total ad time on the network. You aren’t purchasing a set number of clicks or page views that end up becoming more expensive every time someone views your ad,

The Deck functions on what they define as the “Cost Per Influence” model. I think this is a brilliant way to do things, which is why I’m bringing it up here. I’d like to see this model spread to other online spheres of influence. Here’s how it works. The sites that make up the ad network for The Deck, are hand picked. You have to be invited to join, and while the sites deal with different subject matter, they are linked by their general attitude and outlook. Readers who are interested in one of these sites, are probably interested several of them.  The ads that run in the network, run on all of the sites, on a rotating basis throughout the month, which is the length of the ad buy.

If you have a good idea of who will be buying your product, you can make a sound judgment as to whether or not the people who read a certain website are your audience. With standard PPC ads, you determine where your ads appear based on keywords. The theory goes that through research, you can determine the keywords people use when searching for products similar to what you have on offer,and people who use those keywords for searches,and where they appear in online writing, is where your audience lives. I know others will disagree, but this seems a scatter-gun approach to finding your clientele. There is a certain type of person that reads 43 Folders, Daring Fireball and Kottke.org, which are a few of sites in the network. It’s nearly impossible to define and find these readers with keywords. You’d never be able to reach an audience like this via traditional PPC keyword ads. The “Cost Per Influence” model gets you in front of an audience that is hard to quantify, but it’s a case of “I know it when I see it.” You could spend years combing through keyword data and never hit on the combination that reaches someone you define with a phrase like, ‘You know, he’s the kind of person that probably drinks expensive tea, reads Monocle and listens to the Dap Kings.” The influence model at work here breaks down the traditional ad silos, and sees your audience as whole people with many interests, not a narrow set of one and two word search terms.

There are 51 websites in The Deck network, and there are 33 ad slots available each month. When you purchase a slot, your ad will appear every 33 times a new page is loaded, across all 51 sites. You own a percentage of the total traffic for the month your ad runs. You aren’t competing with other advertisers for the same space. With that portion of the competition eliminated, you can be certain that your ads will be running. You won’t need to keep pumping more cash into the endeavor just to keep your ad showing up where you want it. It’s a fixed cost, so you can count on getting what you pay for without any surprising cost overruns.

The Deck launches in 2006, and has been growing steadily. It appears to be a solid success for the advertisers, the sites that offer the ad space and the network itself. It’s a fine example of how throwing out the accepted way of doing things can create a winning formula. I’d really like to see this ad model appear other places, and expand into other demographics. I also think the “Cost per Influence” way of thinking has potential applications for ads, but also finding audiences for anything online you are looking to spread and share. It makes the keyword model seem clunky, impersonal and outdated. Most of all, The Deck is a good reminder that you should never be afraid to tear something apart and build it back up from scratch. Even if the old way works.

All hands on deck! The North By North East festival is descending on Toronto Monday for a full-on Music, Film, and Culture takeover.  What’s more exciting for us geeks this year is an ‘i’—meaning NXNE has gone interactive, just like i its’ big sister festival SXSW (where the interactive portion has actually become larger and more popular than music and film!).

Alongside the massive gathering of bands and fans, there will be 30+ panels featuring industry leaders and design professionals discussing digital technology, creativity and social media trends.

This is especially thrilling for us here The Blog Studio, and we’re beyond excited and honoured to be taking a really active role at NXNE. Our President Lucia Mancuso (@lulula), and our Lead Strategy and Outreach nerd, Mike Dolan (@EvilPRGuy) will be speaking on two panels at the sold out conference.

On Monday June 14th at 2:00 pm, Lucia will share the stage with Amrita Chandra, Guinevere Orvis, April Dunford and moderator Meghan Warby on “Thank You For Being A Friend: tips, traits and tactics of successful women in tech and social media.” These women are Toronto’s leaders in Social Media, Marketing, and Digital Communications. They will unveil and discuss gender, workplace and media strategy. You can also expect to walk away from this panel with usable strategies and ideas you can implement into your own workday right away.

On June 14 at 9:30am, Mike will share the stage for the hotly anticipated “Circle Jerking 101” panel, along with Andrew Lane, Kevin Airgid, Mark Evans, and panel moderator Jamie Woo. Mike Dolan is a man who tells it like it is (for better or for worse, his talk at Toronto Social Media Week stirred up more than a little controversy)—and this panel won’t be any different. These contributors will discuss the pitfalls of social media, and exactly what a client can expect from a great social media campaign. You can arm yourself with the insider straight dope you need to make the right decisions for incorporating social media into your business strategies, and avoid getting ripped off by the sham artists that multiply by the day in this industry. This panel is guaranteed to be entertaining, so this is one you definitely don’t want to miss.

These Digital Discussions will be cutting edge, raw and uncut. We are excited to sink our teeth into the NXNEi’s Social Media fabric, but are concerned that NXNEi could fall into the pit that many people feel has crippled SXSW in recent years.  SXSW started small and expanded exponentially very quickly.  With its rampant growth, depth of information and diversity of the SXSW conference, the festival became so popular it it lost some of the intimacy that ensured you would make personal and business connections that are really the most valuable takeaway from a conference..

Too much of SXSW is now spent waiting in lines, coordinating hangouts and trying to hit the fifteen parties hosted each night. A ‘Swarm‘ badge on Foursquare? That’s the line at the Empanada Truck at 4am. How about a SuperSwarm of 250+ people in one spot! That badge popped up at nearly every gathering at the festival.

We love NXNE’s intimate vibe, and are curious to see if it can retain the ‘warm feeling’ this year. As How Magazine editor Bryn Mooth says, “All this Social Media stuff makes us think we are really connected—facebook and twitter are fine ways to do that—But for my money, making connections in person is what really matters.” While Social Media enables you to reach out to a huge cross section of people , there r is nothing like an old school face to face chat.  So come out and chat with Lucia, Mike and all of their colleagues next week during the industry panels (or the parties, which are just as important)!

We invite all of you to attend our panels as well as email us questions to address during our talks, so please send them in. We will also keep you posted via twitter and our blog on the people, parties and panels.

Plus we’ll be annoucning a huge surprise for every attending NXNEi. So keep your eyes on the blog here and at http://www.nxne.com for this special announcement . You’re going to love it (pinky swear)! Stay tuned!