ItSeemstoMe

Good bye--for a while

ItSeemstoMe was my first blog and it has always been my most personal. But it is once again time for me to leave it for a while.  I'm just too busy to maintain three blogs and this is the one that is easiest for me to set aside for a while.

There are somethings I've done here, which I will just abandon. I will not be taking my monthly countdown of how many months the world must endure with George Bush at America's helm, but the subject of Bush has so very little about it that is amusing anyhow.

But a great many of my observations and experiences, particularly where technology and humanity intersect will be carried over to Naked Conversations, which will be continue as my main blog, with an expanded perspective. If I have something more to say about American companies collaborating with the Chinese government, for example, I will say it on Naked Conversations.

I hope you will join me over there.

Canada's Move to Suppress Bloggers

Recently, I've been feeling envious of America's Northern neighbor. Canada has better schools and health programs than we Californians have.  They have a diverse, growing and active blogging community, and oh yeah, they seem to have wisdom on what wars to stay out of.

Now, my friend Curt over at the Committee to Protect Bloggers, says that all Canada's decency will not extend to bloggers. An op ed piece soon to be published in Montreal's French language press next month, Canada has introduced legislation designed to allow authorities to act with impunity against bloggers and others writing online.

This month Bill C-74 was introduced to Canada's parliament. If adopted, the legislation would do away with the need for warrants and would force internet service providers to hand over subscriber information including names, addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers and cellphone numbers, on the written request of any law enforcement official.

Please note that at this point, this is proposed legislation.  It has not been passed, and I have no idea if it has any chance of it. In the U.S., every year, Congressional representatives introduce all sorts of lame ideas that get spiked by the wisdom of the Congressional crowd. Of course some of it becomes unjust new laws.

I hope this is not the case in Canada.

State of Blogosphere: Bigger & More

http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000298.html

Technorati is now tracking over 7.8 million weblogs, and 937 million links. That's just about double the number of weblogs tracked in October 2004. In fact, the blogosphere is doubling in size about once every 5 months. It has already done so at this pace four times, which means that in the last 20 months, the blogosphere has increased in size by over 16 times.

Things don't appear to be letting up either. With the launch of MSN spaces and the continued significant growth of popular blogging and journaling tools like Google's Blogger, SixApart's LiveJournal, AOL Journals, and proliferation of software like WordPress and Movable Type, the number of people out there blogging has jumped in the past few months.

Conversational Marketing

A few people have asked me about “Conversational Marketing,” a term I used in a previous blog and in fact first used nearly 10 years ago,
in an unsuccessful attempt to redirect PR clients away from the buzz, hype and smarminess that would shape and scar the Dot Com Era’s marketing thumbprint.

Conversational Marketing is nothing new. It’s basically the concept that people respond better to lowered voices spoken in credible tones than they do to the aggressive in-your-face marketing speak as is evidences in everything from TV ads to the pap-lingo of so many website. If common sense prevailed, marketers would understand that simply conversing with customers, prospects, partners, investors and employees is more effective. People listen better and longer when you just talk to them and listen back. All too often professional marketers lose their credibility by hyperbole, hubris and amplification. It seems to me self evident that just talking with people is more effective than shouting and repeating yourself as if your audience was comprised of deaf idiots.

The problem until recently has been that conversations didn’t scale. You could use conversational marketing on phones and in meetings, at executive conferences and arguably, in focus groups. But if you wanted to reach the masses, you had to use tactics allowed by the same broadcast model that has around in Gutenberg’s time and didn’t really start deteriorating until quite recently. Over time, the number of messages directed at each of us multiplied at a cancerous rate. There was a Cold War type escalation between message senders and their targets. The more marketing messages demanded us to pay attention, the less we listened. People developed immunities to marketing messages.

The came the groundbreaking impact of social media—blogging, wikis, social software, Internet-enhanced meetings and more-to-come promises have now created the tools and the opportunity for effective massive conversational marketing. This is important because the concept of a company speaking to many and in return hearing from many is already changing things. Marketing hyperbole is just starting to ebb as marketers learn what Dan Gillmor has been saying for a while—the audience collectively knows more than the speaker does. Entities wishing to sell can get honest comment on what will motivate people to buy. Treating customers and prospects as if they were both deaf and stupid may just start waning—or at least I hope it will.

‘We, the Media’ is a Must Read

Like almost everyone, when I first stumbled into the expanding universe of the Blogosphere, I felt like I was living some Bob Dylan lyrics: something was happening and I didn’t know what it was. So I read the Cluetrain Manifesto , a truly important book that defines markets as conversations-- a thought both fundamental and important.

I’ve just finished reading Dan Gillmor’s extraordinary “We the Media,” blogging's second vitally important book. Gillmor escorts readers through the incredible string of events that have occurred in blogging over the past few years. He maintains the objective analysis of a seasoned journalist; the analytic commentary of a thoughtful columnist; and the unbridled enthusiasm for blogging' promise.

Blogging has not yet changed newswriting and distribution in the eyes of traditional journalism or Big media as he calls them, but he lays down compelling and mounting evidence evidence that inevitably will. Journalism has been practiced for centuries from a broadcast model a one-or few-to many recipients. Today, the power of the press, to paraphrase AJ Liebling, is remains in the hands of those few who own one. They assign reporters to cover events and then filter it through editors before distributing. It’s one-directional. They're the experts and we're the readers. If you disagree with what the best you can do is submit a letter to the editor which they will consider printing.

Enter the tools of blogging. Suddenly, it's cheap, fast and easy for anyone to publish. It's no longer one way broadcasting, but it's interactive--a conversation from many people to many people. The journalist is no longer the expert, but merely the generator of a conversation. As Gillmor often says, his readers collectively are smarter than he is. Gillmor also takes the picture of text blogs on PCs into the near-term future where pictures, audio and video blogs will pervade, not just on PCs but on handhelds and cell phones. The people of the world become the reporters of the world, which as the title implies, is Gillmor's central point, as the title implies.

If you're a blogger, I encourage you strongly to read this book. I guarantee you will learn more about the impact and details of events you've already heard about—a lot more. If you don’t blog, I urge you also to read this book. There is something happening and you need to know what is.

Blogging & the Death of Sloganeering

I can still sing the jingles that accompanied the advertisements of my childhood. I must have been about six when these ditties made me crave AlkaSeltzer, Chesterfields and seeing the USA in my Chevrolet. Now, we condition ourselves to be immune from the noise of marketing: the intrusions of banners, billboards and things that flash in neon or rich text. We pay rental fees to Tivo so we can fast forward through the ads from sponsors who pay for our alleged broadcast entertainment. Those advertisers are smartening up that the efficacy is gone and the cost to place a spot is inane.

Advertising and marketing slogans have become ineffective, unwanted background blurs. Visual ads are aesthetic intrusions like graffiti on a beutiful statue. Still, companies spend billions to hook housewives into thinking they'll be more attractive with cleaner floors; kids think will be cooler with peers if they drink the right Cola; and dad's will enjoy erupting testosterone if their weed killer works fastest.

Marketing stuff just doesn’t work the way it used to. PR releases, crammed with hyperbolizing adjectives and false claims meet cynical editorial eyes before landing in wastebaskets. Politicians are further distanced from constituencies as they emote marketing speak that sounds unlike the people we know and trust. Marketers keep escalating: The less people buy the crap, the louder the marketers shout. Look at how online ads progressed. When we became immune to banners, pop ups were developed; when we turned a blind eye, sound was added.

Blogging’s fountainheads say marketing is about conversations. If it has proved nothing else so far, blogging shows that people respond better to lowered voices spoken in credible tones. Because conversations are effective, it seems to me the dynamic will spread to other marketing media. People listen better and longer when you just talk to them and listen back. Advertisers miss this point so far. They think “interactive” means click to buy. But over time, they will adapt, because conversations are more effective than advertising.

It seems to me one of blogging’s many greatest promises is in “conversational marketing,” and its use will make advertising and public relations more effective. More important it will make us all happier prospects and customers.

At least I hope so.

Blogger for Hire

I believe the Cluetrain Manifesto concept of marketing as a conversation is among the biggest and best ideas of current times. In an era when customer relationships are relegated to automated hosted software and customer support is shipped to remote locations where untrained personnel read to you from user manuals, the concept of ongoing and egalitarian dialog between companies and their networks is essential and the social media are a phenomenon that will, over time, transform and improve free enterprise.

I have tried four times in recent months to persuade companies to contract me as a consulting blog evangelist. A blogging tools company turned me down because they thought the task should be done by a staff member, so they relegated it to the CEO who posts about once monthly; a VC firm who wants to be known in the social media market considered having their own blog to complicated and time-consuming; a social media start-up decided they were more comfortable with the costs of having an intern be their blogging evangelist and most recently a Global 2000 corporation backed out after I explained they would be obliged to post even adverse customer comments if they were going to use comments.

I think my idea is good and I have confidence in my talents as both a writer and a veteran marketing consultant. If you have an interest or know someone who has an interest, I would jump at the chance to help a company to get closer and be better understood by its customers, prospects, partners and even employees.

Please email me to discuss.

Company Bloggers Wanted

This is my second lonely cry for help in the Blogosphere. I am looking for companies and case studies of companies who have used the social media to improve conversations with their customers and to start conversations with prospects. Two well-know examples are Microsoft Channel 9 , which is dramatically improving the company’s relationships with developers and Activewords , where CEO Buzz Bruggeman uses blogging and the Internet to acquire and retain customers at extremely little cost.

A partner and I are considering doing a book on how companies use social media to improve relationships through the social media. We are trying to compile case histories and companies to talk with. The more leads we have, the more compelling will be the case we build.

Please email me any leads you may have. It can be your own company, or just a company you’ve come across that interests you. It can be a global corporation or an individual in a home office.

Dead Journalists-51, Bloggers Zero

Italian freelance correspondent Enzo Baldoni becomes the 51st journalist killed while covering Iraq. To my knowledge there have been no bloggers killed. In this ongoing debate debate bloggers should respect that difference in danger levels between what they do and what bloggers do. After military,, police and firefighters it just might be the most dangerous profession.

Companies who Blog

I would like to write about companies who use blogging technology to get closer to their customers--actually engage them in conversations. I've written about Microsoft's Channel 9, who is a shining example, but I'd like to hear more examples about companies of all sizes in all sectors except companies inside the blogging tools baseball park. If you know of any good--or bad--examples in this area please email me and point me in the right direction. Thanks.