Great Australian Blog seminar

Just got back from a great Hill & Knowlton Breakfast Bytes seminar on Blogging (Sydney Australia). H&K did a great job on this, highly commendable.

The session was a panel format and had a great attendance. The panel members were:

• Mark Jones, Deputy Managing Director, IDG Communications, who pioneered the use of blogs in IT journalism
• Frank Arrigo, Group Manager, Microsoft Australia, and a prominent corporate blogger
• Andrew Kirk, Associate Director, Hill & Knowlton, and an ex-Channel 10 and radio reporter
• Mick Stanic, proprietor of Principius, the mind behind Splatt, and a ‘podcasting’ pioneer

Some tid bits from the session:

• Blogging, mobblogging & podcasting definitions & examples
• The new paradigm of timeshifting media content (example of podcast being depolyed on mobile devices)
• AK: "Every 15min, 300 new blogs are created"
• Blogging is a about relationships through conversations.
• FA: talked about the issue of having multiple blogs, personal, work and persional interest.
• Question from audience about bloggers being fired. FA responded that business blogging should be about common sense. "At Microsoft we refer to our unwritten set of guidelines" 🙂
• Blogging is about moving the "power" from mainstream media back to the people!
• MS: The ol’ infamous Kryptonite bike lock incident was discussed in depth.
• 2/3rds of the way through Frank finally mentioned Cluetrain & Markets are Conversations.
• FA gave a great non techy example of a Saville tailor in the UK and his blog called The English Cut
• FA: " Blogs are great for internal use in companies to keep track of information, even if the people who created it leave"
• FA: "people who are reading blogs are "sneezes" . They pass it on to whoever they talk to, spreading it around 🙂 (credited to Seth Gobin)
• FA: closing remarks – "Be a consumer of the technology first before using it yourself"

Oh and H&K had a real coffee service for cafe Lattes & Cappuccinos, so even bigger brownie points!