Recently in Conference Category

Despite the waves of jetlag that ocassionally threaten to leave me faceplanted on a table, I'm having fun here in San Antonio.

As is the case in all conferences, the true value is always in the people you meet,rather than the conference itself, and I've been having a blast hanging out with some irreverently like-minded people from down-under - Adrian Copley (Copley Communications), Anna Kominik (Ideas Shop) and Amanda Boland Curran (Acid), - who are a lot of fun, as well as being smart and experienced comms professionals. What's especially pleasing is that they're switched on to the way that social media is changing and cascading through the communications sector - and not in a lemming-like follow the herd way, but with an appreciation of how social tools can benefit an organisation if handled properly.

A few margaritas have been drunk, and lots of interesting conversations have been had. Their english isn't bad, and I've been pleased that we've been able to communicate pretty well, only occasionally needing to resort to sign language to get the message across ;-)

Ok - I'm at blogging4business. Come and talk to me if you're interested in internal blogging or blogging full stop - my name is Anu Gupta, and I'm a blogger ! Suw is moderating a panel on blogs and ROI - be interested to see if we get anything beyond what's been out there for a long while. Julian Smith of JupiterKagan - some stuff about tangible and intangibles - conversation blah blah blah, better search engine listings..blah blah.. Anthony Mayfield - gets asks some hard ROI questions..."don't have all the answers..." surprise surprise. changes to means of production and distribution...personal reputations are more important (WHEN WERE THEY NOT ??!!) Showed an SNA slide - talking about "connections..." says that it's a good way to show ROI ??!! yup - ROI blurred over again...no surprise there. Good - let's see what Lee has to say. Ahh - command and control vs fluffy bunny networks...is ROI actually relevant...very hard to measure. New class of software - "the i is small...so the R is easier to feel". Two key concepts - disintermediation and battling against reintermediation..."PR agencies picking up shiny toys...speaking to clients...we will do this for you" . "The Power of We " Large companies are not talking about the ROI...but the transformational potential. "If you start blogging on the external interface without doing anything internal, then you're just marketing..start internally." "The i is people, the R is better people.." - I like that ! Olivier Creche - not a passionate blogger - uses weblogs as a tool for communication. Suw takes us back to the day, and is talking about measurement - a focus on numbers, page impressions, clicks throughs..."it's not the same as blogging - it's about quality and not quantity - how do you get people to stop thinking about big numbers ?" Antony back on the visual tip...Julian "myopic focus on immediate behavioural response...and it's difficult to move people beyond that. But starting to see a shift away from behavioural to attitudinal...in more sophisticated marketers...branding metrics How do you measure culture change ? Lee - "culture change isn't a goal..making money is the goal". Separation of internal and external is key...Hugh's porous membranes." Technorati Tags: blogging4business

The gods of consultancy are either very happy with me, or they've decided to teach me a lesson - I've got a ton of work, almost all of which is interesting, not to mention challenging, and urgent. What it does mean, though, is that something has to give. In my case, it's Les Blogs 2. Was mostly looking forward to it, and would have loved to meet up with a lot of people there - sadly not to be. Next time, next event. I'm definitely planning to be at Blogtalk Reloaded

Looks like there is some interesting stuff here: Literacy of Cooperation Lecture Videos

• In this first lecture, Howard Rheingold places in historical context the emergence of increasingly powerful mechanisms for cooperation and Andrea Saveri outlines the project and where they intend it to go.
• Peter Kollock lectures on strategies to avoid the social dilemma, covering the Tragedy of the Commons and Prisoner's Dilemma situations.
• Paul Hartzog lectures on institutions for collective action and the different approaches to the social dilemma, covering the story from Garrett Hardin to Elinor Ostrom.
• Peter Corning lectures on the role of synergies in natural selection and why Darwin didn't have a blind spot in understanding the value of cooperation.
• Jimmy Wales lectures on how cooperation works at Wikipedia.
• Steven Weber lectures on how open and closed systems together will shape the future of property and business.
• Ross Mayfield lectures on emergent democracy, group forming networks, methods of pluralism, blogs, and wikis.
• Zack Rosen lectures on his project CivicSpace, formerly DeanSpace, and the future of emergent democracy.
• Bernardo Huberman lectures on collective intelligence and cooperative problem solving through prediction markets.

Via SmartMobs

Well - sat in the main room at Les Blogs - slow entry procedures have delayed the start - but plenty of people here now. I'd like to say i'll be blogging live - but I know I won't. Still - lots of people will be - so check out technorati:lesblogs technorati tag: lesblogs