Atlanta Media Bloggers

Shout Out to HiddenMarket

Scott Burkett has recently launched the public beta version of HiddenMarket which is the first "social business intelligence network."

Scott has graciously agreed to be a sponsor of the February Conference. We are moving right along!

Confirmed!

I am excited to announce that we have confirmed 2 discussion leaders

James Harris, CEO and Chief Story Teller from ListenShare will lead a discussion on podcasting, "Storytelling in an Open Media World"

Leonard Witt, Robert D. Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication at Kennesaw State University
will lead a discussion around Reinventing Journalism * A Do It Yourself Guide For Independents or for Mainstream Media.

AND WE HAVE AS OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER....

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me (no just kidding)

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Chris Klaus from Kaneva!

Meeting Update

It has recently dawned on me that since we meet the third Thursday of each month, our meetings fall right into the holidays for the next couple months. Therefore, let's regroup again in Jan!

HOWEVER, We need to continue moving full steam ahead with the conference.

Anyone interested in being involved with a committee for taking care of our discussion leaders, let's meet on Tuesday Nov 7 at 8:00 PM

Anyone interested in being involved in Marketing and PR for the Conference, let's meet  on Thursday, Nov 9 at 8:00 PM

Location is open for discussion, but let's try to find somewhere kinda quiet, centrally located (I'm in Alpharetta) with ample parking.

Ethically Challenged PR Leaders

I have nothing but utter comtempt for Edelman after their totally dishonest and deceptive Wal-Mart "Working Families For Wal-Mart" campaign. Heck, even Wal-Mart itself, the evil empire, couldn't come up with something that phoney on their own. They needed help from those more wicked than they!

You wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get Edelman's attention back in August when they decided to included me, without permission or pay, in their Georgia Families For Wal-Mart site.

I imagine the entire Working Phoneys For Wal-Mart campaign will tank soon, good riddance, and that Wal-Mart will take their millions on down the line. Believe me, plenty of ethically dubious PR firms will line-up to kiss some serious Wal-Mart a*s, and do whatever Bentonville asks them to do, just like all their pathetic vendors. Heck, even the Eagles have sold themselves just like a garden variety ho for Wal-Mart:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/10/18/0921/1999

There's got to be a better way, 'cause I sure don't get no peaceful, easy feeling when greedy, pompous wankers like Edelman are stompin' through the blogosphere.

Praising company blogs

Does anyone here remember the meeting when the idea of Walmart blogging came up. It was before Walmart was actually blogging. Someone made some off topic comment about Walmart was going to start having drive thrus, then the idea of a Walmart blog came up, and the question was posed, who would read Walmart's blog.

I responded that I would be interested in a Walmart blog if it was an insight into the decision making process, such as why do they think a drive thrus was a good idea.

Well, unfortunately Walmart hired Edelman and not me...but in light of everything going on, I want to highlight two company blogs that I do enjoy reading.

Honeywell has two girl that blog regularly and from what I can tell, pretty much uncensored and from the heart. They are blogs I have in my RSS reader for research purposes - to see what other companies are doing, but I find myself actually reading some of what they say. Why? Because it is almost like listening to a co-worker coming over to talk. Good Job!

The other blog I catch is Amazon.com. I have always been interested in how Amazon.com continues to innovate by building a community. Although the blog lacks a personal touch, it is always full of useful information that makes me go hmmmm?

That's all just wanted to show that companies can do it right.
 

Walmart v the Blogosphere

Link: BusinessWeek.

This can also be stated as PR vs the Community. I think that bloggers and all other communities should and do welcome business into their conversations. "Please join in and learn how you can better serve us, but do not insult our intelligence or think that being cute or entertaining is providing a service."

But let's pick this apart a bit and see who is being over-sensitive about Walmart's efforts and where thier efforts could be improved upon. I mean really - I applaud and respect Edelman for jumping into this so quickly and being willing to make mistake and then educate others about what they have learned. So, as bloggers, let's talk about how can someone with a personal interest also build an authentic community.

Once bloggers heard that Jim and Laura had undisclosed benefactors, they were furious.

Should people be paid to blog? Well, our lunch sponsor for the conference might have a few thoughts on that.

These are people with jobs and lives to support, why shouldn't they get paid? They are not actors or spokespeople, they are real people who took the job. As someone who has become very particular about who I will work for and what I will do for a living, I choose to look at this as a choice they made in good conscious. Alright, perhaps I am being a bit Idealistic, but that's what keeps me going sometimes.

What bothers me is that the article suggest that Edelman will suffer more than Walmart for this campaign. A campaign funded by Walmart, although the spokeperson for Walmart states;

"We won't comment on the RV tour, since it was a Working Families for Wal-Mart initiative and we didn't have anything to do with it," says Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar.

Yeah. Well, I think the comment could have been more along the lines of we are focused on building a community and letting people have an insight to what we do and who we are. But, it's a learning process, right?

As the competing PR firm stated;

"Today, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide," says Paul Rand, a partner at Ketchum public relations. "The moment you hide something, you will end up being exposed and picked apart."

Let's have a virtual meeting this month!

Hey y'all!

Yeah, it's been cooooollld out, and rainy enough to curl your hair. And yeah, a whole bunch of us have conflicts up the wazoo, preventing us from making a goodly quorum for our monthly mind meld.

And yeeeaaah, SOME of us got to go on a cool road trip, and they need to be telling the rest of us who didn't go some wacky stories, amazing anecdotes, and tortured theories about Web 2.0 and unConferences (what the hell is an unConference, anyway? I'm asking this on behalf of the peanut gallery. There are no stupid questions around here).

The topic for our meeting, if we had been able to hold it, was going to be Online Communities, and the intangible something that makes them hold together, that gives them power, that structures cyberspace perhaps more strongly than in some of our real lives.

What is it? One friend once told me that online communities were fake, no more real than the people who gather at around the piano in the lounge at an airport bar. He said there's nothing that really ties the people together, no strong ties, no obligations. People come, and they go.

And some of us actually like communities that have that kind of freedom, the freedom from guilt and obligation, the knowledge that the people who are present are there because they want to be, not because anyone is making them. That was one of the beautiful things I discovered in my online ethnography of the very strong communities of the Xenaverse, the fandom groups centered around the TV show "Xena: Warrior Princess."

I think of it like gravity, the so-called "strength of weak ties." Of all the forces in physics (electromagnetic, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force), gravity appears to be the weakest, the easiest to overcome (don't believe me? Jump!). But gravity is like a prevailing wind. You can stand against it, but it ends up shaping everything (even the shape of the cellulite in our legs!). Gravity holds entire solar systems in orbit, and more. I think the weakest force field can actually be the strongest.

Businesses look at the blogosphere and social media as an opportunity, but often they see it as a top-down opportunity for them, rather than a chance to harness real bottom-up grassroots force.

But is that a real force? Or is it like herding cats?

Or maybe the mindset is all wrong. Maybe its wrong to even think that cats should be herded in the first place.

Soooo, what are we doing here? Do you want to be here? Are you obligated to be here? Do you get something of value out of being here? Is this a cool community to be a part of?

If so, I hope some more of you will chime in in this space. It's been a while since I sent out invitations on how to use this site, but I am happy to resend any invitations that got lost or misplaced. Just zap me a note.

If you have a blog or blogs, a good blog promotion strategy is to get hooked in with an existing community, so that people start reading your blog, and folks comment back and forth on each others' blogs, and we can spread some link love around.

I SURE WOULD LIKE TO BE SPREADING SOME MORE LINK LOVE AROUND!

So if you've got a blog, post up a little introduction to it here on this site, with your link. Tell us why we should peek in, check your blog out. Maybe you're feeling shy, just getting your blog legs. We'll hold your hand. That's what link love is all about.

We're Atlanta Media Bloggers. We're into blogs. We have blogs. OK, all together now:

Send us your links, your huddled URLs longing to breathe free...

Ahhh. Isn't that better?

Let the virtual meeting commence.

All in flavor? Up hosed?

respectfully submitted,

Chris Boese

Lunch is served!

Lunch will be provided by PayPerPost.

Big thank you to Art Hall for making the introduction to Ted Murphy.

BTW they are looking for a VP of Business Dev. I have the job description posted at my site.

Breakfast is served

James Harris from ListenShare has stepped up to provide breakfast for the conference.

update already on the Atlanta Media un-Conf

Wow! I give you people an action plan and you start acting.

We have a date, Saturday, February 10, 2007
Time 9:00am to 3:00pm

We have had SEVERAL offers and suggestions for venue, but I am going with
Kennesaw State University. I like the idea of the college setting.

We have the gang from Greensboro ready and willing to help - thank you so much!

I have some ideas for speakers that I will reach out to - let me know if there is any particluar interest.

Need food sponsored, I think a few people are on top of that already.

and here we go...