@YannR Lifestream

Get discovered, actually don't #bwe10 session

Chris Garrett @chrisgarrett & Darren Rowse @problogger

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Attended the session at blogworld lead by Chris Garrett and Darren Rowse. "It was great to be reminded that good honest work can rise to the top," said someone in the audience. I would concurr....It was a great session. Here are a few notes from their 8 key points:
1 - Setting up goals: even if fuzzy, a blogger needs an idea of where he/she is headed in this space. If you're only trying to get discovered, it'll most likely fail. Every blogpost, tweet etc. you publish has the potential to get you closer or further away from this goal.
2- This is a marathon not a sprint.... it takes time - Darren's photography blog took 3 years or so before things started to click in. Having an emerging model in place is key to start doing this full time. 
3- Who do you want to discovered by? If you don't look any traffic but that of the right audience, then it becomes clear where to spend time, where to engage...
4- Homebase and outposts: Your blog is the mothership, care for it and don't give up for Twitter for example. Working on something you own is always better in the long term vs something someonelse own i.e. Twitter, or facebook page. Blogging is the homebase and it's the long term. The outpost are only temporary.
5- Reputation is vital. You want to be valuable and likable. 
6- Your message needs to be in line with your goal. Focus on your content one what you want to be remembered for.
7- Relationships matter more have to be built with everyone you encounter.
8- That's how you build advocates... say thank you, and always be meaningful in proportion to how they keep helping you.

Both Garret and Darren clearly didn't start to be discovered but to build something they believed in and be methodological about it.

Thanks,
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A surge of independence, not yet understood by the political arena: #bwe10 session

Here at Blogworld Expo (#bwe10), the keynote session was dealing with the state of digital communication in politics ... NOT how politics is being changed by social media which was really what bloggers wanted to talk about :). Because this session became the heart of what's happening in every part of our society...#bwe10 should have flipped the session on its head. We started with 2 speeches about the transformation of politics in the age of social media. They should have started with questions from the audience which really became what politics are experiencing these days. This blogworld session wanted to be turned into a townhall session....
 
The speeches by Mark Penn and Karen Hughes spent more time describing the now inevitable situation of our society being transformed by new media. The audience at #bwe10 felt less compelled by how politicians and the system in general is changing for the better (aka. listening and respond to the attents of citizen) - The audience comments as how their speeches demonstrated how much does politics in general is really NOT understanding the groundswell. 

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Few questions/comments from the audience were:
-How do you handle the 'inaccuracies' in politics? You have to jump in right away... 
-How to turn social media into action? It will be dependent on their ability to deliver value to their constituents.... using socia media as another push channel is not effective {duh}
-How are the campaign teams listening to the feedback through new media {they are not}. The political parties have gone further to the extreme. Political blogs have gone more extreme in the last couple of years. Listening and representation of the middle of the polititcal spectrum seems less represented. Transparency: social media wants truth and genuine answers while we keep hearing politicians who stay on message {sounds like big co doesn't it?}

Here are some general notes from Mark and Karen's talks:

Note froms Mark Penn talk:
Social media has allowed a surge in independence in the political landscape / emergence and rise of the Tea party 
Periods of discontent are not new, they have come and gone fairly quickly, while this time, there is sustained discontent for both parties. The unsatisfied are demanding change. They still haven't been satisfied by the change. Nevertheless there is more money pouring into politics than never before. There are more donors even at the grassroots level. The notion of giving $$ to politicians is new and enabled by internet to allow them to participate with small donation and turn their beliefs into actions. Extending communication and new methods of communication have lowered the barrier to entry into politics.
Small gaffe become big news and spread rapidly. New Hill poll mentions that 54% american would be better with another political party. We have 354 kind of coffee flavors while there is only a duality in politics. There will be increasing pressure for more parties. Most people still identifies themselves as moderate. More and more info about the center and less about the extremes.

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Notes from Karen Hughes talk:
"Not one of us had a blackberry during Bush 1998" - Gore was ahead by using his blackberry to answer email. News cycles are no longer controlled by leading journalists. Campaigns from the past were struggling to get through the filter of traditional media. New media is spreading much faster and allow for engagement of people. 
As they analyzed 20 of the most competitive campaigns 
- 50% campaigns have blogs
- 85% are on twitter
- 90% had facebook pages
An increasing correlation between "Likes" on Facebook and political success at election is being observed ... Facebook could turn into early sign of success at elections.

Thanks,