Adrian Trenholm

Blog seminar cancelled

I blogged too soon . Johnnie , Freddie , Max , James and I are not going ahead with our Blog Business Seminar after all.

Why not? I don’t think we have really rationalised the decision, but when James, Johnnie, Freddie and I met recently, we no longer had any enthusiasm for the idea, and Max had already decided to resign from the project. From my perspective, the reasons to go ahead are the same, but the reasons why not are even more compelling: Our Social World , other commitments and existing blog-related business.

1. Our Social World: I couldn’t attend Our Social World, which is a shame. I spoke to Geoff, one of the organisers before the event, and he seems like a wonderful chap. The agenda seemed pretty interesting - even if some material duplicated other conferences ( Reboot for example), I think it was a breakthrough event for the UK. Yet not many delegates attended. Perhaps it was the venue, perhaps the publicity ( ). In any event, OSW reminded me, at least, that conference production is a hit or miss business and that is one of the main reasons I stopped being a conference producer in the first place.

   by other OSW speakers also left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth, at least at the time we made the decision to cancel (now of course, that feels like storm in a teacup).

2. Other commitments: Max has resigned (temporarily, at least) from the 173 project to concentrate on his PhD. Freddie just got married. Johnnie has plans in Australia for the end of the year. I have committed to SpeakersBank for three dates in November. And if you know James, you know he is going to be a pretty busy chap very soon.

3. Existing blog business: Johnnie already runs a successful blog training called Open Sauce Live with James Cherkoff of Collaborate Marketing . To me, there doesn’t seem much point in cannibalising Open Sauce, plus I am talking with James C about working with Collaborate.

So that’s it. Buoyed by our 15 minutes of Sunday Telegraph fame, “Let’s run a seminar” sounded great. It was a back of an envelope idea (they are usually the best kind), but with a some more thought, we have decided to shelve it. Perhaps we will think again in the New Year. Watch this space.

Add comment October 6th, 2005

Comment policy

I am delighted with the warm, witty and thoughtful comments which readers have posted on this blog. One or two bloggers have suggested, however, that it is time for me to publish a comments policy, and reluctantly, I think they are right. To be absolutely clear, I am not doing this to prevent commenters disagreeing with what I post. Debate is good. I am not however, going to let one or two people turn this blog into a platform for offensive or misleading comment. So:

1. In almost all cases, I don’t moderate comments. I like people to comment here and I think it’s good to have comments appear immediately, so that others can join in the conversation.

2. I request that all commenters stay on topic, avoid misleading anyone, avoid bad language and refrain from insulting others. If a commenter breaches those guidelines I will do one or more of the following three things:

   • comment myself, asking the commenter not to do it again
   • email the commenter at the address provided, asking him or her not to do it again
   • delete the offending comment and add all future comments from that IP address to a moderation queue

3. So, I will moderate some comments. The comments which automatically get added to the moderation queue are:

   • comments from the people who breach the guidelines in point 2
   • comments from people who have no previously approved comments
   • comments which contain multiple links (I do this to protect against comment spam)

I will endeavour to take a broad view of what should stay in and approve comments as quickly as possible. Thank you to everyone who continues to add such positive, thoughtful comment here. I am very grateful for your support.

2 comments September 15th, 2005

Face to face with Dwayne Melancon and James Governor

Last week I met up with Dwayne Melancon and Chris Morgan from IT firm Tripwire and James Governor from analyst firm RedMonk . I am afraid that the more technical parts of the discussion went over my head, but I was delighted that my hunch to put James together with the Tripwire guys was a good one. We talked about IBM , VMware , the theory of constraints and the name RedMonk , among other things. Chris gave James a good natured grilling about analyst ethics and marketing . And there was some drinking .

To my mind, the story behind the meeting is nearly as interesting as the conversation we shared. Dwayne told Hawaiian business coach that he would be travelling to London. Rosa replied to Dwayne and emailed me to say “why don’t you two meet up?” Dwayne and I duly emailed one another and started to work out a date. Dwayne also invited me to join him on . When I saw all the enterprise IT guys in Dwayne’s network, I realised that it would be good to introduce James, so we set that up. Dwayne brought Chris along and that was the final team sheet.

Rosa, Dwayne and I had never met face to face. We communicate by a mixture of email, blogs, LinkedIn and telephone - no one element would have been enough to fix this up. A few days later when I read this quote from Adrian McEwen , reporting on Ben Hammersley at Our Social World , I had to smile:

We have new concepts of friendship, of how to work together, of relationships…

This is how we can get people all over the world to connect to each other, and although it seems ridiculously far-fetched at the minute, it will change the world in huge ways.

4 comments September 9th, 2005

Business blogging seminar

Spurred on by the attention that 173 has been getting recently , Johnnie, Max, Freddie, James, Andrew and I have decided it’s time we put together a seminar for business bloggers in London.

As business blogging seems to be reaching its tipping point in the UK, we feel the time is right for an event which brings PR and marketing professionals and business directors together with experienced business bloggers. Wherever you are with your blog strategy - from merely blog-curious to committed business blogger - we want to meet and work with you.

The seminar will take place in London, in the first week of November. The agenda is still not fixed so if you have any business blogging questions you want to hear discussed during the seminar, let us know.

Provisionally, the cost of the half day session will be £250.

We want to keep this small, so we can tailor the seminar to participant’s needs and experiences. Places will be limited, and it will be strictly first come, first served. To register for the seminar, email and don’t forget to tell us where you are with your blog strategy and what you would like to achieve at the seminar in November.

2 comments September 4th, 2005

Simplicity is hard work

A quick addendum to the earlier post about business investment in blogging . You will recall that a Washington Post journalist suggested anyone who “sells” blogging services is a conman, on the basis that blogging is a simple concept . Of course, I disagree with that line, so I was pleased to see Simplicity Is Hard Work by Gerry McGovern in Marketing Profs today. The article is not about blogging, rather the importance of simplicity in delivering competitive advantage, and the investment required to achieve it:

To achieve simplicity, an organization needs to be genuinely customer-focused. Extra investment will be required, as well as a special commitment from designers and management.

Is it worth it? Certainly, organizations such as Apple and Google are showing that simplicity can become a genuine competitive advantage.

Business blogs can help organisations be more customer-focused. They make conversations between business and client simple. Investment and commitment will be required. Competitive advantage? Absolutely.

1 comment August 24th, 2005