www.nickhodge.com

There are vari­ous posts on the value of the first Aus­tralian Blog­ging Con­fer­ence. The con­ver­sa­tional style of broad topic areas, bounded and nutured by a chair works well.

Kudos to Peter Black for being per­sist­ent and organ­ising this event.

Des Walsh and Joanne Jac­obs are respec­ted in this rel­at­ively new industry. I dis­covered heaps, and have put some of their ideas into action.

Partly sponsored by Microsoft (spe­cific­ally the cor­por­ate and busi­ness blog­ging ses­sion, or in other words: we paid for lunch) — I missed the polit­ical blog­ging sessions.

Apart from the open­ing, where Duncan Riley lit a blow torch/flame under­neath the Aus­tralian blog­gers: to con­nect up. Obvi­ously, com­ing from Aus­tralia yet hav­ing an inter­na­tional audi­ence I grok where he is at. Think­ing on this…

Michael Rees adds to my notes, espe­cially on the Podcasting/Vidcasting side. Video con­tent, if it is the next-big-thing is an art­form that is rarely taught in schools. Not just the tech­nical feeds/bits side — also the com­pos­i­tion, inter­view­ing, mak­ing a story.

The legal ses­sion demon­strated that there are minds think­ing about the impact of this online world on a slow-to-adapt legal sys­tem. Also join­ing the con­ver­sa­tion were the Aus­tralian Law Reform Com­mis­sion. Pri­vacy, defam­a­tion, bush law­yer­ing. The think­ing that people/companies “go after” those with the cash is scary. Online, a few simple words can eas­ily des­troy the intan­gible asset of goodwill.

A theme that I don’t think I answered fully, and cer­tainly with too-little thought was the “per­sonal + cor­por­ate” blog­ging mix. Bron­wen reminds me bril­liantly of on her blog; and it’s some­thing that’s worthy of thought.

And don’t for­get: the best Uncon­fer­ences are fol­lowed by Bar­con­fer­ences.

So, my ran­dom thoughts from ran­dom notes and reading:

• Aus­tralian organ­isa­tions should be online, in a read/write sense (blog, wiki, whatever) to hear from their cus­tom­ers. Mar­kets are conversations.
• Con­tent is king. Are you adding to the world?
• A blog without com­ments is merely a website.
• Aus­tralian organ­isa­tions should remem­ber being eng­lish speak­ing, rel­at­ively stable eco­nom­ic­ally; that the world is flat — and cus­tom­ers are not restric­ted to the main­land and Tas­mania. The world is your mar­ket, con­verse with it.
• Brand­ing: what is your brand? Is it you personally?