“There’s not that much to get”

Nor is there with anything really. TV interviewing (for example) isn’t that hard, right? It’s just talking in front of a camera.

Not really… being a good company spokesperson is incredibly tough, as anyone who’s been in front of cameras before can tell you. Presenting a trustworthy face to a company isn’t easy when the hot lights of a studio are glaring down on you. Keeping yourself from saying something stupid is hard when the interviewer is purposely trying to hang you up to get a more juicy story.

Heck, by that line of thinking, you’re entire seminar is basically a pointless activity (again, by your line of thinking, not by my assertion). After all, there’s plenty of books about the blogging tools. Why would someone come to your seminar rather than pick up one of those books?

As I mentioned in the other thread, there is A LOT that people don’t know when it comes to this stuff, not just the tools. You said:

“There’s Scoble’s book for the why and lots of pundits.”

Sure, but are you seriously suggesting that that’s the way that newbies should get trained on this stuff? This is the point I was making about handing the keys to a new car to a teen without drivers training – they CAN get themselves into trouble just as much as the CAN have no problems at all.

So to your point about how the marketing of this seminar was done – if you’re not interested in talking about the “why”, and just focusing on the tools, shouldn’t that be “Essentials of Blogging”? What makes this “Essentials of Business Blogging”?

(This is an honest question, not trying to pick a fight – so hard to have internet conversations)

“There’s not that much to get”

Nor is there with anything really. TV interviewing (for example) isn’t that hard, right? It’s just talking in front of a camera.

Not really… being a good company spokesperson is incredibly tough, as anyone who’s been in front of cameras before can tell you. Presenting a trustworthy face to a company isn’t easy when the hot lights of a studio are glaring down on you. Keeping yourself from saying something stupid is hard when the interviewer is purposely trying to hang you up to get a more juicy story.

Heck, by that line of thinking, you’re entire seminar is basically a pointless activity (again, by your line of thinking, not by my assertion). After all, there’s plenty of books about the blogging tools. Why would someone come to your seminar rather than pick up one of those books?

As I mentioned in the other thread, there is A LOT that people don’t know when it comes to this stuff, not just the tools. You said:

“There’s Scoble’s book for the why and lots of pundits.”

Sure, but are you seriously suggesting that that’s the way that newbies should get trained on this stuff? This is the point I was making about handing the keys to a new car to a teen without drivers training – they CAN get themselves into trouble just as much as the CAN have no problems at all.

So to your point about how the marketing of this seminar was done – if you’re not interested in talking about the “why”, and just focusing on the tools, shouldn’t that be “Essentials of Blogging”? What makes this “Essentials of Business Blogging”?

(This is an honest question, not trying to pick a fight – so hard to have internet conversations)

First, welcome to the blog!! Thanks for your comments, this is why blogging is so much fun.

So to your point: “We’ve also found that businesses already get the “why” of blogging”

As someone dealing with clients too, I’d actually pretty strongly disagree with this. At least in a certain context (There’s a good chance we’re talking about this from two angles).

If you mean that they know the “why” as in, they know that all the marketing rags and their marketing colleagues/industry friends are talking about it, I absolutely agree.

But the reality, as I’ve seen it, is that much beyond the “I’ve heard about this in the news or from my friends and I want to add it into our marketing mix”, not many people understand how it actually fits (or should fit) into the strategy overall. They know they need it, they may have a context on a very high level as to why. But much beyond that, I think there’s VERY few people who actually “get it”.

Thanks again for starting the discussion – I’m looking forward to hearing more from you.

First, welcome to the blog!! Thanks for your comments, this is why blogging is so much fun.

So to your point: “We’ve also found that businesses already get the “why” of blogging”

As someone dealing with clients too, I’d actually pretty strongly disagree with this. At least in a certain context (There’s a good chance we’re talking about this from two angles).

If you mean that they know the “why” as in, they know that all the marketing rags and their marketing colleagues/industry friends are talking about it, I absolutely agree.

But the reality, as I’ve seen it, is that much beyond the “I’ve heard about this in the news or from my friends and I want to add it into our marketing mix”, not many people understand how it actually fits (or should fit) into the strategy overall. They know they need it, they may have a context on a very high level as to why. But much beyond that, I think there’s VERY few people who actually “get it”.

Thanks again for starting the discussion – I’m looking forward to hearing more from you.

You have some interesting and very welcome criticisms of our seminar. I think it’s possible that you really were at the wrong event. The entire point of this seminar was to teach the “how.” While ethical blogging is obviously an important thing, we felt that it wasn’t necessary to cover the topic in serious depth because this is business, not journalism, and we trust that our attendees are already running ethical businesses.

We’ve also found that businesses already get the “why” of blogging, or they wouldn’t be coming to our seminars in the first place. What they come to learn is the “how,” and that’s what we give them.

You have some interesting and very welcome criticisms of our seminar. I think it’s possible that you really were at the wrong event. The entire point of this seminar was to teach the “how.” While ethical blogging is obviously an important thing, we felt that it wasn’t necessary to cover the topic in serious depth because this is business, not journalism, and we trust that our attendees are already running ethical businesses.

We’ve also found that businesses already get the “why” of blogging, or they wouldn’t be coming to our seminars in the first place. What they come to learn is the “how,” and that’s what we give them.