Live blogging: A new fact of life
I always worry when I disagree publicly with Steve Crescenzo, who is one of my very best friends. I worry he won’t like me any more. Worse, I worry that his wife Cindy won’t like me any more. I would probably get over Steve not liking me any more, although it would take some time. But I’d never get over it if Cindy turned her back on me. (The picture below is of my son, Ben, Cindy, Steve and me at El Jardin’s. I was in town picking Ben up after he got out of the Army and we all got together for drinks and dinner and drinks. Did I mention drinks? I love Steve and Cindy.)
But I’m going to disagree with Steve and, by extension, several other people who commented on his recent blog post, including Ragan Communications CEO Mark Ragan. Steve’s post, like everything he writes, is beautifully written. It’s worth your time. Go read it.
Here’s the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version:
Steve was one of a two-man panel during the luncheon session at the recent New Communications Forum in Las Vegas. Sitting in the front row was Shel Israel, prominent blogger and co-author of the business blogging bible, “Naked Conversations.” Shel was live-blogging the luncheon. Steve didn’t like that. He didn’t like perceived inaccuracies in Shel’s report. And he has decided that live blogging is a bad thing:
As people sit and “live blog” speakers and events, and get a whole bunch of shit wrong but publish it anyway, isn’t that a little dangerous? Especially when the person doing the “live blogging” is a very respected person who has the power to influence a lot of people?
As I told Israel in the comments section on his own blog:
“You know, I would rate the lunch panel as the worst session I saw at the conference, and I was on it! But your ‘live blogging’ of it was even worse. Maybe you ought to just stop typing for a second, listen to what’s being said, and THEN go back to your room and blog using your notes.”
That seems to me to be pretty good advice. I would never try to write and publish an article while the source was speaking, and I’ve been a reporter for 20 years. I don’t think Bob Woodward could do that. In fact, I can’t think of a single reporter who would try to do what Israel was doing.
I have to admit, that makes perfect sense.
For journalists.
But as Steve notes, bloggers aren’t journalists—at least, a lot of them aren’t. I’m not. Shel Israel isn’t. Neither of us claim to be. Part of not being a journalist means our motivations are different. Take my Road Weary blog. I write this blog for one person: Me. I couldn’t begin to care less if anybody else ever reads it. I write it for catharsis. I feel better after I get a bad experience with a travel provider off my chest. If I go four months without a bad experience, I go four months without posting to the blog. I’m always surprised when I get a comment to something I post there. Pleased, but surprised. But the bottom line is this: As a blogger, I do not have to meet anybody’s expectations but my own.
Similarly, different bloggers have different reasons to live-blog. Some do it because they want to report. Others use it as the means of taking their own notes. (I’ve spoken to a blogger who told me his primary motivation for blogging is a bad memory; it’s his way of writing what he wants to remember. The fact that it’s public is of secondary importance to him.) Some have a defined audience, like Joseph Thornley of Thornley-Fallis Public Relations, whose staff was reading his live-blogging from the New Communication Forum.
I’m not sure what motivates Chip Griffin to live-blog, but he live-blogged both my podcasting pre-conference workshop as well as my closing keynote address. He did a pretty good job. Hmm. Maybe Steve would be less worked up if he thought Shel Israel had done a better job of covering his session.
In any case, there were a lot of people live blogging the NewComm Forum.
The fact is, live blogging has become a core component of many conferences and events, especially those dealing with technology and social media. There was live blogging of the Oscars and election night (CNN even invited a bunch of bloggers to do their live blogging in a big room where CNN reporters could interview them as they blogged). There is live blogging of some high-profile legal trials. People live-blog shareholder meetings on behalf of constituents or activists who cannot be at the meeting live. Many conferences deliberately configure their rooms for live blogging. The Podcast and Social Media Expo has several tables in the front of the room with power strips beneath them and signs designated that the tables are reserved for live bloggers. WiFi was avialable everywhere. The same is true at conferences like Gnomedex, BloggerCon, Syndicate, Mesh and a host of others. That trend is bound to spread to other conferences, including those hosted by organizations like Ragan Communications. Welcome to the conversation.
The difference between what live blogging really is and what Steve perceives it to be is dramatic. Steve sees it as reporting, and inaccuracies in the reporting leave misinformation on the public record. But blogs are far less about reporting than they are about conversation. Personally, I see live blogging as a service. As someone who cannot attend a conference (or a session at a conference), the ability to read the post about it offers me insights I would not otherwise have been privy to.
Heck, there are people who think it’s wrong to prohibit live blogging. Nielsen-BuzzMetrics CMO Pete Blackshaw took some heat for precluding live blogging from a conference because it was a client conference and the client didn’t want to allow it. Even Pete, though, sees the value of live blogging: “Quite frankly, as the CMO of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, and a principal architect of this client-meeting, there’s nothing I’d like to see more than our case studies aggressively communicated externally.”
As for the real-time nature of blogging (vs. Steve’s notion of taking notes and going back to your hotel room to mull them over and then craft an article), well, that’s the difference between blogging and article writing.
I’m not suggesting for a minute that Steve doesn’t have some valid points to make. But mostly I agree when Steve writes, “(Shel Israel) gets to write whatever he wants, and that is that. And he gets to do it very fast, with no editors or fact checkers to keep him honest.”
That’s the blogosphere. Unfiltered, messy, often inaccurate, and primed for conversation. If you don’t agree with or like what somebody said in their blog post (a live-blogging of a conference session or otherwise), say so in the comment area or write about it on your blog.
Which, by the way, is just what Steve did. Next time, Steve, just blog about the inaccuracies and not about how much live-blogging sucks. Because it’s not going anywhere.
Shel, I agree the main point of contention here is the inaccuracies, but as such I’m still trying to figure something out and I’m sure you’ll be able to clarify! Is the distinction between blogging and reporting really that clean cut?
If someone is blogging a conference that’s ultimately for the benefit of others who couldn’t afford to go, or couldn’t make it for whatever reason, isn’t that essentially reporting? Why isn’t the blogger duty bound to get things right?
If a guy is blogging a conference with a defined audience back at the office reading it, isn’t that essentially reporting as well?
And even if it’s not reporting, but simply the beginning of a conversation, what good is that conversation if it’s simply discussing inaccuracies? Doesn’t that junk the value of the conversation?
This brings back memories of the Apple iPod tradename fiasco, when bloggers were so quick to criticise Apple for trying to own the word “pod” when that’s not what they were doing at all. You yourself criticised the blogosphere for acting so fast and getting it wrong and this to me is a rather big problem. People are so keen to get stuff up there that too many errors are made and a large part of this supposedly fantastic conversation is actually shown to be irrelevant, inaccurate rubbish.
Ok, so in the ensuing conversation, people point out those errors and inaccuracies and things get self-corrected, but isn’t that a complete waste of time when, with a bit of pause and consideration, they could have been avoided in the first place?
Shouldn’t bloggers, particularly the very popular bloggers, take a bit of responsibility and progress the medium, rather than just say, “hey, it’s ok, we can talk absolute b/s and get things really wrong and shout about it because as bloggers, we’re allowed to”?
Ultimately, if Shel Israel has shown that he can’t blog [or report] the facts - not saying his own opinions aren’t valid but his facts are, reportedly, inaccurate - what value does this put on his own blog, or his subsequent book that he’s writing if the book is based on inaccuracies? Professional reporters are duty-bound to check things, otherwise the story/article is wrong, worthless, a waste of ink or pixels. Where’s the line for bloggers?
Saying all that, maybe this has got out of way out of proportion and Shel Israel had an off day. I mean, normally his writing is gold. And maybe the blogosphere being full of rubbish, inaccurate ramblings is simply reflective or real life.
As said, I’m confident you’ll be able to clarify this, Shel. ☺
Posted by Alex Manchester on 03/22 at 07:43 PMI appreciate your thoughts, Alex!
There are a lot of differences between reporting and blogging, but those differences are even greater when you’re talking about live blogging. Go read Chip Griffin’s live blogging of my sessons. It’s not reporting. It’s note-taking. Of course, someone like my friend Shel Israel will inject his own commentary into the note-taking, but reporting really is, as Steve suggests, taking notes and then doing some additional reserach, applying context, and telling the audience what happened as well as why it’s important. Live blogging is just transcribing what’s being said, with some very judgemental filtering thrown into the process.
All that aside, I think you’ll find the proposition of convincing 60 million bloggers to adhere to some kind of standard a very difficult one to advance!
Posted by Shel Holtz on 03/22 at 09:36 PMThanks for the compliment, Shel. There are 3 reasons I live blog events, in the order I’ll share them. It helps me take better notes and as an extension better retain the content I hear. I find at conferences my mind will often wander if I am not actively taking notes (my mind is often going in multiple directions, for better or worse). Second, it serves as a resource for my colleagues back at the office who weren’t able to attend, just as it is for Joe Thornley. And finally, I do it for others who couldn’t attend, and if my traffic logs are any indication, this is a popular use.
I don’t see how doing a write-up after the fact would be more accurate than doing notes and such live. If you wait until you get back to your hotel room, you will necessarily forget things and remember things incorrectly.
Posted by Chip Griffin on 03/23 at 02:11 AMLive blogging is the best thing that could ever happen to Ragan. It gets the excitement and expertise of its speakers out into the blogosphere where it can be amplified further to a PR audience.
The end result? More folks spend some time looking at the next Ragan’s mailer that comes across their desk.
If Steve commented on Shel’s post, I’m sure Shel could update. Retractions are simple to make online and most folks do so gladly.
And if I ever plan a similar conference, I’ll let Joe Thornley in for free. His live blogging is amazing. Josh Hallet would also get waived in for gratis as long as he brought his camera.
In fact, I would have someone on staff aggregating the live blogger feeds into one master feed I could then distribute during the conference. Now I just need to wrestle the Pete Blackshaw’s and P&G;’s of the world in town into actually wanting to hold this kind of conference (HINT).
What’s to make people actually want to go to the conference then, you ask? No live blogger, no image stream or monster RSS feed combining the two can replace being there. It’s the conversations in the halls that are usually the biggest value add.
Posted by Kevin Dugan on 03/23 at 05:17 AMHere’s the question I think we should ask ourselves before “live blogging.”
Is the information I am receiving timely enough to justify an inevitably sloppy attempt to convey the information an instant after I receive it and an hour before I can digest it?
Posted by David Murray on 03/23 at 08:54 AMOkay, I hear you, Shel, but I still fall in with Alex and Steve on this one. I won’t reiterate all the points Alex made but add one additional related thought.
There is a lot of hubbub made by bloggers about having access to news conferences and such—to be recognized as journalists, or “citizen journalists” if that’s more accurate. To my mind, you can’t have it both ways, crying to be recognized as a journalist and then arguing that you don’t have to be held to responsible journalistic standards because your really a blogger.
To Chip’s comment:
“I don’t see how doing a write-up after the fact would be more accurate than doing notes and such live. If you wait until you get back to your hotel room, you will necessarily forget things and remember things incorrectly.”Why not take the notes just as you did, go back to the hotel room to ruminate, clean up and fact check some, before posting. What’s lost? In fact, to Alex’s point, so much more is gained in the credibility and value of the post.
Posted by michael clendenin on 03/23 at 09:17 AMMichael- Your suggestion to take notes and then revise them later would make sense if I were looking to write a well-formatted story. But honestly, I’m simply looking to share my notes, for whatever they are worth (and it may well be nothing in some cases).
As to fact-checking, unless I were to record the entire presentation and go back to pull quotes and verify accuracy (which would be incredibly time-consuming), the errors in “transcription” would still be there.
Finally, I don’t pretend to be a journalist. But even if I did, it shouldn’t preclude me from using alternative filing formats, including notes, if that’s how I wanted to use the new medium.
The waiting period you suggest for “ruminating” may well cause some bloggers to “cool off” and change their opinion—or at least tone it down a bit—but then again many bloggers prize their writing for its honesty, even if it may be heated in the moment.
Finally to Kevin- I agree with your sentiment entirely. I’ve been reading Joe Thornley’s live blogging this week and it makes me wish I was up in Canada at ICE. And Josh’s photos are amazing.
Posted by Chip Griffin on 03/23 at 09:55 AMFair enough, Chip. And I completely understand that there are many uses for the blog as a tool, your particular use—non-journalistic note sharing—being one that doesn’t necesarily have to hold itself up to any standard. I don’t question your use of blogging. I think that’s great.
I would still suggest that even a half hour’s worth of review and thought would add value; with access to the internet, Googling a particular fact here or there, shouldn’t be too cumbersome. Doesn’t mean you have to spend hours compiling a full report; your notes from the conference back to your compatriots still comes with the same disclaimer you ascribe to your live-blogging of it. Do any of them expect and need your notes in real time? Would even a quick clean-up of raw notes and a fact check or two not add some value to the folks consuming your notes? But that’s just my opinion and clearly your use doesn’t need any standard to live up to—your simply sharing notes with your colleagues.
But this discussion was generated by criticism—fair, I think—of Shel Israel’s use which could be argued is intended to carry the weight of full reporting vs. sharing notes with workmates. He is posting for a broad audience and, as an author, clearly has a reputation that carries some weight (though I must confess I’m not all that familiar with him). I think he undermines the very value of his heated “honesty” if he is inaccurate because he didn’t take an hour to digest and compose. And he undermines the claim bloggers wish to make for recognition as journalists.
So, fine, we’ll allow live-blogging is here to stay, but then don’t expect live-blogging to be given the respect reserved for journalists, and access granted to live-bloggers (and by extension, bloggers in general) to news conferences and the like.
Sorry, I still cry foul here. There seems to be an inherent hypocrisy.
Posted by michael clendenin on 03/23 at 10:56 AMI hear what you’re saying, Michael. And you make good points. I guess I’m not convinced that Shel Israel would have written anything different had he waited until he got back to his hotel room. If he believed that’s what he heard Steve say, he would have no reason to change it. The issue, then, it seems to me is simply that Shel Israel didn’t hear or understand Steve correctly and to me that amounts to what is likely an honest mistake and not something that a different process ... other than recording and transcribing ... would have changed.
Posted by Chip Griffin on 03/23 at 11:03 AMThe New Comm Forum was my first foray into live blogging a conference, and let me tell you, it is a rigorous exercise. I don’t think live blogging is going away, but I did try to add my own opinion to what was being said, rather than just reporting it straight. These are blogs - unfiltered, raw, with a dose of opinion. I love Steve, but in this case he will just have to get over it.
Posted by Kami Huyse on 03/23 at 12:13 PMDavid and Michael, you seem to be taking the position that “blogging is blogging.” Live-blogging an event and reporting on a story are two different things; the fact that a blog is being used for both is incidental.
If I get press credentials, I’m going to report. I may do it live, but I’ll do it from the perspective of a work of journalism and not note-taking.
By the way, on-the-stop reporting is what TV and radio reporters do routinely, right? They don’t sit in their hotel rooms and ruminate for 90 minutes. They’re on scene, things happen, they report. Why doing that with text is somehow a violation of some arbitrary standard is something I don’t understand.
I would also argue that not all bloggers cry to be journalists. Whether a blogger is a journalist or not depends on what he or she is doing with a blog. This blog is not journalism and I would never assert that it was...even though I have a degree in journalism and my initial experience was as a reporter on a daily newspaper. The definition of journalism is wrapped up in what you do, not what channel you use to publish it. I suspect Shel doesn’t view his work as journalism, either (although he’s perfectly capable of speaking for himself).
So if Shel or I or anybody else uses their personal blog as an outlet for personal opinion, it should not undermine the journalistic efforts of somebody who is using their blog to report while applying the highest journalistic principles.
I mean, the fact that the World News reports that Jesus has returned as an aardvark with a tattoo of Paris Hilton doesn’t mean the New York Times isn’t producing journalism just because they’re both newspapers, does it?
If you want to see an excellent job of live blogging posted just today, click on over to…
http://blog.bibrik.com/archives/2007/03/blogher_biz_-_effective_blogger_relations.html
Posted by Shel Holtz on 03/23 at 01:03 PMShel,
Steve and I seem to agree on two points: (1) You are a mench, and (2) Chip Griffin is a fine live blogger.
In fact, after reading reading Steve’s post, my assumption is that Steve is upset, not with live blogging in general, but with the fact that my live blog gave him a bad review. He claims he did not bad mouth David Weinberger, byut in fact, it was the interpretation of not just me, but several people sitting nearby. I asked people if they had heard it the way I did and two people immediately confirmed that they had.
other than that, Steve and I also agree that the panel presentation was, in his words, “ a train wreck.” But he seems to want to blame everyone else--people who did not pre-plan for the session, people who had business urgencies leaving them in the frustrating position of having flown to Vegas to present, than not being able to disengage from an urgent business matter. Steve says it was their fault.
But I reviewed what I saw and the overwhelming domination of the panel was Steve talking, talking about himself and his clients.
I apparently offended Steve because he saw me typing while he was speaking. Think about that comment for a while. When I see people listening to me and writing, that usually makes me happy.
Before I started live blogging New Comm Forum, I apologized in advance for the typos and inaccuracies I was about to make. As readers of my blog know, it doesn’t require live blogging for me to make a typo or factual error. In the past 12 months I estimate that I have over 125,000 words, all unedited and often unproofed.
When people point out mistakes, as did David Weinberger following his keynote, and more recently, Phil Gomes, in Chicago, their comments correct the error. That’s the conversational aspect of blogging. It’s also how wikipedia works.
I think Steve should have pai closer attention to what I wrote. he should have considered that accurate or not, I reflected a perception that some people in the audience had of him. He should have used the experience, unpleasant or not, to learn and adjust course for future talks--as I have and as I am certain you have.
As far as the journalism comment, I have to disagree with you there as well. If accuracy were the deciding criteria of journalism, and having mre time and editors and journalistic guidelines, the how do you explain Jason Blair’s tenure as a New York Times Reporter where he fabricated story after story?
So Social Media changes a great deal and it changes traditional journalism into something new, evolving and as yet undefined. I consider you and I both to be journalists. we both report on that which is useful and interesting (as Morrow defined news). We both do our best to be credible and we both try to be accurate and regret when we make mistakes. You try harder to give a balanced view than I do.
We both experiment with different forms of blogging and live blogging is probably not my best. But I do it, so that I can give my readers a sense of being there, a feeling that is more up close and personal then traditional journalists are allowed to do. That’s the new and different part.
Posted by shel israel on 03/23 at 01:56 PMI really don’t want this post and comments to deteriorate into a “blogging vs. journalism” thing, especially since that horse has been beaten to death too many times, and even more especially because I think the live blogging topic is more interesting. But…
Maybe I should have qualified my statement by calling it “professional journalism.” I don’t buy the Blair argument because there are miscreants in every profession; that doesn’t sully the work of those in the profession who do their jobs well day in and day out. But a professional journalist abides by standards and codes (such as those outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists) that do not bother most bloggers (with the exception of those who claim to be blogging journalists, like Tom Foremski). The definition of a journalist is someone who maintains a journal, so by that definition, yeah, we’re journalists. But a professional journalist is one who is paid by a news-gathering-and-disseminating organization to provide professional and objective reports of legitimate news (based on the scope of coverage of the outlet). I don’t do that. I did once, but I gave it up.
Bloggers are most definitely having a huge impact on journalism, but it’s the height of hubris to think we’re taking it over.
Now, then, back to this live blogging topic…
Posted by Shel Holtz on 03/23 at 02:26 PMShel:
Please don’t call me anymore. I hate you.
Ha ha ha ha ha . . . . what would life be like if everybody agreed all the time.
To the most important thing: Am I really as fat as I look in that picture? My God, that was an eye-opener.
As to the debate, you said it best yourself:
>>>>Hmm. Maybe Steve would be less worked up if he thought Shel Israel had done a better job of covering his session.<<<<
Bingo.
If you need proof, check out Shel’s live blog of the session, and then check out Chip Griffin’s. Two totally different things! I happen to think Chip got it right.
And, while Shel says he talked to two people who agreed with him, I’ve “talked"--via e-mail--with two hundred that didn’t.
Sure, I’m sore about the panel. (But Shel I., I fully accept my share of the blame for the train wreck; I’m sorry if my post made it look like I was ducking the blame. I do try to learn from my mistakes).
But that is beside the point. You can quibble about “journalism” versus “blogging” all you want, and debate what is what . . . . but it has nothing to do with “journalism.”
It has to do with getting it right.
Shel H., you should appreciate this more than anyone. When The Strumpette declared publicly that you were unqualified, and basically a fraud . . . did that get to you? Of course it did.
You didn’t write it off as a blogger’s freedom of opinion. You got pissed. As well you should have, because she was wrong.
I’m not comparing bloggers to journalists. I happen to be both, so I know the difference between when I blog, and when I write something for Ragan Report or The Journal of Employee Communications.
But . . . doesn’t there have to be some accountability, if you write for public consumption, to get it right?
And isn’t it a lot harder to get it right when you’re typing full speed instead of actually listening?
Steve Crescenzo
Posted by Steve Crescenzo on 03/24 at 05:08 AMOkay, Steve, but none of that makes live blogging a bad thing; it just makes (in your view) Shel Israel’s live blogging of this session bad. You say Chip Griffin did a GOOD job, yet he was typing while he was listening (not instead of), too.
The fact that there are two (probably more) differing views of the session makes just gives readers more perspectives.
I worry when I read Mark Ragan suggest that laptops might be banned from Ragan conferences if live blogging continues...when more and more conferences are making accommodations for live blogging. Did you read the live blogging of the “how to pitch bloggers” session I linked to above? Great stuff! Who would want to shut that off just because occassionally somebody’s going to get it wrong? (Like that never happens with professional journalism...let’s not let reporters into sessions the next time one of them reports inaccurately...)
Besides, I gotta agree 100% with Kevin Dugan’s comment: “Live blogging is the best thing that could ever happen to Ragan. It gets the excitement and expertise of its speakers out into the blogosphere where it can be amplified further to a PR audience...The end result? More folks spend some time looking at the next Ragan’s mailer that comes across their desk.”
Posted by Shel Holtz on 03/24 at 08:37 AMI won’t speak for Mark, but as someone who believes Mark is right to discourage the use of laptops at our conference sessions, I’ll explay why I feel this way:
1. Most of our conferences aren’t particularly newsworthy and none of them are IMMEDIATELY newsworthy. That is, no one in his right mind is sitting in his office wondering what’s going on RIGHT NOW in the 10:15 session on “Writing for the Ear” at the Speechwriter’s Conference. Is it useful information for speechwriters? Yes. It’s also as old as the Greeks. So is MOST of what is taught in ANY communication conference. The only conceivable rush to get it up on a blog is that of the blogger, who wants to scoop any press who might be attending, or other bloggers.
2. People typing on laptops--and checking their Blackberries and surfing the Web as some communicators do when they’re bored during a session--distract their neighbors and drain something intangible but crucial from a conference session: The sense of community that informs all learning. The communal sense in every attendee that, “My colleagues and I are all here together listening to the words of this speaker, taking it in, suffering through the slow parts, squinting together at the too-small PowerPoint print, exulting and laughing at the candid parts ... SHARING THE EXPERIENCE.”
To me this is why people go to college rather than to the library--to learn WITH OTHER PEOPLE.
Have you ever been in a press box at a big sporting event? I have, once, and it made a big impression on me.
While the fans are cheering and screaming together outside, there’s no emotion in the press room, because everybody’s trying to write something unique. Emotion and being together are a huge part of the conference experience, and I’d hate to turn it into a hushed press box.
Of course, if tons of our attendees want to “live blog” our conferences I’m sure we’ll let them live blog. But I sure don’t think we ought to be shoving powerstrips down their throats.
What our conferences might gain in publicity in the blogosphere is much less than what they might lose in the communal spirity of the conference atmosphere.
Which, I believe, is a big part of what keeps our attendees coming back.
David
Posted by David Murray on 03/25 at 08:56 AMDavid- I disagree entirely that typing on laptops drains energy from a session. First most folks with laptops tend to congregate with each other (often because they figured out where the power outlets are, sometimes because we all tend to know each other ... or get to know each other because of the common bond). So it tends to be easy to stay away from the laptop group if you want.
And I can’t speak for other bloggers, but it actually often causes me to engage more with the panel than I would otherwise. Let me explain. If it is a session that I am in that perhaps interests me less than others, I am forced to pay attention because of the fact that I am actively taking notes and then sharing them with the world. I may not have an audience the size of the New York Times, but I do want to make sure that the handful of people who see it have a positive impression of what I have done.
I also feel that I have a duty to people like Steve to do the best I can to get it right. That doesn’t mean I always do, but I have certainly been on the receiving end of blog posts that were inaccurate and mean-spirited. So I do my best to avoid doing the same to others.
David, as to your point about newsworthiness, I don’t think I have more to add to that beyond what I said earlier in this string, except to reiterate that live blogging isn’t about newsmaking.
I am not one who believes in an absolute right to live blogging. But I would hope that Ragan recognizes the value it provides in marketing conferences to potential future attendees. I know that I have attended conferences based on live blogging I have seen of past events. And if it weren’t for live blogging, I might have done only one post for others to read, not the dozen or so that I did that hopefully demonstrated the clear value of the New Communications Forum to people on the fence about coming next year.
Posted by Chip Griffin on 03/25 at 12:09 PMOkay, Chip--
I’ll take your word for it on all these well-reasoned points. You do seem to have more experience on both ends of live-blogging than I do.
I’ll also continue to regard live bloggers with some suspicion, quietly fret about what more than a mini-gaggle of them will do to conference sessions, and read what they produce with a skeptical eye.
On this one, I think time will tell how many live bloggers will exist, how many will be good at it and how many readers will bother reading more than one live blog from any given event.
David
Posted by David Murray on 03/25 at 03:15 PMShel,
Actually, I think I was pretty clear about understanding that there are various uses for a blog, allowing that Chip’s particular usage for a defined audience of office mates, is one that doesn’t have to live up to the standards one might expect on blogging for a broad audience. Shel does state in the banner of his blog that that is where he talks about “anything that crosses his mind” and that certainly indicates an intent to use his blog as a outlet for personal opinion. But he states his intent for the live blogging was “so that I can give my readers a sense of being there, a feeling that is more up close and personal then traditional journalists are allowed to do.”
My point is that the broad perception of blogging’s credibility, and the cry by some to be given the same access as journalists, is hurt when bloggers of Shel I.’s caliber, chops and reach fail to be accurate. I have since gone back and read Shel’s post and the ensuing maelstrom on his blog, Steve’s blog and here, and I come away with a few thoughts.
First, is that I stand by my suggestion, and David’s, that an hour’s worth of reflection before posting will add nothing but credibility to the post and detract nothing from the raw, conversational, opionionated quality of the blog, no matter what the use. Maybe that’s just me, a guy lousing at IM’ing because I can’t stop myself from proofing and editing my own IMs before hitting send and get pissed when I see I’ve let an error fly. I see no value-add to letting my communication go with typos, let alone factual errors.
Second, I agree with Steve that the difference between Chip’s blog post and Shel I.’s was that, oddly enough, there seemed to be a chip on Shel’s shoulder that detracted from his post. Made me spend time wondering what Shel had against Steve, much the same way Shel I. recently questioned in his own blog what Amanda Chapel (Strumpette) had against Edelman as a company. On the other hand, I got from Chip’s post what Shel said he was after—a sense of being there when I couldn’t be, a synopsis of what was being said. I could choose to agree with it or not without being led editorially to one conclusion or another.
Lastly, so much of the debate around Shel’s post, and seemingly the nature of Shel’s post, is vitriolic flaming, which I find completely useless and annoying, wasting the time of the blogger, the subject of the blog (who then feels compelled to respond to correct perceived errors) and readers who go along watching the slap-fight waiting for something of professional value to arise.
Before I get the responses to that I’ll anticipate and answer. Shel I. had the same thing happen to him with the aforementioned Amanda (Strumpette) and the end conclusion and advice from several readers was bascially “you’re right, but so what. Let it drop and go back to something useful, because we’re more interested in all the other great stuff we normally get.”
If blogging, whether live or otherwise, becomes a bunch of bitch-slapping people I don’t like, blogging in general and that blog in specific, regardless of use, loses perceived value. It also insults the reader who goes away looking for somewhere else to spend limited precious professional time. People can go away at any time, sure, but I think we can all agree Shel I., Shel H. and Steve C. all have dedicated readers precisely because they all otherwise offer valuable nuggets of sage communications counsel. But waste my time enough, and I’ll go away.
Live-blogging is probably here to stay (til the next big thing anyway or some other similar application to the change in technology). And will be used for various purposes. Fine, but if blogging journalists or journalistic bloggers have trouble gaining access to the precious few seats at an event, it’ll likely be due to the broader perception of blogs, blogging and bloggers as not credible. Bad PR hurts PR. Bad journalism hurts journalism. Bad politicians hurt politics.
Posted by michael clendenin on 03/26 at 10:56 AMLooks like I put everyone to sleep. Sorry I got so long winded. Didn’t seem that long in the little text box!
Thanks, Shel H., for providing the excellent, professional forum for discussion, and for what that does to help us all improve. Can’t tell you how much I’ve learned and regularly learn from this blog, your podcast and all the other resources you’ve introduced me to, including Les Potter’s blog, information on podcasting, the business cases for Second Life, etc etc etc.
Posted by michael clendenin on 03/27 at 08:32 AMYou PR guys have way too much time on your hands. I had to skip past the very intelligent comments and lengthy post to this point...but I think I got the gist of it.
Bottom line, both sides are correct. It’s not so much “live blogging” versus the alternative; it’s actually about having wi-fi versus no connectivity.
Personally, I cannot live blog. I suck at it. In addition, I think live bloggers are somewhat attention-starved. Come on...if you really need to get out the information in “real-time”, just wait for the break. Your blog readers really aren’t waiting on tenterhooks for your report.
Now if we’re talking about twitter, that’s another thing completely
So what’s the real points here:
1) Should people be able to type notes on a laptop (versus scribbling on paper) - YES
2) Should there be wi-fi at every conference - YES
3) Should people be able to report, blog or even live blog - HELL, YEAH
4) Should said bloggers sit in the front row underneath the noses of keynoters/panelists - NO
5) Should said panelists get their knickers in a knot - NODid I leave anything out?
So what’s the issue here,
Posted by Joseph Jaffe on 04/15 at 08:08 AMThe new world is about transparency in dealing with consumers. But internal discussion, knowledge, alternative plans evaluated, etc. should not be open to public scrutiny.
Posted by drug rehab on 09/18 at 08:19 AM
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