Writing from the airport with blessedly free wifi but no AC power, I get ready for that middle seat back to Boston and an alleged snow storm. Last night’s blogger dinner went well. I got to meet Greg Verdino, Steve Garfield, and Joseph Jaffe in person. Had some interesting conversations about monitoring, advertising, media, new products, clouds, gadgets, porn stars and old french brandy.
I demoed a few products, but more importantly received some great feedback from Jaffe on the art of hosting a blogger event.
- Involve a strong connector. The Social Media Club was looking for a sponsor of a blogger dinner. I had a restaurant that needed some bloggers. That is an easy win.
- Work the invite list. I should have been more involved in lighting up my network and doing a lot of investigation of who would be blogging from CES. We had a list provided by the show’s press office, there were the obvious people to consider (I need to do a detailed post on the ever-shifting definition of a blogger as the blog CMS revolution and the ascent of the big gadget blogs makes some “blogs” more “media” than ever before, with large staffss and operations, versus one man bloggers like yours truly). We missed some good people, I should have been a little more involved, but ….
- Don’t be a dickhead with the agenda. Inviting people to hang out doesn’t mean asking them at some point to shush and listen to an executive suit with the microphone. When I was a reporter I hated the dog and pony aspect of marketing “parties.”
- The loud CPR music? Loud music in a bar or nightclub is an attempt by the owner of said establishment to make civil conversation impossible. After a few dozen attempts to communicate with someone interesting the frustrated person gives up and does one of two things: orders a drink or dances, gets thirsty, and orders a drink.
- It never hurts to have one’s products lying around to be touched. Don’t have a bunch of over helpful people hovering with the old “may I help you?” Let people discover stuff on their own and if they have a question, be available to answer it.
Just read a good post by Rob O’Regan at Magnosticism about budget cuts and social giving way to the tried and true world of demand generation. He makes good points which I pledge won’t become the rule at Lenovo. The point of the post — survey shows marketers are sick of hearing Web 2.0 buzzwords but still feel the need to know more.
Which reminds me — a new role for me at the company. I’m now more focused on social media, less on “demand” generation (paid search, banners, metrics) and a project I can’t talk about. So, will my title change from VP of Global Web Marketing to something else? I dunno. Not a title person. Basically if it happens in web 2.0 it is my problem.
So I have that going for me.
which is nice…
Way to go on the new post. i can hardly wait to see results; including any element that’s aimed at social media.
Good points in your post. As usual youre right on target.
Someday a company that wants to really engage bloggers in an event wiill bring Ree Drummond ( pioneerwoman.com) out of the wiregrass pastures of the Oklahoma cattle country to an event. Ree may be one the best bloggers on this planet.
Stay warm and toasty. Wear tie-dyed because you can!
Jim Forbes
Great post David. Wish I could’ve stayed longer for the party, but it was great meeting you briefly on the tail end of our meeting w/ David R. Look forward to exploring ways for Lenovo to be part of the gdgt community in the coming weeks. Congrats on the informal Best Booth award too. Oh, and if Lenovo does choose to be a sponsor of the launch party, please promise me we can discuss #3 more in depth. I may need some help there!!!
Thanks for a great dinner.
When I arrived with Melissa Pierce, we sat in a booth and had some nice wine and scallops. It was so relaxing. After a day of being crazy trying to see things, film things, and edit things, it was a pleasure to be able to just sit.
The music wasn’t too loud and I appreciated that. We talked about how laid back the event was compared to another I had attended where a dog and pony show took place.
We also remarked how no one was pestering us to go look at the products. It was so refreshing that after a while we go up, talked to some folks and looked around at what was on display. Tried out a few computers too.
It was nice meeting you and thanks again for a great event.
–Steve