Corporate Blogging: "You Don't Have To Do That Alone"

On 29 April 2009, I had the opportunity to attend BlogWell number three in New York City, organised by Jasper Little and Andy Sernovitz and Bob Pearson (see image on the left), the people behind the Blog Council. 

 

This third version of the BlogWell event gathered more than 300 people who were able to attend 8 presentations aimed at presenting some striking and successful case studies in the area of social media and big corporations. 

 

All sessions were run concurrently, so that any one person could only attend 4 of these case studies on the whole, but we will be able to will give you a report of all eight studies in this blog.

 

Andy Sernovitz introduced the debate by saying that BlogWell is "the only event describing what big business is doing in using social media". He went on saying that this is the path to something bigger than just a social media, something to do with authenticity, transparency, and talking to people differently (in essence, a totally new way of doing marketing). Andy said too that it is easy to start a small and medium business blog or a personal blog, but that doing the same for a big logo needs "bravery to launch such an initiative in a big democracy hat doesn't want hat to happen" (nb: his choice of words, not mine). 

 

It is therefore slower and harder and not everyting is possible Andy said. It also means that "a lot of high-profile mistakes will be made". But at the end of this process, Andy thinks that this will make the businesses nicer, not just because we have to do it but "because it's good for business".

 

And his conclusion was that "you don't have to do that alone", and this is why he created the blog Council. Let me just point out that Bob Pearson, formerly in charge of social media at Dell, who also worked very closely with Michael Dell and many years, has just joined the organisation as president of the blog Council, of which Orange Business is a proud member, and I want to add that this is very good news for us and for the evangelisation of social media and big business.

 

Blogwell this time wasn't only a serious event. We were entertained by creative duet from "South Central North Carolina" Rhett & Link who played 2 songs live. That was really great, and I can't resist sharing this other video with you. Enjoy! 
 

So stay tuned to the Orange Business Live, detailed minutes of all 8 meetings will be posted here in the following days.