finally, some of my thoughts on the Blog Business Summit

So, I’ve had a little time to digest the information I learned at the Blog Business Summit a couple weeks ago. Unlike a lot of the other attendees, I didn’t blog live from the Summit. I’m kind of old-school in that I like to actively listen and take notes with pen and paper. Then, I go over my notes and think about them before I write anything down that I’m going to share. It scares me to write and think at the same time. It reminds me of people who just blurt out their thoughts as they enter their mind. Once it’s out there, you can’t take it back.

Anyway, I still haven’t had time to really go over my notes, but a few things from the conference have been stuck in my head and I’d like to share them before too much time passes. Here they are:

I enjoyed the speakers at the conference and thought for the most part they were interesting and informative. At the same time, I felt like they are so keyed into the blogosphere that they don’t really know how to relate with people who aren’t. I contribute to 2 blogs right now, I use RSS and Bloglines, I know how to navigate Technorati, I’m somewhat comfortable with del.icio.us, and I know what the term Google Juice means, so I’m probably more familiar with the concept of Web 2.0 than a lot of folks out there. But, I didn’t relate to most of the “elite” bloggers (or bloggerati) at the conference who referred to themselves as tech geeks.

One of the things I would’ve liked to have learned is how to get people involved in blogging. There are many people out there who simply don’t get blogs. I have a handful of friends that contribute to blogs or read them; the rest of my friends think they are just online diaries full of inane ramblings. Sure, some of them read blogs without even knowing it, and I try to point that out, but for the most part they have no interest in the blogosphere. To them it has a negative connation, like MySpace has to me. How then, do we get them involved or interested? The feeling I get is, “if you build them, they will come;” that blogging and Web 2.0 is like the internet was in its infancy. People didn’t really understand the value of it at first, but over time it became an easy and important tool that everyone has accepted and now uses.

I still don’t understand how to measure the success of a blog. For example, we are a credit union who offers membership to those who live, work and worship in Washington State. If people in New Jersey are reading our blog, that’s great, but my goal is to reach out to people in my immediate community who can benefit from Verity’s products and services. I guess I don’t see how having good ratings in Technorati and Google make us successful. Maybe I shouldn’t even think about the success of our blog, but just as another way to communicate.

Right before I was set to post this, I came across Jeremy Pepper’s blog. I think he nailed some of what I was thinking (and definitely in a more succinct way) in this post.