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Crowdsourcing the SOBCon Secret Project

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I have been looking at this for hours:

Mike Rodhe made these sketchnotes at SXSW last week and they are fantastic. I have been thinking about doing something like this for SOBCon because I am a big notebook freak. But I can’t draw so well…

So I am going to ask you all to help with this little project. On Sunday the Lovely Bride TM and I went to Boston for a trade show and I stopped by the Levenger store to pick up some supplies for this “secret project“. I am looking forward to seeing what the attendees put together.

If you have any ideas on how to make this better, please let me know (contact form).

Who Is Coming to SOBCon?

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Andi Fisher
Andi Fisher

Andi Fisher is. And boy, is she excited about it. She wrote a post about making her decision and it carries some special meaning for me – because Liz had the very same effect on me last year.

Misadventures with Andi: My intuition is telling me to attend SOBCon09

Over the past month, since returning home from [another] conference, I have been visiting Liz’s blog and reading the information time and time again regarding SOBCon. But each time I have dismissed it as a conference for the “Big Dogs,” and as the owner of a personal blog that is less than a year old and a business that is just a little over a month old, I thought I didn’t fit the label.

But then a couple of things have happened.

A couple of months ago, I purchased a program from Naomi Dunford, of IttyBiz.com. I was in the incubation program with Ladies Who Launch for my business and was looking for resources to help me. I bought the information but didn’t do anything with it (dumb, I know, but the truth) and from time to time I think about pulling the materials out and going through them. Then on one of my lurkings on the SOBCon site, I saw that she was a sponsor, was this a sign?

I kept going back to the SOBCon event site, and then closing the window. This past Tuesday, I said, “Screw it, I am just going to email Liz and ask her about this damn thing!” And I did, and she answered, and she said (among other things):

“…Everyone is a big dog at SOBCon — that’s my rule. Check Naomi Dunford’s blog … IttyBiz.com She’s a full sponsor this year. Her business is just her….You won’t be sorry you came. You’ll leave with 100 or so very important friends. Some will be friends for life. ”

I thought about that all day, and Tuesday night I went to a Ladies Who Launch workshop, a workshop that I thought was about business strategies, but mistakenly (my misunderstanding) it turned out to be about honing and honoring your intuition. Now, I feel like I have pretty good intuition, I have hunches and feelings and I usually follow/honor them, but I was dismissing the feelings I was having around SOBCon, why? At the end of the workshop, we did a visualization exercise. Me, being the practical person that I am said, “oh here we go…” in my head, but decided to just do it anyways.

At the end of the visualization exercise, we were told to write down what came to us.

Mine was, “Go to SOBCon.”

Well, now. After reading this I needed to talk to Andi about her upcoming SOBCon experience. We had a great little chat on the phone and she graciously accepted my request to answer a few questions that I thought would add some punch to her post.

The Questions:
How has planning to go to SOBCon changed your outlook and your business model?

I am not sure it has changed anything significantly yet. My business is just starting out so I am still trying out lots of new things, whatever feels right. My business model is still taking shape and I think it is a great time to attend this conference because I am flexible and nimble enough to incorporate new ideas and concepts with having to “re-do” a lot of work.

After we spoke on the phone it sounded like you had to re-learn some things that you already knew in a different context. What insight can you share with someone who might be “on the edge” of deciding to attend a conference?

One of the key factors that someone thinking attending should consider is what the personal ROI will be? Will putting in the time, effort and money bring value to you and your business (blog, etc)? Also they need to consider what their expectations are in terms of what that ROI is. Are they in it for immediate gratification or do they understand that meeting people, making a connection, building a relationship with genuine context takes time and investment? I believe that those who are serious about their desire to connect and build their businesses through authentic means should look no further than Liz, her network of influencers and influencees, or her business community to find that. And SOBCon is the manifestation of those people, guided by authentic principles, which make this event a “do not miss.”

What is the main thing that you are looking to learn/discover/create at SOBCon?

I am interested in understanding the business-model of some of the tier-1 professional bloggers out there such as Chris Brogan, Problogger, Copyblogger, Remarkablogger, Havi and Ittybiz. The blogging community always amazes me in that the people within the community are constantly opening themselves up to new members, sharing their knowledge, and taking newbies under their wings. Having said that I want to know why they choose to do business one way over another, what knowledge have they gained along the way (that they are willing to share) and what are some pitfalls to avoid. I hope to engage in interesting conversations and suck up knowledge by osmosis just by being around some truly remarkable people.

Thanks so much Andi, I really appreciate your time and participation!

I look forward to participating and brainstorming, I enjoy these activities immensely (and I am secretly hoping that other people in whatever groups I am part of enjoy presenting because I abhor it!). It should be a conference of vibrant, intelligent people and the interaction should be fantastic.

I hope to gain ideas for mainly for my business, including my business blog, but also for my personal blog. I’d like to increase readership and marketing/co-marketing opportunities in the areas that I enjoy.

How about the rest of you? What are you looking forward to at SOBCon this year?

Trade Shows and Conferences Without Social Media

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I went down to Boston on Sunday to accompany the Lovely Bride TM to the NE Food Expo and I have to say that it was thoroughly entertaining.

NE Food Expo
NE Food Expo

I have not been to a trade show like this in a few years and there were a few observations that I found interesting.

First, each attendee had a name badge with a 2-dimensional barcode on it. The vendors in their booths had supermarket-style scanners that could read the bar-code and print out a contact form. This form was pre-populated with the attendee’s contact information and then the vendor could write in any notes or additional information.

This is an expensive but very useful improvement to the “old way” of gathering contact information via a sign-in sheet or simply collecting a business card. I know that this is not exactly a “new” technology but it was the first time that I had seen it. The biggest impact on my own attendance at this show was that I felt much more comfortable because the vendors that I spoke with were less concerned about getting me to fill out their form.

“Can I scan you”, was all it took, much less intrusive.

Pretty Girls Hawking Their Wares

Trade Show Model
Trade Show Model

Of course, this is a standard expo/trade show gimmick: get some pretty girls to show off your products and get more attention for your booth. Since I was with the Lovely Bride TM I did not even bother to attempt to get any action shots of the young lovelies, she would have called “BS” on my claims of “research” (this is a stock photo).

What struck me about these spokesmodels was that only about half of them seemed to speak English as a first language, I suppose that it is an indication of the state of the economy.

About 25% were actual sales reps and were quite knowledgeable about the products or services, the rest simply played back a carefully memorized spiel. This leads me to the third observation – that there was virtually no Social Media component to this show.

Not one vendor asked us to sign up for an e-mail newsletter, mentioned a Twittername, or told us about their blog. Of course it is New England and these are hospitality vendors – not exactly on the cutting edge in media technology. It seems that the focus was much more on “going Green” than on creating a community. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

A Wasted Opportunity

With the badge-scanning technology and ability to register for the expo fully online, I expected a little more interaction from this trade show. Some of the most advanced tech that I saw offered were for surveillance of patrons and employees, rather than for communicating with customers and clients. I am curious as to how long it will take for Social Media tools and techniques to filter down to the rest of the marketspaces that currently do not take advantage of them.

It certainly looks like there is a market for an enterprising Social Media “Expert” to get involved with a training program…

What ideas would you present to a business that has no Social Media program?

The Little Brother Effect

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Gary Vaynerchuk captures the essence of the New Media in this passionate video:

Good defeats evil (finally) because Little Brother is watching. All. The. Time.

[The Little Brother Efect: You are very likely to be recorded in the background of someone’s camera. Anywhere, anytime. And these recordings get posted to the internet for all to see.] The definition of “Privacy” will continue to evolve as the price of digital storage approaches zero and connection bandwidth becomes more ubiquitous. The convergence of these two trends will create the opportunity for millions of people to create their own “TV Networks”, narrow-casting their daily activities 24/7.

Agents Are Dead, Long Live the Agents

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From Seth’s Blog: Where have all the agents gone?

Travel agents… gone.
Stock brokers… gone.
Real estate brokers… in trouble. Photographer’s agents, too.
Literary agents?

The problem with being a helpful, efficient but largely anonymous middleman is pretty obvious. Someone can come along who is cheaper, faster and more efficient. And that someone might be the customer aided by a computer.

In the 19th century steam power replaced muscle. The entire world changed. Godin, as usual, is up in the crow’s nest seeing what is out in front of us. And while Heinlein said that “Specialization is for insects“, I agree with Godin that the future does indeed belong to the insect. Or, rather, the entrepreneur with an idea that is specific enough that it still requires expert knowledge, experience, or pure talent to execute.
He also writes that evolving from middleman to frontman means saying “No”.

To thrive in a world of self-service, agents have to hyperspecialize, have to stand for something, have to have the guts to say no far more than they say yes. No, you can’t publish this book. No I won’t represent you. No, don’t take that flight. No, I won’t sell this house, it’s overpriced, list it yourself.

In a world where pretty much anything can be done by anyone willing to put in the effort instead of having to pay someone else agents need to be far more than simply representatives. Mack Collier touched on this subject a while back in his post, “Do You Know the Social Media ‘Rules’” I would submit that the role of the expert consultant and that of the agent are going to continue to overlap and converge until they are indistinguishable.

secret-agentAgents Provocateur

Collier writes:

“Today, companies and individuals are rushing to this space, and it’s exciting to see. And as people discover this space, they are looking for people to give them guidance. Which is often where the trouble starts, because it’s where people start hearing about social media’s ‘rules’. They start hearing about the ‘right’ way to blog, or the ‘correct’ way to use Twitter.“

This is what Agents did in the past, one might even call it the pre-industrial model, when gatekeepers controlled access to markets for buyers and sellers. Today the marketspace is open to (nearly) all via the marvelous tubes of the internet.

  • Publish your own letter to the editor, or the CEO. They will probably see it.
  • Sell your home-made crafts, not to your neighbors, anywhere in the world.
  • Record an album and give it away. Or ask for donations.

What role do the agents play in this, a DIY Marketspace? The agents of the future will be able to tell you the ‘right way’ for you to blog, or the ‘correct way’ for you to use Twitter. Today some are calling them (or decrying them as) ‘Social Marketing Experts’ – perhaps tomorrow the non-charlatans will be known as niche-agents…

What say you? Leave a comment.