Design Blogs Make the Washington Post

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/30 at 05:55 PM • A Little Design -- Blogs

A Dec. 1 story in the Washington Post lauds the success of design blogs, their creators, and their readers. The story, titled “Blog Wild” has this to say about design blogs:

For people obsessed with design, the advent of design-focused Web journals, or blogs, has been a wonderful, terrible development.

Wonderful because these idiosyncratic Web sites, in which specific and frequently updated content is filtered through an individual blogger’s sensibility, give devotees an opportunity to indulge their obsession at the click of a computer mouse. Terrible because, as anyone who has ever discovered a favorite blog already knows, the impulse to hit the “refresh” button every five minutes to see what has been posted most recently can take over one’s life, putting things like social calendars and professional advancement in peril.

[Come on, journalists, can’t we have even one story that doesn’t find something snarky to say about blogs?]

Congratulations to Apartment Therapy, MoCo Loco, Design*Sponge and Funfurde, who were all featured.

 
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Speaker Submissions Due for Northern Voice 2006

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/16 at 07:29 AM • Blogging Events

Today is the last chance to submit a proposal to give a talk or lead a discussion at the Northern Voice 2006 blogging conference.

Boris Mann says:

Remember, this is a very “open tent”, not necessarily über techie conference. Come and share stories with us in Vancouver. It’s going to be the same shareable size—about 250 people give or take, except that day 1 is Moose Camp—an open day for special interest groups or just old friends to take over the space. This is not a complete unconference—maybe you want to organize a mini conference of 10 or 20 people that are all interested in the same subject. Head over to the wiki and self organize (and let us know, and we’ll help make sure the word gets out).

So, any EduBloggers? Knitting Bloggers? Food Bloggers? From journalists to home makers to gardeners to people just telling stories, we want speakers that have things to share. It’s a wide audience, from lots of local Vancouverites wanting to find out more to lots of top bloggers and techies from around the world.

Last year’s Northern Voice was a lot of fun, and topics ranged all over the place—from podcasting to video blogging to the ethics of personal blogs. This year looks to be more of the same, but with even more potential for meeting folks in and around Vancouver who love this medium.

(Psst. You can also register to attend.)

Norther Voice 2006 Logo

 
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Online Influence Talk for High-Tech Communicators and Society for Technical Communication

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/15 at 10:17 PM • Blogging Events -- Blogs and Business

I gave a talk tonight to a joint meeting of the High-Tech Communicator’s Exchange and the Society for Technical Communication in downtown Vancouver. It was a great group—smart, engaged, and with such excellent questions!

I hit on these topics during the hour-long presentation (at lease I think so!):

  • Marketing strategies businesses employ with and through blogs
  • The intangible benefits to a businesses reputation and credibility that can be built via blogs
  • Ways to reach new and current customers through blogging
  • Blogs as tools for product/technical support
  • Reading blogs and talking to bloggers
  • Actual examples of companies who have successfully used blogs to support their business
  • Marketing no-nos in the blogosphere

I promised to post my slide deck so here that is (PPT, 1.51MB).

Members of the STC include writers, editors, illustrators, project managers, instructional designers, web designers, knowledge managers, usablility specialists, help developers, engineers, and others involved in communicating technical information to other professionals or the general public. We work in high-tech industries, health care, the resource industries, the legal system, utilities, and government.

The HTCE is a group made up of professionals from the fields of public relations, marketing, marketing communications and technical communications who are or have been working in the high-tech and/or biotech sectors. The group comprises junior, intermediate and senior professionals who work for companies or agencies or who are independent consultants.

Thanks to Susan Patch for contacting me and making the arrangments, and Catherine Ducharme for helping me get set up beforehand!

 
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Liability Insurance for Blogging?

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/08 at 06:30 PM • Blogs and Business -- Law and Ethics

I spoke with a reporter today whose editor has asked for a story on liability insurance for corporate blogs—what companies offer it, what companies are buying it, and what it covers.

It’s a fascinating question—and one I haven’t been asked before (I love those). Unfortunately, it’s the first time it’s come up, at least for me, so I’m looking for anyone out there who has maybe thought about, looked at, or heard anything about blog liability insurance. the article could go a couple of directions, but certainly the obvious questions are, do you need liability insurance for a corporate blog, and do you need coverage when you encourage your employees to blog about their work experiences. So how about it, folks? Anyone know anything about blog liability insurance? You’ll likely get quoted for the article if you do!

 
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My First Podcast

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/03 at 02:54 PM • Not About Blogs

imageRoland Tanglao (of Bryght fame) has organized a weekly podcast and asked me to be part of it. We did our first session or Roland’s Rabble last Friday and talked about Flock, BitTorrent for Dummies, and the backlash against Web 2.0 that’s going around. It’s definitely techie talk, so beware!

Michael Tippett of Now Public and Will Pate of Raincity Studios were also part of the podcast.

 
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Online Influence: What Blogs Mean to Your Business

Posted by Susannah Gardner on 11/02 at 05:04 PM • About the Book(s) -- Blogging Events -- Blogs

I’ll be speaking to a joint meeting of the High-Tech Communicator’s Exchange and the Web 2.0 group Society for Technical Communication on Nov. 15, in Vancouver. Come on by!

Get the details here.

 
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