Tag: bloggers

Blogging Tribe: A Social and Blogging Experiment Looking for Volunteers [en]

[fr] Recherche de volontaires motivés pour une expérience socio-blogueuse.

Here’s the idea: form a group of bloggers, who agree to blog regularly for a certain amount of time, and read each other.

Scale? A dozen bloggers or so. From a dozen posts a month to one a day on average. For three months (or six? or six weeks?).

Why?

One of the things I understood while reading Here Comes Everybody, and which was missing from my global thinking about the connected world we live in, is the question of scale. That with more, comes different. Small group dynamics are not the same as large group dynamics. Small networks do not behave the same as big ones. At one point power laws kick in, and large groups or networks become fundamentally “unbalanced”.

Clay talks about the early blogging communities in his book, and I’ve understood what we feel we have “lost”, we bloggers of old: we’ve lost the small group dynamics, where we all read each other and there was a ball in the air that we all kept in movement.

I’ve seen that feeling reappear during the two “Back to Blogging” challenges I threw at fellow bloggers. For the ten days the challenge lasted, we started reading each other again, responding to each other in comments and even in blog posts.

So, I’d like to do this on a slightly larger scale. Larger not by the number of people, but larger as far as the dynamics are concerned. “Back to Blogging” has made a little foam appear in the egg whites we were beating — I want to try and turn the jug that holds them upside down.

Unlike Back to Blogging where I set the rules and dived in with what amounts to “qui m’aime me suive”, I’d like us to hash out the precise details together.

If you’re interested in this experiment and contemplating taking part, please get in touch with me. I’ll set up a quick mailing-list or Facebook book so we can all discuss the specifics and get the ball rolling.

Back to Blogging Challenge Wrap-Up [fr]

[en] Retour sur le challenge "back to blogging".

So, a good ten days after the end of the Back to Blogging challenge, how are things going?

Well, first of all, I’ve been putting off writing this article because I’m setting myself constraints which make it a big pile of work. For example, the last two days of the challenge I was too busy to link to the articles by other participants (arguably the longest part of publishing those posts). So I’m thinking “ah, I need to do the wrap-up, but before that I should complete those articles”. Well, nope. Obviously it’s not going to happen. Maybe somebody else feels like putting a list together for those two days?

I’ve also been thinking “ah, I should make a list here of all the bloggers who successfully did the 10 days”. Participating is great, and I’m sure many of those who did not complete the challenge got something out of it, but hey, sticking to it is even greater!

So, congratulations to all those of you who stuck through the whole ten days. I’d love to hear feedback on what participating did for you!

For me, even though I feel myself sliding back into “long blog post” mode (this is an attempt to break that) I kind of got into the habit of “a post a day”, which means that when I skip a day, I notice it, and blog the next day. So I’ve been publishing pretty much every couple of days I’d say, which is pretty good.

The other thing I got out of the challenge is a sense of community amongst bloggers — something I hadn’t felt for years and really miss from the early days of blogging. I was really amazed at the sheer number (about 20!) of people who took on the challenge!

At the root of this sense of community, in my opinion, is reading what other people write. A blogger is not an island. In my last post musing about what makes a blog a blog, one of the criteria that comes up is that a blog is in the network. It links to others, is linked to, commented upon, the blogger has contacts with other bloggers or readers. A blog cannot thrive in a vacuum.

Let’s try and keep that alive, shall we? Or we’ll be overrun by the fashion bloggers 😉

LeWeb'12 Paris Official Bloggers: Selection Underway [en]

[fr] C'est le moment de vous porter candidat pour être blogueur officiel à la conférence LeWeb à Paris. Lisez l'annonce sur le blog de Frédéric.

LeWeb - Register Now!Here we go! Selection for official bloggerdom at LeWeb’12 in Paris (4-6 December 2012) is underway. Time to apply if you haven’t heard from us and think you would make a good addition to the team. Time, also, to pass this around to all the various international and “rising star” bloggers and podcasters around you!

Read the announcement on Arne’s blog.

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Here’s a link to the form if you can’t see it above. Please tweet/facebook it.

Here are some banners and badges for your blog.

See you in Paris in December!

Discuter avec le chef du service clientèle d'Orange Suisse [fr]

[en] Orange Blogger Relations, phase 3: meet and chat with the VP of Customer Care on september 27th! (In French...)

Après avoir invité des blogueurs au Caprices Festival et à OrangeCinema, Orange Suisse propose aux blogueurs et podcasteurs de venir rencontrer et discuter avec le vice-président responsable du service clientèle.

Cette rencontre a un petit goût de “portes ouvertes”. Cela se passera dans les bureaux d’Orange à Renens, et on prévoit une bonne heure de discussion ouverte (avec “refreshments”) sur tout ce qui touche au service clientèle.

Les blogueurs et podcasteurs conviés à cette discussion seront bien entendu libre d’en rendre compte comme bon leur semble: photos, vidéo, tweets, articles, facebook, enregistrements… pendant et après.

J’aime beaucoup mettre sur pied ce genre “d’accès privilégié” pour blogueurs. En 2008, lors de la conférence Web 2.0 Expo à Berlin, on avait mis sur pied une table ronde entre Tim O’Reilly et une trentaine de blogueurs. Depuis cette année-là également, chaque conférence LeWeb à Paris démarre par une visite “derrière la scène” avec Loïc et Géraldine Le Meur, les organisateurs. Avec Solar Impulse, on a organisé des petits-déjeûners blogueurs avec André Borschberg et Bertrand Piccard.

Ces initiatives sont toujours fort appréciées tant par les blogueurs que par les “invités de marque” 🙂

Chez Orange, on a donc décidé de démarrer ces Orange Expert Interviews. On projette d’organiser chaque mois une rencontre entre des blogueurs intéressés et un expert internet à Orange. On commence avec le service clientèle, et restez à l’écoute pour la suite!

Si vous désirez faire partie des blogueurs invités pour cette première discussion, portez-vous candidat en remplissant le formulaire ci-dessous. On se voit le 27 septembre?

Bloggy Friday à Lausanne: toujours aussi sympa [fr]

[en] Monthly Bloggy Friday meetups are still around in Lausanne after all these years. They're great and I should blog about them more!

Depuis très très très longtemps, les blogueurs et autres personnes de même poil de la région lausannoise (et de bien plus loin d’ailleurs) se retrouvent une fois par mois pour un petit restau sympa pour le Bloggy Friday.

Il y a des habitués, des acharnés, des visiteurs d’une fois, des habitués occasionnels. On y trouve des spécialistes des médias sociaux et autres disciplines associées, des “simples blogueurs”, des entrepreneurs, des gens normaux curieux de Facebook, Twitter et des blogs, des passionnés de photo, des amis des habitués… C’est assez hétéroclite, on ne parle pas de machins de geek durant toute la soirée (de loin pas).

En gros, c’est juste un souper sympa entre gens intéressants reliés entre eux d’une façon où d’une autre. Parfois on se retrouve à deux, parfois à 10 ou un peu plus, en général plutôt entre 4 et 6.

En ligne, tout ce petit monde gravite autour du groupe Facebook Bloggy Friday (rejoignez-le si vous désirez recevoir les invitations pour ces rencontres). Il y a aussi un blog, mais je me demande en ce moment s’il a vraiment sa place dans l’ecosystème…

Au début des rencontres de blogueurs, quand bloguer c’était “spécial”, quand on se sentait un peu comme des extraterrestres face au monde (“euh c’est quoi un blog?”), chaque rencontre donnait lieu à un article chez les participants en question, avec quelques notes, et surtout, liens vers les blogs des autres. En fouillant dans mes archives vous en trouverez certainement, des billets comme ça. Maintenant, avec Twitter, Facebook, les smartphones, et la montée en force de tout ce qui est “temps réel”, il n’y a plus cette “tension” entre des relations online basées sur des articles, et une rencontre offline dont on ne peut rendre compte sur le moment.

L’article de Claire, qui venait à son premier Bloggy Friday, m’a donné envie de reprendre les vieilles habitudes. Aussi parce que, année après année, le Bloggy Friday reste quelque chose de spécial, sans grande prétention, auquel on est toujours ravi de participer. J’ai réalisé aussi récemment qu’énormément de personnes de mon entourage se sont rencontrées au Bloggy Friday, et que ces rencontres débouchent parfois sur de belles amitiés ou de beaux rapports professionnels.

Bloggy Friday juin 2012

Alors, qui était là vendredi en ce Bloggy Friday de juin 2012? On était huit, dont deux personnes qui participaient à un Bloggy Friday pour la première fois. Jolie tablée!

Qu’est-ce que je retiens de ce Bloggy Friday super sympa? Des choses qui nous relient autres qu’internet, comme la voile, les arts martiaux, les chats et les plantes, en ce qui me concerne. Troubleshooting “abstrait” de mon M-DEX (j’ai des idées à essayer une fois que je l’aurai de nouveau entre les mains, là je teste autre chose). Et surtout, Corinne qui mange du fromage fondu!

Bloggy Friday juin 2012, Corinne mange du fromage fondu

Prochaine date: 6 juillet. Réservez dans votre agenda et rejoignez le groupe Facebook si vous voulez recevoir l’invitation lorsqu’on crée l’événement!

Swiss Bloggers: Want To Go To OrangeCinema (ZH, BE, BS)? [en]

[fr] OrangeCinema! C'est dans les villes de Zurich, Berne, et Bâle -- et dans le cadre de mon mandat "blogueurs" avec Orange, on a monté une opération sympa pour blogueurs cinéphiles. Si vous connaissez des blogueurs dans ces villes qui pourraient être tentés par devenir "blogueur officiel" durant OrangeCinema ("all-access pass", billets gratuits, et plein d'autres trucs sympas) faites-leur passer ce billet!

As you may know, I’m currently working with Orange to assist and advise them in the field of blogger relations. This means that we work on cool offers/programmes for bloggers.

Our first pilot was around Caprices Festival — a music festival in Crans: we offered a press pass and other perks to a couple of bloggers so they could attend the whole festival for free. We’re really happy with the way it turned out, and we’re now focusing on OrangeCinema, which takes place over the summer in the Swiss German cities of Zürich, Bern, and Basel.

OrangeCinema

Clearly I should be writing this post in German, as this is an offer mainly for Swiss-German bloggers, but my German sucks terribly and I wouldn’t want to inflict it on my dear readers.

If you’re an established film-loving blogger or podcaster, and you’d jump at the chance to receive an all-access pass to OrangeCinema and blog about it like crazy, check out the form below and apply to be an Official OrangeCinema Blogger.

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Recommend Bloggers (and Podcasters!) for LeWeb'11 Accreditation [en]

This year again, I’ll be overseeing blogger accreditations for LeWeb — but I won’t be alone. Frédéric de Villamil and Arne Hulstein have agreed to jump on board and help me with the selection process. A big thanks to both of them, we are now a team!

By the way, did you know that LeWeb is now a 3-day conference? It will take place on December 7-8-9th 2011 in Paris, and the theme this year is SOLOMO, Social-Local-Mobile. If you’re not eligible for a blogger accreditation and thinking of attending, get your ticket before September 30th to take advantage of the summer offer and get over 800€ off the full ticket price! (There are also special prices for students, freelance developers, and startups — check the bottom of the registration page.)

The process is pretty much the same as last year:

  • first, we’re asking for recommendations (particularly of bloggers or podcasters we might not know about, and from language groups we’re less familiar with)
  • second, in September, we’ll allow any blogger or podcaster to apply for accreditation through a separate form.

As much as possible, we’ll be dealing with submissions as they come in — but do give us some time to process them. Each blogger or podcaster we select based on your recommendation will be contacted directly (we’re aware they might not have heard of LeWeb or know that they were recommended!)

A reminder of what is expected of official bloggers, and the kind of profile we’re looking for. They should:

  • have a passion for content and reporting
  • commit to attending and covering the conference (it’s in English!)
  • have significant reach and influence inside their community.

Of course, they also need to have a proper, publicly accessible, established blog or podcast (that is theirs or at the very least, that they contribute to regularly). Having a huge number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ is great, but doesn’t make you a blogger. Just like having a huge rolodex doesn’t make you a journalist. (Check out Live-Blogging vs. Live-Tweeting at Conferences.)

Although the accreditation allows to attend the conference for free, we cannot cover expenses.

A note about the recommendation form: this is not a popularity contest. Please do not ask your friends to nominate you (some of you did so, last year). We don’t care how many times a name is mentioned. It just gives us more (annoying) work to have to go through 20 submissions of the same name. You’ll be able to apply for an accreditation directly in September. Our objective here is to:

  • discover important bloggers/podcasters we might not know of
  • make sure we do not miss anybody we absolutely should be inviting.

There, now that all this is said, here we go!

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Blogger Relations: What is it About? [en]

[fr] Les relations blogueurs: qu'est-ce que c'est, et en quoi est-ce différent des relations presse/publiques? (Je pense qu'il va falloir faire un article là-dessus en français à l'occasion.)

I thought I’d write a post to quickly explain what I view as a particular field in social media: blogger relations. I prefer to view blogger relations as a speciality of community management rather than a speciality in PR, because it has much more to do with human relationships and communities (sometimes very small) than with managing a public image.

Blogger relations is what I call the work I’ve been doing for Web 2.0 Expo Europe, Le Web in Paris, and now Solar Impulse.

Companies and organizations are starting (well, they have been “starting” for the last five years, so some of you might get the feeling this start is dragging along) to realize that there is a population out there in social media that produces content, is very connected, and sometimes pretty influential. I single out bloggers and podcasters because despite all the excitement around Twitter and Facebook, publications in those mediums are too transient. Three weeks later, the tweets and status updates are long gone (Storify might yet change that, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on that service).

Though some online publications are very close in organisation and tone to traditional media, most bloggers and podcasters out there are better not treated as “press”. And they have value to bring that justifies treating them slightly differently from the general public.

Bloggers and podcasters are similar to press in the sense that they produce content. But they are also similar to the general public in the sense that they show interest for something by passion and often in their free time, and not based on the agenda of their employer.

As I see it, blogger relations imply a more “balanced” and “open” relationship between the parties, where it’s possible to lay things clearly on the table. Offer and demand are in my opinion more present in defining the power balance than when dealing with the press. Are bloggers desperate to attend your event or follow your project? You can be selective, and put conditions. Are bloggers and podcasters not yet aware of what you’re doing? You might want to bring slightly more to the table to make it worth the investment for them.

All this, of course, requires one to know what is and is not acceptable in the blogger world. Ask for a blog post, or to display a badge on one’s blog? Should be pretty much OK. Try to exercise editorial control? Not so good.

Maybe some of the above is valid with the press, too. But again, I’d like to stress a big difference between bloggers/podcasters and press: in general, the blogger or podcaster will be coming to you on his free time and of his own accord, whether the journalist will often be sent by his employer or client, on his work time. This changes things.

I like to define two types of situations in blogger relations: floodgates and outreach. The strategy for both of these is quite different: in one case you need to filter through a large number of incoming requests. In the other, you need to reach out to those you want to interest.

I’m planning to blog more on this topic (I’ve wanted to for a long time), but for now I just wanted to lay down some general thoughts.

Blogger Programme for Solar Impulse (Part 1, Brussels) [en]

The article was originally published a few days ago on the Solar Impulse blog — a project I’m working on. See the original article.

Are you a blogger or a podcaster? Are you excited about the Solar Impulse project? We have news for you.

As you might have seen if you’re following us on Twitter or Facebook, I (Stephanie Booth aka @stephtara) am currently working with the Solar Impulse team to set up special access and events around the project for bloggers and podcasters.

Solar Impulse 39

So, now that we’re excitedly waiting to be able to take off for our flight to Brussels (no kidding: we’re holding our breath every day, just waiting for the weather to cooperate fully), I can finally give you some news about what we’re planning.

Update 17.05.2011: this article was published on the Solar Impulse blog before the flight to Brussels, but it has now taken place successfully!

First of all, two words of caution:

  1. the offers in this programme are for established bloggers and podcasters only, that we will accept on a case-by-case basis;
  2. we do not know yet exactly when we’re flying to Brussels (flights are confirmed 24h in advance) — and bear in mind there is a small chance that all the necessary conditions for a safe flight may not be met before Green Week.

That being said, please use this form to let us know if you’re interested in taking part in our blogger programme. You can also simply sign up for the blogger announcement list, which will let you know about anything we plan specifically for bloggers and podcasters.

Current details on what we’re planning can be found below. We’ll be in touch with more as we finalize things, as well as confirmation — or, depending on the success of the blogger programme… more information about the selection process!

For the flight

The whole flight can be followed live on the Solar Impulse website and can also be followed on your smartphone (download the app for iPhone or Android). We have a small number of slots available during the flight if you would like to interview André while he’s in the air (ask him what it feels like to be outside Swiss borders with Solar Impulse!).

Update: departure and landing events are full, unfortunately!

It is also possible for us to invite a few people to the take-off, but as I mentioned, it will be on very short notice. We know it will be on the morning of the day of the flight, though. So, if you’re not far from Payerne and think you can make it for take-off around 8am if we warn you the afternoon before, try your luck!

There is a landing event in Brussels in the evening (around 8pm). Obviously we’ll have a little more notice than for take-off, but it’s still not much. We have a handful of invitations to that event for bloggers and podcasters. (By the way: even if you’re not a blogger, Brussels Airport are inviting 30 of their followers on Facebook and Twitter to be their guests at the landing — follow them for more information on that!)

The Week in Brussels (23-29 May)

During the time the Solar Impulse airplane will be in Brussels (during Green Week!), there are four occasions on which we can invite you — two of which will be open only to bloggers/podcasters (the other two are events which are open to a part of the public, but you’ll be able to attend as our guests).

First of all, a chance to see the plane in its hangar before everything starts — Elâ and I will be your hosts. That will be on Monday 23.05 morning, probably 9-11 (but we’ll confirm the exact time once it gets closer). This will be an opportunity to meet up, get to know fellow bloggers, chat about the project, photograph the plane, etc. The only people there will be bloggers and podcasters (and maybe some photographers!)

The second “blogger exclusive” event will take place on Saturday 28.05 morning, and it will be a discussion roundtable with André and Bertrand. Breakfast included! As we want to keep this conversation “human-sized”, the number of spots for this event is quite limited.

On Tuesday evening, there is the EUFORES/EREC cocktail event. About 300 people will be invited (political and economical spheres), and we have a certain number of passes for bloggers.

Wednesday evening is the side event Solar Impulse is hosting for Green Week. Again, a chance to see the plane and a presentation (we’re expecting about 700 people that evening and the European Commissioner for Environment Janez Potočnik will be speaking).

And also…

We aim to bring a community of bloggers together around the Solar Impulse project, beyond this first trip outside Swiss borders (next stop: Paris, more details vers soon, and who know what after that!) — at some point, we’ll define criteria for an “official blogger” status with visibility on our website.

We’re looking forward to meeting you, reading you, listening to you… and answering your questions about the project! If you have any other ideas, don’t hesitate to let us know using the “Anything to add?” field of the blogger programme form.

LeWeb'10: Tell Us Which Bloggers or Podcasters to Invite [en]

Pay attention: this stage is not about pitching yourself, it will come later (September) — this is the time to tell us who else we should not miss.

As you probably know, I’m managing blogger accreditations for LeWeb in Paris for the third time. We’ve decided to change the system slightly this year to ensure a more balanced representation of countries and linguistic groups. We’ve also decided to do away with the big deadline to request an accreditation, and will be evaluating applications on a case-by-case basis.

Basically, here’s what we’re going to do:

First, reach out to motivated and influential bloggers and podcasters in all countries and linguistic communities. We need your help for that — to identify them, and maybe also to contact them. This is what this post is about.

Second, in September, we will allow individual bloggers/podcasters to apply for an accreditation.

We have thought quite a bit about what we expect from official bloggers, as a conference, and what kind of population we want to reach and invite. Our criteria this year will be stricter. To make it clear: if you work for an industry agency or big company, your company should be paying for your ticket — unless you are primarily known as a high-profile blogger, independently of your work. But more on that in good time (September).

So, back to our plan for July: the problem with the system that we used over the last two years is that it was perfectly possible for us to end up with no blogger from country XYZ covering the conference — or no coverage in certain languages. We want to make sure that LeWeb’10 echoes beyond political and linguistic barriers.

We have a pretty good idea who the main players are in anglophone and francophone circles. However, you probably know your country or linguistic group’s bloggers or podcasters better than we do.

Here’s who we’re looking for. Official bloggers and podcasters should:

  • have a passion for content and reporting
  • commit to attending and covering the conference (it’s in English!)
  • have significant reach and influence inside their community.

Although the accreditation allows to attend the conference for free, we cannot cover expenses.

Got a few people in mind? Great! Please use this form to recommend three bloggers/podcasters from your linguistic group or country.

Thanks a lot for your help! Please tell your friends speaking other languages or from other countries to send in their recommendations too.