We are delighted and excited to announce that we have officially begun preparations for the New Communications Forum 2006. The conference will take place March 1-3, 2006, in Palo Alto, CA.

We'd like to invite you to propose sessions and/or panels for the program schedule. There will be four conference tracks: 

• New Advertising Strategies
• New Approaches to Corporate Communications - for Internal & External Communicators
• The New World of Marketing
• The New Media & The New Face of Journalism

Following are our ideas on each of the sessions that fall into these tracks:

Advertising

• Blogs Meet Ads: Can Advertising Be Authentic? 
• RSS as an Advertising Platform
• Ad Co-Development: Customers as Your Creative Resource
• The New Demographics: Online Influencers Might Surprise You
• Advertising Case Studies - Beyond Print & Broadcast - Using RSS, Search & other New Tools

Corporate Communications

• Network Building: The Corporate Communicator's New Strategic Objective
• 1,000 Spokespeople: The Power (and Peril!) of Employee Bloggers
• Making Transparency Work: The New Ethics of Mass Communications
• Managing Information Overload Via New Communications Tools
• Organizational Power Dynamics Meets Participatory Communications
• Corporate Blogging Case Studies -Making It Work for You

The New Media & The New Face of Journalism

• Impact of Citizens Media
• Boundary Battles: What is a journalist and why does it matter?
• Blogging, The First Amendment and the Law: An Uneasy Cohabitation
• Beyond Print:  Podcasts and Video blogging
• A New Voice: Citizen Journalism and Disasters
• New Media Case Studies - Blending New Communications & MSM

Marketing

• Pay for Play: Blogging & WOMM
• Story Lines:  The Role of Fiction in Blogs and Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization and the New Communications Tools
• What Happens After Listening? Turning Conversations into New Products
• Weighting Influence: Who Counts and Why?
• Marketing Case Studies - Using RSS, SEM and other New Tools

In order to be considered as a speaker or panelist, please send us 250-500 words that describe your session/panel as it applies to one of these topics. You are welcome to suggest your own topics as well -- simply make sure you tell us to which of the four tracks it corresponds.

If you propose a session with one presenter, please send a biography of the presenter including information on previous speaking engagements. If you propose a panel, please include biographies and speaking histories for each participant. We suggest no more than four people on any one panel.

We invite vendors to propose panels or sessions, but we encourage them to feature customer case studies. No vendor pitches will be allowed. We will have a hands-on lab/expo area, and vendors who would like to exhibit their products/services should contact Jen McClure at: jenmcclure at gmail dot com for a sponsor prospectus.

Please send your speaking proposals to Elizabeth Albrycht (ealbrycht at gmail dot com) by October 30, 2005 at noon ET. Please direct any questions you might have on speaking opportunities to Elizabeth via email. For questions regarding exhibiting and sponsor opportunities, please contact Jen McClure at jenmcclure@gmail.com or via telephone at +1 (650) 331-0083.

The latest version of the New Communications Blogzine is available here.  We've redesigned it and added a variety of new content.  If you would like to contribute, please contact Jen McClure at jenm [at] ampcomm [dot] com.

Today we made the tough decision to postpone the New Communications Forum Europe. We have discovered that it is just too early in the technology adoption process here in Europe for PR and marketing professionals to invest in a two-day conference dedicated to blogs and other new tools.

We firmly intend on holding the Forum once we have judged the market is more ready, hopefully towards the end of this year.  We are exploring a variety of partnerships as well, in order to broaden the audience and share the risk. If you are interested in talking to us, please drop us a line.

We want to thank our speakers, our sponsors and those who did register for the Forum for their support and hard work preparing for the event. We will do our best to make sure that work isn't in vain, through planning a variety of online and other activities throughout 2005. Please stay tuned by subscribing to our blogzine, which you can do at our website, www.newcommforum.com.

The second edition of the New Communications Blogzine is ready for viewing.  If you want to receive it via email, you should sign up at the top of the New Communications Forum homepage.

In this issue we will continue to explore the issue of ethics in the blogosphere with an article by Jeremy Wright. In addition, we examine Internet libel with some thoughts from Elizabeth L. Fletcher, take a look at the new "Blogger's Bill of Rights," and present a primer from Dee Rambeau that guides us through how to increase Internet visibility using traditional and non-traditional methods, as well as other updates and insights from the New Communications Forum community.

I am happy to announce that Roland Piquepaille of Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is joining our Blogging and Journalism panel in Paris on April 6.  He will bring the perspective of a blogger who is now pitched as a journalist to our group.

Guillaume, Jen and I, after conferring with our speakers and sponsors, have decided to move the New Communications Forum Europe to April 5-6, 2005.  This will allow us to apply lessons learned and feedback from the US event, while enabling us to expand and strengthen the European event with additional partners.

The event will still be at Eurodisney, and it looks like all of our speakers will be able to make it.  We'll be updating event information as we move forward.  You can still register for the event and contact the hotel listed to make reservations for the April timeframe.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

A few people have asked us if Andy Lark is still planning on speaking at our event, given the recent news that he is leaving Sun.  He is indeed!

We are looking forward to hearing from him about how Sun has embraced blogging, and how we can apply the lessons they have learned to our own corporate blogging endeavors.

I'm always thrilled when a post to my blog generates a comment or two. A post I wrote a couple days ago has, as of this writing, produced 39 comments. Evidently the topic touched a nerve.

The post was a response to an editorial appearing on the front page of the current issue of the Ragan Report, a weekly newsletter covering corporate communications published by Lawrence Ragan Communications, Inc. In this piece, RR contributing editor David Murray complained that those of us blogging about public relations should chill out and stop trying to push the profession into the world of blogs. "The truth is, organizational blogging will move forward at its own pace and communicators don't need geeks like Hobson whipping them in the behind while whipping themselves into a lather," Murray wrote.

I penned a reply in the form of an open letter to David, whom I have known for a decade or so. And so it began. David commented almost immediately, as has Neville Hobson, whom Murray targeted specifically. Other bloggers weighted in, including Elizabeth Albrycht and BL Ochman. When the author of one comment asked to see just one example of a CEO blog that wasn't from a high-tech company, Neville suggested Tinbasher. Shortly after that, the CEO author of Tinbasher, Paul Woodhouse, posted his own comment. David Murray's co-editor and blogger Steve Crescenzo weighed in. Even Ragan President Mark Ragan contributed some thoughts.

(Neville pointed out in a separate e-mail to me that it's interesting that some of the more prominent PR bloggers, like Steve Rubel, have stayed out of the conversation, even though he suspects they're aware of it.)

For all of the digressions and tangents the comment-conversation has taken, the discussion as a whole makes its own case for why PR as a profession needs to pay attention to blogs. One comment asked why we couldn't just engage in this conversation over the phone. I replied that if we had, he never would have been aware of the conversation, nor would he have been able to contribute to it. Blogs are social entities that, in a large sense, fulfill the collaborative promise of the Internet by giving the average person a forum. In the old days, if people disagreed with something David wrote (and trust me, that happens a lot), their recourse would have been a letter to the editor that few would have seen. Today, it's out there for everyone to see. So far, my post and the 39 comments have produced three trackbacks, increasing the likelihood that even more people will read what the participants in the conversation have had to say -- and perhaps add their own comments as well.

Tapping into this on behalf of clients and employers is inevitable. As BL noted in one of her comments, nobody will read corporate flack hype masquerading as blogs. But genuine blogs that deal with organizations, issues, products, and services in a social context can wield great influence.

Further, traditional outlets like the Ragan Report -- and any organization that produces messages -- have lost the comfort zone of isolation. They need to recognize that they may craft a message, but once it has entered the public domain, the audience takes control. As the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto so aptly noted, "Markets are conversations." Blogs are, to date, the most powerful manifestation of that conversation.

So yes, it's important for those who understand these implications of blogs at this early stage to spread the word to those who have not yet caught on. As David suggests, blogs will evolve at their own pace. But those of us who earn our keep in the world of PR can't wait for that evolution to play itself out. As Eric Eggertson noted in one of the more recent comments, Margaret Mead said, "Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.""

Thank you to those who have let me know that our online registration is not working.  Our provider's server crashed (which it never does, but according to Murphy's Law, had to do so just as we launched the site).  So, I am very sorry for the inconvience, but please try back shortly.  It should be live soon.  There is a fax-back option available as well.

Update: We are back online.  If you have any problems, please post to comments here with a way to reach you.  Thanks!

As users of new communications tools, Guillaume and I actually blogged about our event during the planning stages, as we knew that as we invited speakers who were themselves bloggers, the word would quickly get out.  However, we also are using traditional PR tools such as the press release, to also put out the word that our event is open for business.  There are some people, particularly among our target audience, who are not yet reading blogs.  Therefore, having a wire release, with its resulting weblink propagation makes sense.  For those of you interested in reading the release, you will find it below. 

New Communications Forum: Blog University to be Launched in US in January,Europe in February 2005

New Event First Focused Educational Forum for Public Relations and Marketing Professionals to Learn About How to Use Blogs and Other New Communications Tools

Emeryville, Calif. USA/Paris, FRANCE - November 9, 2004 -- New Communications Forum: Blog University will be held at the Silverado Resort in Napa, Calif. on January 26-27, 2005 and near Paris, France on February 7-8, 2005. New Communications Forum is an intensive new conference series specifically designed to teach public relations and marketing professionals how to use networked media, including blogs, wikis and RSS feeds, for corporate branding and communications initiatives.

Co-produced by PR Planet and Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications - two strategic communications consulting firms that have been pioneering the use of new communications tools in their work with clients -- this new conference series will provide an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the future of communications. Presenters and instructors will be senior communications practitioners - public relations and marketing communications professionals, as well as journalists who are using these new tools and technologies. They will share their in-the-trenches experiences as early adopters of these new tools. Workshops and sessions will include:

* Corporate Blogging: Getting Started
* How to Pitch Bloggers
* Forming Communities Online: Group and Conference Blogging and Wikis
* Using Blogs to Enhance Employee Communications
* The Blog's New Role in Crisis Communications
* Blog Publicity & Measuring Success/Tracking 

"There are many blogging conferences popping up these days," commented Elizabeth Albrycht, chief strategist for A.M.P. Communications. "This conference is different because it is specifically designed for public relations and marketing communications professionals. This framework informs all of our workshops, panels and discussion groups. Experienced public relations and marketing communications professionals who are also bloggers are teaching our conference sessions.  Our goal is to teach others based on the lessons we have learned from our own experiences."

"We have designed an intensive, hands-on experience, through small-group workshops that will be highly interactive, exciting panel discussions by journalists and branding gurus, plus an entire afternoon of small group discussions so every person can ask questions and share their insights," added Guillaume du Gardier, president, PR Planet. "We are also inviting vendors to demonstrate a wide variety of tools and services designed to help communications professionals better plan, execute, manage and measure their new communications efforts."

For more information about the New Communications Forum 2005, visit http://www.newcommforum.com. For media and analyst registration requests, contact Jennifer McClure of A.M.P. Communications at (510) 868-8152 x200, or email jenm@ampcomm.com.

About New Communications Forum: Blog University
New Communications Forum 2005 is a conference specifically designed to teach public relations and marketing professionals how to harness the power of networked media, including blogs, wikis and RSS feeds, for corporate branding and communications initiatives. The forum provides an in-depth, hands-on exploration of the future of communications. Presenters and instructors are PR and marketing professionals and journalists who have pioneered the use of these new tools and technologies. They will share their in-the-trenches experiences as early adopters of these new tools.  More information can be found at http://www.newcommforum.com.

For More Information:
Jennifer McClure
New Communications Forum
+1 (650) 331-0083
jmcclure@sncr.org

Posted by Elizabeth Albrycht on September 30, 2005 in News | Comments and Trackbacks are closed