<![CDATA[Blog Business Summit:
On July 19, Blog Business Summit speakers, bloggers, and press will converge for Blogging the Stratosphere 1.0. The event is an exclusive flight onboard Connexion One, a Boeing 737-400 used to demonstrate the Connexion by Boeing signature high-speed in-flight Internet service. In addition to a sneak preview of new service features, attendees will have the opportunity to meet with members of the Connexion by Boeing team, hear about Connexion’s participation in the upcoming Blog Business Summit, and enjoy dinner.
A couple years ago, I started a small firestorm when I pointed out that some bloggers accepted paid travel from Microsoft. Here I go, again.
The event described above sounds really cool, because it includes bloggers in a preview of a technology-based service that was once reserved for the press. What I want the bloggers involved in this to hear: These fabricated news events were the downfall of the mainstream press and should be scrupulously avoided. They are designed to make you say, “Gee, that’s so cool,” and identify with the companies behind a new product or service; they are not designed for serious discourse or examination of what’s on offer. Looking the engineer who oversaw a project in the eye does give you some added insight, though it’s insight that you should be able to get by calling them on the phone or meeting over lunch on your dime, not their expense account—after all, you’re the one seeking information. When you’re on a special “bloggers and press only” flight, the rules are set by the hosts and you’re not in a position where questions will get answered based on mutual trust and respect.
For those of you in the PR business, I urge you to think about new ways to engage. The dialogue available to you through legitimate engagement with bloggers and press in the conversational market are far more valuable and cannot be bought so cheaply. You’ll get what you pay for, which ain’t much if you treat bloggers like Just More Press.
Technorati Tags: blogging, ethics, press
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8 replies on “Let's think of some new ways to talk”
Mitch, I think you’re projecting some assumptions onto this flight that are a bit of a leap IMHO. Also, I’d give the bloggers a bit more credit that they are capable of critical thinking and inqusition.
The intent is to open things up to the participants so that they can check out the service. It will be a small group and we’re all just getting on a plane to look at the equipment and poke around. There will be engineers on board to answer any questions that come up.
Not sure how you make the leap to “…and you’re not in a position where questions will get answered based on mutual trust and respect.” That’s 180 degrees off of the intent of the flight and how it’s been structured.
It’s true that the dinner portion of the evening will be highly strctured and regimented, ONLY Reininger wines will be served. 🙂
Mitch,
Thanks for the post and I understand your concerns, however bloggers have been blogging Connexion for months now, all on their own. Connexion saw this and wanted to engage the blogosphere to show new technology and hear what else bloggers thought. There’s no better way than to do that on their demo plane. We’ve been giving no restrictions or scripts. Now, I speak as a blogger, not media and they’ll be there as well. Prior to this event, Steve and I we’re given a Tarmac demo and first thing Steve did was download the Fantastic Four trailer and I Im’d my wife. The tech staff answered my incessant questions and it was a good experience.
Steve,
With all due respect, I know what I am talking about and your defense of this PR stunt only proves that you don’t recognize how typical this strategy has been for the past decade. Yes, engineers will be there and the intent is to get people to try and write about the service, not just to try it.
It’s not a leap to conclude that a company presenting “exclusive” access to information is not offering a level playing field for interlocutors. Buying dinner and serving wine is, frankly, not something that encourages criticism. That’s the hard reality of the marketer-journalist dyad and adding bloggers to that mix does nothing to change the power relationship. I’m not denigrating bloggers by saying that, I’m saying that the structure of the event is flawed, because I watched this kind of event sucker hundreds of journalists over the years.
Mitch
Gee, did I hit a nerve? Two postings by the guys who arranged the event in seven minutes….
DL, you need not restrict anything or script the event to queer the critical thinking of the people involved. These events are friendly, for sure, but friendly discussion is different than a critical discussion. Bloggers may be better at asking questions that are “hard” or “rude,” but the events are designed to reduce the criticality of questions; that’s why there are drinks available.
Having covered a president as part of the White House press corp, I know there is a lot of the same drinking and making merry going on, so that the press starts to identify with the administration. That identification with the subject is the death of hard reasoning by many—not all—journalists, and bloggers are just as human.
I’m not damning the event or you for participating in it; I am merely pointing out that it is rife with risks for everyone involved, including Boeing, because it does not break from established practices. We could use some new ideas!
If we don’t go into such things with our eyes open to the risks (as bloggers), then we’re just going to repeat previous mistakes. I’m just saying and, frankly, I’d pass on the opportunity to IM from the sky just to IM from the sky and would write about my real experience as a paying customer when the service is actually available on a flight I booked myself. That way, I can judge the service when fully loaded and I can be sure I’m not seeing the service tuned for a single flight.
Let me just add: I am a Boeing shareholder. I want them to do well, as any success will help pay for my kids’ college education.
After posting voiciferously this weekend about how companies that don’t respond quickly to blogger comments are dinosaurs, I figured I better practice what I preach. 🙂
Some good points here, I agree that it’s time for new approaches to how companies dialog with press and that trying the service on an airline is a real-world test. The problem is that airlines won’t let you anywhere near the inside of the cabinets to see how it all works. A big part of this is to let the geeks see inside the guts of the system.
However, calling the event, “the guts of Connexion,” wouldn’t have sounded as good as, “Blogging the Stratosphere.”
There are lots of ways to let geeks see inside. Our work at Persuadio suggests that extensive documentation is one of the most-referenced sources of links by bloggers. With several technical products we’ve tracked there is ample evidence that good docs can tip the flow of traffic significantly away from general and somewhat uninformed comments. People use good documentation to make informed comments and offer constructive criticism.
If the bloggers who attend the event aren’t skilled technical writers (or illustrators), they will not be talking about the guts in any real detail. Boeing would do well to combine its flight with a really extensive set of technical briefings on the Web.
As for responding to bloggers, I think that a blanket “answer all postings” approach is misguided. You have to know who is seriously engaged, who is interested long-term in the product or service they are writing about, and which bloggers get people talking—all things we do at Persuadio, too—in order to pick your blog battles. Otherwise, you run a significant risk of turning a one-time crank into a career critic who posts negatively about your company just for the fun and press it earns him or her.
It used to be that press credentials “bought” serious attention, but now you can’t assume that just because someone has a press of their own that they need to be responded to immediately and with the same gravity as anyone else. Instead, you need to find the people who are seriously interested in dialogue and improving your product/service, so that every word you post can build on the message that you really do care about customers.