MarCom Professional

Thanks to Nico Macdonald for inviting me to chair two sessions at his Media Futures Conference next week.

I am going to be up there with Alex McKie and the guys from Plot…. Wicked!

11.00: Research in the real world – Alex McKie

11:30: Meet the people formerly known as… users – Gill Wildman and Nick Durrant, Plot

He twittered it here.

Really looking forward to this.

I piled in late to the Chinwag Live event last night, which took place at The Slug and Lettuce on Wardour Street, Soho. I managed to get a fairly good seat at the back though (complete with clear route to the bar), so got to catch plenty of the action.

The event was billed as follows:

"First the music track was decoupled from the physical product and the "long player" album, then the newspaper article was severed from the website. The same wave rolled over the blog post, the TV show, the photo, the vlog, and now the tweet...

It seems like everything's gone micro. As content is disaggregated into ever smaller pieces and syndicated and widgetised at accelerating speed, how is the media landscape being re-shaped, and who are the winners in this scenario?

Are media owners caught between a rock and a hard place? They've got to get their content out there, but context and branding work differently in the world of mashups and aggregator

More...

I had the pleasure of working at my brother's (Tony Pulizzi) gig last night at the Winchester in Lakewood, Ohio. Tony opened last night for Alan Holdsworth, one of the most prominent guitarists of the last 50 years (Musician Magazine voted Holdsworth one of the top 100 greatest guitarists of all time).

The Tony Pulizzi Trio (Tony on guitar and vocals, Walter Barnes Jr. on bass and Elijah Gilmore on Drums) have been growing in exposure by opening for bands like Holdsworth and Spyro Gyra (Elijah and Tony pictured to the right). One reason is their use of content marketing.

A band makes money on a show through what they receive as a percentage of the gate or flat fee, in addition to what product they can sell at the event. More...

In case you missed it, the SHINE Unconference took place over the weekend. I blogged it where I could, but just found the sessions to be too engaging to really take the time and write it up in-depth.

Instead, I'll point you towards shine.socialreporter.net where a team of bloggers covered the event properly, a Qik event page with lots of glorious video, and a Flickr set with all its photographic goodness - including this one of me pitching my social enterprise idea to a crowded room:

Meanwhile, over on UnltdWorld - the social network for social entreprenuers - those who attended were asked for feedback on the event: More...

For the next few days I'll be at SHINE, an 'unconference' that (according to the website) is "dedicated to connecting, informing and inspiring hundreds of Social Entrepreneurs."

"For three days, The Bargehouse at the heart of London’s Southbank will host a mash-up gathering, an ‘Un’Conference that will invigorate your thinking and give you the practical help to advance your business, whatever stage you’re at.

Long presentations, boring speeches and being trapped in closed rooms are out. Peer-to-peer exchanges, info-snacking and flexible sessions are in."

I'll be keeping notes and blogging when I can, but you can follow the event on Twitter through @shine2008 or go to shine.socialreporter.net for more in-depth coverage. More...

We're hosting our annual journo pub quiz upstairs at the Blue Posts, Kingly Street, London W1 on Wednesday 7 May. Give Lucy Wimmer a shout if you want to put together a team.

Billions of pounds is traded everyday here on the Internet - do you see any of it? Probably not much. If you do make money online you don't get those billions, I'm guessing. So who does?

Well, the vast majority of the money that is spent online goes to just a handful of companies - Google, Amazon, Ebay and Microsoft. Even Tesco, the leading British retailer, with its millions of pounds of income each week online is a minnow in comparison. So the rest of us, earning less than those millions each week, are the "also rans" of the Internet profit world.

That does not stop people dreaming about making millions online. More...

I can't remember how this event came up on my radar, but I've got a social enterprise project in the works so I thought that the SHINE Unconference was worth checking out:

• 600 social entrepreneurs
• 3 days
• 39 sessions (and counting)
• 1 warehouse on London’s Southbank
• and me!
  

"Welcome to SHINE, an event dedicated to connecting, informing and inspiring hundreds of Social Entrepreneurs.

This event is created by social entrepreneurs for social entrepreneurs, whether you’re just starting out or more established.

Long presentations, boring speeches and being trapped in closed rooms are out. More...