Dell have joined the conversation

While the delegates at the "Blogging For Business" seminar yesterday were discussing the need to respond to critical comments from bloggers one of the delegates mentioned Jeff Jarvis and Dell. This is a person who criticised Dell for not honouring a callout service agreement. Only he did it on his blog and it got picked up by the blogosphere. Dell refused to respond publicly and as a result fanned a lot of criticism of the company, and arguably affected share values quite significantly. That was back in June 2005. This sparked my interest and I decided to ferret about on the Internet to get more background detail. And in doing so I found Dell now have their own blog - One2One - check it out. You'll find a post about the Flaming Laptop. The interesting thing is yet again someone somewhere was expressing negative comments about the company. But this time Dell have responded and whilst there have been quite a few negative comments left about the affair there are comments that offer differing views. And what has happened is that a much more balanced picture of the situation has emerged. Obviously Dell has learnt that the blogosphere isn't going to go away and has decided to join the conversation. I think this will turn out to be a classic case study of a large corporation learning how to engage with customers, fans and critics through the medium of the blog - and therefore definitely one to stick in your RSS feed reader. Thanks for sharing that with us Coral.

Blogging For Business Seminar Success

Yesterday's breakfast seminar at Washingborough Hall went very smoothly I'm pleased to say. The event (run by Business ICT) began with a full english breakfast - always a good start! And a great opportunity to network. Steve Cargill of the Lincolnshire Broadband Initiative gave a short presentation on developments with their roll out of grant assisted Advanced Internet services. And what surprised and pleased me was the aim of having 70% coverage of Lincolnshire. All I can say is I hope the business community takes full advantage of what's on offer. Moving on, after Steve's presentation I took the hot seat and delivered a "Blogging For Business" talk covering the basics of blogging and the strategies associated with such an undertaking. Delegates took an active part in dabate and raised some pertinent concerns, which showed a serious attitude towards the resonsibilities involved in such an undertaking. Incidently, thank you to Richard Robinson of Integrated Resources Management for tracking down the sheetmetal company I alluded to when giving an example of a blog that had given a real boost to a company's bottom line. And when you consider the sheetmetal industry is not the most glamourous on the planet that company (Butler Sheetmetal) has done exceptionally well. There was a lot to cover and I found it difficult deciding, prior to the event, what could be left out but still give a balanced view. All in all though, I was very pleased with the positive feedback since the event, and look forward to giving more talks on the subject of blogging. So, thanks to everyone, organisers and delegates alike for all your support, and I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Blogging For Business Seminar

I'm giving a "Blogging For Business" breakfast seminar on 26^th July, which is being run by Business ICT (Success Matrix) at The Washingborough Hall Hotel. Subjects covered will include:

• Introduction to blogs
• The business case for blogs
• Planning to implement blogs
• Blog marketing
• Blogging policies

Of course, I may add to this list, but hopefully this will give you an idea of what to expect. It should be fun, and I expect there will be plenty of lively debate. If you'd like to come along Patricia Jackson, Business ICT, is handling bookings and can be reached on 01522 574140 or by email: patricia.jackson [at] successmatrix [dot] co [dot] uk I understand places are limited to 30 delegates.