I was talking with some of the other speakers at Saturday’s Spotlight on Your Career mini-conference when the concept of blogging conference presentations came up. One of the other speakers mentioned that she didn’t like people blogging her presentations. When asked why, she gave the following two reasons:
- Many time her presentations deal with the “latest tips and tricks” on her subject. Having someone transcribe them onto the blog creates an archive of the presentation. Since her presentation is rarely the same twice, she doesn’t want anyone finding outdated information online.
- She felt that if enough bloggers posted the information from the conference this might lead to reduced attendance since potential attendees might feel that since the information will be blogged, there isn’t as much of an incentive to attend the conference.
My inital response was that on the first item, maybe she had a point. She is also an independent so she’s giving these presentations to make money for herself and her business, not just for professional development and some extra cash.
On the second point I’m more hesitant to agree with her. As a conference blogger I feel I’m giving those that couldn’t attend the conference a window on the events I attend. I’m not so sure that anyone has ever said, “Well, since there’ll be bloggers there, I don’t need to attend.” Maybe in the future this will happen but I doubt that it will happen enough to noticeably reduce the number of attendees at a conference.
Anyone else want to chime in on this one and share their opinion?
I love to read summaries of presentations that I indeed DID attend. Helps me process and pick up on things I might have missed or misinterpreted.
I wished I had known about the event, I might have attended.
I disagree with both points.
Would her response have been the same had she been given exposure by The Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News? I think not. She would have benefitted from the added publicity and exposure. Blogs would do the same, and in fact with the long tail theory, her publicity would be longer lasting using the blog. In addition, if the information is beneficial enough, more people will attend. This does not show much confidence in the presentation.
In response to Jim’s comments, the presenter in question is of the highest quality (I’ve attended several of her presentations in the past) so I wouldn’t worry about that issue. As for the comparrison to the Post or RMN that’s not the type of coverage she’s worried about. She’s worried about those bloggers (myself included I must admit) that are virtually transcribing her slides and posting them on their blogs. A newspaper wouldn’t reprint the content to that extent.
I don’t know; I think the fact that her presentation is constantly changing argues against her first point. If I came across a blogged presentation from a year ago on “top tech trends,” it would be obvious that it wasn’t current. If she was talking about things I wish I’d known about a year ago, then I’d seek her out in the future.
As for the second point, I can’t imagine not attending a conference that I could afford and wanted to attend simply because I knew that it would be blogged. I agree with you that it can be great when you can’t attend a conference (which why I look forward to all those CIL2006 posts), but I also agree with Greg above who likes to see what people say about sessions he did attend. Blogs should ideally be conversations.
Having blogged a conference at least once, I would say even with a host of bloggers to “cover” the conference, that will not deter people from attending, or at least it shouldn’t. I’ve yet to get a cold brew and a pizza over a blog! Conference bloggers are capturing “essence of the moment”, sometimes two different views from two different corners of the room. If anything it should provide augmentation of the conference (sessions we couldn’t get to because 29 other things were scheduled against them). The occasional “verbatim” transcript of a keynote or controversial meeting simply allows a more accurate composite to be drawn.
I think the bloggers can also help the presenters in a way for evaluation, as you suddenly realize how little you say in your presentation is “byte-able”. Being lucky enough to have more than one blogger in a room, for a more composite “review”, should be useful feedback to the presenter as well.
Do we blog what we want to hear? Or do we blog what we want to say?