Three Seattle Talks

Just back to the Bay Area from Seattle where the weather was slightly better. Robert and I spoke together at Microsoft, Amazon and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.  Robert has already filed an excellent and observant post.  He had a fourth talk, which I managed to keep out of.

What inspired me the most, a little to my surprise, were the folks at the Chamber of Commerce. These were folks, as Robert puts it, who were hungry to learn. I met a wedding planner who blogs, and an architect and carpet cleaner, among others, who plan to soon follow suit. This is heartening for me.  The day has finally come where small businesses can use technology tools to elevate and differentiate themselves and it is heartening to find so many in one room plunging into the blogosphere.

Amazon, to my surprise, turned out to be just about the toughest audience we faced.  We got a great many questions challenging any contention that Amazon would benefit from blogging in any way. They voiced fears of losing control, IP, blog fraud, nasty comments and so on.  Additionally, there was also a contention that Amazon uses enough mechanisms--forums, comments etc., to know what their customer thinks and that the brand should speak for all the employees. This profoundly disappoints me.  While Robert and I received many words of encouragement following our talk, I left with the personal sense that it will be a tropical day in Seattle before any blogging between companies and customers is forthcoming from Amazon. I really hope that I'm proven wrong on this one.

By contrast, the audience yesterday at Microsoft was among the warmest and most enthusiastic of any we have faced. Yeah, it's Robert's home turf, but I don't think that was what was happening. I think it's that they get blogging.  They enjoy being part of a company whose leaders seem to encourage their blogging.  They are aware of how blogging has taken a tarnished image and improved it so much.  They have learned that customers respond more warmly to people like themselves more than than they do to brands. brands.

I love these Naked Conversations talks  But what I love is the interesting dialogue with people who attend.  We walk away wiser from every presentation.  What we hear s so much more valuable to us than what we get to say. Audiences everywhere continue to surprise us and we love it.

(NOTE--I just cleaned up a couple of typos here and republished.)

Comments

[Jane Genova]

Shel, since amazon.com was a pioneer in social media -- e.g. publishing readers' reviews even if negative -- I can understand how they might be reluctant to tamper with a formula that is working. In their tactics, blogging might muddy the waters, particularly in customers' minds.

Incidentally, amazon.com has been a leader in a number of other ways, including setting a marketplace for used books. That is scaring the daylights out of conventional book stores which resist moving in that direction.

[Dennis Howlett]

I'm with you on this Shel - it's the audience I try to reach through my accounting professionals' site. It may not be glamorous but it is the trusted advisor who will be the initial rallying point. (IMO) Remember that small business is not organised in the same way that large PR/marketing and geeks are. So how do you reach them?

That's where I believe the professional can add serious value - they can give people a reason to get into social software/media. At present there are only a handful of examples around the world.

[Jim Minatel]

Shel: I was looking for the blogging plumber last night. You hadn't found him when you finished the book, I still haven't either. I actually need a plumber. And it's not an emergency. It's the perfect case for how a local business could reach customers.
The carpet cleaner gives me hope. If a plumber in Indy were blogging well, I might have someone I'd trust enough to help me navigate the confusing maze of water softener options and pseudo-science web sites. Instead all I get are 500,000 watersoftener sites telling me not to trust anything anyone else tells me.

[Stephen]

It is fun to have a conversation versus a tell. We all hate to be told and love to share our knowledge. Given the opportunity, you will get many people involved. The challenge as in talking in blogging is creating a tone that will involve people. I just published my 100th post and am still struggling that more people are not getting involved in the conversation. Any thoughts?

[Robert Scoble]

Stephen: I clicked on your name to check out your blog and got thrown to a corporate static 1990s Web site. That might be a hint. First, give me a blog.

[Stephen]

Thanks Robert, my blog is linked off our site, but is http://pxltd.typepad.com.

[Dennis Howlett]

Robert - your lawyer video is one of the best I've seen - valuable to my audience. Closely related and many of the same problems.

[Boo Radley]

Seattle has a lot of nice days in the summer. High heat, low humidity.

Disappointing but hardly surprising to see someone who is supposedly a renowed 'blogger' on the defensive stooping to worn out cliches.

That's what I get for clicking through on a /. article about whining bloggers I guess.

[Robert Scoble]

I answer Werner's questions and more on this post: http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/31/much-ado-about-blogging-scoble-you-didnt-answer-the-question/

[John Welch]

Did you guys approach it as "Is blogging good for Amazon, and Amazon's business model?", with some homework to back it up, or did you just go in and say "Blogging was good for these other businesses that may or may not have a completely different business model than you, so therefore, it will be just as good for you".

From everything i've read, your presentation seemed to skew towards the latter, and you got the reaction you unknowingly sought.

[kendragrandeur]

Hi,
I'm a 37 years old woman, married and with children. I have an employ as bar tender, part-time, so I can use the time to take care of the house and kids and it goes pretty good like this. During the never ending spent in my house i like to do something, in particular that is watching soap operas on tv on my satellite tv . I also adore to look at comedies. I don't evoidnot at every hour but often to look at the news either. I am enough happy with my life and especially about my kids. I just hope to remain in good health, so just an normal happy life.
Bye
Ruby