Traces of Inspiration

SXSWi: The Global Microbrand: Are Blogs, Suits and Wine the New Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll?

• March 13th, 2007
• Filed Under: Blogging, SXSW, Kathy Sierra, Gabe Rivera

I can’t believe it. This is the last panel of the conference. Judging the title and the panelists, what I’m expecting is… a fun panel.

Panelists:

• David Parmet, Marketing Begins At Home LLC
• Gabe Rivera, Techmeme
• Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users
• Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid.com

Notes:

• Other title: “Because real jobs suck”
• Techmeme is fueled by other people’s microbrands
• Hugh inspired Kathy to blog
  • Kathy’s Technorati ranking higher than Hugh now
  • Also higher than the O’Reilly radar
• Kathy’s Global Microbrand Virtues
  • Be Grateful
    • Biggest one
    • We’re lucky people would take a minute to read us
    • 55 million blogs
  • Be Humble
    • Why am I not getting any readers? Your blog is all about you.
    • Job is to make people feel better about themselves (in a legitimate way)
    • Let the reader say “I’m Brilliant!”
  • Be Patient
  • Be Brave
  • Show Respect
    • Crafting the images, cartoons, charts, gives back for the user’s time
    • Give them superpowers
  • Be Generous
    • Give away advice, show them how to do something
    • “The funny thing is, when I worked at Sun, nobody cared what Kathy Sierra said.”
    • Don’t blog the cat
    • Don’t name drop
  • Be Motivating
• It’s not about YOU.
• Hugh: The nice thing about being a blogger with a lot of readers is you get so many smart people landing in your lap
  • More beneficial to link to your readers than to link to A-listers
  • Say nice things about your readers
  • Hugh gives wine to bloggers and folks who set up Geek Dinners
  • Used to sell 40,000 cases of wine per year. Sold 40,000 last week
• Kathy: Respect people’s time with the posts you make
  • Often you can get 90% from the pictures without reading the post
  • If she’s busy and can’t add value, she’s not going to clutter your feedreader
• Hugh gave a great story about a tailor in England he set up with a blog (English Cut)
  • Never checks stats, just focuses on making the best suits in the world for the customers
  • It’s not about reaching the most people, it’s about reaching the right people
• Tara Hunt (from crowd): You can blog for your audience or you can blog for yourself
• If you try to be Michael Arrington, you’re going to fail. He’s being himself. You should be yourself.
• Kathy has a seizure disorder, and a reader sent her an alternative to the treatments that weren’t working.
  • She wouldn’t be doing this if not for that reader
• Karma:
  • Dave lost his job
  • Hugh blogged to hire Dave Parmet
  • When English Cut needed some PR help, Hugh talked to Dave
  • Dave got them in NYTimes
• Chris Messina: Blog as if you’re writing to only 3 or 4 people.
  • Some even start blogging in email to make it more personal
  • The best way to get approval is not to need it
• What do you say when you try to talk to a girl at a bar?
  • You don’t talk like marketers
  • You don’t say “Hi, I’m Hugh McLeod, this is my sexual history, do you want to go to bed?”
  • You ask about what they think of the weather, ballgame, etc.

I said this would be a fun panel. It was. But it was also inspiring. The inspiration should get its own post separately from the notes here. I’ll follow up soon.

Best panel of the entire conference.