The Convergence ’09 aftermath – liveblogging/streaming speakers #cvg09
In the course of the past couple of years, I’ve liveblogged more events than I can actually remember. Honestly, I really can’t recall right now how many events. I’ve attended numerous talks and taken copious notes from the speakers in order to:
(a) provide people who have been unable to attend the event a chance to see what they missed
(b) keep my own notes for review for after the event
(c) offer a recap of the event for those who attended but weren’t able to follow all the discussions for any reason
I’ve used Cover It Live for the majority of my liveblogs (although I’ve tested ScribbleLive and also used the normal WordPress platform (updating as the liveblog went by). When the internet wireless connection has been down I have used BlogDesk.
David Plouffe’s speech at Cossette Convergence ’09 was widely live-tweeted. My notes combined with the integrated Twitter stream ended up being pretty much a complete, full-on liveblog.
Credit: Miss604 on Flickr
As Plouffe spoke (and even before) several participants wondered why video and recording and photographs of Plouffe could only be captured during the first five minutes. Well, the answer may be found here – Plouffe is exclusively represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau. This organization, by the way, offers web-based services that feature their speakers (as you can see in their description here). This may explain why the WSB might not want to have their speaker be full-on captured on video streams. They may fear that they’d lose opportunities for revenue (I haven’t contacted the WSB so I can’t say for sure, but it would seem that way). If that’s the case, then I am wondering why would they think that, given that recording labels and even emerging artists are putting their full content out there on the web and revenue streams keep coming!
Coincidentally, I was reading an article by Mathew Ingram from the Globe and Mail about how liveblogging is transforming traditional journalism. At Northern Voice and again yesterday at Convergence journalists were reminded of the fact that the new normal is having your audience co-create, re-hash and mash-up your content. Nancy White wrote an excellent post where she referred to the way in which now geek conferences are live-tweeted, live-blogged, live-streamed, and it’s perfectly acceptable. Nancy also did a phenomenal analog, visual thinking map of Rob Cottingham’s Keynote at Northern Voice ’09 which you can find here.
The problem that seems to have arisen from the Plouffe speech is that giving a talk about the use of social media and not having video of yourself recorded (regardless of the legal implications) will make your credibility to (predictably) go down. For example, I am giving a talk at Social Media Club in Victoria on May 26th. I suspect (and I expect) that it will be live-blogged, live-tweeted, videographed, etc. Does that worry me in terms of loss of expected/potential revenue for speaker fees for future events? Not in the least.
What I have learned in my years of giving talks and presenting papers and giving keynote addresses at conferences is that, regardless of how many people record your presentation, and how broadly and widely distributed it is, if you are a good speaker, people will want to come and listen to you. Even better, they will want to talk to you AFTER you have given your speech. And they might even book you for their next event. Several of my good friends, including Shane Gibson and Tod Maffin, are frequent speakers and they have had video recorded of them rather frequently. And their speaking gigs are still in high demand.
Much of the value of attending a conference is not listening to the wisdom of individual presenters, it’s talking to them and to other attendees during the breaks and after the event itself. For example, I was delighted to meet both Susan Ormiston and Sean Holman in person. Had I not attended Convergence, I would have missed that opportunity.
I would hope that the WSB and other similar organizations may get on with the program, jump on the bandwagon and understand the implications that a globally wired world has for the delivery of key messages. The scalability property of information flow was exploited by the Obama campaign, it is just a tad ironic that the Plouffe speech at Convergence ’09 will not reach a much broader audience simply because of out-dated policies.
I hope to make it clear to everyone what I said a few weeks ago:
technological change and the evolution of our information society fast out-paces the speed to which people can adapt to said change
That doesn’t mean that we can’t adapt. We are a resilient species. We should be able to.
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Interesting thoughts, and quite ironic indeed that Plouffe is represented by an organization so stuck in a ‘proprietary’ mindset.
Just out of curiosity, when is your next speaking engagement in Vancouver? I realized that I’ve actually never been to one of yours.
Raul I concur with your comments. Speakers think that by capturing their presentation people won’t pay to hear them. Are they afraid that organizers won’t pay them the rate they charge if they actually see the presentation? Or do they only have a few presentations prepared and rarely change or update them?
@ Sean – I won’t be giving a full-fledged talk but I’ll be speaking with Shane Gibson and Lorraine Murphy at the next Vancouver Bloggers Meetup (May 28th) with Colleen Coplick as the moderator. We’ll be speaking about all things social media etiquette. My next full-fledged talk will be May 26th in Victoria at the Social Media Club, and I am sure it’ll be live-tweeted, live-streamed, etc.
@ Marc – I am not exactly sure if they rarely change or update them. My social media presentations have evolved but usually have one or two central elements (like the fact that I’m interested in network behavior and the fact that I examine the four properties of information flow). But I always give each talk a different spin. I’d be VERY boring if I didn’t do that!
Raul, historically speakers protect their talks and PowerPoint presentations. I know Tod Maffin did a blog post about not giving people his PowerPoint slides. I have recently had a blogger / sales speaker take a page out of one of my programs and post the material as their own.
One thing to realize about a lot of speakers including high paid ones is many have never had an original thought but they can tell a story well and claim it as their own. The speaking industry in general does not have the same level of integrity around attribution as most bloggers have.
With that said I give away more material via video, audio, and blogs than most in my business but I have also seen others using it without attribution in their training and seminars. With that said I have chosen to contribute broadly and deeply as the upside out weighs the negatives. I also send about 3 cease and desist letters a year as a result.
Some speakers (and not necessarily Plouffe) only have one monologue or keynote and just find new audiences. If everyone already heard the one hour speech online the Speakers Bureau may be afraid that demand to hear his story or the use of it by other speakers may diminish the demand.
It’s a little bit of a “Sell the Sizzle and not the Steak” mentality which is counter intuitive to social media marketing. A lot of people talk about Gary Vaynerchuk in their seminars and courses and it only increases demand to hear him speak and hire him.
I hope more speakers continue to not share. It’s only going to help me market myself better!
Hi Raul,
On behalf of Cossette, I wanted to say thanks very much for your thoughtful feedback.
I understand the concerns you have raised about recording throughout the first keynote presentation of the day at Convergence 09. Ideally we would have wanted Mr. Plouffe’s speech to be completely open to coverage, in the same way all other sessions at the conference were. Unfortunately that’s not the parameters that the speaker’s bureau that he works with provided, and our understanding is that this is not just for him, but that these are the same parameters they provide for the majority of their speakers. It’s important to note that we have provided specific feedback to the Washington Speaker’s Bureau based on conversations like this, and I think it is something they will need to look at closely, particularly for those who will be speaking at conferences on social media where the focus is on being open and transparent.
Thanks again for coming Raul and we look forward to having you involved again at Convergence 2010.
@ Shane – I am not in the speaking industry despite the fact that I do keynote speeches and the such, but I can completely understand where you are coming from. I’m not sure how to solve this issue yet, but I plan to share in the same way as you – the sizzle not the steak
– but I also think I should share a bit more as well. I don’t know… I see your point, but it’s hard.
@ Sandy – Thanks Sandy. I hope that my point has been made clear, it’s important to keep Convergence a great event, and we need to make sure that speakers know that there is an expectation of openness and transparency.