Well, I never thought I would be so busy that it would take nearly a month to finish up my reporting on Syndicate, but so it goes.
Before I get to the final sessions, and my chats with the "bad boys of PR," I want to remember to share one observation. At and after the conference, there was a some gnashing and wailing that not more marketing and PR people attended this conference, even though the content was extremely germane to their practice areas. The reason is simple: they don’t see the value. Why? First, the conference sounds techy – syndicate, RSS, all sorts of terms that make marketing folk blanche. Second, it is expensive against the perceived value. Finally, and most important,white men may not dance, but they sure do blog and podcast. With a few exceptions, the speaker list was a list of insiders, and mostly white guys. It’s a club. No one wants to go to a club meeting when they are going to be the outsider sitting alone during the coffee break.
I may sound like a broken record, but this is why I am such a fan of BlogHer, and the truly participatory community that it has engendered. See you there!
Back to Syndicate. At this late date, a synopsis of the two final sessions seems somewhat redundant. So in reverse order, let me tackle first Doc Searls and then the PR session, and simply give you some impressions.
This was the first time I saw Doc Searls speak, and I definitely see why he is in such demand. He gives a good show. He spoke about the differences between the static web and the live web — which by the way are far more evocative for me than the terms 1.0 and 2.0. One of his concepts that I really liked was the "rolling snowball" — "if it’s a good idea, it can’t just be yours." The value chain is replaced by the value constellation. Attention has been replaced by Intention. It’s not advertising, it’s people searching for info. He also talked a bit about the gesture stuff, which is still a bit unclear to me. But that’s okay. Then he ended with a bunch of claims, just to get people thinking. Here are the ones I was able to capture.
A free market is not ‘your choice of site’
The consumer is a relic of the industrial economy
The Net is not a place where ‘consumers’ ‘access’ ‘content’ — it is about production
Branding is for cattle. Respect is for human beings
Everything and everybody is becoming unbundled (mentioned Terry Heaton as a leader on this thought)
TV as we know it is already dead (1 in 3 teens can’t name the leading networks, FCC moving TV off branded channels by 09)
Clear Channel killed commercial radio. Listeners are resurrecting it.
Hi-def will be cheap and standard by the end of the year
Email marketing is creepy. So is SEO. (My opinion: especially SEO)
Livest part of the live web is cell phones.
Everybody is already an influencer. We’re all getting networked.
Closed formats are doomed. (Ed comment: Amen) Majority of desktops and laptops in 5 years willbe LINUX (lively conversation here)
Radio is going to be fine as long as they put them in cars
On branding: it’s not brand, it’s reputation
Next post: The PR Boys at Syndicate.
Tags: Syndicate, Doc Searls
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Kami Huyse says
This is very timely Susan, I discovered the concept of “attention” through some writings by Doc over the past few weeks and wrote about it in my blog. Who showed up but some of the leading thinkers in the attention area. I hope to tackle Intention and this whole “gestures” bit next week. Your input is valuable.
Why I wasn’t at Syndicate? Well, first, I have limited money to throw around and second, I am still not in the information loop on these things.
I think I would rather go to the New Comm forum next year if they are having one.
Susan Getgood says
Completely understandable why someone wouldn’t travel a distance to attend. What was interesting is why more marketing, advertising and PR people based in NYC did not attend. Conference was easy to get to (right by Grand Central) and after all, you had Richard Edelman as one of the keynoters. Why didn’t more Edelman staffers come and bring a few friends from other agencies? As I said above, I think its because Syndicate is something of an echo chamber/club — and it is not speaking to the broader audience in meaningful terms.