Day 2 at the social media forum: Anybody got a cluetrain.com?

Annie, day two of the Social Media Forum turned out to have two major themes, online video and blogging, and just how easy and effective, the two can be.

Both blogging consultant, Debbie Weil, and Microsoft blogging evangelist, Steve Clayton (he's also the firm's UK Partner Group CTO), showed how easy it is to do amazing stuff with blogs.

Steve also has one of the coolest business cards ever, which I couldn't resist scanning, so all you folks can see it:

The monster, BTW, is a metaphor for the big bad Microsoft that we all used to know and dislike.

Steve's presentation focussed on how this has changed, at least in part because the company has developed an effective policy to get its employees  blogging and show the monster is in fact full of nice, normal people who really want to make good software, not take over the world.

If you want to know more have a look at Geek in Disguise, Steve's blog.

So its not the Bill and Steve (Ballmer) show any longer.

The best bit of Debbie's presentation was where she showed how, using youtube, its really, really easy to put video content into your blog as well. And since its a Friday, I thought I'd have a go (an oldie, but a goodie, I think you'll agree):

I also need to give a quick mention to Richard Dennison and Ross Chestney, respectively the internal programme manager and the head of communication services for BT. Like Steve Clayton, Ross and Richard have their own story of breaking down institutional barriers to the way it communicates.

Emphasizing the benefits of starting out small, they talked about introducing innovations like the BTpedia. As they say, if the experiment doesn't require much investment to start, no-one's going to shout at you if it fails. So why not give it a try?

PS. And cluetrain? Ross mentioned the site during his presentation, with a heavy recomendation that anyone who thinks they're anyone in social media should go and have a read. So here a link, www.cluetrain.com, go read.

PPS. My version was ' Sports champ vicar's drink-drive shame after wife's death.'