Confidence is Sexy
Chris Brogan
As I prepare to leave (in about 10 minutes, yipes!) for Blog Potomac, this post is especially timely. Chris Brogan, master networker both online and off, explains how to be at your best at events and to "be sexier" in person. The key? Confidence. "If I stopped this post now, that'd be enough. If you don't present yourself as confident, you're already off on the wrong foot. It's that simple. Why? Because I need to believe that you have value as you're coming up to talk with me at the event. I have to feel that you're pretty comfy with who you are as a person, and you're looking to reach out and make new relationships to further develop your capabilities and ideas.

Build Your Audience
Dave Fleet
Want to build your readership for your blog? The only way is relationship building. Sure there are other ways, but Dave Fleet reminds us that taking the shortcut will usually only be a temporary solution. "To attract - and retain - readers you need to consistently produce stuff that people want to read/watch/see. Decide who you're writing for and write for that audience. If you're not producing targeted stuff that grabs people, all of the other tools will only ever produce temporary spikes in traffic. Over time, good content drives people to your site and keeps them coming back."

Corporate Decision Making
Online Public Relations Thoughts
Anheiser-Busch is preparing to sell to a foreign company, after decades of family ownership. Jim Horton outlines the difficulty of decisions like this, and how they affect the brand's public and internal relationships. "There is always a risk in maintaining dated perceptions. If the Busch family were the dominant shareholder with voting control, then carrying on family tradition makes sense. It is my understanding, however, that the family no longer holds a majority of the shares. The question arises, then, whether the family should have changed perceptions and communicated a more accurate picture of what the company is. It will become clear as this merger offers unfolds. Either way, the perception of the company will never be the same again."

Bloggers v Journalists
Crisisblogger
Ah yes, the debate continues. There was a recent discussion on CNN regarding citizen journalism, and Gerald Baron offers his thoughts. Is it fair that bloggers, as regular citizens, might get better access to a politician at an event? A blogger was able to get a soundbite from Bill Clinton that no journo had access to lately. "The CNN journalists were unhappy that they couldn't get that juicy audio-because as journalists they were not allowed near. The questioned the ethics of the blogger in recording that audio and pretending to be a common citizen. Now wait just a minute here. Ethics? Would they have hidden a tape recorder and considered it ethical? I think so. Their only real complaint was that they as journalists were being treated differently than a blogger-who, by implication, they think should be treated as a journalist."