A week in the life of a blogger journalist: Blogger swagger in the heart of New York city...
By Tom Foremski - May 23, 2005
Part One: Friday May 20
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Is that Barry Diller over there, someone asks? I look around and see some people walking past our table in Michael's, one of the power centers for the media elite in Manhattan. I don't think I could recognize the media mogul anyway...
It is Friday and I'm having lunch as the guest of Andy Plesser of the PR firm Plesser Holland Associates and his long time friend Nancy Smith, the sharp and savvy managing editor of Smart Money magazine.
It has been an exhausting but fulfilling week. I moderated two panels at the Syndicate conference and made a ton of interesting contacts, gave a presentation at Financial Dynamics, caught up with buddies and now I'm telling Andy and Nancy about my first SiliconValleyWatcher sponsors, that we launched our sister site ionRSS.com, and our plans for the future. “So that's why you walked in with a swagger,” Nancy teases.
I am not conscious of the swagger but appearances can be deceiving - and that is usually fine by me! As a semi-famous blogger journalist with a burn rate that could lead to flame-out, I sometimes enjoy playing the part of what I'd like to be: a successful micro-media mogul.
The poorer I get, the more affluent I like to appear. If I look like a million bucks, I probably could do with a million bucks. I'm wearing my favorite lightweight gray check suit and floating on the heels of my extremely comfortable Ecco dress shoes.
A humble blogger
I think the swagger Nancy noticed was just my “front” in case the management of Michael's spotted the humble humility of a blogger in motion and had me ejected (I think I spotted Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis photo ids by the door ;-)
Andy recounts successes for some of his clients, particularly the Iron Horse Winery in Forestville, (a superb winery, in the town where my children live) and new clients such as the Finnish and Singaporean governments. He also says that his vacation home in Puerto Rico was mentioned that very day in the New York Times.
I tell Andy that he should be careful not to get more publicity than his clients, something other celebrity PR bloggers have discovered to their cost. I wish I'd had my camera. The look on his face would have made for a marvellous flickr post.
This is my first meeting with Nancy and we run through an impressively long list of media topics ranging from the furious pace of M&A activities in the media sector to whether the old media truly gets the new new media.
Andy asks me if I can be part of a conference he is putting together in Silicon Valley next month, and I say no problem. I've been speaking at a lot of conferences this year and also visiting a lot of PR companies to talk to communications professionals about blogging and how companies are trying to use this medium (“you cannot spin” is a key point of mine along with “blogging is the most honest form of promotion bar none.”)
The coffee arrives and so does one of Andy's many blessings, his 20 year old son who is studying at Dartmouth College. However, I have to head off and prepare for my flight back to SFO.
I thank my hosts and stroll out of the restaurant and into the majestic canyons of Manhattan. I soon realize that I am just around the corner from the US HQ of my alma mater, the Financial Times. At which point a slight swagger creeps into my stride :-)
[Find out what happened the day before, in part two: Thursday--A blogger on Wall Street...]
By Tom Foremski - May 23, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Pagan Patty on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
All photoshoping journalists go to heaven where they join dogs, rocks and even those who don't get why rocks make aboslute sense.
MILES on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
I'd be pleased if my dog started to crap outside, let alone gets into heaven.
The fact that we can easily call into question whether or not dogs go to heaven only confirms that I can just as easily question god/heaven in its entirety.
kiwifella on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
The scriptures clearly state that to be in Heaven we must be without Spot
does this settle it ??
gaylord on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
riiiiiiight....
still funny, regardless of it's fakeness
jo on Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!
I was side tracked into this while I was doing a research about social media release with busby seo test site, and to tell you honestly, it was a bit unsettling for a reasonably idealistic (or much better said as “traditional”) person like “me”.
I wasn’t sure anymore how to give justice and support to my learned knowledge base on my researches that press release is “plainly” designed to be sent to journalists in order to ENCOURAGE them t
Alicia V. Nieva-Woodgate on Yahoo CEO Search: Here's My Pick . . .
That's a great choice!
Tom Foremski on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Geva: You are probably right :-)
Andrew: Having some of the comms team present as observers is perfectly OK. If they were moderating the discussion that would be different.
It is going to be difficult for the MSFT executives to continue the "conversation." After all, they don't even have time to read our blogs or leave comments! How are they going to continue with these relationships?
Also, some of the bloggers don't even write about the enterprise space, I'm puzzled why t
Andrew Kisslo on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -
Thanks again for joining us on Monday. I wanted to weigh in a bit since I sponsored the event. Geva is right with his first post that our intent was direct conversation with the group. We felt it would show our eagerness to have the most open dialogue possible.
It's great feedback for us if you feel lack of PR firms in the room inadvertently sends the signal that it was somehow half-hearted. The spirit of the gathering was quite the opposite. We tried to balance feedback
Bluescatman on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Everyone knows that all dogs go to "Doggie Heaven", unless of course you believe as some native Americans do, that when a person dies, he goes to the "happy hunting ground". Hmmm, I wonder if dogs are hunted there. Then again, if we believe certain "Eastern" religions, then we all were probably a dog (or other animal) in another life. On the other hand there's always Roy Rogers' horse !!!
Geva Perry on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -- Well, maybe they don't trust their own PR people...
Geva
Jesus Rocks on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
DUH! Does no one read the bible any more? Have we forgotten that God made creatures (dogs, cats, giraffes, lions and tigers and bears - oh my - ) BEFORE He created man and woman? This is a God of order and not of the random. In the last book of the bible (Revelation) it speaks of the lion lying with the lamb - to mean that there will be peace restored in creation. I take it that there will be dogs and cats,lambs, lions, tigers and bears in heaven. Oh my.
Jack on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
God and heaven don't exist. It is an irrational belief to believe there is a space god who is all loving but still allows for suffering and sends his only son which is actually also him to earth to suffer for maybe 18 hours (from the time he was supposedly in the garden, sweating blood) when real humans today suffer for much longer periods of time in much more agonizing ways, to somehow save us from our guilt for a sin we didn't even commit. To eventually go to some magical paradise where no
kenekaplan on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom.
Many of us have been benefiting for years from your work here on SiliconValleyWatcher and from your ability to be in so many places each week, each day! That's why we asked you to join the Intel Insider program.
Prior to starting our Insider program, several from our communications team worked with you when you were at FT and believed in your bold step into the blogospher. That team sponsored your new efforts, and you helped us try out new things like: having our tin
DaveBave on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Well, I guess it depends on what Dogma you follow! HAha! But seriously, all dogs do go to heaven. Except for dogs that have urinated on my leather jacket. That one is definitely not gonna make it.
ANA MARIA LLOPIS on Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mohammad Yunus Challenge to Silicon Valley and beyond: Let's Put Poverty Into A Museum
Ana Maria to Tom
I had the privilege of listening to him last July at the Del Pino's Foundation in Madrid, and it transformed my life.
I suggested him the stock market of social enterprises and he did not say he already had thought about it, and that this concept was in his book, he was a gentleman. I bought his book after the conference and read it during the summer. After listening to his words, I wanted to change the world in a different way with the democratization of ideas,
Tom Foremski on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Geva: I think it was a mistake not to have their comms team present. They can still interact with bloggers in a natural way. There is a lot the comms teams could have learnt from the event without interfering in the process.
Nancy on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
Dogs have souls, because they have breath-life. Gen 2:7...."And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man become a living soul." Anything that breaths has a soullife. However, animals do not have spirit, the direct connection between God and Humans. It is the failure of our Spiritual "leaders" to properly interpret the Bible that leads to this ignorance of God's Word. I will see my dogs and cats in Heaven.
Geva Perry on Microsoft Tries Blogger Outreach But How Serious Is It?
Tom -- At some point one of the Microsoft guys said that they intentionally didn't have any AR/PR people actively participate. They wanted the product and business line people to interact directly and authentically with the bloggers. I think that actually shows they were more serious about it than just making it a "marketing program".
Regards,
Geva
Lollie Dot Com on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
No matter what any bible, church, agnostic or atheist says - facts are facts. Any heaven without dogs is missing one of earth's greatest joys. Or in other words, any heaven without dogs is kind of craptacular. So I guess this means no cats, squirrels, butterflies, no giraffes, no lions so friendly they lie down with lambs.
Everyone who wants to spend eternity in crapworld raise their hands.... Oh look, no one. Duh. Either build a better heaven or I don't wanna go.
This is ex
Matt on Friday Watch: All Dogs Go To Heaven . . .
An atheist and a believer are like 2 people searching in a pitch black room for a black cat that isn't there, yet they both claim they've found it! BTW; Dogs rock!!!