I oversaw an event blog last fall for my organization's large annual conference. It was really successful, generating comments and lots of positive internal feedback. Do any of you have experience with conference blogs, or opinions?
I posted our guidelines on my blog.
Here is the event blog itself.
Blog content management is an interesting new effort, and I would love to see more conversations about this here.
Thanks!
Great topic, Hillary. Thanks for bringing it up.
ReplyDeleteThe STC Chicago blog debuted as an event blog. Our chapter members covered events at the 53rd Annual STC Conference in Las Vegas.
We know our conferences generate a great deal of excitement. We also understand that not all members who want to attend can do so. To accommodate those members, we put together a blog in order to break news, share commentary, and publish interviews with leading technical communicators in the field.
A national conference typically generates a lot of news. In fact, most conferences, product launches, movie openings, award ceremonies, and sporting events generate considerable buzz. Blogs allow content managers to capture and share news. Breaking news, video, and podcasts can be posted on-the-spot. If a team of bloggers contributes to the reporting, an organization quickly gathers a variety of perspectives on the event.
An organization can decide whether or not to commit to a long-term blogging effort based on its initial experience with the short-term “event blog.” At STC Chicago, the blog has evolved into a long-term, community-based effort. We use our blog to announce events, report news, and invite commentary throughout the year.
The industry around this type of new media is growing quickly. As you know, business analysis, technical acumen, and excellent communication skills are the mainstays of the tech comm profession. Technical communicators should take the lead in developing guidelines for new media use.