_This article is by Guest Contributor Kate Trgovac who reports on the recent “BlogOn”:http://www.blogonevent.com/blogon2005 conference in New York City. This is the final article in the series._
“Dave Hornik”:http://www.ventureblog.com/, General Partner at August Capital, moderated “Understanding Social Media’s ROI”, the closing panel that centered on the costs, measurable benefits and strategic selling of social media into your organization. Panel members included: Laurie Mayers, Deputy Managing Director, Hass MS&L BlogWorks (the PR firm that manages “GM’s FastLane Blog”:http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/); Craig Engler, General Manager, “SciFi.com”:http://www.scifi.com; and Andy Sernovitz, CEO, “Word of Mouth Marketing Association”:http://www.womma.org/”.
This was an exceptional panel, full of lively dialogue and great, actionable information.
Hornik’s first question: “Where has social media been put to good use?”
Year: 2005
_Ian Kelso is an interactive producer, strategist and the Principal at “Modern World Communications”:http://www.modworld.com/, a Toronto-based interactive production and development firm. He is also President and a founding board member of the New Media Business Alliance “(NMBA)”:http://www.nmba.ca a member-based not-for-profit industry association representing interactive digital media content production companies in Ontario._
*One Degree: What is the NMBA up to these days?*
We are in the midst of a very busy and exciting period at the moment. NMBA is developing a number of new programmes and services including a new conference, a monthly networking event, an online industry directory and the return of our popular iLunch case study series. In August we moved to a new office and hired a communications and membership coordinator so now there are three of us working more or less full-time.
Over the past year we have also co-founded a national umbrella association — the Canadian Interactive Alliance — with 7 other New Media organizations from across Canada. One of our first projects — which NMBA is managing — is a national economic profile of the industry due out this spring.
*One Degree: How has your mandate changed since your inception in 2001?*
_This article is by Guest Contributor Kate Trgovac, reports on the recent “BlogOn”:http://www.blogonevent.com/blogon2005 conference in New York City._
The “Pitching To Social Media” panel was one of the more hotly contended at BlogOn2005 and really polarized “old-school” bloggers who see this as another attempt at exploitation by Big Business and “new-school” marketers who are trying to find their way (still) around a new media and are making mistakes. It was moderated by Cathy Brooks, VP at Porter Novelli and included “Jeremy Pepper”:http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/, Founder & President, POP! Public Relations and Andrew Carton, Editor, “Treonauts”:http://blog.treonauts.com/.
Brooks opened the conversation with the question “Should PR firms pitch bloggers? Yes or No?” The answer: “It depends.”
Then all hell broke loose.