Lunch at Hitachi Data Systems

It's so easy not to blog when you have gotten out of the habit, but there have been so many things, I have wanted to write about, I thought I better just begin. 

I have become increasingly interested  in this thing we are calling "social networking", the "aha" for me when I began to blog. The social part of blogging is one of those things that you don't get until you blog and then, the realization is amazing.  When I first began to blog some years back, I truly had no idea what it was or what it might mean for my clients or myself. 

Fast forward a few years later this September, I went to an event spawned by Jeremiah Owyang, one of my favorite bloggers. Jeremiah began by writing about web strategy and has since branched of in many new Internet arenas.  His is one of the few blogs I consistently read and I highly recommend it.

Any way, in his role as social networking evangelist at Hitachi, Jeremiah organized a lunch sponsored by Hitachi Data Systems whose purpose was to promote Hitachi Data Systems with web sites that wanted to scale.  Jeremiah extended his invitation over his blog site, and I decided to stop by and check it out.  It was an impressive event with a great many people and start ups .  The company provided lunch and attendees could grab a bite, stroll through the exhibits and catch up with friends. It was a very innovative and low key way to promote the company and its products AND it didn't cost the company a dime to promote the event and draw in attendees.  Jeremiah simply used his blog.

Among others, I ran into Shel Israel, whom, while I haven't seen him in years, have been following both his blog site and excellent book, Naked Conversations.  The book, co-authored with Robert Scoble, perhaps the best known of the a-list bloggers, is my hands down number one pick for books on business blogging. So I had the chance to tell him so and we caught up a bit.  I've known Shel in what seems like an earlier life when he was first at Regis McKenna and then on his own, and I was running my own firm, both of us doing what I would call traditional PR. 

It was great to catch up and compare notes and laugh about how dramatically things have changed.  I learned that Shel was working on another book, this time on social networking, and I was able to discuss my idea for a class on the new media and how to apply them. It was well worth the time spent.  Thank you, Jeremiah.