Thursday was the big day. After a long preparation everything was ready for the new BAIA event: Blogs and Marketing. I was a bit worried that something could go wrong at the last minute, despite all our efforts.
Organizing an event it's like making a risotto: first, you need the best ingredients. For risotto the list is well known: Italian Arborio (pronounced ar-boh-ree-oh) rice, chicken stock, onions, Parmesan cheese, butter and obviously zafferano (saffron). As in every recipe, using best ingredients do not guarantee a good result. You need also time, skill, and passion, and mostly important, some magic.
We planned last Thursday event to be as good as an authentic risotto alla milanese. We had the privilege of having the best ingredients: four great panelists (each one with thier unique flavor), a cool topic and a perfect venue. Everybody involved invested their time, their skills, and joined in with sincere passion.
Thursday night, we witnessed something similar to what transforms good ingredients into a delicious, creamy, and tasty risotto. Our 4 great panelists, who barely knew each other before, were sitting in front of 30 people, talking about blogs and marketing when, like in a pot of risotto, the magic happened: almost everybody in the audience got involved in a dialog with the panel.
It really was a great, informative, and inspiring event. Indeed, as for risotto, the result was richer and tastier than the single ingredients.
If you are familiar with Italian culture you know that for an Italian comparing something or somebody to a risotto is the highest form of appreciation.
The focus of the event was on corporate blogs or, as Mauro Lupi suggested, business blogs. For a successful business blog, the panel recommends:
- Blogging with passion for the subject
- Talking to people, not to consumers
- Being credible
- Writing often
- Linking, linking, linking
Please take a look at the pictures on BAIA pages on Flickr, and check out the brief report by Bruce Lowry on Novell Open PR blog. My personal, and BAIA team gratitude goes to our four panelists: Mauro Lupi (Ad Maiora), Mrissa Levinson (Six Apart), Mary Trigiani (Spada, Inc.), and Peter Thoeny (StructuredWikis, LLC).
Franco Folini
