Cool Marketing Thoughts

I went to a Blog Dinner (capitals intended) yesterday. MSN once again upped the ante by choosing a fabulous location. We met at noon at the prestigeous Belga Queen Super-Deluxe Oyster Bar/Lounge/Restaurant in Brussels and besides the fact we got to meet Shel Israel and Rick Segal, we were served delicious food in good company. Good food and conversations, that sort of stuff goes straight to my heart.

I talked to Shel about the book he ghost-authored with Scoble (Naked Conversations) and about the benefits it has to offer to companies that still need to define a good and transparent blogging policy. Shel has some really great insights. I’m glad I had a chance to talk to him. I also met Simon McDermott from Attentio and we had a really interesting talk about the brand rumor tracking tools. Too bad I didn’t end up next to Rick because I think that would’ve been interesting as well… Time, as always, flew by way too fast.

Check out the Belga Queen Club

I finally met Veerle Pieters, the godess of CSS and design and probably the best known blogger outside the Belgian borders. In all honesty, she rocks! Also there and in for some good conversation was Jean Philip De Tender who’s currently working as program manager and content coordinator at ‘één’, the Flemish TV and radio broadcasting company. After dinner I also talked to Geert Desager. Last time we met over e-mail he was still working for Tagora (an ad agency), but he’s now working for Microsoft on the trade department.

© Pietel

Some of the usual suspects were there as well, and we had some good talks. Networking kicks butt. I’m so glad I went. I’m so glad I was invited. There’s only one word left: Awesome. No wait: Cool.

Thanks Bea, Kris and Simon for putting this together. I had a great time!

More pictures on Flickr © Pietel
Also see my pics, on Flickr too :)

Update: More pictures from Veerle and Peter

Yesterday was BlogCom night. Getting there took me ages since the train I took had a five minute delay in Leuven (where I work) and the other train I needed a connection with was kind enough to leave on time, so I was stranded for over half an hour in the middle of f*cking nowhere (aka Aarschot). Then when I got home (finally) and took the car to drive to Antwerp, I was stuck in a traffic jam for over 8 kilometers. Fashionably late I made my entry somewhere around 8.15 PM. More than an hour later than I wanted to. Thank you, public transportation. Thank you, old man who drove first in the single lane traffic jam, fearing the number 30 and everything above that on the speed-o-meter of his car. I stick with the point that there should be a rule that forbids owners of license plates with 5 digits instead of 6 to come out between 4 PM and 8 AM. Those people are clearly afraid of traffic (maybe because of their age) and should be protected by grounding them. But anyway, BlogCom… that’s where we were.

I shared a table with next to me Bruno from B.V.L.G. and the guys from the Tech podcasting crew Absurdnet.com. At the same table where Dries (i think) (who used to work at i-merge before they moved to the place where I work at now) and a nice lady who blogs at a fruity place called GeleBanaan (yellow banana). The other head of the table (I sat on one end) was Pascal Van Hecke, who sat right in front of me. [There were some other folks at our table as well, but I didn't get the chance of talking to them, which is way too bad.]

Jeroen organized it quite well, again, and maybe it’s time someone else did a third BlogCom in another city so he could actually enjoy it as well instead of running around like a madman, trying to get it all worked out. Great job dude!

I had a nice talk with some people I already knew like Robin, Clo, Luc, Rik and James, and I got the chance to meet some new bloggers like tantieris and the blokes from Appelogen, an arty project featuring Doctor Wolf, YourMama and Chris Dust. Doctor Wolf, as his name might indicate is ummm… an impressive man to say the least. Those three guys… :) Really :) Wow.

I also met the team behind TenderFeelings and HungryFeelings, and I’m quite impressed about the results they made with their out of control hobby project. I’ll try to keep an eye on that more often.

Somewhere later in the evening, Kris Hoet from MSN managed to drop in on his way home from his trip to Amsterdam and also the most famous chest in the blogosphere, Schenkr, and the sophisticated Mister Druppels arrived to have a little chat.

Amongst other people that were there were also the Netlash team, MouseOver, Asfaltkonijn on a marketing frenzy with balloons and Pietel.

Last but not least, I had a really interesting chat with Stefan Kölgen about how f*cking hard it can be to produce something that Coolz0r would blog [not hard at all, just send email :) ] and about the importancy of the upcoming event they’re organizing next Friday, which I’ll have to pass on to my colleague Tom over at i-merge, because someone should really be there.

I’m really glad I went to BlogCom to network and meet some new people. That’s the good part of it: you come home with a bunch of links and you have a few extra feeds to start reading (or podcasts to listen to). Fresh input, new opinions… That’s a really positive thing.

Lesson of the evening: good mothers always bring the power cables to the Nintendo DS gadgets when bringing along the kids. It’ll make sure you’ll get some peace and quietness, for as long as level one takes. :)

The full list of participants is after the jump.

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BlogCom is back. After the Spring edition in April, there’s a Fall edition coming up tomorrow. Right now, 54 people already signed up, and I’m going to be there as well. BlogCom isn’t just for bloggers. It’s also for blog readers, for Flickr-lovers, for socializers. BlogCom isn’t ‘guys only’, it’s not a purdy-nerdy thing. BlogCom is for anyone interested in the blogosphere, including their boy- and girlfriends. Sign up quick, and see you there.

Wikipage to sign up

I’ve been busy making a blogroll from my feeds. I’ve included all the blogs I read (some more than others) and left out those I tend to skip more and more. The list is rather long but I think it’s almost complete. I have to check out my regular bookmarks to see if there are any feedless blogs I haven’t included yet. I’ll add those later. To give everyone their linklove, I’ll post the list after the jump. I’ll make a button and place it in the sidebar in the ‘context’ section, so there’s a direct link to the page as well.
These are the blogs I read for inspiration, buzz and news of specific branches. Feel free to tune in.
As you will notice, scrolling down the list, there’s French blogs in there, Spanish, Dutch and English. So don’t be surprized if you see something you don’t understand much of :) If you think I forgot you, feel free to drop a line in the comments. It’s not on purpose. Really.

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