To Pay or Not to Pay

. . . That's at least one question companies ask as they consider including blogger campaigns in their marketing strategies.

The question is more complex than it looks and involves ethical (a system of moral principles) and moral (what is right and wrong) dilemmas.

(Conflict alert: I work here.) Hill & Knowlton (Hill + Knowlton Strategies in the U.S.) is hosting a panel in Toronto on Thursday that has sufficinet diversity among its panelists to suggest the discussion may be truly a debate. It might even be heated (hands rubbing gleefully):

Alexa Clark @alexaclark: social entrepreneur, author, photographer & social media addict. Founder of CheapEats, Secret Pickle and HoHoTO.

Erica Ehm, @YummyMummyClub CEO of YummyMummyClub.ca - a sexy online magazine that speaks to the woman in every mom.

Matt Hartley @thehartley Editor, FP Tech Desk at National Post. Amateur gamer. Jays fan. Pizza aficionado. Downright cromulent.

Zach Bussey @zachbussey Social media consultant, blogger and web radio personality. I love discussion and debate, have a knack for creating it and I like my media to be social.

Facilitated by Eden Spodek @EdenSpodek Work as a digital strategist. Play at Bargainista.ca, CommunityDivas.com and @PodCampToronto. Passionate about communication and community.

Senior Exec Bloggers - Scarce Resource

This month I'll be giving a short seminar on blogging tips for senior executives, something I have talked about before here and in other forums.

I used to include a few CEO blogs in my blogroll as best-in-breed models, but dropped them a year or so ago as I shifted focus to social media and digital pundits. 

For the client session, I started to refresh my list of good exemplar senior executive blogs. Save for the blog of my boss (no choice but to say that really), it's not looking good. I'm not finding very many, and two of those I've scavenged are holdovers from that old list - the inimitable Mark Cuban and the ever energetic Bill Marriott. The only other one I can find written with any real enthusiasm is that of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

Surely I'm missing some senior executive social web rock stars. Any suggestions?

Blogging is Dead: Long Live Blogging

I was going to post my own comments on the false notion that blogging is dead based on this piece from a week or so ago at Mashable, as have dozens of others.

But Kimberly Turner writing at The Regator Blog (that's not her in the pic) has taken up the cause with more effect than I could. Here is the Coles Notes version of her well-argued comeback(my emphasis):

"The Mashable article’s (current) headline states: “Everyone Uses E-mail, But Blogging Is On the Decline.” According the study Schroeder based the post on, this is false. As the handy-dandy chart below (from the same Pew study) shows, blogging is on the decline in Millennials (18-33) and G.I. Generation (74+) but on the increase in all other age groups with an overall increase from 11 percent of internet users in December 2008 to 14 percent in May 2010."

"The Mashable post turns its nose up at blogging but makes no mention of stats from the same report indicating that even after blogging’s decline with teens, there are still more teen bloggers than tweeters."

"The blogosphere has become the realm for things that cannot be expressed in 140 characters, a place where significant conversations, debates, and information exchange can occur. This shift means the blogging is maturing and evolving—not dying."

"The evolution of blogs has made the very definition of a blog ambiguous. Millions access blogs such as Mashable, The Huffington Post, TMZ, Gawker, and Boing Boing every month. Because the line between blogs and other websites has blurred with blogs’ maturation, visitors may or may not consider themselves to be blog readers…even when they are."

I guess I'll keep at it.