Behind the scenes: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest

Today at BarCamp KL, I presented a brand new talk: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest.

The back story

On April Fool’s Day, I sent out a feeler to see if anyone was interested in a talk titled “Advertising & PR, Bloggers & Integrity: making money, thru honesty”. It seems like the response was positive, and it was to be scheduled on Saturday for BarCampKL. Wow, a few days to come up with a brand new talk… naturally, I asked people for feedback, and received them (right up till 7 or so hours before the talk was scheduled to be given).

Preparing for the talk

On Friday, I posted a bunch of notes that I had taken down in OmniOutliner. I gathered some feedback, and then implemented the whole thing into Keynote (this is incidentally also my first presentation in where I am not using OpenOffice.org Impress, a software package I had helped contribute to for a significant portion of my life). To boot, I also purchased the Keynote Remote application for the iPhone/iPod Touch, for USD$0.99. This moves me away from using the usual Logitech Presentation Remote. So let’s just say all this marked new ground for me, as I got to learn new software in an evening, including using the presenter notes, and so on.

Giving the talk

Considering I had never given the talk before, and was winging it based on notes I had created a day before, let’s just say it was a little rough on the edges, lacking statistics that I would have liked, and lacking graphics that I should have included. I’m sure there will be a 2.0 version of the talk, if I’m to give it elsewhere.

I was pleased that the talk had a standing room audience. During the talk there was active discussion. That’s what made it fun. Lots of participants shared their experiences, and it was people representing media buyers, PR firms, as well as the bloggers themselves.

Generally speaking, most people believed that disclosure should be the way to go. There is nothing wrong with making money from your blog, but telling your audience that you are doing so, is a duty to your readers. Its the right thing to do!

Conversation about the talk went on even during lunch, and I seemed to hear lots of positive feedback about it. Its a pity I didn’t get the whole talk recorded!

In closing

Expect a series of blog posts, that are more well thought out, and are logically separated on this topic in the near future. And to think, all this talk started with what I told David Lian, a few weeks ago, at the KLTweetup, about how I believe Nuffnang will be irrelevant in 2 years if they don’t change their business model. Not existing is hard (both founders have got deep family pockets), but becoming less relevant, I guarantee it (or I’ll eat a shoe — one made of cake, nonetheless ;-))

9 Comments

  1. ShaolinTiger says:

    Good preso, you explore some interesting points. I hope to see more discussion on this topic – if there are tangible answers for all parties involved that makes things run smoothly in the long run everyone will benefit.

  2. […] Visit Colin’s blog post on his presentation : Behind the scenes: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest […]

  3. […] [4] The notes on Sessions for Barcamp KL 5 April (Sunday) Related Links: [1] Colin Charles – Behind the scenes: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest. [2] Alex Lam, thebackpackr.com – BarCamp KL 2009 – a raving success. [3] Demonik.TV – Barcamp […]

  4. Edwin Wang says:

    Great presentation. On Nuffnang is dying, their business model might not work that well but I think with their huge community of bloggers, they will survive.

  5. […] blog that’s been updated by AndyGoh, Marvin Lee for OpenSocial Hackathon, Bernard Leong, Bytebot, Backpackr, Demonick, David Lian, and don’t forget to check Carolyn Qik Video […]

  6. khailee says:

    hey bro.

    if u need anyone to interview / get feedback / peer review / get stats / etc drop me a line, im happy to help.

    also, everything related to your exploration in this are, i am personally very curious n interested, n i look forward to hearing about any blog post or tweet related to this. quite sad i missed ur talk.

    catch up soon
    khailee

  7. julian says:

    interesting, pity I missed your talk but I couldn’t go on Saturday

  8. I like the presentation! It’s so crucial nowadays to educate ourselves about disclosures, and we all need to get used to it.

  9. […] Colin Charles: Advertising & PR, Bloggers & Integrity: Making Money Thru Honesty – Colin was using his iPod Touch as his presentation control, while holding his mobile phone in the other hand (what for?) Someone in the crowd said: “Some bloggers are journalists; some journalists are bloggers.” Malaysian bloggers are generally not journalists, they write crap and hit publish – yay! Malaysia’s first (and probably the last) pro-blogger – liewcf. Term “blog-vertising” was used. If you are not a journalist, does integrity matter? If you have a community, integrity plays a big role. Slides are here, and also behind the scenes. […]


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