Guy on community…

Robert,

I am not sure I completely agree. It depends on the makeup of your community. In the world I live in, users are spread out across continents and cities. Most of our users don't read blogs (yet). They have families and little time for dinners and mixers. User events do provide an opportunity to do what you suggest, as do trade shows and other events.

One statement I do agree with .. go to your community.

Scoble

Spot on. In fact how can you build a community with out being a part of it. Perhaps guy meant this, but didn't explicitly state it, when he said "A community needs a champion." However, it's worth having its own point.

As an asside. You might like the interview I did with Guy the other day on The Gadget Show.

Robert

An interesting perspective - and probably true for someone in your role; a well funded travelling evangelist.

Some of us have been trying to make it to these "blogger" dinners - seems they only get talked about AFTER the dinner.

Guess you gotta be in the IN crowd to make 'em.

Also, most of us don't get our travel expensed ya know.

Innocent Bystander:
regarding blogger dinners - sometimes these information will be shared at the local meetup groups. URL: http://blog.meetup.com/
See if you have one in your local area.

I think when Scoble says to hang out, he isn't specifically stating face-to-face. He might have focused a little on dinners, but he also suggested blogs and comments.

You can do a good job of hanging out with people on the phone, blogs, comments, forums, Skype, instant message, Xbox Live, podcasts, etc. etc.

With the Internet, there are many more ways to "hang out."

Richard: absolutely true! You can use technology to show up in a variety of places. An occassional face-to-face meeting is good too.

Innocent: I always talk about geek dinners before they happen. Including the one last night.

Robert, you go to dinners on the West coast ninety percent of the time. You're only hanging out with a VERY limited number of people. You have perhaps heard of the rest of the country?

sorry, John made a small typo above, he meant

... of the world? :cool:

John: in the past two and a half months we've had blogger/geek events in London, Paris, Newport, Cork, Dublin, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Geneva, Seattle, and San Francisco.

In the next month we'll do: New York, Austin, and Las Vegas again and San Francisco.

Thanks for noticing!

SRM, thanks for the link. I never knew something like that actually existed.

John: and I forgot Brussels, Vancouver, and Denver.

So, in 2.5 months that makes 13 cities, 8 countries. So much for your "West Coast bias theory."

Your lofty condescension sponge could soak the Pacific dry. What normal person has the travel budget and job perks you do, and many have families and other social obligations that don't deal in globe trotting to become a Blog God. Plus most are closed shops, and the ones announced are logistically spur of moment, tagged to the same usual circles.

The fact that Microsoft is wasting shareholder money on such worthless overhyped vaporwareish Evangelism fluff and the fact that Blogging Conferences need the usual Post Office line-ups to attract crowds to preach the MLM Miracle of Blogging, and that a few companies play the junket games, doesn't mean such can be easily replicated for anyone else. Power-law distributional curve played extreme.

But glad that the Microsoft Royal Highness Godship takes time to sup and dine with us mortal sinners. We are not worthy.

I agree with your "link theory", if want others link you, link them first.

Christopher: you do realize that Microsoft does NOT pay most of my travel expenses, right? Most of the time it's other people who pay for me to travel to come and see them. But thanks for playing along!

Let's see. The Les Blog conference paid my travel and hotel expenses to come to Europe (and I paid Maryam's way). The LIFT conference paid my hotel and travel expenses to come to Geneva. I paid my own way to Northern Voice.

Microsoft's shareholders are getting a pretty damn good deal, IMO. You did see that I shared a room in Las Vegas, right? (And that I stayed one night in the hostel with Paul Mooney).

It's funny how you are such an expert on everything I do seeing as I've had more than 50 such events in the past five years (almost all open to the public and almost all advertised well in advance, just like this weekend's shindig at Michael Arrington's house) and yet you've never shown up. I wonder how you're such an expert on my travels and what I do?

Does that angry jealous Chris fellah have a blog? ;)

I am from the "Z list" and do not see Robert as an elitist at all, in fact I see the exact opposite. To me Robert is like a big kid who enjoys having fun and bringing us all along for the ride.

I am also glad to see that someone brought up the missing element in Guy’s “community building” rant, I am sure there are others who thought the same thing yes?

- Guy is a marketer and Robert is a social butterfly.

- Guy wants us to read his every word to promote himself, Robert wants to draw you in and find out what you have to think.

Who would you rather “hangout” with? Nuff said.

Good rebutall Robert !!

I totally agree with you, MSFT is getting a good deal.

Your creditablity and integrity is always in good standing with me and thats why i take your feed even though IMHO you are cutting old info and chatter.. that does not make a difference..what makes the difference is that I can clearly see what you do professionaly, blog, and comment wherever.. your echo chamber is pretty much transparent.

So far you are doing good - no strike that out- very very good in my books -- so keep it up !!

Good deal? The flagging up Vista, the eternal marketing droids armies promoing a product not yet released, all the crash and burns, Team 99 and more. It's more than just Scoble. It's a culture of overhype. Least with Vista, upgrade time cycle on their side.

And come on, it's not just about Microsoft paying travel expenses, it's about giving you time off and justifying such. And I said the "Blog Conference" people usually pay expenses (if Micrsoft did that they'd be even in worse shape). Microsoft thinks it's getting a Vista Developer Evangelist, what it is really paying for is the Robert Scoble World Blog Tour. The fact that you pay for your travel expenses occasionally and take vacation time off for some things, what you want a gold star?

Open to public? Your defintion of "public", sure differs from mine, but I will let that slide. You think if you were at a normal job, like NEC, that you would even be allowed to dot the globe, go to junkets, book tours and things of that nature?

Jealous? No. I am just tired of him preaching that anyone else can do this, that he became "A List" this way, and you can TOO, if just follow his principles. It's like a infomercial. And it's a sham. Besides my goals, don't deal with globe-trotting to sup with bloggers and talking blogging. That's not living to me, that's a near dictionary definition of mental insanity in my book.

So I run in differing circles, big rip. I never see you at MY conferences either, drop to SE, NAB or ASA's ISC sometime. But you don't know where I hang, and whom I converse with, as I don't blog that.

Actually, you visit more of Europe than you do the rest of the US. Let's see:

London, Paris, Newport, Cork, Dublin, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Geneva, Seattle, and San Francisco.

In the next month we’ll do: New York, Austin, and Las Vegas again and San Francisco.

In the US/Canada: 3 west coast, two near west coast (Vegas twice), once Texas, one East coast.

John: and I forgot Brussels, Vancouver, and Denver.

So, in 2.5 months that makes 13 cities, 8 countries. So much for your “West Coast bias theory.”

In the US/Canada: 1 West coast, one near west coast. So, out of 9 events, 4 are on the west coast, 3 are near west coast, 1 in the middle southern part of the country, one on the east coast.

so, 44% on the West coast, 33% in the west, but only near west coast...for...78% in the western part of the country.

No, no west coast bias AT ALL.

Maybe you should do a little math before dismissing a statement?

Like I said Robert, you travel in your little "blogosphere" "Cone of self-congratulations", and have, really, no clue whatsoever as to how the majority of the country outside of your little tech bubble live and use tech.

But i'm sure that in the event of contact with a non-blogger, an inflatable winer will drop from the ceiling, and cloud the air with technobabble until the bad person has gone away.

Scoble, I'm not sure you should be congratulated. You hang out with other bloggers more often than. And when you aren't, seem to hang out with pro-MS customers for the most part. Hardly "evangilism" So, let's use a religious example for such a religious word:

" And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.. "

Dmad: really? I think you should look into who I hang out with. Most of the people I hang out with are Linux developers. Even this weekend there's not many Microsoft lovers I'm hanging with. Byron and Steve are Mac lovers. Mia works for Six Apart and they are all based on Linux. Buzz? OK, he loves Microsoft. Or, look at who I invited to have dinner with Jim Allchin. They weren't all Microsoft lovers. I will admit a heavy blog bias.

Christopher: my employers are happy with what I do for them. If they weren't they'd fire me.

Mixers have a purpose in that they help geeks loosen up. But if you're really a geek who wants to be appreciated you'll put it in a blog. This doesn't count for Scoble as he is a massive douchebag.

Christopher: my employers are happy with what I do for them. If they weren’t they’d fire me.

You are beyond firing, minus something very stupid, like a felony, releasing code or internal purchase system abuse. The PR fallout would be too great, Microsoft for whatever gig it wanted, hath made a Devils Deal. Even if they aren't happy, they won't be able to do anything about it. Actually a great position to be in, and one point for you, in that you own your Employer, they don't own you. That is a rare thing in this world, usually obtained by great achievement, or in your case, ummm, A-List Blog games, which to some (I guess) is a "great achievement".

Yeah, life as an A-List blogger is so cushy. All you have to do is take flak from hundreds of people who criticize just about everything you do.

I'll take my relative obscurity, thanks. At least the only potshots I take are from my family, wanting to know if I'm going to finally get of the f***ing computer.

Geeks love other geeks. Oppossing coaches get together at conventions, too. So you get together with other bloggers that happen to use Linux and Macs, what's your point? How many of those Linux developers have you gotten off Linux and on to the MS platform? Or are they simply other bloggers getting together to convince each oher they actually matter? Again, my point is, until those people start swearing off Linux and using MS software your efforts are a waste MS resources. Are you tracking any of that? Or simply keeping a travelogue and patting yourself on the back for how many other bloggers you meet and link to you?

Nice site! Good articles ! Best my wishes !!

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7 RULES 2 BE HAPPY:
1>never hate.
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As to Christopher Coulter's comments on Microsoft about wasting oney, I like to answer the question by looking at the stock price chart of Microsoft over the last few years.

Where has the price been and where is it going? Have they wasted money or used resources effectively?

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