When you think of blogs do you immediately think about the connections made from and because of them? From time to time, I am reminded that his blog has opened doors that otherwise might have remained closed.

Sitting in the car outside the Westin hotel in downtown Seattle about an hour before the American Marketing Association (AMA) Hot Topics meeting registration starts. What can I say, traffic into Seattle was light this morning, so I’m here with some time to blog. With handy Sprint EVDO connection and laptop blog posts can be written almost anywhere these days. Got to give underwater blogging a try someday (in jest).

Has four years really passed already?

Four years ago I wrote about an AMA Hot Topics meeting that I didn’t attend. Seriously considered attending but our budget by this time of year in our small business is almost always tapped. This year with the economic meltdown it’s no exception, but am going to try not writing in this post lamenting the price tag of the 2008 event like I did in 2004. The event four years ago cost $695 and today it costs $795. From inflation standpoint that’s a fair increase four years later. I’ve seen other conferences where this would be considered a bargain.

As of this writing, I haven’t fixed the numerous broken links in that 2004 post. I wanted to leave it the way it was a little longer. Maybe I’ll just keep it broken on purpose to point out that sometimes the people who give advice for the future will have changed paths. 

Example: The Church of The Customer blog by Ben McConnell. In 2004 they said about Mr. McConnell’s session: "Learn the fundamentals to launching a blog that supports your marketing goals, tool terminology, key players, strategic uses and the unwritten rules of the blogosphere."

Where is The Church of Customer blog in 2008? Dead. Kaput. Gone. Maybe the blog has changed domains, I didn’t research it further, maybe Ben McConnell has moved on and written other books? Hopefully for his sake they have more longevity.

Update 12/5/2008 8:51pm PST: Well give me an F for having Ben’s domain right the last four years, as well as his status. My apologies, the correct domain link should have been 4 years ago and still is today: http://www.churchofthecustomer.com — I will fix the link right away on the old post. My bad.

Anyway, if you visit that post four years ago and think I’m some kind of jerk for what was said then, hopefully you’ll look past the words and see at least some of these concerns were valid. It isn’t just about the message people lecturing in a session delivers. I’ve seen masterful speakers that were great at speaking and good at writing, but when it came to their ideas actually working? Meh.

Disclaimer: this event isn’t costing me anything except gas, parking and time this year thanks to Toby Bloomberg who so graciously comped my registration. I didn’t write that post four years ago with the intention of getting a free pass to that event and am not writing this one in exchange for today’s comp. And Toby nor the AMA nor anybody asked me to say or do anything for this event (good, bad or indifferent), which means that I’m going to take the initiative to do more than I probably would if asked or expected something in return.

Lesson learned?

Be kind, gracious, and you shouldn’t have to ask. Interesting sidenote: Toby didn’t send me an email or call with her invite. She used a Twitter direct message. How’s that for using digital media!

Toby has written several times over the last four years about this incident with me which she described in her recent post Digital Relationships:

We were taught our first lessons in blogger relations by TDavid. What begin as a rather sticky situation ended up in a better program and a new friend. I’m thrilled that TDavid will be joining us on Friday

Toby made the same offer in the comments area four years ago. She didn’t take my post wrong, it wasn’t meant to be some businessowner in his basement blogging in his underwear crying poverty. For the record, I don’t have a basement and can safely say in the thousands of blog posts I’ve written have never blogged in my underwear. Pajamas yes, underwear no.

That was yesterday

My ears were ringing during the event 2004 as I’m sure my name must have come up in a conversation or two. Wish I could have found a way to get there but had other things scheduled by the time the offer came through just to see if the event was as bad as I wrote that it might be. My guess is it wasn’t. Toby seemed to indicate that my post helped make the event better, but I doubt that it did.

From a personal standpoint, I feel somewhat embarrassed looking back over what I wrote about Toby four years ago in light of how she reacted to my post. I didn’t know this lady from a rock buried in the desert and yet I was judging what she might be like by visiting her website and what the event description said about her.

From a professional standpoint though, we do measure value in an event based upon what we think is going to happen and think my perspective was fair. Is the event going to be worth our time and money? That was an important question four years ago and remains one today. We should ask ourselves that about every meeting, appointment or event we are attending.

There is also something about effort on the part of the attendee. It’s not completely the AMA’s fault or the people putting on the event if the attendee doesn’t find value. You have to go with an open, pliable mind. That’s what I’m doing today.

As today’s AMA Hot Topic event kicks off, I’m going to be watching, listening, taking notes and looking for the value.

The topic isn’t blog-centric like it was last time. This is what the overview is saying about the 2008 event with the title Moving Your Marketing Into The Digital Future:

This Digital-Centered Marketing program will explore the changing landscape of marketing that is no longer about exposure but rather engagement in digital relationships through digital media founded on the intelligent use of digital data and CRM.

That description is buzzwordy to me. Engagement in digital relationships is something I get, but in a more every day man kind of way. Why should I have a blog for my business or should I have one? Can Twitter or FriendFeed help me be more interactive with both existing and prospective clients? What about social networks should I be adopting rather than casting aside in 2009 and beyond?

As for the "intelligent use of digital data and CRM" — what does this mean? Obviously, I have questions, but again my mind is going to be pliable. I certainly don’t have all the answers in either of our two small businesses and I plan to go through this marketing event today and see what can be applied.

I’ll share my notes on each of the five scheduled events by separate post(s). I hope there are power outlets. Too many events I’ve been to don’t have any power strips. Bloggers can only last so long on battery power.

The registration has started, I need to get rolling and connecting. See you soon.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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