Available Lite - The Blogging Enterprise

The Blogging Enterprise was a conference that my former boss Paul Walker produced with a handful of other folks. The conference focus was about Blogging and how companies large and small are using Blogs to their advantage. I met some really great people and had the opportunity to hear from experts in the field of blogging talk about how, why, when and where to use a blog. The conference had the same vibe that I think internet conferences had when companies were thinking to themselves. "What is this internet thing, and why should we be on it?" I went to the conference as a representative for my company Asset-Auctions, to see if a blog was something that we could use to engage customers. I haven't had the opportunity to share my thoughts with my company, but I do believe that we should be blogging and that we can drive traffic and interest to our company. The advantage for a company to start blogging is that the technology is simple, there is little overhead in getting started and that the biggest expenses is time. Bellow the pictures I added some links to blogs that I think you should check out.


One of my favorite panels was Blogging to #1: Positioning Your Company As the Thought Leader. Joel Greenberg from GSD&M was the moderator and is standing to the far right. Included on the panel was (from left to right) John More - Brand Autopsy (http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/), Charles Bess - EDS, Todd Watson - IBM and Scott Rehling - The University of Texas Longhorn Football Vlog (http://utvmag.blogspot.com/)



This is Ellen Simonetti who is the author of Diary of a Flight Attendant and former Delta Airlines Flight Attendant. Ellen was fired from her job because of blogging even though there were no rules about blogging and she never mentioned her company name. It's a very interesting story. You can check out her blog at:http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/




This is John Moore from Brand Autopsy. He wears the doctor’s coat . . . because the doctor is IN and he wants to be your media medic! He also has a great business card that look like a toe tag. Regardless of whether you think his approach is unorthodox, I promise that you won't forget him. If anyone wants to find out more about how blogs can help your company, I highly recomend talking with the doctor. He's an intelligent down to earth type guy that can tell you in layman’s terms the how and the why about blogging. (http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/)

A couple of other interesting blogs to check out:
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/ Everything that you want to know about Net Flix from outside of net flix.

http://inflighthq.com/ A soft marketing blog about air travel sponsored by Boeing.

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/ Robert Scoble of Microsoft talks about it all.

http://darthside.blogspot.com/ Can Darth Vader really Blog?

Hope you enjoy some of these blogs. I think they are here to stay and that they won't go ignored. People are going to start saying "what's your blog?" instead of "what's your e-mail address?"

Available Lite - Ella Bella Bo Bella

Chad and Wendy have labored to produce . . .Ella. Well I think that only Wendy really did any of the laboring, but I know that Chad did plenty of the worrying. Anyway they have a darling daughter named Ella and she has her own blog at: http://ellabellabobella.blogspot.com/ so if you want to see cute pictures of the little girl growing up and discovering the world or wearing her favorite A Band Named Sue onesy the click over and take a look. Amber and I went over to the Chennault house for dinner last Sunday and I took the opportunity to snap some fun pictures of Ella in action.

Wendy is one of those "sling people", meaning that she loves her child and understands that close contact with your baby is important in the early years.




Kids love mashed taters!

Wendy made a beautiful dinner and we had a very good time talking about children, childbirth and raising kids. . . .I remember when we had other things to talk about . . . .I guess those days are over.

Available Lite - Wedding

On October 22, 2005 our good friends David and Felina tied the knot in good old Houston, Texas. The wedding took place on the campus of the University of Houston and the reception was down by the ship channel. We had a great time celebrating with David and Felina and all our friends that attended the wedding. Because Felina comes from an Hispanic family, it is tradition to have Mariachi's at the wedding. When Felina and David arrived at the reception I had the honor of announcing their arrival. As soon as the entered the room the Mariachis began to play. I told Felina that the next time that I get introduced or announced for anything I was going to hire Mariachis to play while I walk in. It's pretty impressive. You can just imagine being announced to speak at a professional luncheon and be introduced and then have 6 or 7 guys and girls decked out in black and silver breaking into a traditional Mariachi song and walk with you to the podium. Or . . . Maybe I'm the only one that has these thoughts.


Ahhhh the traditional first dance. I can't remember the name of the song that they danced to, but I can remember the name of the band that played. They were called Tejano Funk. Their guitar player was really good.




All in all it was a great time and a nice get away to Houston. We traveled with our friends Karen and Lee.

Oh and by the way the Ikea store is located.
1. Inside the Beltway
2. Just outside to the 610 Loop
3. Not in Katy Texas!