Rob Shilkin, Google, Corp Affairs, Aust and NZ

Dealt with the question of how to convince CEOs and senior management to take this stuff seriously. Recommends three books: wikinomics, the long tail and the wisdom of crowds (google being the key example, of course).

Spending most time on the long time - fragmentation of the media. Niche interests + niche audiences = niche news + niche sites.

The idea of one media release hits all outlets no longer applies. Bloggers don't want releases. But every single release should be able to find a niche and from there it can snowball. People will use search to find niche items making them highly attractive to advertisers. Don't need big blockbuster stories. Should write stories that appeal to passion of niche interests.

BUT it is impossible to control what is being said about you. One thing you must do is have a presence so you can blog quickly and reach people with an interest in what you do.

Politicians are leading the way. Rudd's youtube was about the medium being the message added to his brand of younger more contemporary. BUT voters can talk back, leading to broader conversations across the net.

Australian federal election. All parties set up youtube channels. Also used myspace and facebook. Interesting consequence was the immediacy of the response. ALP used youtube to respond to Lib ad and then Libs used youtube to respond to that response.

Obama a good example of snowball effect. Exponential growth of online views of his videos. Now showing black-eyed peas video. Wonderful stuff - I love Obama! Obama getting a lot of small donations by using the Internet.

Now talking about the Jetblue example. Using youtube to counter bad media coverage. Also talking about Google Privacy channel. Tourism Northern Territory channel where people can share their stories about trips to the top end.

Tip: don't be afraid of dialogue. participate. Every organisation should have a blog and a video camera.