Thank you for responding to my blog post Alex!  I believe that you have missed the point of my rant — but you have given me a little insight into your goals and attitude.

You do not need to take my advice that your registration form is poorly written and your PFO letter extremely confusing. You can also gloss over my question as to whether Identity Management is even on your team’s radar as a valid subsection of Information Security.  If all you want is massive quantities of copy going into your registration processes with an expectation of massive quantity of copy coming out the other end,  you can stick with your mathematical formulas, page ranks, and technorati rankings.

If however, you grok the idea that sometimes,  one person talking to 100 people can mean more than a broadcast blogger talking to to hundreds of thousands, maybe you’ll understand why I think your formulas are wrong.   In my mind, bloggers are not just about publicity.  The are about starting and continuing conversations,  of all sizes and all impacts, with insights unique to their community.   If  you want to properly use bloggers in your conferences,  you can’t look for the cost centers.  You need to look for the hearts.

At least, that’s my belief.  I’m sure you won’t take my word for it; perhaps you’ll find someone who matches your strict journalistic standards who thinks so too.

Thanks,

Pamela

Alex’s comment is printed below, dear readers, so you can see what I’m replying to.

Pamela,

I’m Alex Kirschner and I wanted to respond to your post about RSA Conference. In registering the 300+ media that attend RSA Conference over the years, we have put a standard process in place that encompasses bloggers, traditional media journalists and industry analysts. Anyone receiving a press pass must be able to demonstrate that they are being read by an audience invested in information security. Because we are making a significant dollar investment in each press person who attends, we are committed to reviewing each request with equal scrutiny to ensure those receiving a pass meet our strict journalistic standards.

Therefore, bloggers that are registered as press must meet the same criteria as traditional media. If an IDG publication is responsible for several stories a day while attending RSA Conference, we expect our bloggers to have the capacity and editorial focus to do the same or similar. As a blogger, the direct link you provide the press registration team will in fact be reviewed for its information security content and frequency of posting. We also use additional information, such as Technorati ratings, number of hits/page views and comment history to verify the credibility of the blog.

In reviewing your blog, we did not see enough posts regarding information security, a high enough number of comments, track backs or page views that would have qualified you for a press pass.

Please let me know if you have any further questions regarding our registration process.

Thanks,
Alex