Hugh Macleod told the crowd "you can't control the conversation because people will say what they want - the best way ... is to improve the quality of the conversation. You're going to go into the arena on much more equal terms than you're used to. Those days [of communicating in a one-way manner to an audience] are over."

Edelman's European communications director Guillaume just said businesses have to lose control because the information [that is, discussion about your company] is already flowing everywhere. "Either you take part or you don't; you don't control anymore, no-one does." For a good example of this, check out this recent Wired article.

09.37 - Time for questions from the crowd...

The panel is asked about the growth of blogging in Europe. Hugh said there are 200,000 to 400,000 bloggers in the UK and they're much more geeky than in the US. He said the biggest blog culture in Europe is in France, where the "teenagers are going at it like crazy". Hmmm; kinky.

A representative of an agriculture-centric MEP tells the panel she would like her boss to have a blog so rural constituents can participate. Good job Francophone Guillame is providing the answer as it's not just French teens who take to blogging like ducks to water - many politicians are doing it, too.

09.43 -- Alfie Dennen presses Hugh on "corporate blogging", the two say y'all should check out Robert Scoble for an example of good corporate blogging - Scoble "writes about Microsoft like a human being", "he's very edgy in terms of corporate structure". Scoble, I should say, is a Microsoft employee who started blogging about what's going on inside the company. He gets a lot of readers; it's all about introducing some transparency into your company.

09.46 - Guillame talks more about that transparency issue - he says some corporate bloggers write about anything (ie. Scoble talks about the weather and Microsoft), others talk about just their company. I read an interesting post last week from my old mucker Ethan, who is director of technology at Warner Bros. Records. He, too, is definitely in the former camp; it's all about the authenticity. Seems to me that would seem to mean that a lot of people are going to need to de-learn their spin tactics and learn to be the real, passionate product/cause ambassadors they should have been in the first place.

-- Rob