I have been to many trade shows over the years, from the glitzy (CES) to the dorky (WinHEC) to the niche (Webmaster World). I have managed booth-duty, staffed press briefings, and tracked down press and analysts on-the-fly. And at each of these shows, I typically avoided the lame-ass schwag bags handed out to attendees.

But then, I attended my fourth BlogHer, which I now refer to the Shangri-La of Schwag. Quite honestly, no other show compares when it comes to sponsors handing out goodies, offering samples and trials, and tugging at heartstrings. Here are my highlights from last week’s BlogHer 08 in San Francisco:

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In the latest issue of the San Jose Business Journal the top Silicon Valley PR firms are listed and we are excited and honored to see Voce own the #2 spot. We just celebrated our ninth anniversary and recognition like this will give us the fuel we need to march for the top spot in the coming years. Our clients deserve the credit for this one. They entrusted us with their programs and we are grateful.

We told you we were living large in Manhattan at the BlogHer Business Conference and New York City Moms Blog launch party last month.

We knew the Today Show producers were interviewing a few of the mom bloggers at the party and the crew was filming conference panels. But we when we watched this morning’s “Today’s Woman” segment on the growing popularity of momblogging, we were stoked to see that our friends at Silicon Valley Moms Group, Graco and client Yahoo! got air time. Check out the eco-friendly Yahoo! taxis that chauffeured the moms to the party!

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Things are moving fast right now, but you can’t appreciate the distance travelled until you stop and, well, look back a bit.

Today I’m stopping for two reasons — two really, really good reasons.

First, to welcome the newest edition to Voce’s growing social media team: Justin Kistner.

Justin recently completed a stint with Jive Software and has been fitting and fussing with the messy intersection of marketing, web development, new media, and general internet strategery, for many years now. Much of Justin’s tinkering and thinking has spilled out on the pages of Metafluence, to my benefit and many others, so suffice to say, it’s gonn’a be fun pulling Justin into the mix here and watching the guy do his thing — when of course we’re not debating the finer points of “web 3.0.”

Having Justin in the trenches with us is important also for my second really, really good reason: our portfolio of social media projects continues to grow.

Today I’m fired up to be adding BEA to this mix and to The Wall.

This comes on the heels of VeriSign and eBay business wins earlier this year, as well as our ongoing new media work with NetApp, Sony PlayStation, Yahoo!, and several others, including a few unnamed wins that Josh alluded to recently that will remain in our pockets, for now.

Like I said, things are moving fast, but this is all good stuff, the type of stuff you’d be crazy not stop and appreciate. So that’s what we’re doing….

Much more to come. For now, onward.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Summit kicked-off earlier today in Las Vegas. As you would expect, the speaker lineup is just stacked, so there’s all sorts of insightful juice to squeeze out of this event — and that’s exactly what our own Andrea Weckerle is doing as one of two guest bloggers invited in to report and record this year’s event on the Summit Blog.

Already today, Andrea has covered multiple sessions, including Peter Waldheim’s “State of the Word of Mouth Marketing Industry,” and two panels on Social Networking and one on Influence vs. Network Size. Lastly, at least for today, she covered Lionel Menchaca’s discussion on Dell’s WOM and social media development work.

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Yeah, we’ve been busy… Busy building our team, busy building our business and as you can see, even busy building this blog.

Where to start? Alright, well there’s the Josh thing. Josh Hallett has joined Voce. I’ve been itching to share this news for a while now.

Josh and I have known each other for a few years, we’ve worked together on multiple projects and what can I say — those who know Josh through his consulting work with Hyku know he’s the type of pro who has *earned* the admiration and respect of many people in our industry.

To say I’m fired up to have him on our team is, well, an understatement.

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How we measure success is by providing killer counsel, strategy and implementation for our clients. But it also feels great to get kudos from the media, since it’s the journalists and influencers we work with who ultimately help our clients’ tell thier stories.

That said, we’re particularly proud of being recognized as a Top Tech Communicator in the Mid-size Agency category by the IT editorial community in PRSourceCode’s list of the “best of the best.” We’re also proud that Matthew Podboy was named one of the top Individual PR Practitioners.

You can download the full writeup here,

Okay, one more shout out, then we’ll shut up. Maybe. Probably not.

The Holmes Report has named Voce as a finalist for the illustrious metallic idol of PR kwan - the Silver Sabre Award.

We’re finalists in two categories, actually:

First, in the technology category for our work with Network Appliance. Better insight on this via the press release.

And second, in the best practices in PR management category, for our work, well, managing. This one chokes us up, in a good, lower-quivering-lip-kinda way. Citizens of the Voce Nation work very hard to make (and keep) this place what it is. To be recognized for this effort feels goooood.

The awards will be carted out next month in NYC, we’ll see you there.

/Voce Nation

Technorati Tags: netapp, sabre+awards, voce+communications, holmes+report, pr

According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal. w00t!

/Voce Nation

Technorati Tags: bayarea, pr, silicon valley, voce communications

Still in Asia…now in Hong Kong…thought I would share more thoughts from the road.

Observation #1

Hong Kong is a beautiful city - what a skyline! Always impressive!

Observation #2

Think imagery, photography and layouts when working with media here. If you are only supplying information to journalists (pitches, releases, etc.) then you are missing out on half the “ink” opportunity in an article. Media here use photos, captions call-outs, etc. - much more often than US media.

Observation #3

Give your business card with two hands, don’t forget even if you are jet lagged (sound familiar?)

Observation #4

Take a cab or the subway, business is business here and traffic is intense but “Hong Kong time” means that often people are a few minutes late. Also don’t let the heat fool you, a suit is still quite common at business meetings regardless of the temperature.

Observation #5

More languages means different types of press opportunities and more of them. There are Chinese speaking media, English speaking media (including some of the most influential in the region) all located in Hong Kong.

/John Welton

Also Read:

Hello From Beijing

Technorati Tags: international, pr, culture, hong+kong