It’s been an interesting day (and it’s only 1.20pm)!

Early this morning I attended the NewsGator webinar on strategy and governance, co-presented by Stacy Wilson and Greg Reinacker. As has always been my approach — as long time readers of my blog will attest — I live blogged what I heard in an extensive blog post.

Stacy Wilson, the presenter, appears to be unhappy with what I did. In her blog post How connected we are a few hours after the webinar, Stacy wrote:

“I thought about blogging about the content, but one of the new Twitter followers has already done that on his blog.

This leaves me to ponder the speed with which everything happens and the lack of control over intellectual capital. For example, Michael (see link to his blog post above) probably didn’t notice the copyright on the slides being presented. Never asked permission to post nearly every word of the presentation.

I have colleagues who do public speaking who would be incensed by this. They would call Michael (who’s in New Zealand) and request that he remove the content. Many of them don’t allow their presentation to be provided electronically in anyway. Some won’t even provide a paper handout during live conferences. Some won’t do webinars because of the ability to screen capture.

There’s no accounting for the webinar attendee’s ability to capture the content and share it without even having the handout. Hey, at least he included a link to me and my Twitter handle. But, as an independent consultant and published book author, Michael should know better. Intellectual capital is all the consultant has to give and sell.“

So I picked up the phone, and called Stacy. She was driving home, but the call connected to her cell phone, and we ended up having a delightful 15 minute conversation … covering many of the points she raised, my explanation of why I do what I did, and more. I offered to withdraw my original post, but Stacy asked me to leave it up, and make this follow-on blog post.

Why?
The first and most critical question is “why?”. Why would I blog her material and content, albeit with attribution and pointers back to her? The reason is simple: I’m constantly on the look out for new insights into what’s going on, and when I find things that resonate with me, I blog about them. I choose the webinars I go to with great care, and generally always blog them. Stacy mentioned about not seeking her permission to post about her ideas … my answer (partially on the phone, and more fully here) is that because the webinar has free registration, because attendees will be sent the slides, and because the webinar was recorded and is made freely available (possibly with registration), I interpret that as an open and bloggable discussion. That’s always been my stance … where those conditions apply, I take it that the presenter wants their material to get out into the big wide world. Where those conditions don’t apply … and I’ve been involved in many discussions and presentations like that … I don’t blog the material.

What’s In It For Stacy?
In Stacy’s blog post, she comments that “intellectual capital is all the consultant has to give and sell”, and that I “should know better”. As a consequence of me acting on what I believe to be right (see above, but I’m open to a different perspective), what does Stacy get out of it?

I see the following benefits for her:
(1) Her material is published to my blog readers … currently about 1200 people by RSS. This possibly opens new opportunities for Stacy.
(2) The people in my network are pointed to another person who has thought deeply about strategy and governance. You’ll note that Stacy’s name is repeated throughout my blog post … this is a deliberate stylistic choice on my part to point my readers back to the fact that it’s Stacy’s material, not mine.
(3) Her material is indexed by the search engines, and people searching for guidance on strategy and governance will find my blog post, and the links and pointers back to her. This expands her footprint in the market.

There’s another point, but it’s bigger than merely a #4. As I said to Stacy on the phone, most (or “all” or “many”) of the ideas she presented in her webinar are common themes that many people are saying — Martin White, James Robertson … and even me in my SharePoint for Business white paper (May 2007) and my recently published book, SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration. I see that the value Stacy brings to the table is in the facilitation and collaborative learning that happens when she works directly with a client on the topics of strategy and governance. That’s the same for Martin, and James, and me. So if you read my blog post, and you need someone to help you with the material, I’ve just told you that Stacy is a leading candidate–right? The value isn’t in the ideas per se, but rather the intelligent application of those within a specific context.

Your Reaction?
What do you think? Am I taking an unfair or unjust position through such extensive blog posts — not just to Stacy, but to others too? Should I cease-and-desist from such blogging behaviour? Comments please …