Mark Cuban, Blogger-Closing Keynote at BlogWorld Expo

It’s been a long week for me.  BlogWorld was nothing short of fantastic, okay that and very exhausting.  Jim Turner and I gave our talk on hiring (or becoming) a professional blogger in the last block of sessions before the keynote.  We felt like Mark Cuban’s warm up band.  And you know, that’s not a bad thing.  So after picking up some gifts for the folks at home, I went to the keynote and, yes, I did have a chance to say hi to Mark, give him my card, and shake his hand.  Yeah, that was cool.

Jim Kukral introed Mark.  Jim, who I met in person for the first time this week, did a fantastic job relating the story of his "Mark Cuban Please Call Me" site.  The best, the best part of Mark’s keynote was that he was billed, and lived up to, the title-Mark Cuban, Blogger.

Yes, Mark has amassed more wealth than I could ever dream of in my lifetime, however he came across to everyone has just a normal guy.  An extremely wealthy normal guy.

Below are some notes and bullet points I took during his talk.  I think there is some value in just reading them as I wrote them … so here they are:

• Blog started in 2004 after Dallas Morning News article misquoted him
• New voices, new perspectives.
• Having and bringing a voice
• Honesty, brutal honesty is key to a successful blog.  Honesty defines our personal brand
• Pandering to readers, turns you into mainstream media
• http://www.blogmaverick.com/2007/11/04/an-open-facebook-api-vs-google-opensocial/
• Hard part is deciding full time or part time, which leads to the monetizing decision.
• "are you still a blogger if you’re getting paid by someone else"
• Mark Cuban uses all the tools you’d expect (Google, blog searches) to learn about new potential hires.
• Be aware of the consequences of what you write.
• Question: Should you stay away from ads on your blog when you start off?
• Answer: Yes.  Mark feels that blogs filled with Adsense look cheap–yeah he’s right, but sometimes you have to find a way to pay the bills.
• On closing comments: No problem with blocking people or closing comments when people get out of line.

I didn’t want to live blog the keynote.  I wanted to listen and absorb it.  Sure I took notes and had some commentary on Twitter (me on Twitter), but I wanted to take full advantage of this opportunity.  Of course I don’t always agree with Mark.  But I certainly respect his opinions.

What I have I learned, then, from listening to Mark.  Like I’ve said, Mark seems to be a nice, normal guy.  I’d certainly have a beer with him.  He also, IMHO, has a great sense and opinion about social media and blogging.  While I don’t agree with his stand on ads on blogs, he isn’t a fan of them, nor do I agree with him on giving your audience the topics and info they want to read,  I do agree that honesty is the truly most important trait of a successful blogger.

Look people can help you with your grammar, they can help and direct you to sources, but they can’t tell you how you feel about something.  Being honest, sometimes even painfully honest, is freeing.  Clearly there are limits to one’s openness, but that doesn’t make you dishonest, it makes you smart.  In fact if you read back through the nearly four years of blog posts I’ve amassed, you’ll find that I am honest about my limits to my openness.  Sorry folks, some things are just for me alone.

Update: PodCasting News liveblogged the keynote.  It was the only one I’ve been able to find thus far.