I regularly speak at conferences or just attend them as a visitor and am amazed at how little of these events are blogged/podcasted. In most cases (not in all) this is a waste of good content and a missed opportunity to create online coverage.

Here are a couple of reasons why blogging and/or podcasting a conference can be a good idea:

• the intention of blogging/podcasting a conference allows you to create already some online interest before the event.
• by pre-blogging interviews with the speakers of the event you can generate interest from potential attendees.
• live blogging the conference allows you to keep a written diary of the event and people who can not attend can at least follow what's happening.
• podcasting interviews with your speakers is a great add on to their slides and biographies.
• by blogging and podcasting you collect all the knowledge and experience of your speakers and audience which, in normal situations, gets lost once the event is over.
• collected content lives on forever online and will/can serve as a reference.

More and more conference organizers start to recognize this and hire bloggers and podcasters. However, finding the professionalism required for business events is not an easy task.

Just this week I was looking if there was such a thing as a database of professional conference bloggers and podcasters and came up with only a couple of references in the USA.

Luckily the online human network still counts for something and I can work with some of the best and multi-lingual bloggers/podcasters around. But still... there is a gap to be filled.