Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

Monday was my first press conference, as Orange (one of Israel’s cellular providers) invited journalists and bloggers to attend its Orange Shop launch – the first in Israel.
Over the past year Orange has changed its business strategy from a cellular company to a communications company, offering the full range of services: mobile, internet (ISP) and phone (land line). Orange Shop TLV is the first one to open, with 7 more planned for 2009 (overall cost of $2.5m).
In the press conference Orange CEO, David Avner, had this to say:

Orange is leading the way in terms of customer service and working tirelessly on rising the standards, cultivating customer loyalty and seeking ‘the next big thing’ that would provide value to our customers.

How I came to be at Orange press conference?
My friend Eti from Blink has invited some bloggers to the launch, which was an excellent decision, in my opinion – the days in which press conferences were for journalists alone are over. The content is being written by anyone, and any company, specifically a consumer oriented one (like Orange), must be present at the same space its customers are – facebook, twitter, flickr, qik and the others. Microsoft were the first to do so last year, at Tech-Ed 2008, when they invited bloggers to the journalists’ sessions, including high profile interviews with Microsoft executives.

Joining the conversation
The natural impact of having bloggers at the conference is that exposure was instant. All of us started twitting about it, taking pictures and shooting live video – and comments came shortly after. I’m not an Orange customer so can’t comment, but most of the replies I got regarded Orange’s customer service and not the launch of the shop.
This is why it’s important to have a corporate voice in the conversation. Orange brought bloggers that started a discussion online, but no one was there to respond, like in Comcast, Ford or JetBlue for instance. Now that twitter has become a house-hold name, and everyone are jumping the wagon, having a corporate voice that is part of the discussion is even more important.

Links:
Orange Shop
#orangeshop on twitter
Qik video from the press conference (thanks to Yarin)
Pictures from the press conference (thanks to Ilan)
Press coverage: Ynet, walla, newsgeek (congrats to Niv and Yaniv for opening newsgeek!)
It’s a followers game – Orli Yakuel at Themarker about Twitter.