Can I Please Blog Your Private Meeting?

The Sanctimonious-sphere is all up in arms because Nielsen BuzzMetrics asked attendees of their CGM summit this week not to blog. I attended the summit, and I respected their request not to blog — and I think the request was perfectly reasonable. Why? Because it wasn’t an open “conference” — it was a private client user group for heaven sake! Every day thousands of companies hold private meetings with groups of their clients and nobody expects them to broadcast a live feed.

I can personally recall at least a dozen instances where companies shared instructive stories that they never would have shared if it were going to be broadcast to the world. There was lots of learning among a company’s clients — what’s the problem? Nielsen participates in tons of public forums. So they decided to give their clients a private space to share. Are companies no longer allowed to have private functions?

What kills me about the criticism being leveled again BuzzMetrics is that it’s dripping with sanctimony (and hypocrisy). This was a private client user group, and suddenly it’s about banning blogging at conferences — which of course makes for the type of inflammatory headline that the blogosphere loves to feed on.

To all of the critics — can I please have an invitation to come blog your next client meeting?

Ok, ok. Seriously. I’ll be the one to confess. The real reason BuzzMetrics wanted the meeting to be off the record is that they held a satanic ritual during the coffee break.

I’m sure there will soon be a mob with pitchforks and torches at my door, too.