Ellee Seymour

Blogging is bound to take off in East Anglia now. Once a totally alien word, it will soon be THE buzzword as new enthusiasts sign up with blogger.com by the dozen.

Ellee and Geoff’s second blog column has appeared in tonight’s Cambridge Evening News business supplement, which attracts a wealth of readers from local entrepeneurs, the movers, shakers and go-getters. We had virtually a whole page, and in a prime spot too. It is attached to this link.

As far as we know, this is the first regional paper featuring a regular blog column, though some online papers host blogsites for readers. Unless you know differently, in which case please tell me.

I was also encouraged with an email I received today from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations., of which I am a member. I was interested to learn how they were taking this new social media on board.

Their delegate who also attended the same Business4Blogging conference earlier this month said she was very enthusiastic and that they were about to launch a blog with their president Tony Bradley.

You read it here first!

I could understand why the Russian Federation wanted to know what I was up to. Here I am writing openly about David Milliband’s new ministerial website which he has disguised as a blog, only most of us are not fooled by it. And it has cost taxpayers a whopping £6,000 too.

Then there is the headline hitting Shadow Minister (perhaps they think that means shady for other reasons too). But at least Boris’ blog gets 10,000 hits a day and he has a band of willing volunteers running it free.

So I was tickled when I checked my Stat Counter a month ago and discovered that the Russians had visited my blog site entitled and read “Two amazing facts from two ministers”.

A cursory check on my visitor paths for yesterday revealed that they had returned, they had hot footed it to my site from Iain Dale’s; we are both seemingly under their watchful gaze with our anarchistic weblogs.

I am hoping that one day they will initiate a conversation by posting a comment, perhaps invite me to Moscow as a PR blogging consultant. I certainly hope they come back. I can tell them about my trip to Moscow and Leningrad in the 1970s with Cambridge University Travellers and Explorers’ Club.

They may even cast a vote in the New Statesman New Media Awards 2006 for which both DM and BJ have been nominated in the elected representative category.

The award will go to the elected representative who best uses new media technology to communicate with the electorate. I think I will nominate Grant Shapps MP for his excellent forum.

I believe Conservatives can win this vote with a convincing majority.