Event sponsors were Network Solutions and Johns Hopkins University – Montgomery County Campus, with support from marketing blogger Mayra Ruiz. The event was held at the JHU campus in Rockville, Maryland.

Here’s my event recap; there are few holes in my notes, so you can use the power of distributed social media to get a near-complete transcript of the interesting bits by looking for items tagged “#socstardom”, including photos, Twitter posts (don’t miss Mayra’s posts, @marketingmisfit), blog entries and more.

Here are some highlights. First, here’s Frank Warren:

If you’re not familiar, PostSecret started as an art project a few years back. People mail Frank their secrets on postcards, and of the 1,000 he receives weekly, he chooses 20 that he posts every Sunday to the Web site.

PostSecret doesn’t follow the traditional blog model. It’s very minimalist — Frank doesn’t have commenting, archives, or ads on the site — nothing that would distract from the primary content (the secrets).

He acts as a curator for the content that people send him, and he hasn’t tried to guide the community that formed around the secrets, save by crafting the narrative that comes from choosing the 20 weekly cards.

Also, by posting only 20 secrets every Sunday, he enforces an artificial scarcity (by not including archives, he keeps people from gorging themselves on secrets — they can always buy one of the book collections), and he turns his weekly update into appointment programming.

Since the main PostSecret site is all about the secrets, a lot of the other community interaction you’d expect happens on related sites — PostSecretCommunity.com, the Facebook page and MySpace profile, each of which serves a different purpose.

Other observations from Frank:

* He used to see ebbs and flows of secrets, depending on media coverage, but now it’s a constant flow, so perhaps he’s reached media saturation.

* His biggest mistake: Not collecting e-mail addresses from visitors for the first 2 years, so he couldn’t keep them updated on new developments.

* He ends every week’s posting with a question, sees that controversy can be good, and incorporates interesting feedback into the posts to provide an example, as well as an incentive and notoriety for commenters.

Frank’s a tough act to follow (and apparently even worse to precede) but Rohit Bhargava was game:

Rohit is a blogger from a more traditional mold, though he also has a book — Personality Not Included.  Some of his insights:

* When he posts, being useful is more important than anything — he doesn’t try to entertain or provoke thought; he uses a lot of lists

* He always thinks of potential posts in terms of titles (which he spends a lot of time thinking about.)

* One of the first techniques he used to build traffic and attention around his blog was writing posts that he thought influential people would find interesting, and sending them the posts.

* A popular early post was 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization. Instead of trying to become the “SMO guy”, he leveraged that traffic to blog what he really wanted to blog about (marketing stuff in general)

* He entered a presentation contest (winning an honorable mention) to get the attention of Guy Kawasaki, whom he got to write the foreword to his book.

* The main drivers of traffic to his blog early on were accidental and viral; now, they include Google, Twitter, and StumbleUpon. Also, getting a high percentage of traffic from e-mail forwards is great, because it shows people are e-mailing the links to others.

* In order to keep up with new social media platforms and tools, Rohit will sign up to try new things during boring conference calls. This keeps him current, as well as reserving his username. The next tier of tools are things he actually uses, like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. And he knew he was getting serious about Twitter when he found himself thinking before posting, “Is this worth a Twitter post?”

* An ideal blog week for him is 3 posts — the first posted by Monday at 1am (to catch international readers), with two more half-written posts that he finishes over the week.

Both talks were lively, as was the Q-and-A period. As I said, you can get a fuller feeling of the questions and content by searching for items tagged with “socstardom” (I’ll do a roundup post of these items later on).

Lastly, in terms of the event title — if you bring in speakers like Rohit and Frank — yes, people will come.

If you’ve got your own event writeup, thoughts on the speakers or photos you’d like to share, please leave a comment below.

Controversy gets people’s blood going. It goads them into action. And nothing says “engagement” like somebody wanting to rip your head off (figuratively, hopefully).

People pay attention to controversy. It’s noisy and messy and interesting, especially when people are under attack — they either clam up, or are forced to approach something close to honesty because they don’t have time to finesse something. (See the current slapfight between Dan Lyons (the Fake Steve Jobs) and CNBC over their coverage of Apple.)

In the political sci-fi novel Interface by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury, we see another take on using controversy:

“All the same,” [political operative Cy Ogle] said, “they all react the same. The hunchback, the shooting, the pornography, and they all reacted differently. But when they’re pissed off, they all look alike. And that’s why self-righteousness is the most powerful force in politics.”

To that, I would also add that the blogosphere runs on righteous indignation.

However, generating controversy for an ongoing art project or a talking head TV show is one thing. How can small businesses use controversy to generate attention, traffic, and conversation?

Very carefully.

Generating controversy for the sake of generating controversy is kind of transparent. And not the good kind of transparent — the other kind, where people see right through you. This is especially true if you’re bad-mouthing your competition to try and make yourself look better, or jumping into an area where your business has no business being.

Another thing about controversy is that it’s distracting. Instead of being known for your business, you might be known as that person who got into a nasty blogfight with so-and-so. This may be good if you’re a gossip columnist or social media consultant, not so good for everyone else.

And of course, blog controversies always run the risk of spiraling out of control, especially if they’re of any import at all  — damaging the reputation of participants, and alienating people who fall on the other side.

Assuming you don’t want a knock-down, drag-out fight (save that drama for your personal blog — if you can), here are a few ways you can use controversy to generate some heat and light for your blog and business:

* Keep it real: Find a real issue that’s relevant to your business, that you can weigh in on with your informed expertise. Depending on your field, it could be anything from the effect of the DC ban on single-serving beers on craft brewers, to the superiority of the Robertson screwdriver.

* Be the referee: You can acknowledge a controversy without having to take a side. Use the opportunity to listen to people, and be an honest broker.

* Lower the stakes: People may still have strong feelings on things that ultimately don’t matter that much. A case in point: Pop vs. Soda maps out what people call fizzy carbonated beverages (Pop, Soda, or that whacked-out outlier, Coke). These and other oddities of regional language generate a lot of talk because it’s interesting, not because it really matters.

* Don’t burn your bridges: Don’t alienate people who’d you’d mind missing. If you’re a car dealer who sells Fords but not Chevys, maybe you can afford to pick a side in that eternal debate. Otherwise, tread lightly.

And of course, the Big Daddy of them all:

* Disagree without being disagreeable. This isn’t politics — the people on the other side from you aren’t necessarily bad people, and knowledgeable people may have honest differences of opinion.

What hot-button issues have you taken on in your business blog? Am I being too much of a wuss here? Leave a comment and share your examples of controversies you’ve harnessed to boost your business… or ones that have blown up in your face.

What’s it called?

The event is called: “If You Build It, Will They Come?” and it is an exploration of social networks, including what’s working now and how to build and nurture a community.

Why Should I Attend?

Hear their story on how they succeeded… What Social Media tools they used for their success… What worked and what didn’t… And learn how communities are created.

About Frank Warren

Frank Warren is among the top 20 bloggers in the world and is a inspirational speaker and author of 4 books, including A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book.

About Rohit Bhargava

Rohit is Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence. He is the author of “Personality Not Included” and among the top 50 marketing bloggers in the world.

How do I sign up?

Go to eventbrite to this page to sign up. Admission is free and so is the parking.