Wednesday evening saw some of the good people we collect (as Adriana puts it) descend on us for an evening of blogtalk, good food, copious amounts of wine, and - as always - plenty of emergent value that we could not have predicted would come from the evening before it happened.

Rocking up to tBBC HQ for the night were Alan Moore of SMLXL, Kate Whalley and Adrian Bailey of PeopleFanClub (yes, you have read about them here before), as well as tBBC tech maestro Dominic and his girlfriend Clara Zermani, a very clued-up communications scientist (yes, really) from Italy.

Rest assured that blogging was only one topic of conversation for the evening - we do know how to talk frivolity. (That said, at the point when we were all laughing at Johari Window jokes - "Alan, thank you for sharing your love of Marilyn Monroe-emblazoned accessories with the group. That was a bit of information that used to reside in your facade, but is now in the arena. This may not be an entirely good thing." - one had to wonder at our sanity.)

Clara was telling us that she is interested in customer-focused brands. She reads the SMLXL blog, so she has probably read Alan's recent post on how customers use brands, not the other way around. You should, too.

Companies need to recognise that the value of their product or service is increasingly in the role it plays in consumers' lives. It is in the every day that real value is found.

Companies that are information rich have an asset which they can offer to their customers in more meaningful ways. Be that retailers, financial services, travel companies, media etc. It is more of a question of sitting down and thinking through what this value is that can surround a product or a service. Tesco's is a good example of a company that has worked at unlocking and creating value to the benefit of its customers & shareholders. For example: 72% of all UK expectant mothers sign up to Tesco's baby club.

Alan Moore is exactly right in what he says about brands finding their everyday value to customers and using it to benefit them and shareholders. Engage by making yourself truly useful, instead of enraging by making yourself truly intrusive. Exchange value for value and let everyone reap the rewards.

That is kind of what we try to do at these dinners and parties, and considering that people keep coming back, we must be doing something right. (The wine helps, I suspect.)

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