The other day I was giving a talk in Kolkata, India, to a group of people assembled at the CII ICT East conference. I was speaking on the second day of the conference. On the first, a few of the founders of Indian business process outsourcing – such as Raman Roy – were speaking.

When I started talking to the audience the next day, I was aware that a lot of them were owners of small or medium sized companies, and eager to try doing business with Europe. I asked the entire audience: “Who wrote a blog entry about the interesting day we had yesterday with industry leaders such as Raman?”

Not a single person in the room had blogged about the conference – or about anything else for that matter.

As I went on to talk about the virtues of podcasting and social networks, I think I ended up overstepping what the audience wanted to hear. However, I still think that for smaller organisations, these are great - and virtually free - tools for getting yourself noticed above the noise of every IT company jumping up and calling out “me, me, me…”

I also challenged the companies in the room, by reminding them that they are the cream of the IT talent in India - an industry now known for IT excellence - yet where is the innovative online marketing for their efforts? Companies known for hi-tech innovation should be able to do a better job than a chewing gum company has been doing with the YouTube star Matt Harding. Take a look at the recent update to his famous 2006 ‘Dancing’ video – this new version is just awesome!

It was therefore nice for me to land back in London, switch on the laptop, and to find an email from Moitrayee Basu, who works for MSR in Kolkata – the first thing she had done after the conference was to go and create a blog.

It’s early days for blogging by smaller companies in India, but it’s going to be exciting as more and more comment comes online. I’m looking forward to hearing that my CII talk may have actually influenced a second or third company soon.