Global Neighbourhoods

Pre-Ordering Naked Conversations

This is the only time I'm going to do this, honest.

But if you are planning to purchase Naked Conversations, pre-ordering it from Amazon.com now would be very helpful to Robert and me. Final forecasts are being made by booksellers and the publisher and strong pre-orders really do make a difference.

And if you do it on our affilliate icon, on this site, it will help Robert and me just a little bit more.

Thanks to you all.

Dell Jeopardy--I lose one Vowel for $1,000

Well, I can't say I didn't expect it.

Last night, the "I" key fell off my 18--month-old Dell Inspiron 600M. I have a heavy hand, but not that heavy. The damned thing just fell off. At first, I thought it worked like an old typewriter key and I would be able to just stick it back on, but it turns out that there is a lot of technology under those plastic notebook computer keys, and mine was all messed up.

As Scoble would say, "Crap." I'm heading to France tomorrow and am looking forward to Live Blogging Les Blogs. I typo enough as any of my readers will tell me. But now, every time I want to type in the missing vowel, I have to press hard on this plastic squishy thing 3-5 times. You just can't avoid the letter in question. I'm trying, but already I've been compelled to use it in this post 41 times.

I called Dell early this morning.  But after about 10 minutes of hearing "Your call is important to us.  Please stay on the line..." I decided not to. This story was not going to improve with them. I went to Best Buy and Fry's where the tech support guys cringed backwards saying they are not allowed to touch a Dell. In fact, they didn't want to be even in the same room as a Dell.

By mid-morning the word "Thinkpad" was resonating ever louder in my mind. Why? Because everyone I know who owns a Thinkpad likes the machine. Okay, this s true for Mac Powerbook users too, but let's not even go there. I just won't buy a computer from a company that has banned my book from its store shelf because of a spat with our publisher.

That's when "TurboTodd" Watson came to the rescue. When I spoke at The Blogging Enterprise, in Dell's neighborhood, I said that I had owned many Dells in my time, but I would not buy another because their blogging customers has written so many credible horror stories about shoddy products and shoddier service. I said that I would go with Thinkpad, because everyone I knew who had one was a customer evangelist, spreading the word on their product integrity.

Todd, who has been at IBM for 14 years had spoken on a panel and we had schmoozed and liked each other pretty much. He called out that when the time came, contact him, and he would help me out.

He did. Big time. He responded quickly to my email (marked urgent). He loaned me his name and employee number (shh! don't tell) and sent me to an internal site where they sold used computers--usually returns--from people with buyer remorse. I got an X40, the nifty, three-pound baby, with a six hour battery.  Chris Shipley, the BlogOn executive producer has one that I've been coveting.  She told me--I think--hers cost north of $1800 a while ago. Thanks to Todd, I got mine for just short of $1000.

In retailing, this is what is called, "Such a deal!"

My new computer should arrive shortly after we get back from Paris. It would have been here sooner, but I asked them to slow down there service. BTW, the woman I spoke with to buy it was just first rate.

I was at the gates of Dell Hell but praise be to Lenova, I have been saved by Thinkpad. But don't expect too many blogs from me for the next week.

PR as Customer Ombudsman

I'm not certain who first came up with the concept of PR as the customer ombudsman, but it seems to me to be about the best idea for the future of PR I've heard. I got to thinking about it earlier today when I read Kami's Communications Overtones this morning. While she mentioned me, she attributed to Mike Davidson at Newsvines.  I don't exactly see it there, so maybe Kami should get the credit.

In any case, I think it's a great idea for a new way to define PR in the Conversational Era. Instead of collaborating with marketing departments, let PR collaborate with customers, prospects, partners and even investors, then serve as their champions to the company.

A few months back Richard Edelman was struggling to redefine the meaning of the "PR" letters. That seemed to me to be a little like removing spots from a leopard. This is a better and bigger idea. This is about authentic relationships with a company's publics. This is an evolution of PR from a message shovelware tool to an interactive catalyst that brings companies closer together.

Starting with Scoble: Bumps & Brilliance

This Saturday night, Dec. 3, my wife Paula and I will be meeting up with Robert and Maryam Scoble in Paris. We will probably drink champagne.  We are there as joint leadoff keynoters for Les Blogs. But we have more reason to celebrate than that, and I'm not certain that Scoble realizes it yet.

I recently posted, about going up to pitch Robert on Nov. 26, 2004. He had said yes to the idea of co-authoring a book on business blogging, but I was not yet convinced he was engaged. Then the evening of Dec. 3, he called from a cell phone.  We had an awful connection, but it was clear that he was excited. He was suggesting that we blog the book, doing the entire process transparently. He had some really crazy ideas, like auctioning publishing rights on eBay.  When we disagreed, he wanted us to podcast it. We would do all our discussions on the blog, with no collaboration between us--no meetings, email or phone time.

I didn't know what this guy was inhaling, but I was concerned that he was driving while doing it. He said he wanted to blog these ideas. I wanted to slow this down and told him to float a trial balloon in a blog.

I went to sleep that night more than a little concerned. How on Earth could you blog a book and still have something to sell. Publishers do their dealing privately and confidentially. But I slept soundly. One way or another, Scoble now seemed engaged in the project.

I woke up the next morning, took my first sip of coffee and nearly choked as I read this blog by Scoble. Not only had he posted all his suggestions on Scobleizer, he affectionately characterized me as an old fart, from the old school, with lots of old stories. He also made it clear that he didn't expect us to make much money off of this project.

I had been outed. The guy wanted to do the book sort of like a reality TV show. He had positioned the two of us as sort of like Felix and Oscar in the Odd Couple. I responded with this posting, which was pretty poorly received by the steady flow of traffic coming to my usually sparsely visited blog site.

I spent the next day just thinking about what happened. Some of his now-published ideas were just goofy.  Co-authors need to collaborate. Business deals should be allowed the sanctity of privacy. Publishers, in their right minds, would not competitively bid on eBay.

On the other hand, there was brilliance nested into what Robert had proposed. Why not blog it? If we could not be totally transparent, could we not be more transparent than any book had ever been? Bloggers were great critics and they were also amazing sources of insight, information and even fact checking, we would learn.

There were other factors.  We were writing a book telling businesses to trust the blogosphere.  We needed to become a case study.  For better or worse, this book blog, this book blog, would be a marketing blog as well.  For better or worse, it would generate word of mouth.  If fellow bloggers thought our work sucked, we would be dead in the box. If they liked it, then they could become a collective word-of-mouth engine for the book. The blog could demonstrate or disprove the "new marketing" that both Robert and I believed in.

We would answer a variation on the old marketing question of "Will the dogs eat the dog food?" We would find out if the bloggers would read the blog book." Will they encourage others to read it?

Scoble and I had lots of bumps over the next few months. It would take us a while how we as such an "odd couple" could collaborate and find the right voice for the book. But Robert's insistence that we do this book transparently on a blog was the single stroke of brilliance that made this project look as successful as it does today. Five weeks from now, we will begin to know the answer to: "Will the bloggers read the blog book.

Happy anniversary, Robert.  We will always have Paris.

Evan's Rules for StartUps

Evan Williams has posted Ten Rules for Web StartUps, and it seems to me to be a pretty brilliant piece. My next book is going to be about startups, and Evan will be one of the first people I interview. I particularly like his first rule about maintaining narrow focus.

In the 25 years that I've consulted startups, I found lack of focus to be the number one cause of death, more than lack of financing, more than technology not working as it should.

Nice job, Evan.

Word of Mouth Marketing Going Mainstream

Preacher Ben McConnell over at Church of the Customer points to statistics that indicate word of mouth marketing is the third largest budget item in a traditional marketing budget. Just like the Jeffersons in the old sitcom, it looks like this efficient, effective and credible category is movin' on up.

I imagine this is not good news for traditional advertisers. But don't worry, I will refrain from making and references to the restaurant service industry. We'll leave that to Rubel.

JK Ontherun takes tme to Review Naked

James Kendrick, of JKontherun, who got one of the last reviewers galleys we handed out, just weighed in with opinions on our first few chapters.  It sounds like he really liked them and says we captured the blogging's style in Naked and, we "have written a very easy to read book in a totally conversational style that makes the reader feel they are sitting down and having a conversation with the authors."

Thanks, James. Thanks many times over.

Predictions for 2006

Why wait until January to look into a crystal ball? I'm ready to make my forecasts for blogging's next year now, ahead of the prognosticating pack.  But please--do not take this posting too seriously.  I'm a reporter not a prophet.

That being said, the envelope please: I predict that in 2006:

1. The number of bloggers worldwide will exceed 150 million. The areas of greatest growth in new blogs with large followings will be business and elected political officials. These two areas will eclipse, or nearly eclipse, the top category of technologists talking about technology. This will also make both businesses and politicians a tad more responsive to their constituencies.

2. The greatest growth of all will come from non-professionals who create blogs to serve small groups of family, friends and colleagues. There will be millions and millions of blogs with audiences of less than 20 each.

3.  After a few major metropolitan newspapers die, dailies will begin to understand that blogs are part of their solution, and will start incorporating neighborhood bloggers into their system.  These microchannels of news will be well-supported by local advertisers who will be thrilled to support these effrots over Google Local or static Yellow Pages. Why? Because these newspaper bloggers will be comprised of local people talking to their neighbors. What better way to reach such a community?

4. Topical blogs, covering everything from quilting to butterfly collecting, will emerge.  People in multiple countries and of multiple cultures will dicover through topical blogs that they share passion and knowledge with others over the world.

5. Adverising and PR consultancies who today claim everything is just fine based on current billings, will begin to feel an economic erosion.  Some will adapt to new Conversational Marketing techniques.  Others will dismiss the revenue shortfall on business cycles. Many of these will begin to consolidate or perish in 2007.

6.  Each member of the so-called A-List will continue to increase the people who follow them.  But they will  each become less important, as the relentless growth of the blogosphere outgrows their readerships, giving them influence over smaller percentages of the total.

7. Blogging tools will get better. They have to, if all this adoption I'm predicting is to actually happen.

8. Realizing that there is a better chance for one independent blogging tools and hosting service, Six Apart and Wordpress will talk merger. Wordpress will not like the idea, but will see that it beats getting gobbled or crushed by one of the giants of Google, MSN and Yahoo!

9. Somewhere a blogger will break a news story that makes the world stop cold. He or she will be considered for a Pulitzer.  But the committee will reject the idea, because the traditional newspaper managers who determine award recipients will remain adamant that bloggers are never journalists.

10. Bloggers will continue to refine their fact-checking methods and in so doing, continue to increase their credibility. Shel Israel will finally remember to use both to spell check and tag his blogs.

Educational Blogs Awards

Through my friend Isaac, the Rambling Singapore Librarian, I've heard of the EduBlog Awards 2005 , which cites the best educational blogs. This seems to me to be a good idea and I'm happy to spread the word.

But I found it a bit bizarre that nominators are told to email their choices in, rather than post them for everyone to see and discuss in blogosphere conversational style. However, I'm glad this is being done anyway.

Hey Isaac--since I have your attention. It's pretty definite that I will be speaking in Singapore and will be there from Jan. 16-20, speaking on the 19th.  Do you have tome to get together for a drink and a book debate. Seems the last time, as I recall, you were telling me how worthless blogs were. I'm so glad you've seen the light, and you blog contans the passion and authority that makes it a success. I'd love to see you again.

Does Nick Carr Matter?

ZD Net's Dan Farber reports on recent interaction with Nick Carr, author of the artcile and book, "Does IT Matter." Farber reports:

Nick Carr responded to my post about "Why blogging matters," characterizing blogging as mostly superficial and impressionistic, and suggesting that the blogosphere is a "fantasy community crowded with isolated egos pretending to connect."

Nick sold a bunch of books briefly on his "Does IT Matter?" He argued that it did not.  Most people considered his arguments, then shrugged and considered him absolutely wrong on the IT issue. I think Nick is about to have history repeat it's judgement on his judgements.

But this time, someone else will get to sell the books.

What Must PR Do? Part 4 Press Releases

OK, I'm sorry I ever used the line about seeing a future for PR people who insist on clinging to command and control strategies in the restaurant service industry.  It was my first speaking engagement related to Naked Conversations.  I wanted to be edgy and memorable, which I apparently was, but what I said that day at BlogOn has been misquoted and misinterpreted ever since. I can live with that. But some people see me as a former PR practitioner who has turned against my former profession and that is just not true.

I am saying what I'm saying without glee and with a sincere hope that people still in the practice of PR will see the problem soon enough to be part of the solution. Not all of them will, I am convinced. Condemning what I have to say without actually listening to what I have to say will not make the problem go away. Hell, it won't even make me go away.

The big problem for the PR industry is not blogging. Blogging is part of the solution.  The big problem is that as an industry it has lost its credibility. The Edelman Trust Barometer, a poll conducted annually by the world's largest PR agency, finds PR people rank lower in credibility than lawyers. And, unlike lawyers, PR people are in the image business.

This is PR's problem #1. I will address that issue in a future in this ongoing series. Shel Holtz, one of the PR practitioners whom I most greatly respect seems to think I've argued that all press releases should be spiked, because we now have blogging. I pay close attention to Shel because he has credibility with me, a great deal of it even though I've never met him. He has that credibility because I've been reading (and listening) to his blogs since before I started my first. I mention this to demonstrate how blogging is part of PR's solution, but I digress. Shel also thinks that I confuse PR with media relations, but I don't. PR people do a great deal more than that.  They are part of strategic communications teams. The most effective practitioners interact directly with company CEOs, not the marketing teams.

I do not think all press releases should be spiked. I do think a great deal of them should be spiked.  I think those that still go out, should stop trying to be marketing documents, and try harder to be flat informational documents.

I learned about press releases from Regis McKenna, the founder of the first technology PR agency who was universally considered a marketing guru, back in the early 80s when I worked in his agency.  He taught that press releases should be factual statements delivered with the editor in mind. In fact, it was fine with him if they were just notes to editors and analysts who mattered. The key was to have the relationships with editors and analysts who mattered. For that reason, each media list was hand-selected so that the releases would go only to the editors, we practitioners knew mattered. "The editor's job is to write the glowing stories, not ours," we were taught. "And the client needs to trust us."

So general practice at a good many agencies followed the concept of the editor as customer.  The release's job was to let the editor understand that something had happened that you considered newsworthy.  The editor would then call the PR person who would then facilitate a direct conversation with the client.

It was all pretty simple. Until the Internet came along and marketing people discovered that press releases could be read by anyone who wanted to read them. So they went from information documents to full-fledged marketing documents, and committees of marketing people would cram in adjectives and phrases, then legal departments would then neuter by placing fine print disclaimers about forward looking statements at the end of the release. The purpose of a great many releases was no longer to inform editors.  It was now an attempt to generate buzz.

Press release almost never tell bold-faced lies, but they do play a game of inches in attempt to mislead. They try to make minor implementations seem like major innovations. All too often the fluff and puff by claiming "firsts," and "mosts" even when those firsts and mosts don't matter. Most observer will tell you they contain "spin," a term I hated when I practiced PR, because spin sounds like a PR kind of word for "lie."

Shel, it would be an impossibility to eliminate all press releases.  First, public companies are required to have them. Second, press releases are a legitimate way of communicating information. But information and marketing hype are different things. The Blanche Dubois policy of telling the truth the way it ought to be, has no place in public relations, or at least it should not.

Industrywide, senior people should take a look at the philosophy and process of writing press releases. And they should think long and hard about the issues of credibility and press releases.

In Naked, we talked about the difference in an auto company releases a fat, elegant press kit to accompany a new car launch, and a team of mid-level engineers blogging for two years about their struggle to make a better car. Which communications medium would you believe?

But there is a place where I do believe blogging can effectively replace traditional marketing, particularly the press release--the start up. While it makes sense for companies like General Motors or Proctor and Gamble to issue releases, why should an unknown, unbranded company with an untested product spend north of $10K a month trying to get editorial attention?

If they have new technology that makes a difference, like Riya or Mike Davidson's Newsvine, won't they get further by just blogging? As BJ Fogg has pointed out, stealth, for a startup is over-rated. A company can begin the process earlier, and get prospects involved in making the product or service better? This is one way that blogging can help credibility.

So would a PR program dovetail it? In a large company, I think The answer is yes.  But in a start up, where there is resources are always limited, I think having a blogging program and a traditional program creates diluted focus and defeats both programs.

Happy Anniversary, Scoble

I'm in Portland, Ore., where I always am on Thanksgiving weekend.  We have kids and grandkids and we don't see enough of them, but we have a lock on Thanksgivings and they are very special.

Last year ago, on this day, I drove my wife and mother-in-law to the airport, then headed North by car to Seattle.  I had an appointment for 10 a.m. the next day to visit Robert Scoble at his home. He wanted to hear more about this idea, spawned by Andy Ruff, evangelized by Buzz Bruggeman and endorsed by me to collaborate on a book on blogging.  At that point, that was pretty much it--a book on blogging.

This would be the fourth time in three years, that I had pitched someone about co-authoring a book. I had pitched David Weinberger previously on a book about blogging for business and he had very nicely said no.  He doesn't collaborate on books anymore. My consulting business was on the wane and I figured if Scoble said know, I would have a future selling suits I no longer wear at Nordstrom's or maybe in the restaurant service industry.

I was so excited, I spent half the night rehearsing and writing down my thoughts. For those of you who know Scoble, you can guess how silly that is. I got up early for fear of being late.  I got to his house by 8:30. I drove around his neighborhood, or sat in my car, looking pretty much like a day-shift burglar for an incredibly long 90 minutes.

At precisely 10 a.m., I rang Scoble's doorbell. No answer. At 10:01 I ran it again. No answer. I called him on my cell phone. He picked up his phone and a tired Robert Scoble asked me a question he would ask many time over the next year:

"Heeey. What's happening?"

"Er..Hi Robert," I answered. "Are we on time for our 10 a.m. meeting?"

"Yikes! I just woke up.  Where are you?"

"I'm pretty close to your house," I was on his doorstep. He said he needed about 10 minutes and I told him that should work fine. I went and sat in the car. Ten minutes later I rang, his bell was greeted with another "Heeey" and ushered into his family room. Robert told me to sit on his new red couch.  He told me he and his wife Maryam had bought it, and he was excited about all the interesting people who would sit on it over time, but I was the first.

"Heh. This could be historic," Robert said and I agreed. He told me he just needed a few more minutes and left me sitting on the red couch, which later would become The Red Couch," and even have it's own supporting role at Gnomedex. On the coffee table in front of me was this huge bowl of assorted candy bars and sweets. Being a diabetic, this did not have great appeal. There were also two--not one but two--Tablet PCs.  I wondered what on earth anyone would do with two of them. In the corner was an exercise machine. From, the look at had been bought with great intentions, but wasn't in use.

Robert returned.  He apologized but he had been up until 4 a.m. blogging and had overslept. A few minutes later, I would meet Maryam, who would chat for a moment, then step into the kitchen to prepare this huge, tasty breakfast. Robert and I talked about people we both knew, about Microsoft, about Apple and a bit about blogging. I asked him if he read my blog, he said yes, but didn't add a single word.

We finished breakfast.  We continued chatting.  Three hours had gone by and we had not yet discussed the book. I finally, forced the conversation into it and started to ramble through the copy points I had prepared the night before.

The phone rang, and someone I had never heard of, named Steve Broback wanted to talk to Robert about a conference I had not heard about called the Blog Business Summit.  Robert said we'd meet him somewhere.  Maryam came in  and joined us for a while.  She asked me about the book idea and I got to actually pitch the whole idea.  She said she thought it was a great idea.  She looked at Robert and said, "You should do it." Then she was off for the say.

After that Robert was warming up.  As I recall it. I spent the day trying to engage Robert in discussing the book and how it would work and how we would pitch it. He seemed to be on board, but I wasn't really sure. Then we were off to meet Steve. I used the time to pitch him about interviewing Robert and I about the book but he was only interested in having Robert speak.  He had wanted to meet me to see if I would cover BBS for Conferenza, a newsletter I report for. Broback left us in the wine bar he had selected with two-thirds of the tab for a wine bottle and appetizers that he had ordered before we arrived.

The day kept going like that.  Robert was saying  he was on board.  I wasn't certain he meant it.  Whenever there was a chance to drill into the subject, we either changed subjects or locations. I was supposed to fly back that night, but changed flights to have a sushi dinner with Robert.  I learned that sushi was near to Robert's heart. I was going to spring for the check until I saw just how much raw fish this guy could consume, but it was during that dinner, that I started to see Robert working the problem.  He started asking me questions about what he would do and what I would do. I started seeing that he wanted to write a book for neither fame nor fortune.  He wanted to write the book to tell others about blogging and why he loved it.  He wanted to share with others what he knew about it and why he loved it.

By the time we were about to part ways in the parking lot.  I think what we accomplished most that day was not the cutting of a deal.  We had decided we liked each other.  We were starting to trust each other, but still we both had misgivings, and we weren't talking about them.

I went back to my room and called Paula. I described the day. "So do you think you have a deal," she asked.  She knew how important this was to me.

"Maybe," I said.

This "odd couple" partnership would not be real for several weeks, when Robert started the forerunner of this blog. I'll write about that on it's anniversary next month. But it gelled, and my life has been better ever since.

So on this day, I say: "Thanks Scoble. Happy Anniversary.

Reading Resonant Leadership

Being away from the computer for 16 hours means I can do some thinking about my life. At the airport I bought a book just on a whim. I like reading business books, so grabbed Resonant Leadership by Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee.

It spoke to me, cause I see myself making many of the same mistakes that the executives are making. Not spending enough energy on relationships. Or on myself (lack of exercise is one of the warning signs they point out).

One thing I picked up on in the book is how many times they used the words relationship and listening. Listening is a hard thing to do. I find that lately I’m having a tougher time listening and just being there for my friends and family. They call this the “sacrifice syndrome” and they say that many leaders fall into this kind of rut.

The book overall won’t appeal to everyone. It’s a bit mushy and gets into the spiritual side of life a bit more than your average business book. But, that’s especially what a lot of managers need in this “all tech, all the time” world.

They have tons of deep work with executives at recognizable companies and detail where they derailed their careers and how they got them back on track.

How do you renew yourself? What business books have you gotten value out of?

Naked is #272 on Feedster 500

Naked Conversations has moved up to #272 on the new Feedster . Scobleizer, Robert's main blog is in spot #76, but only after Feedster founder Scott Johnson posted an entire explanation of the challenges of ranking Robert after his blog's recent relocation to Wordpress, zeroing out all his past links. In the end Scott, made the human decision. Robert would never say it this way, but after all he is Robert Scoble and he has set the model for how so many of us have learned to blog effectively.

Scoble has written about it before, by he doesn't put much credence in rankings. Personally, I think he has a point in that going for the traffic may not be the best goal to set for a blog. On the other hand, I am entirely honored ny having this blog so prominently placed on the Feedster list. To me, this is a remarkable confirmation of an experiment on a new way to write a book and it makes me proud.

Newsvine Finds Spotlight without PR Hoopla Fanfare

Mike Davidson's Newsvine, which appears from the outside to be a most engaging collaboration of news and community involvement. I'm not certain I know enough to comment further, but it sounds to me like the sort of next generation news delivery service that I feel is inevitable.

I've been among an ever burgeoning crowd of people watching the emergence of

But I'll wait until I know more to really comment on what this Disney graduate is doing.  I wanted to comment more on his recent disclosure that the ton of coverage Newsvine has gathered--including CBS news-- so far has been done without PR or so much as a press release. I also want to briefly clarify my views on PR.

Shel Holtz on a recent For Immediate Release podcast that was most kind to Naked Conversations, alleged I thought PR and press releases should be abolished altogether.  That is not true, although I do see some fundamental changes required for the survival of either. If you are a public company, you need press releases just to comply with certain legal and SEC requirements.  If you are in a niche or smokestack business, where your target audiences do not use the Internet as a primary source of information, you need press releases. I just believe a great many--perhaps most--press releases are unnecessary these days.  And those that are necessary can be reduced of pap to be made more useful to editorial recipients and analysts.

I also question whether the cost of a PR agency for a startup--particularly a new technology startup is necessary. In the case of Riya, it has not been. Now comes Newsvine, demonstrating the same point. The guys at FireFox proved the same thing--way back--over six month ago.

Times are changing rapidly. PR agencies, new companies need to assess how they build awareness and credibility with their audiences.  And they may find it much more efficient not to do what everyone else has always done.

Hobson-Holtz: Naked's 1st Podcast Review

This has been a most gratifying day for Robert and me. Out third favorable review of the day came in from two Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson in the form of a 32-minute For Immediate Release podcast reviewing Naked Conversations. They spoke in most flattering terms pointing out some tactics which were indeed at the core of what Robert and I wanted to do. 

We tried to make this the most conversationally inclusive book written for business, and we tried to tell a good story, rather than just pontificate.  Shel and Nev caught that and spoke very kindly about our effort. Neville had absolutely nothing negative with the book as written.  Shel Holtz had a few, some of which I agree with.  He felt the average business guy won't easily relate to our Firefox success story.  He's right. But we selected Firefox, ICQ and Skype to show the utter power of word-of-mouth without traditional marketing adjuncts.

My namesake also disagreed on our suggestion of dark blogs that come alive only to stave off a crisis.  He's right.  It wouldn't work because the blogger would not have taken the time to build credibility. We also agree with Shel's comment that the book would have been better served with more case stories from outside the tech sector, but we think we'll have to wait for the sequel to find them. Shel and I genuinely--and respectfully--disagree on the futures of PR and press releases, but perhaps not as much as he thinks. More about that later.

They were both very flattering to our chapter in which we discussed International bloggers, and the impacts of national cultures on blogging, as well as our story of ME LeClerc, a prominent French businessman.  I'm glad they did.  I have to admit this was my favorite chapter, and Mssr. LeClerc's story was my personal favorite.

They also pointed out some confusion on when the book will be available that we had not realized, and may not have the full answers. As far as we know, the book starts coming out of the printer on Jan. 5, but then has to wend its way through global distribution points.  We are pretty sure that Amazon will be among the first to have it on hand. We did not realize, you can get it cheaper from Amazon USA than Amazon UK.

In any case, I was thrilled by most everything they said, saying that our conversational style really held their interest, even though Nev and Shel know so much of what we had to say already.

Thanks guys.  Thanks, big time.

Michael McLaughlin Has Kudos for Naked

Boy, Robert and I know one thing to be thankful for tomorrow.  The kind reviews just keep coming in. Michael McLaughlin, co-author of Guerilla Marketing for Consultants has written yet another glowing review.

Robert and I firmly believe in the power of word of mouth, and we further believe that blogging is the most powerful word of mouth engine in history. We are about to learn first-hand whether this work for launching a new business book. If these reviews translate into sales, Naked Conversations will do very well when it becomes available on or about Jan. 9.

BTW, skight plug. If you are planning to re-order Naked, this would be a helpful time for us, for you to do it. It would be even more helpful to us, if you went to Amazon via this site.

Thanks, Michael.  Thanks everyone.  This has been just about the best collaborative experience of my life.

Questions to the World

Over at ItSeemstoMe, I've started posing some Questions to the World. We bloggers like to tell the world what we think and I thought it might be a good idea to reverse the process and start asking the world what it thinks. Please drop in over there and leave a comment or two.

Lance Dutson Reviews Us

Lance Dutson at Maine Web Design has written a glowing review of Naked Conversations. This one thrills both Robert and I, because it feels like he has captured and conveyed the essence of what Robert and I have tried to communicate in Naked Conversations.  This review made me feel at once humble and proud.

Do Blogrolls Still Matter?

Back in the quaint beginnings of the blogosphere, blogrolls were a very big deal.  When I started ItSeemstoMe, I actually had the audacity to ask JD Lasica to list me on his blogroll, which he did, I suspect more out of pity than respect for my early contributions.

That was then.  This is now.  Back then, we were all struggling to discover new writers who appealed to each of us. It seems to me that now, we are each struggling to keep up with the overwhelming abundance of things we have discovered and enjoy, but don't have the time to loyally follow.

So the question is: Are blogrolls still relevant?  Do people still use them? Or is the lack of interest in them, just mine?

Donna Tocci Starts to Blog

Donna Tocci of Kryptonite fame has started a blog, which I am very happy to see.  I have written open letter to her to encourage her to do so.  But this is a personal blog, a nice step into the ankle level of the sea change which is blogging.  I hope she takes the plunge and starts a blog in which she discusses he employers, and let's those of us who so seriously have doubted the bicycle lock maker to understand their corporate humanity and authenticityas some of us have come to see in Donna.

In any case, Donna, I'm delighted to see you here. Welcome to the blogosphere. Come on in, the water's fine.

Why Bloggers write so much about Blogs

Scoble's back and I'm juiced.  I've missed the big guy. His first blog, coincidentally addresses an issue I was planning to write about tonight anyway, really and truly:

Why do bloggers write so much about blogging? Doesn't it get boring?  Who has something new to say? Well, let's backtrack on it a bit. Blogging is a place where people with similar interests come to share their knowledge and passion, right? So what's the biggest shared interest that the 21 million bloggers have? Duh...

The blogosphere now has a population larger than many small countries. We are a diverse and unruly lot, but we share one common thread. We love blogging.  Out growing country has tens of millions of visitors who don't blog. Some come to hear conversations about other subjects ranging from quilting, to emergency help in natural disasters, to where to find a cool string of open source code. But these countless others are here because they are interested in blogging.

Yeah, Robert.  We all get tired of talking about it.  But after a good Rest we seem to go back to it. Come to think about it, your recent was all about blogging, wasn't it?

It's been a while...how did you get over your fear?

It's been a while since I've posted here.

Two reasons:

1) I was bored of talking about blogging.
2) My life has just been slammed.

So, why bored? Because we tried to say everything we could say in the book. It was hard for me to find anything about blogging that we didn't already say. But, since finishing the book I've had lunch with the Chairman of the Washington Post Company, spoken to Google's best customers, presented to the European Football Association's execs, shared a car with the guy who runs the Library of Congress, had dinner with the guy who invented the mouse, presented to the world's richest guy, listened to at least 10 Silicon Valley CEO's present their companies to me, and more. Whew!

What did we all talk about? Blogging, what else?

These conversations showed me that our book is on target and answers the biggest questions of why, how, etc.

But, our book still can't help you put your fingers on the keyboard and get you over your fears. I keep hearing about fears. That your organization isn't ready for it yet.

Douglas Englebart told me about his frustrations with other people's fears. The research community shunned him, he told me, because his ideas were too "out there." They were afraid of his ideas (it took 25 years between the time he invented the mouse to the time they were widely used in society).

Seems to me that if we want society to move forward we're going to have to find a way past our fears. How do you convince other people to do just that?

Ernie in New Orleans: After the Flood

When we wrote about our friend Ernie "the Attorney" Svenson in our chapter on "Consultants who Get It," we didn't mean that he should get hit a Category 5 hurricane that would come flying down the Mississippi River smashing and devastating the HonkyTonk city of New Orleans.

Ernie, for those of you who have not followed his incredible blogs, has been through a Homeric saga, that had him homeless and in a tent, then in Houston, Baton Rouge and now back into New Orleans, where he sees hope and opportunity rising from the squalor of today.  We spoke about a week ago and I've been thinking about it ever since.  I have written because I've had too many thoughts.

Most of us have recently etched memories of society disintegrating into a savage scene reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.  And all that did happen, but now Ernie see a place with a rekindled sense of community, with hope that the new New Orleans can improve on some of the deficiencies of the old one.

Ernie described to me his return to a city whose population has been reduced from 450,000 to about 100,000. People who hardly knew each other now embrace on the streets. Neighbors who were suing each other are now helping each other out. Yeah, government broke down, but when you really think about it, that was to be expected.

"FEMA, simply hadn't a clue what to do about Katrina," Ernie told me. "They still don't, but when you really think about it, it's up to the people here to rebuild, to create a better school system, transportation and housing that works, and by doing it we'll rebuild the community." He thinks there will be a 3-5 year building boom and that will put people to work and make the economy healthier."

I mentioned that his local government has been heavily criticized. "Of course, there's corruption," he said. "It's government.  You have to expect it. But that doesn't mean they're not doing some good.  he said locally, people really respect the mayor and think the governor is worthless.

I told him that I've heard talk that the Democrats were thinking about holding their next National Convention there in 2007 and he thought it was a great idea.  It would give us a goal and a deadline to get things together.  The city could use that.

Ernie didn't sound any different than he did before the hurricane.  He grilled me on PopTech where we had originally planned to get together and stay a few extra days to go hiking.  We shared gossip about mutual friends.

Ernie was still Ernie. It was good to speak with him and to be reminded as I have so many times how life goes on and things around us change, but at the core, we stay the same.

Why do Outbound Links?

I know there are a lot of people just starting business-related blogs who come here. This blog is for you. Those of you who have been blogging for a while, can just click right past this. It's about a fundamental of why new bloggers particularly should make outbound links and often.

I've spent a good deal of time with people lately, helping them to understand the mechanic of blogging. And I talk about links and how they are really the wampum of blogging. They are what we receive for blogs well done and it's what we give to show our appreciation to other bloggers. It's how conversations spread from blog-to-blog-to-blog.

It's also how new bloggers get discovered by more veteran bloggers. Let me walk through this. You use blog search engines like Technorati and PubSub to find topics or people who interest you.  You see something you like, or better, something you want to respond to. You already know how to leave a comment.  But a better way to do it, would be to post your thoughts on your own blog, linking to the better known site. If you use a toolset that provides for it, you should also put the link (to the specific posting, not just to the blogsite) in the Trackback Box.  If you use Typepad, that box appears below and a little to the right of where I'm typing right now.

Trackback sends the other blogger a "ping," a little note that says, you've joined his conversation. It is highly likely, that the other blogger will check you out, no matter how new or obscure your blog is. If she or he likes it, they may comment on your blog or link to it in the future. Your link to the more famous blogger will also show up when someone does a search to see who's talking about that person, driving still more traffic to your site.

One more point about these links.  Every time you get one, just like every time you post a new blog, Search Engines like Google notice and elevates your standing, making you more discoverable even to people who don't blog.

This may sound complex, but actually it's quite simple.

The Return of Robert Scoble

For those of you have been following Naked Conversations, I used to have a partner, this geeky guy from Microsoft. He seems to have slowly just faded away, perhaps to work on that other blog of his, along with a day job.

Gult works.  Robert has committed to posting here at least once weekly from now on. I am telling you all so you can call it to his attention if he fails to meet this commitment. He tells me he will post one very shortly.

Welcome back, Robert. I've missed you in here.

Rest Easy in Paris Says Orvitz, State Department

I got a very interesting email from Orvitz this morning, interesting for lots of reasons. It makes mention of my upcoming trip to Paris (for Les Blogs), and assures me that the US State Department has ascertained that tourists are not being targeted and that the central portion of Paris is almost entirely unaffected.

What interests me the most is that I'm pretty certain I did not use Orvitz for my travel arrangements. I booked my flights directly from Air France.  I'm using bonus points to stay three nights in a posh Marriott, and then I'm moving in to a nice three star that Loic recommended and I emailed.

So how does Orvitz know I'm going to Paris? Yeah, I use them.  I may have even done some research on Orvitz.  And I thank my State Department for the reassurance.  But I feel Paris is safe because Loic--someone I know and trust says it's safe. He's there. Assurances from Orvitz and my State Department remain of dubious distinction if you ask me.

tag: les blogs

Why the Bay Area is still special for Tech Folk

I chatted for a while at the Riya party with Shannon Clark, who's in the process of moving to the San Francisco Bay Area from Chicago. Behind him I could see Tara Hunt who had moved here four months ago and as we talked Renee Blodget sauntered past us.  She moved here about a year ago.

Each of them moved here because for technology people this is Mecca. Every night, there's a variety of meet ups.  They are different from the biz card-blazer-elevator pitch days of the late 90s when parties also boomed.  These are in people's backyards, and in pizza parlors or Thai joints. They are low-budget, highly interactive events.

Business is happening, but it is in the informal, interactive style of the blogosphere, rather than the contrived, one-voice style of a website.  But unlike either, there is touch. Technology aside, there is nothing like a face-to-face meeting. Nothing.

And that gets me to Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. There is so much going on in the technology sector.  There's a choice of meet ups, forums.  Every night, take your pick. There's no where else like this in the world.  Not Seattle or Austin, Boston or New York--just here.

I have heard and heard and heard about the high costs of doing business here.  About the costs of housing, office space, the deteriorating public education system.  All these matters concern me.

But when I think through the incredible opportunities here, of you see and find yourself chatting with, of the ideas you here, of the talent that is available there is no place on Earth quite like it. Shannon, Tara and Renee have all become better known, more highly visible than they were in the places they left. Their business opportunities have taken off rapidly.  Shannon has done this in only a week.

Silicon Valley has it's problems and its costs for doing business. But you get what you pay for.

Riya Party Rocked

Boy I haven't been to a launch party like that since the dotcom was still bubbling. There must have been 300 people jammed into Michael Arrington's Atherton yard, all enjoying beer and pizza at an event billed as a barbecue. Pictures are all over the place and most faces are smiling with hands clutching beverages of choice.

Munjal was at his most gracious in his very brief remarks.  He pointed the glory to Tara Hunt for serving so well as the company's blogging evangelist.  But, he rightfully gave the greater glory to the team of seven Riya PhDs whose recognition technology collaboration will soon change a small slice of the world for the better.

Blogging has proved an important point in Riya's story. Spear-headed by Tara, Riya has become widely and enthusiastically known among early adopters--the people who most make a difference for a startup. Riya's public story began less than four months ago and this morning they are, according to Technorati, the second most discussed story on the Blogosphere, with nearly 3500 links in the past six days. This confirms to me, that in "certain cases," a start up no longer needs to assume the burden of traditional PR get recognition.

Those certain cases are when their technology matters. What blogging has done for Riya would not have happened if their technology was mediocre; did not solve a problem that all digital photographers know they have; was not offering a service that people are queuing up to join. Riya has all of this and I predict that on the first anniversary of the day Riya goes into public beta, they will have 25 million users downloads. Their blog-based, word-of-mouth strategy will allow them to do it without issuing a single press release. They will get more traditional press coverage than they possibly will get by going on a press tour. And they will accomplish all that at incredibly low cost.

But, it's vital to recognize that blogging is simply a communications channel. Technology is what's important. When we denizens of Silicon Valley forget that part things tend to, well, bubble up.

Technorati tag: Riya

Have the Drive-Bys Driven Off?

Blogging insiders refer to people who deposit ugly, hostile insulting comments, then move on as drive-bys.  They often seem to be people who enjoy hurling virtual tomatoes at sincere speakers just for the Hell of it. Scoble and I went through a period a few months ago where we were innundated by drive-bys on the three sites where we write.

Robert started referring at Scobleizer as the "Mudpit." I set up the Living Room Policy, which in essence states that I will treat commenters as I would guests in my home.  If you are rude you will be warned.  If you continue to be rude, I'll throw you out and I won't let you back in.

To my surprise, I have had to do this very few times. I'm not certain, but I think there have been less than five incidents.  This is a much smaller number than I though it would be.

I just don't think the Living Room Policy is sufficiently well-known to be the reason for the new kinder gentler comment tones. So why is it happening (not that I'm complaining, mind you)?

My question is this: Are you finding few people leaving rude comments? Can anyone speculate just why its getting more courteous in the blogosphere?

A Reasonable Interview

And since we seem to be into self-romotion for first timers, today.  Marc Babej interviewed me for his first column at Reasonable.com.  I thought he did an excellent and accurate job, although the advertising community its targeted toward may not regard warmly.

I know it will also be widely read in the tech community because Memeorandum picked it up this morning and Memeorandum is fast-becoming among the most influential of all reference blogs.

Raftery's 1st is With Scoble

Tom Raftery just did his first podcast interview and it was with Scoble. Tom is one of my many blog friends who I've actually never met in the real world, but that will change at Les Blogs coming up Dec. 5.  Robert and Tom will be coming over "to the continent" from Cork, Ireland where Tom recruited Robert to speak and is producing the IT at Cork National Business and Technology Conference.

Tom is a really good, natural interviewer.  He draws Robert out better than most interviews I've heard and read.  Robert reveals a couple of things that I didn't know about him.

Robert has my envy.  I have always wanted to see Ireland. I'm from the Boston area and among many of my friends as a young adult, I was known as Shelly McIzzy. My real monicker just didn't play well at the Plow and the Stars where I used to hang out.

Great job, Tom.

Why Blogging Doesn't Integrate--Part 3

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments on the past post. Ephraim, that was a particularly strong argument, but I am not persuaded. Dave Taylor, I'm sorry I popped off at you. It was inappropriate, but I do completely and passionately disagree with your argument that blogging is just another arrow in the marketing tools quiver.

Let's talk for a minute of how I interpret the term "Integrated Marketing Solution (IMS)," and how I heard it used during the years I was in marketing.

A company's marketing people start a process that starts in a room with a white board.  They collaborate on something the call a positioning statement. It is a statement not a position, because most of these professionals understand the market will position their product, service or company.  The statement involves what they will push out through various marketing channels, particularly advertising and PR, but it also carries into all forms of communications, even corporate ID down to the business cards. The idea is to speak with one voice.  The idea is to take that positioning statement and push it out to target audiences in as many ways possible, so that members of the "target audience" keep getting message reinforcement wherever they turn, whatever they read or listen to, whatever trade event they attend. The message is delivered in different ways through these various channels.  IMS has been popular for at least a dozen years and for a long time was quite effective.

But before blogging came along, OMS was starting to develop chinks.  The costs kept rising and the effectiveness started falling down. This led companies to not abandon IMS, but to look more closely at new channels into which they can funnel old messages in new ways. This is how MacDonald's came out with their lame Lincoln Fry blog.  It was an integration with their Super Bowl ad. Vichy's first blog, used a language and a model that was contained in their ad campaign, an ad campaign by the way, that continues to be fairly effective. But the message, and look of the ads failed miserably in a blog. The latter blog was uncoupled from the remainder of the marketing campaign, as Lynn Serfaty, the Vichy director of marketing told me when I interviewed he for Naked Conversations. There is no question, in Vichy's mind which blog was integrated and which was not.  If anything, the latter blog, Journal de ma Peau was integrated with French women over age 35 and the earlier version, tied into an IMS offended them. 

If blogging integrates, it does so with a company's constituencies, not with the remainder of marketing tools. Marketing should use blogs because blogs communicate well in two directions. They don't work well when the intent is to push out messages in one direction.  They don't work well for companies that still don't want to listen to customers.

This does not mean that company bloggers should not collaborate and/or cooperate with marketing and PR.

The shiniest example I know is Robert Scoble, someone who clearly does not integrate with Microsoft's Marketing Solutions. In fact he often causes them trouble. But Robert is about relationships with Microsoft's community.  He's about improving Microsoft's credibility.  He evangelizes the Microsoft technology that he believes in. He defends company policy when he believes its worth defending.

And when he thinks that policies or products are crap, he says so as well. For the most part, what Robert has to say, helps Microsoft marketing and PR, I think more than the other company's efforts combined. He talks with marketing and PR, so he knows what's coming down the line. They know what they would like him to talk about, but they are powerless to tell him what to talk about, and even more powerless to tell him what to say.

Robert and Microsoft do not speak with one voice. Robert speaks with his own voice. He doesn't integrate and if he did, all the good he has done for Redmond would be significantly diminished.

Idea Grove Prices naked at $280K

We think it might be voodoo mathematics, but Idea Grove has calculated the values of some blogs.  They priced us at $280,000 and change. To quote the poet Cuba Gooding, Jr., "Show me da money!"

The Obit is the Newspaper

Ben McConnell sees traditional newspaper quietly fading into irrelevence. I think he's right, but I hope he's wrong.

BJ Fogg Says 'Launch Small'

My friend and YackPack client BJ Fogg has a really insightful post that I hope most startups will embrace: Launch Small.  There's wisdom and economy in this and it should be one of the marketing fundamentals in the new Conversational Era.

In the old days of say 1999 and before, a launch was a moment when a press release crossed BusinessWire or PR Newswire, Before that companies were in stealth, keeping what they were up to so quiet a customer would not know about it, until some huge splash hit in a trade or business publication.

Now, software companies don't really launch.  They go live, and they let a few customers try it.  They get advice, make the product less buggy, perform more smoothly and then more customers come in.  The product goes through harder and harder tests from more and more users, each of whom is making the company smarter about their products.

In fact, there is no launch anymore.  Not really, there's just this widening funnel of customer participation. Companies save in PR costs.  Customers participate and in so doing become part of a distribution system. It's all very efficient, and the money that YackPack and other companies are saving, can go back into products for user-recommended enhancements.

But what about all that PR they don't get from the big event and press release and tour? We they get it in new-and-old ways.  BJ Blogs.  So does my Riya client Munjal Shah. They generate word of mouth.  Their ongoing efforts make them more discoverable in search engines.  The press sees that. Riya is about a month older in the process and they've already been covered in Red Herring, Wired and elsewhere. But you know where they get the greatest response? 

From bloggers who think what they are doing is cool.  And bloggers just give their influence away, when they believe and trust in you. They are part of the new, small launch.

To TypePad: Outstanding Service Award

A while back, I lost about a week of my life to SBC's labyrinthine and incompetent customer service system and I gave the my first and only Awful Service Award. While some have challenged for the award, SBC is so memorably awful, I have sort of retired the citation.

By contrast, Typepad just blew my socks off. I was among many who last week, had terrible performance problems, which I blogged about in frustration. Anil Dash, VP business development, wrote a quick comment of apology, which impressed me at its speed and sincerity. The service has since gotten better, a lot better, and the whole incident was falling into the back part of my memory.

But TypePad has outdone itself. In fact, Typepad has outdone anything I've previously experienced in terms of companies making good.  This morning I--and I assume most Typepad users--received an email from Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart chairman and CEO.  Not only did he apologize, he offered to compensate me for the "less than stellar performance" on Typepad's part. Not only that, the offer let's me choose--within reasonable limits--how many days free service I think I'm entitled to.

This is brilliant marketing. It increases both my personal trust and loyalty. I was inconvenienced, but I'm not going to request free service, because the offer alone is good enough for me.

Not long ago, I also reported on some good experiences from NewsGator. I'd like to say that there is evidence that blog companies universally give great service and at least show their embarrassment for poor service, but that would overstate the case. I'd like to tell SBC about this, but I just don't want to spend the remainder of my productivity years sitting on their help line, being told my call is important to them.

Why Blogging Doesn't Integrate: Part Two

A few weeks back, I posted on why blogging doesn't fit into traditional integrated marketing solutions from my perspective. I felt passion on the issue and considered it to be among my post-authoring revelations, based on what I had learned from nearly 200 business bloggers.

When, I attended The Blog Enterprise, its producer Paul Walker, as well as A-Lister Steve Rubel and IBM Thinkblogger Todd Watson each told me I was wrong on this matter. Of course, Dave Taylor disagreed with me as well, but he seems to be building a career on being blogging's house contrarian, so I could brush that one aside. But this past week end, I ran into Evelyn Rodriguez who also told me she disagreed with my point, and I respect Evelyn a great deal.

So, like it or not, I had to do what bloggers tell businesses to do. I had to listen, really listen.  Then think about it, which I did all day yesterday. In this particular case, I'm sticking to my guns. As it stands today, Blogging doesn't integrate with other marketing "solutions" such as PR, advertising, collaterals, direct mail, web sites and the rest.  It just doesn't.

I am not arguing that all companies should abandon all traditional marketing programs because we now have blogging. I am saying however, that if a company chooses to start a business blog, or encourage employees to blog, they should keep it seperate and apart from integrated programs if they wish bloggingto succeed.

Why? Because integrated marketing solutions (IMS) are based on pushing a central, redundant message and blogging almost always fails when it tries that. In fact, I can think of no example of a blog succeeding as an extension of an IMS. By their very nature, IMS components are not conversations. It works in a great many cases, but in a blog, pushed messages turn back against you. Blogging only works when you allow the market to talk back to you and to change your views and perhaps your other programs.

Look at what happened at Vichy, the giant division of the French cosmetics giant L'Oreal. Vichy began a launch campaign to support a new, four-phase anti-aging treatment with an integrated marketing program that included all the traditional stuff, plus a character blog. It immediately resulted in a significant uprising among French bloggers, particularly woman over age 35--the product's primary target.  Listening to a highly mobilized blogosphere, Vichy apologized for having offended them and shut the blog down. Afew weeks later, the company started a new authentic blog.  They had women bloggers volunteer to undergo the treatment and write about their experience--along with allowing photos showing them gooped up with treatment creams.

The new blog is a stupendous success. The product has become the best seller in the category in France, and it is now going to be marketed internationally.

So let's review what happened: integrated marketing blog resulted in angry customers in target market. Non-integrated has resulted in users becoming customer evangelists.

Integrated blogs, so far just don't work. They lose the key components of authenticity, transparency and more important--credibility. I can think of no blog so far that has successfully integrated. If you can, please let me know.

I never enjoy being a lone voice in  the wilderness.  But I'd rather be one, then to advise marketers of a simple solution to blogging that doesn't work.

Marketing, End Users and Blogging

For years, I've puzzled clients and companies when I decline to have the CEO and chief developer sit down and demo their products to me as a marketing consultant or journalist. Usually, a combination of the chief developer and CEO want to show me why users will love their product. They want to show me their mastery of driving through the product's features.

I avoid this whenever I can because I feel that it gives me the wrong perspective. First off they are masters of piloting around the trouble spots, often faster than I can notice them.  Second, what they think of their technology is less important in the marketplace than what the potential customer thinks.

When users touch products for the first time, they do it gingerly. They may start losing faith in the company just through a registration form that asks too much information. A single ambiguous word or phrase can get them to turn away. The enthusiasts who have invested chunks of their lives into this new technology may be too fast in dismissing such minor user concerns. They result is they will have fewer customers than they could.  A marketing person who shares in their enthusiasm can often amplify a marketplace pproblem, when they should be preventing it.

I have always felt I was a better marketing consultant if I could keep my perspective on the customer's side of the equation. I've been practcing this for more than 25 years.

Blogging is different from this in mechanics, but is very much like it in philosophy. With a blog, a product developer or marketing person can bring the customer perspective  to the center of the dynamic. He or she can revise products, services, marketing materials to more centrally incorporate the user's view.

The result is that the company delivers better products to happier customers, and as I'm fond of saying--this is a good thing.

Loic Says Paris is Safe for Les Blogs

I spoke with Loic a short while ago.  I have been concerned about Les Blogs and coming to Paris with my wife during times of strife. I was also concerned that the recent events might hurt attendance where Robert and I will share a keynote for the first time ever.

He assures me that there are simply no security problems in central Paris and there is a security force of 2000 policemen to ensure it remains that way, with extra details near the more famous landmarks.  He also tells me that the number of registration is past 200 and growing.

Robert and I are juiced. We are actually meeting to discuss what we will say and do and to plan it out. For Robert and I, this is unheard of preparation. But when all is said and done, we will always have Paris.

My Next Book

This announcement, like so many in the blogosphere, is probably premature. I will not start really writing it until after Naked Conversations is launched and is on its way and after interest in the blog begins to wane--which has not yet happened.

But I am a writer.  I have stalled being a writer for a great many years and now it's what I want to do with a majority of my waking hours and I'm in a hurry. So part of my mind has already transitioned to the new work.

My next book has the working title of "StartUps--Going from Zero to Greatness." It will be about a subject that has been central to the work I have done since the late 1970s. I have worked with well over 100 startups, and have been in a position to get an inside view of hundreds more. I have known, and maintain relationships with hundreds of people--entrepreneurs, investors, journalists, Silicon Valley insiders.  I also have contacts all over the world who are close to this subject thanks to my blogs.

Unlike Naked Conversations, at least when we started, there are a great number of books that have been written on this subject.  They have profiled single companies, offered the how to and the why to. I think many of them are good and a few of them are excellent.

StartUps will be different, because it will focus on the collective first-hand insights of the people--mostly in the tech sector--who have been doing it. It will be different also because, I will use the same process for writing it that Robert and I used to write Naked Conversations. There will be a blog in which I present early chapter versions, interviews and thoughts and get feedback from the blogosphere.  Like Naked, I expect the end product to be vastly improved over the earlier versions.

StartUps will be divided into two major parts. Part One will look at what has remained constant during the years I've worked with entrepreneurs.  It will look at the characteristics I find in the people who start companies and the teams that succeed once assembled. Part Two will examine what has changed.  What's new and it will take a particularly long look at how blogging and other social media are impact startups. I will talk to quite a few people who were interviewed for Naked, but from the perspective of people driving startups, rather than people blogging. This of course will create some small overlap.

Because of the responsibilities of launching Naked Conversations, I will not make this my central focus for a while yet, no sooner than February.  I will begin a StartUps book blog then, and I'll have a publisher's proposal started by then. In a great many ways, the process will be the same for the new book as it has been for the old one with some refinements I've learned along the way.

I'm announcing this now for a few reasons.  First it is where my mind is going and I had a need to share it. Second, my friend Buzz Bruggeman is staying here and he became the third close friend to ask me this week and I tend to answer questions better in written words than verbally. So I can send him this link and wait for his response.

Needless to say, I want blogosphere feedback.  Is this new book a good idea? If you followed this blog so far, will the new book project interest you? Do you have some stories for me that will be suitable for the next book (I've already started a list)? Who should I interview?

Please tell me what you think.

How to Review Naked at Amazon

I was surprised to hear people were having troubles reviewing Naked Conversations at Amazon, and it is indeed a little tricky--by you can do it.

Here's how:

1. Click on the Amazon icon on this page
2. Clicked on the book title (not the cover icron)
3. Scroll down just a teeny bit
4. You will see: "Rate it" with five stars. Click on the stars (not 'rate it')
5. Write a review

To avoid confusion on availability, please note that you received an advanced copy for review purposes. Thanks to all of you and in the words of Blanche Dubois: "Be kind."

What Should Newspapers Do?

For a couple hundred years in America and other democratic countries, newspapers were among the leading voices of their communities and now they are on the wane, because of a series of issues that range from the cost of newsprint to the loss of advertising revenue to Internet-based companies like Google and Craig's List and now, some would argue because of the advent of blogging citizen journalists.

I do not think this is a good thing. Newspapers have performed incredible services in keeping communities of varied geographies and/or interests informed.  They have pointed out corruption in private and public sectors.  They have shown us the horrors of manmade and natural disasters. But technology has been relentlessly devastating to their economic models. And the loss of revenue has led to a reduction of an estimated 100,000 editorial positions in the last five years or so.

I've had the opportunity to see several representatives of mainstream media and local newspapers speak in the last few weeks and they seem to me to be an embittered lot. I don't blame them.  They seem to see bloggers as their enemies--after all, we don't check facts as thoroughly as most of them do.  We don't (for the most part) meet payrolls, and we seem to have the good fortune (said with irony) of being at the scene when a great number of disasters take place, giving us heart-wrenching scoops that the more sensationalistic among the press must truly envy.

So what should newspapers do?  Should they continue along their current route, which seems destined to result in most newspapers whithering and dying in the coming few years? I hope not and I believe instead of seeing blogs as an enemy, they should embrace citizen journalism in ways that currently have never been truly explored.

The idea has germinated ever since I heard David Weinberger speak at BlogOn.  He complained that mainstream press see bloggers as stringers--part-time correspondents, invariably situated out in the field. In college I was a stringer for Time Magazine and AP, because I was a student and it was easy for me to cover student unrest in Boston in the 60s. I then became an editor in a Massachusetts suburban newspaper where we lived on stringers telling us what was happening in bedroom communities right down to the local garden clubs.

We "professionals" had the attitude that the stringers weren't as professional as we were--but they had a better pulse on their communities than we dis. In retrospect, both assumptions were pretty accurate.

So that's where my idea comes in. Metropolitan and suburban newspapers could augment their coverage with blogging citizen journalists, in every neighborhood, writing with one hand about every club, group and civic organization, while keeping their other hand on the pulse of the community in which they are a part. This would give a greater depth to community coverage than has previously existed online or off.

It also would be a perfect venue for local, and niche advertisers, not to mention national and globals.  Imagine what Chevy could do with advertisements that were going to pages dedicated exclusively to soccer moms.

The world will not be a better place without newspapers.  The First Amendment will not be more secure. Newspapers need to to adapt to the realities of the Information Age. If they continue heading down the road they are on, they are very likely to find a dead end.

Truth in Voice Mail

It was a local company.  I know the owners and I like them and their operations overall, so I won't name them here, because I didn't like what happened when I called.

I heard: " Due to the unusually high volume...your call is important to us... please stay on..."

You know the drill.  What you actually hear is closer to this: " The person you have called is not in service and there is no new human at this time. If you really want assistance, please go to the window, open it up and plunge to your death.  We really don't care."

It seems to me companies use technology for the reverse reasons of why they should. They build walls to keep people out--websites that don't give you a name and a method for reaching someone who is not shielded by auto reply. Voice processing, CRM and so forth.

This is among the chief reasons I am so in love with blogging for business. It opens conversations, it gives customers access and in so doing gives companies opportunities that they are losing elsewhere. For example--customer support. Somewhere along the line, the operations people determined it was just too expensive to give good support from knowledgeable, enthusiastic people.  So they shoveled off to remote lands--first places like Stillwater Oklahoma, then more remote places like Bangalore.

If companies had moved customer support into their marketing departments, perhaps a whole other dynamic would have occurred--relationships would have been established.  Loyalty would have been built. Some customers would become company and product evangelists. More after-market products would be sold. Such support still exists. The Omaha Steaks ( a website, not a blog--Vegetarians this is not a place for you) people do it, for example and senior executives take their turns. I once had a minor question with NewsGator and found Greg Reinacker answer it through email at about 11 o'clock one night.  I never forgot the experience and have been telling others for nearly a year.

Meanwhile, today I had my first rumblings of concern about a company I've done local business with often. All because of a stupidly cloned voice mail system.

Tenets of Customer Evangelism & Blogging

Steve Rubel plays off the Six Tenets of Customer Evangelism to create Tenets of Blogging. Both are memorable and enduring. Both are vital components of Conversational Marketing.

Reviewers--Another Way You Can Help

It never dawned on me to ask this, and I think it is only appropriate if Robert and I ask it transparently.  If you have seen a galley copy and have reviewed it, you could post that review to Amazon.com, which is already taking orders for Naked Conversations. I am told this will help us a great deal.

Thanks for the help you have given so far.  Thanks for the help you may choose to still give us.

Naked Conversations Real Cover is Finally up on Amazon

At long last, the real cover art for our book is finally up at Amazon.com and in the icon you see on this page. This makes me very happy. I have been told that patience is one of those virtues that I still need to refine.  Waiting for the art to change has been a real test for me.

Now, if you think this jack is really ugly, please take your fingers off your keyboard.  Do not call or send me a postcard keep your distaste for it all to yourself. May you see this jacket in all bookstores you enter for Jan. 9 on forward.

I just can't wait.

Is IBM Gong to Into PR Business?

According to ZDNet, "IBM said it is developing an application to analyze how discussions on blogs and other Web sites are affecting a given corporation's image. The computing giant on Monday described a service, called the Public Image Monitoring Solution, that searches through reams of blogs, news stories and other material to distill useful information for companies. "

Isn't that what PR agencies are supposed to do for their clients? For that matter, isn't that where Memeorandum is headed? Yeah, but there's is much bigger and a lot bluer ...

Two More Issues on PR

I was talking to Chris Shipley on the phone earlier today.  It was a great way to avoid writing my Conferenza column on BlogOn, which Shipley's Guidewire Group had produced. We got to talking about how what I had said as a panelist at BlogOn had been misquoted and had offended some of the PR practitioners at the conference.

She knows that I take more than a little pride  in the work I did and the clients I served during my years as a PR operative and executive. She knows also that I feel that I have a great deal to say to the PR industry in general and the tech and startup sectors in particular. But Chris actually asked me a question that is very rarely asked, which is why did I actually stop doing it.

Yeah, it was because the dotcom era had gone, but I had rebuilt my small agency twice before and I probably had it in me to do so again. Yeah it was because the arrogance of clients had increased along with a shallowness for their own customers. That was all a part of it. Yeah, clients who had bellied up and could not pay me were using a non-performance clause in contracts that was bullshit and they knew it.

But there were still more reasons and in retrospect, they were bigger. Almost every time I told someone that I was in PR, they made some joke about my ethics. Every time I felt I had something that contributed to the conversation, I was taken less seriously than I should have been taken because I was a PR guy.

I had spent the end of my younger and most of my middle years in PR.  My best friends, my greatest business successes were in PR.  Lessons for life and business were intertwined in PR and yes some of my best friends and most respected colleagues were in PR and for that reason, what I had to say was being discounted.

At BlogOn, I had said something very close to this: "I feel that blogging has already reached its tipping point,and those of you who are in the communications business need to adapt. Many in PR already have and they are doing a superior job of communicating for both themselves and their clients.  But others think they can just keep on doing whatever it is they have been doing and I think you need to realize that you are in a change-or-die situation.  I say this without glee, but for those of you who insist on continuing with "Command and Control" tactics, I see a future in the restaurant service industry."

One PR person said I had accused PR of trying to "control the media." I did not.  Another in the room asserted that I had called PR people "evil." I never would. Spencer F. Katt, eWeek's aging feline gossip-monger accused me of saying that "all PR people had futures as waiters." I did not.

I care a great deal about the PR industry.  I think it has some serious house cleaning to do, but most practitioners have integrity.  In fact, if PR folk have a real problem is they try to hard to please both clients and the press.  But the industry has a terrible image problem.  As the Edelman Barometer finds each year--they are rated below lawyers for credibility. The irony is that they are in the image industry.  There needs to be some objective self-examination ac cross the industry.  There needs to be some tough listening.

I am not a voice in the wilderness. I talk with a good many senior PR people for several respected agencies. To varying degrees they feel their existing business models are either damaged or obsolete.  They think they have time to change them, but not a whole lot.

And now that I call myself, a "recovering publicist," maybe I'll be taken more seriously.

Jim to Help Out in New Orleans

I was scanning my morning email scan. As is often the case, Jim Minatel, my book editor who has emerged into my friend had one for me. What was unusual was the subject matter. He was writing to inform Robert and me that he would be away for 10 days. Jim would be joining a church group from Indiana to help people out in New Orleans.

He had been touched by a woman named Courtney an Indiana woman who had blogged about her similar experience in Texas between Katrina and Rita helping victims and blogging in long passionate posts. Through her church, the Geist Christian Church, she was organizing another group and Jim was joining in.

Jim told me, " she doesn't have any idea what they'll have us doing when we get there. All I know is, we're driving there Sunday, working Mon-Fri. Driving home Saturday." While he gave me permission to blog this, he emphasized, "It's personal, I really feel called to give more back than I have to date, and this is part of it. But I also feel that maybe if I talk a little more about giving more back, maybe I can make an impact beyond just what I can do with my own two hands."

Jim, you inspire me. I wish you safe journey and success in helping people who need it.