My old friend Don Thorson, who's now VP marketing at Jajah, a new telephony company, expressed some frustration with putting me into the right box. In an e:note he wrote:
I don't know how to treat you these days - as a consultant or a blogger. So here's the question. We have some cool "phone industry news" going out on Monday. It relates to your Dec 2nd / "The importance of Cheap Talk" post and the recent Skype announcement about raising prices.
I understand Don's frustration. We live in an era when many of us wear multiple hats. Jajah is in a new telephony category, which I am writing about with increasing frequency. I also have a client that is in this category. This is the same for my friend Andy Abramson, who has a very respected VOIP blog and a few clients in the same category.
Last week I sat down with Carnet Williams, who had been given old data points on me. He sat down to hear what I could do for him as a PR guy. I sat down, primarily to cover the fund raising technology he was launching. I couldn't figure out why he was giving me his product and financial plans. He got pretty confused when I hauled out my camera, and asked him if everything he had to say was on the record.
Gawd, I feel like I have multiple personalities. Transparency gets tedious. But it is so important. And if I am confusing friends like Don, then I am confusing lots of other people as well, so let's see if I can give you an executive summary of who I am and what I do.
Actually, I have three roles and they are all pretty much interdependent of each other:
- Book--The book is my core project and the subject of the most passion. I am starting to wake up at 5 in the morning to work on it. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I am looking for data points and anecdotes that will fit the pieces of the puzzle that will become Global Neighborhoods. i expect the book will be published in Q1 2008, which believe it or not, doesn't give me much time.
- Consult. As I have done since about the time the wheel was developed and launched, I consult companies on issues related to communications strategies. While most companies I have worked with are tech startups I've been increasingly invited to companies of all sizes and in all categories on issues related to social media.
- Blog. I write on subjects that I hope will interest business people. Lately, I have been expanding the topics in all sorts of experimental ways. I am looking at how technology and culture interact. I am looking at the future impact on business caused by youth who communicate through social media. I am dabbling a bit into politics. I am trying to get Americans and people elsewhere in the world to understand each other better. If people want to pitch me, I enjoy getting email because it helps me to get better informed on what is happening. But I am much more interested in issues than new product launches. I care more about markets than companies and my loyalty in writing about my clients or their competitors is to my readers--not to my clients.
Toward the goal of all three of these endeavors, I prefer a face-to-face meeting in which we have a simple, interactive conversation. I hate PowerPoint and monologues. I hate the implication that I should listen up and write this down. i think this makes me a great deal more like my readers.
It is sometimes hard for me to keep things straight. I know a great deal of confidential information that I will not write about until it is made public. I sometimes have competitive information on a client's competitor and I keep it to myself, because it was given to me as a writer and my credibility is my fundamental religion in all the things I do.
I hope this helps, Don.
