I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Melissa Pierce recently at The Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Brett Petersel of Mashable and Jane Quigley of Crayon insisted that we connect and I gladly obliged. Melissa is a professional life coach and also the producer of Life In Perpetual Beta, an ambitious interview-driven documentary that features stripped-down, honest, and unpretentious one-on-one conversations with thought leaders and pioneers in the fields of New Marketing and Social Media. Life In Perpetual Beta…
BusinessWeek Seeks Guidance on Who To Profile in Social Media
Stephen Baker and Helen Walters of BusinessWeek recently asked readers to nominate those individuals who are driving the evolution and pervasiveness of Social Media as part of its “voice of innovation” series. Who is truly the most innovative force within social media? Who’s really making a difference? Who really gets it? Who do you think your fellow BusinessWeek readers NEED to know about? The submissions are in and I’m honored and humbled to be included in the list of candidates. Now,…
SolutionsStars Video Series Helps Businesses Embrace Social Media
During Blogworld Expo 2008 in Las Vegas, The Network Solutions Team shot footage for SolutionsStars, its online Web series designed to help small businesses harness the potential of Social Media to identify, understand, participate, and excel in the communities that impact their bottom line. I was asked to participate by good friend Geoff Livingston (the man behind the book Now is Gone). Portions of the resulting footage were edited into two videos as part of the series, The Social Opportunity…
TechCrunch Kills The Embargo, But PR Holds the Smoking Gun
Disclosure, I am a contributor to TechCrunch and I have had my fair share of embargoes broken by various reporters and bloggers over the years. In some cases, we trusted the wrong people. Credit In what is sure to come as an absolute surprise to the tech PR industry, TechCrunch proclaimed that it will no longer honor embargoes, unless they’re granted exclusivity. The move was triggered by a growing pattern of underhanded and also irresponsible behavior in the backchannels of…
Saying More with Less: A Directory of Short URL Services
Source Through brevity there’s clarity. As marketers and communicators in the era of socialized media, we’re relearning how to summarize and illustrate what we represent so that we might briefly captivate the attention of those we wish to reach. Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, Qik, Seesmic, 12seconds, Facebook News Feeds, and all other forms of micromedia communities prosper through a concise economy of language and forethought. It is the exchange of this richer dialog that flourishes through succinctness. This introspective and empathetic…
PeopleBrowsr Centralizes Conversations & Relationships: Introduces A Dashboard for Social Networks
Over the last several months, I’ve had the distinct pleasure and honor of working with some of the most visionary people online to develop a solution that WE, as social architects, need to stay connected, and also, centered. I’ve invested a significant portion of time and energy into the support, development, and refinement of an ambitious project led by Jodee Rich. I did so, because I believe that it is one of the most compelling and promising services for uniting…
Introducing MicroPR, A PR Resource for Journalists, Analysts and Bloggers on Twitter
In the era of the Social Web, transparency, engagement, and a commitment to authentically connect people to your story are essential principles for practicing successful and meaningful Public Relations. Concurrently, the socialization of media is creating new communities and communications channels that are empowering journalists, bloggers, analysts, as well as everyday people, to actively and passionately contribute, share, and discover the stories around us. It’s changing the information ecosystem. Media and communications professionals must stay connected and work together now…
Barack Obama, The Social Web, and the Future of User-Generated Government
What follows is the unedited version of my latest post for TechCrunch, “Is Obama Ready To Be a Two-Way President. Barack Obama’s flickr stream Where there’s victory, there’s also opportunity… America voted while the entire world watched and listened. Whether you supported Obama or McCain, we equally shared the hope for positive change and a new beginning towards a brighter future. This Presidential election was the first in 50 years, in which there was no incumbent President or Vice President…
Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web
Source Businesses, individuals, and organizations will, from time to time, make honest mistakes or in some unfortunate cases, intentionally support unethical decisions to dissuade or conceal something significant from its public. Whether it’s an oversight or a matter of deception, savvy companies usually employ and deploy a crises response team to prepare for, manage and attempt to positively spin the potential backlash from customers, partners, and employees related to almost anything. Crisis communications is a branch of PR that is…
Where the Streets Have Names: Learning from Bono’s Facebook Dilemma
Source What happens in the real world can usually end up on the Web for all to discover, share, and assess with or without your knowledge. According to The Mail, even Sir Bono, lead singer of U2, couldn’t escape the global distribution and network effect of Facebook. The rock star, humanitarian, and family man inadvertently shared a portion of his St. Tropez holiday, courtesy of a 19-year old and her Facebook profile. Jane Smith (name changed for purposes of this…
