Author Archives: Jason

Andy Sernovitz – Word of Mouth guru

Andy Sernovitz - Word of Mouth guruWord of mouth marketing in 5 easy steps – wordofmouthbook.com

1 – put card in the thing for a surprise, and 2 – lower your expectations!

At Dreary Inn (sp – yes, pun intended) you get one free hour long distance. They are giving you a reason to spread the word and the tool to tell people about it!

RedEnvelope send nice gifts in gorgeous red box, bow, etc. It’s huge wrapping – no matter what the gift is, they are creating buzz about the box, and people ask “where did you get that!” instead of “what is the gift?”!!

WOMM is about little simple things that we can do… not HUGE things. Like the Purple cow thing, where people can’t help but tell their friends about you.

As americans, we talk all the time, but we specifically talk about products. Restaurants, type of food, shampoos, etc. We talk about things to buy, and brand mentions are woven through our chatter – so the brand is to get peopel to talk about our brand. It’s not about causing conversations, it’s about getting people to talk about our stuff.

Example, Krispy Kream – hot donuts.the neon sign would cause huge WOMM.

On the flip side you can blow it – if you don’t keep it special, people are going to stop talking about you. It has to be special! No one tells their friends about buying donuts in the gas station, where they are cold.

1. give people a reason to talk about you.

2. keep the message special. (KK donuts cold in the gas station was a no-no)

WOMM is (A) giving people a reason to talk about your stuff and (B) making it easy for people to talk about it.

YouTube has 7 diff spots on each page facilating sharing!! blog it, e-mail it, share it, etc. So there is B2B, B2C… but what about C2C (which is really B2C2C2C2C…..)

one of the greatest is the secret e-mail with the employee discount for the gap, etc. If they ran the same thing in the newspaper it would not spread – but on the e0mail (with employee discount) it did!

This is all about LOVE. Making people love your stuff – they want to tell people about you, your company, etc. Teenagers in love can’t stop talking about it! You’ve got to earn love, trust and respect and NEVER break that.

Love and money don’t mix. If people are going to tell their friends aboutyou, they will because they like what you are doing. (so I’m not going to do the crazy free affiliate thing) – this violates the trust!

“advertising is the price of being boring!” If you create cool, exciting stuff then everyone will write about you! If you are boring you have to pay them to write about you :p But it’s easier to buy the ads than it is to be interesting, remarkable or to get respect from them.

Why do the same people who skip through the ads on a magazine authorize ad purchases at their work??

1 New Reality – consumers control your reputation

People like me – I need tothink about selling to people like me (I think I missed this or didn’t get this point right, I don’t agree 100% (he’s rich and I’m not though, so listen to who you want t0)) – and people like me can stamp me out with a post or comment on CNET or something like that.

People like me UR the UE (UR: you are; UE: user experience) – your brand is not what your ads say they are. Your brand is the sum total of all the experiences when regular people call your company. The true user experience defines your brand. No amount of advertising fixes a broken car – no ad campaign connects you to a cell spot when you can’t connect! Example is Southwest airlines because they are the same as the rest (as far as rain, uncontrollables, etc.) but SW is nice about things!! JetBlue begged forgiveness – they are genuinely nice people! Guess who isn’t nice, but rather fake? Ted. It’s just not the same.

The permanent Record – everything lives forever in Google. So your job as a WOMM is to make sure the good stuff gets on the front page too – the great customer service moment, etc.

3 reasons why people talk about you:

You – because they love your company, products, stuff, etc. He can’t give a checklist of stuff for us to do – it comes down to just being a great company. Just do a good job, consistently, for a long time.

Me – personal, emotional reasons. Because it makes them look good. “I’m the car guy, everyone asks me about cars”. People love to be asked… Mac owners believe that if you own a Mac you’ll be better off… all companies should have a non-corporate blog, a “geeko” blog (example – Quickbooks developer blog). Give them more to talk about so they can look good, feel good about themselves.

Us – wewant to feel part of the group – the teenagrs that don’t want to be abused by marketers but they all where the gap hat and A&F shirts. Or, the saturn groupies (not ferrari, harley) — 60k people!! Maker’s Mark is another example of how to do this… you sign up and vow to save others from drinking bad whiskey, and they send you 30 cards to hand out… ! There are 500k ambassadors (sp) !! Huge power of thinking part of the group. Microsoft has on-site face2face meetings, even though they don’t have to — 3 every day! This builds the “us.” They had over 1M Vista beta testers! Make people feel part of your family.

5 Steps in WOMM

  1. Talkers: find people who will talk — these are regular people, all of us, bloggers are talkers… it’s just people that volunteer to join the club!
  2. Topics: give people a reason to talk –this is not the brand, or marketing material, this is just simple stuff that people can tell to others! Perhaps the best topic ever, about 10 yrs ago when Jobs went back to apple, it was “cute little computers – they are colorful (purple, pink, orange, etc.). The colors are irrelevent but guess what – it created buzz and talk – it was the topic that travelled that made it so successful.
  3. Tools: help the message spread — sometimes you just have to ask them to. Also, the “tell a friend” button on every single page of your site, or an “e-mail this post” to someone else. This needs to be on EVERY page and EVERY post. Biggest tool is e-mail – because it is FORWARDABLE. This is HUGE. Or launch an e-mail newsletter (which is old school but travellable) – you have to think about what is it going to make it easier for people to share your topic?
  4. Taking Part: join the conversation –marketing departments are all about outputs — customer service is all about input… we need to figure out how to have a conversation!! Two ways. Every business should put every employee in front of a computer… and respond to every single mention that you finally see. No matter what their role is… if they say something bad your response is “I’m sorry, we screwed up” — the response is another post that says “OMG, Dell reads my blog!” You get another post going, and it breaks down some barriers.
  5. Tracking: measure and listen

New phenomenon out there – making people happy makes you more money!

— The End

Q: what do you think about the question “would you recommend this to your friend?” A: (jason thinks: the ultimate question is “will you” ?) — Andy says there is a formula from some book he’s doing that shows a correlation between the number of promoters and profit. “Net Promoter Score” is what the hottest trend is to figure out now.

Comment: this dude put up a positive comment that he had on Dell and they didn’t know what to do, how to react.

Q: Should we really put the lowest paid employee on the internet making comments? do we blog so we can do change management (and have them blog), have it come from the strategic level? A: it’s not that simple. the CEO of Dell needs to make the computers better, not blog. There can be a team that handles this. (jason thinks: getting the lower level involved in this will help form/change the company structure).

Comment: Frankie James mentions the power of nice book (should take 40 minutes to read)

Q: he is saying that he requested us to make any comment, good or bad. Does he really want the bad? A: It’s all about honesty, and authenticity. It’s about being human, being real, sharing what we think! Not everyone is going to like it but readers are intelligent, and they will understand when we have a bad comment or whateer, that is what conversation is about. No one believes 100% of positive reviews.

Rodney Rumford – VideoSticky

Rodney Rumford - Video expertHow to take your blog and turn it into a multi-media property. subtitles: The convergence of video, blogs, community and connections.

There are 80k – 100k new videos uploaded every day … they can’t all be crap!!

YouTube has paved the way for us conceptually (we can see the value of what these vid’s are/can be) and technological (because of all the technology/tools to help meet the needs).

Huge problem with channels/playlists on existing platforms – YouTube, Googe Video, etc. Says there is going to be an evolution of playlists and channels based on topics, themes, fav’s etc.

People are watching more Tivo and less TV, and online you are going to be able to be more efficient on how you watch videos (it’s empowering to the individual).

Going to the next level, integrating video – you get longer site visits, deeper knowledge sharing, extending branding, etc. The bottom line is, if I get more info from you I’m more likely to come back to your blog.

Lots of people see a mountain of garbage when they think of the videos (because it’s not super easy to find the treasure chest of gems buried in the landfill of garbage)… the awesome solution will be the ability to find the gems quickly, easily, etc.

People consume content in different ways. (Jason: TRUE) Don’t say “my audience isn’t interested in video – you can’t really know that. If you are asking “how can I engage people deeper?” Even if you are not creating the content then just aggregate it.

Talks about MojoPages, as a video branding case study. they were able to create their brand with blogs and video documentary even before they had their product! They released a 10 minute video, really transparent, and they were ALL blogging at the same time (CEO, CFO, etc.). Then they had a bunch of bloggers hijack their brand… this grew because the bloggers took it over… awesome case study.

Says to create a channel of relevent video, stick it in your sidebar and share it with your readers. Says that “mybloglog” turned on the lights so we can see who is reading our blogs :p :p :p

Even if we don’t have excellent, great video IT’S OKAY! It’s still acceptable, and his advice is “JUST START” – the content is more impt than the visual quality.

We are all the connectors – all of the bloggers in this room have our own circles and we can connect others…

  • content creators are leaders
  • extend your reach and influence

— The End

comment: videos on a blog site, … the feedback about the videos on the site is amazing… when you get face and personality on there people are really jazzed to see/hear that.

Q: (or comment) Keith Levinson (sp) SEO expert. Says that search engines are starving for optimized video, so tag it, use megadata… says this is a HUGE opportunity right now because it’s so in it’s infancy. VideoSticky is focuses on tagging and SEO stuff.

Q: technical question – Ashley Cecil – wants to know how to put videos up without doing it on revver or YouTube or whatever. A: put it on your server and there are plugins.

One of the best ways to protect your home or business is by installing a surveillance camera.  Normal security systems can alert you that someone has broken in, but the person is usually gone before they can be identified.  With a home security camera you’ll be able to record who is breaking in, maybe even from multiple angles depending on what model surveillance camera system you install.

Ben Yoskovitz – Podcasting 101

Ben YoskovitzBen is the brains behind the Instigator Blog.

what is podcasting? Definition from Wikipedia (dull definition but the graphics are cool :p)

Doesn’t really care for this definition, he really thinks of it as radio – pushing content out to people. But there is a conversational component … so marrying these two things (and this is exactly what social media is about, getting feedback) is a podcast.

Why podcast? It’s really all about people… you can build a bigger and newer audience through podcasting. There are people who are audio learners as opposed to readers. You can catch and morph people’s attention… they can engage when they are cleaning, commuting, etc.

It’s all about the personal brand… he feels that podcasting has taken his brand one step further than the blogging.

Business opportunities: example: Living La Vida Low-Carb Show – he is really building more authority for himself. he monetizes with sponsorships.

example: Twist Image, Mitch Joel – 6 pixels of separation. His podcasts are from 40 min’s to an hour. “it’s all about eating his own dogfood” or, using the technology he promotes and sells as examples, etc. It’s a soft sale, “this is what works” …

example: The Financial Aid podcast, by Chris Penn. He is in a hugely competitive market – no one is podcasting in his market but they are doing all kinds of other expensive advertising (others pay $70 per click in google !!)

Chris Brogan – “has changed his entire life”

NOW WHAT – how to get started? Podcasting is easy but it’s more time consuming than blogging (partly because of the technology, getting comfortable with your voice).

The key is to start simple – he has a $60/headset, use Skype for interviews, start simple with the format, keep your podcast short to start.

Audio editing: Audacity, garageBand, podsafe music network (this is the free music you can access to put on your site)

where does it live? WordPress has podpress plugin, there are tons of places to host… and give you widgets to integrate on your blog post.

Ben Y’s best practices:

  • length doesn’t really matter. He first thought 5 – 10 minutes… but later found that long ones are fine
  • quality needs to be high
  • incorporate music!
  • wite a script but not word-for-word
  • make it conversational
  • link to others, use blogging best practices
  • draw in your existing community (it’s not about taking people away from your blog!) It’s about taking one of your subjects and going deeper into it…

What’s the future of podcasting?

  • we’re all media channels
  • there is strength in numbers, with the podcasting networks (and this is really where podcasting will become successful) – there are city-based, or other non-geography
  • ultimately the niche will rule. Focus on a super-hyper targeted market. He had 3 example: health hecks podcast (not sure what the first one was, something like Just One More Book), The LD Podast – for parents with children with learning disabilities.
  • It’s not just about a weekly or monthly podcast, but what about Audio Books? THIS IS AN EXCELLENT IDEA – take your best posts and turn them into a book. We’re all familiarwith the eBook, but what about the Audio Book??

Doesn’t think it will be as popular as blogging just because ofthe techno barriers. Is putting all of this online, with links, etc.

Q: Sheila about family travel, doesn’t listen to podcasts because she has no time and likes to skim. Podcasting forces you into the rhythm of a podcast on your time (!!). She wants to be sold on why she should do this… and thinks that she has no time to do this! A: ben: a lot of people are downloading this and listening to this on their own schedule (like in commutes). (and she responds, she needs to think about heraudience and perhaps this is the service for them that fits better for them). Ben also says just integrate this into your blog… don’t start something totally new!

Comment: Ashley Cecil doesn’t have time to DO it but would love to listen because as she paints she listens to stuff.

Q: how do you make a section sound like a section? You can’t use subtitles. A: use music to transition…

David Armano – Conversation by Design

David Armanohttp://darmano.typepad.com (I didn’t realize who this was – for me this guy is a bloggers superstar and has an incredible following and for good reason!) He writes for business week – is this one article or is this multiple columns??

One word to focus on in his presentation: experience.

His blog came out of nowhere, but wants to share what has worked for him.

Starting at the beginning – we are all unique. We’re all individuals. Are our blogs as unique as we are, and the voice, and the experience and the brand. When we talk about 75M blogs, does our blog really stand apart? If your blog is your business you need to focus on this.

He say 34 reasons why peole unsubscribe from your blog, reason #5: too many posts that I see elsewhere. SO your blog does not stand out.

how do we define success? We all have to ask ourselves this question. (he defined it but I didn’t get it -I heard it but it didn’t click)

Blogs + brands – some have it (google, ipod, etc.) and others have lost it (burger king, kmart, kodak (all have red, all have big K).

Q: do you have a blog brand?? Seth has it, Guy has it, Kathy had it (but it will likely change)… any successful blog has blog brand.

Q: are you blogging or representing your personal brand? He uses blogs as an extension of his personal brand. A brand is a gut feeling about products, services, etc. how do you convey this GUT FEELING?

I’t not any one thing (community, voice, message) … it’s all of the things together to give a GUT FEELING.

Q: can you design a better blog experience? YES – and it’s not just in the asthetics, but the complete experience. You want them to have had such a great experience so they come back.

4 Cs of blogging:

  • COMMUNITY
    • invest in the community, get involved;
    • Listen and facilitate,
    • Cultivate, ask their opinions
  • CONTENT
    • frame our subjects, don’t just report but have opinions and seek opinions of others;
    • share – people are hungry for knowledge, don’t worry about your ideas being stolen because everyone is stealing from one another;
    • serve – we are 100% in the service industry – if you are not providing value then stop blogging!
  • CLARITY
    • See where you are going, vision is everything;
    • communicate, be clear and articulate – rambling doesn’t make for good conversation;
    • vision IS NOT visionary – don’t let this word scare you off – you don’t need ot be a genious, you just need to “keep your eyes on the road”
  • CONSISTENCY
    • Find your voice – speak up;
    • write about things you care about and be true to yourself (this is better than saying “be authentic”;
    • experiment, evolve and do it consistently.

This is his framework and it is working…he never writes about something that he doesn’t want to write about – no one is forcing him (perhaps in a business setting)

Clarity combines vision with agility. No matter how much planning we do we’ll have to improvise… we have to be flexible. We still have to plan but we have to roll with what life gives us – and same with the blog. He didn’t know his blog was going to take off like is has… so “have a plan butbe really good at improvising!”

Technology recommendation – SLIDESHARE. need to check that out. “it almost makes the content 3D in one single post”…

STOP calling yourself a blogger. As a brand, it has a lot of baggage. When we are thinking about our audience be empathetic (I need to incorporate this into my personal branding stuff ‘it’s not “be a blogger” it’s “develop your brand with tools”) — this is more of a change in mindset – we need to be (1) unique individuals that have interests that (2) use tools to do self-publishing. When you stop thinking of yourself as a blogger your blog will be effected by that !! very cool idea.

Bloggers are one-dimentional, but people are multi-dimensional (because we can be users, and all kinds of other things (producers, customers, etc.). There is nothing wrong with calling a person a customer but that is not the core of what/who they are. Ashley Cecil says that when we do this it expands our audience (as opposed to getting the blank stare (what is a blog)?

David: blogging is a commodity. Wow, that’s profound, but think about it, there are 75M out there… this is a COMMODITY.

a lot of readers don’t know they are reading a blog, just that it’s a website.

Really, this is less about what we call ourselves but more about what our core passion is. Many people go through life never figuring out what the core passion is… if we figure out what it is then we need to harness the passion, pinpoint it, analyize it and then harness it. He has figured out his own. And all the blogs that we admire have figured out their passions.

Let your passion shape your blog, above anything else. What is your cause? Engagement, conversation and all that jazz is cool and impt but it’s not the cause – his cause is that design is in everything… he is passionate about it to the core.

Start with YOU, then what is your PASSION, which then leads to CONVERSATION, which leads to RELATIONSHIPS, and that leads to AFFINITY (feeling good about the experience that they just had – and it keeps people coming back). So then we become not bloggers but conversation architects…

Cycle –> Visit -> engage -> share -> (and back to visit again) .. this is not buzz marketing (when the are happy), this is the best word of mouth marketing there is. Succes is when people feel like they are PART of the content and experience… (jason: and this gives them ownership)

Has anyone talked to a seven year old that has just come back from a Disney vacation? They have a great experience and they’ll talk your ear off… Disney delivers this to an almost-lethal fashion — why can’t we do this on our blogs?? Provide a great experience and this is what’s going to happen.

****** the end – this was awesome… I’m jealous of artists anyway – this guy is over-the-edge.

Wendy eMom comment: 2% believe what we tell them, 20% believe what their friends tell them, and 100% believe what they tell themselves.

Q: what is the conversion rate (on getting people to visit to engage to share and back again) – she looks at her blog, sees that a whole bunch of people come, and to see who comes back it’s a real low %. A: you can’t look at just traffic… although he has 2000 RSS, 400 e-mail, 1200 referrals (those that click on a link to get to him)… and his mainstream traffic from magazines… (they aren’t talking about how many posts are spawned by your post (on other’s blogs) – another thing to look at is, how many peope IN YOUR TARGET (or industry) are looking at your blog? That’s huge,

Q: Christine Kane, says lots of musicians think that bloggers are just geeks. She is interested in knowing how to market this stuff to people who don’t get what blogs are? You can’t say Link Love … A: you have to do a lot more doing and a lot less talking. He says the idea of “tell them” “have them repeat” and then “have them teach” … the idea that you put it back in their court with more responsibility to teach others or us is more impt.

Q: how do we share the experience and passion that we have, we can’t do body language and all that. he thinks design is “incredibly valuable” to replace the body language stuff. (jason’s thought: I’d rather read excellent writing than care for excellent design – go back to the classic books – it’s about the excellent writing). A: you have to look at what’s out there – and you can mimick all of this “gesticulation” (sp) – look at Seth Godin – he doesn’t use images or anything like that – he is a master communicator. So the question is, what are the tools to accomplish? Words? Images? What else? (Jason: perhaps videos?)

Q: Ashley Cecil – she really downplays the “blogging thing” with her community — her q is: she feels baffled by all the advice about building communities, follows it, but wonders why she isn’t getting it as big as she wants it to be. She is wondering what the missing link is!! Huge question. A: if you really have something amazing it will find it’s way to the top. If it is different, provides value, it WILL find it’s way to the top. (from the audience: Audiences has different sizes. A community starts with 2.)

Liz Strauss: Successful and Outstanding Blogs

She is a liz_strauss_small.pngpublisher and first grade teacher and it’s an evil combination :p

she says it’s all about having fun – that’s what comment night is… that’s what it’s all about!

Lots of times blog posts are all about me, me, me me. What my cat had for lunch, all the boring, self-centric stuff. She wants to make one thing clear: When I tell people I have 160 articles of leadership on the web they get very impressed. When i tell people I’m a blogger they think I’m weird” This is from Kent Blumberg.

Think of yourself as a publisher – and publishing is a business. No matter what your publishing about. Because you are doing everything a business person is doing.

We find out how things work,

get to know the numbers and stats,

we have a vision (anything relevant has been started by a person with a vision – hold on to that),

connections – links fall away, companies go bankrupt, but relationships with people stay!!

Choose your customers, don’t just have them choose you – and then get to knwo them intimately. The biggest mistake of marketers and bloggers make is to just look at the numbers. Instead, talk to the people, to each person, know them by name.

Do what you love and service the people who love what you do

everything changes when you publish to the web (notice when you submit a blog post the button says “Publish”) — and the internet has no erasor – you are publishing for everyone, your descendents, internet archeologists, people going through google cache … that is a huge thing! “that’s a pretty big deal” VERY COOL – when she started blogging there were only 12M blogs (when I started there were about 50-55M). When magazine is printed it become inventory, and it’s done. When you publish on the blog that’s when the conversation starts.

Tom Peters has a story about the steel mills in the 70’s, in Ohio, that wasn’t going down the tubes with all the others, there were 1,200 people, no job descriptions, and it was going great. The pres said “we talk to eachother” when asked by Tom about the success. And that is what happens on theblogs – we talk to eachother like we are people – and if you do it the right way you get COMMUNITY. Relationship business lasts longer and is more fun (as opposed to business business)

Community is built on authentic relationships with people who like you. How do you build community? She tells the dating story about a girl who always whined about not having dates, but she never met new people! We build community by meeting more people. If you stay on your blog all night and never go out, you’ll never build a community.

Liz’ mistake was to stand at the podium and instruct. She says we have to get down from the podium! When she wrote all the great posts before, the comments where “good blog post liz, you are an excellent writer”… so she turned around and asked what was going wrong – she had a friend that basically said “leave us room to talk”… so she changed her post style and “came off the podium”… she said she is a pendulum (sp) learner and got too far into people’s faces, sometimes you have to back off and let people talk to eachother (by commenting in your post)… awesome

don’t buy into your own PR and take a look at how other people see you…

“we really can’t talk without talking about ourselves”… every word we say reveals something about us…

WE CAN LISTEN – that is the key. Like last night, with the open mic – we were talking, we were having conversations,

her question is, how can we turn a comment into a conversation?

(1) by asking a question

(2) by adding the “top commentator” thing on (and changing it to “comment” not “commentator”, but then changed it back because commentators are people that are contributing to the conversation… he wants contributors…

(3) let the comment go where it goes (without slapping hands)

(4) he really cares, about each person that comments – if someone comments on his blog then he reaches out and extends the conversation offline

(5) commenting is about enrichment, richness he gets from what others say -he is looking for the gem in what others share with him, how it touches or enriches them, etc.

(6) Genuineness – bloggers and commentors are genuine… he is not surprised to see exactly what he sees in this room because we’re all genuine

(7) Easton (businessblogwire) question is, isn’t it a waste of time to go back and “talk” – is it really worth it? Wendy eMom says that she has a ton of competition in the blogosphere, but the you have to have a mission behind the message… your business is what’s on the surface, the mission is what’s going to get you clients, etc. The mission is bigger than the business. The mission will bring you money, etc. The message behind it all is going to draw people to you and wnat to do business to you.

(8) Kent Blumberg is struggling with a transition to get off the podium, how do you do it??… liz says she had tohave some visual clues to make it more conversational , hence the image “I’ve been thinking…” when you right in a converstational style it’s not like you speak, it’s like you think. If you use the language that you think with it will trigger their conversational thoughts… like “chocolate vs. the tax code” as long as it’s written in conversational style – which tells their brain that at the end they have to answer. Cool – I didn’t think about the style thing.

(9) part of your responsibility as a blogger is to not say it all on other’s blogs… make a comment to encourage others to comment, perhaps ask questions,

(10) it’s about the relationship, never lose site of that, business does business with people –

(11) commentors develop a bond of trust, that relationship, and that’s who you do business with…

(12) comment on: why should a business care about blogging – she asks “do you remember 1996?” – she thinks going forward, it will be the same thing with resisting voice mail… you need to have a blog because eventually eeryone isgoing to be there, we aren’t even early adopters right now, we are more mainstream

(13) ann michael, manage to change, when she goes into a business she doesn’t go in to talk about blogging, she talks about what their problems are… and figures out how to solve those problems. She isn’t a blog evangelist, she is a “do you want to change or die” evangelist. And then figure out where the tools fit in to help solve the issues.

(14) Peter from BlogStudio – you can now point out success stories to illustrate the phenominal way to show how businesses are using blogging

(15) tammy “I can’t say that” – she sees herself as having learning conversations… that is what she does all day long. We have to be willing to learn… and willing to change.

Liz – 5 minutes left, on community stuff. How do you build a community. If you make laws then you are inviting people to circumvent the laws. Tom Peters – an environment can either support the overachievers or the underachievers, but supporting one will make the others alienated (because they are not supported/appreciated).

This premise works on the blog… we support people who are highly accepting of other people… and we don’t appreciate people who are not. Liz has only one rule there “BE NICE

What jason wanted to say but couldn’t – if you don’t have the “send me an e-mail when someone comments on this” pluggin then you won’t be able to sustain an awesome conversation. I don’t have it here, but it’s on the JibberJobber blog.

Phil Gerbyshak: 10 Ways To Make It Great

Make it great blog. How he makes it great and how we can be relationship geeks, too.

what is a geek? expert, style, passionate, smart… out of 15M bloggers, taht right at least once every 3 months, we are here. We already are relationship geeks. How can we make it better and get bigger, be more successful and outstanding?

When Phil started 2.5 yrs ago he wan’t successful or outstanding… he quoted a lot from others (all the greats).

Phil Gerbyshak - Make It GreatTheGoodBlogs and MyBlogLog are tools to help develop relationships, see who visits and who is talking to us, linking to us, etc.

Know Yourself First: even if you may not agree with the comment, or if they don’t mention you and how great you are, it’s not about the links, etc. It’s about the relationship – maintain the relationship with people. Trow Worman , who’s topic is “connecting the unconnected,” has a blogroll with 1,200 blogs… he isn’t worried about competition with other’s blogs, otherwise he wouldn’t reach out so much. WHAT IS YOUR BLOG ABOUT? WHAT IS YOUR CORE COMPETENCY, WHERE IS YOUR STRENGTH? Then, share that on your blog. Even when you use someone else’s stuff, wrap your thoughts around that. Write every day, even if you don’t post it, write it down.

Questions:

how do you manage all of the relationships? Phil has a goal to get 2,000 new relationships… he agrees it is hard but uses the tools like MyBlogLog, etc. to manage what’s going on.

how has blogging affecting his day job? He says 2 yrs ago his boss didn’t understand what it is but does now (I’m guessing that they want to leverage that?)

comment about Phil is that the consistency between who he is (as we’ve gotten to get to know him in person) and what he writes is awesome – he is an excellent example of authentic blogging. Question is, what are you thinking (like, deep down, what’s your motivation?)? Phil says his blog is like an advice column for him – and the focus is on the person, not on the technology… authenticity over spell check. If he can’t sleep he’ll get up and type some more…

Explain authentic connection: just be who you are, talking with one person, blogging to an individual relationship and not worrying so much about all of the relationship (Jason – very diff than newpaper)

what do yo udo in your life if people are not supportive ofyour blogging (like, they think it’s an addiction)? For him, his wife was able to actually meet a lot of these people, and seeing those connections and/or e-mails, cards, etc. was very helpful for her to understand those connections. You have to put a real face

blog comments and community are starting to take off – he’s having more trouble tracking the relationships, how do you maintain the relationships once it starts to explode (JibberJobber, yells Kent Blumberg! Go Kent!)? Phil says “what do you expect,” figure out what they want/need… and what kind of relationship they are expecting.

Sitting by Ashley Cecil

I saw her site a ashley_cecil_self_painting.pngfew weeks ago after an open mic night… and was uber impressed with her painting talent and the way she uses a blog to further express herself and her art… and she’s right in front of me. Last night a found out she is an activist and loves to help others (I wonder how many foreign countries she’s been to).

here’s her blog: The Painting Activist

Very cool stuff.

Introduction: Terry Starbucker

Ramblings from a glass half full – dealing with the literal world in a favorable way.

what is a great blog?

what is a not good blog?  bumpy, boring, like a straight road for 50 miles with nothing to watch.  And “god forbid you get behind a tractor”

he said after he became an SOB Liz and some others were talking about “what’s next”… and it became this SOB-CON

Logistical: thanks to the sponsors:

Blog Herald

Blog Talk Radio

Avoka

VideoSticky

MyBlogLog

TheGoodBlogs

??

Hamburg Management

Cogniview

Chitika

Lunch is fabulous today (11:45), Drawing for cool prizes, and then pick up someone else’s card and let’s keep one-on-one relationships going.

Non-virtual open mike (mic) night

Everyone is well-fed (I only had 2 or 3 plates, makes up for not eating)… there are 4 people in the room walking around with wireless mikes – the theme is “questions and conversations” and it’s kind of fun – wants to be awkward but it isn’t too much because we all know what this is and have participated in it already.

The music was awesome, our table chatted about Twitter, teaching companies to blog, talking about the difference between PR and Marketing and blogging, and how they intersect right now and how that will (and needs to) change.

I’m sitting at a table with a bunch of business bloggers (I’m surprised, I didn’t expect that, and even moreso (yes, bad stereotype) three of them are women (and seem to be quite successful and thought-leaders in this space). It’s cool, encouraging and I wonder if this is going to be an indication of the blogging demographics.

Speaking of demographics, it’s cool to be in this room with a ton of peeps with different background and demo’s – ages are all across the board (although I don’t see anyone that I’d call “old” here) – there are a number of young folks, I’d guess maybe half or more are women. The common thread is pretty strong her though.

So the question to everyone is “when you aren’t here, what do you do” or “what do you do when you are not blogging” – it’s actually a cool way to way to do the”me in 3 seconds” or “elevator pitches” or something like that. There is a lot of laughing/humor here and I wonder how different a chamber of commerce dinner would be if they did this kind of open mike thing there.

And, one last thing, just because they ask you once doesn’t mean they won’t ask you again, Ann Michael was asked twice the same question, even though she said it wasn’t fair, they still made her answer again.

Wendy Piersall (emom) just came in and was handed the mike, didn’t know what we’re talking about. Very cool first impression imho :p

People walking the mikes around are Liz Strauss, Phil Gerbyshak, Chris Cree, and Terry Starbucker.

Now talking about Basil the Codewriting Donkey (a fictitious character) that got the audience to boo in a big way (we all thought he was real). Ben Yoskovitz (the Instigator blog) – he sent Basil around the world and had a bunch of cool expierences, but it will likely retire.

Now blogging tips:

  • enjoy the word play
  • wendy eMom – how to title a post on getting laid off… and then come out ahead, or come out on top, or stuff like that. It was excellent for her SEO (dirty stuff, cha).
  • Dave Dalka – been at internet conferences all over the world, speaker with 7k people, says this is the first time he’s been with JUST bloggers (seems strange to me). Best blogging tip is the askismet comment issues, he has a post to solve the problem (I have no idea what the problem is).
  • Troy – says he’s the anti-blogger. Tips: (1) connect the unconnected and (2) don’t wait for permission to succeed (screw everyone else)
  • Steve (?) – tip for new bloggers – pace yourself. It’s a long race (it’s not a drag race).
  • Connnie Reece – from texas, every dot connects, likes to Twitter.
  • Liz Strauss says to say hi to the twitter friends
  • Clare says to go out and live life
  • LiveYourBestLife‘s tip is to write from and follow your heart, be yourself and just write.
  • Activists tip: time management (she starts working at 7:30 and goes until bedtime)… it’s hard to stop so figure out the balance.
  • Don’t write for/to other blogs. Write for/to PEOPLE.
  • someone else: consistency (I’m really nervous talkng with a mike here, but give me a guitar and I can sing it)
  • TheGoodBlogs – when you right a blog entry, think “there are actually 50million other bloggers that really don’t know what they are talking about <laughing>” – the ones that are most powerful and compelling are the ones where they are passionate and feel very strongly about what they write about. If you think “am I good enough” then go ahead and blog.
  • Doug Bulleit: Social networking now is where seach was 10 yrs ago – believes the more serious social networking will comefrom the things that we all blog
  • StickyVideos guy – been consulting with corps, says the bigger the company, the more petrified they are with blogging. They are all about control – and afraid to use control. The tip is wirte the best content you can right and share as much insight and knowledge as humanly possible. This shows you as “brand you,” passionate, etc. Be aware of your brand. VideoSticky is the new deal (he is a sponsor of SOBevent.com) – it is the evolution of videos, blogs, community and connections. Will be in public beta in about 30 days.
  • OfficePolitics.com and FrankieJames.com (I don’t know the spelling) – by joining together and spreading the message around the web, we can actually help change the world <applause>
  • tip from the fashion-concerned guy: SPELL CHECK FOR PETE’S SAKE
  • Derrick Sorles – writes for BusinessBloggingTips – loves working for his own business, not having commute and all that jazz that goes along with working out of the home. He wants to give back and so what he’s doing is helping non-profits blog, that’s his charitable efforts. Started helping a guy May 1 of this year. Consider helping others as a way to give back (with free blog consulting).
  • Mark Goodyear – a non-profit blogger – (1) don’t play the technorati rank game (2) blogs need to be well-written – if you want to be a good writer, you need to read a lot of good books (unplug and read books)
  • Drew Mclelland – Don’t drink unless you are in draft mode, (2) if Liz calls you and says “I have a crazy idea,” beware
  • Blogging tip, it’s all about your reader. He learned the hard way.
  • in blogging, “they” are the authority, and “they” are all of the bloggers!

Ok, something fun to throw out there – everyone name a song with Love in it, but no one can name the same one… we’ve gone through about 20 right now and no one is skipping a beat.

I’m signing off, darn laptop battery. Now I got meet people face-to-face and stop hiding behind this laptop. Buenas noches :p

Who is at SOBevent.com?

David Dalka put this together so you can post it to your blog if you want:

(btw, I’m ticked because it’s not in alpha order :p)

http://www.daviddalka.com/sobconchicago2007attendeelinks-wordpressformat.txt

SOBcon2007 Chicago Attendees:
Sandra Renshaw
Brad Shorr
Timothy Johnson
Tammy Lenski
Muhammad Saleem
Lorelle VanFossen
David Dalka – Mobile Search Marketing
Todd And
John Yedinak
Joe Hauckes
Tim Draayer
Jeremy Geelan
Carolyn Manning
Sheila Scarborough
Steve Farber
Dawud Miracle
Doug Mitchell
Jeff O’Hara
Dave Schoof
Jamy Shiels
Adam Steen
Hannah Steen
Chris Thilk
Barry Zweibel
Eric Bingen
Ellen Moore
Cord Silverstein
Jean-Patrick Smith
James Walton
Sharan Tash
Vernon Lun
Tony Lee
Scott Desgrosseilliers
Mark Murrell
Kammie Kobyleski
Easton Ellsworth
Mark Goodyear
Ann Michael
Kent Blumberg
Ashley Cecil
Robert Hruzek
Sabu N G
Mazur Krystyna
Lisa Gates
Franke James
Chris Brown
Troy Worman
Karen Putz
Jesse Petersen
Terry Mapes
Andy Brudtkuhl
Lucia Mancuso
Peter Flaschner
Derrick Sorles
Mike Rohde
Thomas Clifford
Rajesh Srivastava
Claire Celsi
Jason Alba
Cristiana Passinato
Sean R.
Alex Shalman
Cristiana Passinato
Brad Spirrison
Ari Garber
Dr. Rob Wolcott
Cheryll Cruz
Sharon Scherer
Jonathan Phillips
Jason Wade
Jill Pullen
Doug Bulleit
Wendy Kinney
Chelsea Vincent
Ayush Agarwal
Paul Mangalik
Premchand Kallan
Xochi Kaplan
Michael Snell
Ella Wilson
James Bergstrom
Raj Majumder
Keith Levenson

SOBcon2007 Chicago Speakers:
Andy Sernovitz
Phil Gerbyshak
Liz Strauss
David Armano
Mike Sansone
Drew McLellan
Mike Wagner
Terry Starbucker
Rodney Rumford
Ben Yoskovitz
Chris Cree
Robyn Tippins
Diego Orjuela
Vernon Lun
Wendy Piersall