Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: Graeme Thickins (Page 7 of 55)

The Book That Rules in Marketing & PR, Now In Its 2nd Edition

NewRules-Mktg+PR-2ndEd Without a doubt, David Meerman Scott is one of the people I most respect in this business. He's also my favorite author and speaker, and a great friend. (Heck, he's even a surfer, and sends me cool pix of some of the beaches he visits in his world travels!)  David is the guy that inspired me to finally realize that what I am is a "content marketer" and "brand journalist." He's the ultimate champion of people like me — and my hero, for sure.

I was lucky enough to get David to speak at the October 2008 meeting of our Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities (which, by the way, has grown to be the largest SMB group in the country). We offered a free copy of the first edition of his book The New Rules of Marketing & PR to all those attending, thanks to a generous sponsor.  David packed the house, was a huge hit, and the Twin Cities became an even hipper PR and social media town than it already was… 🙂

So, I was delighted to hear that the Second Edition of the book is now available. "It's gone through an extensive rewrite," said David. "Of course, I've checked every fact, figure, and URL. DavidMeermanScott But I've also listened. In the past two years, I've met thousands of people like you who have shared stories with me, so I've drawn from those experiences and included many new examples of success." 

He said these new stories and examples are even more valuable and timely than the original ones. Thus, even if you've read the first edition, he promises you'll find many fresh ideas in the second edition.

"When I was writing the first edition of the book back in 2006," said David, "Facebook was only available to those with a .edu email address (students and educators), so I didn’t feature Facebook. And Twitter didn’t even exist at the time I was researching the first edition. So I have added extensive new information and examples on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites." Since the term social media has become so strong in the past few years, it's not surprising to now see it in the book's subtitle.

The power of the ideas David talks about in The New Rules of Marketing & PR propelled the book to the BusinessWeek bestseller list and kept it there for six months. Another stat that blew me away is that it's been the number one public relations book on Amazon for approximately 910 days. My gosh, that's more than two and a half years!  David still says he's stunned.

(A few links: David's blog, Web Ink Now, is ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as one of the top marketing blogs. Also, here's the direct link on Amazon to the Second Edition of "Rules"… and a page with links to all the online bookstores where David's books are available.)

When David launched the first edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR (via Wiley), he pioneered a tactic that attracted the attention of hundreds of bloggers, typically overlooked by marketers at the time. Since then, the book has garnered numerous awards, been adapted at universities and in politics, has been translated into 24 languages, and even sparked the idea for a series, "The New Rules of Social Media." More importantly, as his Wiley publicist points out, the book has provided a hands-on manual for new marketing. "Marketing campaigns have never been the same, and a new decade brings new opportunity to connect online with buyers and communities."

The New Rules of Marketing & PR explains how to harness the power of the Internet, how to identify the right audience, create compelling messages, and get those messages directly to your targeted community — with powerful new tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.

David says the underlying message of the book remains the same: "The tools of the marketing and PR trade have changed. The skills that worked offline to help you buy or beg or bug your way in are the skills of interruption and coercion. Online success comes from thinking like a journalist and engaging as a thought leader."

Right on, David!  I can't wait to dive into my copy of the second edition.

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What I’ve Been Doing for the Last Month and a Half…

…because I sure haven't been posting here.  Wow, I can't believe it's been 45 days!  My last post was soon after I got home from Defrag.  It's a long story.  First, I got sick right after I did that last post, coughing and hacking and generally feeling lousy, which went on for — I kid you not — four weeks!  Never had anything like that.  I think it was something I picked up on the plane.  Then, to top it off, I was really busy with new client work during this time … for BusinessCard2, VISI.com's ReliaCloud, three Skyya Communications clients, and others yet to be named — so, I was basically hunkered down at home, trying like mad to keep things moving forward. (We self-employed don't get no stinking sick days!)

Anyway, I just noticed that, although I didn't post here on my Typepad blog in those 45 days, I did post, count' em, 19 times on my Posterous blog! … pictured here in all its (semi)glorious splendor.

Posterous-GT


I remember doing a post about a year ago here explaining that I'd been gone so long because I was micro-blogging (Twittering).  You see, for us long-time bloggers, there's these huge guilt feelings we get for not blogging more often on our main blog.  So that was my excuse last year.  This year, it's Posterous that's to blame.  For me, it's a site I subtitle "somewhere in the vast expanse between his micro and macro blogging."  So, first it was short-form blogging (Twitter) that was taking me away from my long-form blogging.  Now it's, what, "medium-length" blogging?  Anyway, I find it pretty easy and non-time-consuming to post to Posterous (which I do fairly effortlessly via email). I actually use it more as a quick social-bookmarking service of sorts, when I find a valuable link — as I used to do with Delicious.

So, now you know I haven't been ignoring my contributions to the cause of online content and knowledge-sharing.  I just have too damn many places to do it!  And I've hardly backed down on my participation on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn, either.  Oh, and I wrote two posts and participated in four weekly podcasts on Minnov8, too, with my colleagues there.

So, please keep following me here, there… or how about everywhere?  :-) 

Thanks, and Happy 2010!

Cluetrain Green-Room Convo, Defrag09: The Bootleg MP3

So, it's the second and final day of the Defrag Conference (see Twitter search: #defragcon), and I jump out into the hallway during the afternoon break, rarin' to mingle through the crowd and find some unsuspecting CEO to interview next by shoving my whiz-bang Olympus LS-10 handheld digital recorder in his face… and then I hear it.  Hey, that's Chris Locke's laugh! 

I knew the "Cluetrain at 10" panel was coming up in an hour or so — and I was greatly anticipating that. Chris+Steve-attable I quickly look to my left and see Chris, aka "Rageboy" (blog, Wikipedia page) and some of his Cluetrain Manifesto compadres already gathered around a table off to the side — the green room, as it were — and deep in conversation.  Oh my god, I'm thinking — I can't miss this!  (Background: I've been lucky enough to know these guys long before they were famous, going back to '97 or '98, mainly through my buddy and former client, Steve Larsen — who just happened to be right there in the middle of this green-room gabfest. He goes back even further with Chris, which is definitely worth reading about here.) Steve+Chris-smiling

So I switch on my recorder, and think — could I? dare I? — record this session?  "Hell yes!" I immediately say to myself.  I walk over, shake hands with Chris (hadn't seen him in two years), and set the recorder down in the middle of the table.  Instantly, I catch both Steve and Chris' eyes as they notice the recorder is flashing "Record," and we all kinda get it at the same time, without saying a word.  Yeah, we're gonna capture this fun little moment in time!   After all, how often do we get a chance to all be gathered around the same table together?  And I just happened to have the technology in my hot little hand to do so….

Some guy from The Motley Fool (whose name I didn't catch) had just pulled away, and Rick Levine, another Cluetrain coauthor, was about to jump back in, followed closely by JP Rangaswami of BT, all the way from the UK, who met the Cluetrain guys starting in 2000, and helped them spread their message worldwide. Chris+Doc Then, soon after, Doc Searls (web site, Wikipedia page) joined us.  The only one of the four Cluetrain coauthors missing this day was David Weinberger (blog, Wikipedia page), who couldn't make Defrag because he had another commitment.

So, here's that conversation, all 43 minutes worth — the complete, uncut, uncensored  MP3 of this totally unplanned and unrehearsed session, F-bombs and all. Warning: there's a major amount of laughing here… we were having waaay too much fun!  It's a completely free-form, free-association conversation, largely reminiscing about the "old days" (hell, it was only the '90s, but seems so long ago) — with more than a few inside jokes mixed in.  Sure, it loses something without the visual, like at the end when Doc starts showing us the slides he plans to use in the panel to follow, and you just hear all of this laughing as each one comes up on his Macbook screen.  And many of you may not know who's talking at any given time.  But, hey, that's what makes it fun — you get to guess who's talking!  It's fresh and it's real… just like you were there.  I'm so glad I could be, so I could capture it all for you.

• Download or listen to the "Cluetrain Defrag '09 Green Room MP3".

Cluetrain-panel (The photos in this post I shot before and after the recording. For more, here's my Defrag '09 Flickr set, which includes some of Doc's funny slides, which are towards the end.  And here's my complete liveblog archive of Defrag '09, right up to the final session, the "Cluetrain at 10" panel.")

To connect with this great cast of characters, to whom I really feel we owe a ton as early Internet community and social-media thinkers, here are some more links:

The Cluetrain authors:
– Chris Locke: Twitter and Facebook
– Doc Searls: Twitter
– Rick Levine: Twitter
– David Weinberger: Twitter
And two of the biggest Cluetrain supporters out there:
– Steve Larsen: Facebook and a great video interview
– JP Rangaswami: Twitter

I’m Live-Blogging the Defrag ’09 Conference

Defrag-logo+dates Here I am for my third consecutive year covering the Defrag conference in Denver. What an awesome event!  The cream of the crop in tech — big thinkers, and lots of the Internet's movers-and-shakers and upcoming leaders. As I've done at two previous conferences this year, I'll be live-blogging the proceedings right here. I use a tool called Scribble Live, which I really like because I'm not limited to 140 characters per post, as I am when I live-tweet an event. Yet I can still attach photos if I wish to any given post (or even an audio or video file). Plus I can have my Twitter stream appear in real-time within the Scribble Live window as well — so it's the best of all worlds. Please follow along and let me know on Twitter how I'm doing. I'll start with the opening session Wednesday morning, and blog all the way through the final session late Thursday afternoon, when three of the original Cluetrain Manifesto guys will be on stage for the first time in 10 years.

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