My friend Andy Sernovitz had the clever idea of offering a one-day "crash course" in WOM (aka word-of-mouth marketing) in his home town of Chicago. The first one is coming up July 30, 2008. More info and other dates here.

Andy is the author of Word of Mouth Marketing and was founder of WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association). He's a great speaker and I expect this will be a fun as well as substantive event. He calls it "an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)."

Discount for blog readers

If you use the code "welovewordbiz" when you register you'll get $250 off.

And what is "wordbiz," you ask? It's the name of my longtime e-newsletter, WordBiz Report, which, I regret to say, I have not been publishing regularly. However, there are a ton of back issues here. And you can still get my 7 Tips to Write an Effective Business Blog report when you sign up.

Here's a list in no particular order of the new (or recent) business books I've got lined up on my shelf for summer reading. I won't read most of these cover to cover. I'll skim, look for useful tidbits, consult the index, etc. I bet you read most business books the same way.

Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (comprehensive and spot on: what corporations need to know to understand and make use of social media)

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (provocative: the essential ingredients that make some ideas take hold)

Johnny Bunko by Dan Pink (fun: it's in Japanese manga or comic book style)

Tuned In by Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott (provocative: how to identify what your market wants and then create products that resonate with them)

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott  and Anthony D. Williams (updated: new intro admits that first edition was sooo 2006)

Beyond Booked Solid by Michael Port (convincing & genuine: part 2 of his manifesto on how to grow & manage your consulting business)

The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam (cool: how to think and convey ideas visually)

Personality Not Included by Rohit Bhargava (innovative approach: great case studies paired with tools and guides for how to execute)

Secrets of Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by "Problogger" Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett (don't I wish... but there's some useful stuff in here)

Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (must read: my new bible for preparing presentations)

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky of Cognitive Surplus fame (everyone's talking about this one... just ordered it)

For pleasure

I'm reading Ted Sorensen's new book, Counselor, after hearing him speak at Carol Joynt's live Q & A Café (links to Part 1 of 5-part YouTube interview). For a guy who just turned 80, he is sharp, funny, fascinating. Sorensen was JFK's top aide and confidante in addition to being his speechwriter. Here's the NYTimes book review.

Also in my summer bookstack are The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski and Cost by Roxana Robinson.

What's on your bookshelf?

One of the most animated discussions about social media I've seen is going on over at Alan Weiss's Contrarian Consulting blog.

His blog post titled Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Chance has sparked, as of this writing, 60 comments, many of them refuting Weiss's contention that social media (including blogs and Twitter) are a waste of time for consultants promoting professional services to corporate clients.

He also contends that "Blogs are only effective if you already have a brand... a blog follows a brand, not the other way around." Hmmm... not according to Robert Scoble.

Weiss is best known as the author of Million Dollar Consulting* as well as a host of other books and is a consultant (according to his About page) to dozens of Fortune 500 companies. He has a distinctive - some might call it abrasive - personality that seems to go over well with his C-suite clients. His over-the-top style is amusing in person (I've heard him speak) but I find his derogatory tone on his blog - specifically, in response to comments - off-putting.

First up to refute Weiss's low opinion of the business value of social media is Seth Godin.

Seth's feedback is followed by push-back comments from Yvonne DiVita of Lipsticking.com (hey nice re-design, Yvonne!), Tim Walker of Hoover's Biz, Paula Thornton of FASTForward, Mack Collier of The Viral Garden and many others whose blogs I was previously not familiar with. (Some are supportive of Weiss's position, noting that one shouldn't spend too much time on blogging, etc.)

It may be that Weiss is deliberately stirring the pot with phrases like "the Web is a good place to do research... but it's a lousy place to find and meet clients" and "I have no idea who Hugh McLeod is or Robert Scoble." The latter is the perfect bait, of course, for those of us who congregate in the social media space. But a good reminder that we are, to a certain extent, in our own bubble.

As he wrote in a companion post responding directly to Seth: "I seem to have struck a nerve, which is why blogging with a brand behind you is really quite effective." 

What do you think?

Which comes first, generally speaking: a brand or a blog? And, the central question, is social media effective at reaching a corporate audience if that's who your intended clients are??

Both the original post and his follow-up, along with the dozens of comments, are worth a read. I left a comment here.

Aside: oh and I heard about Weiss's post through a Tweet from Yvonne DiVita. Love that viral thing...

*Update and full disclosure: While I may sound critical of Weiss in this entry, his Million Dollar Consulting is one of the most useful books I've read about how to sell your services as a consultant. Focus on the value you're delivering. Never count hours or charge by the hour. Make a business case for what you can deliver. Once you've got your client on board, present your "fee" as an afterthought. The client will almost always bite, he contends.

There was no PowerPoint at BlogPotomac, the unconference held here in DC last week. But two of our speakers have posted their presentation notes.

Measurement queen KD Paine posted her outline of 6 basic steps to measure communications online. Be sure to read also her post on "a new un-standard for social media measurement." She's one of the best out there when it comes to explaining - in persuasive, business terms - how to measure social media.
 

AOL's "Somewhat Frank" Frank Gruber posted an annotated list of social media tools (aka "bright shiny objects") that he uses on a weekly basis. Frank is a product developer for AOL. As such, it's his job to play with cool stuff. Lucky guy.

What's interesting about his list is that he divides the tools or apps into a number of categories beyond "video" and "photos." These include Communications, Storage, Content Discovery & Sharing, Analytics, News & Information Management, Search & Alerts, Lifestream Aggregators, Travel, Finance and Project Management.

There are a number I was not familiar with or have heard about but never tried. Note: some are still in beta. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Travel

TripIt (also see demo)

Lifestream Aggregator

SocialThing

To Do List

Remember the Milk (I used this a while back; am going to try it again. Frank notes that you can pull the To Do lists into your gmail account or iPhone with a pro account.)

Microblogging

Tumblr (Frank's write-up about Tumblr)

Content Sharing

Shareaholic (Firefox browser extension; more details in Frank's write-up)

Search

Lijit (blog search engine with search analytics; more details from Frank)

FiltrBox (better than Google News Alerts, says Frank; still in beta. Use Frank's invite a friend code to sign up: https://www.filtrbox.com/signup.php?code=somewhatfrank)

Read Frank's complete list of "bright shiny objects" here.

At one point on Friday June 13, 2008, I looked around the packed Stage Theater, venue of BlogPotomac, and realized that virtually everybody was video interviewing or photographing each other. (Photo at left by Li Evans.)

In other words, they were walking the talk, or promise, of social media. Namely, everyone is a participant and - in the case of an unconference - what goes on in the audience is just as important as what's said on stage.

In addition to co-chairing the event with Geoff Livingston, my role was pretty simple: I introduced some of our terrific speakers and ran around with a mike to amplify audience questions or comments.

I did a bit of Twittering, got interviewed myself by Chris Parandian of Mobile Diner and Li Evans of Search Marketing Gurus, but stupidly forgot to bring my digital Flip camera. It's primitive, but good for 30 - 60 second interviews which can be uploaded to YouTube. (Photo by Li Evans.)

It was wonderful to leave it to the 150-plus attendees to co-create the content of our day-long event. They didn't disappoint.

(Note: it was a typically mixed crowd of DC-ers, from local marketing & PR agencies, to associations and non-profits, to several government agencies, including the EPA and the Pentagon.)

Herewith is a roundup of the digital trail produced by BlogPotomac (links courtesy of Geoff):

• FlickR photos (tagged blogpotomac - ignore the Angelina pics which are "tag spam")
• Google (search results on blogpotomac, including blog entries and images)
• Technorati (search results on blogpotomac)
• Twitter (hundreds of Tweets using hash tag #blogpotomac, via Summize.com)
• Podcasts (uploaded from mobile phones via Utterz.com)
• YouTube (videos tagged blogpotomac)

Thanks to our speakers and sponsors

Sincere thanks again to our engaging and provocative speakers: Lionel Menchaca of Dell, Dan Beyers of The Washington Post, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group, Jeremy Pepper of Boingo, Frank Gruber of AOL, KD Paine of KD Paine & Partners and Kami Huyse, social media consultant.

For more about our speakers, see the Q & A series I did on BlogPotomac.com.

Thanks also to our great line-up of sponsors: Viget Labs, Conference Calls Unlimited, GiantSticker.com, Social Media Club, Social Times, Edelman, Compendium Blogware, Network Solutions, PRSA National Capital Chapter, Boingo and ooVoo.

Take the BlogPotomac survey

If you attended the event, be sure to take the survey to help us prepare for BlogPotomac 2009.

Life - and death - move so quickly in the Internet age. Consummate American political journalist Tim Russert , best known as host of Meet the Press, died suddenly several hours ago of a heart attack in the Washington DC offices of NBC News.

The news was instantly all over Twitter, the social networking / micro blogging platform.

If you had any doubt that "new media" possesses as much gravitas as established MSM, take a look at his Wikipedia page, already updated in the past tense. He will be sorely missed here in D.C. as well as around the world.

Useful Link

More on the magic of Twitter (as it relates to Tim Russert) by Steve Gillmor

Update: there is nothing to see anymore as this was streamed live.

Watch this space! Starting Friday June 13, 2008 at about 8:30 AM you'll see a live Webcast of the BlogPotomac unconference here in DC, courtesy of one of our sponsors, ooVoo. ooVoo's livestreaming page here.

Online Video provided by Ustream

Newly-published author, digital media strategist and social media celeb Rohit Bhargava is our special guest at the BlogPotomac Speakers' Dinner tomorrow, June 12, 2008. He kindly took time to answer a few questions about social media and, specifically, how he is using it to promote his new book.

Debbie: You've just published your first book, Personality Not Included. Huge congrats! I know what a huge undertaking it is. Tell us a little bit about how you're using social media to promote it.

Rohit: Thanks! Though I didn't write the book to be about social media (it's actually more about a culture shift in business and organizations), using lots of social media tools to promote it has been a key part of my efforts.

Early on, I created a Facebook group where I released exclusive downloads and bonus content, as well as early invites to book launch events. That group is a core of just over 400 people who have been great word of mouth ambassadors for the book - and a group that I consistently try to give something back to in return.

On the day of launch, I also decided to launch a "virtual interview" project by asking bloggers for 5 questions about the book.  I promised to respond to each interview without cutting and pasting responses. Over three days, I got 55 requests and responded to each - creating a huge archive of information and buzz about the book on the same day it launched. The ensuing contest seeking votes for the best interview also got some great conversations happening.

Since then, I've been doing lots of other interviews, attending events, and steadily building buzz with bloggers.  I also have a review program where I'm sending review copies to bloggers, and launched an interesting promotion to encourage reviews of the book (both good and bad) that you can see here: www.personalitynotincluded.com/backcover.

I also have a companion site to the book where I am inviting "100 visionary minds" to all answer the question of why personality matters.  It's called The Personality Project.

The theme throughout all these activities has been that I'm trying to offer something in return instead of just asking for favors.  Every piece of my strategy is designed to offer a reason for people to participate, and then give them something real to talk about.

Debbie: Many, if not most, companies still seem slow to pick up on social media as a marketing and communications strategy. When will that change and why - or why not?

"The theme throughout all these activities has been that I'm trying to offer something in return instead of just asking for favors."

- Rohit Bhargava on using social media to promote Personality Not Included

Rohit: Hmm, the crystal ball question ... I always love to think about this one because it's a tough one to answer without setting yourself up to look like an idiot six months from now when you end up completely wrong! But since I hate people who evade questions, I'll take a stab at it anyway.

I think the greatest area where I see evolution will take us is in the promise of a single "dashboard" view of our digital lives that is portable. For many of us, Facebook comes close simply because we can aggregate our activities on many other sites in one place there - but the future is going to be about seeing our personal interactions side by side with the media (both new and traditional) that we consume.

I think an example from the future will be a dashboard where I can see live updates from my friends attending an event, alongside news reports from the event, alongside a list of friends of mine that are attending and others I may want to add to my network, alongside a stream of content from the event, alongside with the ability to interact and share my voice at the event virtually. 

You can do all of that in pieces right now, but putting the pieces together is where I think the future will take us.

One of the mantras in social media circles these days is: "This is not just about blogging."

So true. I couldn't agree more. Whether it's microblogging with Twitter (see marriottpr) or idea generation with evangelistic customers' input (see MyStarbucksIdea), there are many ways that companies can deploy social media to listen and to learn.

Yet the fact remains that many (most? it's most if more than 50%, right?) companies are just waking up to what they could do with a blog -- internally or externally.

An article by Rich Karpinski this week in BtoB Magazine reminds us that only about 12% of Fortune 500 companies are blogging (11.6% according to the Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki).

But that companies like Dell, IBM, Kodak, Intel and SAP "are now deep into blogging programs with multiple weblogs, dozens of bloggers and a wealth of expertise and best practices to share."

So while blogs and blogging may be "old news" to organizations and marketers immersed in social media, they are still decidedly a new new thing for many corporate folks.

As intriguing, fun and real-time as many of the social networking  tools are, blogs are here to stay. Bottom line, blogs are next-generation websites. They're not going anywhere.

Useful Link

Beyond Blogs: What Business Needs to Know - BusinessWeek cover story, June 2, 2008

Businesses embrace blogging: Early adopters embrace strategies, new titles for corporate social media marketing efforts by Rich Karpinski in BtoBOnline, June 9, 2008

Jeremy Pepper, who blogs at Pop! PR Jots and manages PR & social media for start-up Boingo, is joining us at BlogPotomac this week to talk about strategy. I asked him to give us a sneak preview of his session.

It's not too late to register for BlogPotomac, BTW. There are a few seats left. We're calling BlogPotomac the premiere social media marketing unconference for the Washington DC area and we're expecting a sell-out crowd at The State Theater in Falls Church on Friday, June 13, 2008. More at bottom of post.

Debbie: When people talk about social media they almost always mean the tools (blogging, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). What's the difference between social media tools and a social media strategy?

Jeremy: The tools are nothing without a sound strategy behind them. Yes, there are tons of tools out there - that includes the various blogging platforms, the widgets and add-ons to blogs and Websites, the video sites (Yes, YouTube is huge - but is it the right one for your program?), microblogging (Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr), social networks - but just because you join all of them does not mean you are thinking through what you are doing.

What is the goal? What is the objective? An old boss always gave me the D Day analogy - you have your goal (take Normandy) and you had your tactics (air and ground, via water) and strategies (each army had its own beach, including countries). Okay, the tools here are just the basic premise of what needs to be done ... but are not going to get Normandy - they're just going to get you to the beaches.

The first question before jumping into social media because it's the buzz right now is to ask "why am I doing this?" - if you can answer that, then put together what tools are going to work best to reach the right community. Decide what you want to accomplish with your strategy and start building it out.

Debbie: In one or two sentences, what is at the heart of a social media strategy?

Jeremy: It's not an audience, it's a community. If you are merely looking to use people (a big no-no in Kantian philosophy) and treat them as a means to your end, it is going to fail. Treat each part of the community as a part of the whole, and as an end unto themselves.

Debbie: Are there types of companies or industries (public, private, governmental, non-profit)  that are better suited for employing social media than others?

Jeremy: Does not really matter - social media / social strategy does not depend on the industry, but rather the people in the industry. More to the point, it really depends on the culture of the organization. I have worked with companies that would seem to fully embrace social media, and there was a definite push back and fear. And then there are other companies that are fully into social media, where you are surprised that it has been embraced so fully top-down.

Debbie: Where do you see the social media industry (i.e. consultants, PR 2.0 shops, Web 2.0 companies, etc.) going in the next three to five years?

Jeremy: Disappearing. Actually, I thought they'd be gone by now - the practice groups just absorbed into traditional PR strategies and firms. While we're seeing that happen at the smarter firms, the other (dare I say dumber) firms are still getting their arms around it. And, they might be too late.

A lot of these Web 2.0 PR shops and consultants are unnecessary, and have a short shelf life. The firms - be it advertising or public relations or marketing - will fight to keep that money in their coffers.

Unfortunately, what we will see more of are flim-flam snake-oil salesmen and women, selling in programs that make no sense, but are just buzzwords. No strategy, no thought - just money making scams.

Debbie: Tell us a bit about Boingo, the company you're now involved with.

Jeremy: Boingo is the world's largest Wi-Fi network, with more than 100,000 hotspots worldwide. It's about seven years old, and I was brought in for both traditional and social media relations. It's something that I have been talking about for the past couple of years, though - that there is no reason to have public relations and social media separate. While the media landscape has changed, and made PR somewhat harder than it was in the past, it still boils down to communicating to your community, and listening. That's what I'm doing at Boingo.

NOTE: I'm co-chairing BlogPotomac with DC's PR & social media celeb Geoff Livingston. That's why I get to talk it up so much. Seriously, we think this will be an extremely useful event for marketing and comms professionals across DC - government, corporate, non-profit, etc.

Please note that as an unconference this is not a money-making event. Nor is this an event solely for techies. The unconference format - emphasizing audience participation as a major part of the discussion - should make for a uniquely informative day.