Arun Rajagopal

Getting to know ‘Age of Conversation’ Authors – 3 May 8, 2007

Hello there! Click here to visit the updated profiles of ALL ‘Age of Conversation’ authors on one page. UPDATED ON 16 JULY 2007.

Hello all:
I’m back with another bunch of ‘Conversation Age’ profiles. On the honor-roll today are the following ‘conversationalists par excellence’: Karl Long, Julie Fleischer, Jordan Behan, John La Grou, Joe Raasch, Jim Kukral, Jessica Hagy, Janet Green, Jamey Shiels, Dr. Graham Hill, Gia Facchini & Geert Desager.

The kick I’m getting from this is simply indescribable. Today, it took me a comparatively longer time to write the profiles as each blog and author sent me on a bunny trail spanning scores of websites and blogs. I consider it a humble feeling to sit in my wintry office in sweltering Muscat and follow the lives of people living in various parts of the world… all of them accomplished professionals… people living their life to their max, yet taking time off to share their thoughts and interests with the world. The richness in their personalities is scintillating… we’ve digital gurus, t-shirt freaks, harley moms, art enthusiasts, storytellers, philosophers and what not among us… and a visit to their blogs is akin to taking a dip in their lives, being a part of their existence. Something that leaves a magical imprint on your own being. On with the show…

Brandopia. What an interesting title for a blog that’s got musings on marketing, communication and technology. Geert Desager is originally from Brussels, has lived in South Africa and France and is now back in Belgium, working as Trade Marketing Manager for Microsoft. He’s studied applied linguistics, did a Master in E-business at the University of Brussels and an MBA at the University of Liverpool. Click here to read his post on ‘How to How to get 9 million views on Youtube?’ But hallo, wait, Geert’s got another blog too… Bring the love back which chronicles the making a commercial film called ‘The Couple’ for Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions that explores the relationship between today’s advertiser and today’s consumer. Geert considers it a quite risky project as it explicitly challenges the advertisers – his clients – to question themselves and the way they communicate with their target groups. It’s great that a marketing professional is using blogging as a medium as well as a message to create messages for other media. Through ‘Bring the love back‘, Geert keeps you posted about the making of the campaign and encourages the ad agency creating the commercial to vent their ideas as well. He’s also part of the Map My Name Project, an ambitious viral project by two Portuguese students that aims to create a census of Internet users around the world on a map in a month. Hey, I’m in the Map too now!

Gia Facchini‘s chapter is titled ‘About Conversation’. Based in Rome, this veteran advertising / media man is into cooking, wine, contemporary art (He’s attended ‘Introduction to Contemporary Art’ from Sotheby’s Institute of Art), mountain biking, Jimi Hendrix, rock, jazz and counts Anatomy of Restlessness by Bruce Chatwin is his favorite book. I would really like Gia to take off with his ‘wineyourself’ blog. Gia says: Without a conversation there is no engagement, no share of information, no transfer of knowledge. Without a conversation, we cannot learn to listen, to give words their own meaning and not the one we would like them to have. Click here to read his post on Benedetta Craveri’s book ‘The Age of Conversation’.

Dr. Graham Hill is a principal at CACI Sophron, a London- and Cologne, Germany-based customer value management consultancy. He has more than 20 years of experience in customer-driven change programs in the automotive, telecom, financial services and aviation industries and in the public sector. Graham has developed and piloted the Lean CRM concept with Toyota in Europe and is implementing it in a number of European markets. Customer Value Management Guru. Wow. Want to know why Toyota is ‘kickassing’ Detroit automakers today? Click here to read Graham’s ‘The Lean CRM Toyota Story’. Double-Wow!!

Jamy Shiel’s blog ‘Walk On’ is a trip to interactive branding, new marketing and social media in the new world. Jamy’s an Account Manager in the Interactive Branding department for Laughlin/Constable and brings over ten years of experience managing internet development, marketing and public relations projects for fortune 500 companies, non-profit organizations and everything in between. And when he’s got spare time, he enjoys reading, playing basketball and trying to figure out how to be a better father to his kids.

You would like to visit Janet Green’s Small Business Marketing Ideas – Marketing Idea Blog to discuss and share small business marketing, advertising and publicity ideas with small- and home-based business owners. Janet’s a 20-year veteran marketing and communications professional, having begun her career in the field of corporate video and broadcast television production. She’s even hosted her own radio shows, worked in retail, and been a DJ in a roller skating rink. Whoa gurl! Oh, I can see that Drew and Sandy were the recent visitors on her blog. And oh my god… there’s this totally other side to Janet, and you can get it at bikerchicknews.com – where I can see photos, news and rants from a woman who rides motorcycles – JG herself… she calls herself RBM (Rebel Biker Mom) and her bike’s a 2000 Harley Davidson Sportster 883 named PB (Picky Bitch)!!!!! Vroom-vroom JG.

Some people can simplify the most complicated things without losing the ‘essence of substance’. Huh, I can’t believe I just wrote that! On her blog ‘Indexed’, Jessica Hagy analyzes modern life with charts, graphs and Venn diagrams neatly arranged on a 3×5 index card. She says that ‘This site is a little project that lets me make fun of some things and sense of others. I use it to think a little more relationally without resorting to doing actual math’. Jessica’s blog can make your day… any day. I just wish she made a cute graph or Venn diagram dedicated for me (too much to ask for?). Here’s to making Set Theory really sexy! Cheers. And if you ever want to buy an Indexed T-Shirt, click here. Oh yeah, she’s an advertising copywriter, and I just got a grab of a rare interview with this elusive hack. What would be her chapter on ‘Conversation Age’? (P.S: Indexed is ranked 265 on Technorati).

Jim Kukril (Marketing | Ideas | Online) is a veteran online marketing consultant and award-winning blogger who focuses on helping businesses make money online through creative marketing ideas and strategies. His chapter for the ‘Conversation Age’ e-book is titled “Can I Have Your Attention Please?” and is about how social marketing tools such as YouTube and Twitter and Flickr are changing the marketing game and how brands today need to embrace them if they want to be noticed in an ever-growing world of noise. He digs Pizzas and the Cleveland Browns.

Joe Raasch is an organizational development practitioner with over 20 years of professional experience, specializing in performance management, corporate strategy, and employee engagement. He was “consultant of the year” at General Electric Commercial Finance in 2001. He blogs on Leadership, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Life, Change Management and Innovation at ‘The Happy Burro’. His chapter “No Limit Conversation” promises to be a great tool to stimulate, reinvigorate and engage in the lost art of conversation. 

John La Grou is President, Founder, Producer & Engineer at Millennia Music & Media Systems. He and his wife Cynthia formed Millennia Media in 1989 to pursue their interest in fine and applied arts. Millennia’s mission is to produce the world’s finest audio recording gear. John’s passion for audio was sparked when his dad brought home the first stereo reel-to-reel home tape recorder, a 1/4″ half-track machine made by the Voice of Music Company. From managing Acer America’s OEM division to setting up Millennia which shipped over 25,000 channels of HV-3 mic preamps to orchestras and musical performers worldwide, John remains committed to absolute sonic and musical purity. Let the music play, John!

Jordan Behan’s blog is about Marketing 2.0, Web 2.0, new media, social media, blogosphere and occasionally on Vancouver Canucks. Jordan’s first media job was at the age of 16, when he started as weekend reporter for the local newspaper. His first assignment? A front page scoop and photo when teachers walked off the job on strike at his high school. He has now over a decade of experience and education in media; working in television, newspaper, radio and online marketing. He is Founder / President of Tell Ten Friends, a small-business marketing firm in Vancouver. He was last seen preparing speaking notes for an impending presentation while recovering from his first ever marathon. Click here to see him run!

Julie Fleischer blogs about new ideas in innovation, with a focus on inspirational branding, business models, media and design. Julie is the blogger-in-chief / Director of Innovation for Egg Strategy (a Chicago-based brand strategy firm that aims to ‘bring the magic of insight to brand strategy, innovation and communication’). She has been CMO of a dot com aimed at making the world a better place for moms, launched a specialty retail chocolate business, ran a national auto care franchise and is a trained qualitative researcher. Her listed occupation is ‘Innovation Catalyst’. Kewl!

Karl Long is the Web / Social Media Integration Manager for the video game group at Nokia. In his blog ExperienceCurve, he talks a lot about the intersection of marketing, social media and remarkable customer experience. He’s also contributes to the blog vcritic.com that explores the social video revolution and ‘watches youtube and vlogs because we’ve got better things to do’. He also rules the roost at tcritic.com, a daily T-Shirt blog that’s obsessed with cool, thought provoking, funny, and geeky t-shirts. (If you want your t-shirt reviewed, email him a snap of your T-shirt at karl.long@gmail.com or better, click here to check out his review guidelines.) Another of his pet projects is Customers On Fire – The Co-Creative Business Show – a weekly podcast on the topic of co-creation, co-creative business, technology and social media. Karl is also a contributor to blog.futurelab.net – Marketing Strategy & Innovation & blog.marketingprofs.com – Daily Fix from the guys behind marketingprofs.com. Quite the digiman.

Click here to read profiles of the following ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Gaurav Mishra, Gary Schoeniger, Gareth Kay, Faris Yakob, Emily Clasper, Ed Cotton, Dustin Jacobsen, Tom Clifford, David Pollinchock, David Koopmans, David Brazeal, David Berkowitz & Carolyn Manning.

Click here to read profiles of the following ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Craig Wilson, Cord Silverstein, Connie Reece, Colin McKay, Chris Corrigan, Cedric Giorgi, Becky Carroll, Andy Nulman, Amy Jussel, Kim Klaver, Sandy Renshaw, Susan Bird, Ryan Barrett &
Troy Worman. Profiles to be continued. 🙂

Getting to know ‘Age of Conversation’ Authors – 2 May 7, 2007

Hello there! Click here to visit the updated profiles of ALL ‘Age of Conversation’ authors on one page. UPDATED ON 16 JULY 2007.

Here’s my second post of the series profiling the 100 ‘Age of Conversation’ authors. Thank you for the comments, as always.

Based in Mumbai, India, Gaurav Mishra is a marketer by profession and poet by heart. Gauravonomics Diary features his thoughts on love, life and popular culture while the Gauravonomics Blog is all about his thoughts on blogging, marketing and personal development. His chapter in ‘Conversation Age’ is titled ‘Create Conversations, Not Clutter’. He’s got a cool About Us page with visuals of his various avatars. He’s in Athens at the moment, attending a conference! 

The Advertising Age has called David Pollinchock’s Brand Experience Lab (BEL) “a playroom for marketers and agencies”. BEL builds on knowledge of the future of ‘interaction’ marketing, and the embedding of emerging technology into retail and marketing experiences to create engaging brand experiences for 21st century audiences. David has over 20 years of experience in event marketing and strategic ideation. David is also an Adjunct Professor at the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU. I find the quotes on the BEL website mastheads quite amazing!  

Through his marketing blog ‘Marketers Studio’, marketer, columnist, speaker, and strategist David Berkowitz delivers key interactive marketing insights and trends. He is Director of Emerging Media for 360i, a search-focused marketing agency and a regular columnist for MediaPost’s Search Insider.   

Architect of possibilities and story catalyst, Tom Clifford is a multi-award-winning corporate documentary filmmaker. He helps companies communicate meaningful messages by producing emotional, engaging and authentic videos. Click here to watch some of his corporate videos.

David Brazeal’s blog Journamarketing is about how great advocacy journalism can be used to your advantage to sell your ideas, your organization and even yourself. David is a communications and marketing consultant who helps clients use new media tools to sell their ideas and their organization. 

David Koopmans’s blog ‘Business of Marketing and Branding’ attempts to make sense of Marketing and Branding in the Information Age. He’s a professional marketer and Director of Mokum Marketing, a firm specialising in B2B Marketing. Born in Amsterdam (hence the name of his business, Mokum, which is the colloquial name for Amsterdam) and David is a resident of Melbourne, Australia since 1991. David says that his reason to blog is simple – it connects him to people and their thoughts on marketing and branding and stimulates his thinking.

Carolyn Manning blogs about Business Thoughts & Business Philosophies and is from Pennsylvania, USA. Her main interest is writing and one of her cherished goals is ‘to facilitate better personal understanding by building global relationships’.

Author, educator and small business advocate Gary Schoeniger blogs about insights, ideas and inspiration on innovation & entrepreneurship for small businesses as well as personal and professional development. He is the founder and CEO of Schoeniger Growth Consultants, Inc., a Cleveland, Ohio based consulting firm and is the author of Starting From Scratch – How To Start A Business When You Don’t Have Money. He is presently working on a new book on everyday entrepreneurs.  

Gareth Kay is an advertising planner pretty new to the USA. He works for a Boston-based advertising agency Modernista (it’s got one of the funkiest websites I’ve ever seen!) His blog ‘brand new’ features his thoughts on ‘brands and communications and some occasional random stuff’. Gareth’s on vacation at the moment.

Faris Yakob. Strategist. Geek. Works at Naked Communications, London. Writes on brands, media, communications & technology for print and online media. Believes that ‘talent imitates, Genius steals’. Bingo!

In her blog ‘Library Revolution’, Emily Clasper states that the Library Status Quo must go. Emily is a librarian, computer geek, and library gadfly currently working as System Operations Manager for a large public library consortium in Suffolk County, NY. She digs gardening, the New York Mets, and spending time with her family (husband Chris, son Robert, and Jack Russell Terrier, Peanut). Buzz words on her blog include: Library Administration, Library Marketing, Library Service, Library Technology & Social Networking.

Ed Cotton has spent the last 10 years of his agency career as an account planner. He has a background of working with youth brands: first at McCann-Erickson Europe with Levi’s. A founder of McCann’s European youth arm – Magic Hat, Ed is one of the principals of Influx Strategic Consulting, a strategic arm of Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners based in Sausalito, California. Incidentally, Faris Yakob and Ed are members of the Plannersphere community on Ning!

Getting to know ‘Age of Conversation’ Authors – 1 May 6, 2007

Hello there! Click here to visit the updated profiles of ALL ‘Age of Conversation’ authors on one page. UPDATED ON 16 JULY 2007.

I belong to the select club of 100 authors who have collaborated online to create an e-book titled ‘Age of Conversation’. Here’s a small effort to get to know the club better. I’m going to dedicate some time every day to visit the blogs of my fellow authors and dig some interesting stuff on them. After all, the Conversation Age cannot bloom unless the conversationalists from far and wide get to know each other better. Comments are welcome, of course! 

Ryan Barrett’s got a BA in French Language and Literature & is currently a copywriter at a large interactive advertising agency in Boston. (Hey, we share the same profession, mademoiselle!) 

I like Troy Worman’s short & sweet posts! I think his Global Facts, Worth Hearing, Worth Playing , Worth Reading and Worth Seeing posts are worth a look. 

Susan Bird is a sought-after speaker around the world for her views on leadership, the strategic importance of conversation, entrepreneurship, and the role of women business leaders. A Stanford lawyer, she is Founder of MainEvent(TM), the annual global interactive business forum, and the author of The ABC’s of Authentic Conversation. Her blog’s named, well, BIRD’S EYE-VIEW. 

Sandy Renshaw lives in Iowa and has a business named ‘Purple Wren’ (a play on her name, of course) that provides communications solutions to businesses. Hey Sandy, is something wrong with top menu bar on your site that leads to store, calendar, and books & music?

You are not gonna believe this… We’ve all been posting the list of 100 authors of the Conversation Age from each other… and we have got Kim Klaver’s blog link wrong… a ‘period’ has crept into his URL after ‘com’ in our posts. This is the actual link. A Piscean, Kim has been selling things she loves since she was eight and is today a Network Marketing guru. 

Amy Jussel’s blog Shaping Youth is all about media & marketing’s influence on kids. She is the Founder & Executive Director of Shaping Youth, a non-profit concerned with media & marketing’s impact on kids. Her chapter in the Conversation Age is titled “Mommy, why is that lady licking a beer bottle? Ethics & Accountability in Advertising.” Your masthead rocks! 

Here’s someone who blogs about SUPRISES, what he calls POWS! Andy Nulman’s  one-line bio is “I am charmingly devious. And I will never be limited to one sentence.” He was the co-founder and CEO of Just For Laughs Festival which has launched talent like Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey and Dave Chappelle. Other avatars include motivational speaker, mobile media guru, author, inventive stage director, half-decent snowboarder, hot-and-cold hockey goalie, and controversial pop artist. Check out the POWS!in his blog. 

Customers rock for Becky Carroll. Someone who is passionate about the customer experience, Becky runs Petra Consulting Group, a strategic consultancy helping companies grow through lengthening and strengthening customer relationships. She loves to sing in her church choir and has a pet bunny named Bugs. 

Cedric Giorgi’s blogs in French! He thinks it’s better to be useful than famous. Such an interesting thought. May be Ryan can check out his blog and tell us a little more about Cedric. Merci beaucoup. My French has just given up on me.  

Chris Corrigan is ‘a facilitator of conversation in the service of emergence’. His blog is titled ‘Parking Lot’ and has a good collection of poetry. His other blog Bowen Island Journal is a journal on life at Bowen Island, Canada. In his words, “home to 3000 people, three mountains, two valleys, four lakes, about 15 beaches, two species of salmon, one village and me and my family.” One look at the blog and you know that this place is paradise on Earth for him.  

Colin McKay’s blog Canuckflack is all about public relations, marketing, retail quirks, government communications and oddities … and written in Canada! He works in communications for the Government of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Connie Reece champions conversation through everydotconnects.com, a social media consortium that brings together a group of independent media practitioners who use new technologies to bridge gaps between people and ideas and causes. A total Texan, she also co-authors the humor blog Blogabillies & looks kewl in a pink feather boa! 

Cord Silverstein is the quintessential online marketing hipster. I dig his no-nonsense, cut-out-the-chase bio. Capstrat, the strategic marketing & communications firm he works for, is currently on the prowl for copywriters. I think I should get in touch with him and explore means of long-distance collaboration. 🙂

Craig Wilson is all about Sticky Advertising, a young Newcastle-based agency with a long history. As Managing Director, his aim is to… create Sticky Advertising in Australia.

More ‘conversationalist profiles’ to follow. Watch this space!!!