Arun Rajagopal

The real power of Social Media August 1, 2007

This has to be one of the most viewed YouTube videos (comes with strong, profane-language) at the moment. Only a day old, it’s already garnered thousands of views and coverage on CNN.

Here’s the backgrounder:

• Roman Catholic priest put on leave after verbally abusing skateboarders
• Skateboarders were using St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne as a skate park
• Reverend Monsignor Geoff Baron’s outburst filmed and placed on YouTube
• Baron apologizes, saying skaters provoked him alleging he was a pedophile

While I refuse to take sides of any party or offer comments on who’s right or wrong, what I would reflect on is:

1. The pervasive influence & power of social media. Whether you like it or not, social media is omnipresent and often used to bring out ‘bad’. People need to be aware that their ‘negative’ actions are very likely to be captured and presented to a public domain.
2. With great power comes greater responsibility. It’s great when social media tools are used to fight ‘evil’ and spread word about ‘good’. But what about creating / supporting ‘evil’ in order to spread word about ‘evil’? For example, how ethical is it to offer a bribe to a higher official with the hope of baiting him, so that it can be captured on camera?

What are your thoughts?

Inviting HP to ‘The Age of Conversation’ July 26, 2007

I woke up this morning and knew I had to talk to this special group of HP bloggers. So I went out on the WWW and got the links to the people who I have to talk to in this post. So here goes: 

Dear:
Ash Ashutosh  
Claudio Bartolini 
John Bennett 
Giordano Beretta 
Scott Berg
Cannes team 
Duncan Campbell 
Marco Casassa Mont
Ged Collins 
Ozzie Diaz 
EMEA CSR Team 
Enterprise Printing Team 
John Erickson 
Vince Ferraro 
Richard Fichera 
Eileen Fritsch 
Stan Garfield 
David Gee 
Ian Griffin 
HP Inkjet Printing Team 
John Jantsch 
Eric Kintz 
Muriel Kopélianskis 
Pankaj Kumar 
Karen Lawrence Öqvist 
Phil McKinney 
Nandini Nayak 
Anneliese Olson 
Krishnan Ramanathan 
Archie Reed
HP Russia blog team  
Jim Rutherford 
Rahul Sood 
Rita Sully 
Sundance Team 
HP Technology Forum Team
Gary Thome 
Susan Underhill 
UK Corporate and Enterprise team 
William Vambenepe 
Jim Vanides 
Tanya Vaughan 
Alex Vorbau 
Jason Ward 
Susie Wee 
Ross West 
Ray Wu 
Fred Zuill 

How are you doing? I’m Arun Rajagopal from Muscat, Sultanate of Oman & I’m glad you have come by my blog. I work as a content strategist for UMSi, a leading web solutions company out here.

Have you read this interesting book called ‘The Age of Conversation’? If yes, great! Nope??? Then you are missing on something darn exciting.

But wait; do you know what the buzz on ‘The Age of Conversation’ is all about? Let me explain the big deal in a nutshell. Let’s get on with this conversation!

‘The Age of Conversation’ is a book about engaging consumers through conversations in a world being shaped by citizen marketers. Now for the exciting part. It is authored by 103 marketing bloggers from 24 states of the USA and 10 nations, making it a first-of-its-kind collaboration via the Internet!

So what’s so special about this book?

It really explores the art of conversation and how that is changing the face of marketing from virtually every angle possible. You get over 100 voices. 100 different perspectives.

And a single purpose – how to have more exciting, meaningful, interactive and memorable conversations.

The book was written for you. It is all about you. It is your book! Read a review by Advertising Age.

Let me give you a small example. My example. I’m one of the 103 co-authors of the ‘The Age of Conversation’. My chapter is titled: The Rules of the Garage. For Digital Media Conversationalists.

As a HP blogger, you know ‘The Rules of the Garage’ better than me. In my chapter, I talk about creating exciting digital media conversations by taking inspiration from HP’s ‘Rules of the Garage’ management philosophy. Cool, huh?

I think these rules are so wonderfully expansive that you can apply them to almost any aspect of life. I plugged them to digital conversations because that is my line of work and then interpreted them for digital pros who are interested in creating exciting online conversations.

I recommend that you not only read my chapter, but 102 other chapters written by marketing pros who value communities and conversations.

‘The Age of Conversation’ is all about ‘win-win’ conversations that are transforming the entire marketing landscape.

• About how various marketing disciplines such as advertising, digital, PR and journalism have to change the way they talk to their consumers to be heard.

• We remind you through our different voices that the most important part in a conversation is LISTENING.

• Plus, we share powerful insights on how to use social media and networking tools to transform the ways we converse.

Simply put, the book is a must-read for any modern marketer and communications professional.

‘The Age of Conversation’ has gold nuggets for everybody. And I mean EVERYBODY. And that according to me is one of the greatest strengths of this book.

Not just marketing people – parents, kids, service industry professionals, community leaders, anybody who is for conversations will come out richer after reading this book.

Dear blogger pal, it will be great if you read ‘The Age of Conversation’ and generously spread the word on the book.

It would be even better if you order copies and give away a few to your friends & colleagues.

After all, it’s not entirely talk about conversations and social media transforming your life.

It’s about helping kids around the world smile more.

In a true spirit of community sharing, we are donating proceeds of book sales to Variety, an international charity committed to serve children across the globe. Our commitment is to raise at least $10,000 for Variety through book sales.

You can buy ‘The Age of Conversation’ as an e-book ($9.99), paperback ($16.90) or hardback ($29.99) from this online store. For more information, please click on www.ageofconversation.com  

Trust me; we need EVERYBODY on board The Age of Conversation.

Remember: It’s no longer ‘I TALK, YOU LISTEN’. It’s ‘I ENGAGE, YOU TALK’.

P.S: Oh yeah, the pic you see there on top of this post is my workstation, and that’s the first snap I took with my new mob. Now you know how attached I’m to my PC, it’s got magnets, calendars & even a Harrods London Bus parked on it 🙂

Thank you for your time. And attention.

Arun Rajagopal

Joined by ace conversationalists:

Gavin Heaton (Editor, The Age of Conversation)
Drew McLellan (Editor, The Age of Conversation)
CK
Valeria Maltoni
Emily Reed
Katie Chatfield
Greg Verdino
Mack Collier
Lewis Green
Sacrum
Ann Handley
Mike Sansone
Paul McEnany
Roger von Oech
Anna Farmery
David Armano
Bob Glaza
Mark Goren
Matt Dickman
Scott Monty
Richard Huntington
Cam Beck
David Reich
Luc Debaisieux
Sean Howard
Tim Jackson
Patrick Schaber
Roberta Rosenberg
Uwe Hook
Tony D. Clark
Todd Andrlik
Toby Bloomberg
Steve Woodruff
Steve Bannister
Steve Roesler
Stanley Johnson
Spike Jones
Nathan Snell
Simon Payn
Ryan Rasmussen
Ron Shevlin
Roger Anderson
Robert Hruzek
Rishi Desai
Phil Gerbyshak
Peter Corbett
Pete Deutschman
Nick Rice
Nick Wright
Michael Morton
Mark Earls
Mark Blair

CB Whittemore
Mario Vellandi
Lori Magno
Kristin Gorski
Kris Hoet
G. Kofi Annan
Kimberly Dawn Wells
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
Gaurav Mishra
Gary Schoeniger
Gareth Kay
Faris Yakob
Emily Clasper
Ed Cotton
Dustin Jacobsen
Tom Clifford
David Polinchock
David Koopmans
David Brazeal
David Berkowitz
Carolyn Manning
Craig Wilson
Cord Silverstein
Connie Reece
Colin McKay
Chris Newlan
Chris Corrigan
Cedric Giorgi
Brian Reich
Becky Carroll
Andy Nulman
Amy Jussel
AJ James
Kim Klaver
Sandy Renshaw
Susan Bird
Ryan Barrett
Troy Worman
S. Neil Vineberg

Guess who’s rocking today? July 21, 2007

Once upon a time, I was an avid quizzer with a particular penchant for the rapid-fire round. You know that heart-crunching round, where they shoot you a volley of questions at a speed that outruns the pace of your answers. You are not just hunting for the right answers, but you are pitched against time!

Today, if somebody asked me this question in a rapid-fire round of a quiz on social media & marketing, I wouldn’t need more than half-a-second to come up with the answer.

The question: Who’s the smartest marketing blogger out there with the biggest heart to care & share?
My answer: CK.

What else can I say about this amazingly thoughtful & smart marketer who perfectly understands that fellow-marketers need to get on board ‘The Age of Conversation’ to be a part of the conversation that is redefining the conversation between them and their customers.

And what does CK come up with? A neat idea – to buy and gift 5 copies of ‘The Age of Conversation’ on behalf its 103 authors to 5 CMOs of 5 Fortune 500 companies. In true community spirit, CK requested the AOC community to recommend these benefactors and has promised to give away yummy cookies to volunteers who help her get information on the CMOs. The fab 5 companies are: Wal-Mart, Sears, Saturn, NBC and United Airlines.

The buzz gets hotter and two smart marketers have joined the fray to emulate CK’s example – Marketing Diva Toby Bloomberg and bloggernaut Mario Vellandi. So that means that more CMOs are going to be a part of ‘The Age of Conversation’ and that’s better news for their customers, right??? 

Here’s a toss of my hat to this wonderful lady of thought & action. And a commitment from my end to give away 3 copies of ‘The Age of Conversation’ to 3 CMOs of most active digital brands in the Middle East. I’ll wait for the copies to arrive and then announce the ‘lucky 3’. Thank you, CK – you rock, as always! And before I go, let me let you in on a small way I’m spreading the word on ‘The Age of Conversation’. Private reading sessions with my friends! I’ve had 2 so far. While Mary Paulose and I read Sacrum’s Warmness together, Shweta Asher has a particular fondness for both Roger von Oech’s How to Think Like A Fool and Steve Bannister’s How to be Happy.

If you have a bought a copy of ‘The Age of Conversation’, may I recommend that you read the book together with people who mean the most to you. Trust me; you will come out feeling blessed and enriched. Like me.

The Age of Conversation – Live from Muscat, Oman July 16, 2007

This is me. On top of the world. (Well, it’s late evening in Muscat now & I may look drawn out after a long day at work, but so what – I’ve turned author!)

That’s ‘The Age of Conversation’ e-book right on my desktop. The cover just looks awesome, doesn’t it?

But trust me, the content in it is even FABULOUS. I have just skimmed through as of now – serious reading begins tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow and let you know whose chapter I read first.

But, hey just to be on the same page, do you know what the buzz is about? Have you got your copy of the ‘hottest collaboratively authored social marketing tome of the year’?

Congrats to all the AOC authors – YOU ROCK! And so do our fabulous editors, Drew McLellan & Gavin Heaton. Here’s three cheers and more to AOC.

P.S: Wouldn’t it be cool to see all AOC authors pose with the book on their blogs… and then lets do a collage on it. What say?

Update: Love the AOC community’s passion to connect using a plethora of social media tools. Looks like Matt Dickman heard my wish for an image gallery of AOC authors posing with their book covers – he’s already got it up & running at Flickr. Atta boy Matt!

The death of the page view July 14, 2007

Guess who died last week. The venerable page view. Last Tuesday, Nielsen/NetRatings, the world’s leading Internet stats measurement behemoth “scrapped rankings” based on the industry yardstick of page views and replaced it with how long visitors stay at websites. This move comes as online video and new technologies such as Ajax increasingly make page views less meaningful.

However, the new metric adopted by Nielsen/NetRatings to rank top websites is equally problematic. Time spent on each website is not an effective yardstick to measure online popularity. Take the example of Google Search vs. YouTube. The reason d’etre of the former is to serve users with the best search results at the MINIMUM possible time while the latter wants users to stick around for ever checking out user-generated content. Which is a qualitatively effective & popular online property?

Even measuring unique visitors is not considered an effective metric to measure online popularity because smart-ass users are doing all sorts of things (clearing cookies, using different computers) to defeat the technology.

The new ranking has hit a body blow to websites such as Google & Yahoo who rely on Web 2.0 technologies. AOL benefits immensely on account of its IM software. Viral media benefits, while search websites will feel the pinch.

However, web stats providers are missing out on the most impactful website statistic ever: Action. With the impending oblivion of the page view metric, digital brands and web solutions providers need to think of creating online properties and define their success in terms of smarter measurable actions (clicks, conversion or customer leads).

This news has interesting implications for my blog & my career. I’m gonna stop bothering about page loads on this blog & focus more on blogging relationships & the content that has made it possible.
And at work, I’ll do more to help clients see that there’s more to online effectiveness than page views & hits. That quality matters more than quantity.

As for now, it looks like web properties with the most engaging user experience are going to rule the roost with the Nielsen move!

Must read fun-stuff for iPhone freaks July 7, 2007

Love or hate the iconic iPhone, you gotta check out this alternative buzz around the iPhone. I promise you lot of fun & some useless information to digest. As for me, I’m waiting for the iPhone to hit Muscat, probably next year?

Must-see video of a woman who tried to buy $16,000 worth of iPhones. And a smart kid who comes out top in the end!

Video: MadTV spoof on the iPhone and Steve Jobs. Hilariously Funny!

Hacker activates iPhone without AT&T
He can’t make calls, but iPod, Wi-Fi applications work, says ‘DVD Jon’.

Only 2 per person. Apple lays down iPhone purchase rules.

The Definitive iPhone User Interface Image ‘Porn’ Gallery

The Apple iPhone Review on Engadget. Claims to be the ultimate review.

Conan’s Hilarious iPhone Commercial.
Discover multiple uses of the iPhone. Spiffy!

The Iphone Concept Blog. The iPhone could have looked like this.

Video: Fake iPhone from China.

Here’s a video on the first iPhone customer on Earth.

A chilled love affair. The story of a broken down iPhone handset.

Enjoy this iPhone music video from David Pogue of NYT.

A week in the life of the iPhone.

How to buy the iPhone without the 2 year contract

A list of iPhone disappointments

Info on a Trojan that afflicts the iPhone

What the iPhone doesn’t have

Tech Geeks respond to a GigaOM.com Open Thread: How would you improve the iPhone?

Thank you, CK! May 25, 2007

Getting to know ‘Age of Conversation’ authors – 8 & Finito! May 25, 2007

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

So, the curtain finally falls on my long series of profiles of the ‘Age of Conversation’ authors. I’d like to thank the ‘100’ community for their inspiring shout-outs of support & encouragement. The profiling exercise has not only brought me closer to the lives & work of these stalwarts who are shaping ‘people-centric conversations in a world increasingly influenced by new-media ’, but also has been a terrific learning experience – personally & professionally.

For those of you looking for a backgrounder on the ‘Age of Conversation’, a path-breaking e-book project that features the seminal ideas & thoughts of 100 influential bloggers from around the world on conversations in a world driven by new-media, click here.

Drew McLellan gets branding and marketing and he desperately wants you to get it too. So he tells stories, asks questions, and milks sacred cows. All to help clients discover their brand so they can create authentic love affairs with their customers. Drew has not only survived 20 years in the advertising and marketing arena, he’s thrived in it. After working for several other agencies, including Young and Rubicam’s CMF&Z, Drew created McLellan Marketing Group in 1995. Considered a national branding expert in the USA, Drew is a highly sought after speaker and has given about a zillion presentations at national conferences, key note addresses, training for his peers in the profession, college students and even his daughter’s eighth grade class. When he’s not out preaching the good word of marketing & branding at work and on his blog Drew’s Marketing Minute, Drew spends time with his family and pondering why the Dodgers can’t seem to get back to the World Series.

Born on a boat on the Indian Ocean, Gavin Heaton was about three months early and nearly did not survive. As a newborn he was so small that his mother wrapped him in face cloths rather than nappies, and dressed him in doll’s clothes as nothing else would fit. OK … so only some of that is true. But which parts are fiction and which parts fact? What comes first the brand or the story? What is authentic and what is fable? For answers, you have to check out Gavin’s blog ‘Servant of Chaos’ which is his personal rant on the world of branding and storytelling. Gavin has held book editor and publishing roles at Butterworths, tutored and lectured in performance and postmodernism at University of Western Sydney, written technical documentation, marketed technology solutions, established a “knowledge factory” and run innovation teams for IBM, created comprehensive marketing and branding strategies, launched new services and run communications campaigns for Fujistu Consulting and now heads the Interactive division for a global marketing and promotions agency. (Btw, only the part of Gavin being born on a boat on the
Indian Ocean is untrue!)

Hip, hippie & happenin’ marketing guru CK, short for Christina Kerley, is one of the most powerful ‘human brands’ in the blogosphere. With her expertise in strategy, planning, social media and program development coupled to her passion for writing, CK excels in working with: (1) Ideas + (2) Programs + (3) People. Since 1999, CK & her consultancy, ckEpiphany have been working with businesses in varied industries helping them listen to customers & create epiphanies that energizes marketing through  fresh, new ideas. CK covers a lot of marketing topics through articles, speaking events and blogging – and tries to make learning fun. Here’s some fun stuff on CK: She digs reading, film, friends, live theatre, traveling, animals (zoos make her sad), outdoor concerts, cooking, good clean debates and dirty martinis. She finds sunrise to be the sky’s most spectacular moment and is a big fan of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. After she was born, she went 5 days without a name, because her folks were expecting a boy!!!
The ‘Age of Conversation’ e-book is dedicated to the memory of CK’s mum, Sandra Johnson Kerley. Click here to read ‘The many faces of Momma’. CK, I’m sure your mom’s rooting for you from her place among the stars.
Her best advice for bloggers? Don’t focus on how well your blog is ranked, focus on the relationships you make through blogging. Rankings come and go, but relationships evolve into colleagues and friends (if you treat them with respect and care). Point noted, CK.

Ms. Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni connects people & ideas on her blog ‘Conversation Agent’ and explores how talk can change our lives. In Italy, Valeria moved into communications while studying linguistics at the University of Bologna. A passionate marketer, she has since worked on the agency, consulting and corporate sides of communications. Since May 2000, she has been the chair of a Philadelphia professionals organization tied to Fast Company magazine. Her passion and drive to learn from, understand and practice in the fields of communications and marketing takes the form of engaging conversations where content, product and service providers come together with audiences, customers and publics to create meaning. Click here to read her Blogger Story.

She is a trained private investigator. She does stand-up comedy in her spare time. She takes time out to meditate. She’s one of the most interesting people you could hope to meet. She’s also been a planner at Goodby Silverstein and M&C Saatchi Sydney and a copywriter at Mad Dogs and Englishmen. She blogs at www.conformistsunite.com. Originally from Oregon, she loves hummus & coffee. (Add shawarma to that and that’s a common interest for both of us.) She is also the Sydney-based partner of Open Intelligence Agency, an international consultancy operating from four global hubs – Sydney, Amsterdam, London & New York. OIA is an ideal gobal small business, bereft of hierarchies and bureaucracy, collaborating with all sorts of people 24/7 to deliver brand and communications thinking and creative ideas for top global brands. Meet Emily Reed. And here’s her page on PlannerSphere.

On her blog ‘Get Shouty’, Katie Chatfield blogs about digital strategy and well, blogging itself. She’s recently moved over from Sydney to Chicago. Katie says that blogging makes her hungry for her day, helps her to simplify, allows her to listen and lets her know that there is no one right way, there is only conversation. She’s hilarious & knows to speak her mind. Oh, she’s totally into swimming & reading.

A consummate marketing & new media blogger, Greg Verdino is Vice President / Director of Emerging Channels at Digitas LLC, where he provides clients with thought leadership on engaging consumers and creating brand experiences through emerging platforms such as digital video, mobile, social media and gaming. A recognized expert on emerging media channels, Web 2.0 and convergence, Greg rides on an illustrious career that has seen him work for big names in advertising (Wunderman & Saatchi & Saatchi) as well as new media (ROO, Arbitron NewMedia, Akamai Technologies, Loudeye and Globix Corporation).

Mack Collier is a Social-Media Consultant / Community-Evangelist, helping big and small companies develop a social-media strategy that helps them reach, and excite their community of customers. His blog, The Viral Garden, is ranked in the top 0.01% of all blogs on the internet, according to Technorati. He is also a regular contributor for Daily Fix. Mack also has over 10 years experience working with major retail clients, helping them solve their online and offline marketing and production problems, as well as both a BBA and MBA in Marketing. Any additional free time he has is spent collecting antique toys, watching the Tide Roll, reading business periodicals, reading the latest marketing and branding news on the web.

Lewis Green is the Founder and Managing Principal of L&G Business Solutions, LLC, and has over three decades of business management experience. In addition to his business experiences, Lewis is a published author and a former journalist, sports writer and travel writer. His feature articles have appeared in books, magazines and newspapers throughout North America. He has taught in public schools; lobbied for organizations both in state capitols and in Washington, D.C.; delivered workshops, seminars, and training programs; and made presentations to audiences in colleges, businesses and professional organizations. Lewis also has served as a book editor with a large publisher, the Executive Editor overseeing four magazines, and a newspaper department editor. Lewis served eight years in the U.S. Air Force, where he received the Air Force Commendation Medal. At his blog bizsolutionsplus, Lewis features business tips, ideas and innovative thinking to grow your business. What makes a prolific writer & blogger? Click here to know his secret!

Sacrum’s blog literally made me laugh with his unique language, which I’m christening as ‘Sacrumspeak’. Truly, there’s something very endearing to this language (peppered with conscious avoidance of articles & pithy stacato phrases), that makes you sit up and take notice of what Sacrum’s got to say. Let’s hear him introduce himself in Sacrumspeak: I am European man with skills in advertising. I should be in advertising yes? Yes! But I am not and this is a shame. Shame is worry, shame is darkness. I must have light! So I must get in to funky advertising agency. I have my own pencils. Sacrum, I dig the kind of illustrations your pencils come up with.

Ann Handley is is the Queen of all Things Content (also refers to Chief Content Officer) on the MarketingProfs website and newsletter and the Primary Caregiver to the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog. Prior to that, she was the co-founder of ClickZ.com. As a longtime freelance journalist, Ann has written regularly for the Boston Globe as well as a million (give or take) mainstream and trade publications. Ann lives near Boston with her family and four dogs. She loves: cooking, sweet potato chips, sitting on a beach with a really good book. She hates writing about herself in the third person. She aspires to someday write for the New Yorker.

And for the profiles of the rest of the crew… here you go!

Profiles of ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Mike Sansone, Paul McEnany, Roger von Oech, Anna Farmery, David Armano, Bob Glaza, Mark Goren, Matt Dickman, Scott Monty & Richard Huntington.

Profiles of ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Cam Beck, David Reich, Luc, Sean Howard, Tim Jackson, Patrick Schaber, Roberta Rosenberg, Uwe Hook, Tony D. Clark, Todd Andrlik, Toby Bloomberg, Steve Woodruff, Steve Bannister & Steve Roesler.

Profiles of ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Stanley Johnson, Spike Jones, Nathan Snell, Simon Payn, Ryan Rasmussen, Ron Shevlin, Roger Anderson, Bob Hruzek, Rishi Desai, Phil Gerbyshak, Peter Corbett & Pete Deutschman.

Profiles of ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: Nick Rice, Nick Wright, Mitch Joel, Michael Morton, Mark Earls, Mark Blair, Mario Vellandi, Lori Magno, Kristin Gorski, Krishna De, Kris Hoet, Kofl Annan & Kimberly Dawn Wells. 

Profiles of ‘Age of Conversation’ authors: 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. 

Profiles of ‘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. 

Getting to know ‘Age of Conversation’ Authors – 7 May 19, 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’m back with my seventh post in the ‘soon-to-end’ ‘Age of Conversation’ authors series. Have got one more left. I would like to thank Cam Beck, Sean Howard, Roberta Rosenberg, Toby Bloomberg & Tony D. Clark for their kind comments 🙂 Sure Toby, you can be envious of my 43 days off… I just hope I can keep blogging on a regular basis, especially when I get to India for a month in a few days from now. It will be the height of monsoon rains when I get home and I will post snaps of the rains, some trains and a lot of greenery. My blog will then look more like a travel blog… Let the profiles begin…

Mike Sansone from Des Moines, Iowa has got probably one of the most interesting domains on the World Wide Web – www.converstations.com. Nope, it’s not conversations, but ‘converStations’ – a coined word obviously, but one with a lot of meaning. And Mike calls him a ‘conversation conductor’. Mike is an independent business consultant specializing in business blogs and conversational copywriting. His experience in public speaking, sales and marketing, writing, and real-time online communication are strengths Mike relies upon in his role as a Conversation Conductor. Mike’s passion is to build communities – offline and online. He’s taken on many avatars do that – property management, online community programming, volunteerism, and – for a short time – as an assistant pastor at a Baptist church in Maryland. (Interesting that I’m now mentally imagining Mike as a conductor in a symphony leading ‘conversations’ between different ‘players’ and then also as a conductor in a train or bus helping people be a part of the ‘travel experience’ and then as a conductor in physics helping  the conduction of ‘charges’ which also a type of ‘electrical communication’. So there you go, so many meanings from a simple word – conductor.) Wow! Kick in the Caboose????!!! Mike, are you a rail-fan? Paul McEnany is a new media marketing strategist at a Dallas agency, and writes for Beyond Madison Avenue and The Madison Avenue Journal. He is also the greatest advertising human alive today. 🙂

If you were looking for the magician with the key to a box full of fun ideas to stimulate your creativity, look no further. Roger von Oech is an author, inventor, and consultant. He started his company, Creative Think, in 1977 to stimulate creativity in business. He’s probably best known as the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head and the Creative Whack Pack, and, most recently, as the creator of the Ball of Whacks (a set of 30 magnetic design blocks that act as a creative stimulant and mind freshener). Roger has a Ph.D. from Stanford in “History of Ideas;” and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from Ohio State. Read his post ‘Think Like a Fool’.

Podcaster-Blogger-Coach Anna Farmery qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG, joined the printing industry as a Financial Controller before being made Managing Director at the ripe old age of 25. She continued in industry with a growing reputation for motivating people, working for FMCG companies. After 20 years of being a Corporate Director – and latterly as a Group HR/Finance Director for a major worldwide brand she decided to establish her own company – The Engaging Brand. The Engaging Brand works with companies both small and major corporations on how to boost profits through motivating their people. She is a regular speaker on areas such as personal and employer branding, motivation and social media. She produces The Engaging Brand podcast and also coaches individuals on how to improve their leadership capabilities. Anna lives every moment like her last & can be the ultimate brand ambassador for iPod.

 “Stop calling yourself a blogger,” proclaims David Armano. A Creative VP at Digitas, David Armano’s personal blog Logic+Emotion exists at the intersection of Marketing, Brand Engagement + Experience Design – where passive consumers become active participants. In his 100^th post, Roger von Oech chose to interview David. His post ‘What makes David Armano tick?’ is the probably the finest piece on the David Armano story.

At his blog ‘One Reader at a Time’, Bob Glaza asks: why not bite off more than you can chew? Bob’s blog is about blogging and building community – learning and growing. He says: I hope one person at a time will find a bit of value. My wanderings stumble onto worthwhile blogs and sites. The reflections and posts focus broadly on imagination, marketing, print media, building community…and baseball. This blog expresses my opinions only. In addition, it expresses opinions of the people behind the links. Any similarity to real life just might be true! Bob has been in the newspaper business for over 20 years. “Technically in circulation and distribution for 19 and Consumer Marketing for the past 2 years.”

Mark Goren worked for 10 years in marketing as a copywriter at several traditional advertising agencies, before learning one sure thing: the traditional advertising model is broken. Mark’s now into new marketing consulting, freelance copywriting, social media advocacy, and anything else that’ll pay for a family of four to see the Habs in person. His marketing consultancy Transmission Content + Creative is designed to help ‘open-minded clients reach their targets in non-conventional, financially friendly ways by cutting out waste and targeting qualified prospects’. Openly. Honestly. Authentically. 

Matt Dickman (Mattanium) is the quintessential technomarketer as well as an interactive marketing strategist, speaker and technology evangelist working at DigiKnow, Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio. Click here for his recent seminal video tour on ‘Web2.0 for marketers: what it means for you’. Though he describes himself as ‘an amateur photographer finding the balance between work and photos’, I recommend a visit to his Flickr Travel snap collection.

The Social Media Marketing Blog is where you find Scott Monty’s perspectives on B2B implications of social media – the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web – for marketers, agencies and companies. Scott is currently Relationship Director & Consigliere at crayon, LLC plus Writer/Content Developer/Strategist at The Social Media Marketing Blog & The Baker Street Blog. He has also served time as Account Director at PJA Advertising & Marketing. A ‘benevolent idealist’ according to his DNA type, Scott is one of the most passionate online canons of Sherlock Holmes giving us what the world really needs: a blog about the world of Sherlock Holmes. 

Richard Huntington is a planner by trade and the former planning director of both HHCL and United London. Over the years he has made rodeo sexy, produced food porn for Diet Tango, helped men confront their fear of the phone, got the frozen retailer Iceland to care about food issues and had his last Tango ad banned for encouraging bullying. More recently he was busy making Sky more appealing to digital refusniks and doing serious harm to the ad industry by popularising their DVR, Sky+. He is on the management committee of the Account Planning Group in the UK and the Chair of Judges for the APG Creative Strategy Awards as well as a member of the IPA Strategy Group. He blogs at adliterate where he provides radical thinking for the brand advice business. It aims to be deliberately provocative with radical views and sets itself against orthodoxy in any form. The modern-day agent provocateur. Neat.