Archive for May, 2007
My Killer App Expo Speech
Here’s my off-the-cuff presentation from the Killer App Expo conference I attended a few weeks ago. You can thank Jon Swanson for holding the camera on me for the entire session. It was fun being a bit irreverent at the session. When I said, “I don’t really give a crap about Network2. That’s just my job,” the audience lit right up. And then? I pitched the value of Network2 for a while. (side note: the value of Network2 is the passion, not the platform. It’s what Jeff believes in, not what we’ve built on some servers.)
So watch this, if you want to see a session of me speaking, have at:
The Right Tool for the Job
This might seem a little strange for a guy who has spent the last two years evangelizing new media to say, but there are times when a podcast or a videoblog aren’t the right tool for the job. Sometimes, plain old text does just fine. And other times, text is so horribly wrong, and we threaten to drown someone in the depths of information traipsed across a page in strings of words. Here are some thoughts on the matter for your consideration.
Text is Good for fast consumption of information. It’s great for reading news, lots of news. Want to try a test? Take your list of podcasts in audio or video form and tell me how much information you can parse through in 30 minutes. Now, try the same with your RSS reader. If you’re using a decent reader, I bet you’ll get MULTIPLES more of the text scanned, read, parsed, and processed. It’s great for lists. That’s why we don’t draw pictures of eggs.
Audio is Good for information you want to absorb deeply. It’s wonderful for building a bond between the listener and the speaker. It comes off as far more personal, sometimes even intimate, to listen to the spoken word. Audio allows for a variation or a coloring of the meaning of words. Think of how many ways you can say the simple sentence, “Thanks a lot.”
Video is Good for visual information and/or for showing someone something you wish they could experience the way you’re experiencing it. It’s also good for making a personal connection, thus the beauty of videoblogs and how they form a connection between the blogger and their audience. There’s a reason TV changed the world in the 1950s, and a reason why even today, more people walk around talking about TV shows than they do any specific movie, radio program, or book.
There are variations and exceptions for when you might use an audio podcast versus a blog versus a video blog versus a photo post. For instance, instructional information is great in a video format.
Video is for Showing
Bre Pettis’s Make: Video Podcast is a great show. It’s very visual, gives you a great sense of Bre as a human, and by extension, makes you think good things about Make. It shows you cool new things. But what if you want to take Bre’s project outdoors with you and try to recreate it? Unless you’re using your video iPod, it might be tricky. Aha! That’s when the Make Magazine issue you bought at the bookstore ends up being better. So, one might say you should watch Bre for entertainment, and then either memorize what he did, or you should consider the magazine should you want to recreate the experiences.
Audio is for Absorbing
I prefer audio interviews to video. Video interviews usually are cut too short because it gets boring watching heads pingpong back and forth, and/or because video requires us to move along a little faster. Audio is also a great way to hear about things while you’re doing other things. I love listening to Managing the Gray and New Comm Road and a dozen other audio podcasts while I’m commuting to work, because I can listen to them and experience the information while driving. I can rewind parts I want to hear again. I can go back when there’s a salient point. I can skip ahead. (Ah, but then navigating a podcast can be clunky).
Text is for Information
I text blog more than anything else I do in the space of media, and that’s primarily for ease of use, as well as ease-of-sharing. If I write one thing on this page that’s worth sharing, you can clip it out with Clipmarks and go back and look at it later. You can riff on something on your own blog. Text is just super easy to produce, share, remix. Easier than any of the other media we work with.
It’s Not Just One Format Any More
In a world where WE are in control, and where products exist that allow us to create whatever we want, however we want, and produce/consume/remix/share in multitudes of styles, why stick to just one format? It gets tricky for meta-aggregators like the startup I’m involved with, Network2, should a producer put more than just video in their RSS feed, but otherwise, you and me, we’ll consume what we’re given. I know because I do it in Google Reader all the time. You throw text, I read text. You add a video. I’ll watch it (if I have time).
So pick the format you need to tell the information you need. You want to report on a birthday party you attended? Cool. Show us the video. You respect my time? Show me a few snapshots, or a fun music video clipped from the best parts of the birthday party. You want to tell me about your new startup? Please don’t make me watch a video first. Give me some text and a couple pictures. Then you can throw video at me, or a quick audio message from the founders.
What’s Your Experience?
Knowing full well that I have lots of audio and video podcasters, bloggers, and new media superheros as readers of [chrisbrogan.com], I’m looking for your thoughts on this. Be honest. Look at what you’re producing and tell me that everything you’re making fits well into the single medium you’ve chosen for delivery. And if not, how would you consider integrating a multi-modal approach of delivering information? Would it just be a blog that you post text, audio and video into? Or is there a consumption experience that would make it all feel just as exciting?
How would businesses use this advice? What’s your follow-on?
And how long would this have taken to consume had I read it all into a microphone and produced an MP3 file?
Make Your Blog Friendly
One of the best things about my work in community and new media is learning about new people. Thanks to my biography meme from yesterday, I had the pleasure of discovering more about 12 people, 10 of them really new to my world. That was exciting. What wasn’t so fun was working with the various blogs I encountered. But you know me. From my experiences, I learn and share. Here’s what I’ve got.
Make It Easy to Leave Comments
Several blogs use captcha to keep out spam. Most of these systems are built into the blog software and you have no say (blogger.com, for instance). But should you HAVE a say, choose wisely. Most of these systems are barriers to commenting, and several keep me out.
Another- I’ve discovered that several blog templates give the “You must log in to comment” line. Forget it. Too much work. I click away. That means lots of people click away, because if ever there was someone dumb enough to sign up for everything that comes along, it’s me. So, if you can disable that feature, do so. Otherwise, you smell like a marketer.
Please Add a Human Element
I visited several blogs that left me with NO IDEA who wrote the blog. No names, no pictures, no way to contact the party except through the commenting system. There are times when I want information without a face, but by its very nature, blogs are rarely that time (Engadget and blogs that are information-delivery-centric get a pass, but then, I know Ryan and Pete and some of the other contributors at Engadget, so maybe that’s why I feel that way).
For the rest of you, consider adding a picture to your sidebar. At least add a name. Take it from me: I put my full name, my cell phone, my instant messenger client, and all kinds of info, and I’m not being stalked. Yet.
Go Gentle with the Sidebar Gems
I had to check my blog to see if I was really calling the kettle black on this. I’ve got six, but I believe my six are community building tools. I have MyBlogLog for showing community. I have Upcoming.org for event populating. I have MyChingo so you can leave audio comments (video coming soon). And a few more.
When I see 40 or 50 weird things to click, it distracts me. I consider that sidebar information as a kind of “Here’s what I’m pimping” section. Every bit of it drags me to click away. Should you put a Flickr bar in there? Sure! Because it enhances connection. Promote just causes? Sure, because it’s a badge collection of things that matter. But, design that area with just a little thought.
Quick Hits
- Enable SEARCH
- List Archives, if you can
- Display how to subscribe
- Make Sure there’s a Contact page
- An About Me page is nice, too
Your Turn
Hey, don’t let me throw stones all over the place. Do you want to take a shot at my blog? Am I doing something that annoys you, or that you wish I’d do differently? Do you have improvement ideas I missed in my list? Let’s look at it all together and see what else we can do to improve each other’s blogs, because your blog is a community tool for you. Make it a good one.
Social Media Game
Beth Kanter ROCKS! Go check out this great slideshow she’s shared on her wiki. I love Beth’s enthusiasm, her depth of knowledge, and how she applies lots of this to the most wonderful social causes. She’s a true star, and if you’re not already subscribed, become a fan of Beth’s Blog.
Amazing work.
Networking and Conference Tip Roundup
It appears that I’ve written a bit about networking and conferences over the last several months. When a lovely friend of mine asked me for some pointers to networking tips and what to really DO at a conference besides appreciate the content, I went looking through my posts. These might be of interest to you. One side-note: some of these were written before PodCamp, before VON, before most of my modern experience. If you really read through these, you’ll find some discrepancies, and some things where I’ve changed and grown up. That’ll be part of the fun.
Networking and Conference Tips
Why You Should Attend Conferences
Networking is Not Just for Schmoozing
Things to do After a Conference
Meet People Not Business Cards
Pre Conference Travel and Logistics Planning
Post Conference Follow-Up Hacks
Attend Conferences Without Being There
That’s all for now, folks. That should be about a week of reading. Or a few days, if you’re crazy. : ) I’m sure there’ll be more.
What are YOUR tips? What did I miss?
photo credit, Cirne
–Chris Brogan is Community Developer for Video on the Net, a conference exploring the impact of the broadband Internet on TV, Film, and Broadcasting. He is co-founder of PodCamp, a FREE unconference about new media community tools. He blogs at [chrisbrogan.com].
DIY Autobiography Kit
Whoops, I did it again. Yesterday, I wrote a way-too-long post about myself. Completely pompous, but it was a tool to help get folks up to speed on who I am, and why you might read me. I left out tons of stuff, but whatever. It’s a start. It’s a process. Maybe I’ll write all about data center technology and that high school band I wanted so badly to become the next Metallica. But it’s what it is.
Since then, I’ve read four or five other interesting biographies by friends inspired by the post. And that got me thinking. Here’s a set of questions I really want to know about YOU. But I’d rather you write this for your blog, and post a link in the comments section. If you don’t keep a blog, no worries. You can write it in my comments section. But I think the exercise might be fun. You game?
Please write this out in as much detail (but concise) as you can.
A Quick Sketch Biography of ______
The thing most people know me for is…
The people I associate the most with are…
People who have influenced my life are…
One challenge I took on and overcame was…
My early years, before you probably got to know me were…
You might not know this, but …
I’m passionate about…
In the next year or two, I hope to…
And that’s it. I think that if you fill those out in your blog, and add a nifty picture, it would help your readers, your community, your friends and the people who are connected or hope to connect with your digital world to better understand your context, where you’re coming from, what you know about life, and how they might relate to you.
I really want to encourage you to try this. I think the stories would be worth it. I promise I’ll read every one. I have so far.
Congratulations FeedBurner
I am a FeedBurner whore. I’ve known Eric Olson (in this picture) since April of last year, when I begged him for an interview at the Podcast Academy in Boston. I met Traci Halipern not too long after and she became someone I count on at FeedBurner. I was an early adopter of their feed networks program, and I’ve rocked FeedBurner stickers all over the place since the first meeting, and got my own roll of stickers for PodCamp Boston.
Quick Education: FeedBurner is a technology that helps one handle the syndication (delivery, formatting, repurposing) of one’s blogs or rich media (podcasts), and FeedBurner handles lots of people’s RSS feeds, including mine, and several super huge media companies as well. Oh, for free, by the way.
I *heart* FeedBurner.
So I’m really happy with the news that Google is acquiring FeedBurner. Why? (by the way, there are 2,141,984 opinions on this today and yesterday in the blogosphere.) I’m happy because I know the FB guys have been working their heads off. I’m happy because I’ve got hopes that this opens some technology opportunities between the two companies. I’m happy because maybe this means that using RSS advertising might suddenly throw even a few coins into the pot for some folks.
Is Google evil? Robert Scoble has a great post about the FOG (Fear of Google) turning into a DOG ( Disdain/Distrust of Google). I don’t think so. But then, I’m biased. I have Google Mail, Google Reader, Google Calendar up and running any time I have a browser up.
So I say congratulations to Eric, Traci, Don Loeb (who spoke at Spring 2007 Video on the Net, by the way), and the rest of the team. I hope you remember me when you’re billionaires.
Me vs The Wall Street Journal
I could read topic headlines like this one all day. Thanks to Steve Garfield for the plug. Even if I did beg a little.
Not a Journalist
I’ll say this as often as people will listen: Eric Rice makes great points. Sometimes, the point he’s making spins my thoughts off in a direction that’s not where he was heading. Or maybe I’m the percentage of Eric’s readership who thought, “Hey cool! Give me free stuff!” Whatever the case, I’m taking his post and moving it to my direction.
I am Not a Journalist
I write this because I never want to have to be held to the rigor and the quality of effort that a professional journalist holds themselves to, for our sakes, and for the sake of creating believability. I respect the profession of journalist, and I know a few that I consider wonderful and amazing people. You’re thinking about all the hacks and bad journalists you know, but you know what? There are hacks and losers in every business. It just turns out that journalists have more access to people than those other types. Think about that a second. Right? People in your office might not be the best at what they do, but they’re not pushing things out through the megaphone of media.
So, let’s say this: I respect journalists. I’m not a journalist.
Integrity Standards
This goes towards the integrity thing. I think people confuse “professional journalist” with the stamp of integrity. I tell you what: there are some great practices around integrity that lots of bloggers, videobloggers, podcasters and other new media types should be working to uphold. If you’re a political blogger of whichever stripe, I’d much prefer that you report with a certain level of professionalism and believability.
Ditto product reviewers. When I learned all that went into “staying clean” at CNET (and you argue if you disagree- I think CNET does great product reviews), I was really impressed. It gave me a sense of comfort. I felt like I’d believe the reviewers until I was proven wrong, and that’s how I feel now. Ditto Engadget and some of the other biggies.
But me?
I’m No Less Believable
Unless you choose to disbelieve. I’m going to tell you what I think. If I’m ever lucky enough to have someone like Nikon lobbing me D40 cameras or an N95 phone, I’ll tell you. I’ll say, “They asked me to try it out and talk about it.” And that’s that.
I’m not going to hold myself to professional reviewers’ policies on [chrisbrogan.com]. It’s just not what this site is about. I’m just a guy writing about what excites me. Should I choose to talk about products, I will always talk about them from the perspective of what I like and don’t like about them, how they might be useful, what I wish were done differently.
I don’t cover politics, so you can only get that through my rare post that accidentally betrays the occasional hint at who I think is interesting.
Are Bloggers Journalists?
The ones who set themselves up to be journalists are, or might be, or at least aspire to hold themselves to those standards.
Me, I’m writing stuff that might be interesting, prove useful, make you think, etc.
Is that enough?
An Autobiography of Sorts
One thing that Jeff Pulver and I agree on is that blogs do a horrible job of showing someone one’s best work. Or rather, I’ve done a poor job of implementing a feature or tag that allows you to find an easy way to catch up with what matters most to me, and give you a sense of why you should bother reading my blog.
As my RSS Subscriptions just went up something like 60 people overnight, I thought it’d be a great time to tell you a bit about me, what I’m writing about lately, what I’m interested in. For those of you who’ve been here all along, go out and buy a sandwich, eat the sandwich, and come back later. : ) (Update: this turned out a little long, but if you ever wanted to know, some of the story’s in here).
Who I Am
I write about things that excite me. People these days know me for co-founding PodCamp, the unconference about new media community tools, which I did with my partner, Christopher S. Penn. I work for Jeff Pulver, visionary entrepreneur and godfather of VoIP to some on his Network2 startup, and also at his pulvermedia conference, Video on the Net. I also write for LifeHack.org, the lesser known but still widely useful website about personal improvement.
I write about community a lot, about new media tools, about personal branding and self-development. I write about empowering you to become rockstars and superheroes. It’s what drives me the most.
My professional background was in telecom. I worked for New England Telephone and then NYNEX for seven or so years, and then I worked 9 3/4 years for a wireless services company called bcgi, who served pretty much every US wireless company over the years. Through these jobs, I did everything from answer phones to manage people answering phones to building nationwide computer networks to building data centers and acquiring companies. A lot of my recent years at bcgi were in project management and then applications engineering. Nowadays, I work on community development for a professional conference, as well as an Internet video startup.
The Way Old Days
I started blogging somewhere back in 1998 or 1999. My first stuff was done through Dan Bricklan’s WYSIWYG software, Trellix, and it was basically copy/paste/moving a table cell with the date and a table cell with my post for the day down a notch every time I wanted to write something else. Once, a swarm of Trellix guys contacted me because they thought I’d written a hack to blog using Trellix. Turned out, I was doing the same thing Dan did. Somewhere later, I used LiveJournal for a while, then Blogger, and now I write in WordPress on my own hosted site.
My first websites dealt with writing fiction. I wrote voraciously through childhood and was really proud and passionate about my writing. I got lots of early readership through my site, and built a little online community of writers.
After 9/11, I changed. I was no longer interested in reading or writing fiction. My site turned upside down and went into conversations about sustainability, then nature. I wrote a lot about being out and about in forests.
In August 2003, I started working on my physical health and nutrition, and my self-esteem. I started writing about my fitness efforts, and especially my running. I found my way into Mark Iocchelli’s running blog family and he still graciously lists me there (#197),even though I stopped writing about running and fitness some time after my marathon, and after my injury.
For a while, I turned my site into a place to feature my cartoon art. I love visual thinking and design and I’m a huge fan of Dave Gray’s XPLANE company. That was a big passion, and the underpinnings still help me professionally, as I still practice visual thinking and visual communication often to figure things out and to get my point across.
Somewhere in here, I met my friend Reverend Jon Swanson, who needs a note in this “history of Chris,” as I talk to Jon often about matters of the spirit. In this same part of my life, I should mention Rob Hatch, an old school buddy from Pittsfield, Maine, who I reconnected with and fell deeply in love with him and his family. We hung out a LOT over the last year or so, and I enjoy my connection to Rob and his wife, Megin.
More Recently
I went through a strong self-improvement stint on my blog, and that included writing a lot about time management, presentations, work life, and other related topics. Echoes of this still ring through my blog.
Then, I fell into podcasting. I started like most people do, by listening to a few favorite shows. I was in love with Doug Kay’s IT Conversations and Daniel Steinberg’s Distributing the Future, and CNET’s Buzz Out Loud. And of course, I cycled through dozens of other shows along the way.
Doug Kay announced they were doing Podcast Academy 2 in Boston in April of 2006, and I was thrilled! I wanted to go, to learn about how to do all this. And it was exciting. I met Michael Geoghagen, Paul Figgiani, C.C. Chapman (who I just remember as this smiling rockstar guy), John Federico, and Eric Olson of FeedBurner. I also realized I was probably not cut out for podcasting, because it looked like it cost a ton of money. The only shining light: I saw Steve Garfield’s presentation on how to videoblog using your typical digital still camera and this changed my life forever.
I almost wouldn’t have started a podcast, had it not been for Tom Merritt of CNET, who’s Real Deal podcast happened to do a quick and easy podcast about “how to podcast.” And that’s where I started my first audio show, ‘Fat Guy Gets Fit.’
Grasshoppers BarCamps and PodCamps
Instead of being content with one podcast, I decided to build a bunch of podcasts with friends. I’d just written a blog post called ‘Content Networks are the New Blogs,’ where I argued that standalone blogs were dinosaurs and that blogs or networks of blogs where people wrote together down the same RSS feed, were where things were going, due to attention and time requirements. I decided to put my money where my mouth was, and turned my Fat Guy Gets Fit podcast into Health Hacks, with Kevin Kennedy-Spaien ( It’s still live), and then I went on to launch Great Big Small Business Show with Becky McCray, and Career Mom Radio with Erica Douglas (later Megin Hatch, who runs our GNMParents blog with Stu Mark and Whitney Hoffman and team).
Another important part: one day, I wrote a blog post about small town actors, and this caught the attention of Justin Kownacki. Justin produces, directs, writes, and everythings truly one of the best web shows out there, Something to be Desired. Justin directed me to LOTS of what became my fascination with Internet video. Justin connected me to Jeff Pulver. Justin continues to be the closest analog I have to a best friend in my life right now (but that’s another topic). So, thanks Kownacki. When you become the news blowing Wallstrip’s acquisition price tag away, remember me, okay?
In June of 2006, I attended BarCamp Boston, an unconference about software and technology, and I was scarred for life. There, I met Eric Skiff, Bryan Person, and Christopher S. Penn (not to mention seeing Brian Del Vecchio again, meeting Rod Begbie, Jack Hodgson, and a lot of other interesting cats). The three of us podcasted in the hallways and generally got all jazzed about unconferences.
Between my experience with Podcast Academy 2 and BarCamp Boston, and Christopher Penn’s previous work with the New England Podcasters group, we got it in our heads to make PodCamp, a free unconference about new media community tools (podcasting, videoblogging, second life, blogging, whatever). We held the first event at the Bunker Hill Community College (famous for its location at guts of the American Revolution, as well as the filming locale for Good Will Hunting), and it was a blast! Lots of people came, participated, and had a swell time. I’ve written extensively about the first PodCamp, and will again and again. I should say that Mr. Penn, myself, Bryan Person, Steve Garfield, Adam Weiss, Susan Kaup, and Steve Sherlock pulled off the lion’s share of the planning and organizing, with some help from hundreds more along the way.
Two things came from that event. One, Chris and I decided we wanted tons more of these events, but that others would have to run them. If you go to the PodCamp site, you’ll see that there have been plenty of events so far, run by friends like Justin Kownacki, Leesa Barnes, Jay Moohan, Julien Smith, Mitch Joel, John Havens, Eric Skiff, Whitney Hoffman (and forget it… there are tons of you- it’ll look like movie credits). I have to mention Michael Bailey, who’s attended more PodCamps than me, and who’s a real pillar of the community.
The other thing was being hired by Jeff Pulver to go work at Video on the Net, his huge conference about the impact of the broadband Internet on the future of TV, Film, and Broadcasting. What a crazy difference between that event and what we’d done. Jeff’s was professional. Instead of tuna sandwiches, we were fed steaks. It was a traditional conference setting, but with completely amped up speakers who either were the enlightened of traditional media, or who were the new and wild upstarts. Jeff gave me the duty of bringing some of the fire and passion of PodCamp into his event, and so far, that’s what I’ve done, literally.
Spring 2007 Video on the Net in March in San Jose was where I brought guys like Justin Kownacki, Steve Garfield, Brian Conley, and more onto the stage to show the audience how it was being done in the trenches. I’ve got more planned for Boston in October, which comes right after PodCamp Boston 2. So look out.
During this time, by the way, I also joined Jeff’s startup, Network2.tv. Network2 is a guide to the best in Long Tail Internet TV content (or some of the best videoblogs and video podcasts we’ve seen). Through this work, also as a community developer, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and connect with hundreds and hundreds of amazing people who matter a great deal to me. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet people all over the US and Canada (soon to include Sweden, Israel, and elsewhere). It’s been amazing to be a part of this.
Where Next?
If you’re still reading this, thanks, and holy cow. I didn’t really set out to write a blog-biography. There’s tons missing, and tons more to write about. But hey, if you read all this, you’ve got a pretty firm sense of where I’ve been, where I am, and what I do. If you’re still along for the ride, YOU will know where I’m going next.
So thanks for all the fish, stick with me, and help add to the story. Thank you for who you are. I am here, in great part, due to you.
