Crush It! – A Knowledge Bomb
27 November 2009I feel it necessary to clearly disclose that I am a Gary Vaynerchuk fan boy. I also feel it necessary to state that both he, his brother (AJ) and several members of the staff at Vaynermedia I consider to be friends of mine. Finally, AJ and Gary helped me get my current job at Vemma which was a consulting client of Vaynermedia. All that stated, here’s my quick review of Crush It!Yes, I’m a month and a half late on doing this review, I know. I took the time to read this book cover to cover now three times just to make sure that I am not having my fan boy status for Gary overcome my opinion on this book. I’m happy to report that this book is verifiably a knowledge bomb. Give this to any entrepreneur or student who has a feel for what the marketing and job landscape is going to look like in 3-5 years time and this book will change their view and more importantly give them the tools to go make their own success story.It starts with finding your passion and then becomes an orderly walk through each of the ...
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Tactical Transparency – Get Transparent or Get Exposed (or Worse, Regulated)
13 November 2009The final conclusion section of the final chapter in Tactical Transparency starts with "Transparency is not a choice. It is a legal, moral and competitive requirement." I very strongly believe this to be the case and that's part of the reason why I choose to live my life as transparently as I do. I acknowledge that it isn't for everyone and that leads me to a second great point that is reiterated throughout the book by Shel Holtz & John C. Havens: being transparent doesn't require that you expose everything. It definitely presents enough value to read. That stated it reads more like a playbook made for mid-high level managers with moments where they try and write for the C-suite who all are hesitant to get involved in social media. The format of the book is entirely reflective of business cases/proposals I've seen in my short experience inside the Cubicle Nation. Maybe for some folks that style is interesting but for my tastes overarching sections and then the old "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell you what you told them" chapter format feels more to me like an overworked and over-prepared Powerpoint presentation instead of ...
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Six Pixels of Separation – We’re All a Click Away
29 October 2009Unlike most my reviews, this one is being written about two weeks after I read the book. While I don't feel that has hurt my recall of the books major points I expect that the minor ones have been overwritten by the books I've read since. The premise of Mitch Joel's (@mitchjoel) book really boils down to the fact that we're closer than we ever have been. Instead of six people away we're now six pixels away from anyone and everyone. The immediacy of information on an individual is at first startling but brings forth what he calls the Trust Economy. Through the course of the book he speaks of a lot of areas where social media have begun to change human behavior and while initially being viewed as negative that in the end it really is positive. Overall a lot of the core messages in this book at those that are repeated by most social media pundants: You are your own brand and it doesn't hurt to be in a small niche, you're fighting for people's attention and not the platform to speak, hyper-personalized news and media streams are the way to go, full commitment to moving forward in ...
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Ignite Phoenix # 5 Presenters
28 October 2009I posted earlier today on my twitter account a link to a new list with all the presenters for Ignite Phoenix #5. Unfortunately it appears that unless Twitter has enabled Lists for your account, you can't see it. I hate excluding folks from awesome information, so here's the list in full. (Twitter wouldn't allow me to add myself to the list which was also kinda lame. Additionally there are two folks who I couldn't find on twitter so if you're them @ me and I'll get ya added.) Get to know and interact with the presenters before the event (twitter links open in new window/tab): Bill Binder @whbinderAlison Bawor @Ali5756Anita Kalin Grantham @anitakgranNicholas DiBiase @hepnovaYuri Artibise @YuriArtibiseBrandon Willey @bwilleyKrystofer James @krysvsChris Lee @chrisleeJonathan McNamara @hikaru87Ruth Carter @rbcarterNatasha Wescoat @natashaJay McGavren @jaymcgavrenBrian Renner @entrepreneur7Kristen Mozaffari @zanzaboondaBob Marquis @bizmarquisJoey Robert Parks @joeyrobertparksKade Dworkin @KadeDworkin
Radio Silence
12 October 2009So it would appear that I've fallen into the normal deal of setting up a blog, making a couple entries and then falling off the wagon. While I haven't stopped reading and you'll see book reviews coming over the next two weeks I'll be as transparent about things as I can be. 1) I recently signed on to be a video contributor for StudentBranding.com where I will be doing a weekly video post explaining some of the points I think students can use to their advantage to help stand out from the crowd and achieve the success that they want. You can view the first episode below: 2) It was announced last week that I will be a presenter at Ignite Phoenix #5 where I will giving a talk entitled "The Art of Misusing Things" which will cover both the misuse of items and products but much more will speak to the innovation of everyday things. For information on the other speakers or to buy tickets please go to http://www.ignite-phoenix.org 3) I've been working incredibly hard to begin building a small startup business which is currently in stealth ...
750 words on Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
14 September 2009This last week the CEO of the company I work for walked up to my desk, handed me a copy of Trust Agents, gave me a fist bump and walked out without saying a word to me. I think it’s pretty awesome that he is aware of the new books coming out regarding social media. It’s shocking to me that anyone of his stature would go out and buy a copy, hand it to me and provide no instruction on what I’m supposed to do with it. Anyway, let's get into the 750 words or less on the book: Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith (@julien) are well known to anyone who's been in the social media space for any serious amount of time. I had the opportunity at SXSW 2009 to sit in on one of Chris' panels and can't begin to tell you how much he lives what he preaches in this book and still have enough words to do a review justice. Where last week's read, Socialnomics, was a series of case studies on how businesses can and have used social media to hang some wins up on the board, this ...
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750 word book review: Socialnomics by Erik Qualman
07 September 2009I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth and forgot the Deep Listening project walkthrough. I did what I do from time to time and got absorbed in work and a book. Given that I couldn't leverage my Immersive Reading (posts on that will be coming soon) it took me more than a few hours to read the book I'll be reviewing in this post, which if you haven't guessed by now is Socialnomics by Erik Qualman. So here's 750 or less words on what my thoughts were: Erik Qualman (@equalman) writes what I feel is one of the most approachable primers on the social media realm. Fortunately for me I hadn't come across Erik's blog or really any content of his before the promotional video he did on YouTube (http://bit.ly/17wfby) so I came into this with little expectations for the book. Fortunately he proved he has a serious feel for social media early on and how much it stands to change not only the business to consumer interaction but how consumer behavior would change. The book opens with some very interesting stats on the growth and importance of social media and how interruption marketing is quickly being seen ...
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Deep Listening – The Overview
01 September 2009One of the things that I get asked all the time is how the heck I know so much about the internet space, the companies and people that operate in it. It's not because I live my life by constantly searching the net for the next would be phenomena or that I know everyone in the industry. It's because I use an elaborate process that I call Deep Listening. I have no doubt that Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It! will cover a small portion of this but I don't think even the mighty GV goes into the crazy level of detail that I do. Maybe I'm just a bit more thick headed than he is and am willing to dig that much deeper regarding things or maybe he simply knows when enough is enough. Over the course of the next few days I hope to explain each of the steps and more importantly why I am doing each of these. The first thing I do is specify my target. This is typically a business or industry. If it happens to be an individual person or group I'll find some connecting thread between all the individuals. After I have this I do some ...
Hello World! Why now and who this is for
23 August 2009Why start blogging now? The reason simply put is that I keep getting asked some of the same questions from different groups of people. I’m flattered that people want my opinion and I think it’s time I give myself the platform to share my thoughts on things. I’ve taken so much from the community over the last 18 months and it’s now time for me to give back. Give people my perspective on things after having been through business school twice. I challenge the boundaries and assumptions most people make about how things should be done and find new ways to acquire and retain information. Topics I’ll cover will be anything from my Deep Listening projects on an industry, business or person to book reviews or audio snippets of random thoughts I’ve been having.So what do I expect of you, the humble blog reader? The answer is nothing. I don’t expect you to read every post. I don’t expect you to leave comments. I don’t expect you to follow up with me in person the next time I’m at an event regarding a post that really hit a nerve for you. Would I like you to ...
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