Debbie Weil's BlogWrite for CEOs

Charlene Li’s Top Ten Women in Social Media “Doing It Right”

2010-03-18T16:08:48+00:00

Here is Charlene Li's Top 10 list. I'm delighted to be on it:

Beth Kanter (www.twitter.com/bethkanter)

Laura Fitton (www.twitter.com/pistachio)

Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort, Jory Desjardin (BlogHer) (www.twitter.com/blogher)

Tara Hunt (www.twitter.com/missrogue)

Sarah Lacy (www.twitter.com/smlacy)

Kami Huyse (www.twitter.com/kamichat)

Danah Boyd (www.twitter.com/zephoria)

Sandy Carter (www.twitter.com/sandy_carter)

Debbie Weil (www.twitter.com/debbieweil)

Ann Handley (www.twitter.com/MarketingProfs)

This appeared in a great Q & A with Charlene Li in The Marketing Journalist by Cindy Kim. Cindy, wasn't it you who asked me to do a Q & A at SXSW and then we never connected. Apologies!

Posted via email from Debbie Weil

My Gossipy Highlights From SXSW 2010

2010-03-18T11:26:41+00:00

One minute after stepping into the Austin Convention Center last Friday I bumped into Pete Cashmore, the hunky young rockstar CEO of Mashable. I know Pete as we’ve worked on a little project together. He’s a lovely guy - very polite and enthusiastic (he just turned 24). So he instantly agreed to a snap of the two of us.

3 mins into #SXSW and I run into my fave Pete Cashmore aka @mashable. Sigh. If only I were a bit younger.
- March 12, 2010 via Twitter

And that’s really the best gossip I can give you (well, the "only if a bit younger" part). Attending SXSW Interactive (this was my second time) is a serendipitous fest of networking. It’s connecting and talking and listening to people you know for the most part digitally. It’s a chance to spend time with them face-to-face, as well as meet new folks. And yes there are really loud parties and conference sessions and panels. But it’s really all about the people (12,000 some registrants this year). Oh, and the Austin weather. And the beer. It adds up to a richly satisfying experience for those of us who spend waaay too much time online, gazing at the screen.

Is there a measurable ROI? I’d say yes, if you’ll go with "richly satisfying" as a metric. I’ll echo HarperStudio SVP and Associate Publisher Debbie Stier writing about her experience at O’Reilly’s recent TOC (Tools of Change) conference in New York. I had the good fortune to have dinner with Debbie in Austin:

Here’s the thing, I don’t go expecting to take away some big revelation, and what I’ve learned over the years is that the lessons often take time to marinate and reveal themselves, and I don’t even know what I learned until weeks or months later.

- Debbie Stier on Tools of Change 2010

Thanks Debbie, for pointing that out. That said, it doesn’t hurt to make a list of some of my favorite encounters (reconstructed from my Twitter stream). This is as much for me as for you, dear reader. Otherwise I will forget to follow up. Note: most of the photos snapped with my iPhone.

Listening to Darren Rowse, aka Problogger, resuming his presentation after a fire alarm required thousands of attendees to file out of - and then back into the ACC (Austin Convention Center)
An engaging talk by The Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin about her new bestselling book
Meeting Emily Wood, the real Googler behind @googleSXSW (and also @google)
Bumping into Robert Scoble (here with Emily Wood), the original poster boy for corporate blogging (I’ve known him for years, since he blogged for Microsoft)
Chance meeting with Paul Gillin, another geek author friend (his new book is about Geocaching)
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) Peter Shankman outside the Four Seasons on his way to skydiving (I was headed for a power walk around the river)
Breakfast with geek grrl and author Aliza Sherman after our power walk (I’ve known Aliza since 1995)
Hubspot CTO Dharmesh Shah talking about social media: "If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right"
Meeting U.S. Air Force social media guy Paul F. Bove (fab lunch arranged by Network Solutions’ @shashib)
Truly provocative keynote on privacy ("It is NOT dead") by Danah Boyd (The new default is public, but, with effort, you can still be private)
Ran into the amazing Beth Kanter, guru of social media for nonprofits (her new book, The Networked Nonprofit, is out in July)
A quiet moment far from the madding crowd: early morning rowers on the river

Best advice I ever got was 10 years ago from Guy Kawasaki: "Think digital, act analog."

One of the best presentations I attended: The Back of the Napkin author and genius Dan Roam on Vivid Thinking (title of his next book)
LionelatDell, one of my favorite corporate bloggers, at Edelman Digital’s Allhat No Cattle party
At Frank Gruber’s SXSW Blackout Sunday Tech Cocktail (pic is with Jen Consalvo)
The infamous - and terrific - SXSW Mashable party
Provocative session by The Cause Lab on how "to humanize the issue of hunger using data" (great chat with Brian Reich)
From Debbie Stier: "The content is the mother ship: there are many different vessels to deliver it in" at the Future of Publishing session
Zen comment from Twitter CEO Ev Williams from his mainstage appearance: "We debated ‘open’ vs ‘transparent’ at Twitter. Window is transparent but door is open - we chose ‘open.’"
Best comment from @Ev, talking about Haiti: "We’ve always held it important to make Twitter reach the weakest signals in the network."
Digital celeb photo op: Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble getting ready for the Twitter tools panel with @Pistachio
Recalling best advice I ever got (10 years ago from Guy Kawasaki): "Think digital, act analog."
Photo op: LinkedIn chief blogger Mario Sundar is reading the new updated edition of my book, why aren’t you?
The only "exclusive" party I attended was the wine tasting at the top of the Frost Tower, thrown by social media celeb and author Gary Vaynerchuk for Brian Solis and his new book, Engage
Wrapping up with a video interview on Publishing 2.0 by Bryan Person and Mark Williams (will post link to vid when I get it)

Links to More Coverage of 2010 SXSWi

Omar L. Gallaga’s blog entries about SXSWi 2010 for the Austin American-Statesman
13 Observations From South By Southwest (SXSW) by Jay Baer

Memo to Tom Peters From the Department of Punctuation!!!

2010-03-11T19:10:58+00:00

I have a confession. I’m having a great time dipping into Tom Peters’ new book, The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. Neat concept. A book built, more or less, out of Tom’s blog posts (edited and re-organized). But the EXCITABLE punctuation (which includes randomly bolded words, HEADLINES in the middle of paragraphs and EXCLAMATION POINTS galore!!) is DIS-CON-CERT-ING. It makes me feel, well, jumpy. Like I can’t settle down and concentrate. Then again, I’ve never been able to read Wired Magazine because the layout and fonts make me dizzy.

I wonder if in fact this is what Tom intends. It’s a trademark of his other recent books too. If you know anything about him, you know that, first and foremost, he is a PROVOCATEUR. Along with Peter Drucker, he is the most influential thinker about modern business management, he is the author of In Search of Excellence, published in 1982, and he has influenced hundreds of so-called marketing gurus (I am, er, one of them) who think they’ve invented ideas like personal branding. For the record, WE DIDN’T. He has also profoundly influenced some really smart people, including Seth Godin. He is a hurricane of passion and big thinking and wisdom and encylopedic details. (Follow him on Twitter if you want to be entertained.) I am lucky enough to have met him in person. I interviewed him about blogging [VIDEO]. "Blogging changed my life," he told me.

Tom Peters is one of the speakers at the very cool re-Set Business authors event in New York on April 20, 2010. Along with Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Michael Eisner and Anna Bernasek. I will be there and am really looking forward to it. Register with this 10 percent off code: re-setfriend.

So… whew. Let me catch my breath here. I think the proper response to the Department of Punctuation is, bug out. Who cares. We don’t need you. Suck it up, Debbie. Put your reading glasses on… or TAKE THEM OFF. And plunge ahead. That’s what I’m doing and I recommend you do the same.The book is a truly dizzying compendium of little tips that turn out to be BIG THINGS. A few of my favorites:

It’s 11 AM - Have You Called a Customer Today?
"Thank You."
"Suck Down For Success"
"I’m Sorry."
What We Have Here Is a Failure to Overcommunicate

And more and more and MORE... 158 more to be exact. A treasure trove of both counterintuitive and commensense tips for doing business the right way. In other words, in a way that respects both employees and customers and, ultimately, impacts the bottom line. Bravo, Tom! Now go BUY THE BOOK.

Sweets and Tweets Celebrates One-Year Anniversary With Anil Dash and Expert Labs

2010-03-11T15:13:41+00:00

Thanks to everyone for the great turnout at the March 10, 2010 Sweets and Tweets and to tech celeb and friend Anil Dash for his terrific presentation on Expert Labs and how the social Web can connect ordinary citizens to Washington policymakers. It was the fourth in my continuing cupcake salon, making it the one-year anniversary.

The event features DC’s smartest geeks talking about the impact of social media on government and business. And of course it’s a chance for DC’s digerati to rub shoulders and to eat cupcakes at the very cool Baked and Wired in Georgetown. I am sorry if I didn’t get a chance to say hi to everyone last night - it was packed. Great coverage of the event below.

Photo above by Kathleen Smith. L to R: Microsoft sponsors Chris Niehaus and Mark Drapeau, moi and Anil Dash.

Le tout DC 2.0 attends.

- Lewis Shepherd, director of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments

Check out some great photos from the event thanks to @ClearedJobsNet. Watch the replay of the livestreamed VIDEO thanks to @digiphile. Read @KStreetKate‘s write-up on NBCWashington.com. Check out the Twitter coverage at #sweetevent. More photos TK.

Thanks to Sweets and Tweets sponsors, including Microsoft U.S. Public Sector, INgage Networks (formerly Neighborhood America) and Genius Rocket. If you’re interested in sponsoring a future event, give Debbie a holler at debbie[dot]weil[at]gmail.com or 202.255.1467.

Useful Links and Coverage

Creating Dot Com Communities That Work - .Gov is the NEW .Com (Alexander Howard in the Huffington Post)
Anil Dash Hosts a Sweet Event With DC’s Digerati (NBCWashington.com)
Anil Dash writes about Expert Labs, ThinkTank, Gina Trapani and Our Grand Challenges
Social Media Guru Praises Emerging ‘Start-up Culture’ in DC (Samuel Knight for OhMyGov)
The Real Gov 2.0 Challenge? Listening (Steve Lunceford for GovTwit)
Anil Dash Gives a "Cupcake Talk" About Government and Technology in Georgetown (Mark Drapeau)
Listening to America: Social media flips at Sweets ‘n Tweets in DC by David James
How Anil Dash Applies the Lessons of Web 2.0 to Government (Fast Company Who’s Who Interview)
Anil Dash on Government, Entrepreneurship and the Future of the Social Web (SmartBrief on Social Media)
Sweets and Tweets Get Traction in DC With Cupcakes and Gov 2.0 (Nov. 17, 2009)

Sweets and Tweets Event Series

The best way to hear about the next Sweets and Tweets is to follow me on Twitter @debbieweil. If you’re interested in being a sponsor, email me at debbie[dot]weil[at]gmail.com or give me a buzz at 202.255.1467.

Sweets and Tweets #1 - Andrew P. Wilson of HHS on Using Social Media in a Crisis (April 1, 2009)
Sweets and Tweets #2 - Mark Walsh on Crowdsourcing Almost Everything (July 9, 2009)
Sweets and Tweets #3 - Mark Drapeau on the Two Dirtiest Words in Gov 2.0 (Nov. 17, 2009)
Sweets and Tweets #4 - Anil Dash on Dot Gov as the New Dot Com (March 10, 2010)

Click on the links above to go to the event pages. Then scroll down to see the list of attendees. It’s a who’s who of DC’s digerati.

Did You Know You Can Read a Kindle E-Book on an iPhone or Blackberry?

2010-03-09T21:32:18+00:00

I just figured this out. Turns out you can read Kindle e-books on your iPhone or iPod touch or Blackberry, no Kindle required. In other words, you don’t need to own a Kindle to read Kindle e-books.

Here’s how to do it: browse to the Kindle store on Amazon via your computer and purchase a Kindle book. Then download the free iPhone or Blackberry app and, magically, your smartphone syncs with your Kindle account. Whatever books you’ve purchased are now on your phone. You can also transfer the free book samples to your smartphone.

Hey download the free sample of the Updated Edition of The Corporate Blogging Book (With a New Preface)

I installed the free KIndle iPhone app recently and am amazed at how well the books display. Even better than on the Kindle. The book covers are in full color. You can change the color of the text (white on black, black on white, or a kind of cool sepia). The table of contents is easier to read and displays less weirdly. And, as on the Kindle, you can adjust the text size. Yes, this means the books are easy to read even if you need reading glasses.

Of course, once you’ve got the Kindle iPhone app installed and your Kindle account set up, you don’t need to go back to your computer to purchase more books. There’s a great mobile version of the Kindle Store that you can access through your smartphone’s Web browser (Safari on the iPhone). You’ll see "Send wirelessly to" and then a drop-down where you can select iPhone or Blackberry, whichever you have.

So what’s the big deal about the iPhone and Blackberry - and Kindle books?

For an e-book publisher (that would be moi) it’s huge. As in well over 30 million potential e-book readers, vs. 2.5 million.

Mahalo says about 30 million iPhones have been sold to date. That means 30 million iPhone users can read my e-book, compared with only 2.5 million Kindle owners. I don’t have numbers on the Blackberry.

What idiot would read a book on an iPhone or Blackberry?

If it’s a business book that readers typically flip through, you can quickly click around in the table of contents on your smartphone to read a bit here and there. Face it: who reads every word of a business book anyway? So as e-books become more and more accepted, there may be a lot of idiots out there.

I can’t wait to publish an iPad edition…

Posted via email from Debbie Weil’s Posterous

The Value of Twitter for Real-time Crowdsourcing

2010-03-09T02:06:19+00:00

Last night I was watching the Academy Awards along with 40 million other people and who knows how many Twitterers. In the midst of critiquing the dresses and hairstyles of the actresses (yes, that is what women do - I couldn’t decide if I liked Sandra Bullock’s long, straight hair) I realized I needed an eye-popping 125 X 125 animated GIF for an ad to appear on Mashable’s home page. And I had less than an hour until the midnight Sunday deadline for the beginning of Mashable’s one-week ad runs.

The ad badge points to the just published Updated Edition of The Corporate Blogging Book in Amazon’s Kindle store. http://www.amazon.com/Corporate-Blogging-Updated-Preface-ebook/dp/B003B654MO/ I had sent over a couple of placeholder GIFs to Mashable. But they were only passable; could be much improved. So, what to do.

Aha. Put out a request on Twitter. Here’s what I tweeted:

SEEKING WEB DESIGNER who can tweak/improve a 125X125 rotating GIF ad badge in next 24 hrs. Recs? Pls retweet.

Within minutes, a fellow phoned me from Australia via Skype (I’m not normally up at 11 PM but he must have figured I was awake). A Michigan designer found my email address on my site and sent me a message. And about six other designers immediately responded publicly via Twitter. A handful of kind folks also retweeted my message (including the illustrious @JessicaKnows). I repeat: within MINUTES.

After a bit of back and forth via email with the guy in Sydney as well as the small firm in Michigan (who had taken the initiative to email me), we were on our way to designing two new terrifically improved versions of the ad badge - one static and one rotating.

Amazing, huh?!

The point of this blog post is for me to publicly thank Rob of Just Web http://www.justweb.com.au/ (for the static image) and Marilyn Trent of Trent Design, a small Web and branding agency http://www.trentdesign.net/ (for the rotating one). And to point out that Twitter is an amazing channel if you use it at the right moment and in the right spirit. Millions of us were online and happily engaging in a collective, informal conversation. Both of these talented designers worked gratis. Or perhaps for the exposure. Or maybe just to be nice. And I can’t thank them enough.

Note that this was a tweaking project and not a start-from-scratch. It was doable. Also, I was short on time so I chose the first two who responded.

So does Twitter have business value? You tell me.

To see the ad badges live (March 7 - 13, 2010) visit Mashable and scroll down on the right-hand side.

Posted via email from Debbie Weil’s Posterous.

What’s New in the 2010 Updated Edition of The Corporate Blogging Book [Kindle]?

2010-03-08T19:07:07+00:00

Glad you asked. This is my first bold step into Publishing 2.0. As the publisher of this new e-book edition I’ve had a blast commissioning a new cover as well as working with e-book guru Joshua Tallent who formatted the manuscript for Kindle. So far, I’m pleased with how easy it is to use Amazon’s DTP (Digital Text Platform) although it was a bit frustrating at first.

The Kindle Operations team, presumably made up of real people, acts like a black box. You exchange "form" emails in order to prove you have the rights to publish. But the DTP people don’t sign their emails so it’s all quite impersonal. I could tell from the timing of the emails that a person was behind them. But even when I wrote back: "Dear Amazon people, thank you! thank you! The Kindle page looks great… " I couldn’t elicit so much as a "Glad you’re pleased, Debbie. Signed: Bob from Amazon." Their emails were addressed to "Dear Publisher" and signed "Amazon.com."

I’ve now got the hang of how the "team" operates inside the black box. You can only make changes to the page once every 24 hours, etc. Still, if there’s an advantage to being opaque and corporate in dealing with Kindle publishers, I fail to see it.

Debbie Weil is one of social media’s most gifted, learned and respected practitioners. She’s also a heck of a writer. In the Updated Kindle Edition of The Corporate Blogging Book, Debbie teaches us how to create a thoughtful blog that lights up minds. A must-read for those of us looking to make a profound impact.
- Mark Levy, author of Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content

What’s New in the Updated Edition?

Here’s what I’ve written on the Kindle page to describe this new edition. [This description may not be up yet, as I submitted it only a few hours ago.]

Product Description:

A refreshed and updated edition of the original and definitive book about corporate blogging.

This is the how-to bible on corporate blogging recommended by best-selling author David Meerman Scott in The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 2nd edition (thanks David). Writing in a style that Kirkus Reports calls smart, witty and accessible, Debbie Weil deconstructs the myth surrounding company blogs (they are boring and pointless) and shows you how to write a compelling blog that will, ultimately, increase sales.

Despite the buzz surrounding Facebook and Twitter, a blog remains the hub of social media marketing. This updated edition explains step-by-step how to start a test blog and sell it to management, 13 ways you can use a blog as a marketing strategy, and everything non-geeks need to know about blogging tools and technology.

- A new preface explains why corporate blogging is not a passing fad: in fact, it’s the home base of an effective social media strategy

- Facts and stats updated throughout

- A new section on Twitter explains how Twitter complements, but doesn’t replace, a blog

- A revised section clarifies the ROI of blogging

- Updated best practice lists of corporate, CEO and small business blogs

- Updated bonus resources including the latest Social Media Policies and Guidelines

The Corporate Blogging Book (Updated Edition With a New Preface) is your up-to-date, indispensable guide to creating a compelling company or organizational blog. One that will attract customers and search engines alike, as well as meet business goals.

Other News About E-books

Publishing 2.0 is a brave new world that I’m just beginning to explore. Sales of e-books were up 176.6 percent in 2009. As far as e-books go, the future is here.

I’ll be exploring other e-book formats with Joshua Tallent, including the iPad. Finally, I’m delighted to say that this new e-book edition hits the digital reading space during E-book Week (March 7 - 13, 2010). As the E-book site put its: the words without the pulp.

The Sad Truth About Many Corporate Blogs

2010-03-03T17:44:00+00:00

For all the hype (yes, some of it from me) about the potential of a corporate blog to connect with and motivate your customers, the fact remains that many corporate or organizational blogs are, er, dull. They talk about… themselves. Us. Our product. Our service. Yuck. I mean, do we really care? I was reminded of this sad truth by the revealing Inc.com column published by longtime blogger and entrepreneur Joel Spolsky (see here: Let’s Take This Offline).

In his column, Joel writes: "So, what’s the formula for a blog that actually generates leads, sales, and business success?"

The answer, which Joel gleaned from author Kathy Sierra at a conference:

"To really work, Sierra observed, an entrepreneur’s blog has to be about something bigger than his or her company and his or her product. This sounds simple, but it isn’t. It takes real discipline to not talk about yourself and your company. Blogging as a medium seems so personal, and often it is. But when you’re using a blog to promote a business, that blog can’t be about you, Sierra said. It has to be about your readers, who will, it’s hoped, become your customers. It has to be about making them awesome."

He then goes on to give some specific examples: for example, if you sell camera attachments, don’t write about technical specs. Instead blog about "10 Ways to Become a Better Photographer."

Those words, for me at least, come from the Department of Redundancy. I’ve said them myself so many times. They are in my book, THE CORPORATE BLOGGING BOOK, which was first published in 2006. I’ve said them on this blog. Read a blog post from Feb. 15, 2005. I’ve said them in countless presentations.

Thanks to Joel for making the point again. I should also note that Joel’s column is an official announcement that he is retiring from blogging. He says it takes an enormous amount of time that he now wants to put elsewhere, in order to reach a non-blog reading audience and also grow Fog Street Software.

Posted via email from Debbie Weil’s Posterous.

Too Fat to Fly… But Not to Blog, Twitter, Kvetch

2010-02-16T16:08:31+00:00

So how do you discuss that which cannot be discussed in polite conversation? Namely, obesity. Southwest Air even uses the words "delicate policy" to describe how employees should handle a supersize passenger who requires two seats. The incident this week with director Kevin Smith (whom I’ve never heard of but who has 1.6 million Twitter followers) raises two difficult questions:

1. Does having 1.6 million followers entitle you to rant and rave profanely ~~, loudly and publicly~~ just because you have a very large, er, online presence? Update: does being a celebrity (albeit one some people haven’t heard of) entitle you to be a boor?

2. Is it fair to other airline passengers to be seated next to someone who physically spills over into their space?

My answers, politically incorrect though they may be, are no and no. I won’t go into the specifics surrounding the recent incident with Southwest Air (see the Southwest blog and Kevin’s blog for details). But I want to make several points. First, social media leverage does NOT, in my opinion, give you license to publicly AND PROFANELY bash a company or organization. It gives you the power, but not necessarily the license. There are always exceptions. But there is something called good taste. And Kevin Smith doesn’t seem to have it. Maybe that’s part of his schtick. But it doesn’t work for me.

My gut is that there are some unintended consequences here. Kevin is raising more issues than he perhaps intended. Namely, what does it mean in American society to be obese? How big do you have to be before you are perceived as obese (leaving aside the BMI definition)? Is obesity a medical condition? Is it a handicap? Is it a syndrome like Asberger’s or ADD? All require accommodations of some sort, some legally mandated, some not.

Second point, obesity is a real problem. It’s a problem for 39-year-old Kevin, a young man (see his Wikipedia entry). It is likely contributing to health problems he is having now or will have in the near future (think diabetes Type 2). It is shortening his lifespan. And it is OUR problem. Obesity is a nationwide epidemic that contributes to billions of dollars ($1.5B) in additional healthcare costs that we all, in one way or another, are paying for. Jargon but true. Bottom line, obesity is a hugely controversial issue. This is about much more than Kevin and whether or not Southwest Airlines treated him courteously. (For the record, I do not condone embarrassing or humiliating someone in public.)

I realize I’ve come full circle here. By kvetching as loudly as he did, Kevin has in fact sparked a conversation about obesity that we should be having more openly.

Posted via email from Debbie Weil

Registration for 3/10/10 Sweets and Tweets With Anil Dash Is Now Open

2010-02-05T21:48:43+00:00

Attn: Cupcake Lovers. Learn Why Dot Gov Is the New Dot Com.

A quick update to let you know that registration for the next edition of Sweets and Tweets is now open. The event will be held Wednesday March 10th at 7 PM sharp at the very cool Baked and Wired cupcake cafe in DC’s Georgetown. Tech celeb Anil Dash, founder of the new DC-based incubator Expert Labs, is our speaker. Microsoft’s U.S. Public Sector division is the sponsor. This is an intimate event that appeals to the #gov20 + geek + cupcake eating crowd.

Sweets and Tweets features leading voices from DC’s diverse technology community on the use of social media by the public and private sector, from the White House and federal agencies to local startups. I host it every few months when the stars are in alignment for the right speaker and sponsor. More info about the March 10, 2010 Sweets and Tweets here.

Photos and coverage of the last event, featuring Mark Drapeau as speaker, here.

Register soon if you’re interested. Space is limited and tickets tend to go fast:

Posted via email from Debbie Weil’s Posterous