Technosailor.com» social media club

Getting Back To Human

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:00:38 +0000

Last week, I attended the Vocus users conference here in DC. It was an interesting time for me based on my history with PR both as a blogger who can’t stand PR and a blogger who wants to see PR do well in social media.

There was one session, in particular, where an audience member asked a speaker talking about software that is currently monitoring only main stream media outlets, “What do we do about monitoring and responding to bloggers?”

The response blew me away. “We don’t do anything about bloggers because we haven’t figured them out yet. Until we do, we won’t be doing anything about them.”

The context here being, of course, the software product.

Software developers understand that software is built on complex sets of logic. If this happens, then we do that. If a user clicks here, then this thing is going to happen. The speaker was saying that until bloggers could be broken down into a logical algorithm, the software won’t incorporate blogs.

My snarky response, expressed only in my own mind, is, “We’re human. If you can’t figure out how to approach us as humans instead of machines, maybe you should get out of the public relations business.”

On Friday, Chris Brogan wrote the same thing from the opposite side:

I have an anti-robot stance on Twitter. By that, I mean to say that I donâ€™t want to follow things that arenâ€™t people (with all due respect to Bruce Sterlingâ€™s spimes). I just donâ€™t need to add something automated into a place thatâ€™s inherently human.

He goes on to say that his anti-robot stance is being challenged because someone who is using an automated posting system is actually offering something of use and now he has a crisis of conscience.

Folks, we’re unnecessarily complicating our lives. Sometimes a bit of common sense is needed to overrule our warped sense of logical rules. PR folks should look at blogger coverage, not in some automated way that has to fit into specific guidelines in order for them to know how to respond. And Chris needs to stop worrying about artificial rules he has created for himself. You made the rule, you can break it.

I have rules on Twitter too. I don’t follow sex-bots. I don’t follow spammy people. I don’t follow people that have disparate ratios of followers-followees. Except for the sexbot rule, I’ve broken every one if I needed to.

I’ve done the same thing with LinkedIn and Facebook.

Rules are made to be broken by sound human rationalization.

Business of Blogging

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:32:36 +0000

I shared about this shortly after coming back from WordCamp Dallas (and I think that I posted a uStream video), but John Ponzadines hosted a panel where Liz Strauss, Matt Mullenweg, Mark Ghosh and I talked about businesses and blogging.

Here is the professional video. It was quite a fun panel.

Thank You, Social Media Club DC

Aaron Brazell — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:30:09 +0000

This evening’s event. Enjoy and thank you everyone who viewed live and came out to Viget Labs for Social Media Club.

The slide deck can be viewed in the video. Enjoy and thank you.

Update: ~~Here’s the slide deck~~. Though the ideas are free for anyone to use, the presentation itself is is not open source. It is for personal use, non-commercial use only.

Update 2: Lots of problems getting this slide deck into an accessible format. YouTube seems to work best.

Video Questions for Social Media Club DC

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 06:40:42 +0000

Thursday night, I’m going to be speaking at Social Media Club DC. If you’re in the area, I’d love to have you come by. It’s at Viget Labs in Falls Church, Virginia and you should RSVP to Larissa Faire by Tuesday if you plan on attending. It is BYOB – Bring Your Own Beverage (non alcoholic, if I recall). More details here.

The name of the talk is Blog Draft Day: Making it into the Bigs, and I’ll be talking about some of the things bloggers encounter when trying to break out of the “long tail”. Specifically, my talk will be around marketing, message and brand and I’ll be sharing some of my own thoughts as a blogger who has enjoyed reasonable success. I’ll also be sharing some of the things I’ve learned at b5media working with bloggers who have encountered their own success.

One of the things I really want to engage is questions from both the audience as well as those of you who can’t make it to the event in person. Because of the good folks at Viddler, you can send your videos which I will try to share at SMC, via comments right here on this blog. Click on the “Record or choose a video?” link in the comments section and you can record your video right there and it will post as a comment. Simple as that. No special knowledge, or gear. As long as your computer has a webcam, then the hard part is taken care of for you.

Give it a try. It can’t hurt.

(Now to test out the ustream embed for Technosailor TV)

Come Hear me Present at Social Media Club DC

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:39:32 +0000

If you’re in the greater Washington area, or you’re going to be in town on Feb 21, stop by Viget Labs at 6:30pm. I’ve been asked to come speak to the group about personal branding and the proverbial “A List”. We’re calling the session “Blog Draft Day: Making it Into the Bigs” and I’ll be sharing some of my own experiences as well as insight I’ve gained managing proverbial “A list” blogs at b5media.

For more information, or to RSVP visit the Buzz Bin. See you there.