Disqus - Latest Comments for Christopher S. Penn

Re: Fly Loonie Fly

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:01:17 -0000

Virtually every major credit card transaction center online should do the currency conversion automatically - if I send you a bill via PayPal in USD, if you pay in CDN, it should autoconvert, and not necessarily at the most optimal rate.

The US market is in for a period of prolonged weakness, caused by the credit bubble and housing bubble in the US under the latter years of Greenspan's tenure. While it might be too late to salvage current contracts, you may well want to begin all new billing in CDN until markets stabilize in a couple of years.

Tip: the weakness in the markets - loan defaults - have another 18 - 24 months to run their course as adjustable rate mortgages in the US issued in 2004 - 2006 continue to reset. The last wave should reset in 2009, and most of the bad credit flushed out of the market. Until then, it's going to be a real rough ride for the US economy.

Re: Podcast Ad Stripper

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:14:12 -0000

I think advertising has its place as long as it's well done and tastefully done - I really like how folks like C.C. Chapman and Julien Smith integrate their GoDaddy sponsorships into their shows until it's part of the content, as opposed to a pitch.

Re: Christopher S Penn: braniac and top bloke

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:57:03 -0000

Many thanks for your kind words! However, it's the community as a whole that deserves the credit. Individually, we come up with good ideas, but watch out when we band together.

Re: Noren: Your Reputation on a Sheet of Cloth

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 23:17:27 -0000

It is very much like a small town that remembers your past. Google's cache is exceptionally powerful like that. That's why if you're going to try on a new digital identity, be sure to keep it separate from your existing one entirely.

Re: PodCamp NYC Needs Your BRAIN

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:11:56 -0000

CC - can you ask Cali what that tech was on their show? I can't find it quickly this AM.

Re: PodCamp NYC Needs Your BRAIN

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:12:34 -0000

I wonder - is there such a thing as multiplexing EVDO? If so, is it affordable to do so?

Re: Whoop Ass Over IP

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:39:10 -0000

Technically, I think it's a networking thing :)

Re: Whoop Ass Over IP

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:47:59 -0000

Eric: how could I not put at least a little bit of Ray in there somewhere?

Re: Tools I use on my Mac

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:54:05 -0000

I've tried QuickSilver a few times, and I've always found it to be more work than the task I was trying to accomplish in the first place.

Re: Whoop Ass Over IP

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 21:55:45 -0000

Chris Brogan: Actually, I do a fair amount of Photoshop and other graphic stuff in the day job, and have for years. It's not something I focus on, though, which is probably why you haven't seen as much of it from me until I got my own playground.

Re: 6 Twitter Power Tips

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:39:49 -0000

Dan Johnson Jr:

The feed itself doesn't hyperlink URLs in it. For example, if you crack open the RSS:

Re: Cat blogging spaghetti sauce

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 19:56:52 -0000

Dale - you raise a good point, except for one thing. I had exactly two adult beverages in the house - a bottle of Riesling, and a bottle of tequila. I opted for the former!

The Riesling doesn't go in the sauce - it goes in YOU. :-)

Re: Pay Per Action : Podcasting’s Payday is Arriving

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:34:46 -0000

Question: how many podcasters (at least reading this blog) are signed up on Commission Junction/Linkshare?

You don't need to solicit sponsors - there are plenty of affiliate programs willing to work with you right now.

Re: Scott Bourne says to avoid PPA - but he may be wrong

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:12:22 -0000

That begs the question - would you hold out for a white-label/private label brand?

For example, if you signed up for StudentATM, would you accept a lower payment for a private label "GrammarGirl Consolidation Loan" than for the "Student Loan Network Consolidation Loan", assuming that you wanted to offer that product?

Re: Scott Bourne says to avoid PPA - but he may be wrong

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:23:13 -0000

/me plots what a GrammarGirl student loan product would look like :)

Re: New Media Realty

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:01:06 -0000

I'd say that you should fully leverage certain tools. After all, the selling of a house is in a lot of ways the telling of a story, or a set of stories. What stories can you tell that have emotional impact without necessarily disclosing private information? I could totally see you doing something next to the grill, since you spend a lot of time there in the summers. :)

Re: New Media Realty

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 08 May 2007 11:36:41 -0000

David - thanks for contributing. So far, I've been disappointed with what realtors have created in terms of sites - it's not as though creating a web site is a technically complicated task.

Regarding search traffic - we'll see what happens with 15CambridgeDrive.com as well. As for my parents, I think I'll probably end up linking the single property web site to Zillow myself.

Now if only there were a Zillowcast where I could send an audio file...

Re: New Media Realty

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:27:38 -0000

Andy - what other new tools would you use? My parents mentioned that their agent had a broker's open house and all they got for their trouble was 25 people leaving footprints everywhere, and no prospective buyers. Do realtors post to Craigslist, open up MySpace pages, etc.? What other capabilities are on YOUR radar?

Re: New Media Realty

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 11 May 2007 11:22:50 -0000

Kelle - interesting! So if a house is for sale through an agent, does that mean the seller can market the things that the agent cannot? Or in this case, I can market the things that the agent cannot?

Re: Why MySpace marketing is still relevant

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:23:19 -0000

Adding a bunch of highly relevant friends, subscribing to their various blogs, and using said friends for demographic information for your podcast and/or blog. If you can direct your audience to your MySpace page, you don't need to do things like Kiptronic podcast surveys - all the information is self-identified in their profiles.

And bulletins & such help. Also, comments that are highly targeted and link-rich.

Re: Why MySpace marketing is still relevant

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:33:00 -0000

They don't find you, Clarence. You find them. Check this out:

On Google, type in:

"comic book" site:blog.myspace.com

Results 1 - 100 of about 13,800 from blog.myspace.com

These are all the people who blogged about the term comic book on MySpace. Narrow it down:

comicazi site:blog.myspace.com

Results 1 - 13 of 13 from blog.myspace.com

13 people specifically talking about Comicazi. These are people you need to add as friends, and connect them to your hustle.

Pick any superhero and do the same. Find the people who are talking about what you're talking about, and connect up with them - and then connect with their friends. The power of a social network isn't just the raw number of people out there - it's also who they network with and who you DON'T know that they do.

Once connected, get them off MySpace as quickly as possible as Vergel said - to a place where you control the marketing and content.

Re: Why MySpace marketing is still relevant

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:36:59 -0000

Except Rupert Murdoch's :-)

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 15:53:55 -0000

Dan - the PMN is one area where I am legitimately angry with Podshow. You're right to say it's practically abandoned, and in doing so, Podshow missed a golden opportunity to promote independent music in ways no one has ever thought of. Bum Rush the Charts (Corey from IODA - PLEASE return my emails about BRTC sales data soon!) and Virtual Hot Wings were two instances of independent podcasters and producers putting together an ad hoc promotion for independent musicians with nearly no budget and no extensive planning. Both campaigns broke new ground and are doing good things even today for the artists that were involved.

The reality is that audio podcasting probably will never have as large an audience as video, just as radio doesn't have as large an audience as television. That said, there are still 100 million iPods out there, still 35 million Americans alone with broadband, that we can connect to the music we love and support. I would love to see a podcasting network or a new media company throw an enterprise-grade effort behind independent music the way it initially looked like the PMN was going to go, back when C.C. Chapman got it started two years ago.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:37:25 -0000

Ok, this was odd to see in the trackbacks:

"But when you take stock of the fact that the company makes no effort to hide the drug use that goes on at the highest levels - among the people who make the decisions within the company, decisions that will affect ALL of the producers using their network, and in turn all of their listeners - is it any surprise that they just canâ€™t get it right?"

Huh?

It's certainly no secret that Adam Curry uses marijuana; he's said so as much many times on his show. What other allegations have been made?

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:10:59 -0000

@Aaron Burcell: Talked to Joe several times this week. He's well aware of what's going on.

@Vinny: Already done. I submitted an 11 second pre-roll ad to Podshow for inclusion.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 10:03:13 -0000

I'd like to explicitly invite any Podshow employee - Joe, Richard, Adam, anyone - to join the conversation. So far, we've had terrific input from everyone, constructive for the most part (I've had to delete one comment which was an ad hominem attack), but I'd also like to hear Podshow join the public debate.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 15:57:10 -0000

Julien - you're dead on the money - every second that any kind of pre-roll is running is a second you, the podcaster, are not interacting with the people who have voluntarily chosen to listen to your show. That point can't be stated enough. A lot of people have spent a great amount of time and care creating a show that sounds as good as they can make it, including their intro. Post-roll is fine, but even more important, I think, is to transmit branding inside of the show itself, by the producer. If your network - whatever network you belong to, Podshow, TPN, Blubrry, etc. is as awesome as we ALL want them to be, you'll have no trouble promoting the network as well as any sponsors.

That's the thing that I think is so important about this discussion. I don't know about everyone else, but I want Podshow to succeed. I want Podshow's podcasters to succeed even more, to succeed wildly, because when they do, when each show is growing audience, bringing a little more of the 100 million iPods out there into podcasting, we ALL win. We ALL succeed, because podcasting is practically self-selling. Once you hear one, you realize that you no longer have to live just with Dopey and Dummy in the morning and ClearChannel on the dial at work. Every new listener of any podcast is a potential listener to everyone else's too - as long as their first exposure to podcasting isn't a minute-long ad about how the show you're going to listen to sucks.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:14:06 -0000

Neil - it's a sobering realization that when you have a pre-roll ad that talks about how Podshow sucks, by default, you're also implying the show it's attached to sucks.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:26:55 -0000

Todd Wachtel - aka Jersey Todd - also has a very good perspective on Podshow on his blog. It's a worthwhile read.

http://www.jerseytoddshow.com/index.php?post_id...

My one comment is that good or bad, Podshow shouldn't be the focus of Podshow. The podcaster - you, Jersey Todd - should be their focus, to help you accomplish, to help you achieve whatever goals you want to accomplish with your podcast. If you want to quit your day job, great. If you want to have fun with a creative outlet, great. If you want to unite the other communities you belong to, great. Podcasting can be a part of that, and in my perspective of what a podcast network is, Podshow should be throwing its weight behind you to help you achieve those goals.

Need to learn how to position a condenser mic? Need to learn how to record a Skype call? Need to learn how to set up Google Adsense? The network that you've joined up with should be the first call you make, and not necessarily a Podshow employee, but someone or many someones in the Podshow community, and ideally you could throw out something to that community and have a response that was better, faster, and higher quality than any other podcasting community online.

But again, that's just one guy's perspective, and take it with a grain of salt from someone who co-founded a New Media UnConference movement that has no revenue model :-) If you're a whore, I guess I'm a hippie.

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 06:39:46 -0000

Umm, guys? If the goal of the new Podshow pre-rolls that are user-generated, in addition to being shorter, is also to have pre-rolls appropriate for the diversity of Podshow shows, this is not an improvement, unless this one only rolls on shows tagged explicit.

http://urltea.com/oze [mp3 link]

Re: Here is what is wrong with Podshow (and maybe how to fix it)

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:24:39 -0000

Near as I can tell, the intro text is:

"Now the guys at Podshow could sit around all the days and nights at HQ and shake their nuts waiting for some naked pictures and advertising campaigns. [belch]"

Re: US Airways Customer Service Sucks

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:58:09 -0000

Jerri and all - yeah, I feel your pain acutely. Still waiting on that refund, ha ha ha! Not going to happen via US Air, sadly. Am pursuing with the credit card company. Anyway, I recently had to go to DC and flew JetBlue instead of flying into Reagan, because Reagan = US Air at least from Boston.

Re: The Mother of All Pingbacks

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:37:04 -0000

Well, until I write a script that will extract only the domain name of the blog itself... then I'll sort on URL, not name.

Re: A Day to Remember, A Day to Act

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 22:04:08 -0000

Why shameful? It's an honest experience, an honest emotional reaction. No shame in that.

Re: A Nikon D40 Conversation

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:04:12 -0000

@bbondesign - lots of point and shoot indoors and outdoors. My one issue is that I do tend to go to concerts occasionally, and I can get near the stage (think 70 person venue, not 70,000) but I don't want to use flash. Otherwise, indoor, outdoor, some macro stuff, but really nothing super special.

Re: A Nikon D40 Conversation

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 13:05:15 -0000

@zemote: yes indeed - I already have the tripod from a videocamera purchase, plus a gorillapod.

Thanks all for the continuing advice!

Re: Die In A Fire

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:48:25 -0000

Agreed - or come up with some more fun ones, Monty Python style - I wave my private parts in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

Re: Google, OpenSocial, and Marketing

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:42:46 -0000

Beth: I saw Changing The Present today and thought it was brilliant. Facebook established a tradition of $1 gifts and CTP created an app where instead of padding Facebook's bottom line, the $1 gets put to charitable uses. Brilliant.

Re: Viral is not word of mouth

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:30:46 -0000

@carruthk - viral was not possible before machines capable of self-replicating messaging came along. Word of mouth was the ONLY game in town

@drmani - respectfully disagree. With networks like twitter, if I send you something you think is cool, word of mouth lets you transmit it to a huge network in a fashion that still requires consent. If I write a tool that auto sends twitter messages on your behalf, using your identity, without your permission, then it's viral.

@Ricky - sadly, I think you're right.

Re: We really are in trouble in this country. This is just the beginning of it.

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:52:55 -0000

FDIC is a weak guarantee. The government can choose to hyperinflate - that is, if there is a run on banks, the government will just speed up the printing presses and create more money. Its relative value in the world declines for each additional dollar created, but it's currently better than the alternative, which is an insolvent bank takes your money with it and you have no recourse.

Re: Nikon D40 + iPod Touch Flash Trick

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:56:52 -0000

iPhones have a dark translucent grey back, as opposed to the mirrored finish of iPods.

Re: Nikon D40 + iPod Touch Flash Trick

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:28:42 -0000

Definitely true, Marko - and if you're in a room that has a colored ceiling, your pictures will get that tint, too. But in a pinch, it works :)

Re: Thanks for being a participant on my blog!

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:34:15 -0000

Not at all, Bryper, just giving the love back in a way that doesn't use NoFollow!

Re: Join the Conversation Book Review

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:31:46 -0000

I think that's exactly it, Joseph - if someone picks up JTC expecting Conversation Marketing for Dummies, they're going to be bewildered.

Re: Join the Conversation Book Review

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:18:00 -0000

Julien - Pirates was re-released about three years ago - you should be able to buy it still!

Joseph - my guess is you'll really receive a warm welcome when JTC hits as an audio book - it's really ideal for that format as long as the publisher does a good job with chapters. I found that I couldn't sit down and plow through large chunks of JTC at a time, but bite sized portions worked pretty well.

Re: Why Keynote Speakers Violate PodCamp Rules

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:37:27 -0000

Joe - why not go Webby style and limit people to 5 words?

Re: Why Keynote Speakers Violate PodCamp Rules

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:43:35 -0000

And for the love of all that is good and holy, be SURE to tell people where:

- the coffee is
- the restrooms are

That should almost be a rule in and of itself :)

Re: Why Keynote Speakers Violate PodCamp Rules

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:32:19 -0000

Troy -

You as a participant are absolutely permitted to come to PodCamp for whatever reasons you want - if there are people you deem more important to see than others, you can.

It's the organizers that are not permitted within reason - agreed that it is grey - to treat participants as different if it can be prevented, if a viable, practical option exists that is more open to the community. Your example of panels self-forming is precisely the sort of thing organizers should encourage and applaud, because it's PodCamp organizing itself.

I like to compare PodCamp to art - it is the job of the organizers to put out paint, canvas, and easels. It is up to the participants to make the good stuff. Organizers need to manage the logistics of making sure everyone gets comparable access to supplies in an egalitarian fashion, whether those supplies are chairs in a room, opportunities behind the mic, or munchies.

Keynotes to me are akin to making everyone sit and watch as one person deemed a master artist paints.

Are there people at PodCamp who are better painters than others? Of course. Are there people there to learn to paint for commercial reasons rather than the love of art? Of course. It's the job of the organizers to provide the supplies, and then as much as possible, to get out of the way.

Re: Quick look: the Nokia n810

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:35:38 -0000

Milena -

That really, really depends. What do you want out of a mobile device?

I would say - if you primarily consume content - meaning read, listen, and watch, then either device is good.

If you also want to CREATE content, then hands down, the Nokia is going to do the better job because it's accessible and modifiable in ways that the iPod Touch is not.

Re: Why Keynote Speakers Violate PodCamp Rules

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 05:13:43 -0000

Patti -

Actually, yes, PodCamp is a legally incorporated entity as of very early 2007. It's an S-Corporation with three executives, myself, Chris Brogan, and Whitney Hoffman as legal counsel and operations director.

All PodCamps are required in order to use the name PodCamp to agree to and submit a copy of the PodCamp Foundation license, which you can find here:

http://podcampfoundation.com/the-podcamp-license/

If an event wishes to do things differently, they are certainly free to do so, but using a name other than PodCamp.

Re: Unsponsored Review: SuperDuper

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:57:50 -0000

Steve - I back up to an image file instead of a partition. SuperDuper recommends making a separate partition on your backup drive equal to the space on your computer's drive - that Firewire partition is bootable.

In my case, that doesn't work so well for me, because I try to version-control my images for off-site archiving - you can back up using SuperDuper to a Sparse Image file (which is Disk Utility's native format) and then mount that as a virtual disk, but image files are not bootable.

The reason I use the strategy I use is that you can copy image files like any regular file, and so I can copy it to the network, whereas you'd have to go the extra step of imaging your bootable partition if you did the recommended route, and for what I do and how I manage my backups, that's fairly time intensive.

Re: Optimize your LinkedIn Profile for SEO

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:37:04 -0000

Colin,

Normally you'd be right, but take a look at the source of your public LinkedIn page. Mine shows completely unobstructed valid URLs without a nofollow in sight.

Re: Why The Rick Astley YouTube Rickroll Matters

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:11:16 -0000

FYI, there was a really anonymous comment here earlier that was deleted.

Re: How to Twitter from Terminal on the Mac

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 01:18:56 -0000

Dunno - as a rule, I typically compile major packages I know I'm going to use from source. That's a me oddity :)

Re: Snapple Antioxidant Water tastes exactly like water doesn’t

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:16:02 -0000

@julien I think it probably has a lot to do with perceived influence and newness, more than anything. Marketing firms are still trying to figure out new media, and blogger outreach is probably still trendy.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 asks you to sponsor it for $50

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:58:59 -0000

Fair enough, Jay. That's one of the reasons why the PodCamp model is more or less open-sourced, so that individual events are free to run PodCamps in other cities however they see fit. Free, not free, whiteboards or schedules or wikis or Google Docs - and who knows? We may find that PodCamp Boston will lack something, in which case we reserve the right to experiment with something else next year.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 asks you to sponsor it for $50

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:44:25 -0000

Exactly right. PodCamp was a spinoff of ideas from BarCamp without being BarCamp. BarCamp was a spinoff of ideas from Foo Camp without being Foo Camp. I heartily encourage others to do the same. Chris Hambly over in the UK has created his own thing called MediaCamp. Sara Streeter created NewBCamp.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 asks you to sponsor it for $50

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:45:32 -0000

I'd also like to encourage people, if they feel strongly, to start their own conference. I'm not being facetious, either.

Sara Streeter did it with NewBCamp in Providence, and has started something great, inspired by PodCamp but not PodCamp.

Chris Hambly in the UK did it, with MediaCamp Bucks based on his interpretation of PodCamp but not PodCamp.

Justin Kownacki did it with BootCamp PGH. Not PodCamp but PodCamp-like.

Jeff Pulver created VON Camp within his own conference. Again, perhaps inspired by PodCamp but definitely not PodCamp.

As a result, the new media community is richer, bigger, and more diverse with these new conferences than without them, and I wholeheartedly welcome others to start their own events. Frankly, I'd be thrilled if there were a PRCamp, a MarketCamp, a VideoCamp, etc. all in the Boston area. We have New England Podcasting and Boston Media Makers, but there's not only room for more at the table, there are entirely empty tables.

Re: Laura Fitton is right. PodCamp was never free.

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:45:33 -0000

We actually announced a scholarship program. Get people to sponsor YOU!

http://www.podcampboston.org/2008/04/16/podcamp...

Re: Laura Fitton is right. PodCamp was never free.

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:22:05 -0000

And in fact, that's what we're doing with Boston, per PodCamp rules. I just finished updating the ledger a few minutes ago.

http://www.PodCampBoston.org/ledger/

Re: UNofficial Guide to PodCamp DC

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:23:54 -0000

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa;=0&ms...
113384876755038568237.00044acc818848f438740

Re: Prediction: Divorce rate to skyrocket in US in 4/08

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:22:15 -0000

Updated 4/20: Being right sucks. An article confirming the suspicion.

Re: Buy me a cookie, dude - Marriott Customer Survey

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:14:03 -0000

I think my server gave you a cookie, sir. :)

For anyone who comments, I will take a few cookies from the hotel coffee table and hold onto them. The next time I see you in person, you shall receive one stale cookie for commenting.

Re: Watch this Justin.tv video from PodCamp NYC

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:14:00 -0000

And that folks, is that. Please take the remaining discussions offline, as to whether anyone makes appearances on other shows or needs to discuss things by phone.

Re: Power Calendaring with iCal, Google Calendar, and Sync

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:33:52 -0000

@CC - never had that happen, but occasionally, it's probably not a bad idea to do this "hard reset" every so often.

Re: Review: Flip Ultra 2GB

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:37:37 -0000

Ron - unfortunately, I have a Mac so I've never experienced that.

Re: Marketing Sucks

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:37:04 -0000

@Darren: good question. What would make you come back would logically at least be similar to what made you come here in the first place. Honestly, my personal blog probably isn't the place I'd first send you. I'd send you to something like the Friday episodes of the Financial Aid Podcast, which ALWAYS have free stuff, useful stuff, and silly stuff that's worth at least reading.

Re: Gas stabilizers, hurricanes, and $6 gas

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:04:02 -0000

Ed- yes indeed, I would prepare the same. A few gallons of gas safely stored is always a good idea.

Re: Social Media and Business Ethics

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:36:31 -0000

It's optional insofar as good customer service is optional today. Are there companies thriving that have poor customer service? Just get on an airplane. Now, throw a company in the mix that is remarkable, that has good business fundamentals PLUS this transformation, and they'll eat everyone's lunch.

Re: Re-syncing Twitter

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:06:02 -0000

Given how unreliable Twitter is, and how often it loses stuff, it's kind of a moot point.

Re: Proud to be an American?

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:27:26 -0000

Hugh-

You're right to say that terrorists do not play by the rules. Terrorists do not owe allegiance to any nation. And they do need to be treated differently, at least in the sense of jurisdiction.

However...

The war crimes the United States is accused of are crimes against lawful combatants - Iraqi military and militants - in an unlawful invasion of a sovereign nation with no ties to terror. Saddam Hussein had no interest in terrorism, and our various pretexts for invasion had nothing to do with truth or justice.

The abuses that occurred were at Guantanemo Bay and Abu Ghraib. Of those abused, none were convicted of terrorism. Zero. Further, Abu Ghraib was a military prison in a sovereign nation that we invaded during a regular military action, and thus would be wholly subject to the Geneva Convention. For what it's worth, Iraq ratified the Geneva Convention in 1956, one year after the United States, and therefore both countries were required by treaty to obey it.

If Osama Bin Laden were sitting in my office with knowledge of a bomb he'd planted, damn right I'd get out the pliers, razors, and tabasco. But he's not, and the people we captured in our invasion were not terrorists.

The most disturbing comment you made though, was this - we need to get as mean as them.

No, we don't. What separates us as potentially good guys, what separated us in the past from those who perpetrated evil acts on the world, was precisely the refusal to do anything in the name of the crisis of the day.

Should we have an effective military? Absolutely. We should have a Leviathan military that shoots with deadly precision. Should we use force to protect ourselves? Absolutely. To not be willing to wage war would greatly endanger our security.

Should we violate our principles, morals, and ethics for political expediency?

That depends on whether you believe in an American way or not. The America I grew up in, the America that Superman defended, the America that the world respected and loved - that America would not.

Re: Proud to be an American?

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:09:40 -0000

Kevin,

You make some good points - for Saddam, I'd rather he be processed as Dr. Thomas Barnett recommended in his TED talk - a public, transparent process for eliminating politically bankrupt states, whether it's Saddam, Kim Il Jong, Robert Mugabe, etc. Let's establish a process like the IMF where we can restructure governments that are openly hostile to the rest of the world. By doing so, we can reduce the need to whip ourselves into a frenzy AND still achieve the ends that American policy deems important.

Check out Dr. Barnett's talk:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/33

Re: How to auto-follow on Twitter

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:12:24 -0000

Twitter Karma blows up on me - too many followers.

Dan - it definitely takes an API hit. I'm working on a version that does NOT hit the API.

Re: New media has gotten marketing confused

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:39:59 -0000

Bob - I think, as much as people would love to deny it, that you're right to a degree. There are plenty of folks earning over 100K, but they have business models that function and make sense, not just "look at me!" attention-based models.

Re: 6 Twitter Power Tips

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:06:47 -0000

Dan Johnson Jr:

The feed itself doesn't hyperlink URLs in it. For example, if you crack open the RSS:

Re: Memorial Day

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:17:51 -0000

The past is a closed book. You cannot change it, and wondering what might have been only robs you of the present. Remember, yes. Use the memories to motivate you, to be brilliant, to shine here and now, so that you have something of great worth to dedicate to his memory.

Re: Putting Hope to the Test

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:00:18 -0000

New technology is great.

New technology is advancing at an ever faster rate.

If this particular technology does not work out...

... the next generation will. And that may be in 5 years, or it may be next week at a research institute in Italy.

You never know. But hope is certainly not unfounded with the current rate of progress. If anything, hope underestimates our capacity for change.

Re: A word to the super-tentative

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:06:43 -0000

Question: why are you doing a show at a ninja school?

Re: This Gives Me Heartburn

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:33:16 -0000

Geez, and I thought Bum Rush the Charts was pimping.

Re: Royalty Rates Are A Royal PITA

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:48:48 -0000

So who is an internet radio station? Is a podcast?

Re: Royalty Rates Are A Royal PITA

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 05:18:31 -0000

Good to know. It'd be weird to have to covertly podcast at work.

Re: Fun with electronics

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 22:40:33 -0000

Pity there's not a combo latte and keg tap to hook up to that. VERY nicely done.

Re: Long Live The RIAA?

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 11:38:35 -0000

Where's the money? One of the most obvious things is that podcasters, by and large, are NOT making money in any significant amount to justify the purchase of an ASCAP/BMI license. Until podcasting develops sustainable, large scale revenue models, don't expect podcasters to even be able to pony up to pay artists.

Should musicians be compensated for their work? Of course. Substitute any other profession for musician/content creator and the argument is a short one. The question isn't whether they should or not, the question is *how*.

Some concrete steps I'd suggest:

1. Determine which is a better payout for artists - a link to the track in iTunes (via Linkshare) or a link to the artist's web site. Gut instinct tells me that the iTunes link would be more valuable for the artist because the barrier to purchase is much lower at 99 cents than $12 for an album. As a podcaster, develop a stable of consistently great music that can be copied and pasted into show notes, so that putting together shows is quick and easy. Or, alternately, use IODA promonet, which will generate affiliate links automatically.

2. Artists should get in the habit of compiling a set list of their original works along with the appropriate identifiers to make reporting easy. For example, the hit song Drive Away is BMI Work #7849298. Every public venue that plays an artist's music should have an ASCAP/BMI license, without question. Second Life, First Life, a martial arts school, whatever. Want to make sure venues pay? Start reporting violations en masse to ASCAP/BMI - when the lawyers start knocking, venues will either pay up or shut down. Most will probably opt for the latter, but the infringement on artists' works will stop real quick.

3. Give artists and musicians proper legal paperwork and tools to work with. Give them a toolkit of a waiver of licensing, a modified licensing agreement, and a good cease and desist letter, plus access to a local notary. If they see flagrant violations of their rights, they can at least start the process for compensation.

4. Create a modified licensing agreement for preferred venues, podcasts, etc. For a $10 monthly fee, a non-commercial podcast that accepts no advertising can play Matthew Ebel's music royalty free, or a commercial Second Life venue (one which accepts advertising, fees, cover charges, or any other form of compensation including tips) can buy a commercial license on a sliding scale based on estimated revenue and benefit to the venue for the artist's performances.

Ultimately, the way for musicians to earn money is to enforce the rights they have. The reason the RIAA and associated bodies grew into the monsters that they are is that too many musicians were unwilling to enforce their rights and ceded control of their music to a third party. The balance between intellectual property theft and RIAA pillaging is when the artist or his/her management enforces the rights of the artist. One artist alone might not make all that much of a difference, but if every podsafe artist started enforcing their rights, new media would need to pay up damn fast.

Re: A Thought About Licensing

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:27:26 -0000

The question always comes down to who gets sued - who has the liability.

The venue itself is required to be covered for the live performances in person, but not the stream unless they've authorized the stream and included it in your performance contract.

If a lawyer sends a C&D, it will go to UStream with a takedown notice, not you. That tells me that they're at least partially responsible for the rebroadcasting.

Because the content is duplicated on MatthewEbel.com, it too is a "venue" and has a licensing obligation.

Re: Where Are The Musicians?

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 06:49:58 -0000

Well, you -can- sign an iPod, it's just not the same. Fans will continue to buy CDs for two reasons:

1. The ardent fans buy them as tangible symbols of their support and love for the musician. I think either you or Mitch Joel called them totems of support.

2. The data nerds like me will always buy CDs because hard drives crash, backups fail, and that round piece of plastic usually comes at a higher quality bit rate than a download from X Music Store.

Re: Easing Up On The Faucet

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:44:31 -0000

Here's my contribution to your crusade!

http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/2007/11/10/t...

Re: Unwrap This

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:25:11 -0000

Sustainable gifts are also terrific for the holidays, too. Got some old mason jars? Make a custom hot cocoa mix (hint: just the slightest shake of maple sugar can radically improve it) and give that as a gift. Encourage kids to make fun gifts out of recycled items; the soda bottle birdfeeder never gets old. Plants and growing kits may have some packaging but house plants can be a terrific gift. A charitable donation in someone's name may resonate, depending on your family.

Electronic gift certificates are also wonderful, too. Gift music in the iTunes store to people and print nothing, ever.

Re: My oovoo revioo

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 07:15:17 -0000

Funny, I just uninstalled it as well. Except for the Mac mini and the Apple TV, every Mac ships with a video camera. Talk about a market made for your product that you missed the boat on.

iChat and Skype still rule the roost for me as a Mac user. I've uninstalled ooVoo and don't plan on going back any time soon.

If there's one application for the Mac I can recommend with raves, it's SuperDuper. My MacBook Pro blew up a fan, and in 60 minutes I had cloned the entire machine to another MacBook, booted it, and was back at work. SuperDuper saved my ass.

Re: A Flashlight In The Dark

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:52:25 -0000

At least you're being realistic about what lies ahead. Hope is useful and important, but hope alone is not enough.

Re: When In Doubt, Don’t Throw It Out

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:11:48 -0000

Two more:

Amvets will come to your house to pick up used but working furniture and appliances, so even if you're a supremely lazy bastard, you can still recycle.

The Society of St. Vincent De Paul will take about damn near anything as long as it's in good condition. It's a thrift store that then resells your stuff to other people, usually at steeply discounted prices.

BONUS: by donating used items to charity, you get receipts which, if you itemize your taxes, give you some deductions on your income tax. Tax law permits you to get full book value on items even if they've depreciated, as long as they're in good or great condition when you turn them in to a registered charity.

Re: It’s Time To Play… Name That Duck!

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:35:59 -0000

Try here?

http://www.ducks.org/hunting/waterfowlgallery.a...

Re: Don’t Unplug Your Customers

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:58:44 -0000

The irony is that according to the DOE, Block Island is *ideally* suited for virtually every form of alternative energy there is. It gets great wind for windmills, constant sun, and waves for wave-motion generation.

If any restaurant on Block Island were to deploy even a few solar panels or a small marine windmill, they could not only recoup the cost, not only offer free power to their customers, but also sell energy back to BIPCO at a hefty premium.

http://tinyurl.com/netmeter

Rhode Island is one of 29 states that has mandated net-metering under 25 MW. Thus, any utility is required to buy back power generated privately under 25 MW.

A Sunforce 44444 is $600 and can generate 400W, or 9.6 kWh per day. It would take just shy of 6 months (assuming good winds all day) to pay for itself in power saved, and everything after that is gravy you can bill back to BIPCO. Even if the payback window is a year, most small wind turbines are rated for 10 years. Who wouldn't want a pure profit center for 9 years, plus bragging rights that you're the ONLY green shop on the island? Added bonus - the unit is 46 inches wide. That's it. No mega-tower.

Hey, who knows, you stay on that island long enough and maybe we'll see Osprey Power & Light.

Re: How Not To Treat Your Fans

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:24:55 -0000

I would have expected no less of someone named Dick Cheese.

Re: How Not To Treat Your Fans

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:29:14 -0000

Oh, and as the co-founder and organizer of another major new media conference series, I can assure you that at least for the PodCamps that I run, Mr. Cheese will NOT be invited as a performer. Not because I approve or disapprove of his acts per se (though personally I do disapprove) but because he is now...

... an insurance liability.

And that's an instant ban for any conference which carries a certificate of insurance.

If he had wanted to enforce his contract terms, his ONLY legal recourse would have been to notify the organizers, who would have instructed security to ask anyone violating the contract terms to leave.

By doing what he did, that's not contract enforcement - that's assault. Regardless of whether anyone presses charges, as a conference organizer, there's NO way I'm taking on that liability.

Re: Back in Boston, Back in the Studio

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:20:48 -0000

Christmas music!

Re: From Out Of The Woodwork

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:56:50 -0000

One of my teachers, Stephen K. Hayes, often says that people like that are a backhanded compliment - you've increase in importance enough to be worth the time of some poor schmuck. If you never have to deal with stupidity, you're probably not important enough. So congratulations!

Re: A Long Flight Ahead

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:37:44 -0000

Best wishes and condolences to your family. Knowing your religious beliefs, she'll soon be in better hands than our mortal ones.

Re: How Podcasting is Changing the World

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:21:02 -0000

Many thanks for your kind words, sir!

Re: Podcamp Boston 3 Wrapup | Cynosure

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:12:07 -0000

We actually had a fail whale!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/2683014...

Re: Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:45:23 -0000

Thanks for the writeup, Lon! I'd also recommend uber-economist @mesimos of e-Forecasting. She's wicked smart at the econ stuff as well!

Re: http://www.crayonville.com/blog/?p=212

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 08:54:21 -0000

Spending $10 to make $1 would get you kicked out of even the lowest quality business school.

Imagine if a charity published that 90% of your donation is chewed up by overhead? You'd never donate to that charity.

Now imagine that same charity was discovered funneling 90% of its donations to the wallets of large corporations. Would you donate?

That's what RED is. It's 90% overhead being funneled to corporate profits.

Re: http://www.crayonville.com/blog/?p=212

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:09:44 -0000

If you're going to buy something anyway, then I'd agree that having the option for an additional charitable contribution is fine. Ultimately, though I may be far too cynical, RED seems more about leveraging the charity concept to move product than it does to genuinely help, otherwise you'd probably want to funnel the marketing dollars into charity. If companies stopped all support for the RED campaign and instead donated just 20% of that ad spend, the people they're supposedly intending to help would be twice as well off. If you have $250 and your choices are to buy a new iPod nano for $249 with $24.99 going to charity, or not buying the thing at all and donating $30 to charity, clearly the charity's better off with the latter - and so are you, because you can write off the $25 as a tax deduction. You cannot write off purchases through RED because they're just consumption purchases, not donations.

Re: http://www.crayonville.com/blog/?p=212

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:33:04 -0000

The other aspect of this campaign which I think is more important is the idea that money is equal to charity, that you can shop your way to a better world. In many cases, there are a lot of people who want to help somehow, but don't have the financial resources to do so. Campaigns like RED reinforce the notion that charity is money, when in fact people can contribute time, energy, effort, labor, ideas, and sometimes just a shoulder to lean on. Many of the organizations I've been involved with in the past have needed people to volunteer more than cash by itself.

Re: WANTED: Senior Project Manager

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 02 May 2007 10:06:32 -0000

No social media job ad? (YouTube vid, etc.)

Re: Contributing in the Snack Culture

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 21:14:50 -0000

Twitter = blog snack.

Re: One Thing To do Different Today

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 09:08:20 -0000

Funny, I just did a segment in today's episode about this!

http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/2007/03/13/f...

Re: One Thing To do Different Today

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 21:45:55 -0000

My superpowers are threefold. 1. I can script most social networking sites. 2. I can find ways to turn a negative situation to my advantage. 3. I can find ways to connect disparate things and ideas.

Re: Maintaining Community Spirit In Larger Communities

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:16:46 -0000

PodCamp Atlanta also knocked the socks off the press world. They were all over the AP Newswires.

I have some additional thoughts about this that I will blog about later as well.

Re: Maintaining Community Spirit In Larger Communities

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:32:06 -0000

I've published a list of the Top 20 People You MUST Meet at PodCamp NYC - THE list of the hottest ticket in town.

Re: Maintaining Community Spirit In Larger Communities

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:43:03 -0000

Also, as a sponsor of PodCamp NYC, it's my job for people to remember who I am (in the role of sponsor). That means finding some way to give back/give more to the community. If all that happens is that my sponsor name is on a hat or something, that's not memorable.

So... what's a sponsor to do?

Re: Maintaining Community Spirit In Larger Communities

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 13:48:41 -0000

Oh, and someone take away John Havens' coffee and secretly switch it with decaf :-)

Re: The Spirit of PodCamp

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 12:09:06 -0000

Well put. I would add this, from Mitch Joel's excellent presentation: it's a giver's game. You give to get. Not getting what you want? Give more, contribute more, put more into it. The rewards may not necessarily be instantaneous, but they will be well worth it and they DO pay off.

Re: Happy Birthday to Me

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 08:20:35 -0000

Happy Birthday!

Re: Subscription Drive

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:23:16 -0000

Correction - Feedburner provides a list of emails in the Publicize control panel, so you do get a copy of the address.

That said, Chris Brogan is an upstanding guy and you still won't get spam from him.

Re: Upcoming Posts- Your Input

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:25:37 -0000

Anecdotally at PodCamp NYC: the open you are to the community, the more community things happen. Giving up "valuable real estate" at my sponsor booth to podsafe musicians for some lunchtime music was a bigger and better draw than anything else in that time slot, and they benefitted from the opportunity to sell CDs right on site. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, only maybe I'd buy a larger table or a room or something.

Community WORKS.

Re: Why Do New Media Types Like Multiples

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:10:05 -0000

From a business perspective, you never know where the next big thing will come from. You never know who you'll meet or under what circumstances, so you branch out, diversify, and in the process of doing so, learn more about what's possible.

Re: My Best Networking Tips

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 20:21:37 -0000

Think about position, about where you are in the room. Don't paint yourself into a corner unless you want to be in that corner for a while - remember the bar at PodCamp Toronto? That corner served its purpose.

Body language is key - and while you can't control the other person's, you can definitely control your own. Try this sometime - if you're talking to someone and you're on axis - meaning noses pointed at each other, move off axis and pull one side back, so that you're at an oblique angle to the other person. It's very uncomfortable and weird, and can do more to end a conversation than more subtle cues.

Mind control exercises work, too. If the person you're talking to is really passionate about something, immediately listen more carefully and find ways to link it to your own experiences, so that you can match their energy and tempo. Likewise, if the person is not someone you want to be around, break the rhythm of their speech - shifting weight, flat out not looking at them, or changing your mental imagery to be less engaging and more "target assessing" and that will shut down all but the most oblivious.

Re: Presentation or Conversation

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:08:34 -0000

Whether it's presentation or conversation, there are elements of showmanship in each. One of the best books ever on the topic, hands down, is by Darwin Ortiz, called Strong Magic. It's out of print and expensive, and worth every penny and then some.

Re: Jon Glassett Opens a Time Capsule

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:57:13 -0000

Those were truly awesome.

Re: Thinking Blogger or Writing Blogger

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:31:28 -0000

Workflow kind of dictates think blogger - I use BBEdit for virtually everything, and its method of managing URLs and stuff is really fantastic, so I draft my blog posts, along with everything else, offline first. If it's going to be a long blog post, or one that requires research, all the more reason to use BBEdit.

Haven't tried OmniOutliner for blog posts yet, though I hear great things....

Re: Media Makers Need to Climb the Value Chain

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 12:47:58 -0000

Well, if you're talking media value, what has value?

Content has value to audience.
Audience has value to revenue drivers.

In order to move up the value chain, you need to continue to provide ever-improving value. Make better, more timely, more relevant, more engaging content (and have your audience help) and derive revenue from an ever increasing, ever more focused audience niche.

Re: I Need Wordpress Help

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 01 May 2007 09:55:21 -0000

1. Your template is bouncing back to default constantly because the WP-mobile plugin isn't drag and drop - there are detailed instructions on how to use it, and it involves a few steps. Deactivate it temporarily while you reinstall.

2. Yes.

Re: Fishbowl

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 May 2007 11:41:17 -0000

Kat:

That's assuming you just roll over and let them. If you stop paddling, the tidal wave will sink you. But if you develop skill, speed, and agility, you can ride whatever waves come along.

Surf's up. It's our game to lose.

Re: Branding for Kids

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:03:23 -0000

Whatever he does, he has to be cognizant of the rules of COPPA - Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. That, in many cases, rules out data collection for things like email lists, etc. Social networking sites aren't a bad idea, nor is a Ning-based community.

Ultimately, though, people in the 13-14 year old age group are prolific at word of mouth. Like any business, he has to establish his value proposition and then be able to articulate that to his audience. Given how fragmented the 13 year old marketspace is (most of them have private profiles, etc.) word of mouth is the only choice to get a foot in the door of those communities.

Re: Message to LinkedIN- Start Rolling Heads

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 21:24:22 -0000

It's true that including things like photos and video can lead to discrimination, but I've also taken a different view of that.

If you're a racist, sexist, X-ist, I don't want to work for you. Filter me out, please.

Re: Your Job as a New Media Artisan

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 15:48:49 -0000

Show prep is absolutely essential. All you need is a text editor and the willingness to sift through what's relevant.

Here's a suggestion: listen to your show every day. Even if you don't publish every day, listen to your show every day (or watch it). If there are parts that cease to be useful/entertaining/amusing by the second or third time through, that's a good place to start tightening.

Also, ALWAYS put administrative stuff at the end of the show - the prattle about where you'll be and the weather (unless you're a weather Podcast) etc. Put the good stuff up front, and shift the lighter stuff to the back. If I have time to listen, I'll take the whole thing, but if I am pressed for time, I want the goods first.

Re: Two Great Events I Cannot Attend

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:29:21 -0000

In a funny twist of fate, I thought I wasn't going to PAB and now I am. One Chris off the agenda, another one on.

Re: Activated Communities

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:07:05 -0000

Give people a reason to participate. That simple. (reminder, simple != easy) What is compelling about your cause that will make people want to participate?

If people aren't calling/emailing already, then the tools for a community won't make any more of a difference.

Re: Tools and Leadership and Power

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:04:14 -0000

1. Do you consider yourself a leader? If not, what kind of a follower are you?

Yes, I do.

2. Which social media tools and applications do you us? HOW do you use them?

Most of them. I do a lot of marketing, and so I focus on sites, services, and tools where the people are that I want to communicate with.

3. If you were part of an engaged community, how would you use your systems to build something bigger than just you?

Give people ownership. Demonstrate to them that they are special, that they have authentic ability to make changes and to influence me.

4. Is your blog / podcast / videoblog a platform for community? What would it take?

For my community, definitely. Part of that is because it's one of a very few.

5. If you were offered the chance to be part of an experiment to try moving the needle in LOTS of ways (similar to the Virtual Hot Wings project, and other social experiments), would you be up for the challenge?

Of course. I've done Bum Rush the Charts, PodCamp, Virtual Hot Wings, etc.

6. What kinds of rewards are important to an activated social community? What do YOU need to get out of an experience where you’re called upon to take small but meaningful actions?

People need to know that you, the leader, are listening and that you consider them to be valuable contributors.

7. Is this making any sense?

Yes.

Re: Organizing and Thinking

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:22:05 -0000

The database itself IS the resource. CRMs and applications interpret the data, but they can only interpret what is there. Structure the data correctly, and in many cases you won't even need the software. Learn MySQL and run it locally on your computer. The more work you do with data and databases, the more powerful they become.

You live or die on your database - but if you don't know how to drive it, die by driving off a cliff is a fairly predictable outcome.

Re: Organizing and Thinking

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:28:54 -0000

You install it and make frequent backups for when you screw the pooch. There really is no "painless" way, beyond a few tricks. MySQL is a Hole Hawg.

If you don't know the reference:
http://steve-parker.org/articles/others/stephen...

Re: Connect Five - Summer of Projects

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 06:14:40 -0000

Heck, this should be a weekly ritual. The only way to get new listeners/viewers... is to get new listeners/viewers.

Do the heavy lifting for audience members in advance - memorize and learn how to subscribe someone quickly to Google Reader and iTunes, which are my two gold standards for new media consumption. If you're working with someone who doesn't own a portable media player and/or has limited disk space, Google Reader is the best choice. If you're working with someone who has an iPod or has disk space to spare, iTunes is definitely the way to go.

Re: Connect Five - Summer of Projects

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:32:11 -0000

You know what else would be cool? Make an OPML file of your 5 favorite podcasts and when you're demonstrating podcasting, just have it on hand on a flash drive or something so you can drop it into their iTunes/podcatcher and have them start with 5 great shows.

Re: Bacn- A New Internet Term

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 21:28:35 -0000

So what's iJustine's iPhone bill? Pig2.0?

Re: Bacn- A New Internet Term

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:01:14 -0000

Is Canadian bacn larger and round? American bacn tends to just be emails with links in it, after all. Maybe Canadian bacn has more substance to it?

Re: Confidence is Gold

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:14:51 -0000

I am confident. What single moment defined me more than anything was my first degree black belt test, which is hard to put into words, but was a test of fire. When you go through something like that, it gives you perspective, and everything else that seemed to be overwhelming is actually pretty trivial.

Re: Why I Am Not a Podcaster

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 22:15:13 -0000

Julien Smith said it best - I'm not a podcaster, I'm a marketer with a podcast.

What do I do? Bre Pettis says he makes things.

I create heroes.

Re: It Takes a Village

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 10:20:07 -0000

It's true - there's a different between social networks and social network software.

Here's my take on it from Philly:

http://blip.tv/file/374879

Re: Measuring Social Media Efforts

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:43:43 -0000

Dude, I'd say thank you anyway :-)

Also, I wouldn't wholly discount those 300K. They may not take out loans, but they might know someone who would. Intangibles count - they're just hard to measure.

Re: Facebook-Let Me See My Friends

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 06:35:19 -0000

Add in Six Degrees, TouchGraph, and Connection Cloud as Facebook applications to see your friends in a different light!

Re: What's On Your Mind?

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:36:02 -0000

What's on my mind? The gap of opinion about PodCamps charging seems to be positive and negative, split interestingly among those who do versus those who just talk and wax poetic but never accomplish anything. The do-ers are all for more freedom, more flexibility, and more accountability, more responsibility. The talkers, not so much. Personal responsibility I guess will never be high on their priority list.

Matthew Ebel's new album, Goodbye Planet Earth (http://www.GoodbyePlanetEarth.com) is phenomenal and I've been listening to it non-stop since I got it on Saturday. It's making me think about how to go from grass to mass, as it were. Selling albums for $10/copy to podcasters is great, but we're a shallow pool compared to the number of iPod owners out there. How do we get more people to buy into the stuff we love?

Re: Connecting Brand to Consistency

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:08:53 -0000

Remember the wise words of Mitch Joel:

Be you, because everyone else is already taken.

Re: Social Media Starter Pack

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:11:05 -0000

Don't forget the STACK.

http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/SharedToolsAndCommonK...

Re: The Power of Comments

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 07:36:37 -0000

Comments are a form of intelligence gathering. You know how interested your audience is in participating if they leave comments, even if it's a "Yeah, me too!". Some blogs encourage comments, others don't, and not necessarily through overt policies as much as being niche topics. If you're reading an economics blog and don't know all that much about economics, you probably won't comment as often as, say, Nouriel Roubini, who will lay qualified, justified smackdown on any econ blog.

Comments are also a good metric for how keyword-rich your blog posts are. Spambots are programmed to try to leave spam comments (comspam? spomments?) based on keywords to maximize some schmuck's pay per click scheme. If you've got keyword rich content, you'll give your spam comment detector a good workout.

Re: Promoting Your Media

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:14:56 -0000

A certain person I know once told me that you live or die on your database. Your house list is everything. Do outreach and make it easy to build up your house list.

Re: Macbook Air is Great if You Like Clouds

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:06:32 -0000

As a media producer, it's a no-go for me. Nice machine if all you do is email, surf, and Keynote, but if you're doing Soundtrack Pro/Final Cut, or even iMovie, it's no good.

Re: Participatory Culture and Human Search

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:45:31 -0000

There simply aren't enough humans to make human powered search scale even remotely well.

What will eventually make things more or less well is machine powered search that continually adapts to human input - this is the essence of Orion, the algorithm that Google bought from a New Zealand grad student about 18 months ago.

Here's how it works. It tracks your behavior.

Let's say you look up Chris Brogan in Google. You go to result 1. You come back, hit 2. 3, 4, 5, until you hit 6 and leave and don't come back for that query again.

Orion says - huh, he must have found what he was looking for at #6. Let's give that a little more juice.

Orion also defeats to some extent the gaming of results unless you have a MASSIVE botnet at your disposal.

Re: Comments and Why RSS Is Not Enough

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:37:21 -0000

If it's really important, why wouldn't you just bond your posts feed and comments feed together with Yahoo Pipes and distribute the combined feed?

Re: Why PodCamp Toronto Will Be Cool

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:28:05 -0000

I'm closer to home this year, promoting NewBCamp in Providence, RI.

http://www.NewBCamp.com

Best of luck for a great PCTO!

Re: Ads or No

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:51:28 -0000

You already have ads on your site.

Utterz.
LinkedIn.
MyBlogLog.
Feedburner.
Feedbutton.
B2B Expo.
Upcoming.org.
BlueSkyFactory.

You're just not getting PAID for having those ads on your site.

What's the difference between the ads you have now and paid ones?

You get paid for the latter.

Re: Thoughts for Future PodCamps

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:36:55 -0000

Several hundred miles away, yet a similar experience.

http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/02/24/refl...

Re: Reaching Inbox Zero

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:22:42 -0000

I've been sharing Merlin's stuff as well - helpful tip, set up the contexts as tags in GMail, so when you access GMail via iPod Touch or other IMAP client, you can process on the road and then do full reprocessing when you're at a workstation.

Re: Off Topic- This Robot Scares the Christmas Out of Me

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:57:08 -0000

Combine this droid with this sentry gun:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ybaPJ51u1sI

that uses a Logitech webcam and an airsoft rifle, and you've got yourself some battle droids!

Re: Easter Givaway- 100 Grooveshark Invites

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:15:25 -0000

Here's the post:

http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/03/23/east...

Re: Seven Blog Improvements You Can Make Today

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:08:57 -0000

Put an OBVIOUS way to contact you - that seems like a no-brainer, but it's apparently not. Got privacy concerns? Set up a spare GMail account, open up a K7 line, and create a digital identity you can manage.

Re: Credit Cards for Reputation

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:40:25 -0000

Gotta get medieval on you, buddy.

Credit cards are a representation of DEBT. They represent money you have not earned, that you are borrowing. In your analogy, credit cards would be reputation you borrow from someone else that you must repay later. It's not your own reputation you're building.

Where you're getting confused is that you're really talking about money as a store of value and a medium of exchange.

Money is a store of value because I can sell chicken eggs to someone who needs them and get money in return. If I bartered, I'd have to find someone who wanted chicken eggs before they spoiled - their value declines with time. Money stores that value - I can sell the eggs for money rather than, say, beans, and preserve the value of my asset.

Money is a medium of exchange because I have chickens and you have cows, and if I don't need beef or milk, there's no trade. Money intermediates - your beef or milk becomes money and then you can use that money to buy chickens. Someone else needs milk or beef and uses money to buy it from you. This is money as a medium of exchange.

Reputation doesn't have a portable store of value. In fact, reputation really has no store of value at all, because you can't exchange it for anything. In today's attention economy, reputation degrades as surely as the chicken eggs do.

Reputation doesn't have a medium of exchange, either. LinkedIn currency - favors done, etc. - doesn't automatically translate into Facebook currency or MySpace currency.

If you can create a medium of exchange and a store of value for reputation, you will really have something valuable. When you figure that out, let me know - I'll work out a lending system around it :)

Re: Credit Cards for Reputation

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 00:48:08 -0000

Reputation in an attention economy, specifically. That's the key point. Reputation among close friends doesn't change all that much, but on the weak connections in a Gladwellian social network, reputation = attention garnered. How much mindshare do you have in someone else's mind?

As Mitch Joel says, it's not who you know. It's who knows YOU. Ricky Mondello, the 17 year old from NY, has mindshare with me because he comments and participates frequently on my podcast. Consequently, when US News & World Report called me to ask if I knew a high school senior in the throes of college admissions fun, he was top of mind - his reputation account in my mental bank was full, so he got the attention.

How do you store something like that? How do you value it, exchange it, and trade it for something else?

Re: Credit Cards for Reputation

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:17:50 -0000

Till about 2012, actually. If you look at CSFB's mortgage charts, the crap mortgages finally come to a close, volume-wise, at the end of 2011.

Re: Credit Cards for Reputation

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:32:41 -0000

Reputation has value, and you can translate that value into money, to be sure, but reputation itself I don't believe can be made into a medium of exchange. Hard to envision a world in which a currency of reputation could mean me PayPal'ing you 4 reputation credits in advance of a big conference you're going to.

Reputation's value is contextual as well. My reputation with you is valued by you at a different rate than my reputation with, say, Chris Brogan, or with Loic LeMeur or Adam Curry. Strong personal relationships give reputation more staying power, just as having gold back up a currency gives that currency more legitimacy. If you trade only on the currency and there's nothing backing it, it's very transitory. The trouble with the digital economy is that it's very difficult to establish what is fiat and what is legitimate value, and therefore reputation is only as durable as context.

Re: Is Your Community For Sale

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:12:25 -0000

What are you buying?

In the case of Twitter, you're buying a presence, really.

If Baron put up his Facebook account, that'd be a different story, because I can extract real data from it - names, email addresses, other contact information. At that point, it's a database, and we buy & sell databases all the time. What would I pay for that? The going rate is about $1.50 per valid identity on the commercial markets - you can buy header files from credit bureaus with roughly the same data for about $1.50 a head if you're buying in bulk.

For what it's worth - people are buying and selling your data all the time. Baron's just being transparent about it.

Re: Is Your Community For Sale

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:17:59 -0000

Followup commentary is here on my blog.

Re: Global Languages and Social Media

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:21:36 -0000

Blog in whatever your audience demands most.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 Costs 50 Bucks

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:15:55 -0000

Douglas - I think you're dead on about how unconferences have turned into a sort of Spring Break for folks. I don't know about you, but what limited time and money I have each year for conferences and events needs to go towards events that will teach me things, that will help me to improve my game and what I do. Spring Break does none of that.

It's also worth pointing out that the original UnConference, Foo Camp, was not only a paid event, it was also invitation only. It's not how the door is set up that defines an UnConference. It's what happens once you walk through the door, and what you bring with you.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 Costs 50 Bucks

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:44:46 -0000

Laura Fitton said it best on CC Chapman's blog after PodCamp Boston 2 last year. Reprinted:

--

The event isn’t, and from what little I understand, never was FREE. In a way, no event ever is. It is subsidized by sponsors and by volunteer hours. You attend for free, because somebody else paid your way. Simple as that.

I think opening up the option for it to be a nominal fee, or a pay what you want, or some other locally-derived setup, and oriented largely towards keeping attendance expectations (and resulting volunteer hours) in line with reality, is 100% reasonable.

While anticipating an event that huge, the volunteer corps of organizers really had to bust their guts. Hard. Long hours, much stress. Value their time at a nominal rate of $10 or even $5 an hour, and you see that a very small group paid hundreds and thousands for the rest of us to have the event for free.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 Costs 50 Bucks

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:42:54 -0000

@Douglas: Then we agree to disagree, sir. Start a conference of your own, based on what you believe should be the experience. Sara Streeter did it with NewBCamp in Providence, and has started something great, inspired by PodCamp but not PodCamp. Chris Hambly in the UK did it, with MediaCamp Bucks based on his interpretation of PodCamp but not PodCamp. Justin Kownacki did it with BootCamp PGH.

The template is out there, the process is transparent - start your own conference, and tell us where to find it.

Re: Why PodCamp Boston 3 Costs 50 Bucks

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:44:02 -0000

Please feel free to sponsor a PodCamp Boston scholarship.

http://www.podcampboston.org/2008/04/16/podcamp...

Re: What Comes Next With Social Media

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:51:43 -0000

My first step would be to ask them what their most pressing business marketing problem is. Before you even consider social media or any kind of media, you have to understand what's broken to some degree and whether media of any kind will fix it, or whether it will just muddy the waters further. Only after you understand that would you know whether social media was the right tool for the job.

Re: What Tom Could Learn from Facebook

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:37:54 -0000

Well said - and damn funny.

Re: Customer Service Hoops

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:00:57 -0000

Try swearing a lot, and angrily.

I'm not kidding. Some IVR units now are programmed to recognize voice stress and a few other factors, and if they detect stress, transfer you to an operator.

Re: Make Your LinkedIn Profile Work for You

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:23:03 -0000

I did a presentation on this recently, actually, at PodCamp NYC...

http://www.mdialog.com/video/show/8633-using-li...

Re: Could Someone Explain Technorati

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:21:24 -0000

http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2007/...

Re: Could Someone Explain Technorati

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:24:03 -0000

Supplement:

Technorati is yet another useless metric.

What metric do you actually care about?

Subscribers to a newsletter? Loans closed? Technorati is meaningless not because it's inaccurate but because it doesn't do anything actionable for you. Will it make you money, build your community, improve the world? Nope.

Re: How Mass Email Works

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:56:15 -0000

CAN SPAM above all else requires the obvious opt-out. If you have that, and you honor it, then you're good to go for the most part.

CAN SPAM, btw, is aptly named - follow the rules, you can spam. Another fabulous piece of legislation by Congress.

You should have a privacy policy on site somewhere as a bit of CYA, though this blog post is a good start.

I also use Thunderbird to collect email responses and categorize by folder. Thunderbird puts all emails in a folder in one giant file. I scrape that file then and blacklist anyone who complains.

Re: How Mass Email Works

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:23:31 -0000

FWIW, I also have a disclosure in my LinkedIn profile as well - if you request to be my friend/connection/whatever, you WILL get email from me.

Re: How Mass Email Works

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:53:16 -0000

@Jason Falls - that's the funniest damn thing I've read all day.

A round of rubella on Mr. Falls' tab!

Re: How Mass Email Works

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:57:44 -0000

I relate a Dan Kennedy story to you. Once upon a time, a man persistently knocked at Kennedy's door repeatedly, ringing the doorbell and making a pest of himself. It was a contest of wills and Kennedy finally relented.

In just 5 seconds, the pest became the most welcome guest at the Kennedy household ever.

What made the drastic change? The guest had this to say: "YOUR BACKYARD IS ON FIRE AND YOUR HOUSE IS ABOUT TO BE! CALL 911!"

Was the guest the equivalent of a spammer? A matter of perspective, I suppose, but his message was certainly unsolicited and uninvited. His message received no prior permission, didn't obey any do-not-contact lists, and in fact was a nuisance.

Spam is more than "I do not want". It is "I do not want, and the message is of no value, sent indiscriminately, with no recourse for preventing future messages" to me.

As for Kennedy's visitor - if anyone here is by my house or office, and it's on fire, you have my explicit permission to interrupt me as loudly as possible.

Re: How Mass Email Works

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:13:54 -0000

By the Spamhaus definition, how do you differentiate between the spamminess of an unsolicited single first contact enquiry and an unsolicited group first contact enquiry? Proper use of software makes the two indistinguishable, unless you make a boneheaded mistake like I do and forget that your field names are [fname] and not [FirstName]?

At what point does group become bulk? 2? 5? 10? 10,000?

Re: Bowing to Our Twitter Robot Overlords

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:03:25 -0000

I wrote my own robot. Tom Peters can keep searching for wow and excellence and whatever. I'll be over here making the robots that power the wow.

Re: Whats Your Take on Word of Mouth

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:32:54 -0000

Your post inspired me to put up a Current Blogola widget on my blog, detailing what items I've been sent recently.

Re: A Flickr Project for Everybody

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 07:53:27 -0000

It is vitally important that this project gets done, otherwise how will my bots and scripts get accurate photos of all of you?

Please help fulfill Mr. Brogan's wishes!

Re: Podcasting for Business-Are Your Customers Worth It

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:24:28 -0000

Once you're up and rolling, I have a new eBook and audiobook for you, too!

http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/06/28/8-st...

Re: Podcasting for Business-Are Your Customers Worth It

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:14:10 -0000

@Jim: Humor is insanely tricky - what's clean and funny to one person is abhorrent to another.

@Darren: I definitely appreciate Mr. Brogan, even if I banged him up a little with a lightsaber. :-) Seriously, without him, there would have been no PodCamp 1.

Re: What Do YOU Think People Want From Your Site

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:44:44 -0000

I don't guess. I ask them - using Avinash Kaushik's 4Q tool.

http://4q.iperceptions.com

Re: Strip Malls for Personal Brands

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:07:53 -0000

Not if you're smart about it. These social networks are billboards. If you believe in the information superhighway, our profiles on these networks are billboards on the side of the road directing you to Chris Brogan's general store, just off Highway 66. My MySpace profile is a billboard, not a destination - my web site is the destination.

Woe to the shopowner who confuses the billboard for the store.

Re: Strip Malls for Personal Brands

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:40:33 -0000

@Ann:

Keep your house list close - maintain a good database on your own computer of people you connect with, so that you can port that from service to service as need be.

I've been kicked off MySpace 16 times now. I don't say this as a badge of honor, just a reality. MySpace has decided in the past that my hanging neon lights, christmas lights, spot lights, and fireworks on my billboard on the highway was not okay.

If I had made the billboard the shop, I'd have lost the shop and probably gone home. Instead, I just put up a new billboard, and don't do what I did to get the last one taken down.

Different people hang out on different networks. Know the demographics of the network you want to participate in, and focus your efforts there. I explain this in presentations I do on the topic that you're planting the flag in a bunch of territories, but you build your castle in the one where you can do the most good.

Re: Identi.ca Is More About What Comes Next

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:56:45 -0000

I'm plurking for presence this evening. I get its interface now - it's better at managing threads, while not as cluttered as Friendfeed.

Re: Musicians Play for Tips- The Importance of Comments

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 08:13:01 -0000

Comment quality matters, too. I recently got a tip about an impending bank failure via a comment. I'd rather one GREAT comment than 100 ones that aren't as helpful.

Re: Thinking About the Negatives

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:04:48 -0000

This is all economics at work.

When times are good, people's attitudes towards each other can be generous, can be forgiving, can be gracious.

When times are bad, scapegoats and conspiracies abound. Yesterday's neighbor is today's resource drain, because when times are bad, we revert to zero sum thinking.

Bruce Schneier says it magnificently. The true test of a system is not how well it succeeds, but how gracefully it fails.

As has happened in past troubled times, we'll put our generation to the test and see how gracefully we perform under pressure, how well we can look out for each other even if we ourselves are standing on shaky ground. The question is not whether we will fail, but how well we manage it and how fast we can rebound.

As ugly as things can get, let's aim to bring out the best in each other.

Yes, we can.

Re: PodCamp Boston3 Rocked

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:16:40 -0000

Please don't discount your hard work in the event too, sir.

What was a real trip was at Tequila Rain, watching the video clips from the end of the very first PodCamp. The more things change, the more they are the same.

I'm proud to have been a part of PCB3, and I think it was a watershed for a lot of people in a lot of ways. I know that it definitely changed my perspective about what a PodCamp can be - the power of community with the precision of professional events.

Re: What Do You Want Next

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:51:44 -0000

More case studies of real world results. Social media needs this desperately to remain relevant.

Re: Remember Blogging and Podcasting

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:06:03 -0000

If you'd like MORE Valeria in your life, check out Marketing Over Coffee :-)

Re: Take the Tools and Run With Them

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 09:12:19 -0000

Don't run too fast until you understand where you are.

Remember Sid Meier's Pirates?

There's apprentice, journeyman, master, and swashbuckler.

At the apprentice stage, you should absolutely be learning, growing, developing, talking, sharing, and standing by a mentor's side learning your trade.

Once your mentor "graduates" you from apprenticeship into being a journeyman in your own right, only then should you strike out on your own and apply the lessons learned.

Leave too soon, and at best you'll be reinventing the wheel.

Re: How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:03:09 -0000

Next take your twitter searches and feed them to Yahoo Pipes. Regexp and filter out spam, slice and dice, make analytics, and Yahoo Pipes + Twitter Search delivers a true listening post experience.

Re: Five Ways to Connect and Add Value

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:49:28 -0000

Welcome to social arbitrage. This, by the way, is so old that it's taught to high school students in elite private schools. I had a chat with a girl at a private elite academy in Massachusetts who has formal lessons in power brokering. It's why her family remains in the elite class.

Re: You Can Do Your Job Without Twitter

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:07:01 -0000

Because the wider your net, the greater your opportunities.

A large bank in California hit me up on Facebook on Wednesday. Their student loan provider went out of business. A friend of a friend referred them to me.

Deal signed. Value: quite large (under NDA as to exact amount, but it's more than you and I will make in salary for a few years).

Cost? Only the cost of maintaining the net.

Re: Question for You- New Marketing

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:09:22 -0000

Segmentation.

Mass customization.

Prediction.

That's what is next.

Re: Make Your Own Conference Dashboard

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:23:12 -0000

Depends on the conference. I would link in Eventful RSS feeds, Upcoming.org to see who's posting on it there. Put the conference in Twitter search to pull mentions of it, pull hashtags, add in the feeds and streams of speakers and keynotes who will be presenting to see what they have to say, grab your own network updates from LinkedIn via RSS to see if any of your contacts are also going, put an expense tracker widget there so you remember to do that... the beat goes on.

Re: Make Your Own Conference Dashboard

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:35:23 -0000

MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer dashboard:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/financialaidpodcas...

Re: Set Your Blog On Fire

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:35:40 -0000

Have a major financial crisis and be the financial guy in social media ;)

Seriously - become an expert in your niche.

Re: Quick PodCamp Starter Kit

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:50:50 -0000

There are 6 rules which govern what may or may not be called a PodCamp. If your planned event meets all 6 and accepts the terms in the PodCamp Foundation License, you can call it a PodCamp.

1. All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rockstar.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to limitations of physical space, of course)
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet - if you're not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. It's not like you have to get your money's worth!
5. The event must be new-media focused - blogging, podcasting, video on the net.
6. The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.

Re: Quick PodCamp Starter Kit

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:53:41 -0000

There's also one other aspect that Chris Brogan missed in his post, one of the "secret sauces" of PodCamp:

Strive to get at least 50% of the attendees to be people who are NOT currently involved in new media or social media.

New people are the lifeblood of PodCamp and what keeps it from becoming a clique or a club of people talking about talking. New people bring new ideas, new problems to solve, new solutions to create, and new inside jokes.

Keep it local. The community you build at a PodCamp endures.

How do you do that? Marketing. That's one other area that's not on the list. Start a PodCamp at LEAST 90 days out so that you have time for marketing, press releases, direct mail, blogs, etc. to all reach the people in your local geographic area.

Re: Quick PodCamp Starter Kit

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:55:12 -0000

More on this:

http://www.christopherspenn.com/2008/08/27/why-...

Re: New Marketing Summit Secret

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:14:15 -0000

And hey, I'll be there too. 2 Chris' for the price of half of one!

Re: Blogging is Not a Numbers Game- Or Is It

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 07:42:39 -0000

Numbers matter in aggregate. They measure trends. Look at 7 and 30 day moving averages and you'll know whether your work is successful or not.

Re: Dear Bank of America

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:20:24 -0000

I bank with a credit union for these exact reasons - plus a whole slew of features and benefits that are free, free, free, like Internet home banking, bill pay online, etc. When I call my credit union during business hours, I get a human being after just one menu selection, and when I walk into my credit union's branch, the teller knows me by name.

Re: How to Start Speaking at Events

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:27:57 -0000

I did have to call bullshit on a speaking gig in Boston recently, on the paid thing. They said, oh, we're running on a tight budget, we can't afford to pay, but we can comp an admission ticket - and the tickets for the gig are $2,199. I'm sorry, but if you're charging over $1K for tickets, you have more than enough room for speaking fees. We did all of PodCamp Boston at a kick ass, first class venue, WITH some food and a party, for $35,000 TOTAL, for 450 people, and managed just $50 per person.

Re: Search is Part of Social

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:18:36 -0000

I have a video from MarketingProfs - the session right before yours, actually - talking about prerequisites of social media. Search comes BEFORE social.

Watch the video on Marketing Over Coffee!

Re: We're Not Always Superheroes

Christopher S. Penn — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:41:54 -0000

On this I'll say you're wrong, sir. It is exactly during those times, those trials when everything IS going wrong that you find out who has the superhero powers - the greatest one of which is to keep going in the face of adversity. The worst of times can and should bring out the best in us.

What makes superheroes great is that they have powers that would corrupt a normal person. They manage, even with incredible power and temptation, to stay true to what they believe in. Superman could rule the world easily but chooses not to.

It's easy to look like a hero when life is good, the economy is sound, the world is sprinting. It's when all the above is opposite that you can truly shine.

We are always superheroes. We are always great. Whether we choose to live up to our potential is up to us.

Re: The Rise of Microfame

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:03:09 -0000

Microfamous is a contradiction in terms. You are famous, or you are not. It's really a binary thing to me.

Famous in the truest sense means you have serious logistical issues. You need executive protection services, fraud and identity theft protection, and a whole host of things that come from a lot of people liking you, and a decent number of people angry and bitter enough to resent you or actively wish you harm.

If you don't need executive protection services, if you can show your face in public without getting mobbed, then you're not famous.

And for most people, that's probably a good thing, myself included.

Re: Social Media as a Softening Agent

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:54:33 -0000

You should be able to A/B test fairly easily, then. Here's Brand A without social media, here's Brand A with social media. Here's the conversion rate, the funnel, and at the end of the day, social media delivered X% increase in sales.

Re: Review - PlaneQuiet Headphones

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:29:25 -0000

I have the Bose headsets - they do exactly the same thing. The best noise suppression you'll get is from the foam in ear buds from Etymotic or Sennheiser - these do block almost all ambient sound, making them perfect for airplanes and exceptionally dangerous for being mindful of your environment.

Re: The Small Talk of All Brands

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 07:35:44 -0000

Here is how you determine social media's ROI:

"How did you hear about us?" or "What made you purchase today?"

If the answer is never any of the social media channels, then you're wasting your time.

Re: The Quest to Inspire Action

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:11:43 -0000

Inspire action by taking action yourself. Less noise, more signal - as the Warcraft crowd says, less QQ, more pewpew. Do. Act. Create. At worst you'll get a learning experience. At best, you'll create the Next Big Thing.

Re: The Quest to Inspire Action

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:12:28 -0000

Also, the other reason we created PodCamp was because we didn't want to have to travel to the West Coast for every single podcasting event back then :)

Re: Social media overload

Christopher S. Penn — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:54:13 -0000

Robert,

Here's my Yahoo Pipes config to make "custom twitter groups" in case there's something you want to pay more attention to.

http://www.christopherspenn.com/2007/03/05/how-...

Re: Taking the week off

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:05:52 -0000

It's my hope that any legal professionals who are at the top of their game reach out to Kathy and offer their pro bono assistance to her. If you're a legal professional who excels at seeking and winning damages in civil suits, please offer your assistance to Kathy and help her litigate against any involved parties. While nothing can undo the harm of the words said and threats made, it will hopefully deter future actions like this if others realize the enormous legal bill that their irresponsible words can create.

Re: 9/11

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:29:24 -0000

We remember the bad stuff as a survival instinct. It's hardwired into our bodies. We may not know the names of all those other berries, but those bright red ones by the creek made Bob's head explode - don't eat those. We remember the bad stuff to help us not have it happen again...

... assuming we're paying attention.

Re: Marketing Over Coffee crosses 1,000 daily listeners

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:14:26 -0000

Erik - absolutely right.

That said, the trend is in the right direction - up.

Re: Podcast Ad Stripper

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:14:12 -0000

Re: Fly Loonie Fly

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:01:17 -0000

Re: Why I Can’t Afford Free (Running the Numbers)

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 08:25:43 -0000

This is precisely why Hank and Carlos' PodCruise Miami is such a brilliant idea. As long as you can swing airfare and passage, everything else is pretty much included. Here's the numbers for PodCruise Miami:

Airfare: depends on where you live
Cruise: up to $316 per person
Food: included
Hotel: included
Non-Alcoholic Beverages: included
Room Service: included
Chance to watch drunk podcasters fall off a ship: priceless

We'll miss you at PodCamp NYC, but here's a suggestion:

PodCamp Northwest

Lead organizer: Paul Colligan

Re: You might be in the fishbowl if…

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:17:31 -0000

... if you keep forgetting vowels in regular words.

... if you look for an API for everything, including your stove and refrigerator.

... if you see the word Camp in any event name and think it's an unconference, even Boy Scout Camp.

Re: The Shadow Knows: Watching Superbad with My Son

Christopher S. Penn — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:53:41 -0000

True happiness?

When you and your shadow are one.

Not there yet. Little steps every day.

Re: I Suspect Everyone Else Is Smarter, Better-Looking, Taller, Cooler, Cuter, Has Newer and Shinier Objects than I Do (and Is More Modest)

Christopher S. Penn — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:31:01 -0000

When you die, at least according to Buddhist lore, the outside world goes away, and the inside voice is the last to depart.

Thus, the last words you're likely to hear are your own. Be happy with yourself, because when you reach that point, no one else matters.

Re: Froggy Fugue

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:27:17 -0000

"You have been provided with death so that you may realize the startling significance of why you are here as a human being and not as a cooking pot."

- Stephen K. Hayes

Re: baratunde.com - Blog - Facebook Follies (or the Dangers of Investing in Someone Else's Platform)

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:25:00 -0000

Having burned through several accounts on all the major social networks, you're dead on. The social networks are lead generators only, and their sole purpose is to drive traffic to YOUR properties, the ones you own, the ones you have nearly sole control over.

The reality is that the social networks are sales platforms for ads, and for the controlling companies to make money off your content. Our goal as smaller, independent content creators is to siphon off their user base as quickly as possible.

Remember this above all else: we live or die by our database - and if our database is owned by someone else, we're dead and just waiting to be buried.

Re: Social Media and Video As Conversation Agent – Speaking at DMAW Confab

Christopher S. Penn — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:29:02 -0000

If you watch nothing else on personal branding, watch Mitch Joel at PodCamp Toronto:

http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/pcto2007day1/rcc361s0...

Re: Podcast Ad Stripper

Christopher S. Penn — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:14:12 -0000

Re: Fly Loonie Fly

Christopher S. Penn — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:01:17 -0000