Managing the Gray - Marketing for the New Media Professional

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. A LOT of thinking.

In conversations with people and in watching what is going on I’m starting to wonder about the roles of podcasting networks, the roles of advertisers and if content producers are selling themselves short across the board. I’m not going to say I’ve got the answers because I don’t, but I had to record this show to get some of the ideas out of my head to start the conversation.

Earlier this week there was a Boston Tweetup and Clarence Smith Jr. really got me marinating on some pretty deep topics. Then going to the StartCooking.com hosted movie screening for No Reservations. Those two things really hit home and more in common in my mind then most people would have thought.

Then when I got a call in from Jay Moonah about the recent Jaffe iPhone news it all came together and I had to record this episode.

Are we all selling ourselves short? Are new groups such as the Association for Downloadable Media going to help solve the problems? What do you think? I want to hear from you! Leave a comment here or call me at 206-309-4729 and leave your thoughts.

Really looking forward to the conversation that follows.

Posted in New Media, Podcast | Comments(10)

Managing the Gray #38 Transcript
“Idle Well and Book Reviews”
(original post & podcast)

C.C. Chapman: Sure, I’ll try to help you. Hey, it’s C.C. Chapman here at Managing the Gray, episode #38. Getting it right out of the way, if you ever want to call in questions, comments, concerns, any of that stuff, the number is 206-309-4729. I’ll say it again later. I’ll put it in the show notes, but I just want to get that out of the way because everyone’s always saying, “C.C., you forget to say the number.” I apologize.

So, how are you guys doing? I’m really jazzed this morning. Show notes work good for Managing the Gray, but sometimes it’s just better just to have topics. I’ve got all these papers, just a couple of topics today I want to talk about. I’ve got a great call in from Whitney Hoffman, lots of things going on. So, what was really exciting, what I want to talk about today is something I’m watching happen quite a bit. There are new tools coming out everyday. I swear everyday or at least once a week, I’m getting a new invite to some new tool. Last week seem to be a really crazy week. I mean it was insanity. It seems like there was a bunch — I mean MrWong, 8apps, Pownce, Demonoid, Skitch, Stitch? No, Skitch. I’m trying to think what else. It was a crazy week and things are blowing up and people are getting very, very busy trying to stay on top of all these new tools. Now, it’s exciting to try these new tools, but I think what’s key is you’ve got to figure out what works for you and what’s important to you. I mean what are you going to do with these? It ties into the whole social media burnout thing I was talking about and it’s funny because I’ve started changing my opinion a little bit.

One of the things I always talk about is the fact that I think you need to be on every one of these, to at least have a presence so people can find you. Now, I think that’s still true with the social networks, things like the Facebook and the MySpace and whatnot where it’s setting up an account, but now things like Twitter and Pownce and all the copycats that are going to come for those, I’m not so sure that you need to be on all of those. Granted, try them out, figure out what works for you, especially if you’re a company. You need to at least check them out so you understand what you would recommend to a client. “Hey, this is why I think this one is the right one for you.”

I have a Pownce account. I don’t use it very often. I use it every so often. I go out there to look at it, but it’s not what’s being used right now. Twitter seems to be the microblogging tool of choice for me personally and the people that I want to follow and pay attention to. Pownce is out there. It’s still being used and I go in there every so often, but I find I go in there once a day, maybe twice a week. Twitter, I’m in there all the time. I tried them both and I figured out which one I like. Same thing goes with all these other sites. I trashed Facebook left and right, trashed it, just totally trashed it, but what’s interesting is after the initially wave of everybody just having to do stuff, now I’m seeing it started to take shape. I see people leaving groups or people who are joining these massive groups and now everyday I see people who have left groups or they have created groups, very fine tuning what they’re using Facebook for and I think that’s very interesting because I’m watching it and I’m seeing it become a little bit useful. I like the homepage that shows you what your friends are doing. It’s very interesting to see photos and what people are doing. Still, it tells me a little more information I need on things. I’m seeing it for event promotion working very well. We’re doing a Missing Pages movie premiere on Crayonville on Thursday. I know Mark Forman posted something there. So, it takes this Second Life event and makes it way outside of Second Life. It’s pitched as a movie premier. The Second Life location is a secondary aspect of it, which I thought was great, so people who may not even have ever seen Second Life are excited because it’s a movie premier and they get to come to it. The fact that it’s in Second Life is just — it will be a barrier for some, but it will just be a quick barrier for most hopefully and they’ll come in and they’ll take part in it. So, Facebook is working with that.

This 8apps thing, the thing that excites me about 8apps — it’s the number 8, 8apps.com. What excites me about that is I like the collaboration part of it. It’s not really there yet. Somebody called it it’s like part Facebook, part Basecamp, but doesn’t have the project management pieces in it that Basecamp does. What I do like about it is the instant collaboration idea in it. It’s got kind of a neat brainstorming tool like virtual sticky notes page I thought was pretty cool, but guys, it’s brand new. I’m already seeing people trash it, but I’m more of those let’s-wait-and-see, let’s-let-it-evolve-a-little-bit. I don’t even know if it’s officially beta or alpha, whatever it is, but that excites me, a social network where people are working together. 8apps is one of those things where I haven’t given in yet to just let anybody be my friend. I’m only kind of acting with people that I actually want to work on projects with. It’s only got — what is it? Three apps in there now and the fourth one is coming. I’m curious what the other four apps are going to be. It’s an interesting concept and I’m going to keep watch of that space because I think it’s going to be interesting and I’m excited by it.

Now, one of the things I wanted to talk about is I’ve got some giveaways for you today. Thoughtout.biz is a very cool company. They’re mainly known for the PED stands, the PED2, the FlexPEd. What these are, they’re iPod stands, but they’re not just for iPods. What’s cool about them is they are these heavy metal stands. I have one for my iPod, but it expands. I’ve seen people put their Treos in it. Does an iPhone fit in it? I bet you it does. I haven’t tried it because I don’t have an iPhone. Anybody want to give me one? No, I don’t want an iPhone because I don’t want to pay — what I hate about — I won’t rant on the iPhone right now. Thoughtout.biz does a lot of very cool things and one of the neat things they make is a MagStay Pro and when I got the MacBook Pro, Mike sent me over some of them. He said, “Dude, you’re gonna want one of these and I’ll give you a few for your Managing the Gray listeners.” I’ve heard people slam these. What it is, you know how you’ve got the magnetic thing for your MacBook Pro? If you have one of the new Macs, it’s a magnetic power cable. It just pops out. It’s a magnet. So, that way, if someone trips over the cable, it doesn’t pull the whole laptop off the desk, but what I found and it’s funny what this is. It’s just a little plastic contraption that works with your MacBook Pro and what it does is it keeps it in there and in the tagline is “Sometimes, a magnet is not enough,” and I asked myself, “Doesn’t that kind of go against the reason of why the magnet’s there?” He’s like, “Yeah,” but they’ve seen these to be very popular for people who have to leave their laptop on like when it’s rendering. If it’s rendering video or something, the last thing you wanted to do is get unplugged if you leave it overnight or leave it for a few hours. I’ve had that happen where it’s come unplugged and I didn’t know it and the battery started draining on me, so I can understand what these are and I’ve got a few of them, so if you want them.. You can go to Thoughtout.biz and check it out and see what they’re all about, but drop me an email at managingthegray@gmail.com and I’ll give away a few of these. I think I’ve got three or four of them I can give away for you and I’m more than happy to give those away because I love Thoughtout.biz. They do a lot for the community I know for the longest time. They may still be running this. When you bought a PED2 iPod stand, you get to pick a free podsafe CD that they actually bought from the artist. I think that’s great. They’re doing great stuff for the community. I’m more than happy to give these away.

So, hey, one of my favorite women in the world called in and left me an audio comment, so let’s get right over to Whitney Hoffman.

Whitney Hoffman: Hey, C.C. It’s Whitney Hoffman from the LD Podcast. I just read your recent blog post on what it’s like to start working remotely and how it can be difficult sometimes. One of the things that is really interesting, Alex Hillman from We Know HTML around here in Philadelphia has this thing called Independence Hall and he has a bunch of different people even working on different projects sit together at a coffee shop or some other place that they can kind of do this co-working thing where everybody who is doing independent projects can kind of work in one atmosphere and keep themselves on track because sometimes the distractions of home can really lead to a lot of procrastination or just it’s hard to put yourself in that same sort of see-I-am-at-work mode sometimes. So, sometimes going to a different place and sitting down and doing concentrated work for a fixed period of time really works, but maybe some of that kind of co-working environment stuff might be good, get together and try doing things remotely now that you have that new fancy laptop and see how it goes. If you want to learn more, you could look up Alex’s Cream Cheese Sessions after the Jelly Sessions, which I think are very similar in New York City where people get together and do this co-working thing together. It might help everybody out, so just an idea. Take care and I’ll talk to you soon.

C.C. Chapman: So, I think it’s a really neat idea. I’ll find the link and put it in the show notes over at managingthegray.com, but I understand what she’s talking about. Working at home is difficult. You’re by yourself. You don’t have that human interaction. I mean I’m using video tools to talk to my coworkers everyday, but it’s not the same and I think it would be kind of cool to get — I like the concept of all these people who happen to be working on independent projects just happen to get together so they’re in a work environment and they can socialize a little bit. I would love to do one of these out in the MetroWest area. I think it would be very cool, get together in a coffee shop. It would be great to meet some other people. In a cross spectrum, get out of just the podcasting and blogging community, just people working on independent projects, whatever they may be. If anybody’s interested, email me. I’d love to chat about it because I think it would be pretty cool and I would love to get out of the house. God, would I love to get out of the house because it does get to you. One of the neat things is I’m moving in a month and I cannot wait because my office right now is — it is an office, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not cut off from the rest of the house, so it’s got foot traffic and it’s my wife’s office too, so when we move, I actually have my own office with doors on it that shut so I can actually sort of separate that office-home time. Shut the door and just cut off the rest of the world and I’m looking forward to that because I think it will help separate things.

Now, one of the things I want to do here, I like doing book reviews so I do it. I’ve been reading a lot lately. I’ve been trying to unwind and one of the things I think is very important for people is to learn how to unplug and unwind or like I call it, idle well. My dad and I last summer when we went camping, we said, “We idle very well.” What I mean is we would just be lying around the campfire or lying around on the hillside for hours on end, not even reading. We’d read a little bit, we’d write in our journal, but then we’d just lay and your mind just wanders and the creative juices, which are just the nothingness juices, are great and I think one of the things that new media is doing right now is it’s making it so people don’t do that. They’re afraid to do it. “I can’t get offline. I’m gonna miss something.” Yeah. Yeah, you are going to miss something, but guess what? It’s the web. It will still be there. This past weekend, I unplugged for the whole weekend. I unplugged all technology on Friday morning and I didn’t turn it back on until Monday morning and you know what? It was okay. It was all right. There was no emergencies, no fires, nothing blew up. It was okay and you need to do that and I cannot stress how much that reinvigorates you and get you excited. Trust me. As I always talk about, it’s rebalancing. I have to get back out in nature quite often to rebalance myself because if I don’t get out there, I go insane. Trust me. I came back Monday morning yesterday. I was all excited and I said, “You know what? No one’s gonna suck this energy out of me. I refuse to let it happen,” and I didn’t let it happen. That kind of translates — book review, C.C., idling, where did you go with that?

It transitions into the book that I think a lot of people are reading right now called The 4 Hour Workweek. It’s funny when a book gets hot and gets trendy and where it teaches you life lessons and teaches you different strategies. It’s funny. You can start telling who — like there’s a philosophy in there about checking your email twice a day and setting an out of office message, an automated response, that says, “Hey, I only check my email at noon and 4:00,” blah, blah, blah. I’ve seen this from two of my friends already. I got the response, I’m like, “They reading the book.” I know they’re reading the book because it teaches you that philosophy. What I think is interesting about The 4 Hour Workweek, and this is my personal opinion on it, I think it’s a great book, but what I will tell you is like just like every other book out there — it’s the same advice I give new parents. Anytime a buddy of mine is going to be a parent for the first time and they’re freaking out about what book should they read, da-da-da, I give the same advice and I will do the same in new media, read everything you can, read it all, consume it all because everyday’s got different tactics, then figure out what works for you. Take little bits from getting things done. Take little bits from The 4 Hour Workweek, take the bits that work for you and leverage them fully, use them all the way for you. Don’t think you have to take a whole philosophy and use it totally.

That’s one of the reasons that I haven’t found the right religion for me because I take bits and pieces from all sorts of different religions and mush them together and that’s sort of my spirituality. I haven’t found one religion that contains everything for me. Everybody’s got something good in their religion and I like that and I pull it together and I make it mine. Same thing with The 4 Hour Workweek, I love the concept of it. I think he’s totally right. He talks about the new rich. I don’t necessarily know that term, but the fact that you can work from anywhere, you can get it done. You don’t have to always be connected. Things will survive with you no matter who you are. If you surround yourself with great people to do the great work, things will get done. You do not have to be there watching and hovering over every little thing. He hasn’t really said this, but it’s something I believe. You hire the very best people and then you let them run with stuff. It’s a painful lesson. It hurts to let go and delegate, but if you’ve hired the best possible team or in The 4 Hour Workweek he talked about outsourcing it, as long as you’ve got people who are capable of doing the task, step the hell back and let it happen. Let it happen. Do your thing. Let these other people do the things and then it will all work out. Trust me. I like a lot of things of it. I started reading his blog. I like his philosophy. He’s a little cocky, but that’s all right. He can be cocky. He’s earned it I guess. But The 4 Hour Workweek I definitely suggest reading. It’s a very interesting book. It’s worth consuming. It’s worth going through. Warning, it could be dangerous to some people out there. It’s one of those books I honestly think you could sit down and read and go, “Oh. Uh, honey? I need to make some changes.” Warning. I’m warning you now. If me telling you to read this book causes you to get divorced or scare your spouse, not my fault, not my fault! All right? It’s definitely worth checking out. I will link to it in the show notes, of course. You can buy it anywhere. It’s all over the place. It’s a very interesting book, a good read, and definitely a different way of life.

The other book I read recently is called “Rule the Web” by Mark — I’m not even going to try his last name, not going to do it. Fr — no, I’m not. I’ll put it in the show notes. He’s one of the founders of Boing Boing. I got sent a copy of this book because I thought it’s something pretty cool. It’s called “Rule the Web: How to do anything and everything on the internet - better, faster, easier.” It’s a really good book. It’s more basic than I was imagining to be honest with you because it’s really bare — I’m going to give this to either my dad or my mother-in-law because it explains — it’s very well organized, tips and tricks. It’s like “how do I find an address on the web?” A lot of people don’t know that. How do you find the address of someone you’re really looking for? Lots of tips like that, tips on maintaining your computer, tips on web pages, email, all the basic stuff or questions that — the way I would answer is — it’s all of the questions that a lot of people are afraid to ask because they know they’re going to be giggled at for asking it. There are some new +1 level stuff. What I like is there’s one section where he went out and asked a bunch of other people for their one best — Ask Cory Doctorow His One Best Tip, and I thought that was very cool. It’s a neat book. It’s paperback. It’s trade paperback I guess what you call it. I really enjoyed the book. I read it really fast. I’m more skimmed it more than anything because I knew a lot of the answers already, but I wanted to see what he had to say about things. Definitely one of those things for if you’re trying to get somebody involved in the web, maybe you need to buy it for your executive, I don’t know. I shouldn’t say that. I’m generalizing. That’s kind of mean. For someone who thinks they know the web and they’re getting into the web and they’re getting excited by it, this could be a great book to get them to the next step because I guarantee you — warning though, they’re going to read the book and go, “Dude, did you know?” “Yeah, I knew that.” “Oh, wow!” You’re going to get a lot of those moments and that’s okay. Just embrace it. Roll with it. It’s definitely a book to get people excited about the web. I think it’s another one of those books that could change people. They’ve read it and just get all giddy and excited and try to do more things.

So, those are the things I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to get in touch with you. I hadn’t talked to you a little while. I’ve been doing some interviews lately. I’ve got a great one coming. I’ve got some more interviews coming up. I’m doing more of them. I tell you. Thank you again to all Managing the Gray listeners and readers who helped me figure out getting a MacBook Pro. The Mac has definitely been a great investment. I haven’t gone totally Mac yet. I mean I’m recording this right now in CastBlaster on my PC. PC is still my main computer, but the laptop is rocking, really getting used to it, really excited. Audio Hijack Pro, that alone, if you’re into any sort of audio production makes the Mac almost worth it because it makes the Internet — I don’t know if it’s worth spending a couple of grand for this $30 program, but it’s very cool. A program that simple and that cheap does such an effective job of recording audio. It’s very exciting to me on that.

Hey, if you haven’t seen yet, one of the things I’m going to start doing is — I’ve been doing One Guy’s Thoughts, which is my video podcast. It’s sort of my personal podcast that kind of catches all things, but one of the things I’m going to start doing on that is making sure I record — now that I’ve got my workflow going and I’ve got the camera and I got everything going the way I want to, I’m going to start doing interviews with people at these conferences I’ve got upcoming. I’ve got the Second Life Community Conference coming up and a PodCamp Philly is coming up, PodCamp Boston, PodCruise Miami, lots of things coming up, Virtual Worlds 2007 Fall, lots of things coming up and I want to start videotaping the interviews and doing more than just me speaking head stuff. So, I’m going to be looking for that so if I stick a video camera in your face next time we meet, warning. Hey, if anybody knows where I can find a Zoom H2. I want to put this out to the listeners. I’m seeing all these reviews about it. My Edirol is pissing me off and so I’m thinking about getting one of these Zoom H2 recorders. I don’t know if they’re necessarily for sale yet because I can’t seem to find them anywhere, but hey, if anyone’s got a tip on where I can find them, let me know because I want to buy one. They seem very cool and I want to use one. I want to definitely try them. I like the fact that they’re made to record 360 degrees, so I want to try it with a table discussion or some other things.

So, that’s going to wrap up Managing the Gray. Again, you can email me at managingthegray@gmail.com or you can call in the comment line, 206-309-4729. Of course, managingthegray.com, it’s got more than just a podcast going on. I’m writing content up there, linking the stuff, transcripts go up there. Hey, thank you guys for listening. Thank you for telling your friends. I’ve been getting some really nice emails from new folks who are just discovering Managing the Gray and discovering me and I’m having a great time meeting you and getting to know you. Please, you can find me in all the networks. My About page links to almost all of them and cc-chapman.com is my regular blog if you want to swing on over there. You never know what you’re going to get there. So, take care. Have a great day and get out there and play on the new media playground. All right? I will talk to you very, very soon.

- Originally posted on ManagingTheGray.com in case you see this scrapped onto another site -

Posted in Transcript, New Media | Comments(0)

Transcript for Managing the Gray #34 “Call-In Mania”
Originally posted on May 23, 2007

C.C. Chapman: Good morning everybody. Welcome to Managing the Gray #34. Before we jump in to the show today, I realized I have not thanked them in a while and it is about time I do. I try to do it every few shows. I got to give thanks to the people who helped me do the opening credits of Managing the Gray. You hear it all the time, it makes you recognize the show, and you probably do not know who they are. The music is by Madsumo. You can check him out at madsumo.com. He is a very good friend of mine. The voiceover is Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.TV. If you are into gadgets, if you are into technology at all, I highly suggest subscribing to Geek Brief, a great show. Cali is a great friend, a great woman, great stuff. Madsumo is awesome too. I love you, buddy.

Managing the Gray #34 is going to be a little different today. I just twittered that I am going to feel like Mitch Joel with hair. Six Pixels of Separation is a great podcast, which I am sure you are listening to. If you are listening to this show and you are not listening to Six Pixels, something is wrong. So, go listen to that. Mitch is a good boy of mine, good friend. He does lots and lots of call-ins and lots of call-ins is not what I usually do around here. I got a backlog of them and I apologize for not playing them sooner. Also, Mr. Rutter, the show notes will have the phone number in it. Just so you have it now, it is 206-309-4729. That is easier, it is 206-309-GRAY. Give us a call. Send in your questions, comments, whatever you want.

We have got tons of them today and I will get to them in just a minute, but one thing I just want to get out of the way right now is a quick thing. It has been going on the past couple of days and it has been really bugging the bejesus out of me. That is the whole thing about blogola. I hate the term. I hate it with a passion. It stems from the whole payola concept, record companies paying DJs to play their songs, which really bugs me. Someone threw the term blogola in relation to the Nikon campaign or any of these other campaigns where [unintelligible] influencer outreach. Nikon gave out some of their cameras or D80s I think they are to bloggers out there and said, “Hey, here’s a camera. Go write about it. Go take pictures and have fun.” They did not tell them they could not say anything negative. They did not tell them they had to blow smoke and say all positive things. They said, “Here, go take pictures for six months and at the end of it, if you like it you can buy the camera or you can send it back. It’s up to you. Here, play with it for six months.” They did not tell them they had to blog about it, but let us face it.

You give a blogger a toy or a gadget, you can them out to a nice dinner, you show them a good time at a conference, anything the blogger does in her life, anything, whether they stub their toe walking on the street, they are going to blog about it and talk about it. So, if they have a new camera to play with for six months, they are going to probably talk about it. There is nothing wrong with that. In my mind, as long as the blogger or the podcaster says, “Hey, Nikon gave me this camera.” End of story. Done. Then I know that, yes, they have got it, and, yes, maybe they are a little more motivated to be positive about it, but I do not care. It is different and I am a firm believer there is a difference between journalists and bloggers. I am sorry. There is. Are some blogs turning into journals, more towards like that? Yeah, probably, but at the same time not. It is different. It will always be different. For companies out there who might be thinking about doing a blogger influencer outreach, email me, cc.chapman@gmail.com. I will be happy to talk to you about ways I think that you could do it right or do it wrong. I would be more than happy.

I had lunch with some executives several months back and the hot topic was, “C.C., how would you like to be approached? Would you be comfortable with this?” I told them it is really simple. Find out if I am the right person for whatever it is you want. Read my blog. Listen to my podcast. Do at least a little bit of research. Do not just do a Technorati search because that is ridiculous. Get to know me at least a little bit and then contact me. Do not send me a form letter. I know there is going to be form letter pieces to it. That is fine, but say, “Hey, C.C. What’s up?” da-da-da-da. Show that you have actually read or listened to me and then say, “Hey, here’s what we want to do.” I am going to know. It is okay. Do not try to be cute about it. Do not try to be coy. Just be straight up, “Hey, we want to send you X. Would you be interested?” da-da-da-da. It is not wrong to say, “Hey, we would love if you happen to talk about it.” Do not say you have to. Do not say you have to say positive things. Do not do any of that. Just be honest and say, “Hey, we want to give you something,” or whatever it is. The same thing with Vista laptops. I thought those were fine too. They sent them out and said, “Here, talk about them.” They did not have to say that. I am sorry. If I get a gadget in the mail tomorrow, I do not care what it is. I would probably be talking about it. It is just the nature of the beast.

Do I wish more people were objective and showed both sides of it? Sure, I do, but that is the way it rolls. Listen, influencer outreach is a good thing. It is a positive thing. It is something I think more companies need to do and be creative in doing it because just giving it away and letting people play with it only goes so far. Teach them how to use it. What if Nikon went out — they did do it actually, Nikon with their D-something other product, this picture town. They took a whole town in South Carolina and gave them all cameras and go shoot life. That I thought was even more powerful because it was saying, “Look, anybody can use our cameras. Don’t get scared by the fact that it is like a big professional camera. Anybody could use it.” So, there. I just had to get that out of the system this morning because it was funny. It was on my mind. There was a lot of Twitter traffic about it yesterday. I saw Eric Rice’s post this morning, an amazing post that I agree with totally. I will link to it in the show notes over at managingthegray.com. I just had to get that out of the way, get it out of the system. It is early morning here. I have not had enough coffee yet.

Influencer outreach is a good thing. Companies, do not be scared of it. Bloggers, podcasters, anybody in the new media space, if you are on the receiving end of one of these outreaches, do the right thing. Disclose it. Say that you are doing it. Say that you are involved with it. When in doubt, tell. What I mean is, if you are going, “Do I have to disclose this?” Yes. If you asked that question in your head, the answer is yes. Just say, “Hey,” da-da-da-da, “I’m doing some work with…” or “Hey, I got this sent to me.” It all takes just two seconds. Just do it.

Okay, call-ins, because I have got a ton of them. Here is the first one from a good buddy, Ed.

Ed Roberts: Hey, C.C. This is Ed Roberts from Looking out the Window and Kansas City Weather. Just [unintelligible] to listen to your PodCamp New York presentation [unintelligible]. I already have a ton of respect for you, brother. That presentation that you put out there, if there was any type of, I guess I can say — it is kind of hard to get it out from the doors, but if there was one source that I would direct people to be better interested in what new media is, I think that presentation just nailed it completely. I am flabbergasted. It was spectacular. Thank you so much for that. I am actually listening to it on my way out, storm chasing here in Central Kansas. Great listen and I just want to say thank you so much. You hit it. You always have. I tell you, there really is no other person that I can think of in the world of podcasting that really can, not only has the passion and understands new media, but really knows how to speak from the heart and explain that. I just want to say thank you for just you being you and you leading the charge and a lot of this stuff about new media. Take care, my friend, and I will catch you later.

C.C. Chapman: I need that little ego stroke after my little mini rant there at the beginning. I just realized I ranted. I do not usually rant on Managing the Gray, but I am passionate about it and that is what it boils down to. Ed, hey, thank you for the comment. If you guys did not catch that, in the middle he said he was out storm chasing. He was not exaggerating. Ed Roberts chases storms. He actually had some amazing photos from the tornados that hit recently. It is KC Weather Podcast and Looking out the Window. Looking out the Window is a music podcast. Great, great stuff, Ed. Thank you, thank you for the call. It felt good. You can call in too, 206-309-4727. Lots of call-ins today. So, let us keep it going. This one made me very, very happy. Someone is smitten in their homework.

Jerry Harrington: Hey, C.C. This is Jerry from jerryharrington.net or jerryharrington.net@gmail.com. I was just calling in response to your homework assignment from PodCamp NYC. While I was not at PodCamp NYC as I am from Chicago, and so I am looking forward to PodCamp Chicago Land, I did here your homework assignment via Managing the Gray, via the video of your presentation posted online. I very much appreciated getting to watch that and I wanted to let you know that in response to your homework assignment, I left an audio comment to Mitch Joel’s Twist Image Six Pixels of Separation Podcast just a little while ago. Now, here I am, leaving my second audio comment on a podcast. Hmm…maybe this is a dangerous slippery slope. Anyway, thanks C.C. for the encouragement and for all of your insight. I really appreciate it. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

C.C. Chapman: See? That is what it is about. Jerry, you get an A. Everybody gets an A when they do homework in my world. I have no other grades, but an A. Listen. If you are new to Managing the Gray and you did not hear my PodCamp presentation, what I said at the end of it was, the homework was to go try something new in new media. I said it could be something crazy, signing up for a Second Life account or it could be building a website or recording a YouTube video. What Jerry did was he called in to a podcast. It is just like leaving a voicemail. It is so easy. You just call up and that is how you become part of the conversation. Jerry, I am very proud of you that you took that step because I know that it is a weird thing. People are like, “Well, I got nothing to say.” Sure, you do. If you can talk, you have something to say. Will people listen? That is a whole other game, but everybody has a voice and that is what is fun.

Jerry, I have psyched. I am more psyched that you called another podcast and then called my podcast to tell me about it. That makes me happy. I did not care for the first person who did homework based on listening to the presentation after the fact. I have had one or two people do the homework from PodCamp who were there, which is great. Actually, it is someone that afternoon. See, there is the power, the power of this new media playground that I keep talking about, the fact that you can just try something out. It is a little scary at first. Remember the first time you get on that slide or that tire swing thing on the chains? It scares you. It is kind of freaky, but you get out there. You try it and suddenly you realize, “Wait a minute. That wasn’t so bad.” What is really magical is when you do something and you go, “Oh, that was fun. I wanna do that again.” That, boys and girls, is where the fun really gets going.

Chris: Hey, C.C. This is Chris in Indiana, a new listener. I just listened to a couple of your podcasts. I really truly enjoyed them. We run a small consulting business based out of Indiana. Most of our clients [unintelligible] are more corporate public relation types. We would really love to hear you kind of expand a little bit more about — I mean you could go on really for hours about all things that specifically political campaigns do wrong in the digital world, but if you think there is somebody who is doing it right or at least kind of sort of got it, would love to hear your insight on that, Republican, Democrat, Green Party, Libertarian, whatever. It does not matter. I would just be interested in hearing your thoughts on who is kind of doing it right and some of the opportunities that are out there for people that are running for office that they really should be connecting other folks. Anyway, I would love to hear about it. Thanks.

C.C. Chapman: See, those are the types of listeners that I love, the ones that, they are not podcasters, they are not Twitterers or Second Lifers. They are just doing the work and they are interested in this topic. So, thank you for calling in. Politicians who are doing it right, I could take that a lot of ways, but no. I think it is too early, to be honest. I think it is still too early. What we are seeing this year in particular, especially on the Democratic side, I guess Republican too but they got a little late start, is that they are testing the waters. They are trying things. I know I have seen Obama and I have seen Edwards on Twitter. Obama did something in Second Life that was horrendous, not horrendous, just it was like somebody said, “Oh, let’s do this,” and did not really investigate the medium before doing it. Everyone is doing YouTube videos, which I applaud them on. I think it is great. I know Hilary there for a while. You could not embed her videos, which was just stupid, put the video out there, but do not let people share it and show it to more people for you. Hello? I think it was a little early and I do not think anybody is doing it right. Everybody fails. Everybody politician failed because I posted it. I posted a — and this offer still stands. I want to get any political candidate. I do not care what party you are. I do not want to talk about politics. I want to talk about how they are leveraging new media. I did a blog post about this and I put everybody’s name in it I could think of and tagged it so that whoever is doing their web monitoring for them, which they should — every political candidate, if every political candidate does not have somebody on their staff who everyday does nothing but ego surf for that person, they are failing.

They should be knowing what is being posted on Technorati, Twitter, Podzinger. They should be using all those searches that we use to do our ego surfs to get that information and then following up on things. It just makes no sense. I want to interview some politicians. I talk about leveraging new media. I think we are going to see people do more of it. I really do. I have heard lots of discussions on the Second Life angle, ramblings of different politicians in different parties coming in, which I think is interesting. I have only heard one that I thought was really, really cool, but I have a feeling their campaign backed down out of it, unfortunately. I think you are going to see a lot more people. I would like to see people leveraging Twitter more or that concept of microblogging or more blogging, more Meetup functionality, those types of things. I think meshing them all together, I think — who is going to be the first politician who has a true portal, meaning you love this candidate, here is everything you need, everything, one click links to here are all of the spaces you can connect to us and share us. Here are the banners. Here are the graphics. Here are the stake in the ground science to put on your Second Life lot or your there.com or Kaneva or anything else lots. Here are some audio promos you can play in your podcast for your candidate. They do them on the radio, why not do them on podcast? Here are the banners. Here are the graphics. Here are the videos you can embed. Here are the commercials that you can embed. Give all that content out to the people and then let them do with it what they want. Yes, some people will take it and trash it, but they are going to do that anyways. There will always be trolls who are in the bad mood and politics bring out the best in everybody, right?

I do not think I have seen anybody doing it quite right yet, but that is where I think it needs to go. Just try all these things. The cost of investment — I talk about this a lot, the cost of investment is your time. It is not that huge to put it into a social network or something else. When I see what politicians are spending on, all these television commercials that after the first couple of times we all zone out and actually grow to hate. I am already hating a certain politician who is already running campaign ads here in Massachusetts. That drives me nuts. I already was not going to vote for him, but it does not matter. The point is I am already sick of these commercials and how much they are spending on those commercials. Take that budget. Take one day’s television budget. Whatever your national budget is for one day of television campaigns, take that and I guarantee you I could show you how to use new media to leverage it, whether it is me, whether it is Crayon, whatever. This is not a business pitch. What I am saying is take that money, it is not free, and leverage it. Get somebody on your staff. This new media playground is full of people who would love to — I remember back when I heard that Rob Walch from podCast411 and the iPhone Podcast now, I love it he is doing that, when I found out he was being the producer for Senator Edwards’ podcast way back in the day, I thought that was amazing. Why not reach out to this world, find out who is into politics and hire them. Let us go. I hope that sort of thing answered your question, but it is true. Nobody is standing out in my mind right now as really leveraging it. There is so much potential. I do think it is early. I think come post Labor Day, when we hit the fall, I think you are going to see things start up a lot more and certainly come January. Everything is going to go into full gear and we will see it everywhere and we will not be able to escape it.

Now, we have had guys call in all day. You can call in too, 206-309-4729. See, I am making it so people cannot miss it because I have been told I hide the number. I actually put it on my website. So, here is someone I love to death and her voice [unintelligible], Heidi Miller.

Heidi Miller: Hey, C.C. It’s Heidi Miller from the Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter Podcast. I was looking to your May 1st episode. You said something at the very end that just had me — I am in the car right now and I was going, “Yes, yes, yes.” It was a revelation that I just realized myself and it was something about, you know that feeling at the playground when you are on the swings and the person next to you, there is no reason that you think this person cannot be your best friend in the world just because they happen to be on the swing next to you. This is a combination of two things that I can relate recently and that is — first of all, I am really feeling the power of social media. Long story, but this weekend somebody who was originally a listener of a podcast of mine, she came to my house and fixed all the stuff around my house just because I have put up a posting on my personal blog saying, “Hey, I need to have my studio soundproofed and I need some doors fixed. I’ve got these couple small things. Who should I call to do this?”

It is a listener to the show who came in and we spent a whole afternoon hanging out, fixing things, so it was awesome. Another friend of mine was telling me that when she wants to kind of get her spirits lifted and she is feeling a little down on herself or life or work or whatever that she goes on the playground and swings on the swing. It is free and she swings as high as she can. I thought, “Well, I need to do that.” There are two things together made me realize that a lot of times, people who know me from the podcast or whatever, I tend to put them in a category of “that’s a business contact,” or “that’s a person I need to have X type of relationship with.” When you said why is it that not everyone you just happen to swing next to on the playground cannot be your best friend in the world. Well, [unintelligible] best friends in the world right now and we have met exactly twice in person. What you are saying that really made me realize I do need to just — everybody [unintelligible] is so cold. There is no reason to be standoffish. There is no reason to just not be 100% myself and be silly. I do not have to be well focused. I could just see myself and you know what? Why not just treat everyone you meet like they are next to you on the swings and they are going to be your best friend forever in your whole life. So, thank you for bringing that out, C.C. It totally made my day.

C.C. Chapman: Well, that totally made my day. I had not listened to the end of the call-in. I listened to the beginning of it and I am glad. That is why I do this podcast. People ask me all the time, plain and simple, I do this because it seems that people like what I say and I like to share what is in my head. It comes from the heart and the head. I agree with you fully. You do not know who you are going to meet that is going to turn into the most important contact in the world or who is going to put you in touch with somebody. I have bumped into people in airports, on the train, at conferences that at the beginning I am just like — it is one of those, “Hey, cool. Nice to meet you,” da-da-da-da, exchange business cards and nothing more than that, but then you get home and you start exchanging emails, you find out more about the person, you find out that you have got a connection that you had no idea about. That is what we are talking about here. It is what I am blogging about. It is what I am podcasting about. It is what I am trying to write my book about. All the call-ins today and everything, what really makes me happy is I am really glad that I did the title of the PodCamp New York presentation as New Media Playground because people are connecting with that. I was not sure if people were going to get the concept or I knew they would get it, but I do not know if they would really get it. It seems that people are getting it. I was not positive that was going to be the title of the book, but it sure as heck is I hope now going to be, but we will see what happens. I really like that the analogy seems to work for you. It boils it down because we were all kids once, right? So, we all get it. It is about connections. It is important. Be a connector. I got a call-in about that from someone who is connecting via LinkedIn and it worked for them.

Michael [Spielsinger]: Hey, C.C. It is Michael [Spielsinger]. I just finished listening to the spring cleaning episode. First of all, I wanted to say [unintelligible]. Second of all, I do not know if you remember we had a whole email exchange back and forth about my father and multiple sclerosis. I just want to let you know actually he is doing much better, but I also wanted to wish you condolences on the loss of your grandfather. Finally, I just wanted to let you know, as far as the power of LinkedIn, which you mentioned in this episode, I actually finally took advantage of one of their newer features, namely the Answers. Or is it Questions? I do not remember which. Either way, you post a question and people in your network or even out of your network go ahead and answer the question. Actually, I posted a question about something that I was looking for and I got an answer back from somebody in your network and actually made a connection out of it. That just goes to show the power of the new media space, the instantaneousness I guess. Is that a word? I do not know. I just wanted to thank you on that. The connection by the way was Colin Brumelle. I remember the last name strangely enough, but I was a little sketchy on the first one. Actually, I did something, which I have never done before so it is a milestone for me. I actually picked up the phone and called the number on his blog and had a little chat with him about the service. It turns out he does not even work for the company anymore that provides the service, but he was really, really nice enough to take time out of his schedule and talk to me about it. I just wanted to thank you for that. All right. Hope to hear from you soon. Bye-bye.

C.C. Chapman: Have you guys used the questions and answers on LinkedIn yet? It is a very, very powerful way to connect. What it is, is you get to ask a question about anything. You name it. I have seen everything from gathering people’s information, “What do you think about X” to “Hey, can somebody recommend a Y?” People just answer. It is amazing. It is a great way to pull and poll your network. It is a great way to get a whole bunch of different people’s opinions. The fact that you connected with someone through my network I think is great. I think it is great and you picked up the phone and you called him. Kudos. I am still not a phone guy. I got to get better using the phone. I just do not. I do not know what it is. I just do not. If you are ever trying to get a hold of me, email me and do not MySpace me. I do not read those messages often enough. Gmail, cc.chapman@gmail.com, will get a hold of me, trust me.

I think LinkedIn is a very powerful medium. I like leveraging it just for the connections I get and I love it just to keep track where people are. When you get a new job, you do not always [unintelligible] everybody, but I find out about people through LinkedIn getting promotions and getting new jobs and where they are. What I love doing is going, “You’re working for who?” and I go click and I read about the company and I am like, “Oh, cool. That’s great!” It is a neat, neat tool and I am glad you got the connection through it. Again, it is about being connectors. My buddy Mark Forman, I hope I get this URL right, he is starting a podcast about connecting and I am very excited about it. I believe the URL is aconnector.com. I will check that while I play the next audio comment, but I am pretty sure that is what the URL is. It will definitely be in the show notes. I cannot wait to hear it. He has not done one yet, but just the concept of it, Mark is really into connections, doing communities, all the way over in Taiwan, which is great. It adds international flavor to it. He is from Brooklyn in Taiwan, so it makes it all international. I think it is very cool that these networks — and I love hearing success stories. Any success story you have ever have, please email me or call it in. Either way, share your success stories about how new media is helping you. I would love to share them with my listeners because that is further connection. Maybe your success story can help somebody else or it will motivate somebody else to try this stuff. That is what it is all about. Take this next guy, Scott Monty who I think is going to go on at some pretty cool things.

Scott Monty: Hey, C.C. Scott Monty here. I hope you are doing well. Hey, I had a great lunch with you and was glad to just kind of share the mind space with your or share the playground as it were. I wanted to comment on a couple of things on your spring cleaning show. I thought the analogy that you used with the new media playground is certainly a strong one. I wanted to acknowledge that you have been going through kind of a difficult time with just life in general. In the midst of playing in the new media playground, life does happen. There are some things that are snags whether we make some mistakes in the new media space or quite frankly personal lives just tend to get in the way. I liken this to being in the sandbox and just getting sand in your pants. Sometimes life happens and the [unintelligible] in your pants. Well, what do you do? You pick yourself up, you wipe yourself off, clean out your pants, and you get back into the sandbox for another day. Maybe try some new toys, learn how to not get sand in your pants the next time, but it is just part of a learning process and part of the fun that goes into it. The other thing I wanted to also acknowledge was being a huge Gmail user. I have actually become a big fan of GTD Gmail. That is Getting Things Done. It is a Firefox add-on that if you go to the Firefox Add-on page and you search for GTD, you would be able to find this really cool add-on to your Gmail account that allows you to really segment things with labels in a much more efficient way than you can simply with using stars or just using the labeling system that Gmail gives you. Check it out. You might want to provide a link. I do not have it at hand, but you can certainly provide a link in the notes if you can find it. All right. Keep up the great work. I enjoyed seeing you and certainly, as always, enjoy listening to your show. Take care. You can see me at scottmonty.com. Bye-bye.

C.C. Chapman: Scott is fun. He is a listener of Managing the Gray and we met face to — I think that was the first time we met face to face, it was the Boston Ad Club earlier this year. We got together for lunch a couple of weeks back. Just grab chilis, had some lunch, great conversation. Scott is a neat guy. I am getting to know Scott better. It is great because he is totally leveraging the new media space. I love your analogy. I already blogged about this, the whole sand-in-your-pants. It is great. Scott, I am going to put that in the book and I am going to credit you with it. I promise. I know you are going to give me permission to use it, but I am definitely going to give you credit for it. It is a great stuff.

I think it is going to wrap up Managing the Gray. We are at 29 minutes right now. Wow! This is definitely a different vibe. I hope you are okay with it. I had this pool of listener comments that I have been neglecting and I really want to get them out to you because if I do not pass them along then I am doing something wrong because that is part of the whole connection and sharing and getting it all out there. This was definitely a little different. Managing the Gray usually focuses on the topic of the day, but today the topic of the day was you guys, the listeners, the people out there who are learning in the space, getting excited about the space, trying new things, falling down, making mistakes, getting up, learning from those mistakes, and then doing it better the next time. I had this CEO that — I still to this day respect the hell out of him. His name is Ben Levitan. When I worked for James Martin + Co., he was the CEO. He was like, “Failing is fine, just learn from it.” The other thing he always told me too that I will always remember about Ben was he used to say, “Listen. I don’t care who you are in the company. You can come up to me and tell me I’m doing stuff wrong. Tell me I made a mistake. Tell me I just made the dumbest decision in my life, but you have to tell me how I can do it better. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear you complain.” Exactly. If you are not doing it, you cannot complain about it. What is up? Does anybody work for…? I just thought of that. I do not know where Ben Levitan is. His name is Ben Levitan, works for James Martin + Co. down in Virginia, and I know last time he was up in the Boston area. I should find him. I bet you I can find him on LinkedIn. I am going to find out where Ben is. Maybe a listener works with him. If you are, you are a lucky individual because Ben was a cool guy, definitely shaped a lot of things in my mind.

Anyways, this is going to wrap up Managing the Gray. Of course, 206-309-4729 if you want to call in, or managingthegray@gmail.com works just as well. If you really want to get a hold of me — I keep these separate inboxes because sometimes it is a lot easier, but if you really want to get a hold of me, cc.chapman@gmail.com is the quickest way to get a hold of me. It is the account that is always open in the tab in Firefox, always. It is the first one I see, so send it there if you need something immediately. Until next time. I will talk to you very soon, managingthegray.com, blog content going up all the time, Twitter, all kinds of stuff. I am going, guys. I will talk to you soon.

Posted in Transcript | Comments(0)

Playing on the new media playground is in full effect today as I pour a cup of coffee, fire up CastBlaster and ramble for 20 minutes on what is on my mind in the new media space. Everything from the importance of taking time off from the world and unplugging from the net, to reviewing a couple of books that I thought were worth sharing. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or anything else to say just call up and leave a voice mail at 206-309-4729. I’d love to hear from you.

Links from the show:

• Whitney Hoffman calls in about “Cream Cheese Sessions” (I love this idea and think we need to get one going in the Metro-West Boston area)
• The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• Rule the Web by Mark Frauenfelder
• 8apps.com

I’m also giving away a few MagStay Pro connectors from Thoughtout.biz. Just drop me an e-mail if you are interested. Work with MacBook Pros.

Posted in Podcast | Comments(5)

I’ve always said that new media is about so much more then fancy web sites and dropping vowels. It’s about giving voices and outlets to people that would not usually have them. About telling stories that no one has heard.

So when I read about what Noel A Hidalgo is doing via his “On the Luck of Seven” adventure I was instantly excited. Best part was that I had not heard about this at all until I saw a post on another friends blog about his kick off party this weekend and curiosity got the best of me.

In his words:

for seven months, i will stand on the seven continents, dive into the seven oceans, and contemplate seven topics of freedom. while on the way, i will document the journey. this is not my story, this is our story. though your hospitably, donations, projects, connections and friends, our stories will merge into one.

I instantly subscribed to his blog , added his Flickr feed to my favorites and also donated towards the cause via his ChipIn set up.  He’s hoping to get 700 donations of $11.11 to pay for the trip and is going to be giving a book to everyone who donates documenting the travels. That alone is worth the donation, but I chipped in more because I think this is such an amazing use of the space we all play in right now.

I wish I was in a place where I could do this myself. I’m sure I could if I really wanted to, but there are other goals at the moment. I’m going to be tracking noneck the whole way and I wish him nothing but success and great memories because I know he is going to have some amazing tales along the way.

THIS is what new media is all about. Safe travels and I look forward to hopefully crossing paths with him one of these days!

Posted in Community, People, New Media | Comments(4)

I am very excited as today you get to hear me and podiobook author J.C. Hutchins sit down for a great conversation about his new book coming out and about new media in general. I’ve been a huge fan and listener of the 7th Son book series and thus I’m excited for the 7-7-07 release of the third and final book.

This interview is part of a 50 podcast interviews in 50 states initiative that J.C. Hutchins thought up and I’m proud and honored to be the Massachusetts representative!

Links from the show

• Subscribe to 7th Son podcast
• J.C. Hutchins Official Web Site
• Ministry of Propaganda
  

As I upload it I am about to celebrate Independence Day here in Metro West Boston and I hope that if you are celebration that you have a happy and safe holiday. To any military reading this in any corner of the globe, thank you for what you do and stay safe and keep doing what you do.

Posted in Books, New Media, Podcast | Comments(2)

I use to read all the time. I still read all the time, but it’s mainly RSS feeds and such and I want to get back to consuming books. Julien set off earlier this year on reading a book a week. That’s a cool goal and I know he is reading a TON and keeping on top of that. A conversation with him yesterday reminded me that I need to get back into reading books. It doesn’t hurt that in the past week I’ve had all these books arrive.

• Everything is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
• Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
• Rule the Web by Mark Frauenfelder

There are a couple others that have been sent for review purposes and I’m going to to read those too.

What amazes me is the shear volume of new books being put out right now. There is no way you can’t find something to read right now if you wanted to. I can’t reccomend any of these books yet, but if and when I do fall in love with any of them you know I’ll share.

What are you reading right now? Have you read any of these? Let me know what you think.

Posted in Books | Comments(3)