We’ve got more John Edwards videos (one of him talking to bloggers in Iowa, among other things — I interview a few of the bloggers first who were invited in to talk with him — another of him talking with bloggers in New Hampshire, both are useful in seeing how a candidate is using bloggers to help get the word out). These two videos are good for those who want to study how a campaign is using bloggers to start conversations on the Internet. In the Iowa video you’ll see geek Jake Ludington, who helps out on Chris Pirillo’s’ Lockergnome site.
My favorite guy I met on the trip last week was Larry Knight. His house was destroyed in Katrina in New Orleans. In the video of him I shot you can see how high the water got. What you can’t see on the video is his great attitude. He has no money, but he’s rebuilding his house anyway with help from his friends. Anytime I’m feeling down, I’ll just replay this video and remember meeting Larry.
You thought I forgot the geeky stuff too, didn’t ya? Too much politics? Well, here you’ll meet two of my favorite tech bloggers, Don Dodge and Alfred Thompson, both work at Microsoft. We have a fun talk about New Hampshire politics and a little bit of geeky stuff too.
If you really want to avoid politics all together, then watch the videos I got of Me.dium. This is a really cool app that lets you share your Web surfing with your friends. It sounds lame, but watch the demo of Me.dium and you’ll get a sense that this is an app that we haven’t seen before. Impressed me, anyway. I have an interview with Me.dium’s founders and get more behind the scenes of what they are trying to do. This is an app you’ll see more of this year, I predict it’ll be a pretty hot one.
UPDATE: Chuck Olsen posts his video reporting on the reporters done for Rocketboom (he interviews me).
Oh, and that’s the last of the John Edwards stuff. Thanks for putting up with the political stuff. Do you have any other questions about what I experienced on John Edwards’ trip last week? Leave them in the comments here and I’ll try to answer them.
Scobleizer 
1. Would you do this again?
2. If yes, what would you do differently?
3. Would you take your wife for a different view?
Guy
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1. Would you do this again?
2. If yes, what would you do differently?
3. Would you take your wife for a different view?
Guy
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What was the overall impact of the video on you and how do you want to imbibe few of the good things that inspired you a lot?
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What was the overall impact of the video on you and how do you want to imbibe few of the good things that inspired you a lot?
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Dave: the overall impact of the week was to make me a lot less cynical about the political process in this country. If we all decide to do something we can bring this country back from the mess that it’s in right now.
Guy: yes, I’d do it again and would recommend it to anyone. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that not many people get to have. I’m glad I go to share it with you.
What would I do differently? That’s a tough one. I think I would have shot more video in the neighborhood in New Orleans and gotten to know more of the residents. I didn’t have time to do much there, but the few guys I met were the most genuine people I met (and were much more astute than mainstream press gives “poor” people credit for).
I actually tried to get Thomas Hawk on the trip, but they didn’t have room. It would have been fun to have Maryam on the trip but understand why that wasn’t possible. I was happy just to be there.
I also think I would have tried to figure out how to get more of you involved. The trip came together at the last minute during the holidays, when I wasn’t able to spend a whole lot of time putting together wikis or anything else.
I actually wanted to get more of the stories of the staff behind the scenes. They have real interesting stories, but were unwilling to go on camera, which is too bad.
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Dave: the overall impact of the week was to make me a lot less cynical about the political process in this country. If we all decide to do something we can bring this country back from the mess that it’s in right now.
Guy: yes, I’d do it again and would recommend it to anyone. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that not many people get to have. I’m glad I go to share it with you.
What would I do differently? That’s a tough one. I think I would have shot more video in the neighborhood in New Orleans and gotten to know more of the residents. I didn’t have time to do much there, but the few guys I met were the most genuine people I met (and were much more astute than mainstream press gives “poor” people credit for).
I actually tried to get Thomas Hawk on the trip, but they didn’t have room. It would have been fun to have Maryam on the trip but understand why that wasn’t possible. I was happy just to be there.
I also think I would have tried to figure out how to get more of you involved. The trip came together at the last minute during the holidays, when I wasn’t able to spend a whole lot of time putting together wikis or anything else.
I actually wanted to get more of the stories of the staff behind the scenes. They have real interesting stories, but were unwilling to go on camera, which is too bad.
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Given your comments, are you prepping anything for a possible repeat with another canidate?
Do you see a possible video of the staffs (at their headquarters) to discuss social media?
One of the things I took away from your posts (I have not seen the videos yet), is the mechanics of blogging at a event and how it compares with main stream reporters.
I would like to see more of the technology behind media events like a political campaign.
Guy
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Given your comments, are you prepping anything for a possible repeat with another canidate?
Do you see a possible video of the staffs (at their headquarters) to discuss social media?
One of the things I took away from your posts (I have not seen the videos yet), is the mechanics of blogging at a event and how it compares with main stream reporters.
I would like to see more of the technology behind media events like a political campaign.
Guy
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Also,
With new Orleans, do you see the possiblity of a blogging conference there?
Guy
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Also,
With new Orleans, do you see the possiblity of a blogging conference there?
Guy
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Guy: I think doing a conference in New Orleans would be a great thing to do, especially a videoblogger conference.
Not sure what future things I’ll do regarding politics/political campaigns yet.
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Guy: I think doing a conference in New Orleans would be a great thing to do, especially a videoblogger conference.
Not sure what future things I’ll do regarding politics/political campaigns yet.
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This was your first foray into political vlogging, as you mentioned here. You did a great job, and I am glad I finally met you.
In keeping with the theme of your and Shel’s book, what lessons did you take away that could translate for CEO’s and senior managers in both medium and larger companies? Or, another way to put it, what could business learn from someone like John Edwards and his online communications crew?
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This was your first foray into political vlogging, as you mentioned here. You did a great job, and I am glad I finally met you.
In keeping with the theme of your and Shel’s book, what lessons did you take away that could translate for CEO’s and senior managers in both medium and larger companies? Or, another way to put it, what could business learn from someone like John Edwards and his online communications crew?
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Benny:
1) Know how to listen to what’s being said out there (using http://blogsearch.google.com, technorati.com, and other blog search engines, along with sites like TechMeme, Digg, etc, if they exist for your industry, along with building good relationships with influentials who’ll IM and call you).
2) Meet bloggers alone, and give them a chance to ask questions of their own — they’ll often be different than what the Washington Post is looking for.
3) Make sure feedback can get to you, and get to you quickly (have the main blogger inside your organization right next to you) and use that feedback to tweak what you’re doing immediately. Edwards traveled with a very small crew. A strategist. A video blogger. A photographer who was taking pics for Flickr. A guy who was astute at working with the blogosphere and listening.
That small team ensured that he heard feedback fast, and was able to communicate out his views just as fast.
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Benny:
1) Know how to listen to what’s being said out there (using http://blogsearch.google.com, technorati.com, and other blog search engines, along with sites like TechMeme, Digg, etc, if they exist for your industry, along with building good relationships with influentials who’ll IM and call you).
2) Meet bloggers alone, and give them a chance to ask questions of their own — they’ll often be different than what the Washington Post is looking for.
3) Make sure feedback can get to you, and get to you quickly (have the main blogger inside your organization right next to you) and use that feedback to tweak what you’re doing immediately. Edwards traveled with a very small crew. A strategist. A video blogger. A photographer who was taking pics for Flickr. A guy who was astute at working with the blogosphere and listening.
That small team ensured that he heard feedback fast, and was able to communicate out his views just as fast.
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Good ideas, Robert, but are many CEOs and managers ready to listen to bloggers? Should you or Podtech be hired to help the companies out for 2-way communications? Intra-Outsourcing is a positive way to do marketing. I think so, but that’s just my opin.
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Good ideas, Robert, but are many CEOs and managers ready to listen to bloggers? Should you or Podtech be hired to help the companies out for 2-way communications? Intra-Outsourcing is a positive way to do marketing. I think so, but that’s just my opin.
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That’s a nice video.
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That’s a nice video.
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You were in Iowa and didn’t let any of us know?
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You were in Iowa and didn’t let any of us know?
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