On Saturday, October 18, Nashville will host it's second Barcamp unconference. If you're not familiar with Barcamps you can learn more about them at Barcamp.org. They're similar to Podcamps...and if that wasn't a helpful reference start with the good ole Wikipedia definition of Barcamp.

I attended Barcamp Nashville last summer and am excited to be presenting a session with my friend Steve Horton this year for a session called PR 2.0: The Deer Have Guns Now.

Steve is with the PR firm Katcher, Vaughn, and Bailey here in Nashville. We're going to talk about the world of PR and how social media is changing the way organizations should engage and interact with people who now have the tools to both build up your brand or tear it to shreds. We'll have some good examples of both instances.

Whether you work for a PR firm or happen to be the lone PR/advertising/marketing type person in a small company, you'll come away with some things to apply first thing Monday morning. Our session will help beginners get started immediately and also challenge organizations that are already ahead of the curve. Regardless of your comfort level with social media, we'll have something for you in this session.

Barcamp Nashville is free, fun, and really quite helpful if you have any interest in social media and what it can mean for your organization. Heck, if you're out of town come on over to Nashville for the weekend. It's worthy of a training event...and that should mean your company will pick up the travel and hotel bill, right?

Adam Bender is an eight year old cancer survivor. When he was a baby his left leg had to be amputated because of the cancer but as you'll see here that has certainly not stopped him from playing Little League.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4LMBEBM1qc]

In the last few weeks I've discovered two sites that are pretty cool on the one hand and a little scary on the other. Tynt.com is a website that lets you "share the web as you see it" which you can translate into "put funny faces, notes, and other commentary of your own on any website you want."

Tynt is just waiting to be used for playing a joke on your less than web savvy coworker or boss. You could really freak them out and tell them your site got hacked. Of course the way Tynt works is that it's allowing you to do anything to the actual site but it's giving you a mirror site to do with as you wish. It doesn't take long to see the negative aspect of this either. Though technically someone's website isn't being hijacked here it kind of gives you that feeling.

I can really see the benefit of Tynt if you found an article or blog post and wanted to make notes on it to send some people so they could both read the article and see your additional thoughts. Like I said, this is pretty cool...and a little scary.

If adding your commentary to a video is more your speed then you're going to love BubblePLY. BubblePLY is kind of the same idea as Tynt, only it's specific to video. I discovered it this week as the Nashville gas shortage video was making the rounds here locally. Again, I can see an upside and downside to something like this. The video I saw was quite funny (especially if you're a Nashvillian, you'll relate to this stuff...if you're not a Nashvillian...you probably won't like it) and shows what a little humor and creativity can do for a minor crisis many people are experiencing together. Likewise, you can see how someone could provide some negative commentary on a video you did.

In the end I think Tynt and BubblePLY are kind of like superpowers. In the hands of the right people it can be very good. In the hands of the wrong people it can be very bad.

When I talk to people about creating great content for their blogs I almost always run them through the Old McDonald method. The biggest question always seems to come from the "O" or Outrage part. This is probably the most misunderstood and underused of the five ideas. The idea behind considering outrage as a valuable option for your content simply means you're not afraid to step into controversy. It's not about making people mad, it's about having the guts to say the thing someone else won't say.

Now, let's be honest. You probably don't like controversy. It's risky and can be a little lonely feeling. It's also one of the boldest things you can do if you want to show who you (or your organization) are. One of the most refreshing things about blogs is a new level of candid and honest discussion they create. It's one of the big cultural changes we can credit to bloggers and blogging. It's also one of the scariest things about blogs for businesses.

If you want to know whether you have the guts to be an outrageous blogger, think about addressing some (or all) of these five things in your future posts:

1. Customer Dissatisfiers: If you work for a company and want to really make an impression on your customers, why not address the things you know they don't like? Use your blog to answer, respond, or explain anything you know they have a problem with. They may not like your answer, but at least you have given them some rationale or perspective for why you do what you do.
2. Respond to Criticism: Most organizations know what their critics think. That criticism may come from competitors, vendors, interest groups, customers, or former employees. Why wouldn't you want to address the issues directly? Your silence gives them credit and authority over the issue whether they're correct or not.
3. Apologize: If your organization made a mistake in the past but never really dealt with it publicly, consider bringing it back up to say you're sorry. Some people within your company will say there's no need to dredge up the past, but on the other hand you can use the apology to show you're not the same old organization anymore. Besides, you may be surprised to find how many people remember that incident from years ago and will be delighted to know you finally decided to address it. Nothing says you're ready for a fresh start like a genuine apology.
4. Accept Responsibility: Some organizations mess up and are quick to apologize but never really accept responsibility. If this applies to you then you should know that your apology wasn't worth too much to begin with. Why not accept responsibility and apologize again (for real this time) to show that you've changed? If you haven't changed, nevermind.
5. Talk about IT: Whether it's skeletons in the closet or elephants on the table, virtually every organization has something they would rather forget about. It is the big IT. It's like it has it's own personality. IT is the thing you don't talk about publicly. IT is what people only talk about in whispered tones. IT may be the first thing you need to talk about openly on your blog. Just because you don't want to talk about IT, doesn't mean IT's not there. More people know about IT than you think. Perhaps it's time to get over IT.

I'm not usually too big on animal videos but this one made me laugh out loud. Enjoy the ninja cat video. If you want an extra dose of the Ninja cat try it with music or the copycat version (sorry I couldn't help it) from Ninja Doug.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLIPWjks_M]

Last week I received the following email from Dan Kassis, an employee in the Digital Media Production department at LifeWay Christian Resources here in Nashville. Dan's one of several LifeWay employees using Twitter to help customers and his email below is a great example of what can happen when a company starts to answer their social phone.

I saw a tweet from a pastor who said that we should fix our online ordering
system because it's "a mess." I replied directly to him asking for more
information. I wanted to know if it was our online catalog or the online
order form that was giving him trouble. He replied with more information.
So I gave him my email address and told him to give me detailed information
on his problems. I assured him that I would forward it to people who could
help, or who would at least listen to what he was saying. I also explained
that we are beginning a process to make major improvements to lifeway.com.

The next day I saw a tweet from the pastor who said that he is "very
impressed with LifeWay's Twitter-based customer service." Now, we don't
exactly have Twitter-based customer service. I mean, not in an organized
sense. What we have are several people on Twitter who are watching what
people say about LifeWay and responding professionally and with attention
to the customer. But now this customer's perception of our company has
changed. And we weren't even able to immediately fix his problem. But in a
way we still met a need.

[Full disclosure: Dan gave permission to republish the text of the entire email.]
[Full disclosure, part 2: LifeWay is a MicroExplosion Media client.]
[Full disclosure, part 3: Dan is related to me. He's not a brother or uncle. It's more distant than that...something like my wife's uncle is his wife's brother...I think. Still, we're related.]
[Full disclosure, part 4: I've never had this many "full disclosures" for any single post...ever.]

Last night I heard a phrase that I suspect has been around a while but one I haven't heard before. The person was speaking about an organization's poor use of marketing money when they sank it into a lot of things that didn't work. What he said was: "They didn't get enough juice for the squeeze."

I like that statement. It's one I'll probably use from time to time...and when it comes to marketing, it succinctly says a lot of things about not getting all you had wanted from your efforts. Most marketers can relate to this at some level. I guess that's why it resonated with me.

The one additional thought I would add to this statement is that it assumes the right fruit is being squeezed to begin with. It makes me think about companies I've observed that do the same thing year after year and essentially say, "We squeezed this much juice out of these efforts last year so we expect to squeeze this much this year." What's not as regularly evaluated is the thing being squeezed. If there's a problem it's easy to think, "we just didn't get as much juice for the squeeze this time" but the problem might not be the juice, even though that's what's getting measured. It may the wrong fruit to begin with.

With many traditional marketing efforts the same old fruit is getting squeezed every day. The fruit is expensive, hard to get, hard to squeeze well, and producing less juice than ever. Social media marketing, however, is an entire farmer's market full of new fruits. If you're still squeezing the same old fruit it may be time for you to start checking out a few new flavors. You may find that squeezing some new fruit will give you sweeter, cheaper, and easier to access juice than you've ever had.

I'm not sure which is more concerning to me...that I think this is funny or that I recognize all the various websites/webapps they mention in this video. Either way Rhett and Link have done another great video.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyPDHh4d1Xo]

The latest episode of The New Mediology is now available. Nathan and I talked about how to be a great blogger. You can listen to it online or via iTunes. Here's a synopsis of what we talked about on the show:

How To Be A Great Blogger

First, think less about how to do blogging and more about what it takes to actually be a blogger. To get started you want to get some key terms right. These terms include:

• Blog: A single web presence that includes multiple posts. Don't say you "just posted a blog." You just wrote a blog post but didn't "post a blog."
• Post: Individual entries on a blog.
• Hyperlink: Words or phrases linked to other sites, blogs, etc.
• Blogroll: List of blogs typically found on either the left or right-hand side of a blog. Only link to blogs. Don't link to non-blog websites on your blogroll.
• Embed: Code found typically for audio or video files that is added to your blog so people can watch and/or listen on your blog without going to the audio or video site to engage the media. Basically, if you've ever watched a YouTube video on a site or blog other than YouTube, you just saw the embed stuff at work.

The number one thing to remember for being a great blogger is that great bloggers create great content. Fair bloggers create fair content and bad bloggers create bad content. To start creating great content (content that has value to the people reading your blog) start with the Old McDonald method of creating good content:

• E- Entertain
• I - Inspire
• E - Educate
• I - Inform
• O - Outrage

You also need to determine your weekly post frequency. How many times a week can you consistently create good content? Every blogger needs to determine how many posts they can create each week and keep the blog up at that pace. Bloggers should also consider what their meal to snack ratio is in their weekly blog posts.

A few other things to think about:

• Default to shorter posts...something in 400 words or less.
• Create multiple points of entry. Create subheads, bullet points, numbered lists, etc. that can hook a person scanning the post to begin reading your post.
• Put more emphasis on the post titles. The best titles succinctly summarize your entire post.
• Respond to comments on your blog to show that you're engaged in the conversation.
• Start commenting on other people's blogs, particularly if you find someone talking about you, your organization, or something that directly ties back to your particular blog comment.

The bottom line: Focus on creating really, really, really good content.

Like many Americans I've been watching a lot of campaign coverage the last few weeks. I found that I was flipping between CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC to see the various perspectives during the conventions. What I noticed about all three channels is that they're trying to convey a level of journalistic neutrality by using phrases like "No Spin Zone" and "No Bias. No Bull." Most dramatically, MSNBC just made a change to remove Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from campaign coverage because of this very topic.

I don't know anyone who actually thinks any of these channels are 100% without bias. Some commentators are certainly more opinionated than others and in other cases there are little doubts about the pundit's political leanings, but these channels would have you believe that bias is a bad thing. I tend to go the other way. Why not tell us where everyone stands? Wouldn't a criticism from an openly liberal commentator about Barak Obama carry more weight than someone who you're suspicious about? Likewise, doesn't a critique from an openly conservative commentator toward the current administration carry more weight than someone who would have believe they are completely without political bias?

The point here is that you shouldn't apologize (and hide) your personal perspective. We're living in an era of open communication, open dialogue, and anything that seems less than open feels a little tainted. We live in a culture of assumption and one big assumption is that nobody is without bias so the only way to rise above it is to flat out say where you stand...and then say what you have to say.

Now, before you think this is about politics rather than social media, let's make the connection. If you blog, podcast, create video or do anything else in social media on a particular topic, don't adopt the "no bias, no bull" philosophy. You can show your bias without the bull. In fact, you're more likely to have your views considered because people know where you stand.

The bottom line is this: If you blog about fashion, show your bias. If you talk about sports, show your bias. If you write about business or art or music or religion or real estate or the best hamburgers in the world, show your bias. Nobody thinks you're nuetral anyway. Once they know where you stand you may actually have an chance to convince them of your way of thinking...but as you can see, I'm kinda biased about this topic.

On my way home from Washington D.C. Saturday night I ran into my friend Dan Miller. Dan and his wife Joanne were on their way back to Nashville as well and it turned out we were on the same flight. When we were boarding we quickly saw that things weren't normal. There were hardly any people on the flight. The whole flight was five passengers and that's just the kind of thing that Dan could talk about on his blog so once we were in the air we pulled out my trusty Flip Ultra video camera and recorded this video.

This whole thing got me thinking about how bloggers really can seize bloggable moments if they invest in a few gadgets and keep them handy at all times. Sometimes a written post isn't an option or just isn't the best medium so you should be prepared with at least one alternate media. In general, blogs that supplement with audio, video, and images are more interesting anyways, so thinking about blog posts beyond the written word is something you should consider anyway. Whether you're likely to capture content on the fly or just want to mix up your media, here are three things you'll want for seizing bloggable moments:

1. Video - Flip Video: I love my Flip Ultra. The new Flip Mino is pretty cool too. Either way you can catch video on the fly and upload it to YouTube in no time. You can even capture still pictures with the editing software that comes with the Flip camera, so if you just want a still image, take a few seconds of video and pull the still image from it next time you get to your computer.

2. Audio - Digital Recorder: I'm not good at capturing audio but for some people this just makes a lot of sense. There are cheap MP3 recorders you can find everywhere from Amazon.com to Walmart or you can step it up to something that's better quality with something like the M-Audio MicroTrack or Samson Zoom H2. If you want to go really cheap (yet still effective) you can just sign up for Utterz and feed it into your blog. Even with Utterz you could do an interview as long as the other person doesn't mind you handing your phone over to them.

3. Pictures - Digital Camera: I have an old Sony Cybershot but really any small digital camera will do. Heck, you can use your cell phone camera if you need to. Just remember there are times when you can take a picture and it will say everything you could want to write in an entire blog post.

I'm always fascinated by ventriloquists. Jeff Dunham is one of the best. Enjoy.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQm_8vX3sYU]

Were you one of those people who used to put up folders or books around your desk in school so other students wouldn't look at your test? You remember how it worked: you would build a little fort around your desk to prevent unprepared eyes from wandering over to your answer sheet. In school that probably wasn't a bad idea, but when it comes to social media you don't want that mindset at all. In fact, you want people to steal your ideas. If people steal your ideas and your content that means you have ideas worth stealing...and that's a great thing.

Thou Shalt Create Good Content First
Now, I know this sounds strange and counterintuitive because, after all, who wants to be a victim of content thievery? The reality is that in the world of social media, all you really have are your ideas and content...or to be more exact, content that communicates particular ideas. In order to benefit from that content you need people to find value in it. Good content has value to the reader/viewer/listener so when you create good content you're making yourself more valuable only because you're providing value to someone else. This is the heartbeat of social media marketing.

Thou Shalt Not Worry If Content Is Stolen
If your content is stolen it did just want you wanted it to do. It resonated with someone because they found it valuable (probably in one of these five ways). Ideally, you'll get credit when someone steals your idea/content. It would be better for everyone if they provide the appropriate link or credit to you so you get the attribution, but even if they don't you ultimately accomplished what you wanted. If you don't get that link from the person now, you may get it in the future.

More than likely it was an oversight on the person's part and not a malicious or intentional misrepresentation. Besides, Google has a funny way of bringing things together, so if a blogger takes your content as his own, a mere Google search on the ideas will likely lead people to your blog. If that's not enough for you, just send an email to the person thanking them for passing your ideas along and ask that they link to you in the future. Don't accuse them of anything. Just be gracious and kind. They'll likely fix the post and be more mindful in the future.