The blogger social is in April. I’m stoked to be going, not just because I get to meet so many new people, and people I’ve conversed with online, but because I get to meet my other professors. The timing of this for me works out nicely as I prepare to graduate in may. I like the thought of being able to meet my other professors. The ones that didn’t teach me at the Cameron School of Business, but taught me online, probably without knowing… through their blog.
I read their blogs thoroughouly, digested every aspect of it, found bloggers who directly opposed them (so I could avoid the echo chamber) and synthesized it all with what I was currently learning. So it’s these people I want to thank for being a teacher to me, even if they weren’t aware.
Seth Godin – Without knowing, I was introduced to Seth Godin’s marketing concepts when I was on the leadership team in Highschool in charge of organizing and running the schools weekly ‘chapel’. I was good friends with our leadership teacher (it became a class after myself and some other students founded it initially) who spoke to me often about this concept of the “Purple Cow”. Little would I know that 3 years later I would own the book (and a number of others). Seth has taught me the most valuable lesson I can think of through his blog- marketing is absolutely everywhere. No joke, I would practice examining absolutely anything I could (signage when I entered stores, lines, colors, isle arrangements, employee attitude, light intensity, receipt design, etc), reading his blog to gain insight to something I could have been thinking about marketing wise but wasn’t.
I think my crowning moment was when I decided to e-mail Seth a question about business school… and he responded. There are a number of bloggers who I think provide fantastic information, but don’t even bother the spending the time to respond to a comment, let alone an e-mail.
Also, Seth Godin is slightly inaccurate in that I don’t believe he’s going to the blogger social. But since I was mentioning those who are my other professors, I didn’t feel it right not to mention him.
Joseph Jaffe – I suppose it makes that these two would go hand in hand given their noteriety. From what I observed, Jaffe tends to challenge conventional wisdom and thought in a way that generates more conflict or buzz. He is not afraid to call people out. What I’ve admired most about Jaffe is his concept of “Using New Marketing To Prove New Marketing.” He strongly believes in what he advocates and will back it up as evidence itself. Thankfully “New Marketing” is more than a definition, so this works! He also is very much engaged in the conversation (the iPhone debacle comes to mind, which he then turned good). There has been so much I have gained from Jaffe’s blog, I can’t really narrow it down to one particular thing that I learned specifically from him. I always enjoy his disection of the latest traditional fudging.
Funny story, when Jaffe strated Crayon, I e-mailed him requesting to be Crayon’s very first virtual intern in Second Life (for the first virtual marketing company in Second Life). Unfortunately, I didn’t hear back, and this being an unusual case for me, I wasn’t persistent.
Jaffe is also a blogger that stuck out to me as he took the time to respond to myself (and others) in his own comments and other, unrelated posts.
“Miss Rogue” – I’m originally from CA, about 30m from Silicon Valley, so I have techie in my blood. I love startups, technology, and all that kool-aid. So when I first found Tara’s blog, it was an awesome combination of startupy-goodness and cutting edge marketing delight. What I devoured most of all was her love and advocacy for communities. As time would go on, I would continue to learn this value first hand. But I think I can safely say Tara taught me about community. A lesson I am forever greatful for and now advocate myself (along with authenticity). Tara’s own belief were also very much present in her fostering the community that is her blog. Tara isn’t going to blogger social (AFAIK).
Unfortuantely, I don’t have any overly interesting odd-ball experience with Tara. Except maybe that I had an interesting discussion on her blog once about the concept of what a “boutique” store was, which lead to a more indepth discussion with someone working in some kind of important position at LinkedIn.
CK – I learned a lot of things from CK. One thing in particular, and I’ve continued to learn, is that she really has a very serving attitude. A very caring person. She really works toward sharing all she can, information wise and time wise with others. That’s something I’ve tried to adopt into my own life, both in information (marketing, tech, etc) and personally. I think the biggest thing I learned from CK is authenticity. I don’t know how she does it, but CK writes with a fantastically authentic voice, and almost everything she does seems to stem from the idea of being authentic. She is yet another person who really seems to go out of her way to connect with those who reach out (via comments or e-mail).
CK and I also share similar movie tastes (and TV shows ala Buffy, and Angel). She recommended me seeing The Prestige. I did and it rocked. ’nuff said.
Honorable mentions:
Drew McLellan (Drew’s Marketing Minute). A great resource to have started with as Drew really breaks things down to a fundmanetal level, explaining them in such a way that doesn’t require you to be a marketing person to understand.
Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog. Sadly, I’ve slacked on my Verdion reading as of late. Apologies!
David Armano (Logic + Emotion). Made me realize I need to work on being a synthesizer of information between people (which I now do at work) and improve my graphical abilities to produce stunning diagrams (an odd thought).
Thanks be to all of you! The appreciation I have that all of you take time out of your day to post is more than I can really do justice in a blog post. I look forward to meeting those of you who are going to the blogger social in person, and thanking you again.
Damn, we never responded to you? Our bad.
fwiw, a) I’m lousy at responding to e-mail and b) it was probably a good thing as we were still finding our feet way back when.
I’m looking forwarding to meeting you as well. There’s a small chance my travel schedule will prevent me from attending, but let’s see what happens…
Haha, it’s not a problem. I just thought it was an some interesting info. Just as much (if not more) my bad for not following up :)
Finding feet is always fun. I do hope your travel schedule will not conflict.
Oh, wow. So very kind of you to include me among your “profs,” especially since I learn so much from this group as well. In fact, I view this community as a group of colleagues and mentors due to all they show and share with me…kinda makes me wonder how I got along without you fine folks all these years. Hmmm, how did I?
Can’t tell you how stoked (!) I am that you’ll be at Social. And I really can’t wait to shortly share the details with all (coming out this weekend). It moves me so that all of these smart, savvy and fun people will have the chance to get some (rock’n) offline time together. Something we’ll remember forever ;-).
Nathan,
You’re very kind — thank you. One of the aspects of this content sharing/creating that I truly love is the notion of the professor is the student and visa versa.
So thank you for letting me learn right along side you.
35 days and counting!
Drew
@CK I am greatly anticipating the social as well. It will certainly be a time to remember :) And it really does make you wonder how we got along without such escalated collaboration!
@Drew 34 :)
@Nathan: 33 :-)