I spent the day at a Forrester Analyst workshop on Web 2.0 Fundamentals for the B2B Marketer. The workshop covered a wide range of topics: Online Video, Podcasting, Blogging, Wikis, RSS and Social Networks.

It was apparent that the Fortune 500 companies who Forrester surveys have their own unique set of problems when it comes to fully embracing these new marketing tools. Something about teaching the elephant to dance comes to mind.

After the day was over I asked Forrester’s Brian Haven to comment on the contrast between the way solo entrepreneurs are using blogging and podcasts and how the large corporations are implementing solutions. I asked him if there were opportunities for independent consultants to help larger corporations learn the best uses for the Web 2.0 tools which are available for minimal cost.

To hear a top analyst’s opinion of the Web 2.0 phenomena, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:47 — 1.1MB)

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Thoughtful article in today’s Financial Times (subscribers only) quotes 49-year-old Yolanda Barnes, a research director at an estate agency who attends 20 conferences annually. This veteran of the conference circuit prefers attending smaller conferences. She finds it easier to gather specialized information.

Larger events are better for networking.

Example: many experienced speakers attend the big National Speakers Association Convention purely for networking.

Yolanda prefers halls with natural light (note: avoid underground venues such as the San Francisco Moscone Center) and dislikes stage-managed ‘live’ discussions which “lack intellectual repartee and the spark of real debate”.

She concludes by sharing her tips on attending conferences:

“Listen imaginatively. Even if the speaker’s area is not relevant to you you will find a way of translating it to your particular speciality. And it’s always better to attend a few good sessions than to try to cram everything in,” she says.

“As a researcher I might want quite different things from a meeting or conference to other delegates. But you should always stock up with business cards and leave enough time for chatting with other professionals and asking questions.”

Other resources for you to check if you are conference-bound include:

• Bill Lampton’s Ten Tips on Attending a Conference

My favorite – Tip #8:

Buy the tapes and audio CDs recorded during the sessions.

• Stephen Abram’s Conference Tips

I love his measure of value for attending:

I met at least one new person every day.
I learned at least one useful thing I didn’t know in a session every day.
I had at least one substantive discussion with a vendor about a new product that I might need.
I had fun, every day.

• This summary of a discussion among graduate-students on tips and tricks for conferences.

My favorite bit of advice:

If you are giving a talk, do not read your paper. Do not fight with the organizer over time. Do not be convinced that the audience will be enthralled if only you can get this one last point in. Do not edit out whole sections on the fly as you notice time running out. If you find yourself falling in love with your own prose, exercise caution.

• Finally, this insightful article from lifehack.org gives some ideas on how to attend a conference without being there!

The trick, of course, is to use the web to capture content, example:

For tech conferences, I’ve found that IT Conversations, part of the Gigavox Media network, have some GREAT coverage. I should also mention PodTech, another really great source for interesting conference coverage.

What are your tips for attending conferences?

John Kremer spoke at the afternoon session of the NSA Northern California meeting. He exposed the manipulations behind “best seller” lists such as the New York Times and Amazon.com rankings.

John has a proven system for taking your book from nowhere all the way to the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

John says The New York Times doesn’t want him teaching this system. “They like to think that no one can influence their bestsellers list, but the truth is that the big publishers do it all the time. The system I teach doesn’t require that you be a big publisher, but it does require an integrated marketing plan, some additional cash, and time to do it right.”

Appropriately enough, John’s book 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, ranks in the top 50 in Amazon’s list for the topic of Book Marketing.

After the meeting ended, I asked John to explain how podcasting can work as a marketing tool for authors. He also explains how to actually sit down and write a book. To hear what he says, click on the icon below…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:21 — 1,021.3KB)

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Hard on the wisdom Robert shared, here’s a pretty stunning list from Andy Beal of 10 things any professional speaker should do to improve their on-line marketing and boost their reputation – which these days means claiming territory on the first page of the organic Google rankings.

My favorite suggestions: #2 and #4. Yours?

Robert Middleton drove down to the airport hotel from his home in the Santa Cruz mountains on Saturday to ask the National Speakers Association of Northern California if there was anyone in the room whose friends and acquaintances could answer three simple questions about our businesses:

1. Who is our ideal client?
2. What is the main problem we solve for our clients?
3. What outcome do we deliver to our clients?

No one in the room had confidence that our own friends knew what we did well enough to answer these questions. No one in the room therefore had solved the fundamental marketing problem: that people just plain don’t know what we do or see in the value in what we offer.

Middleton took us through the solutions to the four biggest marketing problems: how to get people’s attention; deliver the information they need; provide an experience of the solutions we offer and, finally, submit a proposal asking for business.

It’s critical that we can articulate these messages according the correct marketing syntax. Syntax honors the order in which information is presented. Most small businesses (and many large ones) mix up the syntax and unknowingly communicate a different meaning. The letters that spell A-R-T are mixed up to spell R-A-T.

A rat first tells people all about their solutions without communicating basic information about who they work with, the challenges customers face, what outcomes delivered and what action steps people can take to engage with us. The artful know what to say first.

The beauty of Middleton’s methodology is that these principles can be learned and applied to the way we discuss our business when we first meet people (engaging them conversationally rather than delivering a stilted ‘elevator pitch’) as well as to our website design, written proposals, sales letters or even – Lordy sakes! – to the way a local Chapter of a Speakers Association might recruit new members. Now there’s an idea.

I caught up with Robert after lunch and asked him to explain how his methods are used by communications professionals. To hear what he told me, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:37 — 1.1MB)

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My third and final interview at the ANZAtechnet Conference was with Raphe Patmore of Perth-based Buzka.

His product blew me away!

If you are a subject matter expert, information marketeer, frustrated blogger looking for a quick way to snarf content or otherwise interested in building a vibrant online community of clients by offering structured access to information, then you really must check out Buzka.

But wait! There’s more! As well as being a handy-dandy way of collating content from the far reaches of the internet the Buzka “Spot” you create (for free!) will drive your Google rankings sky-high. Check it out. Search on ‘Chinese Stuff’ and in the top 10 listings you’ll see Wei’s Chinese Stuff Spot – a Buzka site.

Other examples of Buzka sites can be found by using the ‘Search’ button or browsing this listing of Interests. A couple I liked were this Guide to London and this guide to Learning French.

Don’t make the mistake of dismissing Buzka as a simple ‘bookmark publishing’ app or another Digg.

I was recently impressed by the flexible social networking aspects of Ning – which allow information brokers to build a client base. But it seems small scale and somewhat walled off. Not so Buzka.

The true power of the product (listen up, NSA members) is by investing a couple of grand for a private label version, like this very cool surfing site. Nice, huh? Look at all the user generated content on ‘Your stories’, and the extensive catalogs on ‘Clothing and Accessories’. I can imagine many niche markets responding well to filtered, organized information on a Buzka Spot – who knows, they might well value the expertize of the person delivering this information enough to stick around and see what else you have to offer.

Enough of my rambling. To hear Raphe discuss his product, well, you know what to do…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:25 — 799.3KB)

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The second of my ANZAtechnet Gateway to the US Conference interviews is with Jennifer Lyons-Reid of the video production and training company tallstoreez.

Their innovative program, Directing the Hero Within, is a South Australian video skills training initiative to support young people to make films “by, for, and about” themselves.

Participants develop professional digital media skills, to support creativity, self-confidence, teamwork skills and social awareness. The “tallstoreez productionz” team promotes the Positive Minds Attract message during their workshops with hundreds of young people across Australia, contributing to a lively and sustainable regional and metropolitan youth media network.

I asked if their video skills program would be of use to professional speakers and others who wish to create promo material using high quality video with a strong storytelling aspect. Guess what the answer is?

To find out, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:40 — 623.4KB)

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I spent the afternoon at the annual ANZATechnet Gateway to the US Conference in Sunnyvale where a dozen of Australia’s most innovative companies present their solutions. Their goal is to break into the US market, find partners or investors, or just build out their global network and showcase their offerings.

In this interview, the first of three, I talk with Tod Pedlar, the Founder and CEO of Centricminds. This Adelaide-based company has both Enterprise and Small Business web collaboration software. I ask Tod how their small business package could be used by the professional speakers or trainers who are members of the National Speakers Association who wish to develop flexible websites with rich publishing and collaboration features.

I was surprised to hear that anyone can download their software for free, test out a website or blog and then for just a few thousand dollars, launch and fully-featured professional website. Many of us know of individuals and organizations who have spent tens of thousands on web designers and programmers and still don’t have a site they can really use. If you are one of those unfortunates, check out the Centricminds website and take their Convurge package for a trial run.

To listen to the interview, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:20 — 1.2MB)

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Sausalito resident Kare Anderson invited my wife Sandra over to discuss marketing her new business College Steps. This once “phobically shy” Emmy-winning TV commentator – turned public speaker – knows how to communicate to connect. She’s the publisher of the international Say It Better E-Zine. She’s the author of several books, including Getting What You Want – Resolving Conflict Sooner – Walk Your Talk and Beauty Inside Out.

She’s a trailblazer in media, business and politics. A former journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, UPI, and other newspapers, Kare has worked in the telcommunications industry, co-founded of a national public affairs and advertising firm and is now president of the Communicate to Center. In government, she was a state senator’s chief of staff, co-founder of nine political action committees and appointed commissioner. Kare’s a frequent strategic communication coach to leaders in business and government.

I asked Kare what she thinks the biggest mistakes corporate executives make when they speak in front of audiences and what concrete advice she would give someone who wants to ‘Say it Better’.

To hear her advice, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:21 — 1,019.5KB)

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Vicki and the good people at ANZATechNet are hosting their annual showcase of Australian technology companies in Sunnyvale October 22-24. It’s amazing the innovation that comes out of the southern hemisphere. Four years ago I was blown away by David’s In The Chair flight simulator for classical musicians. The conference helped launch them.

This years crop is an eclectic mix of companies. Check out:

• eComPress and their blazingly fast alternative to Adobe’s PDF technology
• Tallstoreez (have you seen a more creative home page?) who offer multimedia training solutions
• Silenceair who are part of the green building movement providing fresh air without the noise which opening a window can bring (don’t I know it – my neighbor leaves for work at 4:30am and I’ve heard him drive away more mornings than not this summer!)
• PocketPhrase – a software solution for mobile devices, which is designed to assist suffers of Autism to integrate better with society by providing communication and socialization aids.

… plus a host of others.

What’s more, they evening events are drinks parties with the best wines Australia and New Zealand have to offer. What’s not to like?