[chrisbrogan.com]

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 11:50 PM PDT

Threading together some topics that have been on my mind lately, I wanted to bring something different to you for consideration. For all that I talk about social media tools and how they can help businesses, I wanted to look at some real world problems that some of you can help with.

I’m inspired in part by a conversation with Britt Raybould tonight, about how the tech community is fairly insulated in our little fishbowl, and that we’re not really looking at things we could be doing to make a difference.

This was also one of the themes of PodCamp Boston this year, that we needed to take what we learned and start doing something with it. Further, I believe it was Christopher S. Penn who shared/linked to a story by Heather Ryan about what it was like to take her family to a soup kitchen for the first time. I’m also inspired by the work of Beth Kanter, and how she got a bunch of geeks to send a Cambodian woman to college again!

There are real world things you can do to help others while doing social media things. Here are some starting points:

Money Never Hurts

Affiliate Marketers Give Back is a campaign by Missy Ward and others in the affiliate marketing space dedicated to helping fund charitable giving via the affiliate marketing community.

Christopher S. Penn recently posted his new public speaking policy and it involves getting his fee handled in scholarship points to support college education.

Kiva.org is a microlending project, where you can fund several projects with great impact in other countries by giving a reasonably small amount of money in the form of a loan. My wife, Katrina, is involved with Kiva.org, and when I reviewed the projects she’d funded (Kat chose all women’s projects), I was impressed and moved by how much these loans could impact the people in need. Even $30 went a long way with certain projects in certain communities.

Or you could be Angel Djambazov and decide to send a good friend a few Flip video cameras for a generation-spanning project whose goal is only (only?) understanding between grandparents and kids.

There are other ways to help, too.

Startups to Solve More Pressing Problems

I came up with one idea where I feel a startup could make a difference, instead of trying to recreate the next Twitter killer yet again. Most modern grocery stores are all digitized. Every can of green beans is accounted for in a system. There are many people who receive financial assistance to support their food needs.

Could we build a system that automatically calculates the best possible food purchase choices, based on the amount of money available to spend divided by the number of people in the family, and built around the best possible nutrition choices? Could we print that list and even provide aisle/shelf numbers to make it even easier?

I saw an advertisement for a new show on Discovery called Project Earth. Essentially, it’s a science program, where they intend to do really big projects to attempt to impact various environmental issues. Too out there? Though it was a bit hokey and in the vein of reality TV, I give Discovery credit for education efforts via shows like Battleground Earth, where musical celebrities (Ludacris and Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee) perform eco-friendly challenges while educating us on how to make a difference in the environment.

Are there other ways we can use our technology and media skills that could benefit people in need?

It doesn’t always have to be a large gesture. Today, the effort with Beth Kanter cost as little as $10, and took up a few minutes of anyone’s time.

Want to see some other interesting and useful causes that could use your help in some small way?

Check out sm4sc- social media for social causes. This has lots of opportunities, especially for companies looking to get involved at a larger-than-individual level.

Check out this list from the nptech site.

So what can you do to help? What blocks us from taking action? How else might you share what you know in a way that would help others?

Photo credit, Joe M500

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Magnolia Opens Up

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 11:40 AM PDT

Social bookmark site Ma.gnolia announced today at Gnomedex 8 that they’re going open source. OpenID, OAuth, and all kinds of stuff rolling out in September. Community superstar Tara Hunt made part of the presentation, and got me thinking about what she’s planning to get done there. I think they’ve got some great ideas.

My only question: what moves us off the bookmarking tools we’re using? What gets me out of delicious? What gets you out of … um… are there other social bookmarking sites that we *really* use for reference?

And there again is the thing.

To the plus, all these great features and openness. To the minus, lethargy.

How do you move people to your amazing new thing?

My answer is humans. Human bridges, human threads.

What’s your answer?

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Be a Better Interviewer

Posted: 22 Aug 2008 02:30 AM PDT

I’m about to start interviewing people for my book with Julien Smith. We’re definitely planning to put our best foot forward on this, and as part of that, I’m looking into ways to be a better interviewer. Fortunately, I get to be the guest often. That’s a lot less difficult. Here I am being interviewed by the (very!) prepared Jim Canterucci.

We don’t always have to re-invent the wheel. There are some great interviewers out there doing amazing work. If you take a little bit of time to research how the pros do it, you can learn a lot. The trick is this: listen to or watch a full interview, and WRITE DOWN THE QUESTIONS and TOPICS covered. Then, go back and deconstruct what you just heard. Rate each question for how the guest answers, and whether or not the answer sung versus just flopped. Ask yourself whether it was the interviewer or the guest who could’ve done better.

Now, let’s look at some examples. Take out your notebooks and start picking this apart. Let’s look at how the pros do it, and see what we can take back.

Best of the Best

In my estimation, Terry Gross from NPR’s Fresh Air is the best in the business right now. You’re welcome to disagree. Here’s her body of work. You want to learn some great interviewing tips? Learn from Terry.

Learn from Larry

Larry King has several years of interviewing all kinds of world leaders. That can be easy. World leaders make world news. What about entertainers? That’s harder, more obscure (believe it or not). Look how Larry deals with entertainers. The lesson here? Research helps, but then, so does flexibility.

Here’s Larry interviewing Motley Crue:

Larry with Christina Aguilera:

Notice how he leads off. He gives a bit of their most recent bio. He does this thing where he says something like, “You’re doing this new thing. What got you started doing that? or Why do that?” That lets the guest go right into the thing they’re most passionate about. And that’s the good part.

Larry blows it in some of these interviews. He calls Christina a softer singer, which would be the opposite. But listen how he turns it around, and just lets it go past. That’s half Christina and half Larry. Look what Jerry Seinfeld does when Larry gets something wrong with him:

So, if you’re the guest, you have some power. If you’re the interviewer, steer that boat back out of the whitewater fast, or it could spin out of control.

What About Tricky Guests?

Another great interviewer was Johnny Carson. He did it a different way, and the show was essentially a series of promotions that could double as entertainment. But what you should learn from Johnny is velocity. Who better to test that with than Jim Carrey?

Okay, you just thought about Robin Williams as a rough guest. Here he is with Ellen:

Advice here? Go with it.

And Now for You

Lots of my blog posts end with questions. Do you know why? Because interviewers are very curious, and they want to hear from the other person. It’s a conversation, but it’s also a showcase of another person’s capabilities, ideas, and thoughts.

So now it’s your turn. What else can you tell us about interviews?

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