Books & Blackwell Dragon*Con party announcement

Are you ready for a second night of partying at Dragon*Con? The party suite in the Hyatt will be taken over that night by Tee Morris, Pip Ballantine & J.R. Blackwell for the Books & Blackwell party.

As the text in the image says, it's a book launch, art show and costume party! They'll be selling books and prints, and you'll be drinking. What could be more fun? See you at the event, immediately following the Parsec Awards on Saturday, August 30th, 2008.

Want the secret to social media success?

People want social media to be an easy fix. Companies look at social media as an immediate replacement for lots of other things they are doing, and they expect it to "just work" out of the box.

That's not the way the game is played, kids.

Take it from Scott Sigler, arguably one of the most popular and successful users of social media. He's used variations on a theme to break through several barriers and is still going strong. Is he making a full-time living on social media? No. Is he making a full-time living because of social media? Yes. Yes he his.

Want to copy his success? OK. But consider what it really means to "copy" him.

What I’ve found is that [working your tail off with social media] is not something that most authors [or anyone wanting to catch the social media wave] do. ... I reply to absolutely everything. Everything gets responded to; every instant message, every email, every tweet, everything. And that, combined with the social networking sites, makes such a strong connection with the readers. They really feel like someone actually took five minutes just to reply to them, and even if they only email once, it’s totally locking in fans for life.

Bingo. There's the secret. Like most, it's not complicated. It only takes commitment. Do you have it? If not, plan on falling short of the mark. Regardless of how well-planned your social media strategy may be, in the end you have to respond. To everything.

^{Excerpt taken from Podcasting News interview with Scott that seems to have happened some time ago, but only now has been published}

I'm buying Playing for Keeps at Amazon.com today

... and you should, too. Why? Three reasons.

1. Mur is a friend of mine, and any friend of mine is a friend of yours. Wait. Did I get that right? Regardless. Mur is good people. I enjoy her writing, spirit and passion. The world needs more Mur, and you can help by buying Playing for Keeps on Amazon.com today. As in RIGHT NOW.
   
   
2. Helping Mur helps to validate the usage of social media. Mur doesn't have a huge publisher with gazillions of dollars of marketing behind this launch. She hasn't taken out an ad in the New York Times. And she's not spammed few million email addresses in the hopes that .2% will respond. And you know what? That's better for all of us. Buying the book today shows that you can achieve success without annoying ads.
   
   
3. It's a damn fine book. I had the pleasure of reading this second-class superhero story in a late draft a couple of years back. I also listened to her free serialized audiobook version, too. And now, I want a print copy to put on my shelf. So buy it. And listen to it. But buy it.
   
   
4. Bonus reason: A quote from my friend Joe -- Mur; more than just a gift to the baby Jesus.
   

New Media Interchange Phoenix - or - Not another meetup!

For the purpose of this post, I'm breaking up you, the readers, into two categories. Now I abhor labels, so bear with me.

Group 1: Everyone who has a firm grasp on new and social media. You get not only the concepts, but you are actively engaged to the conversation. Sure, you want to learn more, but you're looking for advanced learnings and cutting-edge applications.

Group 2: Those who look at people who fit neatly in Group 1 and wonder either "Now that's really neato. How can I get involved?" or "Exactly what the hell are those people going on about all the time?".

Group 2, there is an event happening in Phoenix (Tempe, actually) on November the 1st that you must attend. It's geared toward you. It's a safe place to ask what you may think is a silly question. It's non-threatening, free of techno-babble that'll make your head spin, and an opportunity to learn the basic 101-level aspects of social and new media.

Group 1? As you might imagine, this isn't for you. Consider this a personal invitation to not attend. Consider it reverse elitism if you wish, but let's face it -- we can be a little intimidating for the noob. I figure the fewer of us are here, the better.

So back to Group 2: all those who want to learn about social and new media. The event is the New Media Interchange Phoenix meeting. It's actually the first ever meeting happening in Phoenix (though there was one in Sedona a few weeks back). Started by my good friend Douglas E. Welch in southern California, the New Media Interchange is... well, I'll just let Douglas explain:

I want to bring together New Media Tech folks like Flash animators, podcasters, videobloggers,etc together with creative and entertainment types like writers, actors and directors so that we can share information on producing New Media.

While there is a social element to all meetups, I want to focus on the Interchange of ideas and sharing real world, useful information that we each need to know. I imagine a “5-minute meeting” where you can ask a pressing question and provide a great resource (web site, book, person, etc) to share with the group. Then we can break up and discuss whatever we wish.

Time has yet to be decided. I am planning on holding this meeting as one of the unstructured break-out sessions during PodCampAZ

So that makes it even better: Hit the NMI meeting, then if you are so inclined, hang out the rest of the day at Podcamp AZ to learn even more. Since I have some influence on the schedule of Podcamp AZ, I'm going to work to get this as one of the very first sessions of the day, giving you a good taste of information in the event that you do want to visit some other things. Both Podcamp AZ and the NMI-P meeting will be totally free of charge. And while everyone at Podcamp AZ will be doing their best to make their talks "accessible" to all levels, we're going to make sure that the NMI-P meeting is totally accessible, friendly, non-threatening and all the other things I said above.

Wanna learn more? Start by telling us that you are coming (we use Upcoming to figure out what size of room we'll need. You'll want a free account for future use, so go ahead and register. Consider this a homework assignment.).

But back to the Group 1 folks for a minute: you can help. Tell all of the folks you know who might be interested that we're doing this. No, they won't have to hear you try and explain Twitter for the upteenth time. In fact, we won't have any "agenda" to speak of. There won't be a strict curriculum we're following -- that depends on the audience and how the conversation goes. No, we won't make everyone stand up and talk about what a noob they are. So no, YOU won't have fun... but maybe someone you know would?

And if it goes well, I'm committed to having recurring meetings much like Douglas does. No way we can get EVERYONE here on this one day, right?

Are podcasters legitimate press? Obama campaign says so

Now here's the coolest thing I've read all day:

Obama came to Albuquerque to do a town hall meeting yesterday and on a whim I wrote an email asking if a podcaster would be considered press. They didn't even blink. They just issued me a press pass and I had all the same access as any of the 'big media'. The town hall was at a high school and the Obama camp was even cool enough to give the kids from the school paper a spot on the media riser in between CNN and Fox News.

Score one for EVERYBODY! Thanks, misspeter, for sharing the story on the Yahoo! Podcasters mailing list so I could share it here.

Video of zombies attacking Jonathan Coulton

Props to Hellziggy for capturing this amazing video of the zombie attack on Jonathan Coulton during the Coverville 500 show at the New Media Expo.



For those unfamiliar with the song, I recommend watching the whole thing. For those who know it and just want to get to the "good parts", the hi-larity ensues at around 5:45. I swear any resemblances between me and the zombie ringleader is purely coincidental.

Pimps & Hoes II: The Wrath of Bone announcement

Speaking of Dragon*Con... I'm going against my better judgment and sub-letting the Podiobooks.com Party Suite to Scott Sigler one night. Yeah, there's going to be a huge mess to clean up.

Some come on out, Junkies and drink some beer on me. No, not literally on me, you miscreants. But I'm buying. Which is something else I'm probably going to regret doing. You people will probably drink all the kegs and booze Friday night, short-changing Tee and Pip for their second evening.

Gods, but how I'm going to regret this decision.

More information on the party at Sigler's site.