Category: Smart Bloggers

One of the great things about collaborating is that it takes you outside of your personal zone … it makes you work and think in different ways. It exposes you and your ideas in (sometimes) quite confronting ways.

The Age of Conversation eBook has been an interesting exercise — through it I have come into contact with many more marketers, social media writers, activists and thinkers than I otherwise would have. One of these is Jim Kukral. And today, as I was reading through his site, I found a very interesting post on the Top 25 Marketing Blogs that Mack Collier puts together each and every week. I have been lucky enough to take out room and board in the Top 25 over the last couple of weeks so was included in Jim’s analysis … and here are my answers to some of his questions:

Names and branding — I don’t brand my name — in fact, my blog is more about the connection of ideas, stories and people than me, Gavin Heaton. I suppose I could have a blog about myself, but I would probably get bored writing it. Oh and I didn’t have a photo of myself here until I started contributing to The Daily Fix — and once it was available there I no longer had a reason to hide over here!

• Seth Godin — yes he is in my blogroll. One of my early blogging delights was receiving a short, personal message from Seth saying "Hi Gavin, thanks for reading". Goes to show how a little encouragement can make us all bloom!
• Advertising — there aren’t ads running on my site, though I did experiment with them for a while — mostly just to understand how they worked. I think I made a total of $7.
• Typepad — I started out running my own WordPress server but then got sick of it. Typepad seemed like a nice, stable and easy to use option. Now I am too deeply entrenched here to ever think about leaving … not a bad business model, huh? Goes to show those SixApart folks know a thing or two!
• Phone numbers — I don’t have my phone number listed anywhere. But you can email me easily enough — servant [at] servantofchaos [dot] com. I guess if you had a project that you needed help with you might want to call … but email is always a great first step.

Does the word "blogger" sound dirty to you? I must admit that it sounds unattractive to me and I much prefer to talk about my website about marketing "Servant of Chaos" rather than my efforts at "blogging". So it was interesting to check out David Armano’s excellent Conversation by Design deck delivered this weekend at SOBcon where he announces that we should STOP calling ourselves bloggers!

And for those of us who were not able to make the trek to Chicago, David points us to Jason Alba’s fantastic blow-by-blow description of what must have been a GREAT weekend.

Wonder how to take your blog to the next level? This is your last chance to register for SOBcon. It is going to be a festival of smart bloggers with plenty to share — and it will be a great chance to put a face to the names of the sites that you read!

I pity the fool who will miss SOBCON!

Oh, that would be me!

When I was in China last year I was introduced to the world of CosPlay. It is an entire subculture that began in Japan, built around the heroes and characters from video games. Not only do CosPlayers dress up like their favourite characters, they also re-enact scenes from games or create their own storylines based on the characters.

It is fascinating … here was an amazing subculture, thriving, and it had never even crossed my radar! It goes to show that no matter how "engaged" with the world you think you are, there are always more variations, more alternatives and new adventures in life to discover. But while this appeared to me to be something of a fantasy, for many of the CosPlayers it was much more … it was a way of life. Sounds like there are some intersections with blogging.

My friend, Sharon Sarmiento has entered Darren Rowse’s group writing project that requires you to write a top 5. And with her usual passion and precision, Sharon writes up her Top 5 Blog Fantasies. And while I don’t know if she did this while wearing her favourite CosPlay outfit, I know I always get MY inspiration while doing so!

Sometimes you need to listen to the whispers.

Help raise money for a good cause by simply linking to this blog.

One of the joys of blogging is transcending the online world and meeting other bloggers face-to-face. Here in Sydney, Sara the Bargain Queen and Mr Bargain Queen, the mercurial Mercurius do a fantastic job of regularly bringing local bloggers together and last week we all met up at the Art House Hotel in Sydney for a spot of conversation, a few drinks and the simple chance to escape our computer screens. This week’s soiree was well attended with around 30 or so bloggers and a couple of people who are not bloggers but came along anyway.

I got to have a quick chat with Laurel Papworth who had just come straight from a seminar featuring Jimmy Wales. It sounded like an interesting day focusing on the use of social media in an educational context where the topic was "challenging the way knowledge is created".

I also met up with Angus McDonald, Anna and Ian who were engaged in wide ranging discussions about science fiction and the weirdness of blogging. Since the meetup, Matt Moore has been coaxed out of blog retirement and is now waxing lyrical about value networks ("the biggest thing in the next three months") on his newly revived blog. Harriet Fesq, Sara, Petra, Dean and Chrissy brought a fashion focus to the charming Attic Bar of the Art House. I also got chatting to Karyn about how easy it is to start a blog these days (she was one of two non-bloggers who turned up to see what bloggers were like — here I am writing down the URLs of Typepad, Blogger and WordPress).

I chatted with Kathy Phelan about Twitter and its many and varied uses for brands, marketing and politics. I told her about our Twitter Fun — changing icons and pictures to a theme from time to time — and she suggested a great one — baby photos. I just need to digitise some of my own before I bring that one up!

I noticed Lucas, Sara (the +1) and Paull were chatting together over in the corner for ages. As it turns out, Paull is hosting a dinner next Wednesday and then wandering down to meetup with Joseph Jaffe … so if you are in Sydney and interested in social media and marketing, mark Wednesday in your diaries. Just let Paull know so that he can book a space for you at the table!

Of course, this shindig was also attended by my marketing blog buddies Katie and Emily. After a late night chatting with this group of Sydney bloggers, I just could not make it to coffee the next morning … but it looks like it turned out well anyway! (Thanks also to Emily for the great pictures — that camera goes everywhere!)

As you probably know, Joseph Jaffe is undertaking a bit of a world tour … ok, well he is at least coming to Australia on his way back from Cannes 😉

So today, Katie sends me a link pointing out this article in our local rag, The Sydney Morning Herald’s online edition (hope you all can see this). As Paul McIntyre writes, "Jaffe could be excused for being another attention-seeking nutter in the new media arena except that if he is, big companies are opening their doors to nutters …". He may not be a nutter, but he is certainly going to cause some chaos while he is here … sounds like fun!

So I have been doing a bit of guest blogging over at Ariel Waldman’s Shake Well Before Use … and it really does feel like I am hanging out in someone else’s apartment for the weekend. Interesting in that I have never been to Kansas!

Guest blogging creates an interesting situation … what level of control should be exercised by the blog owner — should the content be reviewed before publishing, edited down/rewritten or should it go out warts and all. Similarly for the guest, what rules apply? Are there things you shouldn’t look at, topics you shouldn’t post on? And will we all still be friends at the end of the experiment?

Throwing caution to the wind, I am also opening up Servant of Chaos to my first guest blogger. You see, I love the potential chaos of it all … I love how random my posts may seem to Ariel’s readers (and I hope they do too), and I am excited about the change in tone, perspective and approach that my special guest will bring.

And it is a special occasion — my 1000th comment was received and the person that posted it is my secret guest. Who is it? Some of you will know him as the Green Hornet.

Please make him welcome.

Your words took my breath.
Sucked the air from my being.
The shock, your shock, articulation, clarity
Left me
Gobsmacked.
In an instant a thousand hearts flew to you.
A tear dropped.

There are not pages enough
To hold your book of tears.

On a hundred shores of unlit oceans
We wait to hear your stories
Share your slowly returning smiles
And bask in the glow of friendship
Unrestrained.

‘Til then, my friend, we wait by
Hands outreaching
Dozens standing
Making books for the chapters
Still to be written.

And the time will come when the
tears we see
Will fall as tears of joy.

It seems like there was a bit of a bloggers party over in New York the other night. I found this link through to Matt Dickman’s blog where he has a whole raft of photos. And sure enough, there is my pal CK … and surprise visitor Valeria Maltoni. Sounds like a great night!

You can catch up on the night of nights over at CK’s blog or follow this link back to Matt’s Flickr photoset.