I interviewed Christiana Briddell, Co-Founder of ThoughtLead.com about The Influencer Project: The World’s Shortest Marketing Conference on The Business of Online Thought Leadership on Blog Talk Radio this week.

After our conversation, it’s also arguably the World’s Shortest Most Valuable Marketing Conference. And it’s FREE.

• 60 Leading Thinkers in Social Media/New Media were given
• 60 seconds to share their Best Ideas for how to increase online influence in 60 Days
• =60 minutes of pure genius. (IMHO)

Here’s a video for you video folks. (I’m so not a video watcher, but this one was interesting)

Also, here’s a link to the press release for more information.

About ThoughtLead
ThoughtLead’s mission is to spread important ideas that positively impact our world through online marketing.

A Twitter conversation sparked this post a while ago, and I wanted to revisit today (thanks @JDeragon)

Jan Phillips wrote this white paper in 2006, using Michael Stelzner’s white paper on… “How to Write a White Paper” (thanks Michael …designed to help market the book she was writing for 9th Element Group, our angel-funded, short-lived “business of thought leadership” consulting company.

You can download it RIGHT here:

Visionary Thought Leadership. (PDF, opens new window, no registration required)

I think it’s time we revived it, let me know what you think when you read it,  it’s obvious to me now that we were way ahead of our time.

Enjoy the read, and if you like it…
You’ll LOVE the award-winning book companion book we published titled “The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader”
(Amazon.com and in bookstores too)

Also, go check out Jan Phillips and tell her what an amazing predictor she is… (well, I guess we all were – we all added content and insight).  You’ll love her site.  Tell her Michelle Price sent you.

That’s a question I’ve asked for a while now and none of the pretty enlightened leaders I know seem to have a clue either. So, I thought it would be fun to plan to find them and when I do, they’ll appear in this category.

In 2006, I was a partner in a thought leadership publishing venture called 9th Element Press and we published our first award-winning business book, The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader. It was written in record time by one of the most talented women thought leaders I know, Jan Phillips.

To become a thought leader, you have to be an original thinker because thought leaders don’t become that way by thinking someone else’s thoughts. (makes sense).

The Art of Original Thinking engages you in a 3 part process:

• Release the Past,
• Embrace the Present
• Create the Future

It’s truly a ground breaking business book that introduces you to some of today’s most original thinking companies (and I guarantee they aren’t ones you’re used to reading about) and how they are increasing global consciousness and doing well while doing good.If you know a woman who you consider a thought leader, send me a note and tell me why and I’ll consider adding her to this section…

Guest Post by Jay Deragon
Relationship Economy Thought Leader

I found this in my Facebook inbox today. I decided it was high time I posted something from Jay Deragon, one of my favorite leading thinkers on all things Relationship 2.0….Enjoy~

A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Strategy is different from tactics.

Every business, whether planned or not, has and acts on a strategy to both engage in market opportunities and to provide offerings. The process and thinking about strategy has changed overtime as the market conditions change.

When market conditions change such changes can turn old strategies on their head and subsequently a business finds that what they were doing in the past is no longer valid and they begin to lose market share.

Are The Market Conditions Changing?

Have you watched the headlines? Everywhere we turn we can see market disruption. This is especially true within the field of media, the advertising field, our entire economic market has changed and in case you haven’t noticed the market of conversations is fueling disruption in every market. For companies to adapt to these changes they must pursue alternative strategies. However the pursuit of alternative strategies means that everything changes including how your new strategy is formed.

Strategy 2.0 is a new process that is required to create new plans of action in order to stay in the game and thrive. The marketplace is at war for consumer attention and spending. The war is not fought with traditional tactics rather it is fought using methods of engaging markets, the conversation.

In his book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, (1999) Doc Searls speaks to the point that “markets are conversations.” He supports this thesis with a thorough discussion on how the growth and widespread use of the Internet is facilitating conversations that defy the traditional boundaries of corporations and countries. What was once a prophecy has now become a fact – and at an unprecedented rate of speed. This movement has not only influenced existing markets and how consumers engage in transactions, it has created new markets and new methods of exchange.

Searls notes that three things happen in all “natural” markets: transaction, conversation and relationship. The conventional thinking of almost all corporate cultures is that they understand transaction excessively – focusing intensely on the ultimate result: The “bottom line.” Thus, their understanding of the value of genuine conversations and healthy relationships is woefully deficient. Corporate America rationalizes almost all her decisions in terms of transactional value alone. This mindset will not continue to be successful in the new economy.

Cycles of Strategic Transformation

According to Doc Searls, the acceleration of conversations creates cycles of transformation. These cycles have blazed the trail to a new frontier for commerce: Relationship. The networked marketplace can only be improved upon and enlarged through relationships. Those who are grasping this recognize the opportunity to expand a current market and/or lead to the creation of a new one. How does this happen? It begins with a conversation.

Strategy 2.0 is about applying knowledge of this dynamic marketplace and implementing a plan to maximize your competitiveness in the marketplace of conversations. Strategy 2.0 is about anticipating the evolution of your intended strategy into an emerging strategy whose cycle of transformation doesn’t occur at a tidy annual corporate planning retreat; rather, it is an ongoing, everyday occurrence.

Strategy 2.0 doesn’t wait for quarterly and annual reports to be compiled; it is being discussed and formed among the daily conversations between employees and customers. But Strategy 2.0 is not only about the use of an advancing technology. Actually, it’s more basic than that. Strategy 2.0 begins and ends as a conversation. Get it?

What say you?

To get Jay in your own Facebook inbox, join the Link To Your World Group on Facebook.  Also check him out at  LinkToYourWorld.com

The OG Online Thought Leader Seth Godin talks at TED about Tribes (What I like to call True Fans – what if you had a Tribe of 1000 True Fans? Never “work” again because you would have your own economy!).

TED is my favorite site for learning who the leading thinkers are for today. Seth Godin is the Original Thinker and I read his blog updates FIRST in my inbox. Enjoy and EXPAND your thinking!

It’s about time somebody wrote this book. And, David Silver is the one to write it. I like it because it’s practical. David breaks down 18 revenue channels for online communities, and none of them are advertising. Interesting huh? Want to know what they are? Listen in to this interview and you will see. Better yet, grab a copy of the book for your library. It’s a keeper.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK BUSINESS PLAN: 18 Strategies That Will Create Great Wealth. (He’s got my attention

USA Today says, “If entrepreneurship is a religion, then Silver is its high priest.”>

In The Social Network Business Plan, social network expert, David Silver presents and explains 18 cutting-edge methods to create revenue for social network websites–none of which are advertising.

He also predicts the demise of seemingly successful online communities such as MySpace and Facebook that rely on advertising as non-sustainable modalities.

David says the future new products and services will be introduced, talked about, rated, reviewed and recommended – or killed – by online communities.

Listen in on The Business of Online Thought Leadership internet radio show

Today on The Business of Online Thought Leadership talk radio, I snagged an interview with leading thinker Sandy Carter, IBM’s Hippest Marketing 2.0 Chick, and Vice President, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and WebSphere Marketing, Strategy, and Channels.

Sandy is also the new author of the book “The New Language of Marketing 2.0: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market”. She is responsible for IBM’s cross-company, worldwide SOA initiatives and is in charge of one of IBM’s premier brands, IBM WebSphere.

She is known for her innovative Marketing 2.0;  she’s led the brand to win 14 industry marketing awards in the past year!

Listen in and learn what Big Blue is up to – how they are using the tools of Web 2.0 and social media to open and sustain conversations with their customers and prospects.  You’ll learn how they got over 50,000 customers to give them input on a new product, and how they used Twitter to increase the attendance at a series of Road Show LIVE events.  In fact, they attributed at least 5,000 attendees overall to Twitter!

Here you go, enjoy:
The New Language of Marketing: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market

This just in my inbox from my friend Ben, (oops, I mean Howard Campbell).

I told him I thought it would be fun to share and I was going to post this onto my blog. Hey, where else could you get a $4,000 Stanford University syllabus for Facebook for free, become a world class expert on the psychology of Facebook, AND audit the class using their Facebook group, BUT online?

That’s why I love the internet.

Here’s the email:

Michelle,

Can you keep a secret?

This is a $4,000 course and I’m
letting you in the back door…

Psychology of Facebook
is being taught at Stanford

“For ten weeks we will focus
on persuasion psychology in Facebook.”
~BJ Fogg, Stanford University

If you put together
a college-level course
on social networking
what would you call it?

At Stanford, they call it Psychology of FaceBook.

Get the Stanford syllabus here…

( MP: Better look quick, before they find out)

If you are already a member of FaceBook,
then you can join their group online…

Join the Stanford class group on Facebook Here

The kids in this class paid roughly $4,000 each
and you can audit the class for free.

If they ask, tell them Howard Campbell
told you where to look. Shhh.

Ben
aka Howard Campbell