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.

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can turn old strategies on their head and subsequently a business finds that what they were doing in the past is no longer valid and they begin to lose market share.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

Do people who know how  NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming)  or hypnosis works have an unfair advantage  on Twitter & Facebook, among other social networks?

I think they DO.  (Ummm…I KNOW they do. Some of my best friends are master NLP and persuasion artists and they have LOTS of Twitter followers who do what-ever-they-tell-them-to-do .

If there was anyone who would know for sure, it’s Richard Bandler.

You know, THAT Richard Bandler. The one considered the “Grandfather” of NLP. And a REALLY great hypnotist.

I was talking with a colleague and she happened to mention his new book, Richard Bandler’s Guide to Trance-Formation (she’s his publicist). I mentioned how fascinated I’ve always been with NLP and the ability to understand someone’s mental map and how they think. And how cool it would be to actually meet Richard Bandler.

What I told her I didn’t have was a simple explanation for what NLP actually is, and how it works.

I’ve read a lot of books that went into laborious details about it, gave all these long drawn out explanations on all of the terms, complete with illustrations of eyes looking up, looking down, looking left and down, looking right and up (reminding me of that rhyme we used to say in elementary school “Look UP, Look DOWN, Look at my THUMB, Gee You’re DUMB…LOL!).  I think they called them “accessing cues”…

All it did was make me dizzy and not want to think about it. So many unread pages….

So she sent me an email one day not long after and asked if I would be interested in interviewing him.  (umm..YES!!)

I got a copy of the book, and I must say that in the first 3 short chapters, I actually GOT what NLP is. Forever.

If you’re interested, it’s how we represent the world in our own mind – the map or model we create to make sense of and navigate around the world AND the distinct way we each process our experiences.

Does understanding how you process experience give someone an unfair advantage on Twitter when they want to persuade you to “click here” to “see”, or “listen” to or “download and read”?

Does knowing how to use certain words that are more hypnotic and trance-inducing than others make a difference in whether you actually take any action at all?

Good questions.  Listen to my interview on The Business of Online Thought Leadership Radio with Richard Bandler and hear what he has to say about social media, hypnosis, trance and NLP.

It’s right here:

Does Twitter Put You In A Trance? Dr. Richard Bandler tells you the truth

For some reason, I’ve always been fascinated with the topic of thought leadership. Maybe because I like to think a lot .  

In fact, in 2005 I was a partner in a start-up consulting firm with 5 other dynamic women – we named our company 9th Element Group, (the ninth element is Flourine, it’s the most powerful element in the known universe and has been tested as rocket fuel…literally).  and we decided our niche was going to be The Business of Thought Leadership.  We would position, package and propel thought leaders into their marketplace! 

Part of the business of thought leadership is that you publish thought-provoking information. And we knew we’d need to write a book to be taken seriously. Luckily, one of the partners was an award-winning author, Jan Phillips. Jan wrote the book over the summer of 2005 (literally).  The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader was published in 2006 and won awards.

Unfortunately, the company ran out of funding before we could really get traction so we all went off to other things.   

My intrique with the topic has remained, and in particular, I’m finding that there are a lot of women who demonstrate thought leadership with blogging, podcasting, social networking, social media and other areas – PR, business, technology…but aren’t necessarily recognized for their leading-edge thinking.

So I’m starting an internet talk radio show “The Business of Online Thought Leadership” and it’s going to profile many of the brave new entrepreneurs leading the field who you may not necessarily know but probably should.  

This week starts with my good friend Rob Schultz of www.AudaciousAudio.com and the reason I started with him is that he’s done some really cool innovative things with online media, like creating flash movies for big name coaches, and created a Larry King-style split screen interview using Skype and a web-cam (who knew? Traditional media is probably about to lose their MIND because of innovations like this …they can’t compete!)

Why Rob first? Well, when we reconnected recently, he happens to have just created the Online Radio Challenge – a 50 day program to creating your online radio show using Blog Talk Radio (how about that for timing?? The Universe is always at work, right?)

You can watch the split-screen program below:

You can listen to our first show here: The Business of Online Thought Leadership

And, I’ll be on the air every Wednesday at http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/onlinethoughtleadership at high noon to inspire and empower you to build your online presence using social media and social networking, build your platform and get up close and personal with some of today’s most innovative thought leaders in social media.

Hope you can join me!

Welcome to another edition of the Social Media Marketing Live Lab.

As you already know, I consider myself one big experiment in how social media is changing business – my new mantra is “Connectivity is the New Currency”.  This time, it’s me who is the actual subject in the lab, I’m involved in an interesting experiment involving getting an MBA in Social Media Marketing.

MBA stands for Mastering Business Actions.

About 6 weeks ago, I met Ann DeVere, creator of the Marketing Blueprint and the MBA in Marketing.  for the second time in as many years. The first time was over the phone, the second time in person with a group of highly motivated entrepreneurs at a Brian Tracy iLearningGlobal event. I’d been interested in learning more about her MBA so quickly went into interestED mode because I sensed there was some transferable application of her system to social marketing.

MBA in Marketing has 3 steps:

1. Identify Your Most PROFITABLE Customer
2. Create Your Marketing Message That Speaks Only to Them
3. Implementing Your Marketing Message using the Power of 3

While I was talking with Ann, I was also in the process of identifying the value to ME in her offer, because that is what we all think. Except, in my case I’m always ALSO thinking about the value of what someone has to my network (includes my clients).

So I was on multiple levels thinking of the ways in which to APPLY her system in my world, the brave new world of social media marketing.

Social “Multimedia” Marketing is the actual term that came up for me as she talked about her MBA (Mastering Business Actions) in Marketing.  And I realized that multimedia is what people are actually talking about when they talk about the value of generating the content being used in social media marketing today:

• Video turns into content used in Social video-sharing sites: YouTube, Vimeo
• Slideshows turn into viral marketing pieces and can be uploaded to YouTube and others
• Audio turns into MP3 most popularly known as a Podcast,  distributed online: iTunes,your blog.
• Images can be socially shared – Flickr, Picasa
• Powerpoint presentations – SlideShare
• White Papers/Special Reports – Scribd.com

When I really got the power in her 3 step system, I was hooked, and I shared my thoughts on how valuable I felt her information was applied to Mastering Business Actions social media marketing.

And so Ann also got the power of that and this social media Live Lab experiment was born – the MBA in Social “Multi”Media Marketing.

And you know every good experiment deserves it’s own blog, so we’ll be posting at www.MBAinSocialMarketing.com also.

Stay tuned for the next post – it will be about Step 1: Identifying Your Most Profitable Customer.

Your Teacher & Student,
Michelle P,

Welcome to another edition of the Social Media Marketing Live Lab.

As you already know, I consider myself one big experiment in how social media is changing business – my new mantra is “Connectivity is the New Currency”.  This time, it’s me who is the actual subject in the lab, I’m involved in an interesting experiment involving getting an MBA in Social Media Marketing.

MBA stands for Mastering Business Actions.

About 6 weeks ago, I met Ann DeVere, creator of the Marketing Blueprint and the MBA in Marketing.  for the second time in as many years. The first time was over the phone, the second time in person with a group of highly motivated entrepreneurs at a Brian Tracy iLearningGlobal event. I’d been interested in learning more about her MBA so quickly went into interestED mode because I sensed there was some transferable application of her system to social marketing.

MBA in Marketing has 3 steps:

1. Identify Your Most PROFITABLE Customer
2. Create Your Marketing Message That Speaks Only to Them
3. Implementing Your Marketing Message using the Power of 3

While I was talking with Ann, I was also in the process of identifying the value to ME in her offer, because that is what we all think. Except, in my case I’m always ALSO thinking about the value of what someone has to my network (includes my clients).

So I was on multiple levels thinking of the ways in which to APPLY her system in my world, the brave new world of social media marketing.

Social “Multimedia” Marketing is the actual term that came up for me as she talked about her MBA (Mastering Business Actions) in Marketing.  And I realized that multimedia is what people are actually talking about when they talk about the value of generating the content being used in social media marketing today:

• Video turns into content used in Social video-sharing sites: YouTube, Vimeo
• Slideshows turn into viral marketing pieces and can be uploaded to YouTube and others
• Audio turns into MP3 most popularly known as a Podcast,  distributed online: iTunes,your blog.
• Images can be socially shared – Flickr, Picasa
• Powerpoint presentations – SlideShare
• White Papers/Special Reports – Scribd.com

When I really got the power in her 3 step system, I was hooked, and I shared my thoughts on how valuable I felt her information was applied to Mastering Business Actions social media marketing.

And so Ann also got the power of that and this social media Live Lab experiment was born – the MBA in Social “Multi”Media Marketing.

And you know every good experiment deserves it’s own blog, so we’ll be posting at www.MBAinSocialMarketing.com also.

Stay tuned for the next post – it will be about Step 1: Identifying Your Most Profitable Customer.

Your Teacher & Student,
Michelle P,

James Ray’s new book, Harmonic Wealth, is definitely a good read. In fact, it’s a good multiple times read, because you will find nuances and distinctions each time you read it again.

The concept that interests me most is Phase Transition (similar to critical mass, the tipping point, or the 100th Monkey Theory.). If you want more explanation, grab a copy of the book, otherwise, I think I’m going to create a post to explain it in my own words later this week.

Check it out below, and if you have a blog, consider adding it too…

Who knows where this “global mind” thing can go?

Talk about moving the free line!

Peter Shankman didn’t start out thinking that he’d be giving the well-known PR service ProfNet a run for their money when he decided to post emails he was already getting from reporters asking if he had sources for their stories to his Facebook Page. He decided to call this free service “Help a Reporter” – it helps hungry reporters looking for sources connect with hungry sources looking for publicity.

What is interesting is that he was already getting reporters emailing him to help them find sources, so he has some credibility and influence with this audience. They have recognized that he is skilled using a new resource – social media – which makes him attractive to say the least. (Let’s face it, besides us information marketers and life-long learners, most people would rather not learn something new, they just want the answers.)

So he decided to take action to help them by exposing them to his existing network, using his already existing Facebook profile. Free to use, simple to execute – reporters emailed him their queries, and he posted them on his profile. A lot easier than answering them all one on one.

Then word hit the street – freelancers (who obviously must have been a part of his network) started telling friends, then publicists (also probably already in his network) realized these were prime opps for additional ways to spread the word about their clients. He created some buzz by buzzing it on his own blog, shankman.com. An A-list NY Times blogger wrote a nice post (notice, at this point he still hasn’t asked anyone to actually help him promote this service)

The free service got so popular he had to move it off of his Facebook Page and onto it’s own site at www.HelpAReporter.com.

Now, here’s where the story takes a counterintuitive twist…because it’s STILL FREE!

He clearly could have monetized it, because it’s clearly meeting a huge want in the market – which he says doesn’t surprise him that reporters are seeking an alternative to ProfNet. He says they get tons of queries from their posts there, but so many of them are “misguided”. (and he firmly says he will dump list members who don’t send a response that is on target in his welcome email)

Reporters report that they get a lot more on-target answers from Shankman’s list. Another plus is they get fresh faces from many of the smaller PR folks and even entrepreneurs themselves who can’t necessarily afford the pricey ProfNet service.

Maybe at some point in the future he will start to charge. However, my guess is that he’s getting a lot more visibility and more business doing what he really loves to do anyway this way.

There’s a lot more meat to this story here:
Tired of ProfNet? Start Your Own PR-Journalist Service

What could you do that would provide a similar effect to your target audience? I’ve got some ideas now myself that would help my expert authors…stay tuned!