Naked Conversations, Visible Marketing and my how my world has changed..

I have been slowly migrating over to Google Reader as a blog reader/aggregator. Not sure that I am totally convinced as to the merits of using it, but that said I have been adding blogs from my pals.

Much to delight and surprise I was reading my pal Shel Israel’s blog this morning and he writes about how blogging got started in his life, lead to writing Naked Conversations, and then he cites my pal Ernest Svenson’s post that fills in some more of the history.

So much fun, but to add my piece, I had gotten into blogging when ActiveWords had run out of money to market our software. I had read the Cluetrain, had introduced myself to Doc Searls, and reached out to Robert Scoble, and realized that one thing I could do for Pop!Tech was to blog about it.

Along the way I also met J.D. Lasica and I pitched him on the idea that we should team up, that if he interviewed some of the speakers, I would figure out how to get them up on a blog.

He did, I did, we did and it was great! I talked Ernie into coming to Pop!Tech, we all met up as Shel recounts and a great time was had by all.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Udell for a project that I am doing at Microsoft. Jon is really one of the smartest and nicest guys I have met in the ActiveWords Odyssey, and he used the terms “visible markets” and “visible marketing”

I am working on editing the video that I did with Jon, and when I do I will post it. In the video, Jon nails the idea, and I think said that he said he got it from Esther Dyson, so stay tuned, as we may be on to the next new thing!

I keep telling people that before ActiveWords, I figured I knew some pretty decent people in about a five county area. Today, I know a lot of very fine and wonderful people all over the world.

Comments

[shel israel]

This is a fine post, Buzz. Thanks for the mention.

[Jon Udell]

The term that Esther uses is actually visible demand, and a concrete example of the idea can be seen at eventful.com, where fans of a band can express their wish to see a band on a given date in a given place -- thus, make their demand visible (and measurable).