Super-blogger/speaker/productivity “thought-leader” Merlin Mann posted a “twitter” the other day that stuck in my head - for days and days.  Then last night I received an email from a person that works at a big, Fortune 500 company that wants to meet with me to talk about blogging.  This would be the fourth or fifth person that I met with there over the course of 3 years, and they still have no blogs or “social networking” program worth mentioning (none that I know of).  Then I remembered Merlin’s quote.  

The people I’ve met with have been awesome, funny, over-worked, and have cool hobbies, terrific families, and a bazillion “insider” stories.  The makings of a damn good blog. So, why is there no action?  My theory is that, at work, their personality has been beaten out of them.  In an environment where keywords and phrases like ”synergy”, “leverage”, “branding”, and “net net, at the end of the day” are rewarded, there’s no room for a real personality when it comes to “work”.  

Plus, there’s a “fear factor.”  Not Joe Rogan challenging you to eat cockroaches for a $500 Visa gift card. The “I’ll get fired” fear factor. There’s the occasional story about the perfect employee that was shown the door after their personal blog was discovered.  Nobody wants to lose their job, health benefits, or office pals over some stupid blog, right? 

So, what’s the solution?  I think there are a number of options:

1. Do nothing.  Play it safe.  Hope that the next round of cuts miss you.  Unfortunately, this never works - just ask Seth.
2. Go rogue.  Start a blog and go wild.  Reveal shit you know you shouldn’t talk about and eventually get fired.  Then you can blame your lack of a career on the Internet.  
3. Take your “at meetings” personality and put it online. Load your posts with corporate buzz words and bullet points that pimp your products.  You, and the guy in the cube next to you, will LOVE it!
4. Be yourself.  Are you a cyclist that works in technology?  What’s that like?  Maybe you’re a mother of two that works in book publishing.  Be a human being online, slowly grow your audience, and build a lasting relationship because you have a common interest. 

Here’s another bit of wisdom from Merlin that is inspiring.

A little background… I used to work with Jeffrey while at McGraw-Hill, though he was stationed in Chicago and I was in New York.   I was in the computer book arena and he was the superstar business book editor.  Such a superstar that he started WRITING books there as well (bestsellers too)!

A few weeks ago, we were put back in touch and he needed a site to help build not only his personal brand online, but lay the ground work for his new book that ships in October (Inside Drucker’s Brain).  We worked to come up with a theme to his blog and put together a site that would support his past work as well as his future release(s).  I think the blog will be a big hit with publishing folks as well as students of productivity & management.  Not only has he studied the top leaders in the world for years, but Jeffrey was also one of the last (maybe THE last?) people to interview Peter Drucker before his death.  Plus, you’d be hard pressed to find someone that knows the ins and outs of the Business Book business better than Krames.

So, check out the site if you have a moment, and have a great Memorial Day weekend!

We finally did it!  We broke our hosting site off of our development site.  Hopefully that will make it easier for new clients to differentiate between the two sides of the business at ClearDev!

By the way, if you’re in need of great hosting for your blog, gallery, or business, have I got the place for you!  Check out the new ClearDev.net.  We’re offering competitive packages with no contracts, no crazy small print, and some killer tools (like the “installatron” that will automatically install and configure scripts like WordPress, Drupal, and other popular packages!).

Come on… give us a try.  Aren’t you tired of getting transferred to some far away land for you customer service?  All of our ClearDev servers are right here in Manhattan along with our staff!   Plus, a lot of us are developers so we know what you’re looking for and what you need.

AcceleratorBooks was started by an old friend and ex-publishing colleague, Gemma Farrell. She started the company just a few months ago and released her first title this month. That’s the title that hit #4. AcceleratorBooks doesn’t have an office location in NYC, or a warehouse in Ohio, or a data center in Iowa. With a laptop, a cell phone, and by using specialists (like me for developing a low-cost, full-featured website) AcceleratorBooks operates in a nimble, low-cost environment.

AB fills in the blanks for the author. If they need a ghost writer - Gemma will set them up. If they need production services to make the book a reality - call Gemma. Can’t get the book on Amazon.com or need help with distribution? Call Gemma. This service is a dream to anyone that has an audience or is building an audience. When you can publish a book and hit the top ten in Amazon without the “support” of a major publisher, why would you go to a traditional book publisher in the first place? Certainly not so you can get your book in the number two and three retailers when you have access to number one!

That’s what Jordan Adler did with his book, Beach Money. He has an audience of people that seek out his advice on network marketing. He’s highly respected and his fan-base is loyal. Adler came to the table with a huge audience and used AcceleratedBooks’ expertise to put together the right book to deliver his message, produce the book, and get it in the right channel(s). From there, he used his relationships to make a bestseller. He even coordinated things so it would hit the bestseller list on his birthday! How’s that for calling the shots?!

For authors that have an audience or marketing know-how (HINT: pick up any Seth Godin book and you’ll be miles ahead of many marketing professionals), there’s not a compelling reason to go through the traditional channels. When I worked in the industry, a lot of us saw this coming. The focus from sales and marketing was on the retail channel. They handed over the money and control to retailers like Barnes & Noble, and Borders. The retailers were then to take care of the final customer. Today, you don’t need to have “shelf-space” in those brick & mortar stores. They are obsolete because they added nothing to the shopping experience and customers can get the same product, at a deep discount, without standing in line while a clerk wrestles with a cash register.

The bad news is that the book publishers (for the most part) never took the time to meet or know the real customer.

Some are getting it. For example, check out “elleinthecity” (http://twitter.com/elleinthecity) on Twitter. Ellen is a marketing executive at a major publishing house. She’s on Twitter all day, runs a personal/professional blog, and has a Facebook account. She is putting herself in the communities where her customers live. She’s at SxSW. She puts together fantastic author events. I haven’t talked to Ellen for a couple of years, so how do I know this?. How do you think I know? The same way I know Facebook for Dummies was just released and there’s a new book from the ProBlogger.com guy. I know this the same way hundreds (thousands?) of others know.

Are blogs, Twitter, and Facebook just passing fads or powerful platforms for building a name, reputation, and fan-base? If you’re the best in the world at what you do, these things can all be used to build relationships with those that have similar interests or want to know what you know. Those relationships are powerful. They’re so powerful they can put the book of a first-time author from an unknown publisher on the bestseller list of the leading book retailer.

We started with a Sony VAIO desktop (Windows XP) with a 17″ Dell LCD, HP LaserJet 1020 Printer, Panasonic Webcam, Western Digital external hard drive (the small, self-powered model), a bunch of wires, and an alarm clock.

This is how the day ended. A 24″ iMac with 2 gigs of RAM running Mac OS X Leopard and Windows XP Pro via Parallels, and I was able to keep the printer (thanks to the Linux foo2zjs drivers) as well as the alarm clock (phew!). There’s also a new Western Digital My Book 320 GB drive back there to take care of the Time Machine backups.

Next we’ll hit those piles of papers and stacks of “stuff”. But the runway is cleared and it’s an awesome setup.

I worked in the book publishing business for close to ten years and picked up a few things. The first is that in most publishing houses, resources are limited once you get past those top five or ten books for the year. That leaves hundreds (thousands?) of other newly published books and authors to make it on their own. I wanted to create an easy to use program so publishers could provide a platform that authors could use to build an audience and as a “homebase” for their marketing and publicity efforts. Plus, I didn’t want to stick them with a “brochure” site. I decided to create the sites that would offers the exact same tools that others have used to build small empires in the blogosphere.

The second thing is that to do this, it had to be a trouble-free and effortless process. I think I nailed it. It’s basically automated at the publisher level from the domain name, to hosting, to launch, and through the reporting of site stats. This truly is one of those “no-brainers” that I hear about.

Check out some info over at PublishersPal.com. It’s a quick little brochure site that I did in iWeb (had to try it out!). If you’re a publisher, author, or both - I look forward to building a site that you can use as the backbone of your promotional efforts!