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Why I Love Blogging - From the Blog Potomac Audience

By Li Evans

Almost two weeks ago, I got the opportunity to go to Blog Potomac with Beau (Shannon) Hall, where we had a great time, but also got to shoot a lot of video interviews.  I've posted those interviews here on Search Marketing Gurus, but here's a a quick and easy to access run down of those interviews.

• Interview with Geoff Livingston, Author of Now is Gone
• Interview with Debbie Weil, Author of The Corporate Blogging Book
• Interview with Kami Watson-Huyse of My PR Pro
• Interview with Rohit Bhargarva, Author of Personality Not Included
• Interview with Lionel Menchaca, Dell's Chief Blogger

What you haven't seen yet, is the interviews of the audience at Blog Potomac.  We asked each person "So what's your name?  What's Your Blog?  and... Why Do You Love Blogging?".  The answers and response we got was amazing and it was a lot of fun to do.  I felt like I now expanded my realm of blogs to read immensely, while also wanting to make sure the SMG audience knew about all these folks where we so passionate about blogs and the topic of their blogs! 

All total there's over 25 "Why I Love Blogging" interviews, below is a list of the interviewees with a link to their individual video and to each of their blogs, so take the time and check out some of these great pieces of communication!  The range of blog topics is great from Public Relations, Environment and even Concierge Advice, you need to take a look at these blogs.

• Geoff Livingston of The Buzz Bin
• Rick Dassler of By Introduction Only
• Kami Watson-Huyse from Communication Overtones
• Shana Glickfield of D.C. Concierge
• Debbie Weil of Blog Write For CEO's
• Lionel Menchaca of Direct2Dell
• SMG's own Simon Heseltine of Endless Plain
• Miriam Kagan of Generation Y Give
• John Waugh of The Green Hand
• Scott Stephan of I Love Peanut Butter
• Mike Toner of Its All Good
• Jonny Goldstein of JonnyGoldstein.com
• David Parmet of MarketingBeginsAtHome
• Ahson Wardak of MyPHD Blogged
• Michael Hackmer of Hackblog
• Larissa Fair from Buzz Bin
• Jeremy Pepper from Pop! PR
• James Walker from PR Prescriptions
• Lindsay from RadioActiveCats
• Jeffrey Davis of PR Buzzsaw
• Shashi Bellamkonda of Shashi.name
• Nick O'Neil of Social Times
• Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank
• Jared Goralnick of Techno Theory
• Dan Baum of DBC PR's What Goes Around blog
• Shireen Mitchell of Women Wired In

And just to highlight and give you a taste of the videos, here's Shireen Mitchell's take on why she loves blogging, she blogs about a subject near and dear to my heart, Women in Technology.

Beau and I are also putting together a few montages of these explanations of why people love blogging, stay tune to SMG for those!

Blog Potomac - Interview With Lionel Menchaca, Cheif Blogger and Social Media Advocate at Dell

By Li Evans

I'd been told about Lionel Menchaca of Dell by numerous people in the Social Media space.  Someone even said he was the "Rockstar" in this space.   I started looking into and reading more about Lionel and his journey with Dell as they stepped deeper and deeper into Social Media. 

At WOMMA's WOMM-U I had the opportunity to listen to Bob Pearson speak about Dell's efforts, and I had to opportunity to speak with Liana Frey about an employee's feelings about Dell's social media efforts.  Dell's taking this seriously, Dell really believes in utilizing social media to reach is customers both tech savvy and first time computer buyers.  To Dell, social media is about holding a conversation and engaging their customers, to Dell Social Media is not about links.

When I saw that Lionel Menchaca was the keynote speaker at Blog Potomac, I was really excited to actually meet him and hopefully get to talk to him at length about what Dell's doing and where they are going.  I have to say, Lionel is one of the nicest people I've ever met.  Not only that, he's passionate about social media and what Dell's doing with it. 

Thank you Lionel, for taking the time to speak with me and the SMG audience!

Full transcript after the jump....

Blog Potomac - Interview With Rohit Bhargarva, Author of Personality Not Included

By Li Evans

The night before Blog Potomac was held, there was a speaker's dinner and Rohit Bhargava was the featured speaker.  We all got a copy of his book "Personality Not Included" and he did a really cool exercise with the group that attended the dinner.

The next day, Rohit was at Blog Potomac and he obliged me with a interview.  Such a nice guy, who even endured me asking him to pronounce his last name a few times, so I could make sure I wouldn't mess it up.  Thanks for being so kind Rohit, and I still love that cover of your book.  It's next on my reading list, too!

Full video interview transcript after the jump....

Blog Potomac - Interview with Kami Watson-Huyse of the Communication Overtones Blog

By Li Evans

At Blog Potomac last week, I got the opportunity to do a live interview with Kami Watson-Huyse, principal of My PR Pro and owner of the Communication Overtones blog.  Readers of Search Marketing Gurus will be familiar with Kami since we did a interview with her back in October.

Kami took time out from her speaking duties at Blog Potomac to speak to us about social media's affects on public relations.

Full video interview transcript after the jump....

Blog Potomac - Interview with Geoff Livingston, Author of Now is Gone

By Li Evans

Search Marketing Gurus was video interviewing the speakers at Blog Potomac to bring you a taste of what happened at the event on June 13th, 2008 in Falls Church, VA.  In this interview, we interview Geoff Livingston of Livingston Communications, co-chair and founder of the event as well as author of the book Now is Gone.  Geoff blogs at The Buzz Bin.

Full video interview transcript after the jump...

Blog Potomac - Interview with Debbie Weil, Author of the Corporate Blogging Book

By Li Evans

This last Friday I attended Blog Potomac.  It was a great social media event put on by Geoff Livingston and Debbie Weil for people in the Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia areas who wanted to get a taste of social media marketing and blogging in particularly.

I've been a fan of Debbie for quite a while, so when she agreed to do an interview with me on video, you can only imagine this fan's delight.  You can also check out Debbie's sites:  Blog Write for CEO's, The Corporate Blogging Book and DebbieWeil.com

Full interview transcript after the jump....

Blog Potomac - Meeting Social Media Rock Stars You've Admired from Afar

By Li Evans

Yesterday I got the opportunity at Blog Potomac to not only meet two people I've admired from afar, but I even got a few minutes of their time to interview them. 

The first was Debbie Weil, author of the fabulous book, The Corporate Blogging Book and the blog Blog Write for CEOs.  I first read Debbie's book 2 years ago, and I still believe it holds solid, foundational information for any CEO or senior corporate executive thinking about entering the blogosphere.  I wrote a review of The Corporate Blogging Book right after I read it, silly me though, I left my copy of the book at home (I wanted her to autograph it for me).  Meeting Debbie was a great experience, her photo does not do her justice.  She's pretty and so nice, and very very passionate about blogging.  She wasn't the least afraid of my "fangirl" presence either.

The second person I got to not only meet, but interview was Lionel Menchaca.  For those unfamiliar with the social media world (beyond just searching for links), Lionel is probably "The Rock Star" of this industry.  Lionel started Dell's Direct2Dell blog and basically kick started Dell's whole foray into the social media space.  Lionel was very accommodating and we sat and talked for an hour or so about what Dell's done and where Dell's going.  Lionel not only understands the pure meaning and use of social media, he lives, breathes and works with it every day at Dell.

Now you may be wondering about these interviews I mentioned.  Well, my video guy, Shannon Hall (better know to a lot of you as "my friend Beau") and I headed down to Blog Potomac to get some video interviews with the speakers at Blog Potomac.  We also took small interviews from the attendees asking them "Why Do You Love Blogging?" which we're putting into a few montages (and no Simon, take down notices aren't allowed!).  We have interviews with Debbie and Lionel.  We also got some other interviews I'm really excited about too, ones with Kami Watson-Huyse, Rohit Bhargava and the other co-chair of the event Geoff Livingston.

Beau's working the editing of course, so it'll be midweek when we bring those interviews to you.  All of these people have such wonderful advice and great things to say.  Each interview was great, and I'll be transcribing them as well for members of the audience that have let us know they really like the transcription of our videos.

Of course you didn't think I went to this event without my camera, now did you?  Well, I've got over 70 photos from the event (Beau saved me, I forgot my battery, luckily we have the same camera).  So check out the Blog Potomac Photos in my Flickr set.

Kudos to Geoff & Debbie, as well as Josh Hallett for putting on a great event!