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This week Dee Rambeau will be hosting a blog week on Iceland, the location of this year's IAOC Conference. Situated on the continental divide between Europe and America, Iceland is the ideal location for our first American and European Summit Meeting of Online Communicators. Flights to Iceland are five hours or less from North America and about three hours from Europe.

The conference will be held in Reykjavik, the world’s northernmost capital city, June 12-13. The conference starts mid-day Thursday, June 12 at Hotel Holt. IAOC members will present two roundtable paper sessions concerning online communication. Topics include:

• "Radio 2.0 and research methodologies for web 2.0"
• "The CEO as Celebrity and Blogger:  Is there a Ghostwriter in the Machine?"
• "Loud Voices, Silenced Voices; The Ethics of Online Content in Media Coverage of High- Profile Child Death and Child Disappearance cases"
• "Let's Get Together:  Options for Integrating Web 2.0 Collaborative Tools into the Workplace"
• "Issues of Organizational Commitment in the Era of the Virtual Office"

Blackline Social Media Consulting will host a complimentary reception following the round-table sessions.

On Friday an additional round table paper presentation will be followed by a European/American panel discussion on International Online Communications using RSS and other social media tools. The panel is chaired by Philippe Borremans, a leading online media consultant located in Brussels, Belgium, and Dee Rambeau, the managing partner of The Fuel Team, an online communications consultancy located in Denver, Colorado. The discussion will include:

• How to manage online collaboration on a global scale.
• Examples of organizations that are bridging oceans with social media.
• Effective multi-language website tactics
• Low-cost opt-in content delivery across time zones using RSS
• Low-cost content distribution using RSS
• Internal crisis communications across times zones

The conference concludes with a keynote luncheon presentation by Peter A. Gloor focusing on swarm creativity, collaborative innovation networks, and coolhunting. Gloor is a Research Scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence, part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management. He was Mercator Visiting Professor at the University of Cologne, and is a lecturer at Helsinki University of Technology.

The registration fee is $199 for members and $299 for non-members. For more information about the conference visit http://iaoc2008.eventbrite.com/.

Join Dee all week for his personal tour of what you can expect to see on your visit to Iceland. You may be surprised at what you learn. Warmed by Gulf Stream currents, Iceland’s temperature is milder than its name suggests. Those attending the IAOC conference in June will have an opportunity to experience long daylight hours of late spring as the island heads toward its endless days of summer and the Midnight Sun.

I'm pleased to report that IAOC is once again hosting Steve O'Keefe's 10-week course in Internet Public Relations. Class starts Friday, February 1, 2008 and continues through Friday, April 18, 2008.

The online class is free and space is limited so pre-registration is required. You may register today by sending an email request to sokeefe <at> tulane <dot> edu. The online class meets every Friday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a one-hour live chat with the instructor.

This semester, Steve is using Skype as the interface for the live portion of the online class. A Skype Public Chat is launched each Friday and registered participants are invited to connect. Skype Public Chat provides both a VOIP audio feed and a text interface for Q&A. For the first half-hour, Steve teaches from the syllabus shown below. The second half hour is a moderated Q&A on both audio and text chat using Skype.

Skype software is available for free download from Skype.com. For those unable or unwilling to install Skype - there are security issues related to using Skype behind firewalls - IAOC will provide a Skype transcript and Q&A opportunities here on the blog each week.

The online course is a much abbreviated version of Steve O'Keefe's Tuesday night class at Tulane University. It's really an optional addition to the class for those wanting clarification of key concepts or help with homework.

Online class members are welcome to do the assignments but there will be no instructor review or commentary beyond the online chats and comments left here on the blog. The full Tulane syllabus, schedule, readings, and assignments are available at the class web site:

http://www.patronsaintpr.com/resources/tulaneclass.html

INTERNET PUBLIC RELATIONS
Buff Online Class (and it's free!)
Instructor: Steve O'Keefe
Spring Semester 2008, IAOCblog.com
Every Friday 12 Noon Eastern Time
"End Your Week With Strength"

SCHEDULE:
FEB 1 - Campaign Planning & Themes
FEB 8 - Document Production & Syndication
FEB 15 - Video Production & Syndication
FEB 22 - Social Networking PR
FEB 29 - Blog PR
MAR 7 - Web PR
MAR 14 - Discussion Group PR
MAR 21 - SPRING BREAK (No Class)
MAR 28 - News Releases
APR 4 - Contact Management
APR 11 - Search Engine Optimization
APR 18 - Online Newsrooms

Live Skype Public Chat
Friday, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Free of charge. Preregistration required.
Email to sokeefe <at> tulane <dot> edu

Don Dunnington
IAOC President

Morty wrote,

I'm making an open, transparent and blatant request for you to plug your books... Can you please pick a couple and post the links to buying them?

Well, since you asked so nicely, how could  I refuse ?

On the topic of ethics, my most relevant book is Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First. I'm extremely proud of this book, which shows how ethics, cooperation (even with competitors), and an attitude of abundance can for a kind of positive perfect storm to create and increase business success. This book won an Apex Award, has been endorsed by 79 entrepreneurs and marketers including Jack Canfield, Anne Holland, and Mark Joyner, and has been republished in India and Mexico.

Also, I have two books in the Grassroots Marketing series: Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers, which is specifically about book marketing, and Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, which provides low-cost high-return marketing strategies (and lots of examples) for any type of business or nonprofit. Both of these books have won some honors and have great endorsements, too.

Thee are various "combination platter" offers and bonuses on my order page, which lists all the products I sell, on frugal, ethical, effective marketing, and also on frugal fun.

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“Always assume your first question may be your last. Make it count.” That’s the advice from journalist Martin Perlich, who has written, The Art of the Interview: a Step-by-Step Guide to Insightful Interviewing.

While there are some amazing writers online, there seem to be far fewer great interviewers. (And really no courses on how to be a good interviewer, even in J-schools.) I don’t know about you but listening to many podcasts, vlogs and Webinars is often painful because the interviewer asks rather boring questions, or doesn’t pick up on a quirky comment and guide the conversation into an interesting, new place.

 Based on conversations with journalists and my own experiences ( I began my career as a journalist) here are some interviewing tips. 

• Be prepared and do good homework. This is at least 50%, maybe more,  of what makes a good interview. When Susan Bratton of  New Life Media prepares for a "Dishy Mix" interview she really pushes her guests to provide the unusual tidbits and then she digs, digs, digs.  I believe one reason she gets such interesting people to agree to be interviewed  - and reveal so much about themselves -- is that she makes it easy and interesting for them due to her homework. Another podcaster who really does his homework is Paul Dunay of Buzz Marketing for Technology. And then, of course, there's the infamous James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio who constantly surprises his famous actor guests with just how much he knows about them.

• Start off with a question that puts the person in a good light and makes him or her comfortable.  If you begin by asking too provocative a question, the interviewee may shut down. Perlich suggests that the  opener question should distinguish you and bring something new to the “travel weary Subject.”   “The Opener speaks volume about who you are,” he explains. “It should contain a kernel of original insight into the Subject and his or her work. Show you care enough to have penetrated past the home page of the official website. The Opener should display both your power and respect for your Subject.”

• Be totally interested in the other person and really listen to what they’re saying.  In researching my book Beyond Buzz I asked Robin Young, host of NPR’s Here & Now lunchtime news show and a brillant interviewer, for her suggestions. Her advice:

1. Listen

2. Really listen.

3. After you’ve listened, ask questions relative to what you heard when you listened.

4. Then, listen to the answer

5. Follow up with another question to make sure you heard correctly what the speaker was saying.

5a. Then, listen some more.

• Ask the unexpected: What are people wasting too much time on?  What should be worrying people about this issue? What are the three biggest obstacles to using or succeeding in this field?  What could completely disrupt the game? What are you sick of talking about and why?

• Avoid these questions:  So how id it feel?  What was it like? Where did it all begin for you? And anything that elicits a yes or no response.

• Keep asking questions until you understand the answer: If you don’t understand the answer, neither will your listeners.

• Wrap with either of these two questions: “Is there something you’d like to add?” or “What am I forgetting?”

 Lastly, I find it helpful to listen to good interviewers, and collect "wow" questions.

Other advice?

What does a person’s writing say about the person? Plenty, especially if you learn how to use the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program developed by James Pennebaker and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin.

You run text through the program and it categorizes words into 70 linguistic or psychologically-relevant categories. (See this post on why U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards may be trailing because of his language.)

I inputted the several recent blog posts from three popular CEO bloggers -- Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Bob Lutz, vice chairman of GM, and Bill Marriott -- and here are the partial results:

Some admittedly oversimplified takeaways”

·         Bill Marriott comes across as most honest, outgoing, and positive.

·         Paul Levy appears to be especially intelligent, with cognitive complexity and use of big words. He’s also quite outgoing and more negative than the other two CEO bloggers.  Interestingly he’s done an extraordinary job of turning around Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and has been writing about union issues, which may account for the negative emotion.

·         Bob Lutz comes across honest and smart.

What does this have to do with online communications? It’s an area I’m studying and have no answers yet, just some questions :

·         Should we “test” people's writing and analyze it before they start blogging on behalf of the company? (Especially people in high visibility leadership positions?) If they score very negative, low on honesty or low on cognitive thinking – would this person be a good representative of the company? Would it be better for someone else to lead online communications efforts?

·         Is it a good tool to coach others in communicating in this new conversational world? (Note that many people think that using the first person “I” is not professional and makes you seem too self-absorbed, but linguistics scientists have found that not to be so; use of the first person implies honesty.)

·         Should we never talk about this tool as it may scare execs about being naked out in the blogsophere – especially if they aren’t all that buff when it comes to being positive, cognitively complex and honest?

        Does using an analysis tool like this help us be more aware of ourselves – and help us change our language, and, in turn, change our behavior?

·         Lastly, can writing a blog every day make us healthier?  (Studies have proven that writing about personal topics 15 – 30 minutes a day improves people’s emotional and physical health.)

One last point.  So often in marketing we obsess over getting the messages right. Maybe we should spend more time on the language. As Dr. Pennebaker has said in many interviews and articles:

"Over the years it has become apparent that is far more important to see how people talked about a given topic than what they were talking about. People's linguistic styles provide f