In his contribution to the IAOC blog last week (March 15, 16 and 17), Todd Van Hoosear discussed a model of "lean communication" based on the same kind of network that engineers talk about when delivering wireless signal.    more »

Walking down memory lane with Dave Lakhani in our discussion of CompuServe's PR & Marketing Forum, I came across this tribute to PRSIG's Bill Lutholtz by Shel Holtz. I never met Bill face to face, but I sure appreciated the pioneering role that he and Ron Solberg played in launching the forum. (Nice words, Shel.)

Turning to the remainder of this week's series, we have the following to look forward to:

- Don Dunnington, IAOC President and Director, Business Communications and Senior Web Manager for K-Tron International, Inc. He aims to have his post up up tonight.

- Todd Van Hoosear, who focuses on business communications for Topaz Partners. Van Hoosear previously worked for Weber Shandwick Worldwide, leading the team that handled the North American launch of CMG Wireless Data Solutions. Todd is scheduled to post tomorrow.

- Steven King, senior advisor at the Institute for the Future and a partner at the early stage advisory firm Emergent Research. Steve has more than 20 years of industry experience and has held a number of senior corporate general management and marketing roles, including Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Macromedia, Vice President and General Manager Asia-Pacific for Lotus Development Corporation, and Vice President of Marketing for Isys Corporation. We'll look for Steven's post Thursday.

The revolution in micro media feels to me a lot like the original rush to the Internet back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So it's enlightening, I think, to talk with those who were at the vanguard at that time, when CompuServe was our main means of online collaboration and no one had heard of Mosaic.

Consider this wiki-based Q&A with Dave Lakhani, president of Bold Approach in Boise, Idaho, who was a sysop for CompuServe's PR & Marketing Forum, also known as "PRSIG."

"The most important thing that can be learned from the CompuServe experience and applied today in my opinion is that there is tremendous power in web based groups," Dave writes.

"Allowing people a place to hang their hat where they are surrounded by like-minded friends and the occasional rabble rouser creates a whole new sense of connectedness and synergy . . . one that often results in publicity, education and yes profit."

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth Albrycht launched on this blog a discussion of a new communications model. She was joined by others with an interest in the subject, including Neville Hobson, Don Dunnington, Robin Stavisky, and me.

Rather than allow our thoughts to remain relatively inaccessible and disconnected in a blog, I suggested we integrate them in a book. They said fine, and so -- as a first step -- we're collecting our thoughts, and those of others, in a wiki titled, for the time being, "Collaborative PR: Toward a New Communications Model."

Over the next week, I'll add more pages and invite new contributors to do the same.