We at IAOCblog would like to wish our readers in the U.S. a Happy Thanksgiving. We are in a membership drive now and we are thankful for your financial support.

Morty Schiller, Don Dunnington, and me, Steve O'Keefe, are working on these upcoming programs for "This Week on IAOCblog.com":

Book Review Week!
Send us your books to review on the blog. I'll be reviewing two textbooks for 2008 classes at Tulane University and George Washington University. Morty's got a couple books he's anxious to blog about. We welcome your book reviews, too.

Online Reputation Management
There's no hotter topic in Online PR than reputation management. We're trying to coax Sally Falkow to come school us on the subject as soon as her schedule allows.

How About You?
Do you have a show idea for "This Week on IAOCblog.com"? We are building our schedule for the Winter 2008 Season which begins in January. Guest bloggers are asked to take the helm for a week and bring a couple of colleagues with you. Contact info is below.

Thanks to Peter Gloor, Lois Kelly, Dave Taylor, Dianna Huff, Shel Horowitz and Ted Demopoulos for making the Fall 2007 Season on IAOCblog.com an outstanding success. Unique visitors to the site averaged 25,000/month this fall while pageviews averaged 100,000/month! Well done!

Send your show suggestions or books for review to:

STEVE O'KEEFE
steve.okeefe at patronsaintpr.com

MORTY SCHILLER
morty at mortyschiller.com

DON DUNNINGTON
DDunnington at ktron.com

While some scientists are worrying about the missing bees, lots of marketers are worrying about the missing buzz.

Tune in next week, when Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz, tells us why it's not enough anymore to make noise in the marketplace. You have to engage your market in what she calls "meaningful dialog."

Learn how to put more meaning in your message November  5-9 when Lois Kelly hosts the IAOCblog "talk show" with:
Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

Is your website lost? Now it will be found!
Tune in Monday for
Search Engine Friendly Copy
October  29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog
TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
We are all know by now that "Markets are conversations." But Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz, says it's not enough anymore to spread "Word of Mouth." To succeed in the marketplace today, you have to have a meaningful dialog -- and really listen to your market.

Stay tuned for more details. And be sure to join IAOCblog.com November  5-9, 2007 when guest host Lois Kelly takes over the conversation with:
Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:


Lois Kelly writes, consults and speaks about how to use conversational marketing and social media to more quickly connect with customers, employees and marketplace influencers.

Reviewing her new book, Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, Northeastern University professor Walter Carl said “The Cluetrain Manifesto was a call for corporations to wake up to the global conversations about them, and potentially with them. In Beyond Buzz, Lois Kelly gives corporations the practical tools to answer that call.”

Lois' articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, Advertising Age. Clients have included Sapient, SAP, Sun Microsystems, FedEx, The Business Innovation Factory, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Communispace. 

Coming soon to a screen near you:
October  29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog

TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

Is SEO magic? manipulation? a myth?

In a recent teleclass at which Dianna Huff was a guest, white paper guru Michael Stelzner asked, "What's more important: the words humans read on the landing page or manipulating information in favor of search engines?"

As a B2B marcom consultant and SEO copywriter, Dianna Huff bristles at the word, "manipulation." "The biggest myth," she says, "is that you can manipulate the search engines -- especially Google -- to do anything."

So what can you do with SEO? Is it a science, an art... or hocus-pocus? Join Dianna as she reveals what SEO is and isn't.... why direct response writers make ideal SEO copywriters, how to write copy that's BOTH search engine and people friendly, and why high-quality content will do more for your SEO efforts than "manipulating" the search engines.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:

Dianna Huff blogs at the MarCom Writer blog. When she's not blogging, she's working with clients on projects ranging from e-newsletters and Websites to search engine optimization and online marketing.

REMINDER:
Coming next week: October 22-26, 2007 Ted Demopoulos, author of Blogging for Business tackles the issue: Should CEOs Blog?

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
"CEO Blogs" are blogs written by executives. At their best, they put a human face on huge corporations. At their worst, they have been boring... or phony... to the point of doing more harm than good.

Are CEO blogs worth the trouble? Are they worth the risks? What if a CEO can't write... or hasn't got the time to write? Can they have ghostbloggers or blog less frequently? Will that undermine the whole purpose of blogging? The week of Oct 22, Ted will answer these and other questions on IAOCblog.com.

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
The Blogosphere honors "Transparency" above all. Publishers of fake blogs or are treated like horse thieves in the old West.

But is blogging an art form or a business? Blogging guru Dave Taylor may ruffle some feathers next week with a look at whether it's OK to take pay for blogging. Is it OK to ghostwrite a blog? Are paid bloggers like bounty hunters? Or have bloggers become like any other professional writers? Then again, didn't Moliere say, "Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:

Dave Taylor blogs at Intuitive Life Business Blog, Blogsmart and Ask Dave Taylor. He is esteemed for his technical and business expertise and is sure to have some important insights on what has become a controversial issue

Tune in next week. And keep your powder dry!

Mark October  22-26, 2007  on your calendar for a blog program that promises to be profitable... and provocative. The host will be Ted Demopoulos, author of Blogging for Business. His topic: Should CEOs Blog?

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
The term "CEO Blog" refers to a blog written by a high level executive such as a CEO. The few CEO blogs that exist are very popular, but should the average CEO or other executive blog? How can they possibly make time among their other responsibilities? Are the "rules" different for CEOs and other high profile poeple? Can they have ghostbloggers or blog less frequently? The week of Oct 22, Ted will answer these and other questions on IAOCblog.com.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:

Ted Demopoulos’ professional background includes over 25 years of experience in Information Technology and Business, including 15 years as an independent consultant. Ted helped start a successful information security company, was the CTO at a "textbook failure" of a software startup,  and has advised several other startups. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, conventions, and other business events,  author of  What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People Who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere, coauthor of  Blogging for Business. Ted blogs at www.BloggingForBusinessBook.com

Wow, what a lineup we have for the Fall 2007 season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com"! Take a look at these hosts and topics, and plan to tune in next week for the kickoff program with Sloan School of Management researcher, Peter A. Gloor.

We have two vacancies left in the schedule. If you would like to present, contact Morty or me. Who do you want to see on the blog? Maybe Morty and I could convince them to join us.

STEVE O'KEEFE & MORTY SCHILLER
Co-Hosts


This Week on IAOCblog.com
Fall 2007 Program Schedule

September 24-28, 2007
GUEST: Peter Gloor, Sloan Management School at MIT
TOPIC: The Virtual Mirror: Patterns in Collaboration

October  1-5, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  8-12, 2007
GUEST: Open
TOPIC: Open

October  15-19, 2007
GUEST: Dave Taylor, Blogsmart, Ask Dave Taylor
TOPIC: Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?

October  22-26, 2007
GUEST: Ted Demopoulos, Blogging for Business
TOPIC: Should CEOs Blog?

October  29-November 2, 2007
GUEST: Dianna Huff, Marcom Writer Blog
TOPIC: Writing Search Engine Friendly Copy

November  5-9, 2007
GUEST: Lois Kelly, Foghound
TOPIC: Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

November  13-16, 2007
(Monday, Nov. 12 is Veteran's Day)
GUEST: Shel Horowitz, Ethical Marketing Expert
TOPIC: Blogger's Code of Ethics: News or Ruse?

Welcome back teachers, professors, students, and professionals to another season of "This Week on IAOCblog.com." I'm Steve O'Keefe, co-producer of this program with the irascible Morty Schiller, who has been shooting down spam comments and trackbacks all summer.

For those who are new, "This Week at IAOCblog" is a weekly blog show where we try to bring in experts each week to lead discussions on topics related to online communications.

Here are some of the people who have asked about being on the show this season, or we solicited them and they've agreed to teach:

Nettie Hartsock - Blog Consultant and Book Publicist, who promised Lois Kelly, the Word-of-Mouth marketing expert with her for a show on how "point-of-view matters more than messaging in conversational marketing." Yum.

Shel Horowitz, ethical marketing expert and copywriter extraordinaire, we hope will lead us in a discussion of efforts to generate and enforce a "Blogger's Code of Ethics."

Dave Taylor -- yes, THE Dave Taylor, tech guru, innovator, iconoclast -- as in Ask Dave Taylor your questions right here, on IAOCblog, about (shhhh!) generating revenue from your blog.

Ron Sansone on the Independence Day Digg Mugging the IAOCblog received and what it shows about the future of tagging, digging, and Ron Paul's chances of riding social networking into the Oval Office.

And Much More! We'll continue bugging Bob Bly to visit us; we might get an update from Dianna Huff, and I'm hoping MIT's Peter Gloor will join us to talk about a new study analyzing workplace communications for signs of "Swarm Creativity."

All in all, a busy season ahead. Interested in leading the blog for a week? Send me your show idea and let's talk. We're going to take the rest of this week on IAOCblog to talk about what's coming this Fall -- and about our European Conference in Zurich next Spring.

STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
Co-Host, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

Today I examine the fallout from my recent Ron Paul discussion. In between the expected hostility, keen insights could be gleamed from all sides.   more »

Where do Digg articles go when they die? I track the shelf life of popular Digg.com articles and report my findings.   more »

Call for Search Engine Optimization Resources

This week, we are looking for your recommendations on the top Search Engine Optimization articles or resources. Please place your suggestions in this thread and students from my Tulane University class in Internet Public Relations will post reviews here. Or post your own review.

Morty Schiller and I have been swapping SEO suggestions. Hopefully, he'll share some of his top picks. Also, my IT department -- Jesse Vohs a.k.a. The MacMaster -- has been doing SEO work for my company and found some good resources for analyzing your web site's SEO-friendliness. If he doesn't post, I'll extract his tips from previous e-mails and post them here.

Here are a couple of my top picks:

---

Search Engine Watch

http://www.searchenginewatch.com/

An amazing resource for information about web site registration strategies and search engine optimization. A good list of links to do-it-yourself registration pages. Students will find many articles here worthy of review.

---

Words In A Row

http://www.wordsinarow.com/wheretogo.html

An excellent site for do-it-yourself registration, with a comprehensive list of top directories and search engines, links to their submit pages, and tips on using each one.

---

STEVE O'KEEFE

Author, Complete Guide to Internet Publicity

Professor of Internet Public Relations, Tulane University

Vice President, IAOC

Please join us this week December 11-15, for a blog program: Blog Rules, with discussion leader, Nancy Flynn

ABOUT THE TOPIC:

Blogs have become as essential as email and newsletters. But with news stories about everything from embarrassment in the blogosphere to legal action... blogging carries risks. Know how to protect yourself and your company. Blog safely.

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:

Nancy Flynn is the author of the new book, Blog Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policy, Public Relations, and Legal Issues from Amacom Books. Nancy is founder and executive director of The ePolicy Institute, and author of the books: The ePolicy Handbook and E-Mail Rules.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: CEO blogs are the, topic du jour these days with Sun Microsystems' CEO Jonathan Schwartz, the first Fortune 500 CEO blogger, evangelizing the benefits of this powerful new communications channel. Dozens of CEOs in the U.S. and other countries, heads of both public and private companies, are starting their own blogs. Here's a list of CEO and senior executive bloggers.

But there are lots of questions:

Can a CEO or senior executive write openly enough to make his or her blog compelling and not just a PR stunt? What if the CEO isn't a good writer? Is ghostblogging a CEO blog OK? Does a CEO have time to blog? What should the topic of a CEO blog be? Why should a CEO give away insights on a blog when he or she could charge for them in a speech? How do you quantify the benefits or ROB (Return on Blogging) for a CEO? Is a blog really the new must have accessory for a CEO, as Jonathan Schwartz says it is?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER: Debbie Weil is a corporate and CEO blogging consultant and author of the recently-published The Corporate Blogging Book (Penguin Portfolio 2006). She shows the big dogs how to use blogs as a next-generation marketing and communications strategy. She also writes BlogWriteForCEOs, considered one of the most influential blogs about business blogging. She invites you to download Chapter 1 of her new book. And of course to order your copy on Amazon! (It's also available at Borders and Barnes & Noble and other major bookstores.)

Debbie has a unique background as a veteran journalist with an MBA and corporate marketing experience. She has worked as an Internet marketing consultant with startups as well as Fortune 500 companies for over a decade. She's the publisher of award-winning WordBiz Report, an e-newsletter read by close to 20,000 subscribers in 87 countries.

She has been quoted on the topic of corporate and CEO blogging in Fortune Magazine, The New York Times and numerous other publications. A graduate of Harvard with a degree in English, she has an MBA from Georgetown University and a Masters in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin. She is based in Washington DC.

Please join us July 17-21, 2006 for a blog program: PR is Getting Personal, with discussion leaders Joost van de Loo, Clo Willaerts and Dana Gornitzki

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
In today's networked world it is no longer a winning strategy to have a safe job and to trust in the authority of your company. Positions change quickly; your manager can become a freelancer, your supplier can be your client the next month.  Commercial communication is more and more becoming the ongoing dialogue between individuals that the Cluetrain Manifesto predicted. Direct-to-consumer PR is only a small element of this pattern.

As a result, personal reputation is now one of our most precious assets. Successful professionals do everything to be seen as trusted networking hubs. How will this change PR? Will our press releases become more 'fair and balanced'? How do we need to adapt our thinking?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADERS:
Joost van de Loo is a Marketing Strategist, who joined communication consultancy ZN following a career in journalism and marketing. He has a Master of Arts degree in International Journalism from the City University of London, and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Delft University of Technology. In addition to work at ZN he currently sets up Distinct News International, a company that produces multi-media packaged television news features from India and China. He also consults for ETV and writes for UK-based Diplo magazine. Joost has worked for BBC Four television, the Amsterdam Weekly, Dynamic Zone, and KPN Mobile.

Clo Willaerts is marketing manager of Belgacom Skynet and an avid blogger.

Dana Gornitzki is a Canadian transplant currently living in London, England. A journalist and media expert, Dana's experience has covered the world of print, online and broadcast. From working with film festivals and inside a major public broadcaster to working with emerging brands, Dana's work has a focus of social interactions and its impact on the here and now. Currently, she is exploring the mobile space and is interested in that medium's far-reaching effects from social communities to advertising and consumption habits.

All the copywriting experts warn: Don't use humor in advertising! "People don't buy products from clowns," thundered the grandfather of modern advertising...   more »

The battle goes on.... At the end of my last entry, I wrote, "Perhaps the best model for this type of flawed thinking is a military one....   more »

Are you "creative"?... Too much of what passes for marketing is based on creative whim. General advertisers often shoot blind, trying to make "impressions" instead of targeting sales.   more »

Please join us June 12-16, 2006 for a blog program: Direct-to-Consumer News Releases, with discussion leader David Meerman Scott.

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
The Web has changed the rules for press releases. Press releases are now read by millions of consumers on Google News, Yahoo News, newspaper and magazine sites and thousands of vertical market sites, But many PR professionals resist direct-to-consumer PR. Is it time to step it up and consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds? Do we need to alter the way you think about press releases? Or, as Steve Rubel has said, do "direct-to-consumer press releases suck"?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:
David Meerman Scott is a writer, consultant, conference speaker and seminar leader. David’s latest book Cashing In With Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers Into Buyers is a riff on using Web content to drive revenue and other action from Web site visitors. He is the author of the e-book phenomenon "The New Rules of PR" downloaded to date by 75,000 people. David is a contributing editor at EContent Magazine, a contributing writer at Product Marketing Magazine and his writing has appeared in diverse publications including CMOMagazine.com, MarketingProfs.com, BusinessWeek, Competitive Intelligence Magazine, North American Review and many others. In his consulting work, David specializes in using online content to market and sell products and services to demanding customers worldwide. He has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in over twenty countries on four continents.
Contact him at www.DavidMeermanScott.com and read his blog at www.WebInkNow.com.

Ever notice how many blogs are about blogs?!   more »

There's a lot of good, bad... and ugly... blogging out there. I'd like to take a look at some of each. Like most bloggers, I'm opinionated. But I'm open to suggestion. So let's start the discussion rolling on what's good, what's bad and what's blecch in blogging.   more »

Too much has already been written about blogs. And many of you know far more about blogs than I ever ...   more »

It has been some time since I've been able to post here on a regular basis, but that's about to change. We are re-starting This Week on IAOCblog.com. We have a pile of great guests waiting in the wings to take over the blog for a week and teach. So let's get started...

THE FORMAT
For each program, we recruit a guest blogger who provides a topic. We then ask that guest blogger to recruit two or more other guests who agree to post or comment during that week. Friday is usually used for summary comments and to preview the coming week.

THE QUEUE
Right now in the queue is me -- Steve O'Keefe -- who has yet to post handouts from the IAOC Conference in Valley Forge. I'll try to get that done in the next few days. We then have potentially three blog shows led by IBM's online communications team -- on intranets, podcasting, and a mysterious web site they are developing. Sounds intriguing! Then we have the authors of some 14 papers presented at IAOC Valley Forge that we'll be asking to lead week-long sessions. And then there's YOU. If you have a topic you would like to lead, please send mailto:steve.okeefe@patronsaintpr.com and we will contact you to set up a date.

USER NAMES & PASSWORDS
You will all need a username and password to post to the blog. If you need one, e-mail Don Dunnington mailto:DDunnington@ktron.com and he will set you up. You might also be hearing from my associate in producing This Week on IAOCblog.com, Morty Schiller, who is traveling in Israel and won't be available to assist for a couple weeks.

Finally, I hope if you are not yet a member of the IAOC, you will join. We have not yet closed this program to members-only, but eventually we will. We need your membership dues and sponsorships to keep this program running. Anyone at the Valley Forge Conference could see that we need the IAOC because no other professional trade group is covering this cutting edge material.

See You Tomorrow,
STEVE O'KEEFE
Vice President, IAOC
Producer, "This Week on IAOCblog.com"

I'm going to try kickstarting our awesome program, "This Week on IAOCblog.com," with a program about online video. Every day, I release a new 2-minute video at the AuthorViews web site. It's a daunting pace and requires that my head be firmly fastened to developing issues in online video. The business press breaks major online video stories almost every day. Google, Amazon, Apple, Sony, Microsoft -- they are all making major video-related deals every week. It's an exciting, difficult time for this nascent industry. I'll try to talk about some of the most pressing issues this week.

I'd also like to introduce everyone to one my associates, Morty Schiller, whom I've asked to assist with "This Week on IAOCblog.com." Morty is a copyrwriter extraordinaire, a blogger (his blog is called Wordrider), and has a wonderful sense of playfulness in his postings. Morty recently conducted a blog PR campaign for the book, The Case for Peace, by Alan Dershowitz, with me kibbitzing. Morty has a write-up about that campaign on his blog.

I'm hoping that Morty will assume the duties that PR Diva Gwendolynn Gawlick performed so admirably last fall: scheduling guest presenters for "This Week on IAOCblog.com," getting them passwords and usernames, and introducing the weekly topics and bloggers.

So, if you would like to take a week on the blog, please send topic ideas and dates to morty@mortyschiller.com, and we'll try to get this party started and keep it rolling to Valley Forge!