Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan’s new Age of Conversation will be out in a few weeks, the book made up of nearly 300 chapters from some of the web’s best bloggers. We have seen the laundry list of contributors, and thanks to a long weekend just past, I finally got around to visiting some of them. If you find this helpful, a sort of mini-review on blogs you may have missed (like me), let me know and when time permits I will keep looking at more contributors. It is for a good cause, and these are all good people….and even better bloggers.  18 are here, only 219 to go.  (It is not going to happen, I am thinking.)~GLH

Adrian Ho, Head of Zeus-Jones, maybe the hottest agency in Minneapolis today, from a post on 6.4.2008 on a new type of video presentation on the web,

My sense is that this type of video creation requires a different set of skills from classic, narrative-driven video. I also think this has huge applications in the field of delivering video as a service.

Aki Spicer, strategic planner at Fallon, another hot ad agency here, blogs as Fallon Brainfood, or Fallon Trendpoint, with insights and ideas re: web, marketing and how to do both, as in this post from 3.26.2008:

On March 26th, 2008, Aki Spicer, strategic planner at Fallon Worldwide, conducted a presentation about social media, using social media, live, across a mashup of social web touchpoints including Fallon Planning Blog on Blogger, Yahoo! Live, NetVibes, Plannersphere on Ning, and Facebook. View the accompanying slides at Slideshare or download the pdf directly to your desktop.

Alex Henault blogs on Conversation Mayhem, and is obviously a quality thinker on social media, from Canada no less (JK), check out this comment from his post on 5.14.2008:

As he is speaking about web 2.0, he mentions that he wants to have a true conversation. I believe this word is used in a hypprocrite fashion. Everybody wants to have a conversation. But, everybody wants this conversation to be about himself.

Amy Jussel blogs about youth and media and how it affects them, at Shaping Youth, and this post from 7.1.2008 is spot on:

Now, many a teen has already yelped, “Unfair!” And rightfully so if you go by skill sets over statistics…I KNOW I get phone-distracted, and make it my policy NOT to car chat unless it’s full-tilt gridlock. Whereas my tween can thumb text while brushing her teeth with an ipod draped around her neck, concurrently stepping into her night clothes…Still, that doesn’t mean she should…Besides, she’s not encased in one ton of metal wielded like a lethal weapon careening out of control, and, um…she doesn’t drive yet.

Pow,Right Between the Eyes by Andy Nulman, who is off-the-charts clever. Luckily, he is writing a book for Wiley as he announced in June with this entry:

Starting in October or so, at the urging of my son Aidan, there will be a second Twitter feed about the marketing of Pow! Right Between The Eyes–The Book, which will give you the insight into what it’s like to launch a major market/major publisher book. Surprises galore I’m sure.

Andy Sernovitz writes his blog called Damn I Wish I had thought of that, and I found myself saying the same thing. He has great advice on word of mouth marketing and advertising as he does in this 7.05.08 post:

The test of a great advertisement: Is it worth talking about? If your ad is so boring that no one will tell a friend, then you need to try harder. Raise the bar for your creative team: Insist that ads are buzzworthy.

Andy Whitlock blogs his marketing, new ideas at NowInColor, and he often lets you on the inside of his thinking like he did with his blog from 7.3.08:

It’s been an interesting lesson for me. I’m no designer and considering the flow of the user journey is quite challenging. I opted to start with a clean entry point and then explain a few things on the request page. My girlfriend also told me to do this and she’s usually right. Sorry. She’s always right. I also decided to give people two ways in: To get started on one map, or have them all.

Angela Maiers blogs on her name where she helps learners of all ages and every Friday, helps us discover more from other blogs, as this post from 4.3.08 suggests:

Chalk Talk Friday represents conversations and brilliance I’ve discovered traversing my way through the Blogosphere. From professional to personal development, these are the posts and links have in some way touched my head or my heart.

Anna Farmery writes TheEngagingBrand and weighs in on her dad’s advice with this post from 7.05.08:

During my career like many people I have often felt that circumstances are outside of my control. I remember having a coffee with Dad who looked at me on one of these occasions and said

“Anna, you are always in control. You are in control of your reaction, you are in control of whether you want to change, you are in control of your own future. You need to decide if the change is in alignment with your own values – if it is, then decide to commit to the business, if it isn’t then decide to change your job. You are in control, but only if you know what is important to you and willing to make the decision and commit 100% to whatever the outcome is…”

Armando Alves has a source of inspiration and it is his blog of the same name. He admits to being a geek, as he suggests in this post from 5.04.08:

Internet Attention Deficit Disorder has become a reality to the horde of nerds, geeks or MMORP fans, with the usual pundits horrified by the alienation of digital natives.

The fact is that “we” (if you read this blog, i’m soooo calling you a geek) created a different kind of individuals: connected, multi-taskers, highly skeptical and with a new sense of democracy built on top of online communities.

Arun Rajagopal blogs at his namesake about a variety of interesting topics, mostly soclal media. He is 25, thoughtful, insightful and varied in his writing as this post from 6.30.08 illustrates:

Indulge in the world’s most expensive burger at $190 every Thursday at Burger King’s Gloucester Road branch (near to Harrods where the high and mighty shop).

You have to pre-order the burger by telephone, before you are ushered through a red velvet rope and up some steps to a more upscale dining experience than the regular diners. You are treated to crisp table linen and free-flowing 2003 Tapanappa Cabernet Shiraz from the Whalebone Vineyard in South Australia.

Asi Sharabi blogs at No Mans Blog about a variety of social media topics. He is up on all of them, and gives us an inside look at just how new it all is, as he does in this post from 7.02.08:

Do you remember life without Youtube? That’s what I think we will feel in couple of years time of QIK and Fixwagon. We are already used to see every piece of news, gossip, celebrity slips, authority abuse and what not on youtube but the wold is about to get smaller and quicker. Now potentially, every event that happen in the world can be captured and streamed live to our screens.

Becky Carroll is a customer experience expert and blogs at Customers Rock. She weighs on a variety of topic like this one about Starbucks recent store cutback on 7.3.08:

Per John Moore, pruning is important for the health of a plant (or a business). It allows for new growth. I agree with you, John, and I am glad to see Starbucks focusing on their key business, including those stores that offer the most success to the company.

However, too much pruning, or cuts in the wrong places, can severely damage the plant. What remains can be ugly. I am trusting that Starbucks is not going into “cost cutting” mode (and I hope you are right, John, that they are not) but is truly using the shears as part of a long-term strategy for business health and happiness.

Becky McCray blogs with advice on SmallBizSurvival, and her blog is full of ideas for the small town and larger enterprise business. Plus she is a great generator of positive buzz, her Friday Brag Basket is must reading, as she explained in a 6.27.08 post:

You can brag on a friend, your own project, yourself, others, anything! You don’t need special permission or anything. Just leave a comment right here. There’s no deadline, so you can brag anytime during the weekend, and I’ll open a fresh Brag Basket each Friday.

Bill Gammell blogs as ubereye marketing blog and I will visit this blog often. It is full of insights that show he ‘gets it,’ as this post from 6.17.08: If you want to make a product that gets talked about, listen up for these 2 things:

1. “This [blank] makes me so mad!” – Fill in the blank with any product. Some of the best products ever made solve a common frustration (the ones that make you say, “Why didn’t I think of that!”). For example, if 80% of all car seats are improperly installed, do we need more/better education on how to properly install them or a radically different approach to car seats? I choose the latter.

2. “That’s the way everyone does it.” – You can’t make it big while living in the shadows or playing follow the leader. Make your earbuds white. Provide “Fanatical Support” in a tech world plagued with outsourced and non-human service. Go for the opposite and stand out.

Bob LeDrew, from Canada blogs as flacklife, a PR guy, and overall good guy. He blogged on how he could not find bulb for his desk lamp on 6.17.08, and read what happened:

Would you believe that less than an hour after my blog post today about the lack of a light bulb for my desk lamp, a mysterious package arrived from Catalina Lighting with not one, but THREE bulbs that fit my lamp?

Brad Shorr blogs at wordsell and I read his blog often. He masters words in all he writes and does as this post from 7.03.08 suggests:

Smart man! Our tendency is to say too much. In sales, we had an expression for a long, boring, sales presentation that dwelt on product features. We called it an ‘information dump.”

Brent Dixon blogs as itsjustBrent, as an expert on design, new media and tomfoolery, but on 7.03.08 he did pass along birthday wishes to good old USA:

Tomorrow is America’s birthday, and America wants you to celebrate hard. But tomorrow is also Independent’s Day, a worldwide event to raise money for the indie music community and associated charities: