Interviews

FIR Interviews

Thursday, July 19, 2012

FIR Interview: Kevin Delaney, Editor in Chief, Quartz

QuartzOffering a new type of publication in the new global economy for a new class of global business executive is the primary goal of US publisher Atlantic Media with Quartz, a digital business magazine launching later this year.

"We’re building a new kind of business news venture," says Kevin J. Delaney, Editor in Chief at Quartz. "We see the present world of business undergoing a seminal shift."

In conversation with FIR co-host Neville Hobson during a visit to London, Delaney explains that seminal shift, speaking of how the global shocks of the past few years have exposed a fundamentally new architecture underpinning the economic order, reshaped by a new generation of businesses and business people.

"This generation is defined not by geographic location or by market capitalization, but rather by its ability to work anywhere and marry the impact of a world titan with the nimbleness of a digital startup," Delaney says. "It is fluent in the lingua francas of the modern age: commerce, design, technology."

Quartz will be digital only - there will be no print edition - and Delaney talks about its strong focus on the tablet as a primary platform to deliver compelling content.

"What we’re laying as a foundation is the possibility to produce content on any different platform with an equality between different forms," Delaney said in a recent interview with The Economist. "On tablets, for example, people probably have more of an appetite to read long-form writing and to go through a whole range of articles instead of just stepping in and out of sight."

During the interview, Delaney also shares his thinking on a probable media landscape in 2013 and beyond as digital delivery becomes increasingly significant for mainstream publishers and influential business readers alike; how Quartz will be monetized through advertising support; and the type of journalist he is keen to hire for the fledging venture.

Quartz will launch in Fall 2012.

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About our Conversation Partner

Kevin DelaneyKevin Delaney is Editor in Chief of Quartz, a new global digital business brand from Atlantic Media to launch later this year.

Delaney came to Atlantic Media in January 2012 from The Wall Street Journal, where he was most recently managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Online. There he was responsible for the Journal’s digital editorial content and direction amid a period of rapid growth in readership and revenue and successful expansion to new platforms such as the iPad.

Prior to that, Delaney spent a decade as a reporter and senior special writer for the Journal. He covered internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Facebook from the San Francisco bureau, and spent five years reporting from the paper’s Paris bureau.

Earlier in his career, Delaney was a staff reporter for SmartMoney Magazine and a producer of business and public affairs programming in Montreal and New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University.

Connect with Kevin on Twitter: @kevinjdelaney.

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Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 338 7960 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Posted by neville on 07/19 at 04:04 AM
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

FIR Interview: Addvocate Founder Marcus Nelson

imageAddvocate is a new “employee management service for social media,” according to founder and CEO Marcus Nelson.

Every company thinks they need to be social. As such, they’re spending millions of dollars to do so. Unfortunately, they’re underutilizing the most motivated asset they already have—enthusiastic employees. Your workers want to talk about their company, only they don’t know what to say, or they’re afraid to say the wrong thing. Instead, they do nothing.

Nelson calls Addvocate the first employee management service for social media. With a simple set of embedded tools, a company can mobilize their workforce to become brand ambassadors by simply suggesting content to share on their personal social channels.

In this podcast interview, Nelson explains to FIR co-host Shel Holtz the origins of the project and how companies will be able to take advantage of it.

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About our Conversation Partner

imageMarcus Nelson is founder and CEO of Addvocate, a startup he launched after leaving his position as Director of Social Media for Salesforce.com, which he held since 2009. At Salesforce, Nelson built a command center team that managed Salesforce’s voice across all social channels. The team handled more than 80,000 brand mentions per month, growing the fan and follower base to more than 300,000 and increasing lead generation by over 1,400%. Before joining Salesforce, Nelson co-founded UserVoice in 2008, a solution for gathering, aggregating and responding to customer feedback.

Connect with Marcus on Twitter: @marcusnelsonr.

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Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 338 7960 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Posted by shel on 07/17 at 02:50 PM
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Sunday, July 08, 2012

FIR Interview: Eric Bergman, author of Five Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint’

5 stepsIf you hope to communicate effectively with any audience, the best thing you can change about your presentation is to never, ever, use a slideware program to develop your presentation content, says Eric Bergman.

No PowerPoint. No Keynote. No Prezi. No SlideRocket. None.

The author of Five Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint’, published in May 2012, Bergman is passionate in his belief that the procedures we habitually use during presentations are dysfunctional and badly need changing.

If you want to be more effective, he says, you must separate the spoken word and the written word - regardless of whether you’re the sender or the receiver in the communication process

In this FIR Interview, co-host Neville Hobson met with Bergman during his visit to London in July 2012. In a wide-ranging conversation, Eric touches on the five steps in the book’s title, and explains how his book will help anyone make better use of their time in preparation, without using PowerPoint to do that; and make better use of everyone’s time when you get together.

He says, "When it comes to expectations for presentations, today’s audiences should be easy to please. First and foremost, they don’t want to be bored. They don’t like to waste their time. I have yet to meet anyone who attends a presentation thinking: ‘I wonder what colors the presenter will use,’ or ‘I hope the slides are engaging’."

As the conversation concludes, Eric makes note of two people who he believes are highly-effective presenters, and offers some insightful suggestions to listeners that they can think about in their quest to be effective as presenters.

  • FIR listeners can download a free copy of Present With Ease, a workbook that complements Five Steps to Conquer ‘Death by PowerPoint’ , designed to help presenters develop content first, then slides, in order to actively engage and win over their audiences.

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About our Conversation Partner

Eric BergmanEric Bergman is passionate about helping his clients communicate effectively.

He has been a public relations practitioner for more than 30 years and has provided presentation skills and media training to clients in North America, South America, Europe and Asia for more than 20 years.

His workshops, seminars and one-on-one coaching have improved the communication skills of thousands of professionals, managers, salespeople, politicians and senior executives. He also consults on strategy, positioning, issues management and message content for presentations, and in advance of exchanges with journalists.

Eric holds a bachelor of professional arts in communication studies from Athabasca University and a two-year diploma in advertising and public relations from Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is an accredited business communicator, an accredited public relations practitioner and a master communicator. He is also a fifth-degree black belt in Wado-Kai karate.

Connect with Eric Bergman on Twitter: @5stepstoconquer.

FIR on Friendfeed

 
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 338 7960 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Posted by neville on 07/08 at 12:32 AM
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Thursday, June 21, 2012

FIR Interview: Badgeville Marketing Director Adena DeMonte

imageBadgeville, the gamification service, introduced “social mechanics” on June 20, with features including a “Behavior Graph” that allows companies to measure specific social behaviors, and “Social Context,” an activity stream not unlike a Facebook newsfeed that companies can add to their own web and mobile properties. In this interview, FIR co-host Shel Holtz talks with Adena DeMonte, Badgeville’s director of marketing, about social mechanics, the gamification platform introduced last month, and the potential roles for gamification in both internal and external communications.

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About our Conversation Partner

imageAdena DeMonte is the director of Marketing at Badgeville. Founded in 2010 to help companies measure and influence user behavior, Badgeville is a leader in enterprise gamification, having added a global client roster of over 170 customers including Deloitte, EMC, eBay’s X.Commerce, Samsung, Dell, NBC, CA Technologies, Universal Music, The Active Network and Recyclebank.

DeMonte has over a decade of experience in social media marketing and community management for F1000 enterprises and startups across B2C and B2B. She previously ran social media marketing at Nokia Point & Find for the Emmy-Nominated Alternate Reality Game (ARG) Conspiracy for Good in collaboration with Tim Kring and Nokia’s global communities, and led community management at numerous startups. Prior to her career in marketing, DeMonte reported on web and mobile technology and venture capital for Red Herring Magazine, GigaOm and MobileMarketingWatch.com.

Connect with Adena on Twitter at @GamificationGal.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 253 780 9125 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Posted by shel on 06/21 at 11:30 AM
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Friday, June 15, 2012

FIR Interview: Frito-Lay Communicators on a site for employee brand literacy

imageBusiness, brand and product literacy represent fertile ground for internal communicators. Increasingly, employees know their own jobs and the products on which they work, but aren’t well-versed in other parts of the company or products they don’t work on. In an effort to improve product literacy—which arose mainly from employees’ own requests—Frito-Lay communicators Michael Karle and Joe Flowers developed a website that provides all the information employees could ever need about the company’s wide array of products and brands (which include the likes of Cheetos, Doritos and Sun Chips).

In this interview, FIR co-host Shel Holtz talks with Karle and Flowers about the impetus for the site, why it was housed on the public Web and how it was constructed with employee interests in mind.

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About our Conversation Partners

imageMichael Karle is the Internal Communications Manager for Frito-Lay North America. In this role, Michael publishes a daily newsletter highlighting company news and events, manages several internal websites and supports a number of Frito-Lay teams and programs. He currently resides in Plano, Texas, with his wife and two children.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn.


imageJoe Flowers is the Senior Communications Specialist for Frito-Lay North America. He supports a variety of internal and external communications programs with a heavy focus on digital performance and social media activities such as the Frito-Lay Facebook page, Twitter handle and Snack Chat blog. He is a runner and blogger, and is active in the local social media scene.

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn or on Twitter at @unhatched.

Snacks and Facts Screen Shots

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Home Page


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Product Information


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Introduction to the Game



To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 253 780 9125 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

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Posted by shel on 06/15 at 01:40 PM
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Wednesday, May 09, 2012

FIR Interview: Grantoo co-founder and CEO Dimitri Sillam

imageStudent loan debt in the U.S. has reached $1 trillion. Charitable organizations are suffering, but young cash-strapped students haven’t developed a giving habit. Organizations invest considerable sums in corporate social responsibility initiatives for which they get little recognition. Companies want to grow their levels of engagement with important young-adult audiences but struggle for relevance. Wouldn’t it be awesome if all of these issues could be addressed with a casual social game?

In fact, they have. In this FIR Interview, FIR co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz speak with Dimitri Sillam, co-founder and CEO of Grantoo, which blends all of the issues listed above in a single game-playing environment. Playing in tournaments, students can win money for tuition while getting into the habit of donating to charities that hold meaning for them. Meanwhile, organizations can channel their philanthropic dollars into a cause that engages the organization with an important demographic while raising their CSR profile.

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About our Conversation Partner

imageDimitri Sillam is a seasoned and successful entrepreneur. He founded OrientalPeople.com, the first dating site focused on the Middle East/ North Africa region (MENA). After selling the site to Moroc Telecom (Morocco), he founded LAZEO, a French beauty/health care franchise. Now, Dimitri is co-founder and CEO of Grantoo, where his experience in social media and consumer marketing will “help students play their tuition bills.” Dimitri is 26, French with Tunisian and Russian roots. He holds a BA in Economics from America’s Brandeis University and completed a program on Negotiation and Strategy from Harvard Law School.

Connect with Dimitri via LinkedIn.

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Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 253 780 9125 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 05/09 at 02:55 PM
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Thursday, April 05, 2012

FIR Interview: Sprint’s Sara Folkerts

imageIf you tweet a problem or complaint about your Sprint mobile service or device, you’re likely to hear back pretty quickly from a Sprint Ninja, an employee volunteer who will work to resolve your issue. While some Ninjas engage in this kind of customer support, others are brand evangelists. They all undergo training, and the effort has resulted in a measurably improved reputation for Sprint.

In this FIR Interview, FIR co-host Shel Holtz speaks with Sara Folkerts, who works in internal social media at Sprint and is heavily involved in the Ninja program. She discusses the origins of the Ninjas, what they do, how they’re trained, the results it has achieved, and where the program is heading.

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About our Conversation Partner

imageSara is passionate about sharing, communicating, transparency and being open-minded. This has led her to her current job as a community manager and social media evangelist at Sprint. In addition to her role as community manager, Sara leads the Ninjas program at Sprint. The Sprint Social Media Ninjas is a group of empowered employees who want to connect with customers and spread the “gospel” of Sprint in social media. Sara has presented on internal social media strategies at several conferences and at other companies. Where can you find her? On Twitter, of course! @saramiller.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 253 780 9125 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

Posted by shel on 04/05 at 05:58 PM
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