Outstanding Communicators
Wonder Gals of Web 2.0
A Twitter pal recently turned me on to an article titled Wonder Guys of Marketing 2.0. The post highlighted five “marvelous people” who are responsible for popular blogs and big ideas.
The five guys are: Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Hughes, Brian Clark and Michael Arrington. All stand out in the world of Web 2.0. To find out why, read the Wonder Guys piece.
But enough with the boys club routine. Does Web 2.0 have a glass ceiling?
Me thinks not.
Sisters are doin’ it for themselves. They’re blazing trials and are true thought leaders whose ideas and opinions matter. And so I present the first installment of Wonder Gals of Web 2.0.
Toby Bloomberg
Best known for Diva Marketing Blog, Bloomberg has been in the web trenches since the late 1990s. Savvy and street-smart with a down-to-earth attitude, Bloomberg helps demystify marketing and social media while having fun along the way. Her jaunty Diva blog consistently ranks among the top in its field and she makes things even livelier with Diva Marketing Talks , her podcast series, featuring chats with other media hotshots.
A staunch advocate for employing blogging as a means of personal empowerment, Bloomberg’s compelling Blogger Stories project compiled tales “of how the blogosphere has touched people’s lives and, in doing so, opened the door to new way of creating relationships and opportunities.”
This clever Wonder Gal created the first business book using Twitter as a distribution channel and content platform. An active organizer and speaker for multiple organizations, she also heads Bloomberg Marketing, a strategic consultancy.
Deirdre Breakenridge
Breakenridge wrote the book on public relations as applied to Web 2.0. Make that two books: She’s author of PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences
Breakenridge also penned The New PR Toolkit: Strategies for Successful Media Relations
Proving she can both teach and do, as president of PFS Marketwyse, Breakenridge leads a full-service enterprise that enables companies to bolster brands by integrating traditional and new media marketing.
Arianna Huffington
Whether or not you agree with her politics you can’t deny that Huffington has rocked the blogosphere. As co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post she pioneered the notion of blogs having a real seat at the news table and legitimized bloggers as authentic journalists.
The HP has grown into a powerhouse publication. It’s now one of the most widely read and influential media brands on the internet. Huffington’s clout enables her to attract an impressive array of contributors, making The HP an entertaining and stimulating source of news and views.
This noted political pundit keeps current with media trends: In mid-August her site launched HuffPost Social News which uses Facebook Connect to enable readers to create social news pages. The author of 12 books, Huffington was cited in 2006 by Time as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People and named Media Person of the Year in 2008 by I Want Media.
Charlene Li
Recently making headlines for enticing web superstars Deborah Schultz, Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang to join her company, Altimeter Group, Li is an oft-quoted seer of the cyber scene. She’s co-author, with Josh Bernoff, of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
The smarty-pants Harvard-grad honed her analytical skills at Forrester, a leading market research company; and as an early proponent of the power of the web, in the 1990s Li created the concept for and launched the internet publishing division of Community Newspaper Company, where she brought 120 community newspapers online.
Li’s into identifying and finding solutions to business problems: Having observed how certain companies have a tough time adopting a social media mindset, part of her current research revolves around studying and resolving a leading obstacle in this regard; corporate aversion to risk.
Li’s many kudos include being acknowledged by Fast Company as one of the Most Influential Women in Technology and being named Visionary of the Year by Society for New Communications Research.
Valeria Maltoni
A marketer, consultant and prolific speaker/presenter, Maltoni advises CEOs on best practices for managing corporate image. Online, she’s recognized for the prodigious content of her uber-popular Conversation Agent. The multi award-winning blog is distinguished by its incisive interviews with individuals from all aspects of the business communications mix, as well as for Valeria’s viewpoints on subjects that veer from the big picture, to small yet important details.
Forthright and provocative, this Wonder Gal calls it as she sees it, often in a bright staccato style that lays out precisely what’s on her keen mind. For instance in a post about company blogs she writes, “Your blog WILL suck at first…. As you become more familiar with the space, and the tool, your efforts will improve.”
Fast Company snagged Maltoni for its Customer Conversation blog and she built one of the publication’s first online communities. Her words of wisdom also appear in Marketing Profs Daily Fix, Marketing 2.0, Social Media Today and The Blog Herald.
Tamar Weinberg
A web bio for Weinberg states that “Tamar is a member of just about every social network that has a name,” and that’s the truth. She’s also an avid blogger and opinion leader who currently contributes to Real Simple, Lateral Action, Mashable and Techipedia, the latter being her personal blog that explores and explains social media and internet marketing. This self-described “tech geek” knows the web from top to bottom, including pay per click, system administration and search engine optimization.
Besides blogging for Mashable, Weinberg is the site’s community and marketing director, where, she says, “my job is to make our valued members happy.” She finds time to be a media consultant for Say It Social, she’s an editor for Pistachio Consulting Touchbase Blog, and is an independent social media marketing consultant.
With that load only a Wonder Woman could squeeze in writing a book, and Weinberg has done that, too. She penned The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web
More Wonder Gals?
So that’s the first installment of Wonder Gals of Web 2.0. It’s a terrific group of individuals who’ve done great things to educate, innovate, build community and otherwise move the social web forward.
There are surely others worthy of the Wonder Gal moniker. But I don’t have all the answers — let me know who you think deserves to be on the list.
– Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think about these Wonder Gals of Web 2.0? Who did I miss? Comments welcome.
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The Communications Strategist 
We’ve Lost A Remarkable Communicator: Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)
Posted on July 20, 2009. Filed under: Commentary, Famous Communicators, Outstanding Communicators | Tags: CBS Evening News anchor, Cronkite, first moon landing, JFK assassination, John F. Kennedy assassination, moon landing, news anchor, reporting, Walter Cronkite, Walter Cronkite's death |
When it comes to identifying an individual who personifies what it means to be an effective communicator one name that surely fits the bill is Walter Cronkite, who passed away on July 17, at the age of 92.
Cronkite is best known for his role as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, a position that he maintained from 1962 through 1981. During those years, if there was an event that you wanted to get the straight honest story on, Cronkite was the man to turn to. He had a steady manner that was direct and to the point. And yet there was also warmth to his baritone voice, such that you knew there was a genuine human being reporting the news of the day, as opposed to simply a person reading a teleprompter.
Cronkite’s forthrightness acted like a magnet. You wanted to tune in and hear what he had to say. When he ended with his famous sign-off “And That’s the Way It Is,” well, you knew it was so.
The man’s work is considered so definitive that clips of his reportage are frequently included in documentaries about any number of important situations. Anyone who was around during the 1960’s and 1970’s can likely recall events that they learned about from Cronkite. His announcement of the assassination of JFK— how he halted slightly as he pondered the reality of what he was saying—is legendary.
The same goes for when Cronkite uttered a slight laugh, rubbed his hands together and let out a “whew” and “oh boy!” when man first landed on the moon. It was a monumental achievement that represented the accomplishment of a great technological challenge as well as a triumph for our nation and Cronkite communicated all that in his delivery.
Occasionally Cronkite included commentary in this broadcast. His coverage of the civil rights movement helped to bolster the public’s support for that issue, and his searing observations regarding the futility of America’s participation in the Vietnam War is said to have led to then-President Johnson’s decision to not seek re-election.
I could go on and on, but you get the point. The man mattered. What he said made a difference in how we perceived what was happening in the world. And at times he even made a difference in what happened.
I am not aware that Cronkite had a communications strategy per se, but if he did it might go something like this: Do your homework, check the facts, be honest, stay in control no matter what the circumstance and tell it like it is.
– Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think about Walter Cronkite’s legacy? Comments welcome.