Blogs | Social Signal

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For several years now, Chris Brogan's blog has been a must-read for anyone who wants to use social media productively.

Mitch Joel has a lot to share with the world - including some brilliant insights and expertise on marketing, communications and community - so it's now wonder he's found so many ways to do it. He has a long-standing blog, a podcast that just passed the 300-episode milestone, a book... and a well-deserved reputation as one of the best keynote speakers around.

With this episode, we flip the mic (metaphorically) and talk with someone who's a lot more used to writing speeches than delivering them. That's not to say Ian Griffin isn't at home behind a lectern; he's an accomplished speaker and a skilled communicator.

If you're in the tech industry, you've probably heard his words; Ian has worked in executive communications at Cisco, Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems. He's also incredibly generous with his time and expertise, as many Silicon Valley communicators who've attended one of his presentations can tell you.

From the moment I thought up the Social Speech Podcast, David Eaves was at the top of my list of people I wanted to talk to. He's a good friend, and a provocative thinker and writer on some of the issues that matter to me most – like the open web and open government.

It was another great Nonprofit Technology Conference, my second in San Francisco... and my second cartoon-blogging outing for my friends at NTEN.

This episode: Social Media Group founder and CEO Maggie Fox

Only a few years ago, business - especially non-tech Fortune 500 business - was pretty skeptical about social media. One of the first people to break through that barrier was Maggie Fox, CEO of Social Media group. And she did it by creating solid strategies rooted in tangible business goals, breaking ground with companies like Ford.

If you were to assemble a herd of top-notch researchers, and tell them "Find me someone who embodies public speaking, social media and podcasting," chances are fights would break out as several of them vied to be the first to get to Tod Maffin's door.

We all like to talk about how organizations can recover from their own customer service failures: the gadget that won't connect, the handle that snaps off, the delivery that never arrives.

But how about when the customer screws up? How easy do you make it for them to recover lost information, correct a mistake or get out of a dead end?

Put it this way: if the web is like an episode of The Simpsons, is your site more like helpful, compassionate Lisa, or Nelson "Haw, haw" Muntz?