"Naked Conversations" & Six Degrees of Separation

Now that "Naked Conversations: How blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers" is out, the blogosphere must be buzzing about who's quoted in it.  Put together by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, both icons of the blogging world, this 2006 book has interviews with people whom I know, at least virtually.  Either the blogoshere is a small world in which I can be an actual fish or it's a big world in which I have somehow managed through luck or hypomanic posting and linking to be part of the swim.

For example, pages 92 through 97 of "Naked Conversations" have a lot to do with Toby Bloomberg, head honcho of Bloomberg Marketing, Atlanta, GA and author of the very useful "Diva Marketing" blog.  Incidentally, Toby is a cousin of Manhattan's mayor Bloomberg.

I have been in contact with Toby for about 16 months.  Our first virtual meeting was through our membership in an ecommerce ListServe operated by the American Marketing Association.  Toby was very active on that site so I felt safe eventually asking her how I could become a blogger.  From her blogger's heart and w/o a fee she gave me a three-page introduction, w contact names. 

That's how ecommerce expert Paul Chaney who among a million other hats runs the "Radiant Marketing Group" blog, entered my life.  Paul became the designer of this blog and my personal blogging coach.  Since then, like Toby, he has become a blogosphere celeb, including giving lectures about blogging in Asia and advising firms about innovations such as multi-blog platforms and using them to create newspaper-like communities.

But Toby didn't just drop me in Paul's lap.  She helped drive traffic to this blog when it was embryonic last April.  After surviving but not thriving in the Darwinian corporate world, I was unused to such generosity of spirit.

With great gentleness and no further fee for service Paul hovered over my blog, giving me pointers.  The rest is history.  One day I had 12,000 visitors.  Not every day and not quite the hits Wonkette gets but better than I had ever hoped.

And other evidence of six degrees of separation are all the folks mentioned in "Naked Conversations" who have, in the past 11 months and two weeks, emailed me or linked to my blog.  For instance, Scoble himself and Jonathan Schwartz are among my new virtual buddies.

Side Note:  When I was in graduate school pursuing excellence in the field of English Literature and Language at the University of Michigan, I was told that someday I would read in the scholarly journals about people with whom I was studying.  Since I also survived there but never thrived, those telling me that assumed that I would never be among those who get read about. 

Well, the market for English professors crashed around then and there was nobody to read about.  The stars of the program went on to law, medicine and consulting.  It took about 30 years but finally I am getting to read about people I know -- or feel that I do.  And who knows, maybe in another 11 months and two weeks, they will be reading about moi. 

Comments

[Toby]

Jane - thank you for your kind words and awesome shot out. Bloggers can be the friendliest people.

Must correct the "cousin Michael" mention. I'm not really certain of the relationship, altho my aunts tell me that there is a connection. Mentioned it to the "guys" when the book was in interview form; somehow it seems to have missed the book edit. Would be honored to be part of the same clan as the mayor of NYC.

Are you writing a book that will be published in 11 months and 2 weeks?